>>19070802>>19070947While it has decent Defense, it has low HP with no way to recover it. The only thing its Defense means is that it can survive a physical priority hit. If you're taking hits, you're doing it wrong.
Kingler is decent in the lower tiers, or bad/not very good in untiered metas. It's now just a really bad Crawdaunt.
Kingler has good Attack (with Crabhammer for boosted crit) with passable speed. This makes boosting a very viable options: Sword Dance and/or Agility. A dual-dance setup was/is popular, if only for lack of other things to do/coverage to abuse while being able to lean back on a decent mono-STAB.
The goal of the Agility/SDance isn't to get both up at once immediately on the field. Instead, play it as you would any other dual setup: if speed is an issue (non-priority revenge killers, higher speed tiers), Agility; if you can get a KO on a switchin and/or it's late in the game with Paralysis support/slow mons remaining, Sword Dance for a sweep.
It's unfortunate that the only move it gets to really abuse a physical Sheer Force set is Rock Slide. As it is, you're really hard pressed to find a niche for it, esp. when Crawdaunt does everything it does, but better with secondary STAB (STAB Knock Off even), Dragon Dance, priority Aqua Jet, all on top of the fantastic Adaptability.
I have fond, nostalgic memories from Gen 1's OG Crabhammer user. While it's technically only improved since then (physical CHammer, more boosting, coverage, etc), the meta's improved so much faster than Kingler could keep up with.
Can you build a team to enable a Kingler sweep? Yes, but at that point, why not run a mon that doesn't need half a team to carry it? Still, if your crab addiction cannot be sated with the lesser crustaceans, it isn't Luvdisc levels of bad at least.
You can guarantee at least one boost with smart play, and anything that gets hit and isn't immune/resist is in for a hurting.
