Aura Sphere

Aura Sphere (, Wave Bomb) is Lucario's neutral special move.

Overview
The move consists of Lucario concentrating Aura energy into a spherical shape in its paws, and then releasing it. It can be charged, and while doing so any other fighter who touches the sphere takes a small amount of damage.

In Super Smash Bros. Brawl
Aura Sphere also acts and appears similarly to 's Shadow Ball but colored dark blue instead of dark purple. Lucario also cups its hands in a position opposite of the aforementioned move.

Like an auto-charge special of many, the charge always starts automatically as soon as the special button is tapped and any attack button will fire the sphere during the charging period. However, Lucario can also continue to hold the sphere after it is fully charged, allowing it to take advantage of its damage dealing ability, or store it for later use by either moving to the left/right to roll or by pressing the shield button to shield cancel it. Cancelling it in the air will cause Lucario to cancel the charging period with an air dodge instead.

The sphere charges relatively fast, taking about half the time to fully charge as Samus' Charge Shot would, which equates to about 1.5 seconds. It can be used as a stage controller, powerful edgeguarding option, and a spammable projectile with uncharged Aura Spheres. A fully charged Aura Sphere can be B-reversed to give Lucario more momentum. The Aura Sphere hitbox while charging is a great way to refresh Lucario's moveset. It is also a high shield-pressure method and will quickly break an opponent's shield. The reason that it quickly breaks shields is the amazing speed behind the multiple hits of the charge which quickly wears away at the opponent's shield.

When fully charged, Aura Sphere travels in a straight line, but when fired without charging, it flies in an up-and-down wave motion. Due to Lucario's rather floaty aerial maneuverability, it is possible to constantly fire Aura Spheres while approaching foes from the air. A fully charged Aura Sphere's damage output changes dramatically as Lucario takes damage, starting out as low as 13% damage and up to 39% damage, but it depends on the amount of damage Lucario has taken and stock advantage/disadvantage before attacking with it.

In addition, Aura Sphere's size, when fully charged, is quite different at higher percentages, possibly amounting to be three times as large when Lucario has taken heavy damage as opposed to when it is at 0%. Additionally, Lucario will still be charging the attack even at full charge, so the charging Aura Sphere hitbox can still be of use before being fired, or shield/roll cancelled.

In Super Smash Bros. 4
Aura Sphere was significantly buffed in Smash 4 due to the improvements in Lucario's aura mechanic. It functions exactly like its Brawl incarnation, but the sphere can now achieve massive sizes, to the point that it completely covers Lucario's hurtbox by a great amount when at 190%, and completely oversizing Samus' fully charged Charge Shot. It deals less damage - 11% at 0% aura and 29% at 190% aura - but has increased knockback at high percentages, being a much stronger projectile than Brawl's through greater scaling at the cost of early base knockback and power. It also gains the ability to push Lucario back slightly if fully charged and reversed, giving Lucario an option to trick opponents.

Aesthetically, the sphere does not look similar to Shadow Ball, instead of being a smoky and slightly spiky energy-based ball with a spark-like core. As Lucario's aura increases, the sphere becomes more visually intense, having a massive wind shockwave charge effect when at 190%, and it has more pronounced blue aura "flames" when the sphere is shot, as well as different sounds. Lucario also has a more pronounced firing pose upon unleashing the attack, where it crouch-leans more forward and tilts a bit to its left while holding its arms more apart from each other.

In Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
Aura Sphere is visually closer to how it appears in recent Pokémon games. It has an "energy absorption" effect while charging and no longer emits a trail of smoke when launched.

Aura Sphere also received a mix of buffs and nerfs. Aura Sphere can now be jump-canceled, even in the air and, additionally, it can now be canceled into any grounded option while charging with an advanced technique called charge storage canceling. However, Lucario cannot use its standard grab out of a charging Aura Sphere without shielding, as pressing the grab button fires the Aura Sphere and Lucario cannot shield immediately out of Aura Sphere, making it less safe to charge.

Aura Sphere would later receive a significant nerf in 2.0.0 where it has noticeably less hitlag, leading to significantly less combo potential.

Customization
Special Move customization was added in Super Smash Bros. 4. These are the variations:


 * 1) Aura Sphere: Default.
 * 2) Snaring Aura Sphere: Travels much more slowly than Aura Sphere, but sucks opponents and projectiles in towards it after it has been fired. Its distance works in the opposite way of Aura Sphere - when uncharged, it will travel the farthest, but when fully charged, it will barely go a quarter of its farthest distance.
 * 3) Piercing Aura Sphere: Charges considerably faster, travels significantly faster and farther than Aura Sphere, and goes through opponents and other projectiles, but deals weaker damage and knockback.

Origin
Aura Sphere is a special Fighting-type move introduced in with its first appearance in any form of Pokémon media was in the movie Lucario and the Mystery of Mew. The move is often associated with Lucario with a prime example being 's ability to manipulate Aura in the aforementioned movie.

Aura Sphere has a base power of 80 (90 before ) and has the property of not being affected by calculations of accuracy and evasion. Lucario has learned this move by leveling up in all games since its introduction. Aura Sphere isn't a common move, only being available to a few evolutionary families by level up such as the  and  lines. Several also get access to Aura Sphere such as  (Mewtwo and Mew) and the  (Dialga, Palkia, and Giratina).

Trivia

 * If two Lucario are close together, facing the opposite direction and use Aura Sphere to charge, enemies will get trapped between the charging Aura Spheres (and may sometimes have a "vacuum" effect). This tactic is relatively useful in 15-Minute Brawl.
 * Lucario has three vocal sound effects when firing an Aura Sphere: one each for weak, partial, and fully charged attacks.
 * When Kirby copies Aura Sphere, he does not copy the aura mechanic. His Aura Sphere remains fixed at the power it would have if Lucario were at base aura strength (75% damage in Brawl, 70% damage in SSB4, 65% damage in Ultimate).
 * Kirby’s sound effect when charging Aura Sphere is the same as when Lucario is at higher percentages instead of the sound effect used at base aura.
 * In Brawl, if Kirby uses Cook Kirby while Lucario is charging an Aura Sphere from a safe distance (or on the same team), it will absorb the sphere, but Lucario will continue to charge with nothing there. If one gets close to Lucario, no damage will be dealt since the Aura Sphere technically does not exist. Lucario can still shoot it, but nothing will happen.
 * Mewtwo can also naturally learn Aura Sphere in the Pokémon games via level up. Similarly, Lucario is able to learn Shadow Ball, though only with the use of or  just like several other Pokémon through this method, Mewtwo included.