Okay, but any good player is going to presume Genesect has flamethrower, and if you're bringing it in, that it is also scarfed. And even then, Vacuum wave does 67.8 - 80.5%, meaning if Genesect is significantly weakened, it won't even matter.
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Pokémon Lucario
- Thread starter Subject 18
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Okay, but any good player is going to presume Genesect has flamethrower, and if you're bringing it in, that it is also scarfed. And even then, Vacuum wave does 67.8 - 80.5%, meaning if Genesect is significantly weakened, it won't even matter.
I kinda like Crobat as a check. Defog, Whirlwind, and Fairy-resist definitely keeps it useful even without Lucario around.
252+ Atk Life Orb Crobat Brave Bird vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Mega Lucario: 242-286 (85.8 - 101.4%) -- 12.5% chance to OHKO
252 Atk Adaptability Mega Lucario Bullet Punch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Crobat: 114-136 (36.6 - 43.7%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
+2 252 Atk Adaptability Mega Lucario Bullet Punch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Crobat: 228-270 (73.3 - 86.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Life Orb Crobat Brave Bird vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Mega Lucario: 242-286 (85.8 - 101.4%) -- 12.5% chance to OHKO
252 Atk Adaptability Mega Lucario Bullet Punch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Crobat: 114-136 (36.6 - 43.7%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
+2 252 Atk Adaptability Mega Lucario Bullet Punch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Crobat: 228-270 (73.3 - 86.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
What in the world? What kind of Crobat runs 252 Atk Adamant Life Orb along with Defog/Whirlwind, exactly...? Even with all that boosting it's BB, Crobat can't OHKO and will kill itself via recoil (btw, Timid LO Heat Wave actually does just as well with no recoil). The normal EV spread reliably 2HKO's:
136 Atk Crobat Brave Bird vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Mega Lucario: 153-180 (54.4 - 64%)
However even then Crobat doesn't make a good check, since Lucario can just SD twice and then you're really screwed:
+4 252 Atk Adaptability Mega Lucario Bullet Punch vs. 120 HP / 0 Def Crobat: 342-404 (100.2 - 118.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO
Crobat might have that 4x Fighting resist, but it can't OHKO. There are plenty of better options that can outspeed Lucario and reliably KO. Noivern springs to mind since it's similar to Crobat, Torn-T and Mega Manectric as well, or a host of Scarfers. There are plenty of revenge killers out there.
This kind of thing is why a simple 4-attacks wallbreaker Mega Lucario set might be its most effective.
Mine does. And your calcs are exactly why I prefer the extra damage from Life Orb Adamant. It still out-paces Jolly Mega Lucario and can OHKO after a love-tap of prior damage/hazard damage. Crobat has decent natural bulk so I'd rather have nearly double the damage of that Jolly 136 Atk set than have extra bulk on a Pokemon that can rather easily find a chance to Roost recoil damage away thanks to its typing; which is especially true when the opponent gets a taste of the raw power Brave Bird is packing.
The speed loss isn't crippling to me as I don't have issues with Greninja, Starmie, or Alakazam and having the power to OHKO Lucario, 2HKO Excadrill, and 3HKO Rotom-W with Brave Bird is well worth the trade-off for my team. But again, that's just for my own team.
The speed loss isn't crippling to me as I don't have issues with Greninja, Starmie, or Alakazam and having the power to OHKO Lucario, 2HKO Excadrill, and 3HKO Rotom-W with Brave Bird is well worth the trade-off for my team. But again, that's just for my own team.
Another advantage of special lucario, other than the surprise factor, is that burn does not fuck you up. You could switch into a WoW if you feel like there is no better chance to set up.
Now that kanga is gone this will certainlly be used by everyone and their mothers as their cleaner/late game sweeper. Personally im hopping this thing will also get the quick ban, since against my stall team is not hard for him to find a chance to switch in and destroy everything.
Now that kanga is gone this will certainlly be used by everyone and their mothers as their cleaner/late game sweeper. Personally im hopping this thing will also get the quick ban, since against my stall team is not hard for him to find a chance to switch in and destroy everything.
To sum it up for those not bothered to read back pages, the best counters to Mega-Lucario are: defensive RestTalk Gyarados, Mega-Venusaur, Moltres, Zapdos, and defensive Volcarona. (Defensive implying the offensive variants do not counter it, only check; the others just don't even have viable offensive variants in OU)
As for Luke being too frail to set up, I find that anything that doesn't KO Luke or cripple it with status (special Lukes do not mind burns) while getting OHKOed by +2 Luke is enough for Luke to gear up and start wrecking, and that can include a lot of things, like Rotom-W and Fairies. Heck, something like non-LO Greninja is fair game for Luke to set up. Just ensure Luke kills everything after setting up, and it will punch holes or outright clean house.
As for Luke being too frail to set up, I find that anything that doesn't KO Luke or cripple it with status (special Lukes do not mind burns) while getting OHKOed by +2 Luke is enough for Luke to gear up and start wrecking, and that can include a lot of things, like Rotom-W and Fairies. Heck, something like non-LO Greninja is fair game for Luke to set up. Just ensure Luke kills everything after setting up, and it will punch holes or outright clean house.
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I was planning on running a special Lucario; should I run Dark Pulse or Vacuum Wave (NP, AS and FC are given)? I've noticed that Dark Pulse is only useful in a select few situations (Aegislash, Jellicent), while VW can counter Scarf users and other priority, not to mention faster things.
I think the biggest issue for dealing with Luke here is that it's impossible to tell what the hell it's running until it starts moving. One safe way to deal with it is to paralyze it or have Sticky Web out. It's pretty speed dependent no matter what it runs so if you can somehow reduce that speed it's gonna have issues. Of course the issue is HOW to slow it down.
I don't find Lucario that hard to deal with. Lol. Just sac the 'mon you have switch another one in and then kill it. Of course they can switch out, but then the switch in will take damage. And if you're using Scarf Genesect and they switch in Rotom or somewhat, you can switch to something else that counters Rotom. Like lol. Of course you're momentum is somewhat killed, but you're still dealing damage which is nice. It definitely wasn't the monster that Mega Khan was.
Mega Lucario is now unquestionably the best mega in OU with the new ban on Khan. I've never tried this yet but does anyone think that a mixed all out attacking set would be viable?
This is one of the dumbest arguments i've heard. If a pokemon is to be quickbanned it should be able to do this without what is clearly required team set up. IE perish song gengar on defensive teams, mega khan in general, blaziken, or deoxys. Sure, if the right requirements are met luke can sweep a whole team, the same thing was said about regular luke. So many of these scenarios are hypothetical situations where the person playing against the luke allows themselves to lock into a move that luke could switch into or makes it easy for him to get an SD. You could do the same thing with any other set up sweeper with decent priority. I think this transition to X and Y and things like mega stones has shown the biggest problem in this community. Whatever is the "strongest" at the time starts getting all these ban requests from the community. First it was gengarite, then it was khangaskanite, (both of which i totally agree with), but i read in this thread a couple people say Mega Lucario is clearly now the strongest mega (and essentially should be banned because of it). There is always going to be a top dog, and it's not like Lucario's checks/counters are super obscure like khangaskanite or blaziken. I would agree to further testing through a suspect test to see if lucarionite deserves a ban, but I think a quick ban is very, very excessive.
If you do this a few times you'll be down 2-3 mons while only tickling a rotom, relying a scarfer to only check luc is asking for trouble.
AOPSU seems like he's asking a lot, but think about it. How hard is it to do any one of those things? How hard is it to throw down rocks? How many scarfers to people typically run?
In the mean time, before setting up, you can still use Lucario to just, you know, hit hard. Real hard. I wish people would stop doing +2 calcs and start showing what unboostedCario can do. Might do it myself in a bit.
This is interesting. I never would have even considered this. Just make sure that Lucario doesn't have Ice Punch, Flash Cannon or anything nasty like that.
I never said anything about a ban. In fact, I don't think Mega Lucario is close to broken, especially with the mega speed creep this gen. There's some ways to revenge kill it, but it's REALLY hard to try to wall, and if you lose your Scarfer, good luck.
I would reccomend getting rid of AS for Vacuum wave since it has the same bp after adaptability pllus priority. Sure 160 sounds appealing but i like priority.
+2 252 SpA Adaptability Mega Lucario Flash Cannon vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Azumarill: 442-520 (109.4 - 128.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252+ Atk Choice Band Huge Power Azumarill Aqua Jet vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Mega Lucario: 133-157 (47.3 - 55.8%) -- 78.5% chance to 2HKO
Again, part of what makes MegaLuke such a fearsome Pokemon to switch into. You could get lucky and manage to stop a physical Luke, but you probably have to sac a Pokemon if you predict incorrectly.
Like...U-Turn? Or...like prediction? Or...like maybe something faster which honestly isn't that hard this gen? Just let it be known that I've faced Mega Luke fairly well, and I think player experience is more important than just theorymonning. I was just trying to give an example in my past post, so sorry if that came out wrong.
After looking at it, I realize that an Aura Sphere/Vacuum Wave/Flash Cannon/Nasty Plot set is optimal. For most ghost types, FC is every bit as good as Dark Pulse, with two prevalent exceptions: Aegislash and Jellicent. While Jelli coverage is nice, Dark Pulse just barely fails to do the trick with Aegislash, leading to the conclusion that when Aegislash come in, you get Lucario the hell out of there. Thus my preference- AS for power and VW for priority- with priority all kinds of threats become null and void. Thank you for the opinion though
Special set seems to be better because it's easier to use at the moment.
With everyone expecting to see a physical set, it's much easier to get a special Mega Luke in and get a +2.
Now, if this was a meta with a fresh start, the physical set would be better simply because of the CC's ridiculous damage output and the better priority accessibility.
With everyone expecting to see a physical set, it's much easier to get a special Mega Luke in and get a +2.
Now, if this was a meta with a fresh start, the physical set would be better simply because of the CC's ridiculous damage output and the better priority accessibility.
You see, the special set also has significantly less checks than the physical set. The physical set relies a lot on its coverage and has 4MSS. It's a toss-up between Crunch or Ice Punch, and you'll get beaten by a variety of different pokes depending on your choice. If you run Ice Punch, Chandelure, Jellicent, Aegislash, Slowbro amongst others wall you. Run Crunch, and Togekiss, Gliscor, Landorus-T beat you. The special set suffers much less from this issue. I'm not going to flood this topic with calcs, but these calcs give an understanding of how little pokes check the special set reliably.
I invite you to find more viable pokemon that can take on special Mega Lucario by tanking and retaliating. The list of defensive checks for physical Mega Lucario is surprisingly, considering the raw power of Adaptability Close Combat, much longer because of the 4MSS. It depends on its coverage move though, and few pokemon check both sets reliably (in fact I think only Aegislash and Mega Venusaur succeed in that, don't quote me though).
The special set IMO is the more solid sweeper and cleans up very nicely. Several people like to willo and to get nasty plotted. The only thing the physical set really has over it is E-speed and the nuking power of CC. I'm curious as to what people think is more consistent however. I feel that more and more people are going to begin assuming special, and I wonder how it'll be played once that comes around.
Well, don't forget that you can always go mixed. The mind-games are strong with this one, particular with his incredibly solid movepool.
Oh yes I completely neglected mixed. The fact that this thing can play mindgames with the opponent and simply set up, while the hopelessly try to guess it's set. It feels unfair sometimes. A mixed set could bring in an sdef wall, think they're safe, and then shoot off a physical nuke. It's practically a mind game the mega luke users can almost play with.
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