Pachirisu

Every generation repeats the same assignment: a small Electric rodent that recalls Pikachu without actually being it. In Sinnoh, the spot went to Pachirisu, a white squirrel with a blue stripe running from its forehead to the tip of its tail. It stands 0.4 metres tall and weighs 3.9 kilograms, and that tail takes up almost as much space as the rest of the animal.

The official category, EleSquirrel Pokémon, takes the squirrel part seriously. Pokédex entries say it makes balls of fur that crackle with static electricity and stores them in tree hollows, just as someone else might hide acorns before winter. The second entry describes something less common among Electric types: two specimens rubbing their cheek pouches together to share the charge they have stored. An exchange, not a fight.

It does not evolve or come from anything else. Number 417 begins and ends with itself, with a single form and no regional variant to accompany it.

405 base stat points and not a single one invested in attacking. Its 45 Attack and 45 Special Attack are among the lowest figures you can bring to a battle, while HP stops at 60 and Defense at 70. The useful part is on the other half of the sheet: 90 Special Defense and 95 Speed, enough to move before almost everything and fail to hurt any of it.

Of its three abilities, the one that justifies using it is the hidden one. Volt Absorb turns any Electric-type attack it receives into recovered HP. Run Away and Pickup, the standard abilities it comes with, are useful for escaping wild encounters and picking up items along the way; neither does anything in a serious battle.

Being pure Electric leaves it with a single weakness, Ground, and immunity to paralysis. In return, attacking with that type and those 45 points scares nobody.

Its place is in support in double battles. Nuzzle, learned at level 19, always causes paralysis despite having just 20 power. Follow Me, which only comes from an Egg, forces the opponent to direct its attacks at Pachirisu. Super Fang, learned at level 37, removes half of the target's current HP without relying on Attack.

That moveset won the 2014 World Championships, where Sejun Park took the Masters Division with a Pachirisu carrying Nuzzle, Follow Me, Super Fang and Protect, holding a Sitrus Berry and with Volt Absorb, covering a Gyarados that had no shortage of Electric attacks aimed at it. Outside that very specific role, it goes down at once to any decent physical attack.

It belongs to the Field and Fairy Egg Groups, a broad combination that lets it breed with half the four-legged Pokédex. The gender ratio is an exact 50%, so two wild specimens are enough to set up breeding; they can also be told apart at a glance, because the female's blue stripe is shorter.

Its 10 incubation cycles come out to about 2805 steps, among the quickest you can ask for. And the Egg gives you the only thing that truly justifies breeding it: Follow Me, which it cannot learn by levelling up or by TM. Flatter, Fake Tears and Baby-Doll Eyes complete its list of ways to lower the opponent's stats, while Defense Curl and Rollout remain as relics from an era when that combination made sense.

It does not evolve. No stone, minimum level, friendship or time of day: what you catch is what you will always have, rising along the medium growth curve.

The Pokédex does not assign it a habitat, although in Sinnoh it can be seen around Valley Windworks and Fuego Ironworks. Its catch rate is 200, close to the trivial end of the scale: an ordinary Poké Ball and a little patience. Defeating it gives 1 Speed effort point.