Did you think there’s no way Niantic could improve Lucario (as a fighting type) even further, much less with an exclusive move? I thought so, too. Sadly, that was wrong.
Mega Lucario raid day happens on Saturday, July 27. All Lucario caught during the event will know the raid-exclusive fast move, Force Palm. Today, we will look at how well Lucario performs in raids with the new move, whether mega evolved or not.
Main Points (TL;DR)
Mega Lucario is in a tier of its own among fighting attackers, at least in individual power. With the exclusive move Force Palm, it’s 22% stronger than the next best alternative, Mega Heracross.
- Such dominance is reminiscent of other iconic megas for raids, like the Primals, Mega Charizard Y and Mega Blaziken (fire), and once-upon-a-time Mega Gengar.
- One caveat though: Mega Lucario is not the best team player. Due to its very low bulk, if your goal is to maximize group damage, Mega Lucario is slightly less ideal than bulkier alternatives, such as Mega Heracross, the eventual Mega Mewtwo X, and even a Primal hiding in the 6th slot.
- Non-legacy Counter Lucario is perfectly fine as a mega, and remains well above its competitors.
Even when not mega evolved, regular Force Palm Lucario still offers a sizable upgrade of ~8% over Counter. This allows it to approach Shadow Machamp level, and greatly solidifies its position as the best regular non-legendary fighting attacker.
- Conkeldurr and Shadow Hariyama are now solidly behind Force Palm Lucario (albeit Conkeldurr is much cheaper). Terrakion remains well ahead, though.
- Rarely do raid attackers see such upgrades from a legacy fast move, which might make it a good Elite Fast TM candidate.
- (Note: If past events are any indication, you would likely be able to get Force Palm by evolving Riolu during the raid day. Don’t do this until there’s confirmation from New Zealand, though. Also, unlock a second move before evolving!)
Mega Lucario may also be a “budget” Steel attacker and mega for those who are short on resources, but it’s not a particularly good one. All things considered, it’s probably worse than Mega Aggron etc.
Future Pokemon and speculations (Shadow Lucario, Mega Mewtwo Y, and more) are discussed in its dedicated section towards the end of the article.
My analyses of other types are in this spreadsheet. You can also follow me on Twitter (X) and Threads!
Charts
Fighting attackers, in general
Fighting attackers, Comparisons
Fighting Megas
Steel attackers, in general
Steel Megas
Future and speculative Fighting attackers
Very quick note on comparisons involving regular Lucario
Lucario is very frail, which you probably already know. What you might not expect, though, is that its steel subtyping can be a liability more often than being an asset.
Why? Close Combat, Focus Blast and Earthquake show up surprisingly often among charged moves that raid bosses may have. Even though being a steel type brings Lucario many resistances, turns out that the advantage of resisting a charged move (taking 0.625x damage vs. the neutral 1x) is smaller than the disadvantage of being weak to one (1.6x vs. 1x).
This shows up most prominently in the Lucario vs. Shadow Machamp comparison. The bar chart may give you the impression that they’re roughly equal, with Lucario having a 53% “win” rate, but on the line chart it lies just below Shadow Machamp. Turn out, this is because when Lucario “fails”, it can fail really badly. While it does score big wins against the likes of Draco Meteor Dialga and Moonblast Zamazenta, such cases are much rarer.
This is not saying Lucario is underwhelming — it’s not. The analysis merely suggests you may not want to put all your eggs in its basket, whether as a mega or not.
Lucario among Fighting-type Megas
First off, Mega Lucario is the best solo performer out of all fighting-type megas (and non-megas), period. And unless another mega gets a fancy new move, that won’t change.
However, Lucario’s glassiness continues to cast a bit of shadow on its otherwise stellar performance here, but more prominently as a mega. In group raids with a couple other players using fighting attackers, Mega Lucario doesn’t provide the 30% damage boost to other players for long enough, due to its shorter lifespan.
As a result, in neutral typing setups once you have at least 3-4 players in your lobby, Mega Lucario’s total group damage contribution is outshined by bulkier megas that keep the damage boost for much longer:
- Mega Heracross, as I mentioned in its own analysis
- A Primal Kyogre, Primal Groudon or Mega Rayquaza sitting in the 6th slot, even if it never sees the battlefield – the “background boost”
- See this analysis for how that works
- Future Mega Mewtwo X, regardless of whether it gets the “background boost” or not
(The above assumes no typing advantages, so Mega Lucario will see better performance if it resists the boss’s moves. But as I mentioned in the preceding section, typing might even hurt Mega Lucario more often than it helps.)
Nevertheless, this is not a huge negative factor against Mega Lucario, if one at all:
- Not everyone treats maximizing group damage as the only goal. Some players may even want to purposely minimize group boost for their own damage balls — in that case, Mega Lucario is perfect for you.
- Mega Lucario has a unique ability to boost both Steel- and Fighting-type damage. These two types share a number of common targets, namely against rock and ice-type bosses (Kyurem, Regirock, Terrakion). These cases increase Mega Lucario’s group-boosting outreach, possibly offsetting its disadvantages in bulk.
- Mega Lucario also has unique (XL) candy boosting capabilities. Notably, against most Steel-type bosses (e.g. Dialga), it’s one of the few megas that both deals great damage and gives you bonus XL chance upon catching the raid boss.
Future and Speculation
(Disclaimer: All moves mentioned below that aren’t already learned by the said Pokemon are purely speculative, and they may jolly well never happen in PoGo.)
You might think Mega Mewtwo X (Psychic/Fighting) will give Mega Lucario a run for its money, just because it’s freakin’ Mewtwo… But not quite.
Assuming Mega Mewtwo X gets a 3% nerf in “MSG” stats, like the Primals and Mega Ray did:
- With its current moves (Psycho Cut/Focus Blast), Mega Mewtwo X doesn’t even come close to Mega Lucario. In fact, it’s closer to Mega Blaziken. Focus Blast is mediocre, and having no fighting-type move certainly doesn’t help.
- But any fighting-type fast move is enough to change that. Mewtwo can legally learn both Low Kick and Counter in the MSG (and, as we’ve seen with Lucario, I wouldn’t rule out them becoming raid-exclusive moves). Either can land Mega Mewtwo X in the same tier as Mega Lucario in solo power, which also implies much better group performance.
- Alternatively… Did you know Mewtwo can also learn Aura Sphere in the MSG? Getting that alone (paired with Psycho Cut) puts it well above Mega Lucario, simply due to how disgustingly overpowered Aura Sphere is.
Outside of that, Mega Lucario is mostly safe… But not technically so. Several fighting-type megas have the theoretical potential to land within the same range: Aura Sphere Mega Blaziken and Mega Gallade, or Mega Heracross with an overpowered “signature” move.
Moving away from megas: Shadow Lucario may eventually become a thing, though the question is how (or if at all). If it does, it’s poised to become the #2 best non-mega fighting attacker in the foreseeable future, only behind Shadow Terrakion.
Regular Lucario is perhaps a bit more “future-proof” than it was before, with Force Palm. While it remains below Terrakion, a few non-legendary options now find it much harder to surpass that level. Namely, the run-of-the-mill Aura Sphere suspects (Blaziken, Low Kick Mienshao, Gallade, Kommo-o) won’t.
- One exception, though: Force Palm/Aura Sphere Mienshao. I forgot to run simulations, but it is likely to be better than Force Palm Lucario due to better stats. Mienshao already stood out as the most likely future recipient of Aura Sphere, too.
Imgur Links and Additional Charts
General attacker charts: ASE and ASTTW*
Comparisons:
Mega charts:
* indicates additional charts that are not in the main post.
Hi,
obviously, a steel subtyping is an advantage, because with resistances provided Lucario stays on the field 1.6 times longer while with its vulnerabilities lives only 0.625 times less!