Magmar

It has a beak, and that is the first thing worth looking at. Beneath the yellow flames covering the lower half of its body, a bird-like face pokes out, with a toasted-looking, furrowed beak that fits neither the reptilian tail nor the spines along its back. It is 1.30 m tall and weighs 44.5 kg: the build of something that walks upright and fights with its fists.

Pokédex entries insist on a single figure, a body temperature of 1200 °C, and repeat it in two different generations. It is born in the centre of a volcano and dives back into the crater when it runs out of strength, like someone getting into a bath. In battle, it expels flames from its entire body to intimidate its opponent, and those bursts create heat waves that scorch the surrounding grass and trees. One entry says it cannot even sneeze without letting out a burst of flame. Another, considerably less kindly, says that when it gets angry, it does not calm down until its opponent has been completely reduced to charcoal.

The official category calls it the Spitfire Pokémon, and the name describes the gesture better than the design. It occupies the middle stage in a three-stage line: it evolves from Magby and does not stop there.

495 points spread out without any clear peak. 100 Special Attack and 95 Attack leave it balanced between both routes, with 93 Speed to move before a good part of whatever it runs into in a normal playthrough. The hole is at the back: 65 HP and 57 Defense, the lowest figure on the sheet, turning any neutral physical hit into a serious problem.

Flame Body burns on the slightest contact, so it makes opponents pay for coming in with punches and kicks. Vital Spirit, its hidden Ability, only prevents it from falling asleep. As a pure Fire type, it gets comfortable resistances —Grass, Ice, Bug, Steel, Fairy and Fire itself— and three widely distributed weaknesses: Water, Ground and Rock.

Its movepool is broad and untidy. Flamethrower arrives at level 46 and Fire Blast at 58; by TM there is Overheat, with 130 power and the drawback of lowering its Special Attack after use, and Heat Wave, which is easier to handle at 95. Fire Punch, at 28, is the physical option, while Thunder Punch by TM gives it something to say against Water types that would otherwise put it out. Will-O-Wisp shuts down physical attackers without spending any of its own power.

What holds it back is its own line. Magmortar does exactly the same thing with more muscle, and the Eviolite, which Magmar can carry because it is an intermediate stage, does not fix 57 Defense against anything that hits seriously. Where it does fit is in a normal adventure, as the mid-game Fire type: Grass, Ice or Steel Gyms, with a Will-O-Wisp saved for that playthrough's physical bruiser. Defeating it gives 2 Special Attack EVs.

The Human-Like Egg Group, the box for bipeds with hands, is a short one full of unintuitive partners. Females make up 25%: three males for every female, so setting up your own breeding line without Ditto is a matter of persistence.

The 25 incubation cycles come to about 6630 steps, among the longer ones in the catalogue. In return, the Egg Move list is almost entirely Fighting type —Dynamic Punch, Cross Chop, Mach Punch and Focus Punch, the last of which is also available by TM— which makes sense on a Pokémon with 95 Attack and two hands. There is also Belly Drum, which maxes out its Attack at the cost of half its HP; with 65 HP and 57 Defense, anyone trying it rarely gets to use it twice. Belch requires it to have consumed a Berry first.

The evolution has two stages, and the second does not depend on level. Magby evolves into Magmar at level 30. Magmar evolves into Magmortar only by trading it while it is holding a Magmarizer, an item that wild Magmar sometimes carry alongside a Rawst Berry. Its habitat is the mountains, it grows at a medium pace and its catch rate is 45, the rate of a species that does not stay in the first Poké Ball.