THE BEST LUCARIO BUILD GUIDE - POKEMON UNITE

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** UPDATE ** :

The last item slot can go one of two ways. First way, which is the more popularly favored one, is to fully invest in atk with Muscle Band, which leans more heavily into exerting your will in early game, facilitating a snowball, and taking control quick (while also having good objective burn). With a strong understanding of laning phase with the character and high experience this generally will produce more consistent results across the board.

Second option, with the improved launching speed and lower cd of Luca’s unite, Amp has now become an incredible tool in creating a very deadly burst combo, giving him a valuable option in target removal. This can make some surprise high impact plays happen if/when you are unable to gain a strong foothold early on and need to make your mark elsewhere.

He can very easily Pup/Espeed in, Unite right in their face, and follow immediately up with his standard Pup>Combat or Espeed>BR combos for enormous Amp boosted damage.

• When using Unite, try using it in a bush where enemies are approaching to get the highest value. The giant ball does damage more times the closer the target is to you, so try to get them as close as possible.

• There is a tech where if you hit the Meteor Mash button *immediately* after Espeeding, the Mash will come out at the end of your dash with no wind-up animation, much faster. Can be used for surprise pushes/quick burst.

Lucario begins the game with a pair of the most op starter moves in the world. Meteor Mash is a huge push that should not be allowed at such a low level, and Quick Atk is among the top 3 best farm secure moves pre-5. Once you get near a wild mon, you can Mash push it away from the enemy and instantly QA to it to do an unreactable double-hit that WILL guarantee secures against almost everyone in the game.
Mash push + QA dash also allows you to do microdunks literally for free with no retaliation, it’s ridiculous.

This is the objective-securing/ripping build for furry bastard. PU Punch deals % missing HP dmg meaning its a great execute, and it gives him unstoppable while charging (+) so he can basically position it for free. NOTE: It can be bodyblocked.

Close Combat doesn’t melt things as insanely as it used to, but landing all 11 hits is still very significant damage, and it resets PUP’s cd as well.
Not as high of a potential as ES/BR build, but is much simpler to handle and becoming more popular in this meta that prioritizes objective secures.

Espeed and Bone Rush are those 2 starter moves but omega mode.
Espeed resets once per target hit, but hitting Bonerush resets THAT reset, so you can combo someone with Espeed > Brush > Espeed > Espeed which with Lucario’s scaling is DUMMY damage. I hate this character.
This build is shut down hard by CC and interrupts your Espeed flow greatly, which is why full heal is essential.

*Muscle and Razor*: Lucario does a little spin at the end of Espeed if you press A during it, which counts as a basic atk. This will proc muscle, and can proc it on multiple targets since the spin is aoe. It also procs razor, however razor only applies to ONE target. So currently for espeed builds the benefit of both of these has shown to be favorable to have together at once, to spread muscle dmg around in groups AND having higher burst on single targets. The stacks of Weakness tend to not get seen much with how much you zip around, but if you find yourself surrounded by a lot of chip damage in teamfights, it can easily be slotted over either of the muscle/razors for more total output.

Favourable Matchup:

These are Pokémon that our team has determined LUCARIO is strong against. LUCARIO will generally be able to shut down these opponents playstyle's or have the advantage in a one on one fight.

Unfavourable Matchup:

These are Pokémon that our team has determined LUCARIO is weak against. These Pokémon will have the upper hand in a fight or be able to exploit LUCARIO's weaknesses.