Oh, yeah, instincts are what anyone would rely on, and most of the time, instincts are smart to go by. This is not meant to be a guide for strategy, but supplement. For example, during my battle with Falkner, Elle set fire to the floor and filled the room with smoke, ruining Falkner's and his team's visibility. When his Honchkrow attempted to dispel the smoke with wind, Elle released a burst of extremely hot air underneath it, making the air immediately beneath it extremely buoyant, which disrupted its flight enough to make it fall to the ground, while this entire time the heat and smoke rising from the flames has been damaging its sight, breathing, and feathers.

Now, this is pretty simple thermodynamics, something you would learn in a high school physics class. Both heat and smoke rise, so when you're in a fire, you should stay close to the ground where you are less likely to be burned or suffocated and work from there. Unfortunately, the Honchkrow didn't attend a high school physics class, and as a bird, its instinct is to fly. When it flew upwards, it flew through flames right back into an area choked with smoke and heat, leading to it suffocating and burning its primary flight feathers to the point it could no longer fly or fight. Patterns similar to that repeated over and over in the battle, since Falkner was only taking note of the type of animal I was using and the fact that the birds couldn't see, instead of thinking about how convection was disrupting their ability to fly and how heat was damaging them.

[Oh God, the lectures. Why would you ask him about these things, Crow?]