He has good Attack and decent type coverage, so Luxray is a fairly obvious Choice Bander. Spark is your main attack, and is chosen over Thunder Fang for the slightly better accuracy and higher paralysis rate—Luxray is a little too slow to take full advantage of the occasional flinch anyways. Ice Fang covers Ground and Grass-types, while Crunch helps out against the likes of Solrock and Rotom. Return is actually the most powerful physical attack Luxray has—it 2HKOs most Lanturn and Camerupt, and takes around 38% health off Quagsire. Thunder stops Aggron from walling you, since Spark barely scratches him. Quick Attack is mostly for Reversal/Flail users, but it can be useful for picking off other faster, weakened enemies. A Rivalry boost gives him a little extra kick, but it can backfire if you end up facing the opposite gender. However, since Choice Band gives you a 50% boost and Rivalry only drops your power by 25%, you can still hit pretty hard. Intimidate is the safer option, and is always a useful ability—particularly if you lead with Luxray.
He's a little too slow to be truly effective with this, so you'll want to try and paralyze a few things with Spark first (or pass him an Agility/Rock Polish). Life Orb gives him some more power and compensates for the power drop that can occur with Rivalry.
This makes more use of Luxray's decent Special Attack stat and much more powerful STAB options. Thunderbolt vs. Discharge is essentially power vs. paralysis, so choose which you prefer. Hidden Power Grass takes care of the likes of Gastrodon, Golem, Quagsire, and other assorted Ground-types—Hidden Power Ice hits any Grass-types or Dragons you encounter. Crunch hits common special walls, like Grumpig and Hypno, who would otherwise wall this set. If you chose Hidden Power Ice in the second slot, then Toxic will help to wear down the likes of Quagsire and Lanturn. Light Screen is a good alternative to give your team some protection from special attacks for a few turns. Other OptionsNatural Gift and a Liechi Berry gives him a 80 BP Grass attack for Quagsire and Lanturn, while a Salac Berry provides an 80 BP Fighting attack for hitting Aggron. Fire Fang is no real use unless you're crazy enough to use Luxray in OU, where it will hit Scizor and Forretress. Choice Scarf can be used in place of Choice Band to help compensate for Luxray's rather average Speed. Attract can work to some extent with Rivalry, so you can screw with enemies of the opposite gender. Thunder Wave isn't much help since Ground types, Lanturn and generally slow Pokémon are the usual switch-ins when Luxray appears. EVsMax Attack and Speed, Choice Band and Howl sets. Jolly doesn't really help to outspeed anything significant, so you're better off with the extra power of Adamant. Modest and Max Special Attack for the Mixed Attacker. 204 HP obtains maximum Leftovers recovery, and the remaining can go in Attack to power up Crunch a little. OpinionSTAB on Electric attacks, base 120 Attack, Rivalry, Intimidate... Sounds good so far. Sadly, the good news ends there. Luxray is let down by his poor Speed and the low base power of his physical attacks. UU Electivire? Physical Manectric? Unfortunately for Luxray he can't match either in the sweeping department. Still, he is a decent enough Pokémon in UU and worth considering for a team slot. CountersAggron beats him unless Luxray has Thunderbolt or Thunder. Bastiodon and Probopass also work and both have high Special Defense to take Thunderbolts.
Lanturn is a fairly good switch in thanks to its Electric/Ice resistances. Camerupt is immune to Electric and neutral to Ice, so he also fares quite well. Quagsire and Gastrodon are great counters if Luxray is not packing Hidden Power Grass. |
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