Nidorino

Poison Pin Pokémon: the category promises a needle with legs, and the horn on its forehead delivers. Two properties stand out: its hardness — greater than diamond’s — and the toxins released when it jabs its opponent. The rest is temperament. It raises its large ears to keep watch and, if it detects something, attacks at once; when faced with a hostile presence, the spines on its back stand on end and it charges. One Pokédex entry explains it in chemical terms: when its adrenaline levels rise, the concentration of toxins in its poison increases.

At 0.9 metres and 19.5 kilograms, it is a manageable-sized, purple, spiky quadruped, closer to a porcupine than to the rhinoceros suggested by its name. Another entry shows it smashing rocks with its horn “in search of a Moon Stone”, in other words, pursuing on its own the stone that turns it into Nidoking.

It occupies the middle of a three-stage line. It evolves from Nidoran♂ at level 16 and remains pure Poison: the second type, Ground, only appears after using the stone. The entire species is male, and its female counterpart runs in parallel under another Pokédex number.

The 365 base points are spread without a clear peak: 72 Attack, 65 Speed, 61 HP, 57 Defense and two identical 55s in the special stats. None of that stands out, and the line has a third stage that does the same job considerably better.

Of its abilities, Poison Point is the usual passive — it can poison anything that hits it with contact, without it doing anything — while Rivalry has a particular twist: since the species is 100% male, it always hits males harder and females less hard, so the opponent chooses whether the ability helps or hurts you. Hustle, its hidden ability, raises Attack at the cost of accuracy; with 72 to start with, the boost is not worth missing Iron Tail.

On the offensive side, Poison only hits Grass and Fairy hard and does nothing to Steel, leaving Double Kick (Lv.29) as its obligatory answer to Steel and Rock. Poison Jab, its first decent move of its own type, does not arrive until Lv.64, a level at which almost nobody keeps it unevolved. Earth Power appears at Lv.71 and is special, meaning it relies on its 55 Special Attack.

The one thing it can do that its evolution does not improve is get cheap access to Toxic Spikes at Lv.22, useful in normal playthroughs against trainers who switch around a lot. Beyond that, it serves as a stepping stone: it handles mid-game Grass types well and gives 2 Attack EVs.

It belongs to the Monster and Field Egg Groups, but the gender ratio leaves only one option: 0% female. Without a female of its own, the only way to breed it is to pair it with a Ditto, and the egg always hatches into Nidoran♂, never the female branch, which is a separate species.

Its 20 incubation cycles amount to roughly 5355 steps, an average figure within the first generation. Its catch rate of 120 puts it right in the middle of the scale: far from the 45 of difficult Pokémon, but also nowhere near the 255 of those that fall to the first Poké Ball.

The evolution has two conditions, and neither is unusual. Nidoran♂ becomes Nidorino at level 16, and Nidorino becomes Nidoking when exposed to a Moon Stone, with no minimum level, friendship requirement or time-of-day condition. It grows at a medium-slow rate, with a base happiness of 70 and 128 base experience. Its habitat is grassland.