Slowking

In Gold and Silver, Slowpoke stopped having only one possible outcome. Until then, the Shellder that latched onto it always ended up on its tail; the second generation added the variant where the bite lands on its head, and that is where Slowking comes from. The Pokédex puts it bluntly: the poison Shellder injects when it bites triggers a chemical reaction that unlocks its intellect. It also adds the small print — if Shellder separates, it forgets everything it had learned.

With that head on its shoulders, it reaches 2 metres and 79.5 kg, almost twice the weight of its previous form. The official category, Royal Pokémon, follows the design to the letter: the shell opens over its crown like a crown, and the white ruff around its neck acts as a gorget. It is a king dressed in a mollusc.

The entries keep returning to the same joke. It spends the day researching to solve the world's mysteries, comes up with ideas that would change the planet and loses them as soon as it has them. In some regions, a saying goes: “When in doubt, ask Slowking.”

It shares its starting point with Slowbro: both come from Slowpoke, and neither evolves into anything else.

The distribution of its 490 points is tilted towards the special side: 110 Special Defense, 100 Special Attack, 95 HP, 80 Defense, 75 Attack and 30 Speed. That 30 is the figure that dictates everything else. No investment can fix it, so the species accepts that it will move last and builds from there.

Regenerator, its Hidden Ability, is what keeps it in circulation. It recovers HP when it switches out, so coming in, taking a hit and leaving costs nothing in the long run. Chilly Reception fits that perfectly: it summons snow and switches the user out for another team member in the same turn, so leaving is no longer a wasted turn. Future Sight, with 120 power and a delayed effect, is used before leaving and hits two turns later, when another Pokémon is already on the field. Scald rounds out the set with its chance to burn, which patches up part of the problem caused by its 80 Defense.

On offense, Water and Psychic cover each other reasonably well, but defensively they open five weaknesses: Electric, Grass, Bug, Ghost and Dark. Foul Play is the worst case, because it targets its poor Defense and one of its two weaknesses. Its other two Abilities, Oblivious and Own Tempo, only prevent infatuation, Taunt and confusion.

There is an alternative way to read that Speed: with Trick Room active, 30 goes from burden to advantage, and Nasty Plot — which it already has at level 1 — turns those 100 Special Attack points into something considerably more serious.

It belongs to the Monster and Water 1 Egg Groups, with an even gender ratio, 50% female, so breeding your own line does not depend on luck. The 20 Egg Cycles work out at about 5355 steps.

Two moves come from the Egg: Future Sight and Chilly Reception. The second is the one that matters, because it does not learn it by level and it is the backbone of almost everything it can do.

The evolution condition is one of the strict ones. Slowpoke does not level up to get here: you have to trade it while it is holding King's Rock. Circular detail — wild Slowking hold exactly that item. The other route exists only for the regional form: using a Galarica Wreath on a Galarian Slowpoke produces a Galarian Slowking, Poison- and Psychic-type instead of Water- and Psychic-type.

Its habitat is the riverbank, fitting for an animal that spends the day sitting in the shallows. Its 70 catch rate puts it in the middle range: much more manageable than a starter's 45, but far from trivial. It grows at a medium rate and yields 2 Special Defense EVs when defeated.