Heracross

It drives its horn into the opponent’s gut, hoists it into the air and throws it. Almost every Pokédex entry describes the same maneuver, and with quite a lot of mechanical detail: it charges in a straight line, gets underneath the enemy and levers it up with its horn. The claws on its feet dig into the ground or tree bark so the impact does not move it instead.

The figures attributed to it are disproportionate. It lifts objects that weigh one hundred times as much as it does —54 kilograms, one and a half meters tall— and knocks down entire trees with a single charge. The official category, Single-Horn Pokémon, undersells what it does with that horn.

Outside battle, its routine is more peaceful: it roams the forests looking for honey. The Pokédex itself admits that it flies poorly, despite having a pair of wings beneath its elytra, and that it boasts about a strength it really does possess. In Alola, it spends its time fighting Vikavolt, which the Pokédex identifies as its greatest rivals there.

It does not evolve from anything or into anything. It appears already in its final form, with no baby stage or later phase, something uncommon among the Bug types introduced in the second generation.

Its stat spread leaves no doubt what it is built for: 125 Attack, 95 Special Defense, 85 Speed, 80 HP, 75 Defense and roughly 40 Special Attack, leaving the Bug Buzz and Focus Blast it learns by TM practically useless on paper. 500 points, almost all concentrated in one place.

What defines it is Guts. With a status condition, its Attack rises; with a burn, the reduction to physical damage also stops applying, so burn changes from a punishment into a bonus. That is where the combination with Facade comes from, jumping from 70 power to 140 as soon as it is poisoned, burned or paralyzed. Its two signature-level attacks already hit hard without tricks: Megahorn at level 55 and Close Combat at 60, both with 120 power, with Swords Dance at 50 to double its Attack before firing.

Bug and Fighting split the offensive work between them nicely. Together they cover Psychic, Dark, Grass, Normal, Ice, Rock and Steel, and very little resists the pair. Defending itself is another matter: Flying hits it for four times the damage, while Fire, Psychic and Fairy hit it for twice as much. With 85 Speed, it moves after almost everything that can hurt it, so it usually gets little more than one turn to work with.

In a normal playthrough, the profitable ability is Moxie, its Hidden Ability: every opponent it knocks out raises its Attack, and chaining two or three KOs in a row is routine. Against Scizor, which resists Bug to a quarter of the damage and answers with priority, the calculation goes the other way.

A single Egg Group, Bug, and a 50/50 gender split. The difference between male and female is obvious at a glance in the horn: on males, the tip forms a cross; on females, a heart. The 25 incubation cycles amount to about 6630 steps, among the longer stretches in the game.

The egg produces six moves it cannot learn any other way: Seismic Toss, which deals damage equal to the user’s level and therefore completely ignores its 125 Attack; Feint, with high priority but only valid on the first turn it is on the field; Flail, which grows stronger the lower its HP is; and Double-Edge, Endure and Night Slash.

There is no evolution condition to remember, because the chain starts and ends with it. The only thing that changes its form is Mega Evolution, and that depends on an item, not a level.

Its habitat is the forest, and its catch rate, 45, puts it among the difficult ones: the same figure as the starters, far from a route Bug’s 255. It grows at the Slow rate, so it needs more experience than average for each level, and gives 2 Attack effort points to whoever defeats it.