Lucario discussion

Lucario is often an underrated sweeper in the Ubers tier, often being replaced for Rayquaza or Groudon. However, Lucario's typing is excellent, only taking 3% from stealth rock, and having access to STAB Close combat is definitely a plus. Lucario also resists the three main stabs of Ubers: ghost, dark, and dragon, which despite his frail his defenses of 70/70/70, can still set-up and sweep with the aid of Wobbuffet. His other abilities include a priority move: extreme speed, which helps mitigate lower speed, and hurts after a swords dance.



Lucario@life orb
6hp/252 atk/252 spe Jolly nature (+Spe, -SpA)
-Close combat
-Swords dance
-Crunch
-Extreme speed

Viable moves:
-Aura Sphere
-Close Combat
-Dark Pulse
-Extreme speed
-Ice punch
-Stone edge
-Swords dance


Discuss new sets, and ways to use Lucario!!
 
Resisting dark isn't too much of a big deal. Lucario is rarely seen around Ubers and even with a swords dance I doubt it can deal much damage with Extremespeed. The Instead of using jolly, maybe adamant? Think about it... If Lucario is a lategame sweeper and it's given you've got Wobbuffet to buy you an extra turn, wouldn't Rayquaza just be more fitting? Rayquaza has more speed, much more Attack, and better defenses. So what if Lucario has resistances? It still can't take a hit from Palkia or Dialga or Kyogre and Groudon. Also, if your goal is to sweep midgame, isn't your adjective to kill their guys before they hit you? This means that although having all those resistances is nice, they aren't helping much and should be traded in for the much needed extra power Rayquaza has.
 
First off, why did you list Aura Sphere and Dark Pulse as viable moves for Lucario? A Lucario utilizing special moves will just give you an inferior Mewtwo. Also, Adament is his best nature.

Legends Never Die:
The reason to use Lucario as a late game sweeper is due to its type coverage hitting many Ubers SE while Rayquaza is dependent on brute force and neutrality of Outrage. Though a Rayquaza could OHKO a Giratina with only SR, a feat Lucario can only dream of, it wouldn't like to face Palkia, Dialga, or Groudon either due to being OHKOed by them.
 

Jibaku

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There are notable advantages of using Jolly over Adamant - for one you get to outrun Timid Giratina-O who are starting to show its head up a bit more lately to stop this and Adamant Ray. Secondly, it can outrun Adamant Ray (emergencies, anyone?), as well as revenge Adamant Lucario (helped me a lot here).

I'd like to disagree with Legends Never Die. Lucario's resistances allow it to set up on Palkia's Spacial Rend and kill it off with LO ES (if Palkia's weakened of course) in dire emergencies. In the same vein, choiced Kyogres stuck on Ice Beam can be set up on. Lucario can set up on certain Giratina-Os as well. Quad resist to Dark helps completely annihilate mono-attacking Darkrais as well as Scarfed ones stuck on Dark Pulse, as well as taking absolutely laughable damage from Forretress' Payback (it does kinda lol to Rayquaza as well but the damage could be significant in some cases). Lucario counters Bulk Up Dialga rather nicely too with its Dragon resist.

Perhaps Lucario's main resistance is taking 3.125% from Stealth Rock as opposed to Rayquaza's 25%. This trait allows Lucario to weaken its counters with Close Combat on the first go, and the second time it comes back in it can perform a clean sweep (and by definition, Lucario performs double switches MUCH better than Rayquaza). However, Rayquaza takes 60% damage just by swapping in twice + one Life Orb, and Rayquaza's Dragon Claw is weak compared to Lucario's CC. With only little HP left, Rayquaza can be played around until Life Orb cuts its HP to zero and prevent a clean sweep from occurring. Lucario, on the other hand, would still be at very high health and has a lot of room for errors.

Lucario should be used more - it really is a great sweeper. Maybe even more reliable than Swords Dance Rayquaza, though overall weaker. In the end, it's almost like apples and oranges.
 
Resisting dark isn't too much of a big deal. Lucario is rarely seen around Ubers and even with a swords dance I doubt it can deal much damage with Extremespeed. The Instead of using jolly, maybe adamant? Think about it... If Lucario is a lategame sweeper and it's given you've got Wobbuffet to buy you an extra turn, wouldn't Rayquaza just be more fitting? Rayquaza has more speed, much more Attack, and better defenses. So what if Lucario has resistances? It still can't take a hit from Palkia or Dialga or Kyogre and Groudon. Also, if your goal is to sweep midgame, isn't your adjective to kill their guys before they hit you? This means that although having all those resistances is nice, they aren't helping much and should be traded in for the much needed extra power Rayquaza has.
Lucario's ES takes down offensive Kyogre and Palkia after Stealth Rock and Spikes damage. Most Groudon don't run max speed, the defensive version takes over 70% from a boosted CC and the offensive one riskes a speed tie.
 
I have used Lucario quite a few times and have very rarely found myself wishing I used a Rayquaza instead. Extremespeed still picks off Palkias, Kyogres, and the like just as well as Ray when sufficient entry hazzards are set. Lucario also excels against one of Rays most hated enemys, Lugia (although they are becoming rarer and rarer).
My team often can get Lucario set up with Wobbuffet support, and I usually have my Wobb put up a Safeguard first, making Giratina's main way of stopping Lucario's rampage blocked.
Overall, I feel Luc is just as good as SD Ray.
 
I tried to use SpecsLuke in Ubers. It's been a while when I used it, so I'm not sure if it could work in todays metagame. But it was solid, but don't even think of bringing it up in early stages of game, as it needs almost perfect predictions to make it work. At first looks he may looks inferior to SpecsMewtwo, but he has few good advantages, which makes him worth a shot to try him instead of MewTwo.

a) Probably the most important - it resist Pursuit x4 times. I never considered using MewTwo with Choice Specs and with a really good reason - I don't want to switch in, kill something only to die horribly from Metagrosses or Scizors Pursuit. Ttar also isn't good news.
b) Much better resistances and x4 SR resist. If you play carefully, Lucario may have few good opportiunities to switch in. Just in case you may give him Light Screen support for some dragon attacks - it works.
c) This guy unlike MewTwo (at least non-bulky versions) can switch on SDLuke and Adamant SDQuaza and beat them up, surviving one boosted ExtremeSpeed. I used Timid nature and yeah, it was a good decision. Vacuum Wave takes care of Lucario and HP Ice/Dragon Pulse for Rayquaza. SD Weavile, Darkrai and offensive Dialgas also dislike Vacuum Wave.

He needs good team support, but it's not a bad choice, even for Ubers. It won't hit as hard as Specs Palkia or Dialga, but as a lure works fine.

I also think that Choice Scarf could be quite solid choice. SDQuaza, Darkrai, some Palkias (Dragon Pulse if special-based scarfer), SDWeavile, SDLuke again and few more. I never tested it, but I think it's worth a shot.
 
Garganator, Specs/Scarf Luke sounds intresting, but it really just doesn't pack enough power against the uber metagame.

And other than being a one shot surprise to your opponent and having a slightly stronger AuraSphere, Specs Lucario is greatly outclassed by Specs Dialga who can do everything mentioned.
 

Scofield

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Could someone do/post a sd luke calculation set akin to the one in the analysis for OU (except, obviously for ubers)?

EDIT: Thank you, much appreciated! I would've given it a shot but I wanted someone with more experience in ubers to do it.
 
By Libelldra (all calcs with Adamant Nature):

+2 Close Combat

112 HP/8 Def (Standard Rock Polish) -> 100-119% -> Clean OHKO
252 HP/32 Def (Standard SupportDon) -> 89-105% -> 66% for OHKO with SR Up. One set of spikes + SR gives you clean OHKO.
252 HP/244 Def (The bulkiest Kyogre around) -> 105-124% -> Clean OHKO even without SR.

+2 Crunch

248 HP/248 Def Impish Giratina -> 56-66% -> Clean 2OHKO.
252 HP/52 Def Bold Lugia -> 74-87% -> 92% for OHKO with SR up, so if you don't run Reflect, don't even bother with switching Lugia on it.
252 HP/52 Def Bold Lugia (with Reflect) -> 37-44% -> Still solid 50% for 2OHKO, which is nice.
86 HP Giratina-O -> 95-112% -> 100% OHKO with SR, really solid chance for OHKO even without it
200 HP/46 Def Giratina-O -> 86-101% -> With SR it's really solid chance for OHKO.
28 HP/228 Def Bold Wobbuffet -> 86-101% -> With SR 92% for OHKO. With Spikes and SR it's guarranteed OHKO.

+2 Extremespeed

4 HP Hasty Palkia -> 76-89% -> 15% for OHKo with SR up, 100% with SR and one set of Spikes.
4 HP Darkrai -> 85-100% -> Slim chance for OHKO even without SR, with SR it's almost secured OHKO.
4 HP Mewtwo -> 68-80% -> You can OHKO it only with 3 set of spikes and SR. Still solid damage for something with solid defences like MewTwo.
252 HP/226 Def Mewtwo -> 46-54% -> Physically Bulky MewTwo takes on Lucario with solid comfort.
6 HP Shaymin-S -> 81-96% -> 100% OHKO with SR up.
4 HP Latios -> 88-103% -> 100% OHKO with SR up.
4 HP Kyogre -> 70-83% -> For OHKO you need SR and two set of Spikes. However only Choice Scarf outspeeds you or at best Kyogre speed ties with you if running neutral nature.
Offensive Deoxys-S (rare, but it still exists 0 HP/0 Def) -> 100-117% - OHKO no matter what.
80 HP Manaphy -> 61-72% -> Pretty solid switch, as it OHKOes with Surf with Rain up. Defensive version however is slower and it dies from +2 Close Combat.
32 HP Rayquaza -> 67-79% -> Well, Rayquaza has a solid chance to survive a hit even with SR up and OHKO Lucario back. Without SR it always survives.
 

locopoke

Banned deucer.
You forgot to mention Crunch on the viable moves list yet it's on the moveset you posted. Crunch helps deal w/ Gira-o and shit so it should definetely be there.
 
ive been using a lead with close combat, crunch, extremespeed and magic coat a bit recently. It has trouble with some leads and with pokemon such as rayquaza switching in, but I have other ways of dealing with those. Its effective at taking out deoxys-e leads and also can magic coat a dark void right back on darkrai's face, which is absolutely hilarios. It's also pretty useful late game being able to absorb sleep, finish off weakened sweepers or be a choice item obsorber from a trick user...

and sorry about bumping the oldest thread in the sub forum :)

Jibaku EDIT: Don't worry about it
 

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