Shuckle

Puts Berries inside its shell and waits. Every Pokédex entry describes the same process: the Berries mix with its bodily fluids and eventually turn into a thick juice that stays stored in there. When it decides to eat it, it shuts itself inside its shell. The rest of the time it spends motionless under rocks, in silence, hidden so nothing can attack it.

The shell is shaped like a jar —or a vase, depending on the version of the text— and has holes from which four short legs, its head and nothing else stick out. It is 60 centimetres tall and weighs 20,5 kg, and almost all of that is shell: the yellow body underneath is soft and serves no purpose other than getting inside. The official category, Mold Pokémon, is fairly literal for an animal whose job is fermenting fruit in a sealed container.

It does not evolve, nor does it descend from anything. It is a unique species, with no prior or later stage, of the Bug and Rock types, with a stat spread built entirely around that shell. The items it carries in the wild are Berry Juice and Oran Berry, which completes the circle: the Pokémon that makes juice appears with juice equipped.

505 base stat points distributed as unevenly as possible. 230 Defense and 230 Special Defense are the highest figures among non-legendary Pokémon, and the rest of the stat sheet is a calculated disaster: 20 HP, 10 Attack, 10 Special Attack and 5 Speed, among the lowest figures in the game.

That is the problem. HP is what multiplies the value of a defense stat, and 20 HP makes those two 230s considerably less solid than they look. It takes direct hits, yes, but it dies to Toxic, fixed damage, recoil and anything else that does not check defenses. Sturdy, its most common Ability, prevents it from being knocked out in one hit while at full HP; Contrary, its Hidden Ability, reverses stat changes, and with it Shell Smash —which it learns at level 65— raises both defenses instead of lowering them, at the cost of offenses it does not use anyway.

Bug and Rock is a poor defensive typing: three weaknesses (Water, Rock and Steel) against only three resistances, and none of them covers anything relevant. Attacking is not part of the plan with 10 in both offensive stats. What does work is dirty work. Stealth Rock by TM, Sticky Web at level 50 to slow down the opposing team, Toxic, and Rest at 25 as its only recovery. Power Split at level 35 equalizes its Attack and Special Attack with the opponent's, which is the most elegant way it has to ruin a physical attacker's turn. With 5 Speed, it does all of this last.

Bug Egg Group, and only that one. The gender ratio is 50%, so any two specimens are enough to get started. The 20 incubation cycles amount to about 5355 steps.

The Egg Move list is long and uneven. Helping Hand, Knock Off and Acupressure deserve a mention, with Acupressure raising a random stat by two stages — combined with Contrary, it does exactly the opposite, which is worth knowing before building the team. And then there is Final Gambit, which deals damage equal to the user's remaining HP: in a creature with 20 base HP, it is the most useless move you can teach anything.

There is no evolution condition to explain. It is born this way and stays this way, leaving it out of any breeding plan aimed at a final form. It grows at a medium-slow rate and gives 1 Defense EV and 1 Special Defense EV when defeated.

Its habitat is the mountain and its catch rate is 190, one of the easy ones: a regular Poké Ball is usually enough. In Gold and Silver, you do not even have to look for it, because a Poké Maniac in Cianwood City gives you one; in the wild, it appears on Route 40, in Cianwood City itself and in Dark Cave by smashing rocks.