All right, this is my final rough draft, I'm ready for some feedback.
How to Battle with Lucario
The Heroic Aura Master returns...
Lucario has been a powerful sweeper since it was introduced in the games Diamond and Pearl. His insane Attack, Sp. Attack, and Speed stats made Lucario a formidable opponent, not one you looked forward to battling. Because of this, Lucario is known as one of the most powerful fighting type
Pokémon to ever exist. Heck Lucario even makes Giratina feels weak and useless.
Memes like this are a bit unprofessional (I'm a huge hypocrite here), consider switching this out.
In Generation 6, Lucario was given a mega evolution, heightening his powers even more, giving small boosts to his Defense and Sp. Attack, and increasing his Attack and Speed by a lot. Because of this power, Lucario was an even more popular choice for competitive
Pokémon in the UU and OU tier. In fact, Mega Lucario was so powerful, that Lucarionite was
banned from the OU tier, and moved up to the Uber tier.
Due to this, I will be ignoring his Mega Evolution for this article, and discussing purely his use in the UU and OU tiers
The purpose of this guide is to show you how to maximize Lucario's potential and turn it into a sweeping machine. (And no I don't mean the robotic vacuum cleaners)
Text here was removed
The Subject
If you're going to include a meme image, put it here, not where it is now
#448 Lucario
Species: Aura
Type: Fighting/Steel
Abilities: Steadfast, Inner Focus, Justified (Hidden)
Weaknesses: Fire 2x / Ground 2x / Fighting 2x
Resistances: Normal 0.5x / Grass 0.5x / Ice 0.5x / Poison 0x / Bug 0.25x / Rock 0.25x / Dragon 0.5x / Dark 0.5x / Steel 0.5x
Evolves From: Riolu (Lvl Up w/
220 Happiness during day)
Height: 1.2m
Weight: 54.0kg
Tier: UU, OU (
Lucarionite: Uber)
Base Stats (Range @ Lvl 50)
Make this Lv100, we are talking about OU, not VGC
HP: 70 (130-167)
Attack: 110 (126-178)
Defense: 70 (82-136)
Special Attack: 115 (132-182)
Special Defense: 70 (82-136)
Speed: 90 (104-156)
Base Stat Total: 525
With mediocre defensive and HP stats, Lucario is obviously built to be a sweeper, boasting high Attack, Sp. Attack, and Speed. The ability Steadfast heightens Lucario's Speed even more when facing opponents with moves like Fake-Out, Bite, and Crunch.
Expand on his other abilities, and explain what Steadfast is and why it is the preferred ability (although you sort of did that already), as I personally run Justified on many Lucario, especially on Dark-weak teams. Also use actual competitive moves as an example, not Bite. Waterfall, Iron Head, and Air Slash are all significantly more common than Bite or Crunch. Also mention that the reason it counters these moves is due to the fact that it counters their inherent chance to flinch.
Rewrite this paragraph to discuss Lucario's movepool. It's excellent defensive typing is great and all, but you just said it has awful defensive stats and HP, so it still gets nuked. I might add a comment on that in the first sentence of the above paragraph tho.
The Sets
Special Sweeper OU/UU
Move 1 - Aura Sphere
Move 2 - Shadow Ball
Move 3 -
Vacuum Wave/Nasty Plot
Run Nasty Plot here for Arceus sake, otherwise it's not a special sweeper.
Move 4 - Dragon Pulse
Item:
Choice Specs/Life Orb
Specs =/= sweeper, keep the set focused.
Ability: Steadfast
Nature: Modest
EVs: 252 Sp. Atk - 4 Sp. Def - 252 Speed
Consider reformatting these sets into Showdown Importable formats.
As a special sweeper, the main goal is to obviously beef up Lucario's Sp. Atk as much as possible.
Choice Specs powers up Sp. Atk by 50%, but restricts you to only one move, which means one you choose your move, you're stuck with it. The Modest nature boosts Sp. Atk while lowering Atk, and the EVs are set to make Lucario faster as well as powering up it's Sp. Atk.
The moves shown give you a variety of options for multiple situations you might encounter. Aura Sphere is a great STAB move, with perfect accuracy, giving you an advantage over steel, rock, normal, and dark types, while Shadow Ball gives you its best attack against the Ghost- and Psychic-types which may try to switch into expected Fighting-type attacks. Dragon Pulse is a great counterpart to Aura Sphere, and Vacuum Wave gives you a move to use against much more frail
Pokémon, trying to sweep at low health. The alternative to the Choice Specs is to switch that item with a Life Orb, and switch Vacuum Wave with Nasty Plot, to further increase Lucario's Sp. Attack, just in a different way.
Again, kill Vacuum Wave
Physical Sweeper OU/UU
Move 1 -
Bone Rush/Earthquake
If you are going to put a really uncommon move on a set, at least explain why.
Move 2 - Close Combat
Move 3 - Swords Dance
Move 4 - Shadow Claw
?
Item: Life Orb
Ability: Steadfast
Nature: Adamant
EVs: 252 Attack - 252 Speed - 4 Defense
Life Orb will start off the battle in a bipolar fashion
I don't think that word means what you think it means., both increasing the damage done by Lucario's attacks by 30% and taking 10% of Lucario's HP every turn. If possible, it's good to get a couple of Swords Dances in the beginning to boost attack even more. Steadfast will be a good counter to moves like Fake-out, Bite, and Crunch.
See above
Lucario has only 3 weaknesses: Fighting, Fire, and Ground.
Bone Rush or Earthquake will counter any Fighting and Fire types that could potentially be a threat, while Shadow Claw gives you a move to use against Ghost types, in which case Fighting type moves have no effect
Shadow Claw is again a very uncommon move, so you need to sell me on why I should use it. Close Combat is a powerful STAB, and when combined with Lucario's impressive Attack stat, the Life Orb, and the Swords Dances, gives the opponent absolute hell.
I might include some calcs here
To Use or Not to Use...
Pros
- Amazing Offensive and Speed Stats
- 8 Resistances including Dragon and Dark
- 1 Immunity
- Ability increases Speed upon flinching
- Has Earthquake
/Bone Rush to counter 2 out of 3 weaknesses
- Blows through threats through OU and UU
[*]Has Mega Evolution (Useful in Uber)
Cons
- Weak to common Fire, Fighting and Ground attacks, all of which are quite common in the current meta.
- Vulnerable to other sweepers (common among Fire and Fighting types)
- No recovery aside from leftovers Might have wanted to mention that a bit earlier...
- Mediocre Defensive stats
- Bad HP stats
Points Of Comparison
Sweepers: Zoroark, Infernape, Metagross, Gengar, Heatran (With the right moves)
These are in no way the most common "sweepers" in OU or UU right now. Replace based on usage stats. Also explain why Lucario should be used in place of one of these Pokémon, which is the whole point of the article.
Fighting Threats: Blaziken, Infernape (Sweeper), Machamp, Breloom, Hawlucha, Medicham (Has good typing: Psychic/Fighting)
Blaziken is Uber and therefore irrelevant, and again, mention why Luke is better than these Pokémon.
Speed Competitions: Deoxys (Speed), Ninjask, Electrode, Jolteon, Crobat, Shaymin (Sky)
Just kill this list please
Other Dogs: (Yes Lucario is a dog/wolf
It's a jackal) Houndoom, Manectric, Arcanine
Teammates
Yes, although sweepers are usually solo
Pokémon, teammates with status abilities can really come in handy during double or triple battles. Lucario is no exception, with moves like Spikes, Stealth Rock and Toxic, Lucario and
its partner would be close to unstoppable.
Weird wording please fix.
Bronzong
Bronzong has access to moves like Toxic, Stealth Rock, Confuse Ray and Heal Block, which when combined with Lucario's sweeping ability, can form a deadly team.
Zoroark
I know what you're thinking, a sweeper combined with a sweeper, that's crazy! But actually, it's makes sense. With the ability to learn Nasty Plot, and a base Sp. Attack stat of 120, Zoroark poses a threat to Pokémon with weak Sp. Defense, while Lucario has access to Swords Dance, and a base Attack stat of 110, it poses a threat to Pokémon with weak Defense. Together, they can combat both types of defensive walls at the same time during double battles. (Another good strategy is to employ toxic and spikes then switch to the sweepers) Yeaaaaah... No.
Add a few more please
Conclusion
Lucario is a very useful and powerful sweeper to have on your team, with great offensive stats, and not horrible defensive ones
This is a direct contradiction to something you said earlier, 8 resistances and an immunity. Just remember not to rely on Lucario to take many hits, that's what
its speed
is for, to attack first. With a teammate, Lucario is given extra advantages either defensive, offensive, or status related.
Reword this entire paragraph please.
That's all for this edition of "How to Battle with [
Pokémon]". Be sure to leave comments, as this is my first article, and feedback is encouraged! For direct comments or feedback,
click the conveniently placed button below to go to the comment thread. Until then, stay fresh
PokéCommunity.