Update: since I completed my testing of this Pokemon, many of Showdown’s replays were lost (occurred Nov/Dec 2023). Consequently, some of the replays I used as a showcase may no longer work- apologies!
Following my experiments with Butterfree, I had Seaking in my sights as one of the worst Pokemon in the game. Seaking to me is a very clear candidate for a bottom dweller, as it’s incredibly bad both in a vacuum, and in the overall context of RBY. It’s terrible in a vacuum as its stats and movepool both leave a lot to be desired. When you consider the broader context, things get even worse as it’s a very generic Water type, which means it has a LOT of competition. Similarly generic Water types such as Vaporeon and Blastoise aren’t even close to being considered viable in RBY despite substantially better stats and improved movepools, so how can Seaking really compete?
You first need to establish a niche for Seaking. Its stats aren’t great- its best traits are its Attack and Special stats, sitting at a mediocre 92 and 80 respectively, which suggests it should maybe be a mixed attacker. Its movepool is largely barren- it gets most of the Normal, Water and Ice attacking options you’d expect from your average Water type, with the glaring exception of Hydro Pump, which means it misses out on a high power STAB. Otherwise there’s no other coverage, and no support options either, as it doesn’t get any relevant status moves. The only other move of note is Agility.
As I mentioned in my Hitmonchan post, Agility is technically a niche, but it’s not a very good one. In Seaking’s case, it doesn’t even separate it from the pack- Seadra can also run Agility, while you also have to consider Articuno, which despite not being Water type, nonetheless shares so many type interactions that it almost could be. Seaking can somewhat separate itself from Seadra by being a mediocre mixed attacker, something Seadra lacks the Attack to do.
Articuno is another matter, since its Attack stat is only slightly behind Seaking’s and it’s far better in every other category. You have to hope the few differing type interactions make the difference- Seaking resisting Ice and being neutral to Rock are the most notable, but are difficult to take advantage of. Rhydon deals a ton of damage to Seaking regardless, while Seaking doesn’t have any tools to take on opposing Water types, which account for the majority of Pokemon using Ice attacks. I guess it has a better Jynx matchup than Articuno?
All of this is to say that Seaking is hopelessly outclassed. The trouble is even if you use it anyway, Seaking just sucks. All it’s really capable of is attacking, but its damage output is absolutely woeful. That’s a real problem for an Agility user. If your niche is Agility, that should mean you’ve got ample damage potential. Or you’re Dragonite and have access to Wrap. Seaking doesn’t have that. The most power it can muster is STAB Surf, which deals roughly the same amount of damage as Starmie Blizzard. That might seem like a flattering comparison, but Starmie provides way more to a team that isn’t based on dealing damage and even then, as of 2023 Starmie much more commonly drops coverage for STAB, because the old BlizzBolt set lacks raw power. For a pure attacker, it’s pathetic.
Teambuilding
I initially wanted to build a team pairing Zapdos and Seaking, with the idea being that Seaking could leverage its Ice resistance and Rock neutrality to support Zapdos, while Zapdos can obliterate Water types. That said, I wasn’t surprised when this didn’t work. Seaking’s inability to deal with Water types meant that although Zapdos covers them, Seaking couldn’t do anything to set up Zapdos. Instead Zapdos had to go for a raw switch, which meant eating attacks and/or status. Heck, Water types can even go for Ice attacks regardless, since they’re fishing for a freeze, and it’s not like Seaking could punish them. Overall this initial version of the team was far too awkward and got scrapped.
It’s also worth noting that I wavered somewhat on Seaking’s set. Agility, Surf and Hyper Beam were constants, but I was torn between Double-Edge and Blizzard in the last slot. Double Edge leans more into the mixed attacking niche and is better for pressuring Chansey, but having Blizzard to threaten Zapdos and Exeggutor is nice. I ultimately decided on Double Edge, purely because the extra pressure on Chansey is more valuable than covering both Exeggutor and Zapdos.
After dropping my initial Zapdos experiment I opted for a team with lead Zam, Raish Chansey, Double Edge Exeggutor, AmnesiaLax and Tauros. I dropped Blizz for Thunderbolt on Tauros, figuring that I’d like more support against Cloyster and I could put Seaking to work against Rhydon. Anyway, with Alakazam clicking Thunder Wave turn 1, this team could’ve come straight from 2018.
After a while I decided the team was too vulnerable defensively. I had initially liked AmnesiaLax’s wallbreaking potential, but needed it to fill a more defensive role, so I opted for Reflect/EQ. Chansey got swapped to BoltBeam, while I also subbed in dual status Victreebel for Exeggutor. The latter option is perhaps a bit interesting, given how far it’s fallen off since its peak in 2019, but I ended up valuing Bel’s Razor Leaf for consistent damage that could then be “locked in” against slower opponents (Chansey) via Wrap. All of that lead to this final team.
Performance
So how did Seaking fare in practice? Well, I can unequivocally say that it met my expectations… which is that it’s one of the worst fully evolved Pokemon in existence, on par with Golbat and Butterfree. As I mentioned above, it’s supposed to be a sweeper as its movepool gives it no other options, but it just doesn’t have the stats to pull it off. It’s too weak to pose a substantial threat, meanwhile its poor bulk means it cannot withstand lategame threats such as Tauros, eating into its potential.
As a mixed attacker it’s still not that threatening. It can somewhat pressure Alakazam and is reasonable against Jynx, however even Chansey is a stretch. On that note, bringing it in early game against a paralysed Jynx was actually a reasonable use case for Seaking- it may immediately drop pressure because it’s so easily walled, but it’s still able to threaten out Jynx in that scenario. When you consider its average non-STAB attacking potential against other Water types, which represent some of the top physical checks in the game, it just is woefully inadequate and it can’t leverage its Ice immunity (also being slower than Cloyster sucks).
Throughout my testing, all of Seaking’s most notable performances saw it achieving the bare minimum for anything that’s capable of attacking
- Here Seaking closes out the match thanks to Tauros missing 2 Hyper Beams. Were it not for that 1% luck, all it would’ve achieved would be to put me ahead in the ditto
- Seaking absorbs a Hyper Beam from Tauros before critting it to death. Realistically any pokemon could’ve done this.
- This battle is the exception that proves the rule- Seaking pulled off a sweep, but it benefited greatly from an unconventional Chansey set and still needed luck to beat Tauros
- Personally, I think that this battle highlights Seaking’s ineptitude well. It gets a free switch into a 54% paralysed Snorlax, unambiguously a strong position, and it accomplishes nothing
Verdict
My opinion is that Seaking is the worst fully evolved non-Ditto Pokemon. It’s not powerful enough to be a substantial threat and it doesn’t support the team in any way besides attacking. Butterfree could at least incapacitate something with Sleep, meanwhile I was able to find a few small ways to extract value out of Golbat. Seaking just does nothing interesting, and the few things that it’s capable of are done better by almost everything else in the game. Having said that, Golbat and Butterfree aren’t far apart from it either, and if you argue that either of those 2 are worse than Seaking, I’m not going to make a fuss.
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