Is Dragon Pulse a good idea on Lucario?

Blastotle

First of all, hi everyone, I'm new here and hope to stay for a while.

About Lucario, I mostly want to use it to surprise my cousin on wifi, using a variation of the "bulkydancer" set from the anaylses forum (Swords Dance, Extremespeed, Close Combat, Crunch). I was thinking of swapping out Crunch for Dragon Pulse because A) dragon hits ghosts too and B) I'm more worried about dragons than ghosts, specifically my cousin's Dragonite. Not to mention that Dragon Pulse isn't affected by Salamence's Intimidate.

On the other hand this makes picking natures and EV spreads more complicated. Maybe +SpAtk nature to boost Dragon Pulse, with Def and HP EVs to set up Swords Dance for the other moves? Or am I just thinking about this all wrong?

Any input would be appreciated.
 
Stone Edge/Rock Slide can be used to handle Salamence (or in your case, Dragonite, though it takes less damage than Salamence would), so you don't have to use a mixed set. Dragon Pulse wouldn't do much more than Rock Slide would do; both are 2x effective, while Rock Slide is coming off of your 252Atk EVs, and has a chance of flinching it. Also, Dragonite has higher SpDef than Def, so just stick with Rock Slide/Stone Edge for hurting it, unless you want to breed for Hidden Power Ice.

If you do go with Dragon Pulse (or preferably Hidden Power Ice, though that won't even kill Dragonite), I'd go with a Naughty nature rather than a +SpAtk one. This lets Swords Dance give you good enough Atk.

I wouldn't use a mixed set with the Bulky Lucario though, since you won't be bulky if you're using mixed attacking EVs.
 
Lucario already hits Flygon and Garchomp fairly hard with its STAB Fighting moves, so it's really Salamence and Dragonite you need to worry about. Rock Slide will hit both of them with about the same power thanks to Intimidate, but Rock Slide will do a ton more to Ghosts like Dusknoir and especially Gengar. You never want to use Dragon Pulse as your lone Special Attack if doesn't have STAB, and you never want to use non-STAB Dragon Pulse if Hidden Power Ice is an option (except possibly in ubers).
 
Dragon Pulse is only worth it if you make a Special Sweeping Lucario, otherwise you can pack Stone Edge to hit the Flying Dragons, and Close Combat hits the others plenty hard enough.
 
Wow, for some reason I had completely forgotten Rock Slide and Stone Edge as I wrote this.

That does indeed sound like a better option, but the EVs for this set still confuse me a bit. Should I max Attack, or boost defenses because Attack gets the Swords Dance boost anyway? And is Speed not an issue with Lucario?
 
I don't know about the usefulness of Hidden Power Ice. Dragon Pulse OHKOs all OU dragons already (with Specs of course) and HP Ice is basically an invitation for Weavile to come in. Dragon Pulse also hits random mispredicted pokemon neutral harder than HP Ice.
 
This isn't a specs set, though. Also, I'm more likely to bring in a Ghost, Celebi, or a Flier in on Lucario than a Swampert, and even if they do bring in Swampert, it's not that much different. But mostly because this isn't a specs set. :)
 
Blastotle said:
Wow, for some reason I had completely forgotten Rock Slide and Stone Edge as I wrote this.

That does indeed sound like a better option, but the EVs for this set still confuse me a bit. Should I max Attack, or boost defenses because Attack gets the Swords Dance boost anyway? And is Speed not an issue with Lucario?
Click to expand...

If you're using Leftovers, 28HP/252ATK/230SPD. Lucario can outspeed all Adamant Heracross and get to the next Leftovers bracket, and have a little left over to outspeed "things that outspeed Heracross". If you're not using Leftovers, just do 6HP/252ATK/252SPD. Lucario's defenses should be built on its good typing - ideally you just want to kill everything in your way before it kills you, because there isn't much that "a few extra EVs in defense" will help against.
 
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