Lapras

It carries people on its back, and does so willingly: Pokédex entries insist that it loves it. Everything else is built around that habit. Its official category is the Transport Pokémon, and in Alola it ended up becoming a popular means of transport precisely because it is so willing to carry strangers.

It understands human speech—the Pokédex mentions a high intelligence—and when it is in a good mood, it sings in a pleasant voice. At dusk it sings differently: mournfully, searching for the few members of its species that remain. That detail comes from the darker part of its entry. Hunters pursued it precisely because it was docile and peaceful, and the species came close to extinction; later entries revise the ending and say that, once protected, its population grew without limit.

Physically, it is a 2.5-metre, 220-kilogram marine reptile with a long neck, four flippers, and a bumpy shell that doubles as a seat. It does not evolve and does not come from anything else: it has all 535 base stat points from the first level, with no branches or stones involved. In the wild, it sometimes carries a Mystic Water.

Its 130 HP is the figure that holds the whole sheet together. The rest is middling: 85 Attack, 85 Special Attack, 95 Special Defense, 80 Defense, and 60 Speed. It lasts through sheer HP, not through its defenses.

Water Absorb is the Ability that determines when it can enter the field: instead of taking damage from a Water-type attack, it restores HP with it. Shell Armor, the alternative, only blocks critical hits. Hydration, its Hidden Ability, cures status conditions while it is raining, and exists to pair up with Rest.

Offensively, Water and Ice complement each other well, and almost nothing resists both at once. Freeze-Dry, learned as an Egg Move, is the odd one out: it deals double damage to Water types, something no other Ice move does. Ice Beam arrives at level 45 and Hydro Pump at 55. Through TMs there is a second, physical route, with Dragon Dance and Icicle Spear hitting between two and five times per turn.

What holds it back is specific. Its 60 Speed leaves it moving last against almost anything built to attack. It has no reliable recovery beyond Rest. And its weakness to Rock means Stealth Rock takes a quarter of its HP every time it enters the field, forcing it to spend its item slot on Heavy-Duty Boots or be sent out first. In the ninth generation, Smogon has it classified in ZU, the lowest tier in the standard rankings.

It belongs to the Monster and Water 1 Egg Groups, so it can breed with both large reptiles and a good portion of marine wildlife. The gender split is straightforward: 50% female, without the bias that complicates breeding other species.

Its 40 incubation cycles are the problem. At 255 steps per cycle, that comes to around 10 455 steps, one of the longest stretches in existence, and they are combined with a slow growth rate that delays every level.

The eggs produce seven moves that cannot be obtained any other way: Horn Drill and Fissure, both one-hit knockouts; Freeze-Dry, the one that actually matters; Bubble Beam, Ancient Power, Curse, and Tickle. Freeze-Dry alone justifies the detour through the Day Care.

There is no evolution condition. It neither evolves nor has a pre-evolution, so what you catch is what you get. Defeating it yields 2 HP EVs.

Its habitat is the sea. Its catch rate, 45, puts it among the difficult ones—the same figure carried by the starters, far from the 255 of any route-dwelling bug—and its base friendship, 70, is standard.