Gen 6 Diancie

[shrang]

Approved by Sweep

The old Diancie/Hoopa/Volcanion thread was kind of old, so we'll start afresh with Diancie.

Diancie:

Type: Rock / Fairy
Stats: 50 HP / 100 Atk / 150 Def / 100 SpA / 150 SpD / 50 Spe
Ability: Clear Body

Mega Diancie:

Type: Rock / Fairy
Stats: 50 HP / 160 Atk / 110 Def / 160 SpA / 110 SpD / 110 Spe
Ability: Magic Bounce


Overview:
We had a quick preview into Diancie's abilities late in XY and while it wasn't a great Pokemon, it had some things going for it. It got a Mega evolution in ORAS, and pretty much the same things can still be said for it. Its base form is bulky and can check Ho-oh and Yveltal quite well, while its Mega evolution makes it more of an offensive support mon. Base form hasn't really lost much of its niche, although it's pretty major Primal Groudon bait. Mega Diancie is kind of weird. On paper it looks pretty cool, it's got great stats, a usable typing and useful ability, but the turn that it uses to Mega evolve makes it REALLY vulnerable. It kind of gets the worst of both worlds, not only do you lose a crapload of your bulk, but you're still slow. If you can get Diancie to Mega evolve safely, though, it does its job relatively well.

Potentially usable or good moves:
- Tackle
- Sharpen
- Reflect
- Stealth Rock
- Ancient Power
- Moonblast
- Diamond Storm (it gets Stone Edge too but no reason to use it whatsoever)
- Light Screen
- Safeguard
- Psyshock
- Calm Mind
- Toxic
- Hidden Power
- Protect
- Psychic
- Double Team
- Rest
- Explosion
- Rock Polish
- Trick Room
- Earth Power
- Heal Bell
- Gravity


Potential sets:

Support (non-Mega)

name: Support
move 1: Stealth rock
move 2: Toxic / Heal Bell / Moonblast
move 3: Protect / Moonblast
move 4: Diamond Storm
ability: Clear Body
items: Leftovers
evs: 248 HP / 8 Atk / 252 Def
nature: Impish / Relaxed

Typical support set from XY re-used in ORAS. Ho-oh isn't as common now, but you still check Yveltal well, as well other Flyers like Mega Salamence (+1 EQ does 63.37% - 74.59%, while you can do 67.67% - 80.36% back with Moonblast) and EQ-less Rayquaza.

Support (Mega)

name: Support (Mega)
move 1: Stealth rock / Heal Bell
move 2: Toxic / Moonblast / Heal Bell
move 3: Protect
move 4: Diamond Storm
ability: Clear Body -> Magic Bounce
items: Diancite
evs: 248 HP / 8 Atk / 252 Spe
nature: Jolly / Hasty

In terms of defensive utility, this set is worse than non-Mega in lots of ways (50/110/110 is actually a lot frailer than it looks), but the main catch is obviously Magic Bounce. Protect is quite crucial on this set since you'd need it against most of the stronger SR users like Primal Groudon.

Trick Room

name: Trick Room
Move 1: Trick Room
Move 2: Stealth Rock
Move 3: Diamond Storm
Move 4: Explosion
ability: Clear Body
Items: Life Orb
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 8 Def
IVs: 0 Spe
Nature: Brave

Diancie has the niche of being Trick Room's best check to offensive Yveltal. You can easily force Yveltal out, set up Trick Room, either set up SR or attack. LO-boosted Explosion is very strong, and Diamond Storm is a great spamming move. Just a note, there used to be Normal Gem as the preferred item, but I'm not really sure why that was the case since LO boosts Explosion by the same amount as Normal Gem anyway?

Attacker

name: Attacker
Move 1: Moonblast
Move 2: Earth Power
Move 3: Diamond Storm
Move 4: Protect / Calm Mind / Heal Bell / Rock Polish
ability: Clear Body -> Magic Bounce
Items: Diancite
EVs: 4 Atk / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Nature: Hasty / Naive

Mega Diancie is a pretty strong attacker, and with the addition of Earth Power to its movepool, it now has some pretty good coverage going for it. Earth Power 2HKOs even SpD Primal Don with Stealth Rock (cleanly 2HKOs non SpD variants). Moonblast is your main attack, while Diamond Storm is pretty much there to kill Ho-oh and also 2HKOes Blissey. Protect lets you Mega evolve safely, but Calm Mind makes you a pretty formidable booster, especially against slower teams that rely on status and phazing, since Magic Bounce negates that. +1 Earth Power OHKOs 248/0 Primal Groudons after SR. Heal Bell lets you be useful while you're attacking, and Rock Polish is... meh. Use it if you fancy it.

 

[SparksBlade]

why does non-mega support have Protect? It's kind of situational, since getting 6% back shouldn't be helpful in most cases. Also, Normal Gem needs a slash imo cos of the reasons you yourself said on irc, and they aren't that situational.

 

[mertyville]

why does non-mega support have Protect? It's kind of situational, since getting 6% back shouldn't be helpful in most cases. Also, Normal Gem needs a slash imo cos of the reasons you yourself said on irc, and they aren't that situational.

Because of Toxic and scouting in addition to Leftovers recovery.

 

[SuperWumbology]

Heal Bell pls

 

[shrang]

Forgot about Heal Bell, thanks for reminding me. I added it to the support sets.

Also, I forgot to add in a movepool section, so I've also done that

 

[Toshhy]

the problem with using diance as a magic bouncer is that alot of the SR setter (e.g. dialga, primal groudon, jirachi) threaten to ohko it, hence it cannot safely come in to bounce back hazard. I would use Mega Sabaleye instead for this role.

 

[SparksBlade]

well it does beat deo-s and status users, and what it does is different from sableye, magic bounce is the only common thing

 

[Fireburn]

I've been playing a bit with offensive Mega Diancie and it's pretty sweet imo. It's like LO Xerneas except its faster, has Magic Bounce, and doesn't care about Ho-Oh or Klefki all that much. Diamond Storm 2HKOes Blissey with no investment in Attack necessary if you can predict the switch (assuming Naive/Hasty nature). With Calm Mind it can cut through stall pretty easily once Primal Kyogre/Groudon are weakened some, and Magic Bounce lets it sit in front of common offense leads like Deoxys-S, Scolipede, Shuckle, and Darkrai and tell them all to go die. If CM doesn't strike your fancy then Protect/SR/Heal Bell/Rock Polish are all good options to throw in that 4th slot, all you really need is STABs + Earth Power for this thing to do some work.

It also pairs naturally well with Ho-Oh who abuses Mega Diancie's issues with Grass-types + Steels that can handle Earth Power. Mega Diancie's Magic Bounce support is obviously extremely useful for Ho-Oh. It reminds me a bit of Espeon in BW "Magic Sun" teams, trading Focus Sash for actually being a good Pokemon.

 

[willthenoob]

I've been playing a bit with offensive Mega Diancie and it's pretty sweet imo. It's like LO Xerneas except its faster, has Magic Bounce, and doesn't care about Ho-Oh or Klefki all that much. Diamond Storm 2HKOes Blissey with no investment in Attack necessary if you can predict the switch (assuming Naive/Hasty nature). With Calm Mind it can cut through stall pretty easily once Primal Kyogre/Groudon are weakened some, and Magic Bounce lets it sit in front of common offense leads like Deoxys-S, Scolipede, Shuckle, and Darkrai and tell th them all to go die. If CM doesn't strike your fancy then Protect/SR/Heal Bell/Rock Polish are all good options to throw in that 4th slot, all you really need is STABs + Earth Power for this thing to do some work.

It also pairs naturally well with Ho-Oh who abuses Mega Diancie's issues with Grass-types + Steels that can handle Earth Power. Mega Diancie's Magic Bounce support is obviously extremely useful for Ho-Oh. It reminds me a bit of Espeon in BW "Magic Sun" teams, trading Focus Sash for actually being a good Pokemon.

Definitely agree on how offensive Mega Diancie is pretty sweet. Just wondering if there is a more efficient spread for it though (i.e. moving some offense into bulk)

 

[XXBlackOutLaw]

I really like the support set :^)

 

[Firebird Maniac]

Is running max speed on offensive sets really necessary? Most Arceus forms nowadays run max speed so Diancie never catches them. Adamant Mega Salamence is a thing, but neither is switching into each other. Same goes with the Latis as Diancie is too frail to take Psyshock. Ho-Oh nowadays generally run enough speed to outspeed max speed Diancie pre Mevo as well. Diancie is not staying in on a Mega Metagross either for fear of Bullet Punch. You lose the speed tie on Mega Gengar pre Mevo so it can always Destiny Bond first, and that's annoying I guess, but the best you can do is a 50-50 speed tie, and is this really worth running max speed? I mean, Diancie really appreciates HP investment, as its base HP is so low but it has pretty good defenses.

I personally think running enough bulk to survive 2HKO from Darkrai's Sludge Bomb is worthwhile. You need 184 EVs in HP and a non hindering nature to do this. If running Modest, only 100 EVs are needed in Sp. Atk to reach 419, the number reached by Timid 252 EVs, so that leaves you with 224 EVs. Mega Diancie only needs 176 EVs to outspeed neutral natured base 100s, which means 48 EVs that can go wherever. It needs 204 EVs to outspeed positive natured base 90s, so Modest Diancie is still perfectly capable of hitting this benchmark as well.

And as far as I know, it's rarer these days to see Pokemon in the base 90 to 99 speed tier run a speed boosting nature so that helps too.

 

[Minority]

It was completely unnecessary to bump this thread. The spreads in this OP were just speculation (it even says Potential Spreads) and are not the standard spreads, those can be found in the analysis. The discussion on the support Mega Diancie spread happened quite a while ago and that can also be seen in the analysis.