Beedrill

29.5 kilos spread across a one-metre wasp. The figure is jarring because the design doesn’t suggest it: four legs instead of six, two pairs of veined wings, and a yellow-and-black wire-like body that looks half as heavy. The official category says “Poison Bee Pokémon”, but the reference is a wasp.

The Pokédex entries always insist on the same thing: three stingers, two on the front legs and one on the lower abdomen. That last one carries the most potent venom. And they don’t sting once and leave — “they tend to jab their enemies repeatedly”, says the first description. Another adds the detail that makes the species uncomfortable: it defends its territory at any cost, and disturbing a hive means the entire swarm responds. They fly in groups and at great speed.

It’s the opposite of what it was ten levels earlier. Weedle is a caterpillar with a stinger on its forehead that runs from everything, and Kakuna is a chrysalis hanging from a branch that can barely harden its shell. The line is complete at level 10, earlier than almost any other in the first generation, and that’s where it stops: there’s no third stage waiting at level 30.

The stat spread belongs to an attacker that lacks everything else. 90 Attack and 75 Speed out front, 65 HP and 40 Defense behind, and a Special Attack of 45 that renders half the TM list useless — Sludge Bomb, Giga Drain and Solar Beam are there, but do nothing. Its 80 Special Defense is its best defensive stat, and the one it needs least.

Swarm boosts the power of its Bug-type moves when it’s low on health, which requires surviving a hit with 40 Defense. Sniper, its Hidden Ability, multiplies critical-hit damage, and there is a way to force those critical hits: Focus Energy at level 20. It’s a lottery strategy.

On offense, Bug and Poison is one of the worst type combinations in the game. Steel types resist both, and Bug is not very effective against Poison, so the two types get in each other’s way. On defense, its four weaknesses are Fire, Flying, Psychic and Rock, including the Stealth Rock weakness that strips a quarter of its HP every time it switches in. X-Scissor and Poison Jab, both with 80 power, are the ceiling. U-turn is the only move that makes use of its Speed without leaving it exposed.

Its Mega Evolution is a different story: with Adaptability, the same-type attack bonus rises from one-and-a-half times to double, which has earned it a place in Smogon’s National Dex UU. The base form has no such leeway. It performs best in a normal playthrough, early on, setting Toxic Spikes from level 29 onwards and finishing off catches with False Swipe.

A single Egg Group, Bug, which lets it breed only with the rest of the Pokédex’s arthropods. The sex ratio is an even 50% female, with none of the biases found in other lines. Its 15 Egg Cycles work out at around 4080 steps, among the shortest times available.

It has no Egg Moves. Nothing to inherit and no chain of parents to plan around: it learns what it knows by levelling up or through TMs, and there is room to work with there, including Swords Dance, X-Scissor and Toxic Spikes.

The evolution asks for nothing either. Kakuna evolves into Beedrill upon reaching level 10, with no items, time of day or friendship required; before that, Weedle had evolved into Kakuna at 7. The whole line is complete before most teams reach the second Gym. It grows at the medium rate, the standard one, without the delay of the starters.

The habitat assigned to it by the Pokédex is the forest, which is where everyone encounters it for the first time. Its catch rate, 45, is that of a difficult Pokémon to catch: the same figure used by starters and pseudo-legendary Pokémon, which seems excessive for something fluttering around just outside the first town. Wild specimens may be holding a Poison Barb. Defeating it yields 2 Attack EVs and 1 Special Defense EV.