Gloom

A strand of thick nectar always hangs from its mouth, and Pokédex entries insist that it isn't drool: it's honey, and it's there to attract prey. Another part of its body produces the smell: the pistil poking out between the petals. When the Pokémon is calm, it doesn't smell like anything; when it feels threatened, the stench intensifies and, according to the official texts, reaches up to two kilometers away—enough to make anyone who breathes it in lose consciousness.

At 80 centimeters and 8.6 kilograms, it's a bulb with legs and a half-open flower growing out of its head. The official category, Weed Pokémon, isn't exactly flattering either. One note has been repeated since Red and Blue and is still the best summary of the creature: one person in a thousand appreciates that smell. Gloom itself seems to be one of them, because one description says that it inhales the harmful gases around it and responds by releasing even more nectar.

It's the middle stage of the Oddish line, and the only one of the three that deliberately smells bad. It's also the point where the line splits in two, something that didn't happen yet in the first generation.

Its 395 base stat points are badly distributed for almost everything: 85 Special Attack as its highest figure, 60 HP, 70 Defense, and 75 Special Defense in a defensive block with neither glaring holes nor real strengths, plus 40 Speed, the number that defines the species. With Chlorophyll under sun, that Speed doubles and becomes respectable; without sun, it moves last against almost anything. Its hidden Ability, Stench, only adds a chance for the opponent to flinch, and nothing is built around that.

Offensively, Grass and Poison hit almost the same group of opponents and leave Steel-types out of reach. Defensively, it withstands Grass, Water, Electric, Fighting, and Fairy, and takes double damage from Fire, Ice, Flying, and Psychic, four types that are everywhere. What it can do comes from its level-up moves: Sleep Powder at 18, Giga Drain at 20 to steal health, and Moonblast at 32 as a secondary attack. Toxic and Poison Powder give it an annoying support role.

In Smogon's viability rankings for the Scarlet and Violet NFE format, it sits in the C- tier, noted as replaceable by Ivysaur, which does the same thing with better Speed. Moonblast never reaches meaningful numbers, and Strength Sap depends too much on the opponent's Attack. Where it does the job is in a normal playthrough around the midpoint: it puts something to sleep, drains health, and evolves as soon as the stone appears.

It belongs to a single Egg Group, Grass, which limits it to breeding with the plant-based part of the Pokédex, and its gender ratio is exactly half female. Its 20 Egg cycles amount to about 5355 steps. Males and females can be told apart by looking at their petals: females have large spots, while males have many small ones.

Among its Egg Moves, the ones that make a difference are Leech Seed, which turns a slow Pokémon into a sustained nuisance, Strength Sap, which heals and lowers the opponent's Attack at the same time, and Ingrain. Synthesis, Tickle, and After You are more suited to doubles or curiosity sets.

Its evolution is one of those you need to read twice. It evolves from Oddish at level 21, with no added conditions, and then evolves with a stone: Leaf Stone for Vileplume, Sun Stone for Bellossom. Neither evolution can be undone.

In the wild, it lives in grasslands and sometimes carries an Absorb Bulb. Its catch rate is 120, a middle-of-the-road value that doesn't require anything special: lower its HP and a Great Ball will catch it without any drama. It grows at a medium-slow rate, so reaching level 21 takes a little longer than you'd expect.