Horsea, Seadra, Kingdra (SM)

Why are seahorses dragon types again?

Location: Kala'e Bay (Island Scan on Wednesday)

Stats, Evolutions
Horsea has the stats of a first-stage Pokémon at a point where your kids are becoming teens. It has good Special Attack and Defense of all things, but its awfully low HP and low special defense make it hard to keep alive, and its speed is decent but not that great. You will have to baby it...

Until level 32 in which it evolves into Seadra. Things are already looking dire for our seahorsedragon thing, because a Pokémon like Horsea, which is hard to keep alive, will need babying for 14 levels. Good lord. Seadra only has stats that are slightly higher than ￼the middle-stage starters. It's even worse when you consider that by this point your starters will be almost fully evolved. It still has the same stat distribution. Good Special Attack and Physical Defense, decent speed (since most of Alola is slow, however, it can outspeed a lot), negligible everything else.

It evolves into Kingdra when you trade it holding a Dragon Scale, a rare drop from the Dratini family, which in themselves are rare AND found by fishing in Vast Poni Canyon. It's as if Game Freak didn't want us to evolve our rugged, ugly seahorses into majestic sea dragons. It will take 4 hours at the very least and if you have a patience made of diamond, meaning that this review will be written as if you didn't evolve your Seadra into Kingdra. Kingdra will still get the same score despite being a trade evolution, just because of how ￼long it took you to evolve it and because you still had to baby it until it evolved. Fortunately, Seadra can use the Eviolite. Not that it makes a difference.

Movepool, Abilities, Typing
Its unique move is Dragon Breath. Dragon Breath has low power and won't hit many things super effectively but it has a nice paralysis chance of 30%. The only remotely noteworthy move it also has is Water Gun, and even then it should by replaced by Bubble Beam at level 21. Focus Energy goes well with its Sniper Ability (boosts the power of critical hits) which helps since it boosts the chance of critical hits happening. Brine at 31 doubles in damage if the opponent has less than half its HP, useful for finishing opponents off (there's no pun there what you talkin about).

After evolving, it gets Agility, but technically nothing else. If you grind it up to 60 it gets Hydro Pump but that's it.

For moves, it gets the typical ice moves and Flash Cannon. And Scald. And Rain Dance. That's it.

Its abilities are Sniper (explained in the moves section) and Poison Point, which can poison the opponent if it makes contact with Seadra. Seadra isn't the best Pokémon for poison-fishing, but it's not bad.

With their Water typing, they have few weaknesses and a few resistances. Kingdra's Water/Dragon typing resists a lot of things, but Kingdra is nigh-unobtainable.

Important Battles
I can only imagine using it against either of Olivia's matches, Hapu and maybe Kukui. The rest is awful... It either has a disadvantage or its stats are too low to stand up.

Conclusion
Forget about Seadra. You will have to baby it for a while, Seadra has teensy stats and it's near impossible to evolve. Its movepool is dreadful,￼ and its abilities are useful but somewhat situational. What a multiple threat. It's also outclassed by most water-types out there. Wishiwashi, Gyarados and Araquanid make everything else look pale, Ash-Greninja dominates the whole game, Azumarill dominates Akala, Golduck has similar stats to Seadra but its lower stats are moderately high... Even Wailmer is better than Horsea. Don't use Horsea, it's not worth the effort it takes to backtrack to Melemele Island. Catch it, put it on the PC and Wonder Trade it to see if you get a strong, overleveled Pokémon. The only thing keeping Seadra from having an even lower rating is the fact that it's not completely terrible at any one thing.

Rating: 26%