Pidgeot

A bird of prey with a pigeon’s name. The short, hooked beak, talons and wingspan point to an osprey or a hawk long before the city-dwelling bird suggested by its name, while the black markings around its eyes bring to mind depictions of Ra and Horus, the Egyptian gods represented with hawk heads.

The crest is what the Pokédex never gets tired of repeating: yellow feathers in the centre, red on the outside. One entry even says that some Trainers choose it for that alone, staring blankly at the plumage on its head. The other three describe a hunter and nothing more. It flies just above the water to surprise prey such as Magikarp, spreads its wings to intimidate opponents before making contact, and reaches a speed of Mach 2 with its talons out in pursuit of prey.

It closes out the first-route bird’s evolutionary line, and the jump in size is half the fun: 1.5 metres and 39.5 kilograms compared with the handful of feathers it comes from. Pidgey evolves into Pidgeotto at level 18 and into Pidgeot at 36, with no stones or other conditions. The official category remains Bird Pokémon for all three.

Its 479 base stat points are poorly distributed: 83 HP, 80 Attack, 75 Defense, 70 and 70 in the two special stats, and 101 Speed. That 101 is the only figure that stands out, and it comes with a physical Attack stat of 80 that is not enough to finish anything off. Defeating it yields 3 Speed EVs, which fits the only thing it knows how to do.

None of its three abilities changes a battle. Keen Eye prevents its Accuracy from being lowered, Tangled Feet raises its Evasion only while it is confused — in other words, while it is already losing turns — and Big Pecks, its hidden ability, protects it from moves that lower its Defense. They are patches, not advantages.

On offense, Normal and Flying overlap: Flying covers Fighting, Bug and Grass, while Normal is super effective against nothing. On defense, it gains immunities to Ghost and Ground, but pays for them with weaknesses to Electric, Ice and Rock, and Stealth Rock strips away half its HP the moment it comes in.

With Hurricane, at 110 power, it has a serious attack that its 70 Special Attack wastes; Air Slash, at 75, is more honest. U-turn is probably its best practical turn: it hits, keeps the initiative and leaves. In a normal playthrough it works as a means of transport and as a finisher for weakened opponents, with Quick Attack for anything left within one hit. Smogon has analysed it in NU. Its Mega Evolution, on the other hand, became a benchmark threat in UU.

It belongs to a single Egg Group, Flying, so it can breed with the rest of the birds and not much else. The gender ratio is even, with 50% female, so breeding a line of your own does not require praying to luck or resorting to a Ditto.

Its 15 Egg Cycles amount to roughly 4080 steps, putting it among the middling stretches spent cycling in circles. It also has no Tutor moves.

The evolution allows no tricks. Pidgeotto reaches level 36 and that is it; its growth rate is Medium Slow, so that 36 comes later than it seems, and once evolved, the game gives it Hurricane all at once among its level 1 moves.

In the wild, its habitat is the forest. Its catch rate is 45, the usual figure for final evolutions: it takes some doing, and it is best to lower its HP and put it to sleep before throwing the Poké Ball. Its base Friendship of 70 is standard, with neither a penalty nor an advantage.