I've been thinking about the topic for some time now, and have been testing out various movesets for the 3 competitive Lucario that I own, to try and come to a conclusion for this, after taking into account things that me, Ruko and Linkachu discussed in chat. The main point is that as of right now, Lucario has the most diverse movepool of all non-uber Pokemon (Mew and Rayquaza come to mind mostly) and the movesets Lucario has available to it will be improved with the addition of Thunder/Ice Punch, and possibly Magnet Rise when Platinum swings by. Anyway, here's a little showcase of my 3, soon to be 4, Lucario movesets, starting with my basic physical sweeper. The moves in brackets are my pre-Platinum ones, and the ones I have right now:
Lucario @ Life Orb
Adamant
Inner Focus
- Close Combat
- Earthquake
- ThunderPunch (Blaze Kick)
- Ice Punch (ExtremeSpeed)
Look familiar? It should do - I swiped the moveset from Electivire. As Jet has said on several occasions, this moveset has a super-effective attack against all single types except Ghost, Bug, Psychic and Fighting.
Here's my special one:
Lucario @ Life Orb
Modest
Inner Focus
- Aura Sphere
- Psychic
- Dark Pulse
- Dragon Pulse
Very good coverage there - lucky for us Lucario doesn't get Ice Beam/Thunderbolt, or we'd definitely be in trouble. As I said though, good coverage, and getting STAB on a special Fighting-type move will put off the usual Special walls in the game (Blissey and Regice mostly.)
Here's my mixed Lucario. The elemental punches are Platinum additions, whilst the other moves are what I have now:
Lucario @ Life Orb
Steadfast (should be Inner Focus, but bleh)
Hasty
- Aura Sphere
- Me First/ThunderPunch (Earthquake/Me First)
- Ice Punch (Stone Edge)
- Agility
This one I've been playing around with for ages, hence the amount of Move 1/Move 2 involved in the moveset. Basically, a Mixed Sweeper with a Me Firsty twist - all EV's are on Attack and Special Attack, with Agility to boost the Speed to deadly levels. Me First has yet to be tested extensively, although in theory it should work since no-one expects it to be there, and with Agility I will be able to outspeed the opponent to make good use of it. Me First appears twice since I may still use it when Platinum arrives, depending on the success I get with it.
And this will be my fourth once I get around to it:
Lucario @ Salac Berry
Inner Focus
Adamant
- Reversal
- Crunch
- Endure
- Swords Dance
Garchomp's not the only Pokemon specializing in pure damage output in these lands. Lucario is the only Pokemon in the game to get STAB'ed Reversal and Sandstorm immunity, making him the best Endure-Reversaller in the game.
This, basically, is the reason why we're here - this movepool diversity is the reason why Ruko suggested Lucario get slammed with restriction in the first place. I, at first, didn't consider Lucario to be as much of a threat as say, Snorlax, Suicune and the Pseudo-legendaries, which are easily some of the most dominant stand-alone Pokemon in the competitive game, and thus I was against his restriction. We've since discussed this in chat, however, and after taking into account Ruko's and Linkachu's points for resticting Lucario, I decided I'd do some tests to see how threatening I could make Lucario be, and I think the four movesets above speak for themselves - alone, they may seem fairly standard, but the thing that makes my Lucario so dangerous is that you have no idea which of these movesets I'm using against you, and for anyone who hasn't read this, they have no idea what moves I have at all, since using one move doesn't reveal any of the others, and guessing the moveset wrongly can at best, lose the opponent one Pokemon, or at worst, get the opponent's whole team wasted in seconds. In a way, Lucario almost has the infamous Wobbuffet trait of almost always being able to kill at least one Pokemon before going down - if you try to wall Lucario and guess the moveset type wrong, the would-be wall is toast (e.g. Blissey tries to wall Lucario and gets OHKO'd by Close Combat.) If Wobs comes in against the right Pokemon, that Pokemon is doomed (pops up against someone with all 4 physical/special moves,) and with that I've now not only compared Lucario to Mew, but also Wobbuffet, who is still sitting in the uber tier at the moment as far as I know.
Anyway, time to wrap this up - completely discounting Lucario's fanboyish popularity levels, since I don't think they should have any say in whether he be restricted or not, I've changed my mind - Lucario probably would be better off being restricted, due to him having, in my opinion, the biggest and best non-uber movepool in the game and the stats to support said movepool with little trouble, which if used correctly grants Lucario the "turning the game on its head" ability that stuff like the Psuedo-legendaries/Skarm-Bliss are infamous for. So...since I was the only one against the restriction anyway, and I've thrown down my arms in defeat, I guess that makes the decision nice and easy...but then again, the decision is all yours.