Typhlosion

The official category is Volcano Pokémon, and the design takes the label literally: the openings where its fire comes out are on its back, right between the shoulder blades, not in its mouth or tail. It spits out the jet of heat from there and hides behind it, a wavering veil that distorts the air and that Pokédex entries describe as its way of disappearing before attacking.

Under the flames there is a mustelid. Its silhouette is that of a weasel or badger, with a long body and short legs, and it has a habit of standing on its hind legs when it fights. It is 1.70 m tall and weighs 79.5 kg.

The entries keep insisting on two behaviours. One is its temperature, which rises with its anger until anything it brushes against catches fire instantly. The other is stranger: it causes explosions by rubbing its fur, and the flames that burst out reduce anything in front of it to ashes.

It completes the line that starts with Cyndaquil and passes through Quilava, the Fire-type starter of the second generation. It also has a second registered version, its Hisuian form, which is Fire- and Ghost-type, with bluish fur and purple flames.

The 534 points are distributed without ambiguity. Up front, 109 Special Attack and exactly 100 Speed. At the back, a body that does not take hits: 78 HP, 78 Defense, 85 Special Defense. And 84 Attack that is of no use, because every Fire-type move it learns with genuine power is special.

Blaze, its standard Ability, powers up Fire-type attacks when its HP is low. Flash Fire, its hidden Ability, is more useful: it makes it immune to the Fire type and powers up its own Fire-type moves if it has been hit by one first. That is the one you want.

The move that defines it is Eruption, with 150 power and available from level 1. At full health it hits as hard as few other things; at half health, it hits with half the power. That is the set's contradiction — Blaze rewards being hurt, while Eruption punishes it. Flamethrower, at level 48, is its everyday attack, and Overheat, at 74 and with 130 power, is the emergency button that comes at the cost of lowering its own Special Attack.

Outside Fire, its coverage is limited. Focus Blast answers Rock and Steel but misses too often, while Scorching Sands, with its 70 power, is more of a patch than a real answer.

What holds it back is its pure typing. Pure Fire resists six types, but leaves three widely distributed weaknesses: Water, Ground and Rock. And its 100 Speed, which was a high figure in the generation where it originated, now falls below quite a few things. None of this matters in a story playthrough: it joins the team with Eruption from level 1 and 109 Special Attack behind it.

It belongs to a single Egg Group, Field, the most populated in the Pokédex, so breeding it is easy as long as you have the female. And that is the problem: only 12.5% of specimens are female, seven males for every one female. With a Ditto, the issue disappears.

Its 20 incubation cycles work out at roughly 5355 steps. Six Egg Moves can come from the egg, and two deserve mention. Extrasensory, a special Psychic-type move with 80 power, is the only usable coverage it has against Poison. Curse is the opposite option: it raises Attack and Defense in exchange for Speed, which, on a creature with 84 Attack and 100 Speed, means trading the good for the bad. Double Kick, Reversal, Howl and Covet all run into that same Attack stat.

It evolves from Quilava when it reaches level 36. Nothing else: no item, no friendship, no time of day and no learned move. Before that, Cyndaquil evolves into Quilava at level 14. It grows at a medium-slow rate, gives 3 effort points in Special Attack and yields 240 base experience.

Its recorded habitat is grassland. Its catch rate, 45, puts it among the difficult ones — the usual figure for a final evolution, the kind that forces you to leave it weakened and asleep before throwing the Poké Ball. Its base friendship is 70.