First off, I unfortunately will be relying on links to express the abilities of Lucario. Because finding them specifically is a bit more difficult than I anticipated. I'll also be going over many of his abilities in this introduction, as I'd like to leave much room for debate as possible. If an "aha! my character can do this!" moment presents itself, as I'm sure it will, I'll post other abilities but like I said, this can be quite the fun debate to take part in, so allow me to get into some of the feats and why I believe Lucario comes into this in a top dog position.
Many believe Lucario to be one of the best martial artist among pokemon (which would be among most other fictional characters in general given their raw stats and casual bursts of wind/shockwaves that accompany their strikes) in the universe. Right there with Blaziken, Greninja, Heracross, Infernape, Hitmonlee, Hitmonchan - all are below Lucario (imo) by a decent margin in terms of pure skill and pure power in my exclamation. He is not only.one of my favorite characters in general, but he is also the character that has brought me the most success in battle forum debates. One of the only ones I don't lose interest in using... =)
Onto Lucario:
Just his physical movement casually create shockwaves or crush gigantic boulders and send them flying:
The beauty about this pokemon is that he senses and sees auras. No opponent or object can be invisible, regardless of the extent of their ability. No matter where they are hiding or what evasion technique they attempt. So this location chosen would only aid Lucario if the encounter dissolves into running in and out of the buildings pictured, or using your powers to cloak or shield your body from view. He sees aura clear as day and will have no trouble knowing exactly where you are and avoiding potential damage. Also, by catching the aura of others, it can read their thoughts and movements (regardless if they are invisible or not) This will come in handy.
He understands human speech and can also identify and take in the feelings of other creatures from over half a mile away.
Fighting Moves that go beyond Basic Knowledge
With access to moves like, "Metal Claw" (the opponent is bombarded and confused by the intense pain created from Lucario slamming his claws fists together), he can direct this at you, and it should have a significant impact on Korra. As I don't recall seeing her possessing any feats against sonic based maneuvers.
Some require me to get in close, and though Korra has an abundance of moves to avoid that kind of thing, if anyone can get up close and surprise her, it's Lucario, so with "Poison Jab" ("The target is stabbed with a tentacle or arm steeped in poison. It may also poison the target." ) and Thunder, Ice or Drain Punch, they all do exactly what they state. This is made even more impactful given Lucario's strength and speed that is superior to that of what I believe Korra would be expecting.
He may also utilize his aura into weapons. Like so:
Variety of offensive moves I will list here
Scans below.
1st: shows a small sample of his speed. You can see where he begins the clip and where he ends up in less than a second.
2nd: displays his ability to use his aura to create a weapon. Such as the club seen above or Wolverine like claws that aid him well in battle
3rd: is Metal Sound. Explained above but its effectiveness is highlighted here.
Another example here. He projects his aura attacks depending on situation and the threats involved. You have seen its speed increase to lower paced in each gif I just shared. However, in mid battle --
Here, Lucario, sends an aura sphere at a very fast rate causing it to tare up the ground beneath it while moving at an easily Mach 1 to 2 speed. The other 2 gifs shared were solely for this explanation; that being, that even I originally assumed it had to be due to the properties of the aura sphere itself and not the genuine speed. His control over his aura blasts extends this far however, and we've seen aura travel in such a manner and do nothing to the Earth below. The speed here was just insane. And that was him being serious. In this battle, he has no choice in the matter.
Why do I believe this is a different level for Korra? Because, among a few other reasons, Lucario's physical speed will allow him to find an opening that allows him to spam, shoot upward, or rain down spheres much like the scan above. A casual and slower moving aura sphere can destroy most of a bridge upon impact.
This would bode well if you use your bending as a shield in an attempt to deter my attacks. You can't possible block/deflect all of them.
At First Glance
Most, if not all pokemon powers are elemental based.
Lucario himself faces many fighters/opponents that have abilities and/or powers similar to Korra's own. Between Fire based, electric based, water based, rock based, ice based attacks -- all of which are beings that Lucario has competed with and defeated -- nothing that Korra brings to the table should surprise Lucario, whether he has knowledge or not. Affording him Basic Knowledge here does wonders for me and just emphasizes on his familiarization with elemental power.
Essentially what I'm implying is, beyond Lucario's experience and battle tested bouts against a whole lot of elemental competition, I know that you can bend/maniuplate those elements in odd and stylistic ways; something a lot of pokemon do anyway, but now, I'm even more prepared for it. So while I am sure Korra is a very skilled bender, and quite formidable given the extent of her powers allowed here, Lucario's physicals and overall vast power-set should help tilt the fight heavily in his favor.
The world of Avatar is divided into four major nations, each representing one of four fundamental elements: air, water, earth, and fire. Many people (called benders) are born with the ability to manipulate one of these elements, but only one is capable of bending all four: the Avatar, a hero bonded with the spirit of light and reincarnated across a thousand generations. Korra is simply the latest in a long line of reincarnated Avatars, but she is a monumental one for a few reasons - stopping world conquerers and terrorists, bridging the physical and spirit worlds, and resurrecting the Air nation from near extinction, all in her youth.
The Avatar has a lot of raw power (and can tap into a lot of power, as well), but generally as a combatant, I consider her greatest strength to be versatility, just like Avatar Aang. Combat in Avatar is very environment-centered, and being able to manipulate all the elements means that Korra will be able to take advantage of just about every aspect of the arena. Being a fighting-type Pokemon, Lucario is obviously going to be a skilled combatant, and packs a lot of power to boot, but I don't think he (are we using 'he'? I guess female Lucarios are rare according to game stats lol) is anything Korra won't be able to handle. While Pokemon are inherently elemental, Korra is essentially six or seven different Pokemon types at once, so regardless of fighting experience, Lucario will be forced to adapt to her fighting style.
I'll be using some links as well here. TLOK clips are kind of a pain to find and make into gifs so I'll just use the resources available to me, there are already a couple of nice respect threads out there that have whatever gifs I'll need (shoutout to @arcus1!)
Offensive Techniques
Lucario has some nice attacks to pressure Korra with, and a few niche abilities besides, but he really lacks options compared to Korra. Each of the four elements can be used for different types of attacks, and all with superior raw power behind them to what Lucario brings to the table.
Firebending is generated from thin air and provides her with projectile options while either grounded or airborne:
Lucario doesn't have much in the way of defense, and his movement around the arena will be inhibited by Korra's control of the environment. The water in the center of the arena, won't be letting Korra carry herself with massive spouts, but there is still plenty available for ice walls and projectiles. The hillside and buildings, meanwhile, provide all the earth she will need. Lucario's much heavier reliance on close-quarters fighting means that straying far from her will just give her a larger advantage, so he is going to have to come up with a way to deal with all these different types of attacks that will be thrown his way.
Defensive/Evasive Techniques and Countering Aura
I've already stated that I consider Korra's greatest asset to be versatility, and in this fight, I think it's going to play a really big factor. While both combatants have projectile attacks with dangerous amounts of power behind them, Lucario simply lacks Korra's defensive options, and will be much more pressed to stay on the offensive for the entire fight.
Korra is a highly skilled martial artist just like Lucario is, and trained in the styles of all the elements, meaning that she is very experienced in dealing with projectiles like the aura blasts that Lucario will be wielding. I don't anticipate reaction speed being much of an issue for aura-based attacks; Korra regularly intercepts, deflects and dodges fire and air blasts which can come out extremely fast, and the speed of Lucario's blasts can't really be qualified beyond this characterization.
All four elements significantly aid in her mobility as well:
Ice ramps and water spouts allow her to move around rapidly and create platforms, and she can extend water out from the pool onto the rest of the arena for these purposes.
Airbending can break high falls if she is launched in the air, and heavily enhances her agility overall, allowing her to jump extremely high in the air. Air currents also allow her to suspend herself in the air pretty much indefinitely - so water spouts aren't really necessary for this, which is useful given the relatively limited water on this battlefield.
Lucario's movement speed/approach at melee might be more of a problem, particularly when we are talking about the speed of a mega-evolved Lucario like you showed in one gif, but bursts closing in for melee attacks are manageable, and evasive maneuvers can be followed up by mid-range attacks that will be harder to avoid the closer Lucario gets. Korra is fast enough to avoid or even redirect a speeding torpedo and can evade a blur-speed FTE opponent just like the gif you showed for mega-evolved Lucario.
More important than dodging and evading, though, is that Korra is extremely well-equipped to block and deflect incoming attacks in a way that Lucario can't hope to match. Lucario's projectiles may be strong enough to tear up rock, but I've already established that Korra's bending is capable of the same level of power, which means that her elemental blasts should be capable of negating or dissipating aura blasts. Additionally:
While inexperienced, Korra has proven herself a capable metalbender (a subset of earthbending), meaning that she should be capable of directly countering Lucario's metal-based attacks like Metal Claw - this should even give her a degree of TK that she can use directly against Lucario himself.
Gallery
This could be a really valuable tool to deal with the sonic attack Metal Sound. Since Lucario wields metal to generate the waves, Korra's bending should be able to prevent him from striking his hands (paws?) together to use the attack.
Additionally, while in the Avatar State, Korra has demonstrated a special kind of bending that not even Aang could use on her level, dubbed energybending, or the manipulation of spiritual energy. While Aang could bend people's energy to cut off their chi and take their bending away, Korra actually demonstrated the ability to manipulate energy externally against Kuvira's spirit cannon:
The spirit cannon was an extremely powerful weapon for the Avatar verse, and well above Lucario's potential damage output.
Since the aura that Lucario manipulates is the spiritual energy within living beings in the Pokemon universe, I think it would be a far cry to argue that it isn't equivalent to the spiritual energy that Korra is able to bend in the Avatar-verse (plus, if Lucario can sense Korra's chi, that's a conclusion we have to already agree on :P). And while Korra needs to be in the Avatar State to use this ability, energybending could still be a valuable last resort against powerful aura attacks from Lucario - a blast too powerful for her to handle directly could still be energybent out of the way for personal defense.
Gameplan:
Lucario is a slightly unusual opponent for Korra, since benders usually fight other benders, but a melee-oriented opponent with powerful projectiles is not remotely out of her comfort zone. Despite being able to bend all four elements, Korra still frequently counters elemental attacks with a different element (countering fire or water with air or earth, etc.). So she is fully capable of dealing with a type of projectile blast that she can't straight up dissipate with bending (outside of the Avatar State, anyway). And while elemental manipulators may not be a new fight for Lucario, that doesn't mean Korra's combination of the elements won't be able to give him trouble, especially considering her wide range of offensive options that she is able to use in rapid succession.
Both of these fighters have impressive displays of raw power, but Korra still edges Lucario out when you compare her elements to his aura. Lucario definitely has more raw strength, but to use it, he needs to close in for a melee fight, which Korra is evasive enough to handle. She can use the elements anywhere from close to long range, meaning that she should be able to return attacks to Lucario no matter where he is. Her aerial movement, agility, and speed boosted by the environment all give her the ability to control the battlefield and space Lucario out to her heart's content. And her far superior defensive capabilities allow her to block or dissipate Lucario's ranged attacks in a way that he can't imitate. Metalbending and energybending also both give her direct counters to some of Lucario's core abilities.
All in all, Lucario is powerful enough to threaten the Avatar, but he's simply not equipped to deal with her many types of offense and get through her defenses at the same time. My first impression is that Korra's versatility will be too much for him.
Finally got a chance to sit down and read your post. Even if it was after a couple tries before getting busy with RL. It made me look forward to the debate portion even more; you gave me quite a bit to work with and I look forward to doing the same for you. ;).
Each of the four elements can be used for different types of attacks, and all with superior raw power behind them to what Lucario brings to the table.
I'm not sold on that. As I've shown, Lucario causes shock waves simply by swinging his arm. This boulder feat was performed by a weaker and earlier staged Riolu: (Here). Lucario has his previous evolution, Riolu, and he vastly outmatches him in stats, and comes with additional versatility.
Korra's main water bending ability isn't helped due to the amount of water available to her. While she can certainly use it for whatever she wishes, Lucario can easily evade or simply slice through such elemental attacks. Now I'm aware that Korra can manipulate her bending in a variety of ways that would make countering the elements a extremely tedious task, but that's where the kind of glossed over point:
That point being that Lucario has dealt with elemental powers on a regular basis and knows what to do if attacked by water, or fire, or electric, or metal, or ground/earth style attacks.
What aids him so much here, and I don't recall requesting it as a stipulation in this match, is Basic Knowledge of what Korra's abilities are. I now know that I'm not just dealing with one or two elements; I have an opponent who stands against me with access to numerous of them and her bending will no longer be a surprise or an unexpected hurdle that I would have had to cross had that stipulation not been in effect. You are aware of my aura powers, and while that is indeed the favored offense for an aura pokemon, Lucario's powers and abilities are far more lengthy than I've stated thus far.
Why does that mean he can evade or deflect elements that can change direction at Korra's will?
Well, to be honest, I would have been happy to make this case even without the Basic Knowledge perk being afforded to our characters, but add that onto the fact that Lucario is much MUCH faster than he's being considered here and it makes my testament for his ability to do so that much easier.
Another vital reason of why I'm prepared for the bending will be mentioned later. A hint: Has to do with aura and your head.
The single gif of him blitzing an on guard and prepared Pikachu is more than just eye candy:
Now, even beyond the obvious speed shown here, allow me the opportunity to share why it is impressive as I am making it out to be.
Pikachu. Another Worthy Opponent
Pikachu consistently moves at speed that are past FTE and most pokemon can't even perceive his movements. Below are further examples:
Pikachu moves fast enough to kick up the Earth under him.
Above, Pikachu weaves through and jumps across flying debris caused by an explosion just a split second before he reacts.
Pikachu has even been shown (in a weakened state) to be able to react to and dodge a swooping in Latios coming full speed at him:
A highly intelligent Pokémon. By folding back its wings in flight, it can overtake jet planes
Latios is faster than a jet plane, yt Pikachu still reacts and evades his incoming attack at said speed.
Also, going beyond a normal Lucario, who can blitz and consistently surprise a Pikachu, it has displayed even faster reaction speed at times. Against a quickly moving Pikachu (feats that I've shared above), he displays superior speed once again: Like this, and like this.
Hell, Mega Lucario can blitz another bloodlusted Mega Lucario. Even his movements are caught in a blur like moment and hold a standing image of of his strikes.
His Aura Sphere Speed is often overlooked.
Like the gif I shared already, his aura sphere moves fast enough to tare up and destroy the ground below it:
These spheres pass over the ground fine, without producing any rubble effect. His ability to control their velocity is very apparent here as well.
A Little Emphasis on Mega Lucario
A lot of the feats I've shared were either done by a Riolu (its first evolution), or base Lucario (Who by himself would be a handful for Korra); I mean, he even straight up stops a Mega Lucario's Power Up Punch (notice the shockwaves that send bystanders nearly catapulted away. Ash even clutches Pikachu preparing for the aftermath of the collision) -- the punch that a Riolu used to send towering boulders broken in pieces and flying in the opposite direction -- in his tracks. However, a Mega Lucario packs more power in its attacks to the point of being almost double powered than its previous incarnation.
That along with Swords Dance, which further amplifies his attack power, make what was a formidable foe into a flat out undesirable competitor for Korra.
Aura blast can cover a vast area. Making evading it at such speeds not that easy.
Counters
Lucario doesn't have much in the way of defense, and his movement around the arena will be inhibited by Korra's control of the environment. The water in the center of the arena, won't be letting Korra carry herself with massive spouts, but there is still plenty available for ice walls and projectiles. The hillside and buildings, meanwhile, provide all the earth she will need. Lucario's much heavier reliance on close-quarters fighting means that straying far from her will just give her a larger advantage, so he is going to have to come up with a way to deal with all these different types of attacks that will be thrown his way.
I mean, he does have quite a bit of defense. Not sure where you got that from. He could:
Simply avoid your attacks with pure speed. He is clearly the superior one here in that regard. Or by running in and out of the buildings.
Repel your attacks just as he was able to easily repel multiple energy attacks coming at him at once.
Though Lucario does rely on CQC if the battle calls for it, I've shared quite a bit of other moves in his arsenel that have a great deal of range, including aura spheres. I also believe that I've shown enough to support my claim that just because Korra has familiarity with Aura-like attacks, doesn't mean that she is fully prepared for a bombardment of said projectiles.
It enables the user to evade all attacks. Its chance of failing rises if it is used in succession
Your character isn't fast enough to evade me consecutive times. Manipulating the elements is one thing, but doing so while you can barely keep track of an emerging Mega Lucario and fast moving aura spheres unleashed at Korra in rapid succession is a whole other ball game.
Using Protect allows me sure fire negation from any attack you may attempt to direct at me initially. Even then, none of your attacks present any real threat to Lucario. Your air bending can prove to be problematic if taken lightly but I don't see how Korra even gets off the attack before Lucario reads what she's doing with movement reading and counters her nifty and stylistic abilities with speed that far surpasses her own.
I've already stated that I consider Korra's greatest asset to be versatility, and in this fight, I think it's going to play a really big factor. While both combatants have projectile attacks with dangerous amounts of power behind them, Lucario simply lacks Korra's defensive options, and will be much more pressed to stay on the offensive for the entire fight.
Korra is a highly skilled martial artist just like Lucario is, and trained in the styles of all the elements, meaning that she is very experienced in dealing with projectiles like the aura blasts that Lucario will be wielding. I don't anticipate reaction speed being much of an issue for aura-based attacks; Korra regularly intercepts, deflects and dodges fire and air blasts which can come out extremely fast, and the speed of Lucario's blasts can't really be qualified beyond this characterization
I'll be honest. The gap in physicals is too much for most of this to not really matter.
Physically, Korra is sort of nearing Riolu level. While her saving grace in this fight, the elements, could have helped her in a random encounter, it sort of forces Lucario to end this one rather quickly.
We both know Lucario only needs one hit.
And I know you know that as well. So let's see, you bring an array of cool powers:
Earthbending - I can only see that being useful to aid in her mobility around the battlefield.
Firebending - I can use Dig (See below) to escape that incineration attempt.
Waterbending - I can just slice that apart.
Airbending - What I believe to be the biggest hurdle is still on the backburner because, I don't see Korra using that first given the battlefield and the very little I know. I see no reason though, by the feats you've shared, why Lucario couldn't repel that away or sense it's coming and avoid it with different league physicals.
Pearl
By catching the aura emanating from others, it can read their thoughts and movements
X Omega Ruby
By catching the aura emanating from others, it can read their thoughts and movements.
So on top of being afforded knowledge here, I can also read your mind and your movements.
Lucario's movement speed/approach at melee might be more of a problem, particularly when we are talking about the speed of a mega-evolved Lucario like you showed in one gif, but bursts closing in for melee attacks are manageable, and evasive maneuvers can be followed up by mid-range attacks that will be harder to avoid the closer Lucario gets. Korra is fast enough to avoid or even redirect a speeding torpedo and can evade a blur-speed FTE opponent just like the gif you showed for mega-evolved Lucario
That isn't FTE speed. He stood up an telegraphed his attack. He wasn't really close to the speeds that Lucario routinely deals with.
More important than dodging and evading, though, is that Korra is extremely well-equipped to block and deflect incoming attacks in a way that Lucario can't hope to match. Lucario's projectiles may be strong enough to tear up rock, but I've already established that Korra's bending is capable of the same level of power, which means that her elemental blasts should be capable of negating or dissipating aura blasts.
She's not capable of dissipating them though. She would hardly perceive them, both in speed and quantity. Lucario's projectiles cause massive explosions, blow through rock like butter, and slice right through industrial grade steel.
How could Lucario not match her deflect/block skill? He is far far faster... and has blocked strikes from his own kind (Mega Lucario).
While inexperienced, Korra has proven herself a capable metalbender (a subset of earthbending), meaning that she should be capable of directly countering Lucario's metal-based attacks like Metal Claw - this should even give her a degree of TK that she can use directly against Lucario himself.
This could be a really valuable tool to deal with the sonic attack Metal Sound. Since Lucario wields metal to generate the waves, Korra's bending should be able to prevent him from striking his hands (paws?) together to use the attack
She knows of of his aura abilities. She should have no idea that Lucario is capable of so many different types of powers. Metal Sound can't be on her radar. I even question how often she uses metalbending. She can't prevent him from doing anything if she can't keep track of him or the onslaught of aura projectiles racing toward her.
energybending could still be a valuable last resort against powerful aura attacks from Lucario - a blast too powerful for her to handle directly could still be energybent out of the way for personal defense.
Well energies and manipulating them -- that's kind of Lucario's thing lol
If she needs to be in a certain state for this ability, and her feat here is above what limits we agreed to, then no need for me to counter it. Energy bending however, it's really whose fastest on the draw and who will attack first... Take a guess at who that'd be.
I'm afforded Basic Knowledge on top of already being able to read your mind, aura, and movements.
Now your elements won't surprise me NOR will your bending of them.
I have physicals on my side in a monumental way. A Riolu performs feats above Korra's paygrade.
You say I have to get close to land a hit, I believe you'll have a lot more coming at you then just me trying to land a strike.
I don't believe Korra's fast enough to simply out maneuver or block all of Lucario's seemingly limitless and devastating aura attacks. Some of her bending based shields would just be plowed through by the aura. They'd offer no assistance at all.
None of her combat/training feats show her going anywhere as fast as those aura spheres will be when they rain down on her.
Lucario's Protect ability will allow him to go head on quick and relentlessly -- Why would that be enough?
Gallery
We see a cruise ship that is doomed for certain death and destruction for all on board with very little time to react. Lucario is then thrusts in (in a split second I might add) as hero with Flash Cannon. Which completely obliterates the gigantic object ahead and saves many lives in the quick process.
Take note of the destructive out put of course, but also that there was no slight debris or small pieces of the foundation left behind, it was flat out blasted out of the vicinity. Maybe most impressively was the speed in which the move occurred.
Everything Korra can do is indeed impressive but it just doesn't touch what Lucario brings to the table imo.
We both have a wide array of abilities, I can just do mine a lot faster than you can, and unfortunately I know what you're going to do before you do it.
Korra's a fine character with loads of cool abilities but she's going up against badassery embodied into a singular being, Lucario. IMO, this was never really all that fair.
You don't seem to be drawing any distinction between Lucario's base form and his powered-up Mega Evolution. Lucario needs to actually power up in order to tap into the power of this form (with the aid of a trainer no less), but since you haven't addressed that, I guess there is really no reason for me to draw a distinction between Korra's base form and the Avatar State, which she can instantly tap into at will. So moving forward, I'm just going to use Avatar State feats interchangeably with Korra's regular bending.
Your main strategy seems to be banking entirely on a speed gap so large that Lucario can literally speedblitz, and a physical gap so large that Lucario is not even in danger, and neither of these is even remotely substantiated. So I'm just going to address some of these claims and back up my own; my opinion hasn't really changed much. Korra remains more powerful and more versatile.
Problems with the physicals argument, scaling, and general overestimation:
I'm not sold on that. As I've shown, Lucario causes shock waves simply by swinging his arm. This boulder feat was performed by a weaker and earlier staged Riolu: (Here)
Lucario has his previous evolution, Riolu, and he vastly outmatches him in stats, and comes with additional versatility.
Okay, well, uh. First of all, that's not Riolu, it's Lucario. Granted, not his mega-evolved form, but not his unevolved form either. Riolu is about half the height of Lucario and lacks wrist and chest spikes as well as a yellow coloration. The Pokemon in the gif is a Lucario. But regardless, the strength increase gained by evolution and mega evolution is largely speculative, and if you can't provide better feats from a higher evolved form then we can't just start assuming the degree to which his power increases.
Regardless, it's not all that great a feat all told, and certainly not enough to be making claims about one-shotting. All that gif shows is moving a few boulders out of the way with a charged-up punch, while Korra can tank significantly worse, including a boulder as large as those two put together literally shattering on impact against her.
Now, in terms of raw physical strength, Lucario is obviously superior to Korra, but Korra doesn't fight with raw physical strength; she does damage with the impact of her bending attacks. So can Lucario hit hard enough to hurt Korra? Absolutely, but it's far from an overwhelming advantage. It's not going to be a punching contest. One of the most confusing points you've made in my eyes is emphasizing the physical distinction as though Korra's elements are a secondary factor, when they are entirely integral to her combat.
Korra's main water bending ability isn't helped due to the amount of water available to her. While she can certainly use it for whatever she wishes, Lucario can easily evade or simply slice through such elemental attacks. Now I'm aware that Korra can manipulate her bending in a variety of ways that would make countering the elements a extremely tedious task, but that's where the kind of glossed over point:
Korra is as much a bender of the other three elements as she is a waterbender; in fact there are some that would make the case that air ended up being her best element by EoS. But regardless, the reservoir in this fight gives her plenty to draw on. She can't drop an ocean on Lucario, but the pond and creek give her plenty to make wide AoE attacks.
That point being that Lucario has dealt with elemental powers on a regular basis and knows what to do if attacked by water, or fire, or electric, or metal, or ground/earth style attacks.
Okay - unless you can specifically provide proof of Lucario having direct counters to various elemental attacks, I don't think this fighting experience is as useful as you are making it out to be here. Elaborating on this:
What aids him so much here, and I don't recall requesting it as a stipulation in this match, is Basic Knowledge of what Korra's abilities are. I now know that I'm not just dealing with one or two elements; I have an opponent who stands against me with access to numerous of them and her bending will no longer be a surprise or an unexpected hurdle that I would have had to cross had that stipulation not been in effect.
So what you're saying is that simply knowing that Korra is able to bend the elements removes them from the equation as a factor? Basic knowledge prevents either character from being blindsided by attacks they didn't know were possible, but you are really overestimating Lucario if you think you can completely disregard Korra's bending. Knowing Korra can shoot fire at him doesn't make him fireproof, and he needs to have a way to deal with incoming attacks no matter how much knowledge he has.
Some of these arguments just feel obscure and, to be honest, a little insincere. Lucario doesn't have specific counters to each element or anything, he has evasion and straightforward attacks to respond to incoming threats. Lucario has no familiarity with bending forms so it's not like he has a way of knowing specifically how and when Korra will manipulate each of the elements (and I know you are trying to keep aura "move reading" in your back pocket, but I address that below). Practically every opponent Korra has ever fought is a big strong guy that shoots energy blasts, does that mean I get to disregard all of Lucario's techniques because she is prepared to deal with them? In my opener I actually provided defenses and counters that Korra has to Lucario's techniques.
Why does that mean he can evade or deflect elements that can change direction at Korra's will?
Well, to be honest, I would have been happy to make this case even without the Basic Knowledge perk being afforded to our characters, but add that onto the fact that Lucario is much MUCH faster than he's being considered here and it makes my testament for his ability to do so that much easier.
You are claiming a massive speed advantage where there isn't one. One fact you notably haven't mentioned is that Pokemon fighting by using Pokemon moves, specific techniques that are used sequentially. Moving at blur speed to deliver a single attack like the power-up punch in the gif you've shown is a good speed feat, but that doesn't mean Lucario can move FTE continuously throughout the course of a battle, just for bursts to deliver specific attacks, which is why we only actually see Mega Lucario moving with that level of speed to close in for a Power-Up Punch (a highly telegraphed attack that requires Lucario to remain still and charge it before actually throwing the punch, which is why we see Pikachu able to repeatedly move out of the way before the attack lands, despite the fact that Pikachu visibly cannot keep up with the bursts of FTE movement).
Should be pretty clear that it doesn't make sense to scale Lucario's speed to the best speed showings from Ash's Pikachu.
Now, this doesn't mean that Korra won't have to deal with bursts of FTE speed if Lucario does attack her with Power-Up Punch - she certainly will - but I already proved she is capable of doing this, and you completely handwaved it. Rather than wait until I get to it further down, I will pull it from your counters section:
That isn't FTE speed. He stood up an telegraphed his attack. He wasn't really close to the speeds that Lucario routinely deals with.
This simply couldn't be further from the truth. Not only is this blur-speed FTE movement no less quantifiable than Lucario's own, but the argument that it was telegraphed makes no sense (despite the fact that Lucario's attacks are heavily telegraphed and probably not the route you want to be taking here). The gif literally shows the spirit moving toward her from the PoV from the dark spirit before it cuts away and she dodges it, meaning that the spirit was in the middle of bullrushing her at FTE speeds when she evaded the attack. It honestly could not be more clear-cut than this, the attack was already underway and charging toward her when she still evaded it - not a matter of telegraphing at all. Compare this to Power-Up punch, where she does not even have to evade Lucario at FTE speeds, she just needs to get out of the way of the actual strike which Lucario has to stop in place before using, the same way Pikachu repeatedly did.
So, while we're talking about Pikachu.
Pikachu. Another Worthy Opponent
Pikachu consistently moves at speed that are past FTE and most pokemon can't even perceive his movements. Below are further examples:
There is really no other way to say it - scaling to Pikachu is just plain bad reasoning, and particularly the comparison to Latios is an absolutely colossal stretch to try and quantify your Lucario's inherently unquantifiable FTE movement. Ash's Pikachu in particular is one of the most notoriously inconsistent and jobbing-prone characters in all of anime, and regularly fights characters both far above and far below Lucario with comparable levels of success. There are myriad examples of Pikachu struggling with and being matched by literal unevolved Pokemon, even Pokemon that are weak to electricity - and yes, this shit regularly happens across all the series of Pokemon. Here's Quilava (from Advanced Generation) and Fletchling (a first-stage unevolved flying type, from XY, same series as the Mega Lucario fight) just to name a pair that were easy to find. Meanwhile Pikachu can damage Mewtwo, match Marshadow (a fighting type like Lucario), and yeah - Latios, too, all legendary Pokemon that are way more powerful, and faster, than Lucario.
Ash's jet speed Pikachu struggled to land even a single blow on Slakoth, literally one of the slowest Pokemon in the whole franchise, during a gym battle with Norman
I mean, if you really need further evidence that Pikachu is too inconsistent to scale Lucario off of... Pikachu was literally able to do better fighting Korrina's Mega Lucario than against Cameron's regular non-Mega Evolved version.
My point here is, you are trying to use direct ABC scaling on a character that struggles against characters of hugely varying levels and cannot be realistically scaled to anything. It's just a really bad comparison. Pikachu's stats are all over the place, and it is obviously not moving at Latios level speeds when fighting against Korrina's Lucario. Lucario's bursts of FTE movement were demonstrably faster than Pikachu itself during that encounter. Besides that - unless you are trying to argue that Lucario actually is as fast as Latios, what is the purpose of this scaling anyway? You have proven that Lucario can move FTE in bursts to close in for an attack, but you have a long way to go if you are trying to prove that Lucario can fight continuously at blur speeds and trying to use this scaling does not help you.
Another vital reason of why I'm prepared for the bending will be mentioned later. A hint: Has to do with aura and your head.
You've only really touched on the movement reading thing a little bit, but you seem to be relying on it as an ace in the hole for countering Korra's offense. It seems to me that you are interpreting Lucario's abilities in such a way that he can read Korra's every move and predict all of her attacks, based on a single Pokedex entry from Pokemon Pearl, which reads:
By catching the Aura emanating from others, it can read their thoughts and movements.
The bottom line is, Lucario is not a telepath. There is an entire class of Pokemon that specifically use psychic abilities including telepathy, and Lucario is not a part of it. Aura in the Pokemon universe does not reflect people's cognitions, it reflects their feelings and their spirit. The other Pokedex entries specifically clarify the nature of Lucario's abilities, and it is pretty clear that the "thoughts" the Pokemon Pearl entry is referring to is emotions, not cognitions:
Lucario reads its opponent's feelings with its aura waves. It finds out things it would rather not know, so it gets stressed out easily.
Lucario can detect people's locations because he can sense their life force, and he can sense their emotions through the nature of their aura, but this does not mean he has move reading abilities or precognition of any kind. It is abundantly clear if you actually watch a fight scene with Lucario that it is not able to anticipate what attacks its opponent is going to throw out, or at least (to be exceedingly generous) that it does not make ordinarily use of this ability in a fight and is 100% capable of being blindsided by attacks it is not expecting or prepared for. If you earnestly believe that Lucario can somehow telepathically read its opponents moves in battle like Taskmaster (and that it would actually be likely and in-character for it to do such a thing at all, let alone continuously or with any frequency), that is something you are going to have to prove with scans. I don't believe you can substantiate any such claims.
So let me just quash that argument right now: Lucario can't anticipate all of Korra's possible attacks just with basic knowledge and the knowledge that she can bend the elements, any more than it could anticipate all the attacks of any other element user (say, Blaziken? :P). Aura reading can allow Lucario to sense Korra's location, sure, which is what the 'movements' part of the Pearl Pokedex entry is referring to, but Korra actually has the same advantage against Lucario because he has metal on his body, which metalbenders are able to sense.
Just a couple more points I will address before I respond to your counters section in full.
However, a Mega Lucario packs more power in its attacks to the point of being almost double powered than its previous incarnation. That along with Swords Dance, which further amplifies his attack power, make what was a formidable foe into a flat out undesirable competitor for Korra.
The ability to increase strength is handy, but any technique that requires Lucario to stand still and charge, like Swords Dance, is not going to be useful when it makes him such a sitting duck. Trying to use Swords Dance against Korra would be a good way to get encased in ice or entombed in rock if not straight-up blasted, which would interrupt the technique anyways.
Like the gif I shared already, his aura sphere moves fast enough to tare up and destroy the ground below it:
It's properties are NOT responsible for such side effects
These spheres pass over the ground fine, without producing any rubble effect. His ability to control their velocity is very apparent here as well.
This is just speculation, plain and simple, and there isn't much to say to counter it because it isn't based on anything. The variation in the sphere's effect on the ground could easily be because of how close each sphere was to the ground, the varying power of each sphere, or just regular old inconsistency (which is probably the actual reason, but let's be reasonable here). Even then, how fast exactly are you trying to imply this sphere is? "So fast it tears up the ground" isn't really quantifiable and it certainly isn't moving at blur speeds, so I see nothing that would suggest it is too fast for Korra, who counters fast moving aerial projectiles on the regular, to react to.
More direct counters:
I mean, he does have quite a bit of defense. Not sure where you got that from.
He could: Simply avoid your attacks with pure speed. He is clearly the superior one here in that regard. Or by running in and out of the buildings.
Repel your attacks just as he was able to easily repel multiple energy attacks coming at him at once.
Don't misunderstand me - when I say Lucario's options for defense are limited, I don't mean to imply he has no way to respond to incoming attacks, I mean that he lacks options to protect himself from attacks that land. Evasion is certainly his most reliable option, and I believe he will be able to evade plenty of Korra's attacks. But that being said, Korra has more options for mobility in order to simply avoid attacks, too, given all the different ways bending can enhance her movement both vertically and horizontally. Lucario can move faster than Korra for short bursts but he still lacks her movement options; I would argue that he does not even really have her beat in evasion at all when it comes to dealing with each other's attacks. Running into the buildings, meanwhile, would just put Lucario in more danger since Korra can just use earthbending on them. The difference is that Korra has a breadth of defensive techniques in addition to evasive manuevers that provide her with more options to deal with incoming attacks.
The bone club is the only real defensive tool you have shown for Lucario, and while it is handy to repel attacks, Lucario does not fight with his bone club constantly drawn and he would only be able to deflect blasts when he had it ready for use. The club also can only defend in a single direction, while Korra can use earthbending to attack from multiple angles (example 1, example 2, example 3).
Though Lucario does rely on CQC if the battle calls for it, I've shared quite a bit of other moves in his arsenel that have a great deal of range, including aura spheres. I also believe that I've shown enough to support my claim that just because Korra has familiarity with Aura-like attacks, doesn't mean that she is fully prepared for a bombardment of said projectiles.
She's not capable of dissipating them though. She would hardly perceive them, both in speed and quantity. Lucario's projectiles cause massive explosions, blow through rock like butter, and slice right through industrial grade steel.
How could Lucario not match her deflect/block skill? He is far far faster... and has blocked strikes from his own kind (Mega Lucario).
I am aware that Lucario has aura projectiles for range. I already addressed that Korra's blasts can negate the impact of aura blasts because Korra's attacks have equal or superior firepower, at least based on the feats I have shown (you have done very little to substantiate the raw power of aura strikes.
Explosions and damaging rock and small amounts of metal are not remotely outside of Korra's range of raw power; I have already provided building level feats for every element in Korra's arsenal in my opener, while you have not provided anything of the sort for any of Lucario's aura attacks (and all of those from my opener were outside the Avatar State). Korra can quite literally hurl boulders the size of a house while half-dead from mercury poisoning, and cut clean through rock purely with air, let alone earthbending or waterbending. How can you possibly argue Lucario's projectiles would overpower hers based on what you've shown so far? I am not inclined to believe that Lucario could win any kind of beam struggle. Which is why I pointed out Lucario's CQC - that's more or less his advantage here.
A fire blast like this is nearly enough to take a Lucario out of the match on its own, and Korra demonstrates more powerful firebending on a regular basis. Even considering the power up from Mega Lucario, it should not take all that much of Korra's best bending to do enough damage to take this fight.
I can over come your ranged offense with either speed, power or defense moves such as Protect.
Personally, I believe it is kind of cheap to use the "composite" label to attribute every single move that Lucario is possibly capable of learning in the games to him, even the TMs that literally every Pokemon is able to learn, like Protect (especially since a Pokemon can only know four moves at once). But regardless, similar to Swords Dance, using Protect requires Lucario's full attention and can't be used multiple times in a row, so he can't attack or move while using it, nor can he defend from continuous attacks with it.
Your character isn't fast enough to evade me consecutive times. Manipulating the elements is one thing, but doing so while you can barely keep track of an emerging Mega Lucario and fast moving aura spheres unleashed at Korra in rapid succession is a whole other ball game.
Additionally:
Your air bending can prove to be problematic if taken lightly but I don't see how Korra even gets off the attack before Lucario reads what she's doing with movement reading and counters her nifty and stylistic abilities with speed that far surpasses her own.
Lucario can't just use all of his attacks at the same time. If he is firing aura projectiles at range, Korra can protect herself at range. If he closes in for a fast-moving strike, Korra can evade and counter at close range. Meanwhile, using the elements to evade attacks is bog standard for Korra. This includes propelling herself with the elements and fighting at the same time. Again, your speed argument is exaggerated considering Lucario's use of such speed in short bursts, and your movement reading argument is just purely speculative.
I'll be honest. The gap in physicals is too much for most of this to not really matter.
Physically, Korra is sort of nearing Riolu level. While her saving grace in this fight, the elements, could have helped her in a random encounter, it sort of forces Lucario to end this one rather quickly.
We both know Lucario only needs one hit.
Lucario does have superior physicals, but I strongly disagree that he can one-shot her. Moving or breaking boulders is a level of force Korra has tanked before. Korra can tank having boulders smashed into her, tank being blasted into rock pillars, tank Vaatu's beam which obliterates rock, even tank blows that crumple steel, with minimal effect. Lucario's blunt force will hurt but not remove her from the fight.
She knows of of his aura abilities. She should have no idea that Lucario is capable of so many different types of powers. Metal Sound can't be on her radar. I even question how often she uses metalbending. She can't prevent him from doing anything if she can't keep track of him or the onslaught of aura projectiles racing toward her.
She'll have the same level of knowledge that he has about her; she'll be aware of his aura projection, bone club and metal based attacks the same way he will be aware of her four elements. You seem happy to take advantage of the stipulation of basic knowledge so I don't see how you could object to Korra knowing what Lucario's capabilities are.
Korra only learned metalbending in the third season out of four which is why I described her as inexperienced, but she consistently uses metal when it is a resource available to her. She demonstrated this very clearly when she matched Kuvira's metalbending in their fight, and she has consistently made use of environmental metal in the comics.
Gallery
She is a resourceful fighter, that's why the environment is so important for her to take advantage of. If Lucario pulls out a metal-based attack, Korra is equipped to counter it and take advantage of it.
Well energies and manipulating them -- that's kind of Lucario's thing lol
If she needs to be in a certain state for this ability, and her feat here is above what limits we agreed to, then no need for me to counter it. Energy bending however, it's really whose fastest on the draw and who will attack first... Take a guess at who that'd be.
I'm certainly not saying that Korra is a better energy manipulator than Lucario; it is inherent to his species after all, while for Korra it is a rare skill even for an Avatar to have. And Korra is not able to actually project energy beams, just redirect them. However, what this does mean is that even without any defenses up, Korra still has an option for protecting herself from a spirit energy (AKA aura)-based attack, no matter how powerful. And she needs to be in the Avatar State which can and does activate at will. It is really no different than making arguments based on Lucario's Mega Evolution form.
The last thing I want to address is your point about a barrage of aura attacks, namely the scan you showed at the end of your opener (this one) and the points you've made around it.
Lucario's physical speed will allow him to find an opening that allows him to spam, shoot upward, or rain down spheres much like the scan above. A casual and slower moving aura sphere can destroy most of a bridge upon impact.
This would bode well if you use your bending as a shield in an attempt to deter my attacks. You can't possible block/deflect all of them.
Your implication here seems to be that each individual aura blast in a barrage like this can have the same level of power attributed to it as the best feats that single aura spheres have had. I really dislike this logic and I question what your reasoning is for it - a barrage of smaller blasts is just that, a quick and spread-out attack that covers a wide area of effect. Unless the feat actually reflects such a level of power (every single blast being powerful enough to destroy most of a bridge), which this scan definitely does not, it makes sense to conclude that the individual smaller blasts are weaker for the sake of covering an AoE. It's like saying every blast in an energy barrage from Vegeta can be equated to a Final Flash, to use Dragon Ball as an example. Obviously a single, larger energy ball would be stronger than any single blast in a barrage of smaller ones. You can't equate all of Lucario's aura attacks to be the same level of power any more than I can claim that all of Korra's fire blasts are all at her maximum level of power - and trust me, you wouldn't want us to go down that road anyway.
Anyway, Korra's defenses are perfectly capable of standing up to an aerial barrage. Even a dome purely of air was enough to protect Korra at point-blank range from a bomb that blew out the entire interior of a house from the basement. I see no reason why Korra can't simply shield against such an attack to defend herself.
Gameplan:
In spite of your insistence to the contrary, Korra remains the more powerful combatant here, and her vast array of options to use the environment in her favor make it substantially more difficult for Lucario to get the upper hand than the reverse.
Main points:
Lucario's speed advantage is way, way more limited than you have let on; I would argue that it does not even exist outside of short bursts during the use of specific attacks. You are acting like he is capable of speedblitzing and hitting Korra with attacks that she cannot avoid when this is not characteristic of his fighting style at all. Even when Pikachu was specifically displayed as being unable to react to Mega Lucario's FTE movement in their fight, he was still able to consistently dodge Lucario's attacks because of this. And Korra is not even at this disadvantage because she actually is capable of reacting to and avoiding FTE movement, evading a FTE attack halfway through a dark spirit charging at her. While Lucario's bursts of speed make it easier for him to close the distance between them, it does not grant him any guaranteed hits and it certainlydoes not allow him to speedblitz or evade all of Korra's attacks. Korra is more than capable of fighting back at close range and putting distance between the two of them.
Lucario's physical strength advantage is not a game changer. His physical strength doesn't eclipse her durability and she is still capable of taking hits from him. And the fact that he can punch harder than she can doesn't matter because that isn't Korra's fighting style. He doesn't need to punch harder than her, he needs to punch harder than she can bend, and that's where he falls flat. Which leads me to my next point:
Korra is plainly more powerful than Lucario is. Avatar State or no, Korra can fire elemental attacks with scale far superior to anything shown in this debate for either Lucario's physical strikes or his energy attacks. More powerful ranged attacks mean that she can cancel out or dissipate opposing ones, and given Lucario's relative lack of durability showings in this debate, there is little suggest that he can stand up to pressure from her. At her best, Korra can bend the elements to such a degree that should be able to overwhelm Lucario pretty easily, to be honest, be it a knockout through damage or simply incapacitation via restraining him.
Finally, Korra has more movement options and much stronger defenses. Korra can move all over the arena and even launch herself into the air and fly. This provides her with plenty of options for evading aura attacks. Meanwhile, air domes, water and earth shields, and even waves of fire all provide significant bodily coverage that can block any attack on the scale that has been shown for Lucario's attacks, and metalbending and energybending both provide specific hard counters to a number of Lucario's techniques. Between her own blasts, her evasive options, and her shields/physical protection, there are just too many barriers (figuratively and literally) to Lucario being able to repeatedly dole out damage to her. Korra doesn't have these barriers. All she has to do is tag him, and not very much, either. Frankly, I am inclined to believe one good Avatar State fire blast could probably one hit KO, given his vulnerability to fire, but even being more charitable than that, Korra can effectively keep Lucario on the defensive throughout the match.
@sawed_off_it: Okay, first round of counters up! I did feel that you have exaggerated or overestimated Lucario in some places, but even still this has been a really fun and challenging debate so far. I'm guessing we're doing our final counters next?
Ok, good debate. A fun one. However, you are failing to see where I am coming from. In the my final post of the debate, I will expand on it further, but some of my issues with your current assessment of my stance will be resolved right here.
Just on the speed argument:
Beyond the feats that you have chosen to ignore, and as you've provided no evidence to negate my claims, your the consistent need to utterly dismiss the difference (Lucario isn't the Flash; he isn't even in the top tier of pokemon in terms of speed but the difference does exist) in speed between Korra and Lucario. Bursts of speed or travel speed, it doesn’t matter. Korra still hasn't faced such a quick and agile opponent. While you willingly state that Lucario will have an advantage of speed during combat, you do all you can to diminish the effect it will have on this battle. It does everything but discredit its purpose in this fight. It is very much a big deal and I will clarify more below.
Again, I'm not claiming that Lucario is prone to such superior speeds that this fight is unfair. I'm just saying that the only thing she faced that moved at blur speeds was the purple entity.
We are not going to pretend as though that speed was on or touching the same level that I've shown Lucario to consistently move at. Matter of fact, even though she eventually hit her target after it stopped, she missed every shot she took beforehand. Wasn't even close really, it almost seemed like it was toying with her.
More importantly, it shows how quickly an opponent can close the space between themselves and Korra if agility/quickness is in their favor. Of which, is very much the case here.
That thing seemed to also possess next to no skill or any projection offense... So what do you think Lucario (who is even faster) is going to do when he closes the gap? In an environment that allows even less room than that gif showed.
Also, I never said Lucario’s travel speed really mattered. I assumed it was common knowledge here on the vine that combat speed, especially in fictional fights like this, were crucial to debates. I am not saying Korra is slow at all, but you've yet to share anything that sways or lessens the idea that Lucario could close in on Korra just as that being did, but with alot more grace and precision, and with a much bigger arsenal.
She can certainly use some of her bending to enhance her travel speed but I see no where in the feats you posted that displays her with even comparable movement speed, bending or not. Not in her base state nor her Avatar state. Concentrating and moving as slow as a snail to throw that large boulder - it certainly is impressive don‘t get me wrong - doesn’t really bother me in terms of this battle.
More Concerns (Seriously)
So, furthermore, to discredit my own claims by saying that Lucario needs a duration of time to mega evolve and/or he can’t have access to fighting/steel/aura type moves when that is the exact kind of Pokémon he is, is quite a bit of reaching in my opinion.
I have been in CaVs and witnessed CaVs with Pokémon being represented in them, and at no point, unless they really want to detail the fact that they don’t have many counters to said Pokémon opponent, do they mention that they usually require a trainer and they can only have four moves... keep reaching further. Maybe you’ll get something of a viable counter out of that bag of whatever critiques you think you have.
No one in their right mind would agree to a CaV where they only have access to four separate moves. Even in the anime you see Pokémon with more than just that number of attacks/defenses at times. No one would agree to a CaV when there are added stipulations to the fight that weren’t discussed in the PM. While almost everything that was stated in the OP, was indeed agreed upon, the biggest one that was not: the Basic Knowledge perk granted to both of us. I had no idea about that being added in.
It makes no sense to have a debate if that was your genuine belief.
If you were going into this thinking that my character was going to have four moves in total AND you were going to know which ones they were and how they worked (your claims for Korra knowing Metal Claw and exactly how it is used because you have basic knowledge, which is not how that works anyway but I digress until later in the debate) is pretty low.
Why in the world do you think I requested a composite version of Lucario? To not use his strongest form and have him hampered by certain Pokémon rules? I mean, the use of a trainer would only be beneficial against other Pokémon with a trainer.
Also, I withheld my instantaneous gripes I had with it at first and chose to go with and accept the Basic Knowledge as a stipulation. Under the belief that something like those (the time it takes to mega evolve, the needing for a trainer to be there, and only four moves......) couldn’t possible be brought up as an issue. It‘s why the only logical and easiest way to debate Pokémon is to use a composite version; the best and most equipped possible version of said Pokémon to take into battle. I don’t think the four move gripe has ever been a legitimate argument in these kinds of debates anyway. I’ve read and been involved in numerous debates where pokemon were represented.
What did you really think you were getting into? A CaV that would see a motionless Lucario that only attacks or defends itself when a faceless trainer shouts out very specific commands? And all the while, while my character is heavily impeded by this, you then also give your bender the ability to foresee what could be coming with basic knowledge?
No. Absolutely not.
I believe how I’ve portrayed Lucario is fair. I haven’t gone overboard with his abilities and I haven’t said he can do anything that a fighting, steel, or an aura creature such as him couldn’t already inherently be capable of. If it hasn’t been shown on panel or in the anime, I go out of my way not to use it in a CaV. The list of moves that Lucario has shown consistently in those two platforms is long and very versatile. There are a certain set of moves that Lucario favors over others but those are against other Pokémon and he learns what to use on the go...
Now I am not accusing you of attempting to do anything underhanded here. As you do seem to be a respectable and knowledgeable debater in all the threads that I’ve seen you in. However, you are the one who slid Basic Knowledge into the contest after we agreed on set conditions. Affording Korra a much needed crash course of her opponent’s abilities in a fight like this wasn’t something I agreed for her or Lucario, but yes, I happily took advantage of the Basic Knowledge rule you instated. As unexpected as it was, and though it certainly does benefit you, it also benefits the stronger, faster and more versatile character more than it does Korra. So shamelessly I embraced it. It is one of the reasons I am as confident in this victory as I am.
Now that I am finished with final thoughts I’ll go ahead with the rest of the debate. Let’s get into it.
Counters I
You don't seem to be drawing any distinction between Lucario's base form and his powered-up Mega Evolution. Lucario needs to actually power up in order to tap into the power of this form (with the aid of a trainer no less), but since you haven't addressed that, I guess there is really no reason for me to draw a distinction between Korra's base form and the Avatar State, which she can instantly tap into at will. So moving forward, I'm just going to use Avatar State feats interchangeably with Korra's regular bending.
Well, I mean you stated in the OP that you were at your "peak levels" in both physical and mental state. I assumed that you would use her best feats, Avatar State or Not, since those were the parameters in place. Why the hell wouldn't I also have access to the best feats of my character? Lol, I delved into all that up top so no need doing the same here.
Okay, well, uh. First of all, that's not Riolu, it's Lucario. Granted, not his mega-evolved form, but not his unevolved form either. Riolu is about half the height of Lucario and lacks wrist and chest spikes as well as a yellow coloration. The Pokemon in the gif is a Lucario. But regardless, the strength increase gained by evolution and mega evolution is largely speculative, and if you can't provide better feats from a higher evolved form then we can't just start assuming the degree to which his power increases.
Ok. Calm down. I can admit a mistake when I make one. It was Lucario. Thank you for being detailed with the description as if I wasn’t aware.
I’ll show you later on why I’m (un shamefully I might add) not the one that needs to be taught anything regarding pokemon. I’ll make honest mistakes here and there but your obvious need to explain it’s surface characteristics to me are in vain. You yourself don’t even understand the feats in which you use to belittle my own arguments. More on this explained below.
To your point, the strength isn’t speculative.... It goes from being able to casually shatter and launch huge boulders away and out of screen, to producing minor shockwaves with it’s swings at thin air, to causing massive shockwaves that almost send spectators flying away; like they’re trapped in a strong winds of a tornado when a mega Lucario‘s normal strike collides with a normal Lucario.
The strength is very much touched on. I can’t tell if you‘re being funny by implying that I am speculating here. There is a normal version and then a mega evolved version. Besides reading the actual Pokédex entries regarding the general difference, as they say it quite well, I will not go on a goose chase to provide reasons why a higher evolved and experienced pokemon is more powerful than their previous evolution. That’s like asking me to prove why Charizard is more powerful than Charmander, or why Gyarados is more powerful than Magikarp.
If you can’t see the difference that’s on you. Pokémon are experience based creatures. A mega evolution is obviously more experienced than it’s previous incarnations.
Now, in terms of raw physical strength, Lucario is obviously superior to Korra, but Korra doesn't fight with raw physical strength; she does damage with the impact of her bending attacks. So can Lucario hit hard enough to hurt Korra? Absolutely, but it's far from an overwhelming advantage. It's not going to be a punching contest. One of the most confusing points you've made in my eyes is emphasizing the physical distinction as though Korra's elements are a secondary factor, when they are entirely integral to her combat.
Well, I mean, to be honest, it doesn't matter how she fights. This fight will eventually go how I want it to go so your bending is fine and all but it isn't going to stop me. And no, lol it won't be a punching contest because there isn't much contest there. You just seem to be severely downplaying Lucario's array of attacks. I am aware that her bending is her biggest weapon here. I am simply implying that as the battle commences, it won't matter much when we clash.
Regardless, it's not all that great a feat all told, and certainly not enough to be making claims about one-shotting. All that gif shows is moving a few boulders out of the way with a charged-up punch, while Korra can tank significantly worse, including a boulder as large as those two put together literally shattering on impact against her.
That boulder looks a little bigger than Korra herself. It is impressive that she tanked it and got back up to her feet but you see how big the boulders are that Lucario shattered and sent flying out of screen. They towered and dwarfed everyone standing there:
So what you're saying is that simply knowing that Korra is able to bend the elements removes them from the equation as a factor? Basic knowledge prevents either character from being blindsided by attacks they didn't know were possible, but you are really overestimating Lucario if you think you can completely disregard Korra's bending. Knowing Korra can shoot fire at him doesn't make him fireproof, and he needs to have a way to deal with incoming attacks no matter how much knowledge he has.
I never said it removes them as a factor. That is after all what you're coming into battle with for the most part. I'm just saying that Lucario has seen, combated misdirected and flat out negated elemental attacks with a hand wave. Even his weakness to fire, he has both extinguished or used t to his benefit. More on that later. Lucario is far more resilient and capable of doing all of the things that I say than you want to believe.
Some of these arguments just feel obscure and, to be honest, a little insincere. Lucario doesn't have specific counters to each element or anything, he has evasion and straightforward attacks to respond to incoming threats. Lucario has no familiarity with bending forms so it's not like he has a way of knowing specifically how and when Korra will manipulate each of the elements (and I know you are trying to keep aura "move reading" in your back pocket, but I address that below). Practically every opponent Korra has ever fought is a big strong guy that shoots energy blasts, does that mean I get to disregard all of Lucario's techniques because she is prepared to deal with them? In my opener I actually provided defenses and counters that Korra has to Lucario's techniques.
1. He doesn't have just straightforward attacks. I wouldn't say Lucario's ability to evade, use aura spheres to combat other energy projectiles, completely stop an attack in its tracks with his palm, deterring incoming attacks with his bone club/aura, and a number of other defensive measures that I will get into a bit later.
2. Umm... He just needs to know that you bend elements as your primary offense. It's literally in the name bender... He's already faced an excessive amount of elemental foes, so basic knowledge has to inform him of what bending is, as that's really the only new thing you're bringing to the table.
3. A "big strong guy that shoots energy blasts"... And that prepares her for this how?
You've shared one feat of her in Avatar State countering a dangerous energy blast. I've proven how destructive Lucario's casual blasts are; even by accident, and even with one tiny aura sphere. I'll get into more later.
What does she do when it is a barrage of them? Or when Lucario unleashes a more powerful beam? Or when the sole purpose of an aura attack is for Lucario to close the gap and attack up close?
Your main strategy seems to be banking entirely on a speed gap so large that Lucario can literally speedblitz, and a physical gap so large that Lucario is not even in danger, and neither of these is even remotely substantiated. So I'm just going to address some of these claims and back up my own; my opinion hasn't really changed much. Korra remains more powerful and more versatile.
I never said that he would simply blitz and be done with it. I said his ability to move faster than even Pokémon can react at his base or best form, would be enough to close the gap since I have already shared his ability to handle many elements, and he has no problem either slicing right through them, negating them, or maneuvering around them.
Your opinion hasn’t changed much because you, quite honestly, either aren’t reading what I’m saying or don’t know what you’re talking about. I have substantiated every speed claim. You just don’t like the fact that I used Pikachu as an example (which I will get into later, so much there to respond to), the fact that Lucario’s speed feats do indeed surpass the ones you’ve given, and the one instance she encountered any thing even closely resembling Lucario’s speed (the purple spirit thingy), she missed over and over again. It wasn’t until he raised himself upward did she get the shot she wanted. Speed exists in your verse but not to a Lucario or a Mega Evolution degree.
Show me anything that is on par with examples like this:
Now, this doesn't mean that Korra won't have to deal with bursts of FTE speed if Lucario doesattack her with Power-Up Punch - she certainly will - but I already proved she is capable of doing this, and you completely handwaved it. Rather than wait until I get to it further down, I will pull it from your counters section:
You can't honestly say that your example of "FTE" speed is in the same class as the one shared above.... I can follow the "blur" of the demon fine. I can even follow his eyes.... he wasn't moving that fast. Are you kidding me? He then stops and raises up before attacking. I'm not lowballing or trying to belittle your feat, I'm going off your own evidence. It just isn’t the same in that area. No one in their right mind would look at that gif and say that the speed Korra was dealing with in that particular altercation was on the same level of Lucario's own.
Allow me to stress this, Korra is not a slouch and I'm not downplaying (like you seem to be) nor taking her lightly. You just have yet to show anything that presents her as superior in any category to Lucario. If that's the best example you have of her reacting to a semi-fast opponent, I'm even more confident that Lucario will be able to close the gap.
This simply couldn't be further from the truth. Not only is this blur-speed FTE movement no less quantifiable than Lucario's own, but the argument that it was telegraphed makes no sense (despite the fact that Lucario's attacks are heavily telegraphed and probably not the route you want to be taking here).
That's only if we used the regulation of a trainer needing to be in place, of which I expanded on earlier. We are at our best and taking this fight seriously. If we were to be using trainers, then I would only CaV other pokemon. Well, scratch that, I wouldn't CaV with pokemon at all. There'd be no sense in it.
The above gif wasn't telegraphed.. He went nearly invisible and only came back into frame when the attack was up close. Much faster than what you've shown.
The gif literally shows the spirit moving toward her from the PoV from the dark spirit before it cuts away and she dodges it, meaning that the spirit was in the middle of bullrushing her at FTE speeds when she evaded the attack. It honestly could not be more clear-cut than this,
And she could barely react. She missed every time she shot at him and he wasn't moving at the same speeds Lucario would.
the attack was already underway and charging toward her when she still evaded it - not a matter of telegraphing at all. Compare this to Power-Up punch, where she does not even have to evade Lucario at FTE speeds, she just needs to get out of the way of the actual strike which Lucario has to stop in place before using, the same way Pikachu repeatedly did.
She isn't nearly as fast or agile Pikachu. Provide me a single feat of her being on that level.
There is really no other way to say it - scaling to Pikachu is just plain bad reasoning, and particularly the comparison to Latios is an absolutely colossal stretch to try and quantify your Lucario's inherently unquantifiable FTE movement.
Not when Latios is using the exact missile style move that increases his speed to such an extent.
And that is only one example I gave. You haven't given any for Korra's own speed/reaction. I've more than proven why your spirit gif wasn't on par with what you were claiming it to be, while providing ample evidence of Lucario's "unquantifiable FTE movement". Both in his normal base speed and his battles with Pikachu.
Another example of the speed that Korra will be dealing with:
Setting the Record Straight
Ash's Pikachu in particular is one of the most notoriously inconsistent and jobbing-prone characters in all of anime, and regularly fights characters both far above and far below Lucario with comparable levels of success. There are myriad examples of Pikachu struggling with and being matched by literal unevolved Pokemon, even Pokemon that are weak to electricity - and yes, this shit regularly happens across all the series of Pokemon. Here's Quilava (from Advanced Generation) and Fletchling (a first-stage unevolved flying type, from XY, same series as the Mega Lucario fight) just to name a pair that were easy to find. Meanwhile Pikachu can damage Mewtwo, match Marshadow(a fighting type like Lucario), and yeah - Latios, too, all legendary Pokemon that are way more powerful, and faster, than Lucario
I am not sure what your point is about his fights with Fletchling and Quilava. I never said nor have I implied that Pikachu stomped all of his opponents. I said that his reaction and combat speed time and time again are more impressive than what you’re bringing to the table.
As for Mewtwo instance, do you even watch your own videos or do you desperately cling onto out of context clips and hope that I don’t notice or look into it?
That Mewtwo was mirage, an illusion spewed out from a machine. Yung, the one responsible also had an Articuno, Zapdos, and an Entei illusion among others. Yung, the trainer, literally named the Mirage Master was responsible for, and known for using illusions of Legendary pokemon.
If it would’ve been the real Mewtwo, he would have accidentally destroyed the continent they were on. (:P jk)
Matter of fact, even though it was an illusion, it was still beating down a Pikachu with seemingly little effort. He would have ended Pikachu, and with Pikachu doing zero harm to him had he not been vaporized by Mew.; an actual Pokémon canonically stronger than the real Mewtwo. Pikachu was doing literally nothing to him
As for Marshadow, all Pikachu did was evade some of his attacks for a short while. Marshadow threw an onslaught of varied attacks at him and tagged him over and over again. Outclassing him and defeating Pikachu handily With zero damage endured....
Where did Pikachu damage a fake replica of a legendary and Marshadow?
I’ll spoil it. He didn’t.
He got manhandled in both bouts. He didn’t damage any of them
Why your other claims regarding Pikachu fall short once again:
When you say stuff like this, I’m at a loss.
Ash's jet speed Pikachu struggled to land even a single blow on Slakoth, literally one of the slowest Pokemon in the whole franchise, during a gym battle with Norman
Nice for you to omit the part where the insightful dialogue that the longtime fixture on the show and current spectator, Brock, gave to us while the fight ongoing.
He bluntly explains it to us, why Slakoth was getting away with that fighting style. It was due to study and prior knowledge of his own trainer. A battle plan made and enforced at the beginning of battle so it would get Pikachu off his game.
He also informs us that Pikachu’s all-out-frenzy-quick attacks usually work to start off the battle but this specific battle demonstrates particular preparation on the opponent’s part.
I mean, if you really need further evidence that Pikachu is too inconsistent to scale Lucario off of... Pikachu was literally able to do better fighting Korrina's Mega Lucario than against Cameron's regular non-Mega Evolved version.
Ok first of all, Korrina’s Lucario has a widely known history of going off and becoming bloodlusted for no apparent reason (almost like it had rabies and the illness was in full gear; at least that is the manner in which it acted out).
Her Mega Lucario, though it had become a much improved Pokémon in both behavior and tactical awareness, was still under the care and watchful eye of Korrina and her cohorts. It could act out at any moment in time and they had to be prepared for that scenario if it played out again. Like a rabid dog, a very strong rabid dog, it even resorted to biting other Pokémon mid battle:
And this Lucario even bit Korrina’s herself:
Notice his eyes get buggy, wide and a crazy temper followed by violent outbursts ensues
When he is fighting competently, he is able to blitz and easily overpower Pikachu but the second he goes off on a emotional tangent, Pikachu is able to flee and counter.
Yes, in that gif he seemed to be in a rational and calm emotional state But aso in that state, he was countering and making Pikachu look silly at every turn. He got hit with a thunderbolt at the end but was owning the entire battle up until then. Why he just stood still? Idk. He wasn’t emotionally stable to begin with so nothing with this specific Lucario surprises me.
He is clearly superior than Pikachu but allows himself to get hit by a thunderbolt when he already punched that very attack out out of the way a few seconds earlier in the same fight. His aura has also been shown to negate and/redirect elemental attacks with ease too, so nothing about this really does much to help your case. There is a substantial difference between a focused and determined Lucario versus a volatile and seemingly feral one.
Counters II
The ability to increase strength is handy, but any technique that requires Lucario to stand still and charge, like Swords Dance, is not going to be useful when it makes him such a sitting duck. Trying to use Swords Dance against Korra would be a good way to get encased in ice or entombed in rock if not straight-up blasted, which would interrupt the technique anyways.
It is handy. It doubles Lucario’s striking power.....
c’mon, if he has time to do it he would do it.
From inside the building I can sense where you are at all times through aura or emotion. If I don’t have enough time (a literal 3 or 4 seconds) to activate Swords Dance, I will just keep moving.
This is just speculation, plain and simple, and there isn't much to say to counter it because it isn't based on anything. The variation in the sphere's effect on the ground could easily be because of how close each sphere was to the ground, the varying power of each sphere, or just regular old inconsistency (which is probably the actual reason, but let's be reasonable here). Even then, how fast exactly are you trying to imply this sphere is? "So fast it tears up the ground" isn't really quantifiable and it certainly isn't moving at blur speeds, so I see nothing that would suggest it is too fast for Korra, who counters fast moving aerial projectiles on the regular, to react to
Inconsistency? The sphere I shared was very clearly launched at a determined velocity by Lucario and the blur around it and the ground tearing apart beneath it is all you need to know, to understand that it will be devastating in this fight.
And when I have provides numerous examples of it not taring up the ground when swiftly tossed? But causing immense disruption in the Earth as it passes over it here?
Out of the shockwaves that Lucario’s sheer exercises cause (already shared above), and the after effect from him just evolving, and the number of instances in which the aura spheres pass over the ground all the times without doing anything to it. It is simple surveillance of his feats.
I am not assuming or speculating anything.
You've only really touched on the movement reading thing a little bit, but you seem to be relying on it as an ace in the hole for countering Korra's offense. It seems to me that you are interpreting Lucario's abilities in such a way that he can read Korra's every move and predict all of her attacks, based on a single Pokedex entry from Pokemon Pearl, which reads:
The bottom line is, Lucario is not a telepath. There is an entire class of Pokemon that specifically use psychic abilities including telepathy, and Lucario is not a part of it. Aura in the Pokemon universe does not reflect people's cognitions, it reflects their feelings and their spirit. The other Pokedex entries specifically clarify the nature of Lucario's abilities, and it is pretty clear that the "thoughts" the Pokemon Pearl entry is referring to is emotions, not cognitions:
I never thought it was an ace in the hole, but in this type of battle where I am afforded knowledge beforehand, it only makes sense that he would be actively using it.
Now there is no mentioning or direct saying that shows he is using mind reading but hell, a Lucario has to possess some sort ental capabilities in order to speak without speaking, and others understand him.
Also, you really need to quiet down on the ”teachings” you seem to be so quick to spew out about Lucario You don’t know anything about what you speak. You are trying to inform or educate me on this matter? You can’t even correctly categorize a blur speed gif and except people to numb any sort of intelligence when looking at it. From what I have seen from you, speeds just aren’t a focus in their bender verse. And that’s fine, and I’m sure it’s a great show; hell, you’ve even made me a fan of Korra, but that doesn’t change the fact that literally nothing other than the bending of elements presents a new threat to Lucario.
And even that isn’t going to surprise him too much. Given his extensive battles and ongoing familiarity with elemental projection attacks.
Lucario can detect people's locations because he can sense their life force, and he can sense their emotions through the nature of their aura, but this does not mean he has move reading abilities or precognition of any kind. It is abundantly clear if you actually watch a fight scene with Lucario that it is not able to anticipate what attacks its opponent is going to throw out, or at least (to be exceedingly generous) that it does not make ordinarily use of this ability in a fight and is 100% capable of being blindsided by attacks it is not expecting or prepared for. If you earnestly believe that Lucario can somehow telepathically read its opponents moves in battle like Taskmaster (and that it would actually be likely and in-character for it to do such a thing at all, let alone continuously or with any frequency), that is something you are going to have to prove with scans. I don't believe you can substantiate any such claims.
My strategy and means to win doesn’t hinge on this mind reading argument very much. I just offered it up because he does indeed have mental capabilities that make him stand out, so why not mention it?
So let me just quash that argument right now: Lucario can't anticipate all of Korra's possible attacks just with basic knowledge and the knowledge that she can bend the elements, any more than it could anticipate all the attacks of any other element user (say, Blaziken? :P). Aura reading can allow Lucario to sense Korra's location, sure, which is what the 'movements' part of the Pearl Pokedex entry is referring to, but Korra actually has the same advantage against Lucario because he has metal on his body, which metalbenders are able to sense.
I don‘t need to sense your location... You aren’t going to be moving at a rate of speed that I cannot keep up with. You could go inside the building sure, but that is literally the only time where my aura sense will be necessary. Then I’ll just shoot an aura sphere or punch the building and have it fall into rubble on top of you.
Don't misunderstand me - when I say Lucario's options for defense are limited, I don't mean to imply he has no way to respond to incoming attacks, I mean that he lacks options to protect himself from attacks that land. Evasion is certainly his most reliable option, and I believe he will be able to evade plenty of Korra's attacks. But that being said, Korra has more options for mobility in order to simply avoid attacks, too, given all the different ways bending can enhance her movement both vertically and horizontally. Lucario can move faster than Korra for short bursts but he still lacks her movement options; I would argue that he does not even really have her beat in evasion at all when it comes to dealing with each other's attacks. Running into the buildings, meanwhile, would just put Lucario in more danger since Korra can just use earthbending on them. The difference is that Korra has a breadth of defensive techniques in addition to evasive manuevers that provide her with more options to deal with incoming attacks.
Well of course you think that. Let me show you why you’re wrong if I haven’t done so already
I am aware that Lucario has aura projectiles for range. I already addressed that Korra's blasts can negate the impact of aura blasts because Korra's attacks have equal or superior firepower, at least based on the feats I have shown (you have done very little to substantiate the raw power of aura strikes.
Or, maybe I'll blast Korra with a rather powerful beast of a aura beam:
I highly doubt you are going to just "negate" my aura when it is being managed by a superior combatant who is very familiar with the powers that you bring to the table, and is better in both physicals and innate ability. Especially if it is being spammed by a quicker opponent.
Korra can quite literally hurl boulders the size of a house while half-dead from mercury poisoning, and cut clean through rock purely with air, let alone earthbending or waterbending. How can you possibly argue Lucario's projectiles would overpower hers based on what you've shown so far?
Hurling boulders is nice but that isn't going to help you here. As for why I think Lucario could potentially over power your projectiles, well, he did overpower a thunderbolt from Pikachu as I've shared already, with the use of force palm. His thunderbolt has feats of destroying a helicopter at a distance, destroy a boat, and destroy a mech made out of steel. Even if I don't overpower it, the aura sphere could hold them off for a second or so until I find an opening to fire another directly at you, employ metal sound, or engage in CQC.
A fire blast like this is nearly enough to take a Lucario out of the match on its own, and Korra demonstrates more powerful firebending on a regular basis. Even considering the power up from Mega Lucario, it should not take all that much of Korra's best bending to do enough damage to take this fight.
Again, that is a troubled Lucario fighting against his primary weakness and an extremely formidable foe in Blaziken. Which is also trained by Gurkinn; the trainer of the competent and stable Lucario that flat out embarrassed the bloodlusted version of Korrina.
He ends up winning that fight by the way. It puts a hurting on him but that doesn't knock the troubled Lucario out for the count.
And you really think Korra is going to keep up with Mega Lucario and then he is going to slow down significantly and/or stand still to let her get a shot off? While he spams aura after aura?
Personally, I believe it is kind of cheap to use the "composite" label to attribute every single move that Lucario is possibly capable of learning in the games to him, even the TMs that literally every Pokemon is able to learn, like Protect (especially since a Pokemon can only know four moves at once). But regardless, similar to Swords Dance, using Protect requires Lucario's full attention and can't be used multiple times in a row, so he can't attack or move while using it, nor can he defend from continuous attacks with it.
Here we are to that four moves gripe you have. I personally think it is kind of cheap to add in a stipulation when I didn't agree to it. I personally think it's kind of cheap flat out lie in this very response about what I am trying to do.
I am using the most consistent and most known movesets that Lucario has displayed in the manga and games. I don't see how that is cheap. That is the only way to debate pokemon and people have done it this way for years and years.
I don't plan on using it multiple times in a row but if you'd rather me omit Protect from his abilities in this battle, I'm fine with that. I don't really need it tbh.
Lucario can't just use all of his attacks at the same time. If he is firing aura projectiles at range, Korra can protect herself at range. If he closes in for a fast-moving strike, Korra can evade and counter at close range. Meanwhile, using the elements to evade attacks is bog standard for Korra. This includes propelling herself with the elements and fighting at the same time. Again, your speed argument is exaggerated considering Lucario's use of such speed in short bursts, and your movement reading argument is just purely speculative.
How can she evade and counter when she couldn't even keep up with that spirit? I am not exaggerating but nothing you have shown for Korra says that she should be able to continuously keep up with them. And why do you keep saying short bursts? He covers alot of ground in those "short bursts" of speed.
My movement reading is what is stated in the pokedex and him being an aura pokemon just expounds that. He has the ability and is proven to be quite dangerous when on top of his game (like he is here) so it must play some role in why he is revered as such a supreme fighter in the Pokemon verse.
Lucario does have superior physicals, but I strongly disagree that he can one-shot her. Moving or breaking boulders is a level of force Korra has tanked before. Korra can tank having boulders smashed into her, tank being blasted into rock pillars, tank Vaatu's beam which obliterates rock, even tank blows that crumple steel, with minimal effect. Lucario's blunt force will hurt but not remove her from the fight.
I never implied that he would one shot her. If I came across that way, that isn't what I meant. Her being blasted into the pillars is impressive. I assume it was her avatar state that kept her from being too worn down after that but anyways, impressive, but I've shown Lucario's aura accidentally cause huge explosions, I've shown them cut through thick steel easily, and I've shown his aura capable of destroying a stone bridge on impact. He can also spam it. Take CQC out of it, when she gets hit with one, it's going to detonate on her, and avatar state or not she will be in at least throttling pain and reeling.
She'll have the same level of knowledge that he has about her; she'll be aware of his aura projection, bone club and metal based attacks the same way he will be aware of her four elements. You seem happy to take advantage of the stipulation of basic knowledge so I don't see how you could object to Korra knowing what Lucario's capabilities are.
Bone club is his aura so she shouldn't know the specifics of that and how he utilizes it, just that he has access to aura. Well I am happy to take advantage of it. Lol
I have no other choice.
As for metal attacks, he doesn't have many. His aura has proven to be superior to even metal based obstacles/opponents. Only metal sound would he use that, and there no way in the world Korra should have even a slight idea that Lucario has that under his sleeve.
Korra only learned metalbending in the third season out of four which is why I described her as inexperienced, but she consistently uses metal when it is a resource available to her. She demonstrated this very clearly when she matched Kuvira's metalbending in their fight, and she has consistently made use of environmental metal in the comics.
Well Lucario rarely clashes with metal based moves and you don't seem to hype about heading into the building here, so I don't see that really being an issue.
Let alone the fact (at least from what I can gather) that Korra doesn't use or rely on her metal bending consistently, Lucario still has his aura so if that came into play, I'd be confident.
Your implication here seems to be that each individual aura blast in a barrage like this can have the same level of power attributed to it as the best feats that single aura spheres have had. I really dislike this logic and I question what your reasoning is for it - a barrage of smaller blasts is just that, a quick and spread-out attack that covers a wide area of effect.
I mean, a single and slower moving blast blew up an entire bridge, so it doesn't take a barrage of sphere to cover a decent AoE.
Unless the feat actually reflects such a level of power (every single blast being powerful enough to destroy most of a bridge), which this scan definitely does not, it makes sense to conclude that the individual smaller blasts are weaker for the sake of covering an AoE.
His aura seem quite obvious with their power levels. The bigger and faster they are, the more potent and destructive their attacks.
Even if I did choose to spam smaller sized aura spheres at you, I'll take 25 stone bridge busting aura spheres moving aimlessly towards you any day.
I've shared it, but much Like this:
Or maybe, raise their potency:
Let's destroy a whole blimp.
Either one, I'd be happy with.
You can't equate all of Lucario's aura attacks to be the same level of power any more than I can claim that all of Korra's fire blasts are all at her maximum level of power - and trust me, you wouldn't want us to go down that road anyway.
I never did do that though. It can be a lot of small ones or a large blimp destroying aura beam. Take your pick, because I'm following up with an uppercut right after those leave my hands.
Anyway, Korra's defenses are perfectly capable of standing up to an aerial barrage. Even a dome purely of air was enough to protect Korra at point-blank range from a bomb that blew out the entire interior of a house from the basement. I see no reason why Korra can't simply shield against such an attack to defend herself.
It had the effect that all bombs do. Maybe I'm not seeing it all but the house just seemed to be charred up and smoke filled after the blaze erupted. Normal stuff.
Mimic Mode
I mean, you can use a field of air to protect you but it probably wouldn't be in your best interest to do such a thing. Seeing as Lucario can use Copycat. What's that?
Well, Lucario, even as a Riolu, can use Vacuum Wave - A large cylinder of air that engulfs him in a windy spiral before allowing him to release all the built up pressure into an air cutting-like attack.
Here though, his mimicking ability has numerous feats of working splendidly and without a hiccup.
He sees, takes in what the move consists of, and processes it all in a quick amount of time before introducing his own flawless version of the attack. So seeing you use a shield of air won't be too challenging for him to also pull off with a special ability that contradicts his aura/fighting type nature --
Copycat:
Copycat
This is Lucario using his own opponent's Iron Tail against him
Copycat
Here, he simply sees his opponent brace for a flamethrower attack and uses Copycat to mimic the main strength of his enemy and release a powerful flamethrower himself.
Keep an eye on the fact that he sees, prepares and reacts to the incoming discharges of heat enough to spin his own fire blast and exact his own offense
This is his weakness, and despite his physiology, he can copy and fire it (literally and figuratively) back at the opponent.
Here he copies Air Cutter, or "Razor Like Wind" of Feazant and attacks immediately and perfectly.
Another instance of Lucario copying Iron Tail.
I'd love to navigate the battle field with a air bubble protecting me. Just raises my odds for victory even higher than it already is.
Only One Defense?
The bone club is the only real defensive tool you have shown for Lucario, and while it is handy to repel attacks, Lucario does not fight with his bone club constantly drawn and he would only be able to deflect blasts when he had it ready for use. The club also can only defend in a single direction, while Korra can use earthbending to attack from multiple angles (example 1, example 2, example 3)
Well, actually, I have the ability to hold two separate bone clubs to stop attacks from hitting me.
Lucario has bone rush, aura sphere, metal claw, force palm and his own evasive genius to fend off your attacks.
As for further Durability, I didn't forsee a shot for shot blow out here but..
I didn't really touch on it because I don't see Lucario getting hit that often given his speed, fighting technique, many forms of defense and aura ability, but in good faith I'll throw in a few of my favorites:
Remember that thunderbolt from Pikachu, the one that destroyed a helicopter, a boat and a steel mech?Here is Lucario tanking it with no reaction.
My opponent for some reason completely down plays superior feats that I've shown and ignores some other showings, while pretending to be an expert in both verses and shares out of context information in an effort to stage his own arguments as more valid.
My opponent has shown impressive durability for Korra, at least in Avatar State, and respectable durability for a normal Korra. None of which means much with everything that I'm bringing to the table but it is taken into account.
Korra is a legit adversary but the powers that she comes into battle aren't surprising Lucario or something that he has to get used to and counter act mid battle. My opponent's unexpected gesture of throwing in Basic Knowledge when the thread was made caught me off guard but given the circumstances, I went with it. The fact that Lucario has dealt with these types of elemental forces hundreds of times over, offers him knowledge of what a bender is in terms of their own elemental battle tactics. Even basic knowledge would afford me the idea of what bending or manipulating elements means.
Him being aware that I'm aura/fighting based still does NOT prepare him for what Lucario is actually capable of and the abilities he employs on consistent use aren't all aura based. Matter of fact, a whole bunch of them aren't. Which I feel I've demonstrated well.
His use of videos that he himself doesn't understand or contain the full knowledge of made it very easy to debunk many of his claims regarding Lucario's opponents, some of Lucario's showings, and a certain Lucario's mind state and how that affects it amid battle. I have a serious, calm and determined tip top form Lucario in this battle. Just like he has for Korra. Why he would makes these bogus claims (And a whole lot of other ones) baffles me.
Also, I have a variety of defensive measures that can guard me from his slower moving and familiar attacks. I don't understand why he thought I had to just evade, evade, evade. I mean, I certainly can do that and do it well. And that'd probably be good enough, but there are so many more options I have other than that.
My opponent has also ignored some of my main points. Most notably, this one:
Gallery
We see a cruise ship that is doomed for certain death and destruction for all on board with very little time to react. Lucario is then thrusts in (in a split second I might add) as hero with Flash Cannon. Which completely obliterates the gigantic object ahead and saves many lives in the quick process.
Take note of the destructive out put of course, but also that there was no slight debris or small pieces of the foundation left behind, it was flat out blasted out of the vicinity. Maybe most impressively was the speed in which the move occurred.
Flash Cannon is a devastating and un-blockable move:
While what it is, is said in its name, Flash Cannon is a beam of light that both moves at incomparable speeds and is one of Lucario's most lethal moves here.
Diamond/Pearl Platinum HeartGold/SoulSilver
The user gathers all its light energy and releases it at once. It may also lower the foe’s Sp. Def stat.
Black/White Black 2/White 2
The user gathers all its light energy and releases it at once. It may also lower the target’s Sp. Def stat.
X/Y O.Ruby/A.Sapphire
The user gathers all its light energy and releases it at once. This may also lower the target’s Sp. Def stat.
The user gathers all its light energy and releases it all at once. This may also lower the target’s Sp. Def stat
It even lowers the ability to defend for the opponent afterwards. That's assuming you think Korra can actually "control" such a move that happens in an instant from a being like Lucario who is superior in most other stats as well. She's going to be hit, and hit hard. I highly doubt she possesses more durability than a massive stone that was stated to be capable of killing everyone aboard the ship had Lucario not stepped in, in quite obviously, a split second before the ship crashed. I'm being polite. Allow me to be honest voters, Korra is going to have a very tough time just keeping tabs in Lucario.
A determined Lucario with access to composite but consistently used feats would be a problem for almost anybody on this tier. Korra is a superb combatant and her offensive capabilities would bode well for her in a lot of cases. Here though, Lucario just has too much experience dealing with that exact same type of offense; her hurling boulders at me at a moderate pace isn't going to do anything to change that fact. I have significantly better physicals that help alot in closing the gap between, but also a lot more defensive moves that can come quite handy when pursuing her, and depending on how many attacks she gets off, I may even mimic some and/or stop them in their tracks completely and light her up with Flash Cannon.
I've shown why just having access to fire based abilities doesn't mean you have an automatic advantage against Lucario. A skilled and competent Lucario has shown to both be able to either mimic fire attacks by seeing them once and then execute them flawlessly, or just negate fire attacks with his aura or force palm.
My opponent has conceded that my "bursts of speed" are a hurdle in this fight but then went on to down play everything else in regards to what offense or defense I was capable of. My bursts of speed are alot more problematic when you realize Lucario has access to devastating after devastating move at his whim; that he does possess numerous abilities to defend from Korra's type of attacks; that there does exist a decent gap in speed and that it favors me a lot more than he likes to let on; that Lucario's familiarity with his main form of offense (elements) is a big deal, then enhancing that already acquired knowledge with basic knowledge of what a bender is, prepares me a lot more for this fight than the perk does for Korra.
Overall guys, this guy can sit here and shout until he is blue in the face that Korra is superior but literally everything that has been said so far completely contradicts that sentiment. She is impressive for this tier but she is going against a character who has a variety of ways to expel her most useful attacks. His experience in these kinds of fights already tilt it in my favor; everything else (wide list of moves that aren't aura/fighting in nature, superior physicals, many defensive options, the sheer potency of a single small floating aura sphere, and his ability to fend off/dispel his own weakness with no damage sustained, spamming aura spheres) that I've shared in regards to Lucario has under his belt turn the tide almost completely.
Uh. Okay. Not sure that I would agree that this has been a "good" debate. Semantic arguments and accusatory statements are not constructive to any debate and this whole thing is about as far from the kind of debate I'm interested in as you can get. I'm aware you claimed you're not accusing me of doing anything underhanded but your whole post is filled with accusatory statements about how I'm not reading your arguments or that I don't know what I'm talking about. This feels very bad-natured to me. I'm sure I've said this before but I am only interested in CaVs to have fun. I couldn't be less invested in proving a point about a matchup than I am with Korra vs. Lucario, which I'd never even thought about before. I don't understand why you feel the need to take an aggressive and sometimes outright insulting tone with me. I really don't think we are compatible as debaters and under most circumstances I would just quit the debate.
However I'm aware that you put a lot of time into your response, so out of respect for that, I will put together a closer. I'm not going to go through everything point by point but I will do my best to alleviate your concerns about my argument and make clear what I'm talking about.
So with all that out of the way.
Korra - Closing Post
... I guess. *sigh*
Addressing my flawed outlook
Just on the speed argument:
See. You make claims about how I'm not paying attention to the argument you are making, but this argument about speed feels strongly to me like it doesn't even try to address the earlier point that I made.
Beyond the feats that you have chosen to ignore, and as you've provided no evidence to negate my claims, your the consistent need to utterly dismiss the difference (Lucario isn't the Flash; he isn't even in the top tier of pokemon in terms of speed but the difference does exist) in speed between Korra and Lucario. Bursts of speed or travel speed, it doesn’t matter. Korra still hasn't faced such a quick and agile opponent. While you willingly state that Lucario will have an advantage of speed during combat, you do all you can to diminish the effect it will have on this battle. It does everything but discredit its purpose in this fight. It is very much a big deal and I will clarify more below.
I'm really bothered by this appraisal of my counter argument, like you are characterizing me as just outright ignoring speed feats or saying that it's inconsequential. What it feels to me like is that you are simply ignoring the point I made about the nature of Lucario's movement speed because it is more beneficial if we just don't pay attention to it and accept that Lucario has a flat speed advantage without analyzing it any further than that. I was very meticulous about explaining my argument here and your response to it is basically "bursts of speed don't matter, it's still faster than Korra". I openly acknowledge that bursts of FTE movement are faster than Korra, which is a concession you also acknowledged that I made, but I thoroughly explained why such attacks aren't a major problem. Pikachu was demonstrably not able to keep up with such bursts of movement when fighting Lucario and yet was still able to consistently avoid Lucario's attacks without a problem. I don't see how this isn't a straightforward demonstration of what I'm talking about; a slower opponent is still demonstrably capable of evading attacks involving this blur speed movement. And this is compounded by the fact that, as I have emphasized many times, the feat against the dark spirit is an actual example of a FTE reaction feat. Which means that while Lucario can use this speed to close the distance between the two of them, it doesn't guarantee him hits or make him an untaggable opponent.
Again, I'm not claiming that Lucario is prone to such superior speeds that this fight is unfair. I'm just saying that the only thing she faced that moved at blur speeds was the purple entity.
See, you say this but you still make claims that Korra is not capable of tagging or reacting to him.
We were not going to pretend as though that speed was on or touching the same level that I've shown Lucario to consistently move at.
The biggest problem with your speed argument is that you are acting like it's a foregone conclusion that Lucario is moving at another level of speed than the FTE feat I showed for Korra.
That said I think it really is demonstrative of the major problem your argument for Lucario is facing overall. The unfortunate fact is that Lucario does not have very much in the way of independent, quantifiable feats in any category. Which is why you seem to be so dependent on ABC scaling to other Pokemon. Scaling is often shaky but here perhaps even more than usual because Pokemon can be so inconsistent with each other, even though I will give you the benefit of the doubt in some cases, like the scaling you are relying on for durability showings. I'm going to get into this more in later sections though.
Now as for your more confusing and somewhat troubling objections to my argument.
More Concerns (Seriously)
I'm definitely not going through this one point by point, it's bizarre to me that you are putting so much emphasis on the one half-sentence parenthetical I made referencing that Pokemon know four moves. It's not as though I spent time in my post complaining about the variety of moves you were arguing for Lucario; I wasn't using that argument disingenuously or to disregard all of your showings for Lucario, and to be perfectly honest I cannot begin to understand where you are getting this from. This is when it feels appropriate to me to question whether you were really reading my argument.
This is what I said:
Personally, I believe it is kind of cheap to use the "composite" label to attribute every single move that Lucario is possibly capable of learning in the games to him, even the TMs that literally every Pokemon is able to learn, like Protect (especially since a Pokemon can only know four moves at once)
In other words I brought up the "four moves" thing simply as an illustration of why I don't really agree with the use of Protect. I was not literally arguing that you shouldn't argue more than four different attacks for Lucario, just that it is a stretch to try to attribute every single move Lucario is capable of learning to him under the composite label, because Pokemon's movesets are generally more limited than that. To me it feels like a somewhat disingenuous argument. For readers not familiar with Pokemon: Pokemon in the video games can be taught moves through the use of consumable items called "TMs", and there are certain moves that can be taught to every Pokemon (with the exception of a few Pokemon that can't learn TMs). Protect is one of these moves, so are moves like Toxic and Attract. If you tried to argue that Lucario would give Korra toxic poisoning or make her fall in love with him I would object to that too. Since those moves are not really a part of Lucario's standard moveset and it's not something he learns by level up, it feels to me like stretching into the overly-hypothetical territory. That's all I was saying. And even then, I still addressed the use of Protect and gave a direct response to that argument, so I don't see what the big deal is. I let you make the point, I was just observing that I don't think it's really a very good point in the first place.
The Mega Evolution thing is similar, I just addressed your interchangeable use of Mega Evolved and ordinary feats. It's just that my character also has an additional form that grants her more power and I was not previously using regular and amplified feats interchangeably. Since you did not do the same I figured it was acceptable for me to simply mix Avatar State feats with regular feats, which is what I did, assuming that Korra would not need to actually enter the Avatar State the same way we are assuming Lucario does not need to enter his Mega Evolved state.
While almost everything that was stated in the OP, was indeed agreed upon, the biggest one that was not: the Basic Knowledge perk granted to both of us. I had no idea about that being added in.
You seem to be so disturbed by this "basic knowledge" thing. I generally include basic knowledge as a standard qualification in CaV threads since I think most people prefer their characters are not able to get blindsided by techniques due to a lack of knowledge. I just did that as a standard courtesy thing. I expressly asked you after I made the thread if it looked good and if there were any changes you wanted to make, specifically so that you would have the opportunity to change stipulations before the debate, but you did not have any objections then. I get the impression that this was because you believed basic knowledge was actually a major advantage for Lucario over Korra as you pointed out in your opening post - and honestly, it's not cool to not even mention this when it advantages you but then complain about it once you feel it is disadvantaging you.
Anyway that's all I have to respond to with this really, you went on this whole rant about an argument I did not make.
Oh one more thing actually:
your claims for Korra knowing Metal Claw and exactly how it is used because you have basic knowledge, which is not how that works anyway but I digress until later in the debate
I did not actually make this argument either, I don't remember ever bringing up basic knowledge at all with regards to Metal Claw. All I mentioned is this:
Korra actually has the same advantage against Lucario because he has metal on his body, which metalbenders are able to sense
Which doesn't have anything to do with basic knowledge; metalbenders being able to sense metal would hold true in the middle of any battle regardless of knowledge. This means that Korra would be able to sense that Lucario had metal on his body even though it's not visually very clear.
Maybe it is clear now why I wouldn't want to continue with this debate. This entire section has not really had anything to do with supporting my character's showings or countering my opponent's. I'm just on the defensive here being forced to explain myself for completely innocuous arguments like I'm on trial.
Counters I
Ok. Calm down. I can admit a mistake when I make one. It was Riolu. Thank you for being detailed with the description as if I wasn’t aware.
I’ll show you later on why I’m (un shamefully I might add) not the one that needs to be taught anything regarding pokemon. I’ll make honest mistakes here and there but your obvious need to explain it’s surface characteristics to me are in vain. You yourself don’t even understand the feats in which you use to belittle my own arguments. More on this explained below.
Calm down? You made an inaccurate statement so I pointed that out, then I explained why it was inaccurate. There's no reason to be defensive about this. Again you are taking such a hostile tone for no reason.
This whole "you need to be taught something about Pokemon" bit is just insulting my intelligence and it's not appropriate. You don't have to agree with my claims, but you can do it respectfully. I don't know why you seem to be assuming I know nothing about Pokemon but the truth is I am a fan of the series and have been since I was a kid. Now obviously you're more familiar with the anime and especially the manga (which I've never touched) than I am, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't directly address points being made about Lucario. That's what a CaV is.
To your point, the strength isn’t speculative.... It goes from being able to casually shatter and launch huge boulders away and out of screen, to producing minor shockwaves with it’s swings at thin air, to causing massive shockwaves that almost send spectators flying away; like they’re trapped in a strong winds of a tornado when a mega Lucario‘s normal strike collides with a normal Lucario.
The strength is very much touched on. I can’t tell if you‘re being funny by implying that I am speculating here. There is a normal version and then a mega evolved version. Besides reading the actual Pokédex entries regarding the general difference, as they say it quite well, I will not go on a goose chase to provide reasons why a higher evolved and experienced pokemon is more powerful than their previous evolution. That’s like asking me to prove why Charizard is more powerful than Charmander, or why Gyarados is more powerful than Magikarp.
If you can’t see the difference that’s on you. Pokémon are experience based creatures. A mega evolution is obviously more experienced than it’s previous incarnations.
Again... I don't know exactly what to say. I didn't claim that evolution doesn't make a Pokemon stronger (I mean, of course I didn't claim this), I said that the degree to which its power increases is largely speculative, which, I mean, it is! The point being that when you take a feat from a weaker form and say "just imagine how much stronger this would be in a stronger form", it's just that... just imagining. A feat in a weaker form may be evidence that it's not the limit of your character but it isn't evidence of a better feat that would be multiple times stronger. For that same reason I wouldn't argue that Korra's power level can be assumed to be multiple times stronger than it was in her Avatar State battle with Zaheer just because she was poisoned and weakened in that example. You seem to have read this point as "Lucario has no strength feats" and obviously that's not what I'm saying; I addressed the strength feats you brought up for Lucario.
Well, I mean, to be honest, it doesn't matter how she fights. This fight will eventually go how I want it to go so your bending is fine and all but it isn't going to stop me. And no, lol it won't be a punching contest because there isn't much contest there. You just seem to be severely downplaying Lucario's array of attacks. I am aware that her bending is her biggest weapon here. I am simply implying that as the battle commences, it won't matter much when we clash.
See, you tell me you aren't arguing for a level of superiority in Lucario that makes this fight unfair but then you also make statements like this where you literally disregard every attack in Korra's entire offense as irrelevant. If you are trying to claim that Lucario is just going to speedblitz, I've already debunked this, and very thoroughly at that. No wonder you show so little with regards to durability, you seem to be literally arguing that Korra's attacks do not matter in this debate.
That boulder looks a little bigger than Korra herself. It is impressive that she tanked it and got back up to her feet but you see how big the boulders are that Lucario shattered and sent flying out of screen. They towered and dwarfed everyone standing there:
This is a little bit of an exaggeration. The boulder that Kuvira struck Korra with gave significant space both between the top of her head and the bottoms of her feet to the ends of the boulder; it was clearly quite a bit larger than she was. I do acknowledge though that the boulders in the Lucario gif, which were a little more than twice as tall as him, were larger, but not by all that much. And the boulder Kuvira struck Korra with literally shattered into rubble on impact, whereas Lucario's punch just moved them out of the way without doing any significant damage to them, only breaking one of them into two pieces and not damaging the other one at all. In my eyes, that distinction makes Korra's durability feat comparatively a lot better than Lucario's striking feat in this comparison.
I never said it removes them as a factor. That is after all what you're coming into battle with for the most part. I'm just saying that Lucario has seen, combated misdirected and flat out negated elemental attacks with a hand wave. Even his weakness to fire, he has both extinguished or used t to his benefit. More on that later. Lucario is far more resilient and capable of doing all of the things that I say than you want to believe.
You basically did make this claim just a few points up but I digress, there isn't much to respond to directly here.
He doesn't have just straightforward attacks. I wouldn't say Lucario's ability to evade, use aura spheres to combat other energy projectiles, completely stop an attack in its tracks with his palm, deterring incoming attacks with his bone club/aura, and a number of other defensive measures that I will get into a bit later.
It's fair that Lucario blocking projectiles just by bracing himself with his paws/hand spikes is a means of stopping projectiles I didn't address but otherwise this doesn't introduce anything I didn't mention. Lucario doesn't have any shields so either he can dispel projectiles with his own (which Korra can do) or he can block in front of him with his paws or his bone club.
Umm... He just needs to know that you bend elements as your primary offense. It's literally in the name bender... He's already faced an excessive amount of elemental foes, so basic knowledge has to inform him of what bending is, as that's really the only new thing you're bringing to the table.
I don't know what point this is supposed to be making, it feels like we're just talking in circles. The whole point of the paragraph I made that this point-by-point is responding to is that simply knowing that elemental attacks will be used does not negate his need to actually counter them.
A "big strong guy that shoots energy blasts"... And that prepare her for this how?
...Exactly! Korra knows what she is going up against and has gone up against many powerful projectile users in the past but she still needs to be able to respond to attacks with her defenses. The knowledge does not negate the danger just as it doesn't for Lucario.
You've shared one feat of her in Avatar State countering a dangerous energy blast. I've proven how destructive Lucario's casual blast are; even by accident, and even with one tiny aura sphere. I'll get into more later.
If you are claiming Korra cannot combat aura attacks because the projectiles she normally counters are the four elements rather than spirit energy, then that's a new one, but I addressed it in my opening post. Lucario isn't demonstrating more raw power with his projectiles than Korra so by all accounts Korra's blasts should be capable of overpowering and thus dispelling aura projectiles. I keep feeling the need to reiterate my points because here you are making that argument again about how even a tiny blast is powerful. I'm just going to quote myself from earlier.
Your implication here seems to be that each individual aura blast in a barrage like this can have the same level of power attributed to it as the best feats that single aura spheres have had. I really dislike this logic and I question what your reasoning is for it - a barrage of smaller blasts is just that, a quick and spread-out attack that covers a wide area of effect. Unless the feat actually reflects such a level of power (every single blast being powerful enough to destroy most of a bridge), which this scan definitely does not, it makes sense to conclude that the individual smaller blasts are weaker for the sake of covering an AoE. It's like saying every blast in an energy barrage from Vegeta can be equated to a Final Flash, to use Dragon Ball as an example. Obviously a single, larger energy ball would be stronger than any single blast in a barrage of smaller ones. You can't equate all of Lucario's aura attacks to be the same level of power any more than I can claim that all of Korra's fire blasts are all at her maximum level of power - and trust me, you wouldn't want us to go down that road anyway.
Anyway, Korra's defenses are perfectly capable of standing up to an aerial barrage. Even a dome purely of air was enough to protect Korra at point-blank range from a bomb that blew out the entire interior of a house from the basement. I see no reason why Korra can't simply shield against such an attack to defend herself.
---
What does she do when it is a barrage of them? Or when Lucario unleashes a more powerful beam? Or when the sole purpose of an aura attack is for Lucario to close the gap and attack up close?
A barrage from above just requires her to shield herself from above which she is fully capable of doing. The better question is what makes you think Lucario can get through her shields, and based on a comparison of feats I don't see what answer is being provided for this.
I never said that he would simply blitz and be done with it. I said his ability to move faster than even Pokémon can react at his base or best form, would be enough to close the gap since I have already shared his ability to handle many elements, and he has no problem either slicing right through them, negating them, or maneuvering around them.
Your opinion hasn’t changed much because you, quite honestly, either aren’t reading what I’m saying or don’t know what you’re talking about. I have substantiated every speed claim. You just don’t like the fact that I used Pikachu as an example (which I will get into later, so much there to respond to), the fact that Lucario’s speed feats do indeed surpass the ones you’ve given, and the one instance she encountered any thing even closely resembling Lucario’s speed (the purple spirit thingy), she missed over and over again. It wasn’t until he raised himself upward did she get the shot she wanted. Speed exists in your verse but not to a Lucario or a Mega Evolution degree.
Show me anything that is on par with examples like this:
You can't honestly say that your example of "FTE" speed is in the same class as the one shared above.... I can follow the "blur" of the demon fine. I can even follow his eyes.... he wasn't moving that fast. Are you kidding me? He then stops and raises up before attacking. I'm not lowballing or trying to belittle your feat, I'm going off your own evidence. It just isn’t the same in that area. No one in their right mind would look at that gif and say that the speed Korra was dealing with in that particular altercation was on the same level of Lucario's own.
The thing is, you still are not showing any actual quantifiable evidence for Lucario's speed, it seems to be like your arguments are either based on bunk Pikachu power scaling, or they are just total conjecture. I can and have accepted bursts of FTE movement, but that is all you are able to prove.
I'm absolutely arguing that the dark spirit's movement is as fast as Lucario's, and there isn't any reasonable counter to this. Obviously you have foregone conclusions about Lucario's level of speed so you are interpreting the gif of the dark spirit as being slower but this is absolutely not based on the evidence in front of you. Like are you trying to make an argument based on the framerate of the animation? In both examples the FTE character starts in one position and their whole body turns into a blur when they move to another location. In both instances you see the FTE character as a blur. It's not a quantifiable speed feat beyond that and you're just randomly assuming that Lucario's feat is much faster despite the fact that this reasoning is not based on anything.
And it does not matter if you feel the dark spirit's attack was telegraphed or not because, as I have already explained many times, the dark spirit is already in the middle of its bullrush before Korra gets out of the way, necessitating a FTE reaction in order to dodge it.
Allow me to stress this, Korra is not a slouch and I'm not downplaying (like you seem to be) nor taking her lightly. You just have yet to show anything that presents her as superior in any category to Lucario. If that's the best example you have of her reacting to a semi-fast opponent, I'm even more confident that Lucario will be able to close the gap.
With the exception of this point about FTE movement you are not actually providing feats that justify the position of superiority you are claiming for Lucario. The raw power feats you are showing are inferior to Korra's and yet you keep constantly insisting that Korra is not equipped to handle Lucario's attacks. You could have actually addressed Korra's feats but you haven't; this is because Lucario does not hold up to Korra in an actual feat-by-feat comparison of power. Instead you are relying on incredibly shaky power scaling.
That's only if we used the regulation of a trainer needing to be in place, of which I expanded on earlier. We are at our best and taking this fight seriously. If we were to be using trainers, then I would only CaV other pokemon. Well, scratch that, I wouldn't CaV with pokemon at all. There'd be no sense in it.
The above gif wasn't telegraphed.. He went nearly invisible and only came back into frame when the attack was up close. Much faster than what you've shown.
You can't make assumptions that Lucario's attacks would be strike faster if he didn't have a trainer, that is once again pure speculation. In the actual example I already showed definitively that Lucario slows down to deliver a Power-Up punch which is why Pikachu is able to dodge the attack numerous times despite not being able to keep up with Lucario when he moves in FTE bursts. If it's not telegraphing his attacks, then it is simply the fact that he moves significantly slower when delivering a punch than when closing in; either way, this is a very wide opening for Korra to respond to attacks from Lucario.
And she could barely react. She missed every time she shot at him and he wasn't moving at the same speeds Lucario would.
Aside from the random presumption that the dark spirit's FTE movement is slower, and the characterization of Korra as being "barely able to react" when she got out of the way of a bullrush halfway through, this point is pretty fair. And I do think that Lucario's fast movement means that he will be able to avoid many projectiles from Korra. Again, though, he does not move like this for prolonged periods and this means that there are windows for Korra to attack him.
She isn't nearly as fast or agile Pikachu. Provide me a single feat of her being on that level.
I already explained why powerscaling to Ash's Pikachu is bad reasoning and will do so again a few points down. But in the context of this specific fight Pikachu is demonstrably shown not to be able to keep up with Lucario's bursts of FTE movement, and when Lucario appears in front of Pikachu at FTE speeds, Pikachu expresses surprise. I'm going to link that again just so it's clear. I don't know what value the scaling to Pikachu is supposed to have when the specific examples you are providing for Lucario are communicating his speed this way.
And that is only one example I gave. You haven't given any for Korra's own speed/reaction. I've more than proven why your spirit gif wasn't on par with what you were claiming it to be, while providing ample evidence of Lucario's "unquantifiable FTE movement". Both in his normal base speed and his battles with Pikachu.
You didn't even attempt to quantify Lucario's speed so I don't see how you "proved" anything. You literally just dismissed the dark spirit's FTE movement as slower for no reason other than that you think it was slower.
Another example of the speed that Korra will be dealing with:
This is just another example of the same thing shown with the Power-Up Punches from above. Moving FTE in a short burst and then slowly telegraphing a melee attack. The Inkay in this example is visibly stunned and not able to avoid the bone club attack.
I am not sure what your point is about his fights with Fletchling and Quilava. I never said nor have I implied that Pikachu stomped all of his opponents. I said that his reaction and combat speed time and time again are more impressive than what you’re bringing to the table.
My point, which I'm pretty sure I have made clear by now, is that ABC scaling with Ash's Pikachu doesn't work because Ash's Pikachu is notoriously one of the most inconsistent Pokemon in an already inconsistent verse. And as such Pikachu is tagged all the time by Pokemon significantly slower than Lucario while also having reacted to Pokemon faster than Lucario. So assuming that the fact that Lucario can tag Pikachu means that all of Pikachu's best speed feats reflect on Lucario is incoherent reasoning and a perfect example of why simple ABC scaling often contextually doesn't work.
As for Mewtwo instance, do you even watch your own videos or do you desperately cling onto out of context clips and hope that I don’t notice or look into it?
That Mewtwo was mirage, an illusion spewed out from a machine. Yung, the one responsible also had an Articuno, Zapdos, and an Entei illusion among others. Yung, the trainer, literally named the Mirage Master was responsible for, and known for using illusions of Legendary pokemon.
If it would’ve been the real Mewtwo, he would have accidentally destroyed the continent they were on. (:P jk)
Matter of fact, even though it was an illusion, it was still beating down a Pikachu with seemingly little effort. He would have ended Pikachu, and with Pikachu doing zero harm to him had he not been vaporized by Mew.; an actual Pokémon canonically stronger than the real Mewtwo. Pikachu was doing literally nothing to him
It doesn't matter. Dr. Yung's mirage Pokemon were equivalent to ordinary Pokemon which was demonstrated with battles against real Pokemon. The fact that Pikachu struggled against the mirage Mewtwo should be evidence of that. And yet, despite help from the flawed mirage Mew, it was Pikachu's volt tackle that destroyed the Mewtwo.
As for Marshadow, all Pikachu did was evade some of his attacks for a short while. Marshadow threw an onslaught of varied attacks at him and tagged him over and over again. Outclassing him and defeating Pikachu handily With zero damage endured....
Where did Pikachu damage a fake replica of a legendary and Marshadow?
I’ll spoil it. He didn’t.
He got manhandled in both bouts. He didn’t damage any of them
This is not accurate, which is plainly demonstrable in the clips I showed. Pikachu tanked multiple attacks from Marshadow and even matched a blast in a beam struggle. The resulting explosion did defeat Pikachu, but Marshadow was damaged as well which is clear as day in the actual clip. Jung's Mewtwo was likewise destroyed by a Pikachu's volt tackle. Saying "zero damage" in either instance is not accurate and just serves to make Lucario's scaling to Pikachu look more reliable than it actually is.
Nice for you to omit the part where the insightful dialogue that the longtime fixture on the show and current spectator, Brock, gave to us while the fight ongoing.
He bluntly explains it to us, why Slakoth was getting away with that fighting style. It was due to study and prior knowledge of his own trainer. A battle plan made and enforced at the beginning of battle so it would get Pikachu off his game.
He also informs us that Pikachu’s all-out-frenzy-quick attacks usually work to start off the battle but this specific battle demonstrates particular preparation on the opponent’s part.
Again, I don't see why this matters. Brock outright says (conversation linked here for clarity) that "no matter what speed or power attack Pikachu tries, Slakoth manages to squirm out of the way" to explain Slakoth's skill. Norman's knowledge of the fact that Ash tries to overwhelm people with speed attacks allowed him to use Slakoth's ability to evade Pikachu's attacks to his advantage. If Pikachu was moving too fast for Slakoth to dodge then there would be no explanation for Slakoth being able to control the pace of this battle.
But am I arguing that Pikachu is no faster than a Slakoth? Of course not; I'm arguing that Pikachu has an inconsistent speed performance across many different kinds of Pokemon including Pokemon that are vastly slower than Lucario.
Which is why, again, the scaling does not work, and Pikachu's past performances do not translate to Lucario moving at mach speeds.
Ok first of all, Korrina’s Lucario has a widely known history of going off and becoming bloodlusted for no apparent reason (almost like it had rabies and the illness was in full gear; at least that is the manner in which it acted out).
When he is fighting competently, he is able to blitz and easily overpower Pikachu but the second he goes off on a emotional tangent, Pikachu is able to flee and counter.
Yes, in that gif he seemed to be in a rational and calm emotional state But aso in that state, he was countering and making Pikachu look silly at every turn. He got hit with a thunderbolt at the end but was owning the entire battle up until then Why he just stood still? Idk He wasn’t emotionally stable to begin with so nothing with this specific Lucario
He is clearly superior than Pikachu but allows himself to get hit by a thunderbolt when he already punched that very attack out out of the way a few seconds earlier in the same fight. His aura has also been shown to negate and/redirect elemental attacks with ease too, so..... nothing about this really does much to help your case. There is a substantial difference between a focused and determined Lucario versus a volatile and seemingly feral one.
This argument makes even less sense. The example I showed of Pikachu doing worse against a Mega Lucario than a regular one was when Korrina's Lucario was not acting feral, not the fight where it was actually using the FTE bursts of movement that Pikachu couldn't respond to. Pikachu KO'd Korrina's Mega Lucario with a thunderbolt in that battle. The fact that he had worse performances prior to that against other Lucarios, even non-Mega Evolved ones, is just evidence of the inconsistency in Pikachu's performances that I'm talking about.
Counters II
It is handy. It doubles Lucario’s striking power.....
c’mon, if he has time to do it he would do it.
From inside the building I can sense where you are at all times through aura or emotion. If I don’t have enough time (a literal 3 or 4 seconds) to activate Swords Dance, I will just keep moving.
Sure, a power increase would come in handy, but 3 to 4 seconds is plenty of time for Korra to completely envelop Lucario in flame, which is why I said Swords Dance will just make him more vulnerable. And again if he is hit during that vulnerable period, the technique would be interrupted anyway, so he wouldn't even reap the benefits of it. I don't think there are many situations where this technique would help rather than hurt him.
Inconsistency? The sphere I shared was very clearly launched at a determined velocity by Lucario and the blur around it and the ground tearing apart beneath it is all you need to know, to understand that it will be devastating in this fight.
And when I have provides numerous examples of it not taring up the ground when swiftly tossed? But causing immense disruption in the Earth as it passes over it here?
Out of the shockwaves that Lucario’s sheer exercises cause (already shared above), and the after effect from him just evolving, and the number of instances in which the aura spheres pass over the ground all the times without doing anything to it. It is simple surveillance of his feats.
I am not assuming or speculating anything.
This is not a response to my point, just brushing past it really. Your hypothesis is that the reason the one particular aura sphere you showed tore up the ground underneath was because Lucario is able to rapidly alter the speed of those projectiles. But that's just an inference based on a comparison of the feats. I provided a number of possible alternative explanations which are all equally baseless inferences including the fact that it could simply be an inconsistent portrayal of the same attack (which I still think is probably most likely). You didn't address any of these explanations, you're still just assuming that it is a matter of Lucario altering the speed of projectiles, but you aren't providing evidence to back up your claim. That's why I call it speculation.
I never thought it was an ace in the hole, but in this type of battle where I am afforded knowledge beforehand, it only makes sense that he would be actively using it.
Now there is no mentioning or direct saying that shows he is using mind reading but hell, a Lucario has to possess some sort ental capabilities in order to speak without speaking, and others understand him.
I already explained the nature of Lucario's aura reading and how it's different from mind reading in my last counter post, I think it's pretty straightforward to be honest. He's an empath rather than a telepath.
Also, you really need to quiet down on the ”teachings” you seem to be so quick to spew out about Lucario You don’t know anything about what you speak. You are trying to inform or educate me on this matter? You can’t even correctly categorize a blur speed gif and except people to numb any sort of intelligence when looking at it.
This is incredibly rude and unnecessary and not a constructive argument in the least. Your supposedly correct categorization of the two blur speed gifs we compared was just arbitrarily assigning one to be faster than the other based entirely on your gut feeling from eyeballing it. It is the only argument you have to back up your insistence that Lucario can move faster than Korra can react because you don't have any valid ways to quantify Lucario's speed. So, instead, you just say "it's obvious" and try to move past it. It's not obvious, it is just arbitrary speculation, as many of your arguments in this CaV have been.
From what I have seen from you, speeds just aren’t a focus in their bender verse. And that’s fine, and I’m sure it’s a great show; hell, you’ve even made me a fan of Korra, but that doesn’t change the fact that literally nothing other than the bending of elements presents a new threat to Lucario.
And even that isn’t going to surprise him too much. Given his extensive battles and ongoing familiarity with elemental projection attacks.
It's true that speed feats, and in particular reaction speed feats, are not an emphasis in the Avatar verse; I agree with that characterization, and in fact there is a reason I declined to use Korra's air shield feat of reacting to an explosion as a speed feat - I consider it to be inconsistent and an outlier for Korra. I also agree that Lucario's FTE movement is something Korra is not capable of replicating. But I had to put in a lot of work to qualify and contextualize that concession because I feel you are really exaggerating Lucario's speed and the nature of his speed-based techniques in such a way that misrepresents this matchup. The thing is, the Pokemon verse does not have very much in the way of quantifiable feats at all, and many of the feats characters do have are inconsistent with other showings, Pikachu being a prime example of this.
What you do have to support your argument for Lucario is examples of him moving FTE, and I am totally on board with that and have been addressing it every step of the way. But you don't have any way of actually determining how fast Lucario is based on those feats; there are no real world comparisons to make or anything to go off of aside from the fact that Lucario appeared as a blur, which is something I actually can provide an example of Korra countering. The only way you have to get around this is to try to quantify Lucario's speed as eclipsing this, but you can't realistically do it. Your counter has been power scaling based on Pikachu and I have already debunked this reasoning.
All you can actually demonstrate for Lucario is bursts of blur speed movement which I have explained using your own examples does not actually prevent his attacks from being consistently avoided or countered. And even if it required FTE reactions to counter it, which again, it demonstrably does not and I have debunked numerous times, I still am able to counter that using Korra's FTE reaction feat against the dark spirit. So overall you haven't provided anything that Korra could not counter or demonstrated any game-changing advantages.
My strategy and means to win doesn’t hinge on this mind reading argument very much. I just offered it up because he does indeed have mental capabilities that make him stand out, so why not mention it?
I don‘t need to sense your location... You aren’t going to be moving at a rate of speed that I cannot keep up with. You could go inside the building sure, but that is literally the only time where my aura sense will be necessary. Then I’ll just shoot an aura sphere or punch the building and have it fall into rubble on top of you.
My interpretation was that the reason you were arguing none of Korra's attacks were a threat was because Lucario would be able to read her attacks. If you are not making that argument and I don't have to address it then we are on the same page that Lucario cannot read Korra's techniques, and really your dismissal just stands on even shakier grounds.
I will say though, mostly since this is a rare example of an actual concrete point in front of me to counter, collapsing rubble on top of Korra isn't a viable strategy against someone who can earthbend. The houses by the side are an environmental advantage for Korra, there is really no way for Lucario to use them that Korra cannot do much better and with more precision, and Korra is obviously far better equipped to counter earth-based attacks.
Or, maybe I'll blast Korra with a rather powerful beast of a aura beam:
I highly doubt you are going to just "negate" my aura when it is being managed by a superior combatant who is very familiar with the powers that you bring to the table, and is better in both physicals and innate ability. Especially if it is being spammed by a quicker opponent.
I don't know what makes you think Lucario has better "innate ability" (whatever that means) than Korra considering she is a reincarnation of a thousand generations of the greatest elemental master in her verse. Physical strength obviously doesn't have anything to do with how powerful projectiles are, nor does movement speed have anything to do with how fast they are. You still don't have any legitimate grounds to assume that Lucario's projectiles are faster than Korra's and none of the feats you are showing demonstrate superior raw power to Korra so there is no reason why her blasts would not be able to negate his. And again you are still making the mistake of assuming that each projectile in a barrage is going to be of equal power to a slower charged-up blast.
This is probably the best feat of power you have shown for Lucario's aura, and it still doesn't compare to Korra's raw power. He dropped a maybe 10-20 foot chunk off of a very narrow bridge, and the actual blast was only responsible for part of this as you can see that other rocks fall once the center of the bridge is not supporting it anymore. And this is on top of the fact that the blast did not even actually destroy the center part of the bridge, just weakened it and caused a chunk in the middle to fall away.
Even with relatively casual attacks outside of the Avatar State, Korra is able to bend earth on this scale.
Gallery
So I'm failing to see how this is proof that Lucario's aura attacks are remotely superior to Korra's bending.
In your closer, you said "My opponent for some reason completely down plays superior feats that I've shown and ignores some other showings" but the truth is you are insisting on Lucario's superiority without providing sufficient showings to back it up. Lucario's feats are really limited outside of powerscaling to other Pokemon and you are banking on people just accepting claims of power at face value when you act like it's just obvious that Lucario is better. I am the one who is actually comparing feats between these two characters; you are just trying to get bad arguments under the radar and accusing me of not knowing what I'm talking about when I call you out on them.
You have to work with what you have to work with, I get that; Lucario has a small handful of showings and is not a character that is heavily featured in the Pokemon anime. So I get that you have to be aggressive with the few scans you have. But that also means that you are forced to reach heavily in order to make Lucario's feats seem better than they are. I don't have to do that because Korra has a series' worth of feats to draw from.
Hurling boulders is nice but that isn't going to help you here. As for why I think Lucario could potentially over power your projectiles, well, he did overpower a thunderbolt from Pikachu as I've shared already, with the use of force palm. His thunderbolt has feats of destroying a helicopter at a distance, destroy a boat, and destroy a mech made out of steel. Even if I don't overpower it, the aura sphere could hold them off for a second or so until I find an opening to fire another directly at you, employ metal sound, or engage in CQC.
Again you are just using sketchy power scaling because the actual feats of raw power don't support Lucario being able to overpower Korra. Pikachu's thunderbolt has managed to match way more powerful opponents than Lucario; I already showed an earlier example of it matching a legendary Pokemon. But if this kind of scaling makes you feel better, Eska and Desna were powerful enough to one-shot a plane and Korra not only tanked attacks from them but overpowered both of their waterbending at the same time. I really don't think it's conceivable at all that Lucario could overpower Korra's attacks, and with her superior raw power he is going to be more distracted trying to deal with this incoming damage than Korra would be trying to deal with his.
Again, that is a troubled Lucario fighting against his primary weakness and an extremely formidable foe in Blaziken. Which is also trained by Gurkinn; the trainer of the competent and stable Lucario that flat out embarrassed the bloodlusted version of Korrina.
This Blaziken still lacks fire manipulation feats on par with Korra and you haven't provided any durability feats to support him being able to stand up to such attacks. Especially considering Lucario's vulnerability to fire, I honestly think this is argument enough to suggest realistically that Korra could go as far as one-shotting Lucario with a powerful fire blast, but even being generous, this level of power, especially fire-based power, obviously poses an enormous threat to him.
As for further Durability, I didn't forsee a shot for shot blow out here but..
I didn't really touch on it because I don't see Lucario getting hit that often given his speed, fighting technique, many forms of defense and aura ability, but in good faith I'll throw in a few of my favorites:
Remember that thunderbolt from Pikachu, the one that destroyed a helicopter, a boat and a steel mech?Here is Lucario tanking it with no reaction.
Even in your durability section all I can see that you have provided for him is tanking a thunderbolt from Pikachu and a wing attack from Crobat. While I believe scaling to Crobat's wing attack to suggest Lucario can take an attack that breaks apart a metal rocket is fairly reasonable, it's still all just ABC scaling and I'm still not willing to accept that scaling to Pikachu's thunderbolt considering the variability of power in that attack that Pikachu has shown. There is no reason to assume that all of Pikachu's thunderbolts are equivalent to his most powerful, especially considering that that is one of his most common attacks. And, of course, it is a thunderbolt that later KO'd Lucario in the Korrina battle so obviously he can't no-sell those attacks anyway.
Here we are to that four moves gripe you have. I personally think it is kind of cheap to add in a stipulation when I didn't agree to it. I personally think it's kind of cheap flat out lie in this very response about what I am trying to do.
I am using the most consistent and most known movesets that Lucario has displayed in the manga and games. I don't see how that is cheap. That is the only way to debate pokemon and people have done it this way for years and years.
I don't plan on using it multiple times in a row but if you'd rather me omit Protect from his abilities in this battle, I'm fine with that. I don't really need it tbh.
Addressed this at length already at the beginning but I'm not adding any stipulations to the match and obviously I'm not restricting Lucario's moveset, particularly considering I did respond to the move Protect in the last set of counters I made. Protect is almost universally available to Lucario through TMs so I consider it somewhat cheap to count it as a part of his "most consistent and most known" moveset but as you have also mentioned it is not a game changer either way as it does not help Lucario very much.
How can she evade and counter when she couldn't even keep up with that spirit? I am not exaggerating but nothing you have shown for Korra says that she should be able to continuously keep up with them. And why do you keep saying short bursts? He covers alot of ground in those "short bursts" of speed.
Because Lucario does not fight moving consistently at FTE speeds, only in... well, you know, short bursts. Yes absolutely he is good at covering ground using such speed but as I mentioned many times before it does not really allow him to land attacks since he needs to prepare strikes after closing in at such a distance. Were he moving constantly at those speeds it would mean that Korra would have a difficult time tagging him as she did in the bout with the dark spirit, but since Lucario only rushes forward with those speeds and then pauses or stops to attack, he creates windows where he can be struck by slower opponents, which is exactly how other Pokemon not capable of such FTE movement are able to effectively combat him.
I never implied that he would one shot her. If I came across that way, that isn't what I meant. Her being blasted into the pillars is impressive. I assume it was her avatar state that kept her from being too worn down after that but anyways, impressive, but I've shown Lucario's aura accidentally cause huge explosions, I've shown them cut through thick steel easily, and I've shown his aura capable of destroying a stone bridge on impact. He can also spam it. Take CQC out of it, when she gets hit with one, it's going to detonate on her, and avatar state or not she will be in at least throttling pain and reeling.
Not that it matters since we are both using their amplified forms in this fight, but the Avatar State doesn't amplify or change Korra physically in any way, it just imbues her with additional bending power, so durability feats in the Avatar State would actually apply outside of it. But I certainly do agree that Lucario will have no trouble damaging Korra with strikes or even aura attacks. Breaking through shields and barriers is the bigger challenge for him.
Notably, though, considering Lucario's lack of comparable durability showings and Korra's superior power output, she should be able to impact him more with her attacks than the reverse, especially considering that, as mentioned, Lucario is vulnerable to fire.
Bone club is his aura so she shouldn't know the specifics of that and how he utilizes it, just that he has access to aura. Well I am happy to take advantage of it. Lol
I have no other choice.
As for metal attacks, he doesn't have many. His aura has proven to be superior to even metal based obstacles/opponents. Only metal sound would he use that, and there no way in the world Korra should have even a slight idea that Lucario has that under his sleeve.
Lucario is a Steel-type Pokemon, so I don't know why you would consider it a stretch that basic knowledge would cover Korra being aware that Lucario can use metal-based attacks, but regardless, Korra can sense the metal on him anyway so she should be covered just fine when it comes to understanding the nature of metal-based attacks. If he went to clash his paws with metal sound, Korra's bending should be perfectly able to prevent him from actually finishing the technique and gives her TK against him in addition.
Well Lucario rarely clashes with metal based moves and you don't seem to hype about heading into the building here, so I don't see that really being an issue.
Let alone the fact (at least from what I can gather) that Korra doesn't use or rely on her metal bending consistently, Lucario still has his aura so if that came into play, I'd be confident.
I don't mean to act like metalbending is an auto-win against Lucario or anything, just that she is specifically able to counter metal-based techniques like Metal Sound.
I definitely do not agree with the point about Korra not using metalbending consistently though. I can't remember a single instance of Korra fighting a metal user without using metalbending herself (after she learned metalbending of course) unless we are talking about the mechs which were made entirely of platinum and were too purified for her to bend. And there are multiple examples of her using metal-based attacks even against non metal users like the scan I showed of her restraining Tokuga.
I mean, a single and slower moving blast blew up an entire bridge, so it doesn't take a barrage of sphere to cover a decent AoE.
Yeah absolutely a single powerful projectile can cover that level of AoE but what I take issue with is the idea that a barrage of attacks can be equated with single blasts when the feats don't demonstrate this in and of themselves.
His aura seem quite obvious with their power levels. The bigger and faster they are, the more potent and destructive their attacks.
Even if I did choose to spam smaller sized aura spheres at you, I'll take 25 stone bridge busting aura spheres moving aimlessly towards you any day.
I've shared it, but much Like this:
This is kind of my point. If Lucario chose to rain down small spheres like in that scan you showed of him firing on a Torterra, she could easily shield herself, but if he wanted more raw power he would have to fire individual blasts that have actually demonstrated the higher potency you are arguing for. And considering Korra's superior raw power I don't see why she couldn't just punch all of these spheres out of the air with fire or air blasts.
Let's destroy a whole blimp.
It can be a lot of small ones or a large blimp destroying aura beam. Take your pick, because I'm following up with an uppercut right after those leave my hands.
Feats of sending Team Rocket flying into the sky, as the blimp example is, stand on extremely shaky grounds since Team Rocket blasting off is a recurring joke and frequently an example of pure toon force. But regardless, giving you the benefit of the doubt, Korra can still attack with superior potency to this, and I've already shown her capable of building-sized fire blasts and capable of knocking back and even restraining a skyscraper sized opponent without even using the Avatar State.
Gallery
The single other raw power feat you have shown for Lucario, the one which in your closer you are saying I ignored, is still inferior to the scale of earth Korra is capable of bending. It's also the only feat you have shown on this level for Lucario and you are still exaggerating it.
I'll quote from your closer here since there is nowhere else to address this feat:
My opponent has also ignored some of my main points. Most notably, this one:
Gallery
We see a cruise ship that is doomed for certain death and destruction for all on board with very little time to react. Lucario is then thrusts in (in a split second I might add) as hero with Flash Cannon. Which completely obliterates the gigantic object ahead and saves many lives in the quick process.
Take note of the destructive out put of course, but also that there was no slight debris or small pieces of the foundation left behind, it was flat out blasted out of the vicinity. Maybe most impressively was the speed in which the move occurred.
Flash Cannon is a devastating and un-blockable move:
While what it is, is said in its name, Flash Cannon is a beam of light that both moves at incomparable speeds and is one of Lucario's most lethal moves here.
It even lowers the ability to defend for the opponent afterwards. That's assuming you think Korra can actually "control" such a move that happens in an instant from a being like Lucario who is superior in most other stats as well. She's going to be hit, and hit hard. I highly doubt she possesses more durability than a massive stone that was stated to be capable of killing everyone aboard the ship had Lucario not stepped in, in quite obviously, a split second before the ship crashed. I'm being polite. Allow me to be honest voters, Korra is going to have a very tough time just keeping tabs in Lucario.
She's not countering this attack.
The reason there is no debris is because the rock was not destroyed, it was moved out of the way, something literally stated on-panel ("Someone sent the rock flying!"). Not sure why you seem to think this is more impressive than if the rock had actually been damaged - why Korra would need superior durability to that rock to survive an attack like this is beyond me since the rock was not destroyed - but I digress. The water splashing up around the rock in the second panel is visibly larger than the rock itself was in the first panel. And obviously the rock was going to kill someone if the ship crashed into it, since the ship would sink and everyone would drown. It's not as though that statement implies the rock is as big as the cruise ship or something.
As for the speed of the attack - as with the aura spheres it's basically just guesswork; there are no statements about how fast this attack was thrown out, only the fact that the ship did not crash into the rock before Flash Cannon was used. Unless what you are claiming here is that this attack is unavoidable because it literally moves at the speed of light according to the fact that the Pokemon games describe this attack as being made of "light energy". At which point we are entering into the point of patently ridiculous arguments. You have not shown even a single example of Lucario firing attacks which land instantaneously in combat and you have not even come close to establishing that Lucario can spam lightspeed cruise-ship-level attacks so I'm going to assume that's not what you're claiming here. If that is the point you're trying to make, it isn't supported by any of your arguments or a single one of the examples you have shown for Lucario so it obviously is not representative of his combat ability; there is really nothing to discuss about it beyond that.
Being more generous though and assuming that's not your argument, this is literally the first and only example you've given of a building-level attack for Lucario, and considering Korra also has that level of damage output, he would have to be firing attacks at absolute maximum power just to match Korra's best pre-Avatar State.
As I have said, there is really no scenario where Lucario overpowers Korra in a clash, and he isn't going to be winning any beam struggles here. If he chose to follow up a long-ranged attack with a close-ranged one like an uppercut as you've stated, then he's going to have to rush her and then actually land said attack. And even if he rushed with FTE speed, there is no reason why Korra cannot block or even get out of the way of the actual strike (as Pikachu did in the example I have shown) once they are at close range.
It had the effect that all bombs do. Maybe I'm not seeing it all but the house just seemed to be charred up and smoke filled after the blaze erupted. Normal stuff.
That effect being causing an explosion? I'm not sure what you're talking about here, but yes the bomb was powerful enough to blow smoke out of every window, IE filling the interior of the house. Not even Lucario's top tier aura blasts have had this level of potency so there is no reason to think he would be able to get through an air dome shield.
Mimic Mode
I mean, you can use a field of air to protect you but it probably wouldn't be in your best interest to do such a thing. Seeing as Lucario can use Copycat. What's that?
Well, Lucario, even as a Riolu, can use Vacuum Wave - A large cylinder of air that engulfs him in a windy spiral before allowing him to release all the built up pressure into an air cutting-like attack.
Here though, his mimicking ability has numerous feats of working splendidly and without a hiccup.
He sees, takes in what the move consists of, and processes it all in a quick amount of time before introducing his own flawless version of the attack. So seeing you use a shield of air won't be too challenging for him to also pull off with a special ability that contradicts his aura/fighting type nature --
It's pretty bad form to start pulling out entirely new abilities at the end of your closing point, since it always feels like an attempt at a "gotcha", but at least I'm making the last post, so it's not too bad since I have the opportunity to respond to this.
Vacuum wave obviously doesn't prove superior air manipulation to Korra or superior air currents but you seem to just be using that as a way to introduce the Copycat ability. The thing about mimicking Korra's attacks is that, Korra, being a bender, is obviously perfectly capable of simply counter-bending elemental attacks that mimic hers. E.G. negating fire blasts or redirecting water streams.
Since Lucario does not have raw power, let alone elemental manipulation, on par with Korra, there is no reason to think that he could replicate any of her bending techniques with the same level of power. And since Korra can bend defensively against other benders, even benders of a comparable skill level to her, she can definitely do it against a Lucario with no bending skill that is just using attack mimickry.
Frankly, I think Lucario would be much better off trying to focus on his own aura attacks or melee, since those will force Korra to counter with blasts or else use shields or evade. Elemental attacks from Lucario would pose less of a threat than other attacks since she has even more direct methods of dispelling those attacks via bending.
I will grant that copycat allows him to mimic Korra's defensive techniques, which technically would provide another defensive option for him, but that's very situational since he can only mimic one of Korra's shields right after witnessing Korra use one of those shields herself. Not to mention, he still doesn't have Korra's raw power and his shields would be weaker than hers. And of course, an elemental shield could simply be dispelled with Korra's bending. If Lucario was holding up an air dome or a water or earth shield, Korra could use airbending to get rid of it; she wouldn't actually need to break through the shield. When fighting other benders, they are capable of using bending to keep their defenses up, but Lucario doesn't have this luxury, so any elemental shields he copied from Korra would be extremely fleeting - and in the long run, not get him far at all.
Only One Defense?
Well, actually, I have the ability to hold two separate bone clubs to stop attacks from hitting me.
I haven't seen any examples of him using multiple bone clubs to defend himself from multiple angles at once, so as far as I'm concerned, two bone clubs and one serve the same purpose when we are talking about defense.
But none of these are actually showing a variety of defensive options for Lucario, they are all just examples of Lucario countering an incoming blast with one of his own.
This is the one exception to this and it is countering a blast with a punch instead.
Now, both firing blasts to negate Korra's and blocking projectiles with melee strikes are viable options for Lucario defensively, and I'm not claiming otherwise. But what this shows is:
Lucario's main option for countering incoming projectiles is by firing projectiles of his own, which is an option equally available to Korra. And considering Korra's superior firepower she should not have difficulty overpowering and getting through this form of defense if push comes to shove.
Lucario's only other method for defending from attacks is by guarding directly in front of him, be that with melee strikes or with his bone club. Melee blocks do give him more defense than I initially gave him credit for since they are proven effective without the use of the bone club, but it's still relatively limited and occupies him fully. This method of defense does not provide him with prolonged defenses like an elemental shield would.
One last gameplan:
Honestly I am leaving this debate not especially impressed with Lucario, relatively speaking. More than most I have been in, this one has been absolutely chalk-full of random speculative arguments, bad power scaling, and simple stubborn insistence that something is true despite a lack of evidence. I'm disappointed with the arguments being made here because it's been a lot less focused on strategy or a comparison of power level and a lot more focused on debates about semantics or simply having to clarify points that aren't being represented accurately.
There has basically been one point we've agreed on in this debate, and that is that Lucario is capable of limited FTE movement. This and physical striking power (IE with punching) are Lucario's two advantages in this fight, and both are too situational to secure him a win over an opponent with superior raw power and versatility to him.
My opponent has exaggerated, sometimes really aggressively in my opinion, Lucario's level of power to compensate for a relative lack of showings. Korra's bending is just plain more powerful than Lucario's aura-based attacks. I consider this point to be pretty clear based on actual feats. Korra has many examples of building level attacks while Lucario has barely anything to compare with this, the only two comparable feats being knocking down a narrow chunk of a bridge and knocking out of the way the large boulder that a ship crashed into. I've gone over this comparison again and again in detail so for the closing section I will just lay out all the factors at play here:
Korra can use her bending to counteract and nullify basically any projectile attacks Lucario can throw at him. Her more powerful attacks can overpower his projectiles and keep him on the defensive. And Lucario is specifically vulnerable to damage from fire, which is one of Korra's primary means of offense.
Lucario's main advantage (and by main advantage, I mean practically his only relevant advantage) is his use of speed. FTE bursts give him the opportunity to close in on Korra and allow him to control spacing in the fight to some degree. But this is mitigated by a number of factors:
A. While this FTE movement will allow him to evade projectiles, there is absolutely no evidence to suggest he can use it for prolonged periods to remain untaggable. Windows of opportunity open which make tagging Lucario not only possible but basically inevitable, unless he can keep up constant defenses in turn.
B. There is direct evidence, through his fight with a Pikachu that could not track his FTE movement, that he cannot or at least does not use FTE speed to land attacks before an opponent can avoid them. Instead, his FTE bursts allow him to close the distance so that he can then prepare attacks like Power-Up Punch which he delivers at a significantly slower speed. And again, just to drive the point home, if this feels like a stretch or lowballing to you, I implore you to actually watch the fight in question where Pikachu battles Mega Lucario on which the vast majority of this debate's arguments about FTE speed are based. It is not a stretch to claim that Lucario cannot use FTE speed to blitz opponents or tag them before they can react - rather, it is an exaggeration to claim that FTE speed is representative of Lucario's consistent speed in combat. To put this another way, both Korra and Lucario are capable of evading each other's attacks and overwhelming Korra with speed is not a viable strategy.
C. Lucario's ability to control spacing in the fight is also mitigated by the fact that he is not solely on offense. He has to deal with Korra's onslaught of attacks at the same time. Korra is incredibly mobile and can use the many advantages the environment offers her to give herself an ideal spacing, including mobility through water and air spouts that allow her to control verticality in the fight. So even though Lucario can use speed to close in and try to keep the fight at close quarters, Korra has more than the means to prevent him from keeping it there. Additionally, from mid or long range, Korra can distract his offense by forcing him to counteract or evade her ranged attacks instead, neither of which he can do for a prolonged period due to the limitations of his speed and defensive options.
Korra has better defensive options than Lucario. While both Korra and Lucario can mitigate ranged attacks with blasts of their own, only Korra can throw up constant shields that can withstand incoming fire. All four elements have been shown to be capable of withstanding significant damage. And Korra can still throw out attacks from behind a shield or convert her defense into offense. She is also capable of throwing up these shields quickly to respond to immediate attacks.
Korra has durability feats to suggest that she can tank some level of damage on par with aura blasts or melee attacks from Lucario. Lucario on the other hand has very little in this category and has been dropped by fire blasts equivalent to Korra's standard attacks. If they had to soak an equivalent number of attacks from each other, Lucario would drop first.
Korra has more useful esoteric abilities which serve as hard counters to certain techniques from Lucario. Korra's metalbending prevents Lucario from focusing on metal-based attacks like Metal Sound and actually makes him more vulnerable to her TK as a result. Korra's ability to use energybending to redirect spirit energy (though it is important to note that she can't use this technique offensively) provides her with the last resort option to counter aura blasts directly, and she has already bent a far more powerful blast of spirit energy than anything Lucario is capable of with aura attacks, so there should not be any question that his attacks would be too powerful for her to bend. Meanwhile Lucario's own more esoteric abilities have limited applications and are largely countered by bending. Specifically, metal-based techniques and mimickry of elemental attacks are both directly counterable through bending. Sensing Korra's aura only gives him limited awareness of her position which her sense of the elements (including metal on Lucario's body) should be able to replicate.
As I said at the start of this debate, Korra's main strength is in versatility paired with her considerable raw power. These are two categories that Lucario cannot compete with Korra in. We have spent a lot of time debating about the finer points of Lucario's capabilities, but the broad-strokes takeaway should be that Korra has more counters for Lucario's abilities than Lucario has for Korra's.
The final gameplan is this:
The fight will most likely open with an exchange of projectiles; Lucario using aura and Korra using fire, air or water. Korra's superior raw power will win her this exchange and put Lucario on the defensive. He is able to counter some of her attacks using melee blocks or a bone club but this is not a viable prolonged strategy. His other option will be to use his speed to evade her projectiles which he can do for a while, but there is no reason Korra cannot keep up attacking until Lucario is caught off-guard, especially considering her wide AoE and control of the many corners of the environment, between the pool of water and the houses off to the side. If Lucario gets an opening to close in and try melee, Korra will be able to evade a close-range attack, and this is a window either to counter with a close-range blast or to once again space Lucario out by using her incredible mobility via the four elements. If he chooses to barrage her with aura blasts or moves in suddenly to land a strike, Korra has multiple varieties of elemental shields that will cover her body and protect her, and her raw power feats support her ability to block that level of damage. Ultimately, Lucario has very limited advantages in this matchup and falls flat in an overall comparison of power. Korra is just never going to run out of options to respond to Lucario's techniques, but all he can really do is try the same few things over and over and try not to get tagged in the interim.
In other words, Korra is superior in this fight. ...So, there.
@sawed_off_it: This fight had more hostility than I'm generally comfortable with and I feel that in some places you were needlessly diminutive or rude. At the end of the day, though, CaVs can get outright toxic and I am glad we are still able to keep things relatively civil. While I didn't agree with a lot of your logic I still enjoyed being pressured to use Korra in some creative ways and got some enjoyment out of getting to really dig into Korra's advantages over an unconventional character.
So at the end of the day, GG and may the best man win. I will open this up for votes in just a minute.
@amendment50: You posted twice. I will read your post. But hey, accusatory behavior comes when deliberate actions are made.
Let’s not make this uncivil. I respect you as a debater but this post was necessary
My hostile take at times is due to my excitement for a character I am representing. Nothing personal and I apologize if I offended you (I do understand) but it was all in fun.
I look forward to maybe CaV’ing you again. It was a lot of fun GG and good luck to you as well
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