Competitive Pokemon History - Luxray Quiz

Answer: 120

Luxray could thus generally hit pretty hard with its physical attacks, provided that they were hitting super effectively or were striking frail offensive threats.

Answer: It had no good STAB options

Luxray's strongest STAB option was the pathetically weak Spark, which hit like a wet paper towel. Thus, in order to make use of its beefy Attack stat, Luxray had to run sets which omitted STAB completely, and were heavily reliant on hitting super effectively to do noticeable damage to bulky Pokemon.

While this would have been fine in the third generation or earlier, where plenty of Pokémon faced this problem, the fourth generation boasted fierce competition for a wallbreaker, and not having a good STAB option was generally a dealbreaker when considering Luxray over the hordes of competition for its role.

Answer: Intimidate

Giving Adaptability to a Pokémon with no good STAB would be akin to giving a Bugatti Veyron to a ten year old; it's a great ability, but Luxray couldn't make any sort of use of it. Thankfully, Nintendo opted not to spit in its face and gave it Intimidate instead.

Intimidate could give Luxray hope against a Pokémon whom it had no particular advantage against, and had to try and outslug with its underwhelming movepool, such as Altaria, Hitmontop or Spiritomb.

Answer: Tangrowth

Tangrowth was so bulky that it avoided the 2HKO from any of Luxray's moves, even a super effective Ice Fang boosted by a Choice Band. From there, it could tank a second hit and then remove Luxray with a super effective Earthquake, simple as that. Its high bulk and excellent longevity meant that the opponent having a Tangrowth essentially meant that Luxray was going to be totally useless throughout the entirety of that fight until it was removed or heavily weakened so that it couldn't switch into Luxray.

Answer: Guts

Guts made Luxray into a fearsome status sponge. If statused, Luxray's attacks could now have some serious oomph behind them, and it could become quite threatening at the expense of its already iffy longevity.

Answer: Wild Charge

A Guts-boosted Wild Charge would hit anything that didn't resist it absurdly hard, though the recoil induced by Wild Charge alongside the need to be statused meant that Luxray suddenly became a pretty extreme glass cannon. With plenty of coverage options courtesy of its suddenly appealing movepool, Luxray suddenly became quite difficult to switch into and even harder to outslug.

Answer: Speed

Both threats were very fast, whereas Luxray's low Base 70 Speed was quite lacking. Unfortunately, this erased the advantage Luxray had in raw power over them, as they both had plenty of power themselves and had much less trouble making use of it due to their significantly higher Speed stats.

Answer: Lack of longevity

With Wild Charge inflicting heavy recoil, and with there being a need to run Flame Orb to activate Guts, as to keep Luxray's power at its peak, it would peter out of battles incredibly quickly. Really, after using Wild Charge once or twice, Luxray would be so thoroughly weakened that any mildly strong attack would finish it off. With its low Speed allowing many other Pokémon to strike it first, this was an even bigger problem than it initially seemed. Thus, Luxray was marginally viable in the game's lowest tier at best, and did not see enough usage to be natively a member of said tier, becoming Untiered for the second generation in a row.

Answer: Inflict heavy recoil damage

Wild Charge inflicts half the damage done as recoil back to the user. Combine this with losing health every turn due to the Flame Orb, and even if it never took a hit, Luxray would quickly take itself out of any game it was used in. The fact that its low Speed gave credence to faster offensive threats doing heavy damage to it first emphasized this flaw.

Answer: PartiallyUsed

Luxray was ever so barely viable enough to be worth using enough to return it to a tier, after two generations of being Untiered. For all of its flaws, Luxray's raw power has always been a saving grace (perhaps not always 'saving') so this would explain its mild resurgence in the eighth generation.