Elekid

Its official category is the Electric Pokémon, with no added qualifier, and it is a poor fit for one detail repeated by almost every Pokédex entry: it produces electricity, but cannot store it. It spins its arms in circles like someone winding a crank, generates electricity and loses all of it as soon as it brushes against anything metal. Then it starts over. The two horns on its head show the process, because the gap between them lights up with a whitish glow while it charges.

The rest of the entries describe a small creature with childish habits. Indoors, it latches onto wall sockets like a baby bottle and sucks current from the electrical system. The sound of thunder lifts its spirits so much that a recording can comfort it when it is feeling down. It also has a specific rivalry with Togedemaru, which goes after its electricity and usually ends up in close fights.

At 60 centimetres and 23,5 kilograms, it is denser than it looks: it weighs about as much as a seven-year-old child packed into a body the size of a mop bucket. It is the baby form of the line, which has only existed since Generation II, and it evolves into Electabuzz at level 30.

That makes 360 base points, with one figure that stands out: 95 Speed. The rest is split between 63 Attack and 65 Special Attack, two nearly identical numbers that do not pick a side, and 45 HP with 37 Defense and 55 Special Defense. Any decent physical hit knocks it out.

Being pure Electric gives it a single weakness, Ground, and resistances to Flying, Steel and Electric, along with the paralysis immunity all Pokémon of its type have had since Generation VI. The problem is its offence: Ground-types are immune to its main tool and there is nothing in its movepool that punishes them, because Low Kick, which it learns at level 36, does not hit them super effectively either. A Ground-type shuts down the whole game for it.

Of its two abilities, Static paralyses at the slightest contact and punishes anything that hits it up close; Vital Spirit, its hidden ability, prevents it from falling asleep, which is worth more than it looks against an opponent with sleep moves.

Volt Switch suits it best, because it turns those 95 Speed points into hitting and getting out without losing the turn. Thunder Punch, at level 28, is the strongest move it learns before evolving, and Thunder Wave, at 20, cripples something faster. Outside low-level formats that only allow unevolved Pokémon, where 95 Speed is a high figure, there is no reason to use it: Electabuzz does the same thing with better numbers.

It belongs to the Undiscovered Egg Group, so it cannot breed. The process goes the other way: it is obtained by breeding Electabuzz or Electivire with a compatible female or with Ditto, and the egg always produces the baby form. Its 25 Egg Cycles amount to about 6630 steps, among the longest in its generation for a Pokémon that is not legendary.

Its sex ratio gives it 25 % females, which matters when the goal is raising a line of its own and there is no Ditto available. The moves it inherits from its father are almost all Fighting-type — Dynamic Punch, Cross Chop, Brick Break, Focus Punch—along with Feint and Follow Me; compensation for what its typing cannot reach.

It evolves at level 30 with no conditions at all: no item, no friendship and no time of day. The next step is stranger, because Electabuzz only reaches Electivire by trading while holding an Electirizer, and wild Elekid can be carrying precisely that item.

Its habitat is grassland, although it does not appear along the routes in most games; in Pokémon White it can be found in the wild in White Forest. Its catch rate, 45, is that of a difficult Pokémon to catch, high for a creature of this size. It grows at a medium rate and gives 1 Speed effort point.