Pokkén Fighter Guide: Lucario

Hi all! This is a discussion thread whose contents, should it prove sufficient, will be used to shape a PokéCommunity Daily article! This article will give a short guide on how to use one of the fighters (in this case for the first article, it's Lucario).

Discuss its playstyle, any useful combos, which support sets suit it, and what stats it would find more useful to be levelled up first! You can also share your opinions on using - or fighting - Lucario within the game. For more information on the Daily article series planned or to give feedback to it, check this thread.

I'ma go out on a limb and say that Lucario is basically a mid-range, anti-ground zoner that gets the most out the player's ability to space and play footsies (I mean, that's kind of important for the whole cast, but to very different degrees and Lucario very much needs it more than some others). It's filled with disjoints and most of its field phase moves are good for controlling space (especially side Y, that shit is massive), and in duel phase Bone Rush and down Y are great. Its hand to hand combat is certainly functional but not nearly as good as say Blaziken's or something. It's fine at all ranges but prefers mid-range really. It has some level of anti-airs and aerial combat but this is largely one of its weaker points imo.

It's not a very combo-oriented character, but that's quite fine really since combos are not nearly as important in Pokken as in some other fighting games. Lucario kind of makes me think of Smash 4 Marth, though there's probably another fighting game character that makes for a better comparison. For support 'mons Rotom/Togekiss seems good to me since Rotom discourages the opponent from taking to the air and forces them to deal with Lucario's strong ground game, while Togekiss patches up its so-so movement speed (in field phase anyway).

Not like this is meant to be an entire guide by itself, and I very well could be wrong about some or all of this; I have not played Lucario as much as I've played Garchomp (Though I've played Lucario much more than the non-Garchomp Pokemon). Just figured I'd jot some of my thoughts down and see if anyone else feels like saying anything now.