Tl;dr

Lugia currently isn’t very good in Max Battles. Bring Gmax Gengar or Grimmsnarl as your attacker. Bring double Blissey to tank or possibly a Metagross or Zacian if you like to use Max Guard. Expect a potentially difficult battle.

Imgur link if Reddit ate too many pixels: https://imgur.com/a/dynamax-lugia-tables-gYBwYP4

Dynamax Lugia will be available November 29^th and 30^th. Lugia has some serious bulk, the defense and HP stats both eclipse Zamazenta. Lugia has a pair of single resistances and a pair of double resistances; however it lacks a 0.5s fast move. If Lugia ever picks up a new 0.5s fast move in the future it will become a top tank. It might be worth picking up a couple and saving them for the future potential.

There is the possibility of having a single Lugia on a team of 4 as the Max Guard user, minimizing the impact on filling the Max Meter from the slow fast attack. But honestly Zamazenta is close enough in that role against everything but Psychic, Fighting, and Ground damage.

Attackers

Like I mentioned in the Grimmsnarl post, Gmax Gengar just does it better. Bring your Gmax Gengar; if you don’t have one then hopefully you’re prepared to invest in a Gmax Grimmsnarl. Gmax Toxtricity does become the best attacker, by a hair, in rainy weather.

Tanks

Blissey is the clear winner when considering all possible moves Lugia can have. Otherwise it’s the usual steel types floating to the top. Even Zamazenta with the free Max Guard does well against all the neutral damage moves. It turns out giving a pokemon with extremely high defense another 60 free HP adds a lot of longevity.

If you plan to use Max Guard regularly Metagross and Zacian look like the top picks. If you see Aeroblast or Hydro Pump as the targeted move though it might not be worth using Max Guard at all. Depending on the spread move it is paired with it might be better to hope the less damaging spread move is used more, no need to increase the odds of an Aeroblast nuke with Max Guard. Conversely if you dare to try a spread move Aeroblast or Hydro Pump Lugia then Max Guard should help decrease the odds of the move being thrown.

Malamar could have been great if Lugia had a second Psychic attack, but alas. Seriously if you didn’t pick up some Dmax Inkay get one or two. It is a beast at tanking Psychic damage and could prove useful in the future.

CPM, HP, and Difficulty

Lugia has a massive defense stat of 310 and most of its moves are haymakers, especially Aeroblast. Luckily the tier 5 attack speed is going to save us. Most moves will hit once per max cycle, even then two Aeroblasts will KO just about any pokemon.

Considering the high defense and hard hitting moves it would seem like Lugia warrants a low CPM and low HP compared to previous legendary Dmax bosses. Even going as low as 0.65 CPM seemed reasonable. However Garbodor, Grimmsnarl, and now even Dmax Eevee as a tier 2 max battle all had way higher than expected CPM. Continuing that trend makes me think Lugia isn’t going to have a low CPM or HP. It seems like recently the developers have been ratcheting up the difficulty of max battle bosses.

I ran all the simulations with the CPM and HP that Dmax Latias had. It was similarly a bulky pokemon and didn’t have any weak moves like Acid Spray or Dragon Claw. These stats would definitely make Lugia a more difficult boss than Latias was.

Of course I’m just estimating on CPM and HP values. Lugia could have entirely different values and the difficulty could be way off compared to what these numbers show. I did check some other CPM values; things don’t change too drastically for the tanks if Lugia has ±0.5 CPM. I will mention that at 0.65 CPM (which would be a new low for a tier 5), at level 40 a X/15/15 Blissey is the only pokemon to survive two spread Aeroblasts, with one remaining HP. In the event of a different CPM or HP the relative ranking of attackers will remain the same. While tanks could move up or down overall if they meet a crucial breakpoint of surviving another attack compared to a neighboring tank.

It is theoretically possible to avoid being hit at all by Aeroblast or Hydro Pump due to their long duration. There are ways to fill the max meter before the damage lands; usually involving some combination of Orbs, Cheering shenanigans, not swap to your tank, and no lag causing missed fast attacks.

If you’re struggling to complete a win and need to reroll for a specific boss move try to get Fly and Sky Attack, or at least one of them, while also avoiding Aeroblast.