Darkrai

Meet Darkrai, the Pitch-Black Pokemon

Number 491 comes from Generation 4 and is a Dark type with no second typing and no evolution in either direction. The ability is Bad Dreams, the base stat total is 600, and the Pokemon is classed as mythical rather than legendary, which in practice means events rather than a route encounter.

Its reputation is built on sleep. Darkrai is the Pokemon associated with nightmares in the fiction, and the games gave it a move that puts a target to sleep outright. That is why it is remembered as a problem rather than simply a strong attacker: a mechanic which removes turns from the opponent is harder to answer than raw damage. Between the speed to move first and an ability that punishes an opponent for being asleep, the Pokemon plays like a trap rather than a brawler.

Bad Dreams, and why sleep matters

Bad Dreams takes health away from an opponent at the end of every turn it spends asleep. That turns a single successful sleep move into a slow kill, and it means Darkrai does not have to keep attacking to keep winning the exchange.

The move Dark Void is the partner to it. In the earlier generations it hit often enough to be reliable; later games cut its accuracy and restricted it so that only Darkrai could use it at all. Either way the plan is the same: put the opponent under, then let the ability do the work.

Where the 600 points land

Two columns carry the spread: 135 Special Attack and 125 Speed. That combination puts it at the front of the turn order against nearly everything and gives it enough power that a resisted hit still hurts.

The rest of the line is even. 70 HP, 90 Attack, 90 Defense and 90 Special Defense make it surprisingly hard to remove for a Pokemon built around attacking, and there is no column an opponent can target as an obvious weak spot. The 70 HP is the one soft number on the sheet. It is a glass cannon that is not actually made of glass.

Three weaknesses and a Psychic immunity

Fighting, Bug and Fairy do extra damage to it. Ghost and Dark come back reduced. Psychic is a complete blank, which is the trade a Dark typing buys and the reason it can switch into the most common special attacking type in the game without thinking about it.

Fairy is the sharpest of the three, since it was added to the series after Darkrai was designed. Fighting is the more common answer in practice, and Bug attacks turn up often enough on coverage moves that they are worth watching for.

Team planning and the reference pages

Work the line-up out in the Pokemon Team Picker, keep the rules straight in the Nuzlocke Team Builder, and leave any gaps to the Random Pokemon Picker.

Numbers come next: the Pokemon Nature Chart for the nature, the Pokemon IV Calculator for what the spread actually works out to, and the Pokemon Wheel Spinner for anything that does not need either.

The remaining pages cover the collection side: Pokemon Shiny Odds tells you how rare the recolour is, and the Random Shiny Pokemon Generator will grind out the search for you. The Random Mega Pokemon Generator and Who's That Pokemon handle the biggest forms and the party game.

How to get one

Darkrai has only ever been available through events or event items, which is the standard route for a mythical. There is no route encounter in any generation, and no amount of searching the map will produce one. Assume any team plan involving it starts with a gift rather than a hunt.

That history is worth knowing before planning a team around it. In the older games the item that opened its location was distributed separately, and in the remakes the same pattern was followed. It is a Pokemon you receive rather than one you find.

Playing it as a lead

Darkrai works best when it comes out first. 125 Speed means it usually gets its status move off before the opponent can react, and once something is asleep the ability starts charging the opponent health every turn. Two turns of that is often enough to decide a fight outright.

Against faster Pokemon, or anything carrying a Fighting move, the plan has to change quickly. 90 Defense is not enough to stand in front of a dedicated physical attacker, and the three weaknesses are common enough that a careless Darkrai is easy to take down.

Why it still gets discussed

The stat line is the reason. A mythical with 135 Special Attack and 125 Speed sits above almost everything in the dex, and the ability gives it a way to win fights without ever landing a second attack.

It is also one of the few Pokemon in the series whose identity is a single mechanic. Darkrai is the sleep Pokemon, in the fiction and in the mechanics, and the two have lined up neatly since the day it was introduced. No other species is quite so completely defined by a single ability.