Ampharos

Sixty-one and a half kilos spread over one metre forty in height. It weighs as much as an adult and is built on top of a sheep someone sheared: the wool covering Mareep from head to toe disappears with each evolution, and by the final form not a single tuft remains. What you get is yellow skin, black bands on its ears and tail, and a red sphere at the tip.

That sphere appears in all four of its Pokédex entries, which take turns saying the same thing: the glow from its tail can be seen from far away and people use it as a beacon; its light reaches into space; in ancient times it was used to send signals over long distances; sailors have revered it since ancient times as a guide. The last entry adds the only detail that gives it any character of its own. Since the glow gives away its position to anyone looking, it normally keeps it switched off.

The official category is Light Pokémon, and the category name undersells what the entries describe: it does not light up a room, it lights up a coastline. It completes a three-stage line that passes through Flaaffy at level 15 and ends here at 30.

The distribution of its 510 points leaves no doubt what it is built for: 115 Special Attack compared with 75 physical Attack, backed up by 90 HP, 85 Defense, and 90 Special Defense. It can take a hit. What it cannot do is get ahead of anyone, because with 55 Speed it throws out almost everything second.

Static paralyzes on the slightest contact, punishing anyone who hits it up close but depending entirely on what the opponent does. Its hidden ability, Plus, raises Special Attack only if there is another Pokémon on the field with Plus or Minus: outside a deliberately built double battle, it does absolutely nothing. In that format it does fit with Magnetic Flux, which it has available from level 1 and which raises the defenses of allies with those same abilities.

As a pure Electric type, it has a single weakness, Ground, and resistances to Flying, Steel, and Electric itself. On the offensive, Electric hits Water and Flying hard, crashes into Grass, Dragon, and Electric, and cannot touch Ground types at all: an Excadrill gets a free switch. That is what Focus Blast, with 120 power and the Fighting type, and Dragon Pulse, with 85, are for; both are special moves.

The rest is what holds it back. Thunder, its 110-power Electric move, does not arrive until level 62; Zap Cannon has 120 power and accuracy that misses more often than it hits; and apart from Rest it has no reliable recovery. With that Speed, it performs better as the one that opens with Thunder Wave and leaves with Volt Switch than as the one that cleans up.

Monster and Field Egg Groups, two of the most populated, and an even gender split: half female. Breeding the line requires nothing unusual; just pair a female from the family with something compatible or use Ditto.

The 20 egg cycles amount to roughly 5355 steps, a middling figure on the high side. It has no egg moves: anything it does not learn by levelling up has to come from a TM, and it is well covered there, because its list includes Thunderbolt, Volt Switch, Ice Punch, Dig, Electric Terrain, and Focus Blast.

Its evolution has no trick to it at all. Mareep becomes Flaaffy upon reaching level 15, and Flaaffy becomes Ampharos upon reaching level 30. No stones, no held items, no friendship, no time of day. It grows at a medium-slow pace, so the early levels take it a little longer than usual and the pace evens out later.

Its habitat is grassland, and its catch rate of 45 puts it among the difficult ones: it is worth lowering its HP or paralysing it before you start throwing Poké Balls. Defeating it gives 3 Special Attack effort points and 230 base experience, and its starting friendship is 70.