Electrike
Role: pivot, wallbreaker.
Ability: Static/Lightning Rod/Minus Base stat total: 475
Assessment of Electrike:
It seemed to be the skinniest dog of the lot. Officer Jenny in Hoenn really needed to feed it better.
As a fast, pure Electric-type attacker, regular Manectric unsurprisingly languished in NU. Looking only at its base stats and abilities, Manectric was essentially a weaker Jolteon. For a fast special attacker, both its Speed and Special Attack fell short of Jolteon's, while their other stats were much the same. Both also had an ability granting an Electric immunity, leaving Manectric in an awkward position. Even with its distinctive movepool, it had practically faded into obscurity before getting a Mega Evolution.
Base 105 Speed and Special Attack looked decent, but fast Electric-types were everywhere, and Electric was a typically specially offensive type. Electric-types with high Special Attack were a dime a dozen, and there were plenty of Electric-type Legendary Pokémon too. With that kind of statistical competition, there was little reason in higher tiers to pass over Thundurus, Tapu Koko, Zapdos, Raikou, or even Heliolisk and Jolteon for regular Manectric-thank goodness it had a Mega Evolution. Lightning Rod was naturally the ability of choice. Standard Choice Scarf Manectric could pose a certain threat after activating Lightning Rod, and having Lightning Rod on a fast Electric-type did give it something distinctive... (Zebstrika: ???)
Manectric actually had few viable moves to choose from, but it did have Flamethrower/Overheat and Switcheroo, which were rare in the Electric-type family. An Electric-type that could breathe fire did not have to fear common Electric-type answers such as Ferrothorn, Amoonguss, Excadrill, and Shedinja switching in to wall it. Switcheroo naturally made a Choice set more flexible while directly threatening bulky walls it struggled to break, such as Chansey and Blissey or Quagsire.