Heh...the person who I play often recently picked up Lucario. I kinda know what you mean about thinking you can dodge the slightly delayed attacks, it's almost like facing an Ike that's quicker but packs less of a punch (unless his aura thing is really high). Rather than spot dodging, you could try power shielding or just plain old shielding, then follow up with a jab or grab. You can still opt to spot dodge, just don't panic and start spamming the spot dodge, just be patient and time it right. Characters with slow attacks often bet on predicting or a spammy spotdodge to land a hit.
Lucario's got weird disjointed shadowy hitboxes on his moves too, so learning to space yourself well is crucial.
Watch out for his jab, he can cancel the first or second into a grab or side+b. Luckily, Snake's own jab is pretty amazing in that you can cancel his attempt to grab if you spam jab as he is jabbing you. Be warned he will try to mix up his full jab combo with jab to grabs.
The aura sphere comes out reasonably slow, it's not hard to shield since you can see Lucario's initial pullback motion. Or maybe I'm just so used to reacting to people with projectiles (dang ROB
). Note that a Nikita and even a single nade destroys a fully charged aura sphere, so dropping nades between you and Lucario should give you some insurance.
Also, Lucario's up+b does not do damage, so be generous with your edge-hogging (However, don't edgehog too soon if he's got an aura sphere charged, he'll likely hit you as you hang). His up+b also has a fair amount of lag so if he tries to land on stage, punish. As always, your safest battle will be on the ground, don't try to come up directly from below him because his dair is crazy good.
Finally, try not to let him live very long...a Lucario with 100%+ damage having aura buffed moves can be dangerous.
