Riolu is one of the Fighting-type Pokemon available in Pokemon Legends ZA, and it evolves into the powerful Lucario. Lucario is a fan-favorite Pokemon from earlier generations, offering players a strong Fighting type Pokemon for their party. If you’re desperate for a fan favorite in Lucario, then here is a closer look at how to evolve Riolu and unlock Lucario’s Mega Evolution in Pokemon Legends ZA.

How to Get Riolu¶

Firstly, you will need to get your hands on a Riolu. To do so, you can find one in the following location:

• Riolu Location: You can often find Wild Riolu’s along the rooftops around the following locations:
  • Low chance of finding one on the roofes of either Bleu Sector 5, Jaune District, Magenta District, Rouge Sector 4, Vert Sector 8.
  • You can also complete Side Mission 024, found inside the School you battle the Grader for you X Rank promotion match. Trade Bond the school child an Abra to get the Riolu. Here’s a map marker link to view in another tab. Map Marker
  • If you don’t see it, use a bench to adjust the time to daytime and wait for sunny conditions
• Lucario Location: If you want to skip the friendship level, then we recommend getting Lucario later on. You can find one in Wild Zone 20, which unlocks much later on in the main storyline, around level 40-50 or so.

How to Evolve Riolu into Lucario¶

Riolu has specific evolution requirements that you need to meet. Unlike most Pokemon, simply leveling it up won’t work. Here’s what you need to do:

• Riolu must have high Friendship level with you
  You must level it up or trigger evolution during the daytime. It will NOT evolve at night, even with max Friendship

You can also increase Friendship by:

• Keeping Riolu as your active Pokemon while exploring
• Using it in battles
• Giving it items like Vitamins or Protein
• Buy a meal from a cafe and sit with your Pokemon
  You can speed this process up by giving your Riolu a Soothe Bell to hold, which you get from Side Missions. We recommend the cafe method as you can spend a lot of money fast, continue to sit with the Pokemon, and your friendship will increase rather fast.

Once Riolu’s Friendship is high enough, a glowing white arrow will appear next to its icon in your party menu during the daytime. Select Riolu and choose “Evolve” to trigger the evolution into Lucario.

Mega Lucario Evolution¶

If you’re not aware, Lucario can get a Mega Evolution. This form has been added to the game as part of the new focus on Mega Evolutions. It’s available once you obtain the Lucarionite Mega Stone.

• How to Get Lucarionite: You can purchase the Lucarionite from Quasartico Inc. for 240 Mega Shards. This becomes available after completing Main Mission 10. Mega Shards can be collected by destroying purple crystal clusters scattered around Lumiose City with any Pokémon move. You’ll want to break them as you see them since they are a big part of the game’s grind.
• Mega Lucario Type and Stats: Mega Lucario becomes a Fighting/Steel-type Pokemon, when it evolves. Traditionally, Lucario is a Fighter only, but the added Steel gives him better type performance thanks to these Steel type fighting moves it can get.

Also, when you use the Lucario Mega Evolution in Pokemon Legends ZA, you will get a different stat template for it. This changes some of the strategies going forward.

As you can see, Mega Lucario gets significant buffs to Attack (+35), Special Attack (+25), Defense (+18), and Speed (+22). This makes Mega Lucario an absolute powerhouse for both physical and special attacking strategies. Fighter Move often fall under the regular ATK, while more elemental damage types use special. It’s a dramatic jump for your regular fighter type moves, but it does mean you can ™ a bit better. Just avoid using it against Mega Evolve elemental move Pokemon as Lucario will take a beating. Even more so if you are not type effective against it.

Type Advantages:

• Weak to: Fire, Fighting, and Ground-type moves (2x damage)
• Resists: Normal, Rock, Bug, Steel, Grass, Ice, Dragon, and Dark-type moves (0.5x damage)
• Double Resists: Poison-type moves (0.25x damage)
• Immune to: Poison status conditions

This should reflect your strategy in using Mega Evolution Lucario. We also recommend the following TMs for potential strategies you’re going into.

Physical Attacking TM Options:

• Close Combat - Powerful Fighting-type move with 120 power
• Earthquake - Great Ground-type coverage against Fire and Steel types
• Ice Punch - Excellent for Dragon and Flying-type coverage
• Thunder Punch- Covers Water and Flying-type weaknesses
• Crunch - Dark-type coverage for Psychic and Ghost types

Special Attacking TM Options:

• Focus Blast - High-power Special Fighting move
• Vacuum Wave - Priority Special Fighting move

Support TM Moves:

• Swords Dance - Sharply boosts Attack stat
• Bulk Up - Boosts both Attack and Defense
• Nasty Plot - Sharply boosts Special Attack

Since Lucario gets a lot of strong SpAtk and regular ATK modifiers while Mega evolved, you can use a mixture of these moves to good effect. We strongly recommend buffing yourself with Bulk up since its defensiveness is kinda rough. Otherwise, Lucario can take anything for those matchup counters. Just avoid using Lucario against fire, ground and other Fighters doe to the Steel and Fighter counters.

Thanks to Serebii for the stats and TM profiles!