Parental Bond Cleaner

Parental Bond Diancie can be incredibly strong under the right circumstances. It works sans hazards because of Parental Bond's ability to break sashes. The reason to use it over say, MMY or MGar is its ability to use Sunsteel/Moongeist/Fairy extremely effectively which can clean out a lot of frail offensive mons with sashes, offensive mons weak to the coverage or a lot of classical defensive mons. However, it does sometimes miss crucial KO's which we will see later.

-cheeseburger15 (original set by PToast)

Generally speaking you will be using this Diancie set on exclusively offense as it sells a bit too much momentum to use on Hyper Offense while lacking the power to act as one of the sole offensive mons on Balance. Diancie is relatively easy to Improof as you can sac your own Diancie against the Imposter and switch to one of the checks which will be mentioned later. While it may sound stupid, you also have to be careful not to forget it has Parental Bond and try Improof with sashes. It won't work and you will look very foolish in matches.

The gameplan for Diancie is relatively simple but as always, easier said than done. Just clean out its walls (preferably innards too), find a safe turn to Smash then clean everything out. This means that it likes having any teammates than can reliably nuke its walls (i.e HP Photon MMX) or make innards cry (i.e anything with MGuard). Apart from that it doesn't really need any other support.

Relevant Calcs +2 252 SpA Parental Bond Diancie-Mega Moongeist Beam (100 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252 SpD Mewtwo-Mega-X: 502-592 (120.6 - 142.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO

+2 252 SpA Parental Bond Diancie-Mega Moongeist Beam (100 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252 SpD Mewtwo-Mega-Y: 442-522 (106.2 - 125.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO

+2 252 SpA Parental Bond Diancie-Mega Moonblast (95 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252 SpD Zygarde-Complete: 740-872 (116.3 - 137.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO

+2 252 SpA Parental Bond Diancie-Mega Moonblast (95 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252 SpD Zygarde-Complete: 740-872 (116.3 - 137.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO

There are a few mons that Diancie hates seeing on preview. This is because it despite all its strengths, at the end of the day it is slightly lacking in power. The main threats are quite common on stall. Thus, generally speaking Diancie has a horrendous matchup into stall (especially modern stall that likes to carry Innards). The main threats to Diancie are Melo, POgre and Ho-oh because not only do they live a hit from Diancie they love to carry Spectral Thief which will ruin your day if you've Smashed prior.

Other things to watch out for are generally bulky Wonder Guards that aren't weak to your moves (Celesteela, Muk-Alola, Slaking etc.) as they all have the capability to live a hit and potentially Will-O-Wisp, Spectral Thief or something else that Diancie will not appreciate.

Diancie is also vulnerable to priority. While not weak to the most common priority (Extreme Speed) it still can die to Gigas and Slaking FakeSpeed after potential hazard chip. Finally, while it is a bit niche it is worth noting that Diancie is slower than Scarf Deoxys and can be OHKO'd after hazards or priority break sash.

Relevant Calcs +2 252 Atk Parental Bond Diancie-Mega Sunsteel Strike (100 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252 Def Meloetta: 297-350 (73.5 - 86.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

+2 252 SpA Parental Bond Diancie-Mega Moongeist Beam (100 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Celesteela: 226-267 (56.7 - 67%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

+2 252 SpA Parental Bond Diancie-Mega Moongeist Beam (100 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Kyogre-Primal: 164-194 (40.5 - 48%) -- guaranteed 3HKO

+2 252 SpA Parental Bond Diancie-Mega Moongeist Beam (100 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Ho-Oh: 169-199 (40.6 - 47.8%) -- guaranteed 3HKO

+2 252 Atk Parental Bond Diancie-Mega Sunsteel Strike (100 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252 Def Muk-Alola: 301-355 (72.7 - 85.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

252+ Atk Huge Power Slaking Extreme Speed (80 BP) vs. -1 252 HP / 252 Def Diancie-Mega: 186-219 (61.1 - 72%) -- guaranteed 2HKO