Camerupt

A Bactrian camel whose two humps have turned into volcanoes. The Pokédex doesn't leave it as a metaphor: one of its entries explains that those humps came from a deformation of its bones, and that it spits liquid magma through them when it gets angry. Another raises the stakes and talks about magma at 10 000 °C running through its body. A third pins down the eruption schedule — every ten years, or whenever it loses its temper. Its mood is the timer.

It arrived with Ruby and Sapphire, in a region whose story revolves around a volcano and a team determined to expand the land at the expense of the sea. It fits in for the obvious reason: according to its own entry, it lives in craters, and the habitat assigned to it by the game is the mountain.

It stands 1.9 metres tall and carries 220 kilos on four short legs, which is part of why it moves the way it does. Its official category is the Eruption Pokémon.

It closes a two-stage evolutionary line, with no third stage. It evolves from Numel at level 33, and what it gains in the change is visible at a glance: Numel has one hump, like a dromedary; this one has two, and both of them smoke.

The distribution of its 460 points points in two directions without fully reaching either one: 100 Attack and 105 Special Attack. That's where the problem starts. 70 HP, 70 Defense, 75 Special Defense and 40 Speed. With that Speed, it moves last against almost anything, and with those defenses it rarely sees a third turn against something that gets in cleanly.

Its typing makes up for part of it. No type in the game resists Fire and Ground together, so it only needs two attacks to hit the entire Pokédex for neutral damage: Earth Power, learned at level 26, and Fire Blast or Overheat by TM. Earthquake, at level 46, covers the physical side. Defensively, it's immune to Electric and takes Fire, Ice, Poison and Bug well. The bill comes from Water, which deals quadruple damage, and Ground, which deals double.

Solid Rock is what keeps it standing: it cuts a quarter off the damage from super-effective moves. It won't save it from a serious Water attack, but it turns some lost calculations into one more turn. Its other Ability, Magma Armor, prevents freezing, something every Fire type has for free anyway since Generation VI.

Eruption, listed in its level 1 moveset, promises 150 power and only delivers it with full HP; with 70 HP and moving second, that full HP lasts one turn. It works when its Speed is fixed from outside, on Trick Room teams, or during a normal playthrough, where 105 Special Attack and Flamethrower deal with almost everything it encounters.

It belongs to a single Egg Group, Field, the most populated one on the list, and its sex ratio is 50%. Between the two, breeding it is completely straightforward: the mate practically finds itself. Its 20 incubation cycles come out at roughly 5355 steps using the usual (20 + 1) × 255 calculation, making it one of the quicker eggs.

It has no Egg Moves. Everything it knows comes through levelling up or TMs, so breeding is useful for its nature, Ability and IVs, and for nothing else.

The evolution is as simple as they come: Numel reaches level 33 and that's it. No stone, no held item, no time window, no friendship.

Its catch rate is 150, much closer to the trivial 255 than to the 45 that give starters and legendaries trouble: a normal Poké Ball and some damage are usually enough. It lives in the mountains, inside craters, and wild specimens can be holding a Rawst Berry.

It grows at a medium rate, the most straightforward of the six, and leaves 1 effort point in Attack and 1 in Special Attack when defeated, a split distribution that fits poorly with almost any focused training.