Raticate

A rat's incisors never stop growing, and if it doesn't wear them down, they eventually kill it. That's half of Raticate's design, and the Pokédex keeps coming back to it: it files down its fangs by gnawing on hard objects, chews through tree trunks and rocks, gnaws on the walls of houses, and can even destroy concrete with those teeth. Everything it does with its mouth is maintenance.

The other half comes from a part of the animal people tend to forget: rats can swim. The membranes on its hind feet help it cross rivers while it searches for food across wide areas, and one entry even dares to say that it sometimes crosses seas.

Its temperament matches the creature. Another entry warns that it's fiercer than it looks, and that anyone who tries to touch it might get carried off by a bite. The official category, Mouse Pokémon, undersells it: at 70 centimeters and 18.5 kg, this is something the size of a small dog.

It's the end of the Rattata line, and that end comes early — level 20, that's it, with no third stage. It's the fate of the first creature almost everyone runs into after leaving home in Kanto.

413 base points with one clear priority: 97 Speed and 81 Attack ahead of everything else. There's not much underneath. 55 HP and 60 Defense leave it with no room against any serious physical hit, the 70 Special Defense holds up a little better, and the 50 Special Attack is wasted, because nothing it wants to use is special.

Guts is the ability that keeps it standing: it raises Attack when it has a status problem, so a burn stops being a punishment and becomes the engine of the set. With it, Facade doubles its 70 power and becomes the main attack. It gets Swords Dance from level 1 and Sucker Punch from 29, which is all the priority it's going to see. Hustle, its Hidden Ability, raises Attack at the cost of missing more often, and that second part weighs too heavily.

Being pure Normal gives it nothing on defense except an immunity to Ghost. On offense, Rock and Steel resist it, while Ghost types ignore it completely, including Super Fang, which at level 34 removes half the opponent's HP and does nothing against them. A bulky Rock type knocks it out before it can get started; defensive Ghost types such as Misdreavus leave it with nothing to do, because Facade can't touch them and Sucker Punch only works if the opponent attacks.

Smogon has analysed it in PU, with Guts, an orb and that combination of Swords Dance and priority. Outside that, it works where it always has: the first gyms of a normal playthrough, when 97 Speed means moving first against almost everything on the routes.

It belongs to a single Egg Group, Field, which is the game's most populous and gives it compatibility with half the land-based Pokédex. The gender split is clean, 50 % female, so breeding doesn't depend on finding the rare half or resorting to Ditto.

It takes 15 egg cycles, about 4080 steps, putting it among the shorter stretches. In return, everything it learns comes from levelling up or an HM, and the HM list is long and misleading, with Thunderbolt, Ice Beam and Sludge Bomb among the moves it can learn but shouldn't use, because it runs them off 50 Special Attack.

The evolution is straightforward: Rattata becomes Raticate on reaching level 20, with no items, friendship or time of day involved. The Alolan form asks for the same thing with one added condition: it has to be night.

Its habitat is the grassland, and its catch rate, 127, puts it right in the middle of the table: neither the 45 of a starter nor the 255 of something caught with an empty Poké Ball. Weaken it a little and a regular Poké Ball is usually enough. In the wild it may be carrying an Oran Berry, Sitrus Berry or Chilan Berry, and defeating it awards 2 Speed EVs. It grows at a Medium Fast rate.