Rattata

A barn rat, with no metaphor involved. Thirty centimetres, 3.5 kilos, purple fur and two incisors that, according to its own Pokédex entries, never stop growing throughout its life. The consequence is spelled out plainly: if its teeth grow too long, the Pokémon can no longer feed itself and dies of starvation. Hence its obsession with gnawing on anything it finds. When there is nothing better, it gnaws on pillars.

The rest of the entries describe a pest in field-guide language. It lives wherever there is food and searches all day without stopping. It is not fussy about its habitat either: it digs its burrow anywhere, survives in the most unsanitary places thanks to its toughness and its population grows quickly. Even while asleep, it moves its ears so it does not miss a sound.

With 253 base stat points and 51 base experience, it occupies the rung of the creatures a player sees fifty times before reaching the first Gym. The evolutionary line is short: it evolves into Raticate, and that is where it ends. There is also an Alolan Form, which is Dark- and Normal-type, with almost-black fur and whiskers crossing its face.

The 253 points are distributed with one idea in mind: 72 Speed, 56 Attack and no other figure reaching 40. Its 30 HP dominate everything else — with 35 Defense and 35 Special Defense, any reasonably serious neutral hit knocks it out in one go. Its 25 Special Attack turns half its TM list into decoration: Thunderbolt, Blizzard and Sludge Bomb are there, but they do no damage.

What keeps it afloat is Guts. With a status condition affecting it, its Attack rises by 50%, and Facade, which already doubles its power when the user is poisoned, burned or paralyzed, goes from 70 to 140 with STAB. Smogon has analysed it for exactly that reason in Little Cup, with a Toxic Orb: the poison activates on its own and wears it down less over the first three turns than burn does, which is more or less how long it stays standing. Sucker Punch, learned at level 25, deals with anything that moves before it. Crunch, at 22, is the fallback when priority fails. Hustle, its Hidden Ability, raises its Attack without relying on a status condition, but lowers its accuracy: Iron Tail ends up with a real 60% accuracy and the plan goes from strategy to gamble.

The Normal type offers nothing offensively. It is not super effective against anything, Rock and Steel hold it back and Ghost types ignore it completely. In an ordinary playthrough its role is different: Super Fang, learned at level 28, removes half the opponent's HP without going through its 56 Attack, and works just as well against a level 40 Pokémon as against one at level 5.

It belongs to a single Egg Group, Field, which is the most populous in the Pokédex, so breeding it is trivial. The gender split is 50%, with no need to hunt for females or use a Ditto. Its 15 Egg cycles work out at around 4080 steps, putting it among the fast-hatching eggs.

Its Egg Moves include things it cannot learn any other way, and some of them are serious. Endeavor has 140 power. Then there are Submission, Reversal, Revenge and Counter: four Fighting-type moves on a Normal-type body, exactly the coverage its movepool does not give it. Screech, Fury Swipes and Flame Wheel round out the selection.

It evolves into Raticate upon reaching level 20, with no items, trades or friendship involved; the Alolan Form requires it to reach that level 20 at night. It grows at a Medium Fast rate and yields 1 Speed EV when defeated.

Its habitat is grassland and its catch rate is 255, the maximum on the table: a regular Poké Ball against a specimen at half health is more than enough. In the wild, it often appears holding a Chilan Berry.