One of my fav new pokes. It's inferior to SD lucario imo. The lack of power, ES and Crunch really hurts. But It can grab additional boosts with his ability and he get's a lot of opportunities to come in cause great physical bulk. After a SD his CC hurts a lot, too.
And I dont get why a lot of you guys think he's ugly though. IMO he looks more awesome than any other poke this gen! Things that are ugly are blops like blissey or burungeru and nasttorei. or the weird water corpse milotic. but not that epic blue lama :( he's a boss!
The only problem I have with his design is that he looks like an electric-type :/
But as far as comparing Kob to Luke, why don't people use them together? With identical typing/ability and similar niches, they could break down each others' common counters.
As long as you play both to their strengths (using SDLuke's coverage and relative power and Kob's bulk and longevity) they could work very well together. An example:
Kobaruon @ Choice Band / Shed Shell (for use in conjunction with SD/NP Lucario)
Adamant / Naughty
252 HP 252 Atk 6 Spe (or whatever bulky spread actually works)
-Close Combat
-Dragon Tail / Roar
-Volt Change / Thunder Wave
-Thunder Wave / Iron Head / Stone Edge
With his great bulk and typing, immunity to Toxic and SR resistance, Kobaruon can switch in all day long (just be careful with Spikes). Since this particular Kob doesn't really use its speed, it won't mind paralysis much either. This set is to hit and run, wearing down its (and partner Lucario's) counters in the process.
Close Combat is reliable STAB, with good base power, and the defense drops won't matter much since it will be in and out often. Dragon Tail / Roar are for scouting and phazing; with some entry hazards it could make Lucario's end sweep much easier. Volt Change also scouts counters, and lets Kob escape Shadow Tag / Magnet Pull pokes if you're not running Shed Shell, though you won't be doing much damage in the process. Spreading paralysis with Thunder Wave really helps Lucario too, with his mediocre base 90 speed. That way, he won't have to rely so heavily on ExtremeSpeed or Vacuum Wave. Iron Head is secondary STAB and mostly filler, so as not to be completely walled by Ghost-types. Stone Edge is good against Gyarados, Salamence, Dragonite, Ulgamoth and Shandera most notably, but they are all crippled pretty badly by Thunder Wave, so it is a lesser option.
Choice Band is chosen primarily for immediate power, increasing everything but Volt Change. However, Shed Shell is an option if you do not want to instantly lose Kob when Shandera switches in.
Adamant is the preferred option, even with Volt Change, as everything that will want to switch into Koba will resist or be immune to it (Magnezone, Hippowdon), and you want every last bit of Koba's bulk to allow as many switch-ins as possible.
EDIT:
I think some re-assessment should go into Kobaruon, it's offenses may not be great, but they sure as hell aren't terrible (ala Cresselia), and having Fighting type STAB is never a bad thing.
Defensively, we're looking at 91/129/72. Compare that to something like Skarmory, which gets 65/140/70, and it's pretty easy to see that Kobaruon deserves some recognition. While he has no Spikes to set up, nor Roost or some HP draining move to assist in recovering, he does get Roar to mess with enemy ranks, which allows him to phaze decently. Furthermore, while he doesn't get U-Turn, he does get Volt Change to anticipate counters. With high speed and defenses, Kobaruon has no trouble running Taunt, Roar, or Volt Change. Kobaruon does however wish it had some better move options, as if it wants to do some neat stuff, like switching in on Outrages, it needs to rely on Hidden Power [Ice/Dragon] to do anything. In a metagame with tons of potential outragers (Garchomp, Salamence, Ononokusu, Flygon, Kingdra, Kyuremu,...) it's nice to have something that can come in with relative safety.
Kobaruon can run a calm mind set to buff up it's lower special defensive stat as well, and it can use it rather effectively with it's decent speed and bulk. Coming on Draco Meteors that it resists still won't be fun, but it can do so and then set up Calm Minds as long as it's not Lati@s doing the Meteor spam. Thunder Wave is decent support, but Kobaruon seems like it can basically be engineered to counter some threats with EV investment and moveset placement.
I think it's a bit too early to count out this guy's Full Metal Heart.
Completely agree with this. Although it is disappointing that Kob doesn't have anything defensively useful to do while it's taking hits (although personally I would give him his own unique entry hazard before I'd add SR or Spikes to his movepool) he can work great as a paralysis provider and a general defensive pivot.
