Pokémon Lucario

[lordkira]

I've found, as said before, special mega Lucario to be the more consistent set (less counters, yolo to burns and intimidate).
That was until recently. I've been finding to see a huge increase in the usage of special mega lucario and people have been, imho, over preparing for it. Thus, I've gone back to the physical mega lucario set. And it's ripping down teams a lot better than before.

 

[Swagata]

I've used it and also faced it.I know how deadly it can be.
Mega Lucario is a one of the best MEvolution, with a good variation of moves and supporting team mates, it can outshine many pokemon and pull of sweeps.

 

[Always!]

I have used both versions of Mega Lucario, and honestly, use this thing behind screens, to help it set-up even further, because It can beat some of its checks/counters, such as Talonflame (who dies to a 4+ ESpeed), which can greatly help its sweep.

 

[JustLetMePlay]

Personally, I'm a big fan of Physical Lucario without a boosting move i.e. wallbreaker/lategame cleaner Lucario. Setting up an SD with Lucario is a rare privilege against a skilled player and often times, it's not even needed since any time I've sent Lucario in, it's basically to spam CC so that something dies or is heavily damaged. I'd rather just have the additional coverage afforded by the extra moveslot so I can slot one past another potential counter.

Lucario @ Lucarionite
Ability: Inner Focus
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SDef / 252 Spd
Jolly Nature
- Crunch/Zen Headbutt
- Bullet Punch/Extremespeed
- Close Combat
- Ice Punch

Zen Headbutt is a bit niche, I'll admit, and it's really just there if you can handle Aegislash/Jellicent fine and like me, you struggle with breaking through Mega-Venusaur since:

252 Atk Mega Lucario Zen Headbutt vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Mega Venusaur: 158-188 (43.4 - 51.6%) -- 98.8% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock

Btw, seriously, stop running Mega-Venusaur guys.

 

[pokemick17]

ok lets just put it into simple words. USE HIGH JUMP KICK. HJK got boosted in acc form 90 to 95. plus it dont lower stats like close combat. and it has a 130 base power. close combat only has 120. pair it with something like bullet punch or flash cannon and ur set. lucario also has an impressive 140 attack and 145 sp attack in mega. use it with adapability and u got a massive tank.

 

[Alejandro36]

The problem is when your oponent switches a ghost into your HJK and you end up killing yourself

 

[ShedZero]

ok lets just put it into simple words. USE HIGH JUMP KICK. HJK got boosted in acc form 90 to 95. plus it dont lower stats like close combat. and it has a 130 base power. close combat only has 120. pair it with something like bullet punch or flash cannon and ur set. lucario also has an impressive 140 attack and 145 sp attack in mega. use it with adapability and u got a massive tank.

Then Aegislash(or other ghosts) switches in and greatly reduces the durability of your lucario. Close Combat is the safest bet and it already wrecks almost everything with it

 

[TheUltimateStorm]

ok lets just put it into simple words. USE HIGH JUMP KICK. HJK got boosted in acc form 90 to 95. plus it dont lower stats like close combat. and it has a 130 base power. close combat only has 120. pair it with something like bullet punch or flash cannon and ur set. lucario also has an impressive 140 attack and 145 sp attack in mega. use it with adapability and u got a massive tank.

That is not correct. I have a Blaziken on my cart that knows HJK, still 90 Accuarcy, I don't know where you got that it had a accuarcy buff from. Secondly, Ghosts are quite common in the meta atm, so spamming HJK isn't good for your health.

 

[MilkyWay]

Even though Extreme Speed and Bullet Punch have the same power, I think Extreme Speed is better than Bullet Punch in almost every way. Bullet Punch is resisted by so many common types (Fire, Water, Electric, and Steel) and 2 of the 3 things it can hit super effectively (Rock and Ice) are raped by Close Combat so why would you even bother with Bullet Punch there. The only notable threats where Bullet Punch is better than Extreme Speed or Close Combat are Mega Gengar (banned) Scarf Terrakion (rare nowadays), Frosglass (will this thing even make OU), Togekiss (still not that common), and maybe a few other Fairys (who in general have higher special defense than defense and will probably fall to a +2 Close Combat or just get plainly KOed anyways). On the other hand Extreme Speed (especially at +2) can take down things that would stop Lucario's sweep such as Talonflame, Keldeo (scarfed), Jolteon, Mega Manetric, Greninja, Crawdaunt, Thundurus-T (scarfed), Starmie, Entei (if it's running Extreme Speed and it becomes popular), Whimiscott (Prankster will allow it to go before Bullet Punch and paralyze you), and many more if you choose to run an adamant nature over a jolly nature.

Also I would advise running this alongside Crunch and not Ice Punch so you can KO ghosts who try to switch into Extreme Speed and have perfect coverage in general. If you choose to run Ice Punch over Crunch I would still suggest this over Bullet Punch anyways for the reasons above.

Honestly the only reason people are running Bullet Punch is to "take advantage" of Adaptability...

 

[pokemick17]

That is not correct. I have a Blaziken on my cart that knows HJK, still 90 Accuarcy, I don't know where you got that it had a accuarcy buff from. Secondly, Ghosts are quite common in the meta atm, so spamming HJK isn't good for your health.

oh sorry, on my pokedex app, it said 95. but either way thats why you have flash cannon/ bullet punch to even the odds. also, lucario can learn shadow claw so that could be useful

 

[Zebstrika]

Regular Jump Kick has 95% accuracy, which is probably how you got mixed up.

Even though Extreme Speed and Bullet Punch have the same power, I think Extreme Speed is better than Bullet Punch in almost every way. Bullet Punch is resisted by so many common types (Fire, Water, Electric, and Steel) and 2 of the 3 things it can hit super effectively (Rock and Ice) are raped by Close Combat so why would you even bother with Bullet Punch there. The only notable threats where Bullet Punch is better than Extreme Speed or Close Combat are Mega Gengar (banned) Scarf Terrakion (rare nowadays), Frosglass (will this thing even make OU), Togekiss (still not that common), and maybe a few other Fairys (who in general have higher special defense than defense and will probably fall to a +2 Close Combat or just get plainly KOed anyways). On the other hand Extreme Speed (especially at +2) can take down things that would stop Lucario's sweep such as Talonflame, Keldeo (scarfed), Jolteon, Mega Manetric, Greninja, Crawdaunt, Thundurus-T (scarfed), Starmie, Entei (if it's running Extreme Speed and it becomes popular), Whimiscott (Prankster will allow it to go before Bullet Punch and paralyze you), and many more if you choose to run an adamant nature over a jolly nature.

Also I would advise running this alongside Crunch and not Ice Punch so you can KO ghosts who try to switch into Extreme Speed and have perfect coverage in general. If you choose to run Ice Punch over Crunch I would still suggest this over Bullet Punch anyways for the reasons above,

Honestly the only reason people are running Bullet Punch is to "take advantage" of Adaptability...

I agree with this here. Bullet Punch has a lot more resistances than Extreme speed and is a lot less reliable at being able to sweep the opponent's whole team. It's mainly better if you're not using Lucario to sweep, then you can pick off individual pokemon that are weak to Bullet Punch like Aerodactyl without having to boost it first.

 

[epicdrill]

Whimiscott (Prankster will allow it to go before Bullet Punch and paralyze you), and many more if you choose to run an adamant nature over a jolly nature.

Whimsicott rarely runs Speed investment at all, let alone the 220 needed to outspeed Adamant Mega Lucario. It doesn't even run the 124 EVs that are needed to outspeed Adamant with a boosting nature on Whimsocott, which it also never runs. So you will outspeed Whimsicott.

Also, on the Bullet Punch/ESpeed debate. Bullet Punch allows you to run EQ without being screwed over by things like Gourgeist-H (fairly rare), which in turn lets you avoid Aegislash mindgames by spamming EQ. However, ESpeed deals with more common threats than Bullet Punch such as Talonflame. Most of the time, you will just be spamming CC with a physical Mega Luke, as a resisted CC does more damage than ESpeed or neutral Bullet Punch. Thus, the only threats that it needs to counter are priority and faster pokemon (and, to an extent, fairies, although those are mainly specially defensive, and thus mauled by CC) and most priority users and faster pokemon (Talonflame) are hit harder by ESpeed. I run ESpeed and EQ on the same set despite the coverage loss and I find it fares better against some top-teir threats than BP+EQ or ESpeed+Crunch or, imo, the worst of the four against top-teir threats, BP+Crunch.

 

[Paramore_Zelda]

So what are some definite counters for Mega-Lucario? I've been having so much trouble with it recently.

 

[Debury]

Priority based fighting moves hurt lucario. Especially from conkeldurr who can also maybe take a lucario move and then drain punch a bunch of its health back.

 

[Hibiki]

There's been a couple of times where I've thought I was going to lose because I expect Mega Luke to die to something only to find he barely avoids getting OHKO'd by unboosted things like Conkeldurr's Mach Punch and Gliscor's EQ (both being uninvested more than likely, and none of it matters with def drops from CC). Special Luke always beats physical Luke with Vacuum Wave though.

 

[escarlata]

So what are some definite counters for Mega-Lucario? I've been having so much trouble with it recently.

It's actually pretty hard to OHKO Lucario with priority attacks so don't waste time trying if he is at full health.

252 Atk Life Orb Technician Breloom Mach Punch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Mega Lucario: 283-338 (100.7 - 120.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252+ Atk Choice Band Talonflame Brave Bird vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Mega Lucario: 262-309 (93.2 - 109.9%) -- 56.3% chance to OHKO
252 SpA Adaptability Mega Lucario Vacuum Wave vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Mega Lucario: 248-292 (88.2 - 103.9%) -- 18.8% chance to OHKO
252+ Atk Conkeldurr Mach Punch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Mega Lucario: 168-200 (59.7 - 71.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Breloom's Mach Punch is the only priority attack that actually OHKO's Lucario. Conk gets 2HKOed by +0 Aura Sphere after SR (and fare harder against physical variants), so it isn't too definite as per se. I'd say that the most reliable counter include defensive Zapdos, Moltres, Gyarados being notable ones (all need spin support though. Otherwise Scarfed Fighting attacks and EQ can check it fairly. Prankster T-wave pretty much ends the sweep as well.

 

[Mr Buns]

AV Conk is decent vs Timid MegaLuke if Conk is full health.
Turn 1 (relative) Luke comes in on something that wont want to stay in.
Turn 2 MLuke Nasty Plots and you make the switch to Conk.
Turn 3 you trade blows :
+2 252 SpA Adaptability Mega Lucario Aura Sphere vs. 120 HP / 136 SpD Assault Vest Conkeldurr: 290-342 (76.1 - 89.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock.
252+ Atk Conkeldurr Drain Punch vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Mega Lucario: 318-374 (112.7 - 132.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO.

Things to keep in mind with this matchup;
+2 Aura Sphere is an OHKO on adamant non-AV 252 HP/4 SpD and 4 HP /252 SpD Conk without SR.
Even with bad damage rolls an Aura Sphere+Vacuum Wave+SR can OHKO 252 HP/4 SpD non-AV Conk;
Aura Sphere (62.8 - 74.3%) / Vacuum Wave (31.8 - 37.6%) / SR (6.25%).
Vs 4 HP/252 SpD ; Aura Sphere (54.5 - 64.2%) / Vacuum Wave (27.2 - 32.3%).
With Guts activated 252+ Mach Punch has a 56.3% chance to OHKO MLuke after SR without CB or LO.
252+ Iron Fist Conk with LO has a 81.3% chance to OHKO with Mach Punch after SR.
252+ Iron Fist Conk with CB is an OHKO Mach Punch without SR.
252+ Guts Conk with CB has a 56.3% chance to OHKO with Mach punch after SR without Guts active.
252+ Guts Conk with LO only does 77.3 - 92.1% with Mach Punch unactivated, OHKO with guts on.

So the matchup can go a few ways depending on the Conk variant and what sort of state it and MLuke are in when it enters.
One other thing is that if MLuke uses Aura Sphere/Flash Cannon instead of Nasty Plot when you switch you take 38.3 - 45.1% (AV Conk), they'll have to switch after this as they can't finish you off and will die from a Drain Punch. The problem with this is it can make it hard to bring Conk back in later if you dont heal him up (you'll hopefully hit something with Drain Punch on the switch but a Ghost will ruin that) as you can die from two lots of SR damage and a +2 Vacuum Wave (38.3 - 45.1%) or another +0 Aura Sphere/Flash Cannon after the earlier hit.

With regards to the Conk evs; in this case you take 4% more damage compared to 4HP/252 SpD, I'm currently running calcs to test how far I can stretch the SpD/HP to see if I can take any physical hits better while still countering specific special threats but we'll see. (Just noticed they are pretty much the gen V All-Out attacker evs with the Spe moved to SpD so there you go.)

For the MLuke matchup you can come in blind and survive a CC from Jolly MLuke with SR up:
252 Atk Adaptability Mega Lucario Close Combat vs. 120 HP / 0 Def Conkeldurr: 300-354 (78.7 - 92.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock.
43.8% chance for Jolly MLuke to OHKO 4 HP/0 Def Conk with SR up.
50% chance for Adamant MLuke to OHKO 120 HP/0 Def Conk with SR up.
93.8% chance for Adamant MLuke to OHKO 4HP/0 Def Conk with SR up.
This pretty much ruins your Conk if you guess special and it turns out physical but at least it means you can (potentially) survive, swap to something that can fight it and use Conk for fodder/a mach punch later.

Spikes : With SR and 1 layer of spikes +2 Timid MLuke has a 56.3% chance to OHKO, 2 layers makes it 87.5% and 3 is an OHKO.

 

[EtherDrive]

+2 252 Attack Mega Lucario Extreme Speed vs 4hp/0 Def Talon flame 83.8 - 98.9%

if rocks aren't off the field the best you can do is trade 1 for 1 or run adamant

now if it's a bulk up version, then what? talon flame should definitely be on the top of the list of things you need to set up to get rid of, the second is status effects

 

[Conkelderpy]

If Mega-Lucario is facing something like Mega Garchomp, I just switch in to my Heatran, absorbing the Fire Fang with Flash Fire and it also carries the air ballon, so Earthquake gets nullified. And for special attackers who are a threat to Mega Lucario, I just switch in to my Goodra, who is a special wall.

 

[Jaguar360]

So what are some definite counters for Mega-Lucario? I've been having so much trouble with it recently.

Talonflame and Volcarona can reliably handle Lucario as long as Stealth Rocks aren't up and Scarf Garchomp and Assault Vest Conkeldurr (as mentioned above) can also handle it pretty reliably.

 

[Sirya]

Talonflame and Volcarona can reliably handle Lucario as long as Stealth Rocks aren't up and Scarf Garchomp and Assault Vest Conkeldurr (as mentioned above) can also handle it pretty reliably.

Scarf Garchomp isn't a Counter, but a check. The same goes with Conkeldurr; they both cannot switch in and take an Adaptability CC without problems, as long as they are 2hko'ed by it.

 

[Jaguar360]

Scarf Garchomp isn't a Counter, but a check. The same goes with Conkeldurr; they both cannot switch in and take an Adaptability CC without problems, as long as they are 2hko'ed by it.

Right. My mistake. I should have done some calcs first.

 

[Mjolnir128]

One thing I like about mega Lucario, is that like many other Mega's, it gains nice little benefits based on it's ability before it mega-evolves in certain predicted situations. Steadfast boosts speed when it flinches in it's non-mega form. The common Fake Out users that I used to activate the Steadfast speed boost are uncommon in the meta now, and it really only works with something weak and resisted like Fake Out, but if it's coming, you'll see it, and it'll make Mega-evolving on whatever Fake Out'd you a lot easier; unless the thing is obscenely fast(or scarfed, but a scarfed Fake Out is too stupid even for a troll team), you're likely about to provoke a switch, so enjoy that free S.D./N.P. as well. If not, you're fast enough to go straight for a strong STAB when otherwise you would have been forced to attack with a weaker priority to mega evolve before being attacked.

 

[silver97]

you already said everything about the awesomeness of this pokemon, all i wanted to say is that you didn't include in its mooves dual chop that has the same power as crunch but it hits two times at the cost of some accuracy, i think that would be an unexpected option to kill dragons.

 

[Jaguar360]

you already said everything about the awesomeness of this pokemon, all i wanted to say is that you didn't include in its mooves dual chop that has the same power as crunch but it hits two times at the cost of some accuracy, i think that would be an unexpected option to kill dragons.

Well, yeah, but it can just use Ice Punch which has much better coverage than Dual Chop if it wants to be a Dragon Slayer. Besides, if you run Dual Chop on physical Lucario you get walled by both Aegislash and Gliscor and that's not good. Lucario never struggled facing Dragons anyway.