Meta Implications: Aeroblast Lugia

From November 5th until November 16th, Lugia is going to be back in raids, this time with its signature move, Aeroblast. Thanks to the good people over at PokeMiners, we’ve now got its stats, and it’s a really interesting one! Let’s run through it!

Sky Attack is a 180 Damage, 1-bar move, with a 3.4 second duration. In a vacuum, that’s really really good! However, there are two main catches. First, Lugia isn’t exactly the hardest hitting mon around. Its attack stat is a pretty unimpressive 193, lower than Aggron’s. Compare that to Moltres’s 251 Attack, or Honchkrow’s 243, it has a long way to go to match up to the other Flying attackers. Second, Lugia has no Flying-type fast move at the moment. In order to run a double STAB set to maximize its damage output, you have to run Extrasensory + Aeroblast. This limits you to using Lugia against Fighting-types, or dual-type Pokémon like Venusaur that are weak to both halves. To give a reference point, Extrasensory/Aeroblast Lugia has a DPS of 22.622 vs Fighting-types. On the other hand, the best anti-Fighting Pokémon Confusion/Psystrike Shadow Mewtwo has almost double that, at 40.474. To be a bit more reasonable, if we look at non-Shadow, we’re still at 33.302 DPS. Aeroblast is strong, but Lugia can’t quite carry it. 

To be clear: It is a very solid DPS upgrade over Sky Attack. Any PvE Lugia you run should have Aeroblast. It’s just that, in most cases, you shouldn’t be running PvE Lugia. While Lugia’s bulk may not do it any huge favors in raid lobbies, though, it’s really nice in other contexts. So let’s take a look at…

In PvP, Aeroblast is a 180 Power, 75 Energy charged move with a 12.5% chance to increase your Attack by 2 stages. It’s admittedly a bit of a weird one. Typically, it’s hard to get excited for expensive moves. No matter how hard they hit when they land, Hyper Beam is no better than Bone Club when it gets shielded. That said, this one might be different. Here’s why.

First: Lugia is incredibly bulky. In Great League, it’s about as tanky as Deoxys-Defense. In the Master League, it’s got the highest stat product of any Pokémon in the game. It’s such a monstrous tank, it takes just over half health from a Dialga’s Draco Meteor (Groudon, on the other hand, takes 80%, and Dialga takes almost 90%). This means that, despite its poor energy generation, it actually has the time to leverage an expensive move!

Second: Aeroblast hits really, really, really, really hard. 180 Power makes it literally the single most powerful move in the game, outpacing Hyper Beam, Draco Meteor, and Solar Beam by 30 damage. It’s also the most energy efficient move in the game. Typically, for 75 energy, you’re getting 130 Power (Hydro Pump, Skull Bash) or 140 Power (Focus Blast, Blizzard), and this outpaces them significantly. 2.4 DPE beats out even V-Create!

Historically, Lugia has run Sky Attack + Hydro Pump. Sky Attack because it’s simply the strongest move in Lugia’s kit. It’s cheap, and it’s powerful. Hydro Pump is run over Future Sight because Water provides better coverage against the Rock, Steel, and Electric-types that resist Sky Attack. If we are to run Aeroblast, then, which move would we replace? Well, Sky Attack is too valuable to give up. Losing Sky Attack leaves Lugia with exclusively expensive moves. This means we’d need to give up Hydro Pump. While running only Flying-type charged moves may seem strange, it actually works out! Both Aeroblast and Hydro Pump cost 75 Energy, but Aeroblast hits so hard that resisted Aeroblast deals more damage than neutral Hydro Pump! This means that Hydro Pump is only better when there’s a 2-stage SE multiplier difference between the two moves! This would come up, for example, when Aeroblast is NVE and Hydro is SE (like against a Rock-type), or when Aeroblast is double resisted and Hydro is neutral (like against an Electric/Steel-type). However, in any 1x difference or neutral scenario, Aeroblast’s sheer power wins out by far!

So, as a whole, Lugia will want this move. When you do run Lugia, you’re going to want to run Sky Attack + Aeroblast. But the thing is, Lugia doesn’t really see much play at the moment, in any of Great, Ultra, or Master League. Will Aeroblast fix that?

Just keep in mind that the question isn’t “is Lugia good,” or “is Lugia better?” The question is “Does this do enough to make Lugia worth running over other things.”

Lugia’s in an interesting position in the Great League. While it typically prefers to run Dragon Tail, the fact that Azumarill is the format’s top threat means you’re giving up a lot of power if you don’t run Extrasensory. Running through key matchups, then. Against Altaria, landing an Aeroblast allows you to win the 1shield and 0shield matchups, though you still lose the 2. For Azumarill, you can now win the 2shield. The 1shield is IV-dependent, though (rank 1 Azumarill survives with 4 HP to land the lethal Ice Beam). Other than that, your matchup spread looks pretty similar. That said, the general matchup spread doesn’t improve that much. The Great League meta already has some incredibly powerful Flying-types: Altaria, Skarmory, Tropius, and now Mandibuzz. Lugia just doesn’t have the power to keep up: Skarmory in particular fills a very similar role with the hard-hitting Flying coverage, while completely shutting down Lugia itself. It’ll see some experimentation, sure, but probably not with much longevity. As such, it’ll probably see more play in restricted formats, but not so much in Open Great League.

As a note: the only way to get Great League Lugia is to trade for a Lv15 one from a Research Breakthrough, and then hope that it rolls down enough to be under 1500 CP. To get Aeroblast on it, you’ll need to spend a Charged Elite TM too. Remember, the lower the friendship level, the lower the IV minimum (Pokémon traded with Best Friends have minimum 5/5/5 IVs, Ultra 3/3/3, Great 2/2/2, and Good 1/1/1), so the worse friends you are, the better your shot is of getting a Great League-legal one!

Ultra League: the League of Registeel, Cresselia, and Giratina-Altered. With higher stats overall, Lugia’s actually able to shine a bit more, and it’s got some pretty significant gains! Unlike Great League, we’ll run through this based on shield scenario. Let’s start out with Dragon Tail + Sky Attack, and then compare Aeroblast to Hydro Pump.

With no shields in play, Lugia now gains new wins against Clefable and Drifblim. In the 1shield, Aeroblast Lugia has a chance to beat notable opponents like Dragon Breath Giratina-Altered (though it still loses to Shadow Claw), Togekiss (depending on IVs) and Swampert, as well as Clefable, Drifblim, Granbull, Alolan Muk and Scizor. A high IV Lugia could already beat Swampert with straight Sky Attack, to be fair, but now if the opposing Swampert shields a Sky Attack you can one-shot it with Aeroblast without even needing to commit any shields! In the 2shield, baiting to then land Aeroblast lets you pick up Dragon Breath Giratina-Altered (again, not Shadow Claw), as well as Swampert.

Those are significantly more relevant than what it gains in Great League, and it’s actually super notable. While Dragon Breath and Shadow Claw Giratina fluctuate in relative popularity, Togekiss and Swampert are hugely powerful, and very relevant, and gaining the ability to take them on is massive. Is this enough to make Lugia meta? Well...maybe! While in Great League it’s still not fantastic, Lugia’s matchup spread in Ultra is now arguably good enough to let it see some play. While it’s likely not enough to let it displace the current top meta, it certainly could fit in there more comfortably. Just do your best to land those Aeroblasts!

As mentioned earlier, Master League Lugia is the bulkiest Pokémon in the game, and this should give it some real power in the format. Once again, let’s run through some of its new wins with Aeroblast. Like Ultra League, we run Dragon Tail, as it’s important to be able to hit things like Dialga for neutral damage, and any other Dragons for Super Effective.

While it is relatively uncommon, you do now beat Giratina-Altered (both SC and DB) in all shield scenarios, up from only winning the 1shield. You also beat Mewtwo (Psystrike/Ice Beam) and Kyogre in all 3, which is a pretty notable improvement from, y’know, losing those. Additionally, you pick up the Togekiss 1shield, which is really, really nice! You can even beat Dialga in the 1shield by going straight Aeroblast as long as Dialga only throws Iron Head, which can certainly happen if they’re running Draco Meteor and are too scared to throw it! So, this all seems good! Great, actually! You already beat Garchomp, Dragonite, Palkia, and Snorlax, and you pick up even more meta-relevant wins! From this, you might be thinking “Wow! Lugia seems fantastic, I can’t wait to see how the format shapes around it!” The issue is, though, it doesn’t really need to.

The introduction of Lock-On Registeel left the Ultra League metagame almost unrecognizable. You went from a format based primarily around Giratina-Altered and how to handle it, to a format where you now have to deal with both Gira-A and Registeel as the two top threats. Registeel was so powerful that it just warped Ultra League, because the format as it existed wasn’t really prepared to handle it.

If Lugia tries to come out as the new meta threat, Master League doesn’t really have that issue. Master League, right now, is pretty much already set up to make Lugia’s life difficult. Dialga: Steel-type. Melmetal: Steel-type with Rock-type coverage. Giratina-Origin is hitting for consistent super effective Ghost-type damage, too. It’s difficult to go a set without seeing all three of these, multiple times! Dialga/Melmetal core shows up constantly! If you’re playing Lugia, you’ll have to regularly dodge all of these to get an advantageous position.

Certainly, don’t sleep on the Guardian of the Seas. Its bulk combined with its raw power make it a threat to be reckoned with. But at the same time, keep in mind that it’s far from untouchable. Your team may already be set up to handle it just fine.

Of course, all of this relies on prerelease numbers. Up until Aeroblast’s release on November 5th, all of this could change at any time. For what it’s worth, though, if you take away anything from reading this, take this: Aeroblast will be a new auto-include on almost every Lugia. While it’s likely not going to be meta-defining in any of the three formats, it’s got a shot at being pretty darn good in, at the very least, Ultra and Master.

As a note: while Aeroblast does have a 12.5% chance of +2 attack, this likely isn’t worth considering most of the time. The odds aren’t exactly consistent on something spammy like Night Slash, and on a 75 Energy move like Aeroblast, you won’t be firing off anywhere near as many per game. You’ll get it occasionally, and it’ll be awesome, but try not to expect it or rely on it.