thots:
i absolutely 100% disagree with a diancie drop. i guess you can argue it by pointing out how it doesn't like offensive waters, mega scizor, and defensive ground types, but these things have all been present in the metagame for quite a bit; they didn't just start getting popular out of nowhere. my point is: there hasn't been
too much of a shift in the meta against diancie.
thanks to things like mega sableye and fairies running rampant, we've seen a general rise in usage of the few bulkier fire types. specifically, there's been a rise in bulkier talonflame sets for quite awhile now (not talon itself: it's been popular since x/y). again, this isn't something new either, but it isn't something going away... especially with mega sableye remaining. mega diancie is very capable of handling virtually every talon set with the exception of CB with steel wing, but you don't see CB much nowadays anyways. talonflames carrying wisp can basically neuter some of the things that'd typically check it, causing a few people to just run toxic > stone edge on their chomps and lando-ts. diancie doesn't have to worry about that thanks to magic bounce... something we all already know. on the topic of magic bounce, it also makes mega diancie one of the best mega sableye checks; in a matchup like azumarill v. mega sableye, you can't just switch azumarill in due to the (rather high) chance that the opposing sableye will fire off a wisp, thus screwing over your azumarill for the remainder of the game. like with talon, diancie doesn't need to worry about that.
oh also,
Diancie: Probably seems odd to some but Diancie seems out of place in A+. Don't really know exactly how to describe it, but Diancie doesn't seem to merit the same level of threat control and prep that other A+ threats, such as Mega Scizor, Bisharp, and Thundurus, necessitate. It also seems incredibly prediction reliant when breaking cores, as when it doesn't predict correctly, it doesn't have enough raw power to make up for that unlike some similarly ranked threats. Coverage is great in terms of neutral coverage, but it falls short in terms of SE coverage and that doesn't help matters much either. There's a lot of ways offense can deal with it, from SE priority (Azu and Scizor), to weather (Sand in particular), or generally outspeeding it. Balance and stall aren't particularly threatened by it either as they can generally outbulk it. It seems underwelming in most situations and a drop to A would reflect this.
having base 160 atk and spatk, base 110 speed, solid moves like diamond storm and moonblast make mega diancie a prime example of "raw" power; switching into this thing is a pain, especially for offensive builds.
when i first saw this one, i started giving
bludz a hard time because i've kinda grown used to people saying "altaria is a huge threat" since the earlier ORAS days. however, mega altaria really isn't all it's made out to be. on paper, it does a good job checking things like zard-x, keldeo, speedy electrics, etc., it can be a solid offensive threat thanks to dragon dance, and it can provide support for more offensive builds with heal bell. however, maximizing its utility for offensive teams means you miss out on its offensive capabilities. if you want to properly check all the stuff i listed above and then some (running roost to help) while also running heal bell, you're stuck with either the specially offensive support set or a more defensive dragon dance set: both of which fall flat in the coverage department. you have to set up quite a bit to outspeed and actually do damage to anything with a more defensive dragon dance set, and the specially offensive support set is pretty underwhelming offensively (in spatk and speed).
like i said before, on paper mega altaria checks a lot, but in reality: it has one of the worst pre-megas in the tier. it can't really reliably switch into any of the stuff you want to check with it, it's pretty frail, and it's weak to rocks. you can argue that both charizards and diancie are shit pre-mega, for example, but all of these provide so much more after mega evolving, making the required team support (talking about zards here not diancie), much more worth it.
i talked to
Celticpride about this on ~5 minutes ago, and i had a discussion about this with someone i forget awhile back, but mega manectric isn't good because it's a "dominant threat", avoiding the whole grammar / language aspect of this that
Reymedy already covered (which btw, is important... terminology like this means a lot lol), mega manectric isn't a good pokemon because it's super powerful and threatening or whatever. it's good because of the utility / support (for lack of a better word here) it can provide for offensive builds. i won't get into what it does for other playstyles & archetypes because i don't have much experience with mega manec there, but anyways, on offense, it fills this all in 1 slot of being able to handle thundurus, tornadus, birds (talon), etc., it puts offensive pressure on fat things that aren't ground types (specifically bulky waters) with volt switch, and it provides a
secondary check to mega scizor, weavile, and speedy electrics (scizor due to intimidate + fire, weavile due to intimidate + speed, speedy electrics due to just resisting them lol).
however, neither that stuff nor any major changes in the meta really call for a manectric rise. electric types in general are threatening, but things like
cm / specs raikou & thundurus are more
threatening than manec. also, in my experience, i'm seeing more people actually pack electric check
s on their teams; this rise might've made sense a little while ago, but it doesn't now imo :x
edit: fixed demon sprites