Week 5--Seaking: **** Yeah, Seaking!

Seaking
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For a very long time, I hated this fish more than Magikarp. Magikarp grows up into Gyarados, and for a long, long time, Gyarados was one of the strongest water Pokemon in the game, and is still second overall in physical attack for the water type (first, if you consider its Mega). I mean, I wanted Seaking to be way better than it was, but it just wasn’t very strong in a lot of ways. The most that could be said for it was that it was probably the easiest obtainable Waterfall user, since you could catch a Goldeen with an Old Rod.

As you don’t know, we choose Pokemon of the Week randomly. To do this, I use a random number generator to pop out a number corresponding the National Dex number of a Pokemon, then choose its highest stage evolution. Seaking is our first random pick. I confess that, before we picked Seaking, I had never considered using it in a competitive fight, but after doing a little research, I hurriedly bred my own. I hope you will soon see why.

OBVIOUSLY.

Let’s start with Seaking’s base stats. At a meh 80/92/65/65/80/68 (total 450), Seaking isn’t all that impressive. However, much like Nidoqueen, this moderately balanced set gives you a lot of flexibility with its training and upbringing, making Seaking an easily customizable fish. Also, since it’s a monotype water, it only comes with two weaknesses, lightning and grass, which are fairly well covered with a decent special defense.

You don't say!

Seaking has two useful abilities (in my opinion): Swift Swim and Lightning Rod. Most of you are probably already familiar with Swift Swim, which doubles the Pokemon’s speed in the rain. If you ask me, though, Swift Swim is not useful on Seaking. It would use up too much of your stat resources to make its speed boost worthwhile. Without boosting its stats, Seaking is a meh 136 speed in the rain. This would typically put it among the top speed Pokemon in the game, except that you have to consider speed-boosted Pokemon. If you’re up against a Pokemon with speed, you’re probably not going to get the first shot, so you’re wasting your time.

Lightning Rod is… interesting. Lightning Rod draws all electric attacks to the ability bearer and ups that Pokemon’s special attack by one stage. Only 16 Pokemon in the game own the ability Lightning Rod, and all except for Goldeen and Seaking make obvious use of it. The electric types use it as a charging technique—duh, zap an electric Pokemon and giftwrap a hot charge. Meanwhile, the ground type Pokemon are grounding the charge, rendering electric attacks harmless to the ability bearer’s team. But on Seaking, this takes a more startling role, as it makes Seaking completely immune to electric type attacks, one of its only two weaknesses.

F*** YEAH, SEAKING!!!!

Um. Wow. That’s impressive!

Well yes. More handsome than Magikarp, and far more useful.
Because Seaking.

This makes Seaking a wonderful addition to any rain team as a counter to Jolteon or Thunder in general and eliminates your fear of electricity—at least so long as your poor flimsy fish doesn’t die, that is. The drawback of using Lightning Rod Seaking is that it suffers from being Captain Obvious the moment it swims into the ring. Most experienced battlers will be expecting the Lightning Rod and simply avoid using their electric attacks. That doesn’t change the fact that your team is impervious to Electric, though!

This is the fish that I raised:

“Cuddlefish”

Item: King’s Rock

Ability: Lightning Rod

EVs: 252 Atk 144 SpDef / 124 Def

Nature: Jolly

- Waterfall

- Agility

- Megahorn

- Toxic

Cuddlefish, take the stage! 

Waterfall is your go-to move, and though I lack tried and true experience, I love the King’s Rock for extra flinching goodness! I chose natures and EVs to round out Seaking’s moderate but decent stats to make it a good solid fish with some emphasis on special defense to survive the dreadful grass attack. Megahorn is your weakness coverage to negate the fear of grass pokemon. Use agility if you can for that extra speed boost, and Toxic, of course, if you’re feeling vile.

I’ve found Seaking to be a fun Pokemon to use, but the problem I usually run into with using it is that the Lightning Rod is a dead giveaway. Although I am positive (see what I did there?) that Seaking’s presence protects my team from electric attacks, a well placed Energy Ball or Giga Drain one hit KO’s Seaking, and Energy Ball can be used by so many different pokemon that you might never see it coming.

Like us on Facebook! For a limited time, if you share our Facebook page on your timeline and comment "shared" on your POTW Facebook post, you will receive a very rare Lightning Rod Goldeen with 5 IVs! Lightning Rod is a Hidden Ability, which can only be obtained currently from the obsolete Pokemon Dream World. This means that unless you know someone with the ability, there is no longer a legitimate way to receive Lightning Rod Seaking!