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Apart from its two primary type moves, there weren't many changes to moves of other types.
They were still used as before.
The fact that primary type moves are more prone to change is one of the characteristics of this world.
In short, Incineroar's move style, like its personality, is irritable, flamboyant, and scorching hot. If it is dormant like a sleeping volcano, the moment it strikes is like a volcanic eruption, full of sound and fury.
The only critical weakness is still its type energy; its total amount limits its output, preventing it from freely unleashing high-temperature flames.
The biggest difference between legendary Pokémon and ordinary ones happens to lie in type energy.
In internal battles, Incineroar's win rate consistently ranks first on a daily basis.
Li Xiang once thought Lucario could completely overwhelm it and become the new team leader, but that didn't happen.
Incineroar is simply too tanky.
Whether it's Aura Sphere or Close Combat, there aren't many instances where they can cleanly take it down.
Lucario itself gained a Steel typing that is weak to Fire, which directly resulted in its win rate against this big tiger not being much different from before, still around sixty-forty, leaning slightly towards fifty-fifty.
It's quite like a secondary Kamen Rider who, just after gaining new power, becomes arrogant for a few days only to start losing. Perhaps it will need to wait for Mega Evolution for its output to be sufficient?
'It's not that others aren't durable, it's that your output isn't enough.'
Lucario, who lives for its offensive output, told itself this, yet repeatedly fell to Incineroar's triumphant laughter.
Damn, who taught it to laugh and fight at the same time? It's so annoying!
Even the gentle and refined dog would occasionally curse in its mind, especially when defeated.
Other Pokémon like Corviknight, Metagross, and Aegislash also couldn't get the better of Incineroar.
There's no helping it; being weak to Fire is too fatal.
Incineroar dares to tank their attacks, pin them down, and use Overheat.
What can they do about it?
The simple-minded Metagross has the most potential but without Gigantamax or Mega Evolution, it's just average.
In comparison, only Greninja and Wash Rotom fare better.
Type-wise, one has powerful transformation abilities, while the other's weakness is Grass-type. Moreover, both are special attacking ranged types and quite agile, which allows them to gain an advantage over Incineroar.
Incineroar usually forces fights against them.
Its temperature control ability allows it to detect Greninja, whose body temperature differs from the environment.
It then observes further.
If it sees Greninja at first glance but loses it the next, that one is basically the real body. As long as it remembers the positions of the decoys and observes again, the remaining one is naturally the real body.
Then it's just a matter of pouncing and grabbing.
A fragile target is still fragile even after changing its type. So, its battle with Greninja is like hide-and-seek, one hiding and one seeking.
Once found and caught, Greninja's fate is basically sealed.
If it isn't caught, or if it accidentally catches a Substitute, Incineroar will then be defeated under the siege of multiple Greninja.
Against Wash Rotom, the battle is slightly different.
It certainly can't outmatch it in a long-range firefight; Wash Rotom is specifically a special attacker, so they are fundamentally different.
Besides, Rotom is the Pokémon that loves setting up screens the most, so Incineroar typically uses Snarl to lower its damage output, gets close with Brick Break to break the screens, and finishes with Darkest Lariat.
These three parts are combined, indispensable. Without any one of them, Incineroar would have to tap out.
Often, it falls when using Brick Break to break the screens, never getting a chance to use the third move.
They are all overpowered, on the same level, maybe just a bit more durable.
What else is there to say? They all get knocked down when it's their turn.
Rotom and Lucario both counter Incineroar, yet due to differences in base stat distribution and type combinations, such a large gap has emerged.
It's truly regrettable.
Regarding evolution, Lucario was joyful. Even though its happiness didn't last long, as losing became a part of its daily life after evolving.
Yes, the arrival of the Steel typing and the increase to both defenses did make it more durable. But while the Steel type balanced out its Fighting type weakness, it also brought three new weaknesses: Fire, Fighting, and Ground.
Without exception, these are all offensively very powerful types. So.. it was a mixed bag.
...…..
Pokémon: Lucario
Gender: Female
Level: 56
Ability: Justified
Types: Fighting/Steel
Height: 160cm
Moves: Aura Sphere, Close Combat, Bullet Punch, Dragon Pulse, Extreme Speed, Foresight, Calm Mind
Moves: Meteor Mash, Blaze Kick, Thunder Punch, Ice Punch, Magnet Rise, Swords Dance, Agility, Helping Hand, Rock Slide, Bulldoze, Bone Rush, Force Palm, Flash Cannon, Copycat, Crunch, Life Dew, Follow Me
...…..
Only the commonly used moves were recorded.
It knew many more moves, like weather moves and low-power moves, but they are rarely used and can essentially be put on the back burner.
After evolving, the number of moves Lucario could learn increased dramatically. Currently, these are just a negligible fraction.
After learning all the moves, it will be able to proudly say that there is no type combination it can't handle.
Even if a move isn't super effective, it won't be not very effective either.
In terms of leveling up, it's similar to Incineroar.
Li Xiang doesn't show favoritism in this regard.
Regarding gummis, the number of Fighting-type gummis was just over six hundred, which was less than the Fire-type ones.
Fortunately, Steel-type gummis could make up the difference.
He raised Lucario's intake to match Incineroar's amount.
The stat boosts were average, nothing special to mention, making it slightly tankier than before.
The biggest gain was its increasing speed.
This girl seemed to be heading down the path of the Flash and Sonic the Hedgehog and not looking back.
But that's not a bad thing, as long as its body can handle it. It's important to understand that instantaneous burst speed is different from regular running speed.
The stamina consumption multiplies, becoming terrifyingly high.
The difference from its Magma Form might be that the former consumes nothing when stationary, while the latter consumes stamina even when stationary, and also consumes type energy.
For Lucario to fight for extended periods and allocate its stamina reasonably, controlling its movement speed is completely necessary.
Having said all that so dramatically, the dog's running speed is still nowhere near stopping time, and the gap to the speed of sound is still as vast as a chasm.
Steel type doesn't mean its body is made of steel, and Lucario's body isn't streamlined either. To attack like Mega Mewtwo Y, as if stopping time, it still had a long way to go.
Currently, what accelerated vision provides for Lucario was the effect of dodging opponent's moves.
It was particularly suited for close combat; Incineroar could attest to this.
Ranged combat was still out of the question.
Slightly stronger opponents can generally blur the distinction between single-target and multi-target attacks; their moves are wide-ranging and hard to dodge.
—At that point, the Aura Shield comes into play.
Lucario once felt extreme humiliation because it received Mewtwo's aura assistance during the festival. Consequently, it worked hard to refine and enhance its micro-control over aura power.
After several months, it had finally achieved some results.
Although it's still not as good as Metagross's Barrier, it was sufficient for reducing the power of moves.
It was only at this point that Li Xiang truly realized just how talented Metagross is.
They were both using mental powers.
The difference between the Aura Shield and Psychic Barrier is minimal. Lucario works just as hard as Metagross, yet Metagross can simply endure more.
This was true even back when it learned Psychic Barrier much earlier.
In comparison, Lucario seemed hopelessly stupid. But then again, being able to use this move even after being Taunted was incredibly helpful for Lucario.
Incineroar had found itself foiled by the Aura Shield on several occasions. From this perspective, the Aura Shield was more useful for Lucario than Psychic Barrier was for Metagross.
Growing alongside this was Aura Sphere.
Even back when it was a Riolu, it learned to continuously charge the move to increase its power, turning it into a charging attack, similar to Greninja's Giant Water Shuriken.
After evolving, the charging speed increased compared to before.
However, considering that the larger the Aura Sphere, the more unstable it becomes and the more delicate the control required, and given that Lucario's biggest weakness with aura was precisely delicate control, it had to keep the giant Aura Sphere within a certain limit.
Then, Li Xiang, drawing on his unreliable experience from watching years of anime, had a sudden whimsical idea.
Could it be possible to spin the Aura Sphere at high speed while simultaneously compressing it?
The answer was yes.
Projectile-type moves inherently carry a rotational force to increase their flight speed.
All Lucario needed to do was accelerate that rotational force and continuously shrink the sphere, like stuffing a large amount of clothing into a box.
Undoubtedly, this was also a delicate operation. But for the dog, practicing this regularly could improve its control over aura.
It is simpler than directly practicing the Aura Shield.
After all, one of the purest ways to utilize aura power is through Aura Sphere.
Therefore, for the past few months, Li Xiang and the other Pokémon often saw Lucario holding a small ball of light in its hands, kneading and compressing it as if it were a rice cake.
At first, Incineroar and the others were curious, watching to see what treasure Lucario was playing with.
As a result, they got a face full of soot when Lucario lost control and it exploded.
From then on, everyone gave it a wide berth. However, amidst repeatedly being blasted in the face by detonating aura, Lucario improved its control.
To this day, it could compress two Aura Spheres into the size of one while also enhancing their rotational force.
From a distance, it looked essentially no different from a Rasengan; the turbulence kicked up by the high-speed rotation was visible on the outside.
Only by getting closer can one see the increasingly deep blue projectile and the brilliant vortex core within.
While the outside spins, the inside spins naturally as well, even more violently. This double-consumption projectile did not disappoint Li Xiang, successfully dealing higher damage.
Lucario was very happy to see this because it felt it had taken a step further in control.
Immediately, it tried using the Aura Shield, and the results were encouraging.
As Li Xiang had imagined, the two complemented each other. As long as Lucario improved its control precision, everything would fall into place.
Then, during a psychic communication session, it gave Li Xiang a big figurative slap.
Was the requirement for psychic communication really that high?
Li Xiang went to consult Mewtwo.
Mewtwo looked bewildered and asked him, ''isn't that something you're born knowing?'
The expressions of the attacked Li Xiang and the attacking Lucario were equally brilliant. This was a classic case of asking the wrong person.
For Mewtwo, Li Xiang's question was as absurd as asking how to eat or how to walk. Nevertheless, it still tried to find a way to teach Lucario how to manipulate its own aura.
Lucario felt incredibly embarrassed but endured it for the sake of getting stronger.
However...
"It's just this kind of operation! Why don't you understand!"
Mewtwo said, its tail swishing irritably as it looked at Lucario, who just couldn't grasp it.
Mewtwo was a good student but not a good teacher. Lucario wasn't even a good student; it was a complete academic failure, much like Li Xiang listening to martial arts theory.
It simply couldn't understand what Mewtwo was saying.
Helpless, both gave up on each other.
A foolish teacher had met a stupid student.