Masquerain

The eyes glaring from its antennae can't see a thing. They're drawings, two spots painted on enormous front antennae, and almost every Pokédex entry describes the same trick: it intimidates its enemies with those pupils and puts on an angry face without having a face. Some people read the weather from them. One entry claims that when the “eyes” look half-closed and sad, heavy rain is probably on the way.

The second deception is in its name, which has rain inside it and points to exactly what it can't stand. Its wings and antennae are highly sensitive to moisture; when the rain stops, the first thing it does is fly towards the sun to dry them.

What does work are its four wings. It flaps them in pairs and independently, allowing it to move in any direction —sideways or backwards— to the point that the Ruby and Sapphire entry compares it to a helicopter. At 80 centimeters and 3.6 kg, there's more surface area than body.

It's the only evolution of Surskit, and at level 22 the line changes identity: the Bug- and Water-type water skater comes out of the change as Bug- and Flying-type. The official category, Eyeball Pokémon, sticks to the only thing that matters about the design.

Its 454 base stat total is poorly distributed for what the species seems to promise. The Special Attack of 100 is the high figure, its Speed of 80 is too slow for almost everything that genuinely runs fast, and the defensive block —70 HP, 62 Defense, 82 Special Defense— is made of glass. The Attack of 60 is wasted: there's no reason to hit anything on the physical side.

Intimidate is what keeps it standing. It lowers the opponent's Attack when it enters battle, so it works as an emergency switch against a physical attacker, absorbs a softened hit and leaves. The problem is what happens next. Bug and Flying is one of the worst defensive combinations in the game: it quadruples Rock-type damage, meaning Stealth Rock strips away half its HP every time it enters the field, and adds weaknesses to Fire, Electric and Ice.

Offensively, it does have the tools. Bug Buzz, at level 44, and Air Slash, at 32, cover both its types, Hurricane reaches 110 power by TM, and Giga Drain, at 38, gives it some health back. Quiver Dance raises Special Attack, Special Defense and Speed at once, but it doesn't learn it until level 52 and, with those defenses, it rarely gets a free turn to use it.

In a normal Hoenn playthrough, its role is different: Intimidate makes captures easier and lets it hold the front line in a Double Battle, while U-turn lets it hit and leave without giving away the switch.

It belongs to the Water 1 and Bug Egg Groups, a direct inheritance from the water skater it used to be, and it can breed without trouble with a good part of the Pokédex's Water types. The gender ratio is 50% female, so any pair from the line will do. The egg always hatches into a Surskit.

Its 15 Egg cycles amount to about 4080 steps, in the middle range. It doesn't inherit anything special from the egg: everything it knows is learned by levelling up or through TM.

The evolution has no condition beyond level 22. No items, no trades, no time of day: the entire line is sorted out before the second Gym if you start with Surskit early. It grows at the Medium Fast rate, the simplest of the six.

Its habitat is the water's edge, consistent with the pond it comes from, and its catch rate of 75 puts it in the middle ground: it's neither a 255 that can be caught with a Poké Ball at point-blank range nor a 45 that eats through half your bag. In the wild, it can be holding SilverPowder. Defeating it awards one effort point in Special Attack and another in Special Defense, one of the few uneven double distributions among Bug types.