Getting the Lucarionite: MU discussion

[Fish&Herbs19]

Not only against Falco, but against almost all projectile heavy characters, learning how to use platforms effectively for your movement and evasion game is crucial.

 

[Ali Baba 177]

I know most people think Lucario has a good MU against Roy, and I do agree when I theorycraft about it usually. However one of my friends is real good at Roy and I just cant seem to see the MU benefit when I play. I know that Roy doesnt have a lot of combo breakers for the air, but its really hard to get him there since he is always jumpin around with nair and CC then dtilt. The only thing to do when I get a hit on the ground is to cancel into a FP immediately other wise he just dtilts and does an easy combo on me.

Combos are easier to be long on Roy due to his fall speed and lack of quick neutral air, but his spacing game and superb CC make it hard to get started. Not necessarily hard to hit like the snake link falco samus etc MUs, but hits dont always lead to combos on him. Any other ideas to beat the dtilt and sword spacing besides FP?

I also seem to win more if I play slower against roy, which I dont like to do.

Aaand on another note a different friend plays a multitude of characters, but I do worst against his CF, why do you think this is?

 

[Risky]

Combos are easier to be long on Roy due to his fall speed and lack of quick neutral air, but his spacing game and superb CC make it hard to get started. Not necessarily hard to hit like the snake link falco samus etc MUs, but hits dont always lead to combos on him. Any other ideas to beat the dtilt and sword spacing besides FP?

I also seem to win more if I play slower against roy, which I dont like to do.

Aaand on another note a different friend plays a multitude of characters, but I do worst against his CF, why do you think this is?

Comboing Roy is pretty free, FP combos especially. Usmash and a correctly spaced Dtilt both blow up CC'ing well but you're going to have to confirm it quickly so he doesn't cc your lead in (probably dash attack) and just tilt you out of the followup. DA -> DT or Fair -> DT are also very effective against people that are expecting their CC to carry them through easily, and mash it out after you DA. Super easy punish.

I agree with the playing slow. I played against Sora's Marth, basically the first good Marth I've faced in P:M, and my best punishes were baiting out his jumps and grabbing in between aerials or Fair'ing him after I space him out. Took a lot of effort but I could reasonably 0-50% or death him if I touched him.

Is your friend better than you? I think CF is a very punishing character if there's a difference in skill levels between the players. I demolish my friends with CF, it's his nature. Lucario is also super easy to combo so that doesn't help.

 

[BFlake]

I would also like to hear other opinions on the specifics of the CF MU the 2 people I fight most often (Lordhelmet and TBird) both have a CF and we both talk about the MU a lot, but want to get the third party perspective.

 

[paxinchristo]

Hey guys. So Ken was doing the Lobo Challenge on his stream the other day, and I decided to partake. Suffice to say, I got absolutely wrecked by Lobo's Ganon (in front of almost 500 people, no less).

Even though this is probably due to the fact that Lobo is a beast at online play, I also went in not really knowing the match up (Lucario v Ganon) that well.

Any suggestions on this match up? At first glance, I would say the match up is 40-60 Lucario, but I could be wrong.

 

[BFlake]

I think Lucario has a couple of favorable advantages in this MU: Luc has a projectile and Luc's mobility and partial invulnerability with down b give him a couple extra edges on the poor slow and mostly laggy ganon. In this MU you can play it safer cause you can beat most if not all of ganon's approaches with aura spheres and if he gets close you can escape with down B. A big part of this MU is forcing them to approach and punishing them when they make a mistake. Ganon is also a great combo weight for Luc and you can usually end a combo with aFP or a nair to get them far off stage which is what you want. Ganon's recovery is quite readable so Luc can edge guard him really well. The biggest thing you wanna avoid is getting grabbed because ganon will put on a good amount of damage that way and put you in a bad position. All in all definitely in Lucario's favor.

 

[paxinchristo]

Even though it seems like this thread is pretty much dead, does anyone have some thoughts on how to do well in the Marth matchup?

 

[Ali Baba 177]

Keep combos going and DI as far away in your DI when you get combod, not up down or towards but far away cause lucario is too much combo bait. Other than that lucario sucks against swords so keep spacing and play punish game or AS game if your good at using those without getting punicshed.

 

[paxinchristo]

Keep combos going and DI as far away in your DI when you get combod, not up down or towards but far away cause lucario is too much combo bait. Other than that lucario sucks against swords so keep spacing and play punish game or AS game if your good at using those without getting punicshed.

Are we talking smashDI here or just holding the control stick in a certain direction?

 

[Ali Baba 177]

Just in general, so both. Also at low percents cancel things into DT away from him or FP as he might CC dtilt you. This applies more to Roy but I was just playing my friends Roy and you gotta beware of what percent there at for your own combos.

 

[AkashSky]

What are some tips for the mario matchup? the fire balls make it hard to approach.

 

[paxinchristo]

What are some tips for the mario matchup? the fire balls make it hard to approach.

Honestly, the fireballs make the Mario matchup pretty difficult for Lucario imo. Lucario's playstyle is pretty momentum centered, and those fireballs can immediately shut down that momentum if you let them. If I had any tips, I guess one would be to try and respond to fireballs with projectiles of your own, make him have to approach and wait for an opening to show itself.

 

[Giygacoal]

Yeah, trajectory DI and smash DI are both very important. I'm pretty sure Marth is one of those guys we'll have to fight patiently. Poke with aura sphere a lot, and if Marth is both far away and refusing to approach, you can force an approach by up-taunting to charge aura. (If he's close, don't do that because he'll just dash attack.)

What are some tips for the mario matchup? the fire balls make it hard to approach.

I think downair could take out the fireballs. try it.

 

[Risky]

You can reliably Fair fireballs, and it builds Aura when you do it, so you somewhat get ahead if you don't approach in neutral and don't get hit. The real problem I have with Mario is his insane CC game and 2 frame down smash make it very difficult to get anything going on him. That coupled with his weight and fall speed also make combos and KOs a nightmare. I would say 6/4 or worse. I can't stand him.

 

[ZaloMonkada]

Any idea what to do in the zelda matchup? I was completely stumped. My combos ended way too early and I had a hard time killing her. Dealing with her dins was annoying but it seemed doable, i just felt like I had to work so much harder for percent and kills than she did

 

[Risky]

I think Zelda is another complete nightmare for Lucario. His main weakness is his neutral and that's what she's all about. I got destroyed by KDJ a couple weeks ago playing her and all he really did was put a couple fires out and jump towards me waiting. If I did nothing he would DI back, otherwise he would Fair, Nair, space Fsmash, or Nayrutral B me (I can't stand this move!). She's very light and floaty as well allowing her to easily DI away from you during combos.

I've thought a little bit about the matchup but... mostly about which character I need to switch to. I suggest bringing it to a small stage to get early Nair/combo kills. Honestly you may have to camp and be very patient in this matchup. Fair a Din's and shoot an Aura Sphere. You can Fair her Din's and actually use them to approach if you OHC off of them into DT, and it builds aura every time you hit one. Eventually it will become a mixup of you hitting a fire and her trying to predict what you're doing off of it which puts the pressure on her at that point, as you can bait out Neutral B's (despite it having pretty low lag it is punishable) and other aerials to get in. Once you get aura you threaten DT -> Dtilt or your preferred DT approach and can really punish her. You may even dissuade her from using Din's in neutral entirely.

If she's in the air floating around the least Risky™ thing you can do is dash dance around until she lands, go for a really fast aerial to surprise her (don't do this too much, most of her moves beat yours), or DT where she's going to land if she does nothing.

 

[bec]

in addition to what risky said, sweetspot uair/usmash will kill zelda earliest (in my experience) since she's super heavy but floaty. overall it is an extremely hard matchup, i can get some combos going but it's easy to overcommit for me and get nayru'd. that move is stupid. zelda is stupid lol

 

[ZaloMonkada]

What do you think is a good secondary for lucario mains to deal with all his ****ty matchups? I'd prefer a non-spacie melee character, so I can play them in both games

 

[Rongunshu]

Matchups (so far) I have found to be awful for Lucario:

Link (Meh)
Falco (Not as bad)
Kirby.
Squirtle.
And the biggest blasphemy for Lucario goes to... Samus. (The Salty Hunter)

 

[ZaloMonkada]

Link and falco are fine. Your movement and down b are good enough in the neutral game to bait out laggy moves and one hit usually leads to huge combos. Against falco, one hit is all you really need if your combo game is on point and it is SUPER easy to edge guard him. They're tough match ups if you're not good at dealing with projectiles, but once you've overcome that barrier in your play, they become muuuuuuch easier

 

[Rongunshu]

You do have some good points. What would you do to play against projectile game? Especially Samus's projectile game, I seem to do awful against her the most.

 

[Darkgun]

Perfect Shield everything.

Serious though, this is probably the hardest thing to overcome as Lucario. I've not come up with any better strategies than trudging through projectiles using shield, CC, and DT, and frankly I don't think the way I'm doing it is even the least bit effective. Characters who can't constantly use projectiles or have strict-ish limitations are simply outmoved, but Samus? Use more Aura Sphere? Heck, that seems to be the best advice for most situations... let's go with that. Oh, and you can OHC aerials off of missiles, so that's kind of a plus.

 

[ZaloMonkada]

If you want advice on how to deal with samus, go watch melee samus matchups. Marths, c. falcons and puff all dealt with the character didn't have anything that lucario doesn't have (lucario has marth movement, down b and a projectile for counter camping). That's all the advice I can give tbh, but it should be doable.

 

[Giygacoal]

The difference between Lucario and Marth is that Marth has much better disjoint in general.

 

[ZaloMonkada]

Yes but they all use movement, baiting through movement, jumping and shielding to deal with projectiles to some extent. My point is you could learn from those matchups

 

[AkashSky]

Vs shamus it is hard to get kills sometimes cause shamus has infinite recovery. I rarely see them die from the bottom. In order to kill go for some extreme speed cancels into up air to get them from the ceiling or spike then with an aerial force palm

 

[Darkgun]

You can reliably Fair fireballs, and it builds Aura when you do it, so you somewhat get ahead if you don't approach in neutral and don't get hit. The real problem I have with Mario is his insane CC game and 2 frame down smash make it very difficult to get anything going on him. That coupled with his weight and fall speed also make combos and KOs a nightmare. I would say 6/4 or worse. I can't stand him.

I went ahead and tested out the gaining charge off of fireballs, and this, sadly, is not the case. While you can OHC off fireball, and in fact any projectile you hit with an aerial, you only gain charge off of hitting something that has health of some form: Link/Tink's bombs, Snake's Tranq, Smashville Balloon, Fly Guy, Brinstar stage elements, Nana. The method I used to test this was fair-ing 10 fireballs[pills, specifically. That shouldn't matter.] with 0 charge. Not accounting for staling, that is a bit over 100% damage (hitbox dependent), and well over 50%.

If it helps any, I also despise this matchup. Heck, I'm bad enough with projectiles as is and now you want me to deal with an exceptionally noncommittal one that is an excellent combo starter and can shield poke if your block is out of place for some silly reason? Pfft, O.K. In asking a Mario I played against at a recent-ish tournament, I was suggested to punish over aggressive fireballs on shield with grabs (though in my experience, I usually get dsmash'd doing this. Might be doing something wrong.). I will note that due to Mario's reach, assuming you can get through the projectile wall, I think it is possible to punish him if he's in the air by outreaching him with carefully spaced utilt and safe follow-ups. Not sure how to get that close without him playing aggressive though.

 

[Risky]

I went ahead and tested out the gaining charge off of fireballs, and this, sadly, is not the case.

If it helps any, I also despise this matchup. Heck, I'm bad enough with projectiles as is and now you want me to deal with an exceptionally noncommittal one that is an excellent combo starter and can shield poke if your block is out of place for some silly reason? Pfft, O.K. In asking a Mario I played against at a recent-ish tournament, I was suggested to punish over aggressive fireballs on shield with grabs (though in my experience, I usually get dsmash'd doing this. Might be doing something wrong.). I will note that due to Mario's reach, assuming you can get through the projectile wall, I think it is possible to punish him if he's in the air by outreaching him with carefully spaced utilt and safe follow-ups. Not sure how to get that close without him playing aggressive though.

Hmm, I'm not sure where or when I first started thinking it did. Maybe just related it to Shy Guys and stage objects and assumed. Better to find out now than later lol.

It doesn't help that you get shieldstabbed by the 2nd fireball, or whatever attack he does after 1. If he's smart enough to mash down on the C-stick whenever we do a grounded approach, life is hell. You have to hope your dash dance game baits him enough times to combo/kill him or Double Team under fulljump fireballs when he does them. If you have aura you should be able to DT -> Dtilt (hopefully before he hits the ground to dsmash you) shorthop fireballs as well.

 

[AkashSky]

I went ahead and tested out the gaining charge off of fireballs, and this, sadly, is not the case. While you can OHC off fireball, and in fact any projectile you hit with an aerial, you only gain charge off of hitting something that has health of some form: Link/Tink's bombs, Snake's Tranq, Smashville Balloon, Fly Guy, Brinstar stage elements, Nana. The method I used to test this was fair-ing 10 fireballs[pills, specifically. That shouldn't matter.] with 0 charge. Not accounting for staling, that is a bit over 100% damage (hitbox dependent), and well over 50%.

If it helps any, I also despise this matchup. Heck, I'm bad enough with projectiles as is and now you want me to deal with an exceptionally noncommittal one that is an excellent combo starter and can shield poke if your block is out of place for some silly reason? Pfft, O.K. In asking a Mario I played against at a recent-ish tournament, I was suggested to punish over aggressive fireballs on shield with grabs (though in my experience, I usually get dsmash'd doing this. Might be doing something wrong.). I will note that due to Mario's reach, assuming you can get through the projectile wall, I think it is possible to punish him if he's in the air by outreaching him with carefully spaced utilt and safe follow-ups. Not sure how to get that close without him playing aggressive though.

So darkgun, due to the potential of crouch cancel down smash, do you think we should only approach mario's with aerial attacks or aura canceled grounded moves?

 

[Darkgun]

[Disclaimer: I don't have a rig in front of me at this moment to test spacing, statements involving the comparison of two character's reaches will be more like educated guesses.]

So darkgun, due to the potential of crouch cancel down smash, do you think we should only approach mario's with aerial attacks or aura canceled grounded moves?

I don't actually know, honestly. I've yet to have any kind of set with a Mario player that wasn't utterly one-sided in their favor. At the lowest of percentages, if you can sweetspot dtilt>ASC, you can avoid getting CC dsmash'd (since it staggers via the grounded spiked effect when CC'd at early percents, and later percents forces the opponent to require tech), but the spacing for that, in my opinion, is outright to the advantage of Mario (due to fireball, no less)... grabs will most certainly lead to decent follow-ups, since you can force Mario into the air, but at early percents follow-ups (spare dair(1st)>aFP, which can be hard-ish to space) are unsafe since the opponent might not start tumbling until [what I generally assume to be global] ~30%. Platforms would probably help in this matchup, both to avoid fireballs and to set up decent combo options/tech chases....

I suppose to give you a more definitive answer, since Mario's dsmash outreaches all of Lucario's aerials (not completely sure about Lucario's bair, admittedly), grounded attacks are going to be safer (DA(late)>dtilt(strong)>ASC/rDT) against a grounded plumber, at least until his CC causes Mario to be knocked down. Even still, approaching Mario when he is in the air is probably the safer option, though without some seriously situational spacing, the followups will be a bit few and far between at early percents. Lucario can just emulate Bowser and fair through fireballs to hit Mario, even, which is probably a pretty decent surprise, though timing that can be somewhat tricky. And then, of course, if you can grab him, that will give a decent followup.

Hope that helps some.

 

[bec]

mario is just stupid overall QQ
ive been playing with my friend's mario for ages and its still just a really hard MU. fireballs suck, fsmash sucks, dsmash sucks, mario is hard to combo except in short strings and stupid cape is a nightmare. a grab can lead to a short combo string but nothing appreciable. i've taken games by luck and outplaying/outpatienting but overall it is just a horrible MU. nothing seems to work consistently that i can remember outright because mario

nerf mario 2k14

 

[Rongunshu]

Jeez how many times I've been caped while trying to recover with up b... I agree with Mario being a bad MU with Lucario. It's better than being missle spammed though... *coughcough* still have trouble with Samus unfortunately *coughcough*

 

[Risky]

Samus is really easy to combo and her CC game isn't even that good with the exception of dtilt, dsmash is generally too slow. Lucario has many ways to deal with missiles between Fair, DT, Powershielding, or simply jumping. Full jump DT isn't the worst.

 

[Ali Baba 177]

Lucario is one of the hardest characters to powershield for. Mario is difficult to play against as you must change your style a bit most likely. You can't always just try to create the longest combo string as you will get caught up either just trying to get in or with one of marios easy combo brakers. You must play the baiting/patience game where you back off cause you know he will do a combo breaker or something, back off and space out a forward smash or the like. For example, dash dance then short hop (b reverse if youd like) aurasphere, then mario will full jump or stay grounded, DT immediately to get in and start a combo that leads to a usmash fairly quickly, but cancel the usmash before you get up and space out a fsmash. This should work as Mario will go for a nair somewhere in there, he may jump out instead of nair but you will still now have the advantage as he is coming from above and you have stage control.

 

[AkashSky]

Overall, I feel that the more we know about mario's options against us lucario players, the less scary it would be. I think a thread that highlights mario's possibilities against lucario would turn this matchup around into our favor.

 

[Risky]

Lucario is one of the hardest characters to powershield for. Mario is difficult to play against as you must change your style a bit most likely. You can't always just try to create the longest combo string as you will get caught up either just trying to get in or with one of marios easy combo brakers. You must play the baiting/patience game where you back off cause you know he will do a combo breaker or something, back off and space out a forward smash or the like. For example, dash dance then short hop (b reverse if youd like) aurasphere, then mario will full jump or stay grounded, DT immediately to get in and start a combo that leads to a usmash fairly quickly, but cancel the usmash before you get up and space out a fsmash. This should work as Mario will go for a nair somewhere in there, he may jump out instead of nair but you will still now have the advantage as he is coming from above and you have stage control.

I agree with having to bait out Nairs and such during combos, but that will only work a couple times before they learn. If Mario is grounded you don't have anything that can combo into a usmash before he can CC dsmash you with the exception of your dtilt (even then I'm not sure at low %). I think you really want him to be airborne to get anything going since if he is above you Fair will beat out fireball probably hit him as Darkgun mentioned. If we could find a way to reliably tech chase him with grabs that would solve the early % problems. Extreme Speed links may be crucial in the MU for kills.

 

[AkashSky]

I agree with having to bait out Nairs and such during combos, but that will only work a couple times before they learn. If Mario is grounded you don't have anything that can combo into a usmash before he can CC dsmash you with the exception of your dtilt (even then I'm not sure at low %). I think you really want him to be airborne to get anything going since if he is above you Fair will beat out fireball probably hit him as Darkgun mentioned. If we could find a way to reliably tech chase him with grabs that would solve the early % problems. Extreme Speed links may be crucial in the MU for kills.

If the mario's will CC downsmash, let them CC downsmash. If you look at the hitboxes for downsmash on mario, they are directly above the floor in parallel. So, if we space out a move like fair they can CC and downsmash, but it wont hit. Ultimately, spacing will be key to getting around mario's CC. after dodging the downsmash, mario is punishable for a short time. Make use of it.

 

[MysteryRevengerson]

Opinions/pointers on Lucario vs Sonic? It feels like a very difficult Matchup.

 

[BFlake]

I'm with you there yars. like most of Luc's MU's it's combo or be combo'd. Getting away from sonic in the air will be nigh impossible and his upair>upB>upair with destroy you. If you are caught in shield that's most definitely gonna get you shield poked with how many hits sonics downb does while going through you. I don't have the most knowledge on this MU but I agree that is really difficult on paper he's ridiculously hard to pin down with his excellent mobility

 

[KhanYe]

Sonic's homing attack also shield pokes, which is HELL if you're caught in that situation, and most characters have a pretty strong punish for it, but Lucario doesn't really have much. Also, the fact that the homing attack rises in the startup frames makes it super difficult to hit him and it makes homing attack a very viable anti-combo tool for Sonic against Lucario in the air when you're trying to carry a combo.

I honestly can't stand the Sonic matchup. The only matchups I truly can't really get a grasp on are Sonic, Mario, Zelda, and Luigi.