Aura is Lucario’s fighter ability that modifies the damage and knockback of Lucario's moves based on its current damage, being weakened when Lucario is at low damage and strengthened when Lucario is at high damage. The aura mechanic only applies to Lucario (even if another character uses an aura attack), and starting in SSB4, applies to all of Lucario's attacks regardless of whether they have the aura effect. When Kirby copies Lucario's 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, and 65% in Ultimate).
Lucario's aura
In Super Smash Bros. Brawl
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In Brawl, all of Lucario's aura-effect attacks are affected by the aura mechanic, which are all of his attacks except Extreme Speed, dash attack, back throw, down throw, and floor attacks. The strength formula is as follows:
where r is the percentage of the damage dealt (for example, if r is 80, the attack is at 0.8x strength) and d is Lucario's current damage.
Effectively, Lucario's attacks deal normal damage when it is at 75%, weakening to as low as 0.7x damage when it is at 20% or lower, and strengthening to as high as 1.4x damage when it is at 170% or higher.
It is known from the official Brawl website that aura is not only affected by damage percentage, but also by Lucario's placing in the match, making it stronger when it's behind (less stocks/points) and weaker when it's ahead (more stocks/points.) However, these numbers are not currently compiled.
In Super Smash Bros. 4
In SSB4, the effect of aura has been increased overall—the limits are more extreme, as are the multipliers at those extremes. All of Lucario's attacks are now affected, regardless of whether they have an aura effect or not.
Effectively, Lucario's attacks deal normal damage when it is at 70%, weakening to as low as 0.66x damage when it is at 0%, and strengthening to as high as 1.7x damage when it is at 190% or higher. Overall, this amounts to a buff compared to Brawl, except when Lucario is at a minuscule 8% damage or lower.
In addition to the above, the multiplier is multiplied again with a complicated factor based on Lucario's placing in the match and how many players there are (excluding CPUs). When Lucario's position changes, it takes 6.25 seconds for the new value to scale into full effect; if Lucario's position changes again during this time, the multiplier immediately skips to its new value. The mechanic is named Stock Aura by players. The extra multiplier s that Lucario receives from Stock Aura is determined by the following formula.
File:Aura stock formula SSB4.png
In this formula:
- p is the number of players in the game, excluding CPUs, with a maximum of 4. It does not count eliminated players or take team affiliation into account.
- t is the number of stocks Lucario is trailing the leader of the match by, with a maximum of 2.
- l is the number of stocks Lucario is leading the trailer of the match by, with a maximum of 2.
This formula has an additional wrinkle in modes other than stock. In time mode, Lucario's lead/trail is equal to 1 until the difference between it and the leader/trailer is 5, at which point the lead/trail is 2. In coin mode, the value is 0 when Lucario is even and 2 otherwise.
For practical purposes, the most common multipliers in serious play are thus:
| Placing | Multiplier (2 players) | Multiplier (3 players) | Multiplier (4+ players) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ahead by 2 | 0.8 | 0.727 | 0.667 |
| Ahead by 1 | 0.888 | 0.842 | 0.8 |
| Even | 1.0 | 1.0 | 1.0 |
| Behind by 1 | 1.143 | 1.231 | 1.333 |
| Behind by 2 | 1.333 | 1.6 | 2.0 |
Once all these factors are combined, the final aura multiplier cannot be lower than 0.6x or higher than 1.8x.
Mega Lucario's aura attacks always deal 1.8x damage regardless of its current damage percentage.
In Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
In Ultimate, Aura has been slightly changed from how it worked in SSB4:
- Lucario now reaches base power at 65%, down from 70%.
- Ignoring placing / stock differences, the maximum multiplier of his aura is now 1.6×, down from 1.7×. It is reached at 190%.
The new formula are r = 66 + (34/65)d for d ≤ 65 and r = 100 + 0.48(d - 65) for 65 ≤ d ≤ 190
- The values of the "Stock Aura" effect have been revised.
- In a 1v1 match, when Lucario is one stock behind he receives an Aura multiplier of 1.2, but the Aura caps at around 170% damage. If he is two or more stocks behind, the multiplier value is 1.4, capping around 120% damage.
- If he is one stock ahead, the multiplier value is 0.9, except below 12.5% damage, where Aura keeps the 12.5% value. During the match Aura effectively only starts to rise after 12.5% damage. If he is several stocks ahead, the multiplier value is 0.8 and aura starts to rise at around 25% damage.
- These values are still different when there are more fighters. In a 2v2 match, when Lucario is one or several stocks behind he always receives an Aura multiplier of 1.4, capping at 120% damage. If he is one stock ahead, the multiplier value is 0.8. If he is several stocks ahead, the multiplier value is 0.66.
Notes
- In Brawl, it is a common misconception that aura attacks reach maximum power at 182% damage, not the actual 170% damage. This is due to Event 25: The Aura Is With Me placing Lucario at 182% to start the match, implying that 182% is the maximum.
- A less common misconception is that each of Lucario's attacks has an individual aura cap. This is due to the game not displaying or otherwise acknowledging the presence of decimal figures, so for example an attack dealing a maximum of 9.8 damage can be believed to have capped earlier than one dealing a maximum of 9.0 damage.
- In Smash 4, when Lucario has a high defense stat, the aura grows more slowly. For each point in defense, Lucario needs to receive 1% more damage to reach maximum aura.
- The Ultimate tip about Lucario's Aura is slightly misleading, as it states its Aura becomes 2.5× when at maximum. This does not refer to the ratio between max Aura and the base damage, but rather the ratio between max Aura and min Aura (without stock differences).