>>19553155>>19553176>>19553236Still, it's a valid concern. I won't devolve the argument into 'Hurr Ice Shard', but consider the following:
Dragon only adds decent neutral coverage while still offering nothing against Steels; hitting Bugs/Poison/Flying for neutral STAB isn't good when you should be using a SE coverage anyways. Defensively, it turns Fire neutral (useful), 4x resists Grass/Water/Elec (not as useful since it already resisted), while adding a 4x Ice weak (bad) and a 2x Dragon weak (bad), while doing nothing for Grass's other weaknesses. If you've ever run Blaze Black/Volt White, you can experience how bad that typing is by running non-Contrary Serperior.
But competitively, the worst thing about Grass/Dragon on Sceptile is how much it gimps its ability Lightning Rod.
The most common users of Electric moves are mons with STAB, things like Thundurus I/T, Jolteon, Magnezone, M-Manectric, Zapdos, etc, with non-STAB users like Starmie being in the minority.
Most of the STAB users predominantly run HP Ice (except Magnezone, which tends to run Fire for killing Steels on trap builds).
If it were mono-Grass, M-Sceptile could counter many of these threats by either absorbing their Electric move and KOing back, or taking the predicted HP Ice and outspeeding back.
Because it is now Grass/Dragon, it's no longer a guaranteed safe switch in, since HP Ice will do significant damage or KO on the off chance you predict wrong.
It can't even gain STAB Draco Meteor, since the move tutors only teach it to Dragon type mons (ex. M-Ampharos can't learn DM), so the only thing it gains is STAB on Dragon Pulse (no relevant coverage) and Dragon Claw/Outrage on physical sets, which lost a lot of power since it loses Unburden when transforming.
Being forced to switch out on mons you once were able to take on assuming you were at good health is never a good thing.
I look forward to M-Sceptile, but you can't delude yourself into thinking that Grass/Dragon only means good things.
