Intense Mode Team Spotlight - Seel

[ty_taurus]

Intense Mode Team Spotlight

Going through Intense Mode, I wanted to create a few Pokemon Spotlights to showcase my team and how they've performed for me. The goal of this is to help anyone new to the game or looking to use Pokemon they might not ordinarily use. It's also to provoke some fun discussion for anyone else also using these Pokemon. Enough with the introductions though. Let's move onto today's team member:

Winter - the Seel/Dewgong

Male

Gentle (+ Sp Def / - Def)

Thick Fat

IVs - 12 / 27 / 25 / 26 / 20 / 30

Winter is my second major team member for my blind run of Pokemon Rejuvenation acquired after a few hours of viciously gambling at the Voltorb flip, where I also earned enough coins for all three TMs, and my third team member whom I'll talk about another day. I chose to talk about Winter before my first major team member for no particular reason, but we'll be talking about her sometime too.

Anyway, being a future Ice-type, Winter had access to some early Ice-Type attacks, primarily Icy Wind which was pretty helpful in the beginning of the game. A great example is how it decimated Ren's Murkrow in two hits. Also having access to Headbutt, I was able to pull of a lot of fun flinch/paralysis hax later when my strategy included paralyzing everything with another team member.

Winter's dominance as an attacker was unfortunately short lived, as his low base stats for Attack and Special attack quickly caught up to him. Not only that, but he didn't get STAB on Icy Wind (and later Aurora Beam). Furthermore, he didn't even get a Water-Type attack until level 31, Aqua Jet, which had too low a base power to work with, and later Brine at level 33, which was still just a middle-of-the-pack attack. I ended up using an Exp Share to boost Winter through most of his levels in the 20s, and get him to evolve at level 34 into the glorious Dewgong.

As a Dewgong, Winter gained a much needed boost in offensive and defensive power to make him capable of fighting again, but this was also a short lived victory. You see, while a Dewgong's stats aren't terrible, they're not offensively powerful. Attack and Special Attack sit at a base 70, which means you really need powerful attacks to do reliable damage, but poor Winter was stuck using Aurora Beam and Brine all the way to level 49 when he learned Aqua Tail (I skipped Dive). This means he was still trailing behind, as there weren't any good TMs for him to rely on. This was coincidentally around the time I acquired Surf as well. Finally, Winter has become a strong contender on my team, with Aqua Tail and Surf doing considerable damage to all things that don't resist it. I've just beaten Crawli, and looking forward to finally learning Ice Beam, where Winter can truly shine.

Ultimately, Seel and Dewgong have a hard time in Rejuvenation due to the lack of TMs, as their level-up moveset takes such a long time to start getting powerful moves. On the bright side, Thick Fat makes Dewgong one of the few Ice-Types that can tank fire attacks like a boss. I've also held onto Rest, and am looking forward to getting the Rain Dance TM and switching Dewgong over to Hydration, where I can fully heal and let the rain cure my Sleep. This will be another major spike in Winter's power. Training a Seel from the beginning lets you hold onto Rest, whereas catching one later will have too high a level and will require breeding, so that's also something to think about.

I mentioned that I skipped over Dive, but if you have Toxic Spikes support, Dive can actually be a good move to use for your Dewgong. Very few Pokemon learn Dive through level, and Dewgong is the only Ice-Type that does (level 45). Dive not only has decent power, but it allows you to skip an enemy's attack every time you use it while the toxic poison eats at their HP. Combining that with Hydration/Rest/Rain Dance, and you have a bulky Pokemon that can outlast the poison and your opponent.

This concludes my Spotlight of Winter the Seel/Dewgong. Did that help any Seel lovers out there? Does anyone want to try using a Dewgong now? Share your thoughts below.