NationalDex
kingdra
#230

Kingdra

Dragon Pokémon

WaterDragon

With the arrival of a storm at sea, this Pokémon will show itself on the surface. When a Kingdra and a Dragonite meet, a fierce battle ensues.

Base Stats

HP 75
Attack 95
Defense 95
Sp. Atk 95
Sp. Def 95
Speed 85
Total 540

Type Effectiveness

Abilities

Held Items

Evolution Chain

Moves

Details

Category Dragon Pokémon
Height 1.8 m
Weight 152.0 kg
Base Exp 243
Growth Rate Medium
Capture Rate 45
Base Happiness 70
Gender 50% ♂ / 50% ♀
Habitat Sea
Egg Groups Water1 ,Dragon

Sprites

kingdra Front Front
kingdra Back Back
kingdra Front Shiny Front Shiny
kingdra Back Shiny Back Shiny
kingdra Official Art Official Art
kingdra Official Art (Shiny) Official Art (Shiny)

Competitive

Swift Swim Attacker
Moves
Hurricane / Hydro Pump
Draco Meteor / Hydro Pump
Item
Life Orb
Nature
Modest
EVs
SpA 252
SpD 4
Spe 252

Strategy Overview

While Kingdra does stand out as the best Swift Swim attacker in SS DOU, it still leaves a lot to be desired. Its Speed in rain gives it a notable amount of utility, as it can pin down faster, frailer foes while it breaks the opposing team with strong rain-boosted Muddy Waters. In particular, Kingdra excels in using its offensive presence to give its teammates space and clean up weakened teams. However, it has multiple awkward matchups in the metagame, including against DOU's top threats in Rillaboom, Tapu Fini, and Kyurem-B, and its average Special Attack stat can at times feel lacking, which is a major downside, as it offers no utility outside of purely attacking. Kingdra, in particular, faces stiff competition as a Water-type attacker in rain from Urshifu-R, which boasts noticeably better power output and coverage, an improved matchup against Trick Room, more relevant utility in the ability to force trades with Unseen Fist, and most importantly a non-reliance on rain to be effective; while Kingdra does offer blazing Speed and a better match-up against fast Dragon-types in Dragapult and Naganadel, its Speed is also easily compensated for by the rain archetype's many Tailwind-setting Flying-type options in Tornadus and Zapdos, and its need for Speed also leaves it much more vulnerable in the face of opposing speed control. Kingdra's reliance on keeping its rain setter available, as it is very lacking as an attacker without it, on top of its other flaws, ultimately makes it quite awkward to run on rain teams.

Most Used Moves

Ice Beam
84.3%
Hurricane
66.4%
Surf
54.4%
Scald
47.2%

Most Used Items

Life Orb
27.0%

Competitive data from Smogon University via data.pkmn.cc