I refuse to believe Lucario is that low.
D tier actually isn't that far off for Lucario at top level.
While he's certainly not the worst character thanks to his aura mechanic, but it's not as strong as it was in Smash 4 or Brawl. In those games, it's so central to his meta to the point where it makes him into a serious threat. Since rage is also very heavy in weight in 4, that helps with getting very early KOs. However, since both Aura and Rage are toned down and more balanced in Ultimate, Lucario's potential goes from seriously high to "high-mid" from the getgo, since he depends on aura heavily in order to land KOs. What also harms Lucario is that his 50-50s and kill confirms from 4 are taken away for the most part in Ultimate, making it harder to set up for KOs. He still has good knockback on moves, but it's setting up for those KOs that's much harder to do in Ult than in 4.
Is he still playable? Yes, of course. Do you see an "F" by his name? No. The problem that's going on with your mindset is that you say "I REFUSE to believe Lucario is that low." The problem with that train of thought is that you're looking at the tier list via looking at only the letters, rather than the meta as a whole. The deal with Ultimate is that while there will inevitably be some characters ranked worse than others, it's so well balanced to the point where there aren't that many
true low tiers. Lucario's in a
lower tier, yes, but a D tier in Ultimate is certainly a better position than a D tier in, let's say,
Brawl, because the game is significantly better balanced than Brawl. It's also better balanced than Melee, if we look at another comparison.
To summarize, the deal with Lucario isn't even necessarily that he's useless. Because honestly, he really isn't. It's just that Ultimate's cast is so well balanced that other characters just happened to be stronger than Lucario. He certainly does have big nerfs moving over from 4, and much of the other cast getting balanced also gives him indirect nerfs. But is he a
bad character? In all honesty, he's only bad within the Ultimate vacuum. In general, he's still usable, but there are simply other characters who do his job better.
On a side note, while I do agree with ProGuides placing Lucario in D tier, it doesn't mean their tier list as a whole is good. I tend to look at other sources for a better look at who's viable and who isn't.
Lamperouge
, just wanted to share this very good video I found about Mythra Neutral-B
