Muk

It kills grass just by brushing against it. The fluid that oozes from its entire body is so concentrated that a single drop would be enough to contaminate a whole pond, and the Pokédex keeps coming back to the same point: the stench forces anyone passing nearby to cover their nose. Even worse in groups, since they like gathering precisely where the mud builds up and the smell was already unbearable before they arrived.

It isn't an animal trapped inside a mass of mud: it is the mass. It stands 1.2 metres tall and weighs 30 kilos, with a huge mouth and two arms that sprout wherever they please, and the official category — Sludge Pokémon — makes no attempt to hide it. It eats rubbish, which explains its urban habitat: dirty cities where people throw their waste into the streets, providing both its dining room and its meeting place.

Of all its Pokédex entries, the strangest is the one that declares it almost endangered because of environmental policies. Cleaning up the city means taking away its pantry.

It completes the Grimer line at level 38, and that's where it ends: there is nothing after it. There is also an Alolan Form, which shares its stats but almost nothing else.

The 500 points are distributed in a very specific way: 105 HP and 100 Special Defense against 75 Defense. It takes special attacks comfortably and folds to a punch. The 105 Attack is legitimate, the 65 Special Attack is not, and the 50 Speed leaves it behind almost anything that moves.

Of its three Abilities, the one that defines how it plays is Poison Touch: any physical hit it lands can poison as a bonus, so an opponent that survives the impact still loses health. Sticky Hold stops its item from being stolen or swapped. Stench is the worst of the three.

Poison does little offensively: only Grass and Fairy take it badly, and Steel is immune. What makes up for that is the raw power of Gunk Shot, 120, learned at level 40, with Sludge Bomb (90, level 29) as a reliable but special version, and therefore wasted with those 65. Fire Punch, Ice Punch and Thunder Punch, all 75 via TM, are the only decent way it has to hit what resists it.

Defensively, the pure type gives it resistances to Grass, Fighting, Poison, Bug and Fairy, along with immunity to poisoning, letting it set Toxic Spikes and shrug off someone else's Toxic. What holds it back is Ground and Psychic, its two weaknesses, both common across teams, plus that Speed which makes it take the hit before it can respond.

It isn't a serious battle piece. Where it works is in a normal playthrough around the middle of the adventure: switch it into a Fairy- or Grass-type, poison what it doesn't KO and soak special attacks while the rest of the team repositions.

It belongs to a single Egg Group, Amorphous, the catch-all category for Pokémon without a fixed shape, and shares the space with ghosts, slugs and masses of gas. Its gender split is clean: 50% female, so breeding doesn't depend on luck or force you to use Ditto.

The 20 incubation cycles come out at roughly 5355 steps, on the high side of average, and it has no Egg Moves of its own: everything it knows is learned by levelling up or through TMs. That takes most of the fun out of breeding beyond EVs and nature.

The evolution has no trick to it. Grimer reaches level 38 and that's it: no items, no trades, no time of day. It's late, which means playing with the pre-evolution and its lower stats for a large part of the adventure. It grows at a medium rate and starts with 70 base Happiness, which is standard.

In the wild it appears in urban areas, and its catch rate of 75 puts it in the middle: much more forgiving than the 45 of a starter and nowhere near the 255 of something you catch with the first Poké Ball. Wild specimens may be holding a Nugget, Toxic Orb or Black Sludge, and the last one stays at home: it heals Poison-types every turn, and this one is one of them.

It yields 1 HP and 1 Attack per battle.