Cacturne

Wait for the traveler to tire. Pokédex entries always describe the same thing: several specimens follow anyone crossing the desert at night, without attacking, until exhaustion overcomes the prey. There is no ambush or pursuit; there is patience. During the day, that same animal does not move, remaining motionless under the sun so it does not lose moisture, which means it only springs into action when temperatures drop.

Its official category is the Scarecrow Pokémon, and the design follows it to the letter: a columnar cactus standing upright, with its arms spread in a cross and a face of dark diamonds that never changes expression. It is 1.3 metres tall and weighs 77.4 kg, quite a bit more than such a dry-looking silhouette would suggest. The water it stores inside has weight.

It is the second and final stage of a short evolutionary line. Cacnea is a green ball covered in spines with an almost comical face, nothing threatening about it; at level 32 it gains an upright posture, thirty-something kilos and, above all, the Dark type. That addition is what reshapes the creature completely. What was a cactus with attitude in the first stage becomes a predator that hunts by wearing its prey down, and the Pokédex entries stop talking about spines and start talking about groups that follow people.

475 points distributed in an unusual way: 115 Attack and 115 Special Attack, exactly the same figure on both sides, followed by 70 HP, 60 Defense, 60 Special Defense and 55 Speed. It hits hard whichever way it attacks, and it cannot take hits from either side.

Sand Veil, its regular Ability, raises its evasiveness while a sandstorm is raging, which means another Pokémon has to set up the weather because it does not get Sandstorm until level 54, costing a whole turn. Water Absorb, its hidden Ability, restores HP when it is hit by Water-type attacks and turns one of its resistances into free healing.

The defensive problem is serious. Grass and Dark add up to seven weaknesses between them, and one of them is quadruple: Bug hits for four times the damage because neither type resists it. A Scizor with a priority move removes it before it can move, and with 55 Speed and 60/60 defenses, the list of opponents that move first is almost the entire game.

What keeps it afloat is Sucker Punch, which it learns at level 35: 70 power with priority, the only way to turn that 115 Attack into damage without relying on Speed. The usual set is built around it — Swords Dance, Bullet Seed, Drain Punch. On the special side there are Nasty Plot, Energy Ball at level 44 and Leaf Storm with its 130 power.

Pokémon Showdown places it in ZU in Scarlet and Violet, the lowest tier of the singles formats, and in RU in National Dex. In a normal playthrough, the calculation is different: at level 32 it is already attacking with 115 Attack against trainers whose teams sit around much lower figures, and Leech Seed at level 10 takes care of long battles without using items.

It belongs to the Grass and Human-Like Egg Groups, with an exact 50% gender split. That dual membership opens up a wide range of partners, so breeding one does not require tracking down a specific female or resorting to Ditto.

Twenty Egg Cycles, or about 5355 steps according to the (20+1)×255 calculation. It sits in the longer half of the table without reaching the extreme cases of pseudo-legendary Pokémon.

In Scarlet and Violet, it has no Egg Moves listed. Everything it learns comes from levelling up or TMs, and there is plenty of material there: Swords Dance, Nasty Plot, Toxic Spikes, Drain Punch, Seed Bomb, Leaf Storm.

The evolution hides nothing. Cacnea reaches level 32 and that is it — no item, no time of day, no friendship, no trading. Upon evolving, it immediately learns Spiky Shield, before anything else in its own learnset.

It grows at a medium-slow rate, so it arrives late at the lower levels and then makes up ground. Its habitat is rough terrain. The catch rate, 60, puts it in an awkward spot: it is not the 45 that forces you to empty your bag, but it does not go down with the first Poké Ball either. Its base friendship, 35, is low, something to bear in mind if the plan involves moves that depend on affection. In the wild, it can appear holding a Poison Barb or Sticky Barb.