No Frills Lucario Lucario - Claxvii

Guide

Lucario is exceptional. It almost feels wrong making a guide on it. If you train your aim, it will work amazingly with both Extreme Speed and Power Up Punch, even though I feel Extreme Speed is by far more versatile and makes the pokemon feels that much more interesting. However, I see people using float stone a lot and I think that it is a mistake. Lucario has great mobility from it's skills and it excels putting pressure in lane, witch means if you are not attacking, you are not pushing it well enough, even considering the steadfast nerf that now takes 60s to reset.

Another item I see people using a lot is the muscle band. It is a formidable item, and a viable option for Lucario, BUT, Lucario gets ahead easily, and the muscle band only benefits the early game when the attack speed is far from being capped. Most of the damage you should be dealing as Lucario comes from your skills and lucario has a very odd quirk with it's basic attack: right after you use extreme speed in particular, you will auto attack. This mechanic can be EASILY exploited with Razor Claw. Not necessarily for the crit, but for the boosted Attack and the slow. It honestly makes Lucario incredibly more powerful, because now, extreme speed is not only an "Extremely" dangerous move that is very hard to react and predict, it also doubles down as a gluing attack. If you spread apart just a tidy itsy bit your Extreme Speeds, you will deal almost double the damage and will be far harder to predict your movement.

Focus Band and Buddy Barrier are phenomenal items that are more mainstream though. Focus band works wonders alongside Lucario's Steadfast ability. Buddy Barrier makes an underwhelming unite move give a great shield for a incredibly dangerous pokemon. You can however change buddy barrier for Weakness Policy. Considering we are using focus band, a no-brainier choice for lucario, you will stay alive for a long time in a fight. especially if you have steadfast up and ready. You WILL take hits. Why not take that to your advantage with a near equivalent to the attack weight that starts working on lv 1? I know it isn't on the first time you engage, but lucario's burst damage can be held off until Weakness policy is stacked.

Lucario already has a bunch of mobility, you can add up an eject button, but i think having an X attack that lasts for your combo's entire duration is rich. Lucario's Extreme Speed and bone rush combo works like this: You first hit an extreme speed, while trying to hit one or two basic attacks, you throw a bone rush (mind the little displacement from the skill) then you finish it with two more extreme speeds with some basic attacks in-between. That combo will last for nearly as much as the entire X-attack's buff and will melt any attacker with full health if it is not ahead by a lot. This combo, with Lucario's great survivability is why it is so feared, as it should. This is the 1v1 version of the combo, but if you follow how Extreme Speed Resets every time it hits a new enemy, and how bone rush not only teleports you, also resets Extreme Speed, you can literally 1v5 while taking zapdos and live to tell the tale considering how much this poke an be a die-hard.

Lucario feels amazing to play with, of course. It is powerful but not simple, the level feels like a puzzle when you are using extreme speed, using wilds to reset your cooldown and run circles around even the most mobile pokemons. You can completely bamboozle anyone with a mix of bone rushes and Extreme speeds both on the offensive as in the defense. That is Lucario when it is doing Lucario things. It is amazing what you can get away with.

Just a side-note on held items. Score shield is an extraordinarily viable item. Especially sided with attack weight. Given Lucario's great ability to put pressure in lane AND it's great mobility, you can get away with 6 stacking your attack weight pretty early, especially in low rank. I find that to be hard on Master rank, even on late Ultra rank. You can profit a lot from defending a goal and experienced players abuse that. For this reason I prefer not using Score Shield at all. I find inviting the enemy to make mistakes outside the protection of their goal, to be a much more reliable strategy than going all in myself. Lucario is already a great pokemon, if you have even a slight advantage you will win a ton of engagements and with it's crazy mobility, score a bunch right after a double or triple kill.