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Lucario's Flaws, Player and Character Related (Updated 5/14/08)

Milln

Smash Champion
Joined
Feb 9, 2008
Messages
2,625
Location
Tennessee
Howdy.

So Lucario is a character.

In Brawl.

And there are some things about him that you just need to come to terms with and deal with about him. These things may be psychological habits that a Lucario Player will perform that end up gimping themselves. These things may also be more about the character's abilities. AND THESE THINGS ARE ALSO THINGS THAT WE'RE GOING TO BE TALKING ABOUT IN THIS TOPIC. This is geared towards Lucario players so that they can understand their weaknesses, but I imagine people who main other characters will lurk around, trying to find answers why they get spanked all the time.

GET READY

GO!

First, and foremost, I want to get this out of the way.

DO NOT SAY "Durr Lukarioh needs... duhhh... high percentage on him tooo... uhh.. Ko and stuff... hurrrrrr" . You are a silly goose. If you do not main Lucario, you will never understand. If you do main Lucario, you know why everyone that says that is foolish. This a not a flaw at all.

New Updates will be Green.
Information that was posted LAST update will be Yellow.


Down-Air. We love it. A lot. It stops our momentum, it has close to no recovery, enabling you to do nearly anything out of it. For this reason, some of us tend to spam it while we're in the air and the opponent is anywhere near directly below us and it gets us in trouble.

A tricky opponent will lure out a dair, then immediately go to our side in the air and deny our happiness. Don't do it you're not right next to them unless you're waaayyyyyyy up high and you wanna slow your fall.

Do not dair right above your opponent(as in the burst wouldn't hit your opponent in the first place) for the following reasons:
You'll miss and eat an usmash before you can get another dair out and die.
If you blow your dair early, you're telling your opponent "You might wanna move so that you can space a fsmash so you can KO me."
If you do a silly job of hiding your dair, and the opponent shields or air dodges, you'll get hit.
You might hit with just the first hit and the opponent will have no knockback and be right next to you in the air while you're finishing up your attack. This is bad.

So don't dair unless your opponent is right below you so that you can do it safely. Also, try not to spam it in the air. Use it as a combo ender and a short hop attack. Anything else you'd like to add?


Reflectors and Absorption
This is more of a player psyche thing than a character flaw. Against characters with reflectors we can't spam our Baby Spheres as much for fear of having them reflected. However, that only applies if you use Baby Spheres a lot and if you use them from a distance. Players who charge their Sphere and use it at point blank or as a combo ender have less to worry about, unless they're predicted, in which case that's your fault anyway! >O

Getting KO'd
Getting knocked off the stage into a burst of color sucks.

There's one thing you should know.

Getting turned into a star sucks even more.

Lucario, although kinda weighty and lasts pretty high, is weak to getting KO'd off the top of the stage. Do not let this happen. It'll lead to really stupid deaths that could've been avoided. As dumb as this sounds, try to DI to the side more than upwards if you're not already at the edge. XD He's got nice horizontal launch resistance.

Small Grab Range

I've missed lots and lots of grabs where if I were another character, i'd have connected. While his jabpunches and throws are great, his grab range could stand to be a little longer... Dash grab is nice, don't stick to Melee mindset. Dash Grab has very low recovery time so it's useable.


Double Team Must Be Very Precise
You must know when you're going to be hit when you do Double Team. It has a startup, a small window of counter, and a recovery. Using it effectively will require knowledge of your opponent's character and the ability to study your opponent effectively enough to latch onto any patterns they have, particularly approaches.

Also, it's a little less useful in the air, due to air dodges and quick aerials. Speaking of quick attacks, if your opponent uses a move that has short recovery time, they can shield or spotdodge and try to reciprocate the hit after your invincibilty frames are done and make you frown if you're slow or if you instinctively shield and get grabbed.

ExtremeSpeed Doesn't Do Any Damage

=\

I'll warrant that it doesn't NEED to... but.. come on.. the move is an attack in Pokemon, it could at least do something at the end of the animation to like.. push them away or something... *grumble..Quick Attack does damage...grumble...ExtremeSpeed is a better Pokemon move than Quick Attack... grumble...* This means we can't knock people off the ledge so we can grab it ourselves, but since we're Lucario we have another option we can take instead of going for the ledge.

Forward Smash Has a Huge Startup
We're talking Meta Knight fsmash startup. It's balls.

However.

This doesn't matter because it hits so far away. It tips, too. Irrelevant flaw.

Sometimes Dsmash's Range Just Isn't Long Enough
Seriously. Can we have like.. just a little bit bigger aura bursts on his paws?

Jabpunches

When you have your opponent in a grab you can spam these. Now.. they're very quick.. but... they do half a percent when Lucario is at 0%. It does raise in power as Lucario powers up, though so that's good. Gets your diminishing returns reset quickly, too.

He's Standard Height
Kirby, Ness, Lucas, Toon Link, Meta Knight, Mr. Game & Watch. These characters have a thing going for them. They're short. Lucario is not, therefore he can be hit by any attack without the opponent going to extra effort. He totally should've been Riolu, amirite?

Aura Sphere's Priority is Weird
Didn't think i'd have two things to say about Aura Sphere, did you? Well, this attack is weird, and i'll tell you why. Firstly, it'll go through some projectiles(i.e. Falco's Laser) and not get cancelled out at all. It'll also be completely negated by projectiles(i.e. Fuggin' Toon Link's Arrows, Pikmin) you'd think it wouldn't be, even at full charge and some percent on him. Other times, it'll destroy other projectiles(i.e. Thunderjolt) with easy and continue on its way. Other times it seems to have a better chance of not being negated if you leave it uncharged and let it wobble past the offending projectile.


Force Palm Will Not Grab if You Are Too Close
Nope. It won't. You'll end up on the opponent's other side and whiff a Force Palm. You need to just grab or start off with an A > A first.

Running Speed and Dash Attack
Lucario feels like a character that should be running a little bit faster. At any rate, Dash attack is a slow and to be able to combo into an utilt out of it, you need to do it early. Coupled with a recovery time and the fact that it'll put you right in front of your opponent, this is punishment city.

Force Palm's Flame Counts as an Energy Projectile
Since it's a projectile, the following characters have reflect moves that will completely negate it. You won't get hurt by the deflection, but neither will they. And you'll probably get hit by a counter attack. R.O.B. does not reflect Force Palm, it seems, unless i'm doing it wrong.

Pit's Angel Ring and Mirror Shield
Zelda's Nayru's Love
Mario's Cape wtf
Fox, Falco, and Wolf's Shines.

These three characters will be LOOKING for your Force Palm to miss, especially since we like to Force Palm Grab and if we miss it goes with the flame.

Mr. Game & Watch's Bucket will KO you at 0%
Ness and Lucas will regain their percent, then Lucas will zap you with the Psi Magnet.


Lucario's Crawl Does Not Make Him Small
It helps with placing Dtilts, yeah, but it doesn't help with dodging projectiles.

Pew Pew Lasers, Arrows, Boomerangs, Fireballs... they'll all hit you if you try to duck them.


Lucario cannot Wall JUMP Straight from UpB if he Cannot Cling

Yup. If you can't cling in the first place, you can't wall jump from ExtremeSpeed. However, there are areas you can wall jump, but not cling. Battlefield, for instance.

Lucario Cannot WallCling To Some Ledges

Even if the opponent is hanging on them, which is when we need it most. You can go at it straight horizontally and you'll just bounce off. Unhappy. We'll just need to aim for the actual wall or curve around.

Can't Lose Your Cool, Even for an Instant

That instant is when you get hit while trying to recover and you Extreme Speed too early and can't curve properly into the wall, or you ExtremeSpeed straight up in Final Destination's ledge and die. Take your recovery slow. It goes a lot farther than your opponent will give you credit for.




That's all I can think of at the moment. Good Contributions will be editted into the post. Discuss away and help out on the list! RAISE AWARENESS.
 

Moosecalibur

Smash Apprentice
Joined
Mar 24, 2008
Messages
98
Location
Southington, CT
Down-Air. We love it. A lot. It stops our momentum, it has close to no recovery, enabling you to do nearly anything out of it. For this reason, some of us tend to spam it while we're in the air and the opponent is anywhere near directly below us and it gets us in trouble.

A tricky opponent will lure out a dair, then immediately go to our side in the air and deny our happiness. Don't do it you're not right next to them unless you're waaayyyyyyy up high and you wanna slow your fall.

Do not dair right above your opponent(as in the burst wouldn't hit your opponent in the first place) for the following reasons:
You'll miss and eat an usmash before you can get another dair out and die.
If you blow your dair early, you're telling your opponent "You might wanna move so that you can space a fsmash so you can KO me."
If you do a silly job of hiding your dair, and the opponent shields or air dodges, you'll get hit.
You might hit with just the first hit and the opponent will have no knockback and be right next to you in the air while you're finishing up your attack. This is bad.

So don't dair unless your opponent is right below you so that you can do it safely. Also, try not to spam it in the air. Use it as a combo ender and a short hop attack. Anything else you'd like to add?

Aura Sphere's Priority is Weird
Didn't think i'd have two things to say about Aura Sphere, did you? Well, this attack is weird, and i'll tell you why. Firstly, it'll go through some projectiles(i.e. Falco's Laser) and not get cancelled out at all. It'll also be completely negated by projectiles(i.e. Fuggin' Arrows, Pikmin) you'd think it wouldn't be, even at full charge and some percent on him. Other times, it'll destroy other projectiles(i.e. Thunderjolt) with easy and continue on its way. Other times it seems to have a better chance of not being negated if you leave it uncharged and let it wobble past the offending projectile.
yep, i agree on the aura sphere priority thing, and now I know not to spam dair as much.....:dizzy:
 

islyfe

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Apr 6, 2008
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I agree with almost everything your saying. This shortcomings have gotten me punished plenty of times especially dair, double team and his grab range.
 

Moosecalibur

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He's Standard Height
Kirby, Ness, Lucas, Toon Link, Meta Knight, Mr. Game & Watch. These characters have a thing going for them. They're short. Lucario is not, therefore he can be hit by any attack without the opponent going to extra effort. He totally should've been Riolu, amirite?
Well, the thing about being too tall, can't he crawl? That solves that problem I believe ;)
 

Rebonack

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Mar 29, 2008
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I certainly know that I'm guilty of using Dair too much when it won't hit, but if done properly you can use it to bait an opponent into eating a double team. That'll only work once or twice against a bright opponent, but it's fun to see.

The other time to toss a Dair out when it won't hit is when you see someone charging their up smash in anticipation of Lucario floating down toward them. They'll usually whiff and then you can stomp 'em.

As for ExtreamSpeed and people garbbin' our ledges all I can really say is learn where to aim for a wall cling on Final Destination and Battlefield. Yes. There's a narrow area you can latch onto at Battlefield as well. As Lucario players it's our habit to aim for the edge because of the awful landing lag Extreme Speed has. But if you have any feeling that your opponent is going to try and catch the edge before you get there than you'll have to quickly settle on another option or say bu-bye to a stock.

But yesh, this is an important thread. Know your weaknesses!
 

Pentaoku

Smash Apprentice
Joined
Mar 15, 2008
Messages
172
Crawling does dodge Pit's arrows on flat levels... or at least it dodges every 2/3 for me...
 

salaboB

Smash Champion
Joined
Nov 16, 2002
Messages
2,136
I read this in another thread, but can't you dair if you're being sent vertically to dump some of the speed and survive when you otherwise wouldn't? That seems like it would help some against being turned into a star.
 

Milln

Smash Champion
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Nah, that doesn't really work. You will continue moving upwards even through your dairs. Yes, plural.

And Crawling won't dodge Pit arrows because he can curve them into you.
 

salaboB

Smash Champion
Joined
Nov 16, 2002
Messages
2,136
Nah, that doesn't really work. You will continue moving upwards even through your dairs. Yes, plural.
That'll teach me to not test things before I reference them :/

I got nothing else at the moment, though my main is pretty much Lucario so I'll definitely keep an eye on the informative threads like this :)
 

Jeepy Sol

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Well, let's see... D-smash's cool-down lag is pretty bad. 35 frames to be exact, which is pretty intense. I suppose the excellent start-up time makes up for it. Just make sure that you don't whiff it, or you will most likely be punished.

Also, D-smash isn't THAT great for roll spammers. Like you said, it's range isn't too great, so a lot of the time my opponent will roll and will be just out of range, and I end up getting punished.
 

NESSBOUNDER

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You forgot to add not to use Nair over the edge of the stage if you've already done your second jump. On the stage though, it's awesome.

I also thinkthat the startup time of double-team needs a mention. This move is just too slow. Many times I've gone to use it against an attack, seen the whooshy special effect and then gotten hit before the counter frames kicked in. It actually has to be used with prediction, not on reaction, which sucks.
 

Milln

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Double Team Must Be Very Precise
You must know when you're going to be hit when you do Double Team. It has a startup, a small window of counter, and a recovery. Using it effectively will require knowledge of your opponent's character and the ability to study your opponent effectively enough to latch onto any patterns they have, particularly approaches.

Also, it's a little less useful in the air, due to air dodges and quick aerials.

DO NOT USE THIS WHILE YOU ARE OFF THE STAGE AND FACING THE EDGE. PLEASE. You will counter right back off in the middle of space and die.
I did mention it. =o

And that's not really a drawback worth mentioning since it comes out instantly and has enough knockback so that you can get away from them after a hit. It's like saying that ZSS dair off the edge will kill you. Not really a flaw, persay, just a nuance of the character that you shouldn't do.
 

Nodrak

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Ontario, Canada
About the aura sphere being weird: the aura sphere gains priority as it gains damage. If you're at 0% even a fully charged sphere will be blocked by most projectiles (i.e. a fully charged pit arrow) but if you're a stock behind or even at 50%, pit would need multiple charged arrows to stop it. The sphere simply gains priority according to how powerful it is. A charged sphere is more powerful then a semi-charged one, and a higher % lucario's sphere will be more powerful then a low % lucario
It's tricky, but not that complicated. In time players will be able to judge what it can go through by simply practicing and playing.

dsmash ... only directly to the left and right, if the player is close enough, it'll miss completely.

Standard height + kind of floaty = poor shorthop attacks. His nair, bair and even fair can be dodged by smaller characters by simple crouching.

Throw (pumble) damage: I mean the damage from hitting 'A' while grabbing someone. Sure it's fast but at 0% lucario does 0.5% damage per hit.
 

Milln

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About the aura sphere being weird: the aura sphere gains priority as it gains damage. If you're at 0% even a fully charged sphere will be blocked by most projectiles (i.e. a fully charged pit arrow) but if you're a stock behind or even at 50%, pit would need multiple charged arrows to stop it. The sphere simply gains priority according to how powerful it is. A charged sphere is more powerful then a semi-charged one, and a higher % lucario's sphere will be more powerful then a low % lucario
It's tricky, but not that complicated. In time players will be able to judge what it can go through by simply practicing and playing.

dsmash ... only directly to the left and right, if the player is close enough, it'll miss completely.

Standard height + kind of floaty = poor shorthop attacks. His nair, bair and even fair can be dodged by smaller characters by simple crouching.

Throw (pumble) damage: I mean the damage from hitting 'A' while grabbing someone. Sure it's fast but at 0% lucario does 0.5% damage per hit.
Percent is mentioned and I was talking about Toon Link's arrows, which seem to have super high priority over everything. A charged aura sphere at 100% will never go through a Pikmin. The projectiles I mentioned in the post are examples of projectiles that are immune to Lucario's Percentage variable. It'll always ignore lasers, it'll always get stopped by a Pikmin or a Toon arrow, and it'll nearly always crush Thunderjolts and other weak projectiles, like homing missiles.

That's... never happened to me in all my matches. I've hit when the person was actually on my Lucario. =x

That's not a flaw of Lucario, that's a pro for short characters.

Jabpunches are mentioned.

Oh, another thing about double team. If you hit it with a quick attack, like a jab, it can easily be sheilded. And you'll be hurted.
Orite. Good call, forgot. Editted in.
 

NESSBOUNDER

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But Lucario has no collission box during his dash from double team, and you can put up your shield almost immediately after it finishes, so even if it's blocked, it's not really punishable in most cases.
 

Milln

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But you still don't get your reward for countering something you could have shielded much easier, which is what the flaw is.
 

Barret3B

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Jan 14, 2004
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On the lag after a down smash, it seems that most of the time when you would use it, it puts them in pretty mean shield stun and makes them slide away. I don't use it alot but when I do use it I'm usually at advantage. It seems like it should be punished but I usually get an attack or dodge off first.
 

Tallen

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the double-team in the edge isn't THAT awful, actually. with quick reactions you can double-jump and extremespeed back up. unless the opponent edgehogs, then it sucks to be you XD
usmash is really hard to connect too, at least for me. still not much of a flaw because you'd do better with utilt.
 

JJ259

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Just a little note on ducking and being smaller, it is possible to duck under pit's arrows and crawl towards him. Although pit is able to curve them downwards and any pit worth anything will be able to figure this out after a few shots. I have been able to advance at least once on most pits which makes this somewhat useful.
 

Browny

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save double team for the really predictable moves like G&W / link / TL d-air and meta/pits attack out of glide. i rarely use it, but when i do i make sure its never against a move that ends quick enough such that they can dodge the DT.
 

Milln

Smash Champion
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Hmm.. I forgot about this. Bump for the new players we've received in the past few weeks.
 

phi1ny3

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Scary person

Mewtwo>Lucario
(starts growling, foaming at the mouth):grrr:
BARK BARK!

I dislike teh G&W playstyle, I could never really play him effectively, and they r annoying against my lucario. Still, I respect any "Old school character" enough to say that they r awesome. After all, Nintendo is the new, old-school system in a way (think about it, they have long lines of game series that date way back when, and they almost always have play-back capability on nearly every consol that comes out).

Now back to Lucario weaknesses...
Side-B has issues as far as hitting, if it's too close, it leaves Lucario vulnerable, which I absolutely hate. and his F-smash has bad start-up for a close fight, sadly though, U-smash has little, but is weaksauce in its range and arc (that's a laugh, it has NO arc!) His jab is weak at start, and his nair is ok, except that it has lots of ending lag compared to fair. his grab range, teeny, but fortunately, his run grab is usable. Oh yeah, and Lucario has problems in my opinion with juggling in the mid-end game. Seriously, you might say "all his throws get him into the air", but he can only start a juggle, it's not so easy continuing. Maybe juggling isn't such a good idea, however, due to the multiple air dodge. I know I'm repeating a lot of stuff already said, but this is stuff I sometimes think are problems.
 

SpazzerEXE

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Mewtwo's tilts might have been better but atleast Lucario's are prettier to look at imo :D

I don't know if anyone else does this but would F-airing too much be considered a flaw? I almost always go for two inna row after a short hop and occasionally I land it with lag and get propperly punished for doing so. Oh and not to sound high and mighty or nothin' but I'm sure all us Luc'ys suffer from overpredicting moves or miss timing an opponents roll and thus missing that sweet *** uptilt you/I was/were hoping to get, what with our need for spacing and all. I know its an itsy bitsy flaw that probably (i.e. very moar than likely) a very broad range of players suffer from buuuuuut thats what this thread is for so we keep it in mind and improve from it while they disregard it and get awesomed in the face by us.

Right?:chuckle:
 

Nodrak

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Fair use isn't a bad idea, even in repetition (ask Marth users) . Just be aware of the decay. Though it's best to combo, using different attacks, not just pushing an enemy from one side of the map to another.
 

Silvran

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Feb 3, 2008
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Just curious, can reverse double team combat the issue of countering while facing the stage? If so, that's one weakness eliminated, since you'd be able to direct yourself back toward the stage. Who knows, double teaming off the edge might be an advantage if that works.
 

indianunit

Smash Journeyman
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If I can add one thing. Lucario's roll dodge seems to be one of the fastest (and best) roll dodges in the game. Now this is good and all but because of this people tend to roll dodge a little too much. This isn't a problem with lucario so much as it's a problem with the player. I would suggest practicing to not use the roll dodge too much. Generally better players can take control of the roll dodge.

Plus force palm's after lag just plain sucks. I guess you're gonna have to time it well to use it effectively.

One thing i've noticed with many lucario mains is that they tend to use double team more than they need to and it usually fails. I rarely use double team but if i did i would use it as a finishing move toward the end of the battle when your opponent least expects a double team.
 

Nodrak

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Just curious, can reverse double team combat the issue of countering while facing the stage? If so, that's one weakness eliminated, since you'd be able to direct yourself back toward the stage. Who knows, double teaming off the edge might be an advantage if that works.
I wonder if you were standing on the edge, it would teleport you to the air, moving towards the stage. Would Lucario grab the edge?

If so it would be godly in a team match. An opponent is trying to recover, the other opponent or your ally shoots a projectile or hits you with something, you DT or RDT (depending on which way your facing) you teleport off the stage, hit the guy with the counter attack from DT then grab the edge right after. Or better yet, stagespike the guy who's on it.
 

Pentaoku

Smash Apprentice
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Mar 15, 2008
Messages
172
Extreme Haste. Sometimes under the stage, players will panic and extreme too early. If you keep your cool, you can make it.
 
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