THE BEST LAPRAS BUILD GUIDE - POKEMON UNITE

This Pokemon Unite Lapras Guide was contributed by Laprisu.

Best Items for Lapras – Held Items and Battle Items by Movesets

When it comes to the best build this Lapras Guide recommends Slick Spoon and Resonant Guard regardless of play style.

Slick Spoon and Resonant Guard synergize extremely well with a Pokemon that likes to fight for long periods of time. Running these items will give Lapras additional damage while constantly applying shields to Lapras and its allies to keep them in the fight.

Resonant Guard is especially helpful to boost Lapras’ sustain. Since Lapras isn’t as tough as she used to be since the nerfs, having a shield on a 10 second cooldown makes Lapras even harder to KO and goes a long way to support the (up to) 6% max HP you get back with your boosted auto every third attack.

The last item depends on which role you’d like to play. If you wanna play it top lane, then stack with Sp. Atk Specs to abuse the incredibly good scaling of both Water Pulse and Perish Song.

While you gain immense value from stacking, if you really don’t want to you can switch Sp. Atk Specs out for Cursed Incense, though note that Perish Song is not very good without stacks to help out its damage.

Alternatively, slap on an XP Share if you want to opt for a more defensive play style/build for Lapras. This build focuses more on taking damage for your team and setting up devastating engagements for them to capitalize on.

Both builds tend to run X-Speed as their battle item of choice, since giving Lapras extra mobility works well with it’s playstyle and allows you to more effectively maneuver around teamfights, though Potion is also a viable option of XP Share builds for even more survivability.

Boost Emblem Loadout: 6 Green+ 6 White. As a bulky special attacker, building your emblems for HP and extra Spa. Atk works well with Lapras. Just like Resonant Guard and Slick Spoon, this loadout lets Lapras deal damage and stay in the fight longer.

How to Play Lapras in Pokemon Unite

Lapras is one of the purest examples of an offensive tank in the game, adept at consistently applying steady damage pressure to the opposing team whilst keeping itself alive forever, with solid crowd control options to round out your movesets!

One of Lapras’s biggest strengths in both ladder and draft is flexibility, as it is a very good choice as both a top lane carry and a bot lane tank with just a simple item switch. This means that Lapras can be viably played in two different roles, an extremely rare and valuable trait.

Early Game:

Lapras’s early game is….awkward to say the least. While your ability to actually secure farm is practically non-existent until you get your first move at 5, you do have pretty solid farm rip and are good at anti-stacking (stopping opponents from getting Attack Weight/Aeos Cookie/etc stacks) with Whirlpool, and while Ice Shard has a really long cooldown it does the job of interrupting opposing farm secures passably.

You also get a lot of value from stacking on the carry build since Water Pulse and Perish Song have good scaling, but you also want to stop opponents from getting their stacks. It’s a bit of a give and take, and the right answer will depend on your matchup knowledge and ability to stack effectively. Regardless, running this Pokemon with a lane partner that can help secure farm such as Mew or Inteleon is important.

Level 5 and Beyond:

This is where the game begins. Once you hit your level 5 power spike you become a presence in lane that can’t be ignored.

Because Lapras is an independent defender Pokemon that can withstand heavy burst damage; anyone looking to play Lapras should be prepared to play aggressively to control space and pressure opponents whilst also knowing your limits and not overextending. Biting off more than they can chew is a common mistake people make when playing sustain tanks in general.

Although Lapras is constant source of damage that can brawl for extreme amounts of time, be careful to not cut yourself off from escape routes or engaging multiple enemies at once if you’re alone.

Your lack of mobility makes it difficult to get out of engagements once they’ve started and you can end up getting punished without any chance of escape.

The best way to avoid getting in hot water is to not to push up on objectives or bases without an ally present. Stay in front of your allies when pushing but pay attention to what they’re doing and fall back with them if they retreat. Lapras has high enough HP and Defence to create space for your teammates to do the work, but if you get stuck in fight when your team mate has left you’re soaking up all that damage for no reason and risking a KO.

Lapras also is uniquely a tank that isn’t as heavy on the stuns compared to other Defenders, which gives you more incentive to play aggressively and use your HP pool and sustain to redirect enemy resources away from your team instead of chaining opponents in huge amounts of crowd control.

For all the strength and versatility Lapras brings to the table, she’s got a couple quirks that are important to keep in mind:

While Lapras may technically classified as a Ranged Pokemon, most of her moves effectively have only slightly more range than most melees. However, this does allow you to microspace with Water Pulse/Perish Song to kite opponents with less range than you, especially with Perish Song since that move has a slightly larger area of effect than Water Pulse.

Lapras’s autos can be dodged unlike most ranged autos in the game, be mindful as this can be painful to deal with in a few specific matchups (such as Rapid Strike Urshifu, Triple Axel Tsareea, Greninja, and Blaziken).

About Shell Armour:

This ability is one of the strongest in the game, allowing Lapras to take incoming burst damage much better than its competitors. This is a major reason why Lapras is so hard to knock out, and a key advantage this Pokemon has over other Defenders. Shell Armour triggers when an opponent’s attack exceeds a set percentage of its max HP and reduces damage from that source by 20%.

Note that this ability will only trigger when Lapras takes damage from a single attack that exceeds a set 10% or more of Lapras’ max HP.

Moves that deal a lot of damage across multiple ticks such as Venusaur/Mew’s Solar Beam or Dodrio’s Drill Peck can bypass this.

Common moves that will consistently proc Shell Armour (can vary depending on levels, held items, etc)  include:

• Single Strike Urshifu’s Wicked Blow
• Inteleon’s Snipe Shot
• Decidueye’s Spirit Shackle
• Gardevoir’s Psyshock/Future Sight
• Zoroark’s Feint Attack (final hit)
• Leafeon’s Solar Blade
• Blaziken’s charged Overheat
• Metagross’s Meteor Mash/Gyro Ball
• Many more!

Lapras’s Unite Move – Lapras Express

This is one of the strongest and most overloaded Unite Moves in the game; offering good damage, an insane stun to set up engages, extreme mobility, a tool for rotation around the map, and even custom combos in tandem with allies. Knowing how this ult works and its many use cases is absolutely critical to successfully piloting this character.

When you use the unite move, Lapras becomes Unstoppable and enters a “surfing” state which increases Lapras speed steadily for a limited time (bumping into obstacles when Lapras Expressis enabled will kill pretty much all of your momentum but it won’t cancel your the move).

Bumping into players will cancel your ult, dealing damage to the opponent hit and throwing them. There is also a second activation of the ult where Lapras throws a giant wave, dealing damage to opposing Pokémon that are hit and knocking them up.

When Lapras Express

is used, one ally can mount on Lapras’s back, chosen by either Lapras or the ally in question when the two are close enough to each other (indicated by a blue circle around Lapras when this ult is used.)

Both Lapras and the ally riding on Lapras’s back are granted Unstoppable, and the ally can use basic attacks, moves, and battle items while mounted as well, though note that using any dash moves/battle items will dismount the ally riding Lapras. The ally can dismount manually at any time, and Lapras can ONLY pick up one ally per usage of Lapras Express. Lapras Express will last for 15s unless the second activation is or Lapras bumps into an enemy player.

This ult creates opportunities for both Lapras and it’s allies in many, MANY ways……

• Extremely strong engage tool in teamfights for both yourself and your teammates, as the wave throw has extremely good range (about as much as Gardevoir’s Psyshock), deals good damage, can be used from any position thanks to Lapras being able to move while using it, is a very potent knockup, and can be used from almost any position thanks to the mobility and Unstoppable granted by the move. It is best to immediately throw your Bubble Beam/Ice Beam on anyone hit after ulting for a stun chain that can easily end fights on a dime when set up properly. Lapras being unstoppable whilst using her Unite Move is very important for trucking past heavy frontline cc from characters such as Trevenant or Surf/Hydro Blastoise, and the only counterplay is to bodyblock Lapras before she can throw the wave (which is extremely hard to actually do in practice as long as the Lapras player can react quickly and use the second activation before they can be bodyblocked).
• Can be used as a flanking tool for Lapras to dive squishy targets and KO them quickly, as it is extremely hard to stop Lapras from doing so (NO other tank can both defend pads and set up for a flank at the same time, this ult breaks so many standard tank conventions it’s insane). Lapras is a natural fit on many dive compositions because of these traits.
• The extreme movement speed when Lapras Express means you can go just about anywhere on the map within mere seconds, making it a very strong rotation/macro tool. For example, you can quickly rotate from the top side of the map to the bottom side and vice versa, meaning Lapras can afford to exert pressure by scoring/taking farm from basically anywhere on the map and still show up to teamfights when needed. Mastering the ability to control the map in this way makes Lapras one of the hardest characters to deal with if her team gets the lead, as she’s both incredibly difficult to take down during fights and able to pressure opponents from every angle to make catching up even more difficult. When playing against Lapras (especially on comms), being mindful of when she’s ulting for rotation purposes and calling that out for teammates is extremely important.
• The riding gimmick tends to be overlooked (the rest of this Unite Move is just that strong) but there are certainly several good use cases for that aspect of this ult. You can quickly transport important allies to wherever they need to go on the map, drop dangerous hypercarries in the center of teamfights to wreak havoc (while leaving them unable to act for a short time with your wave in the process!), set up insane custom combos with other unitemoves (Lapras + Cramorant ult for example), the possibilities are virtually endless. You can even save allies that have been hit by Slowbeam with this ult by putting them on your back and moving sufficiently away from Slowbro to break his grip on the ally in question (this is a pretty niche interaction, but it does come up and it can genuinely be a life saver).
• By Arceus this unite move probably does your taxes lmao

 Water Pulse + Bubble Beam/Ice Beam +/

PLEASE NOTE BOTH OF THE RECOMMENDED BUILDS APPLY TO THIS MOVESET. PARISH SONG IS A 3RD CHOICE OPTION AND IS DISCUSSED IN THE MOVESET 2 TAB.

If you’re looking to play an aggressive tank top lane that has the capacity to carry, the best movesets to pick is Water Pulse + any beam. This build grants earlier access to additional sustain when Lapras reaches level 5. Picking this move that allows Lapras to become a sticky problem the enemy team has to work around.

Lapras’s level 5 powerspike is one of the strongest in the game. Water Pulse is very good at consistently applying damage whilst also giving a boosted auto upon every cast that hits an opponent.

This makes Lapras best suited to survive longer than almost any other character in fights. Compared to Perish Song, Water Pulse enables more boosted auto attacks earlier in the game as Perish Song doesn’t grant boosted auto attacks on cast until level 11.

Water Pulse also gains multiple weaker ticks to add extra damage to the move with every Pokemon you hit with it for 8s, totaling 3 pulses (4 on Water Pulse+). Managing your Water Pulse stacks is key to mastering this Pokemon and keeping up your potential damage output.

Keep an eye out for opportunities to keep your stacks up. Hitting farm will upkeep Water Pulse stacks, and ensure your basic attack becomes a boosted attack. You can use this to your advantage when retreating just outside of team fights, healing up from wild Pokemon and potentially re-engaging with full stacks if it is safe to do so.

Water Pulse’s very short cooldown aligns closely with how long it takes to manually charge a boosted auto, so the standard combo for extra large burst heals is Water Pulse > boosted auto > charge and use boosted auto > Water Pulse > boosted auto > repeat, with a Bubble Beam or Ice Beam weaved in generally before the first Water Pulse to set up stuns/get the shield on Bubble Beam and get the combo started. Note that this is not a rigid flowchart and this combo can be changed or shortened depending on other factors such as Lapras being caught in stuns and not having time to manually charge up a boosted auto.

On the topic of your second moves, both can be used in creative ways despite looking pretty run-of-the-mill on paper. Boosted autos get even more value with a Bubble Beam shield active by giving you more HP, and the shield itself stacks with Resonant Guard to grant even more bulk.

The bubbles left behind after using Bubble Beam fan out in a star pattern away from the apex of the beam, which can be extremely disruptive and allows Lapras to lock down large areas of space to slow down approaches and make it difficult for assassins to attack a squishy teammate by forcing them to maneuver around the bubbles.

On the other hand, the frozen ground left behind by Ice Beam increases Lapras’s movement speed while she’s on it, making her approach slightly faster even when her Unite Move is unavailable.

On the XP Share build, your choice between Bubble Beam and Ice Beam is largely matchup dependent. Ice Beam is very strong against melees and frontline-based team comps in general, with good damage pressure and a strong freeze effect to punish the Pokemon it can reach extremely hard. Successfully freezing an opponent is a great way to enable ally Pokemon that have hard time engaging on their own

Bubble Beam on the other hand is better for controlling space against more backline oriented comps and protecting allies from assassins, boasting better range and excellent area control with the bubbles that linger after the move is used. Generally this can be summed up as Ice Beam being better for more offensive plays, with better damage output and more cripping stuns, while Bubble Beam is better for defensive play, protecting allies and controlling space from a further range when necessary. Carry builds do require Ice Beam, as the extra damage output is even more important on that build and you cannot afford to go without it.

Perish Song + Ice Beam+

Perish Song is generally less viable than Water Pulse, as the damage output isn’t as good overall and not having access to boosted auto spam until the + version at Lv. 11 is a huge downside that worsens Lapras’s ability to tank hits considerably.

Still, this move has some unique advantages, most notably a generous execute window and larger range that ensure it’s not completely outclassed.

Once you do gain the boosted autos at Lv 11, Perish Song becomes much more dangerous.

Compared to Water Pulse, Perish Song’s sustain is more burst focused in nature, boasting a huge surge of healing between a lengthy cooldown. Perish Song itself is similar, focusing on larger bursts of damage in comparison to Water Pulse’s sustained damage over time. The execute on Perish Song is particularly dangerous, allowing you to confirm kills for your team that you might not have gotten otherwise.

Note that in some situations you want to hold your last Perish Song activation and wait for opponents to take more damage from teammates to ensure they fall as close to execute range as possible.

Ice Beam’s extra damage is mandatory on this specific build for further assistance in getting enemies into execute range, and not having boosted auto spam for the earlier parts of the game make this move unviable on the XP Share build.

Favourable Matchup:

These are Pokémon that our team has determined LAPRAS is strong against. LAPRAS will generally be able to shut down these opponents playstyle's or have the advantage in a one on one fight.

METAGROSS

MIMIKYU

TREVENANT

UMBREON

MEWTWO X

CLEFABLE

LEAFEON

SLOWBRO

URSHIFU

Unfavourable Matchup:

These are Pokémon that our team has determined LAPRAS is weak against. These Pokémon will have the upper hand in a fight or be able to exploit LAPRAS's weaknesses.

BLAZIKEN

MEWTWO Y

PIKACHU

VENUSAUR

GLACEON

GARDEVOIR

DRAGAPULT