Which is better: Lunala or Solgaleo?

Question

Which Pokemon is better competitively?

Answer 1

Well stat wise, both Solgaleo and Lunala are fairly similar as they have the same base stat for HP and Speed. As for the other stats, Solgaleo is your Atk and Def type, with moderately good SpAtk and SpDef, whereas Lunala has the opposite stats, therefore making it better in SpAtk and SpDef and moderately good in Atk and Def. Therefore, your decision should consider moves, weaknesses/resistances, and ability.

Solgaleo

To start of, Solgaleo's ability Full Metal Body prevents its stats from being lowered. This has the same effect as Clear Body and White Smoke; so if your a Metagross or Legendary Golem user, and you like this affect, Solgaleo would be a good start in your decision. Solgaleo also has a great amount of resistances as you'd get being a steel-type (9 resistances; 1 immunity), so having this, as well as great defenses, making this Pokemon not easily knocked out. Solgaleo can also learn great STAB moves such as Zen Headbutt and Sunsteel Strike, as well as other powerful physical moves such as Flare Blitz and Earthquake. However, you may want to use it's resistances and defenses and make it a status user, thus giving it moves like Cosmic Power and Noble Roar - and having it's STAB signature move can also be a great addition to this move set.

Lunala

With Lunala's ability, Shadow Shield, it reduces half the damage when its HP is full. It has the same effect as Dragonite's and Lugia's Multiscale, so you may consider Lunala if you like the way it works with these Pokemon. In terms of resistances, Lunala is fairly good (with 2 resistances and 2 immunities), but it's only 2 weaknesses are 4x as effective, so having it being hit by a physical move can be really catastrophic. Lunala can also learn great STAB moves like Psychic and Moongeist Beam, as well as other powerful special moves such as Hyper Beam, Ice Beam, Moonblast, Night Daze, and Thunderbolt. You may choose Lunala to be a status user by giving it moves like Confuse Ray and Cosmic Power, but there's not enough to make it a good status user.

Overall, both Pokemon in their respective games are great, but for 1v1, I would definitely choose Solgaleo > Lunala, because they are both similar stat wise, plus Solgaleo has more resistances, and still maintaining the same HP, Spd, and amount of its appropriate attack. This way, Solgaleo has a better chance of lasting longer in battle, while still getting the same job done in comparison to Lunala.

Your Choice! Hope I helped! :)

Comments

I don't think this is right. Lunala gets STAB from ghost type attacks, which are resisted by fewer types than steel or psychic are.

---

Solgaleo 252+ Atk Choice Band = 552 Actual Attack stat.

Answer 2

In terms of competitive usefulness, Lunala is better than Solgaleo. But in terms of 1v1, Lunala still wins.
Do note that there's no competitive format where there would be these two could face off alone.

In a hypothetical 1v1 battle, Solgaleo has access to crunch, which Lunala is 4x weak to. However, Lunala's signature ability is Shadow Shield, which would cut Crunch's base power in half provided it's at max HP. This would make Crunch's damage output only slightly above Sunsteel strike. On the flip side, Moongeist beam is super effective STAB and Full Metal Body will do nothing to affect it (It can definitely be stressed that Solgaleo really got the short end of the stick when it comes to abilities), so basically Lunala can do a lot more damage to Solgaleo than vise-versa. Lunala will almost always 1-hit kill Solgaleo provided they're both using offensive sets.

We could get into more technical sets or how Solgaleo could strategically counter Lunala, but Lunala still wins out overall when the fight is fair. It's still important to note that Solgaleo and Lunala do very different things in competitive environments. Solgaleo pretty much never uses crunch competitively, and without it Lunala will always win 1v1. Therefore in an Uber battle, it's Solgaleo who switches out. Several reasons why Solgaleo isn't as good as Lunala in Ubers is because Steel isn't a great attacking type while Ghost is one of the best, most would consider Shadow Shield to be much better than Full Metal Body, and while both of them have their share of exploitable weaknesses, Lunala is much better equipped to deal with them.