Lucario Matchup Discussion: vs. Bowser jr.

[Steam]

Lucario Matchup Discussion: vs. Bowser Jr.

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Welcome to the Lucario vs. Bowser Jr. matchup thread/export. As you might have guessed this thread is for discussing the ins and outs of the Lucario vs. Bowser Jr. matchup and who wins/loses. As always please keep discussion on topic and civil. Refer to this thread for all other matchups.

 

[Blanc]

does lucario have good oos options? if not I don't see this MU being very one-sided either way. bjr loses to a lot of floaty and heavy hitter or gimp heavy characters with good oos options (think villager, ness, pikachu) but idk frame data on the furry

 

[BugCatcherWill]

I play this MU a lot since BowJow is one of my mains and I can say both characters have things going for them.

Pros:
-BowJow has laggy moves which can be punished.
-AS at high % eats right through Mechakoopa's
-FP easily outranges BowJow
-Kart can be shield grabbed easily
-Mechakoopa gives free DT's
-Other than nair and up air, BowJow has slow and punishable aerials
-Lucario can't be grabbed because BowJow's grab is booty

Cons:
-BowJow can live up to rather high percentage due to his kart gimmick, although aura nullifies this quite a bit
-Smash attacks have undisputed kill power and can kill as low as 70% near the edge
-Fair and bair auto cancel and great for mind games and spacing
-Fair fsmash and bair can interrupt ES
-BowJow's combo game is extraordinary with setups from up tilt, kart, and wall of pains with fair
-All BowJow's tilts are incredibly fast and have decent range. With ftilt being a good "get off me" move, and dtilt being good near the edge and a fast option.

Overall, this MU is either even, or slightly in Lucario's favor.

 

[Splooshi Splashy]

Before I begin, I lawl'd at the above photo. I see what you did there~ XD

Frame data for all characters are here (originally found in our Competitive Discussion Boards in the Smash Academy section): http://pastebin.com/PzTjdtx8

I suppose we could start with what I presume to be the question that normally surrounds the Aura-wielding doge: Can he expect to stay on the stage for a long while against the Koopa Prince? Nope. Jr's got numerous KO moves that can KO you at around 100%, with his absolute strongest options being FSmash near the edges and Side B --> Jump Cancel --> Up B --> A (Hammer) at around 100%.

Here's a list of some of his other KO moves that I mentioned in another thread:

BAir
FAir (near the edges, definitely. Most likely, because of how important this move is for building damage, it'll be heavily staled)
UAir
NAir (when going for the stage spike or edgeguard)
FTilt (at 150+% near the edges)
Neutral A string (close to the edge at 130+%? Don't count on the launcher punch to connect too often at that point)
Side B JC -> UAir --> Up B --> A (hammer) KOs at around 75-ish%
Side B JC --> Up B --> A (hammer) KOs at around 100-ish%
FSmash at 90+%
DSmash at 110+%?
USmash at 100+%?
Back Throw at 150+% near the edges
The Spinout during Side B at around 130+% near the edges

There's also DAir spikes if he does NOT get the last hit of it that launches you upwards.

A Jr that uses Side B Jump Cancels is going to outrun you. He's also going to dodge more of your moves and approaches doing so, as well as punish any whiffed openings with Side B --> JC --> Aerials for big damage.
Jr can outbox you upclose with Jab & especially DTilt, both of which come out on frame 4, and your fastest ground moves are frame 6 Jab, Grab, & UTilt (with Dash Attack being 7 frames & DTilt being 9), so you'll probably lose the upclose ground boxing match if Jr gets in on you on his terms (which will likely include Mechakoopas and even Cannonballs, since you're not the fastest of movers). However, your DAir is a frame 4 move (your absolute fastest move you have), your FAir is a frame 7 move, and you have Double Team, so you'll want to jump in on him if you're looking to directly challenge his Jab & DTilt. However, not only does Jr have range and disjoints on all of his aerials (and his ground A button moves too!), but his UAir & NAir and even FAir in particular will come out faster than some of your aerials.

OoS, Lucario can grab him out of Side B if Jr does NOT JC it, but timing is strict. USmash OoS is more reliable, even though it comes out at Frame 15 (the fastest of his 3 Smashes, btw), for it covers the JC out of Side B. For even more OoS speed, there's 4 frame DAir & 7 frame FAir & 8 frame NAir, since you can jump OoS. Of the Up B moves you can use OoS, I'd imagine Up 3 would be the best of the Up B moves to use there, since it hits at every part of the move, including the beginning.

Dealing with Mechakoopas: Dash attack it to pick it up. Since you can crawl, DTilt may be advisable for OHKO-ing it. Default Aura Spheres may not pierce it, but at least the Mecha blows up. Force Palm, while slow to start up (and if started too late, can lose to Mecha), bodies it from a distance AND can hit Jr too, even at low %, and especially at high %. Mechakoopas will generally block off Aura Spheres, even at 100+%, so if there are no Mechas anywhere on the stage, not even in Jr's hands, and you're thinking of trying to chuck an Aura Sphere upon him landing onto the stage, expect his Mecha to fully take your shot (and blow up because of it) until you yourself are at a high enough % to pierce it. Therefore, you'll have to either steal his Mechakoopa or wait for the Mecha to be not between you & Jr before chucking AS if you want it to land reliably. If you make it to this position and he hasn't used his Side B Jump Cancel or Up B yet, expect those to come out as escape moves. Double Team CAN work against Mecha, and if the counter kick hits Mecha, even at 0%, it's getting blown up, and Jr can be hit by your kick too if he's nearby.

Dealing with Cannonballs: Aura Sphere at 0-ish% will lose to it, even uncharged, but the Cannonball loses its hitbox. At 100+%, fully charged AS will pierce uncharged Cannonballs and hit Jr if he's still recovering from firing it. Force Palm will pierce it at any %, and still hit Jr while doing so. It's definitely Double Team-able, and you CAN use it to approach Jr from a distance.

Speaking of jumping in on him, here's the biggest intel I can give about fighting Jr: Maintain the high ground. Considering how floaty & high up your jumps are, as well as your DAir giving you hang time, you certainly can do this. You'll discourage panic non-Up 2 escape attempts this way (and if it happens near the edges and he does NOT know to mash R to get back the Car, he's done).
Of course, good Jrs will recognize this and jockey against you for that position, and with Side B JCs, he certainly can compete with you in that regard. One of the biggest reasons I make a big deal about the high ground is that Jr gets hit harder & knocked back further if he's hit on his squishy head, while he takes less damage & knockback if you hit his Koopa Clown Car. Thus, you can expect him to jump in on you very often. Thankfully for you, your anti-air options, UTilt, NAir, FAir, up-angled FTilt (12 frame ._.), and Double Team, are also among your faster moves.

If you're trying to land after being knocked upwards and he's giving chase with UAir or Up B --> A (Hammer) (the distances of them can be boosted with a Side B JC beforehand), your Double Team will save you from them (and possibly KO him back), and he'll probably be discouraged from trying to do so if you pull that off enough times.

Expect him to make like ROB & Villager and hound you ALL the way to the edges of the screen when he's edgeguarding you, because of how fantastic his recovery & position-holding abilities are with Side B JCs. Thankfully, the sheer speed & distance of your Up B will help you out with this, as can your wall cling (not just a wall jump like what the other canines have) if there's walls in the stage. Don't cling to the wall for too long, however. While it can save you from some of Jr's deep edgeguarding attempts, he can Up 1/2 or Down 3 or aerial you for doing that if he expects it. He's got Up B & USmash as fantastic anti ledge roll & ledge jump options, so do pay attention to what he's prepping when you're on the ledge.

If you somehow hit him out of his Up B and the attack you used on him was a strong hit (i.e. NOT Jab 1 or possibly NAir or FAir or DAir 1), AND the Jr player KNOWS to mash R to get back his Clown Car, expect him to do such a thing to keep his stock.

Without Customs, I'd say this MU is either even, or 55:45 Jr's favor if he gets in on you on his terms & secures stocks early enough, or 55:45 Lucario's favor if he can somehow survive long enough make use of Rage & Aura.


Custom Loadouts:

Jr will likely run one of the following sets: 1123 or 1121 or 1221 or 1223 or 2123 or 2121 or 2221 or 2223. Of these, 1121 or 2123 will probably be the most likely. He may even go 1111. As a Ludwig main, I'd personally run 2123.

Meteor Ejection denies you aerial edgeguards (and can counter-spike you for it if you're too close) and possibly grants him a panic escape move onstage, due to its super-armor.

Either Neutral 1 or 2 will be picked. Piercing will remain useful when you reach 100+%, challenging AS & FP at virtually any %, and it's generally faster than Neutral 1 in every way, so Neutral 2 may see some use here.

You're generally not fast enough to warrant Side 3 or Down 2. Koopa Drift MAY be considered, but I believe Side 1 will suffice.

You're generally slow enough for Down 3 to seem fast to you. If it's roaming around, it'll survive low % default Aura Spheres?? I'm not sure if Default AS would be used in this MU if Customs are on... Anyways, Ensnaring AS will likely shred it, since it lingers closely in 1 area for quite a while, but it may survive low % Force Palms. Like default Mecha, you can steal it, and throwing this one around has a bigger payoff, since at 100+%, it will KO folks, especially off-stage.


Lucario will probably run one of these decks: 2213 or 2211 or 3313 or 3311 or 2233 or 2231 or 3333 or 3331 or 2313 or 2311. Of those decks, I'd predict 2213 or 3313 or 2313 would be most likely.
If I were repping Aura Dawg, I'd personally run 2233.

Ensnaring Aura Sphere, especially charged, provides wonderful cover fire for your approach against him, for it eats Mechakoopas & regular Cannonballs (Piercing still beats it, I believe).
Advancing Force Palm may lose to Jr's Side B, but it can be used as a distant punish move to close in on him if he whiffs any of his disjoints.
Extreme Speed Attack can not only deny non-Up 2 edgeguard attempts, but landing with it is nowhere as laggy as Up 1 is. It can allow you to punish openings that he normally struggles with reaching. I'd heavily advise picking walled Omegas, Castle Siege, and Duck Hunt stages if you're going to run this, since your wall cling will help you tremendously in recovering with this move.
Paralyzing Counter (?) can net you free Smashes, since Jr will likely be rushing you down hard, and this will certainly give you some breathing room, as well as a way to reverse momentum towards your way.


Stages:

Walled Omegas and Duck Hunt and any other stages with walls will be great picks against him, due to the sheer distance you can go off-stage against him and still come back. The flatland is fair for the both of you, as far as I can tell. If approaching him is somehow too difficult, perhaps the platforms from Smashville, T&C, and Battlefield will help?

Your recovery may be great, but be wary of Lylat Cruise, Jr's best stage, because Lylat's up 'n down leaning can make it tough for you to recover at times (at least not as much as oh say Ness or Ike), which Jr has basically no problems handling (so long as you don't weak hit him out of his non-Up 2, of course). While there's many platforms for you retreat above his Mechakoopa at Lylat Cruise, said platforms are where he wants you to be for UAir & FAir & NAir & UTilt sharking (which Side B Jump Cancels definitely help out with doing), as well as USmashing when you're at KO percent. In team battles, Kongo Jungle 64 is next on the menu for Jr, because there's less land for his default Mechakoopa to have to roam in Kongo Jungle, which makes Jr's stage control there better. However, your recovery, and therefore your survivability, can compete with his there, making Jr's gains there not as big as it would be against other characters with lesser recoveries & weight.

FD & non-walled Omega stages are where Jr will probably want to go if Lylat Cruise or Kongo Jungle 64 are banned, so as to not only deny you your wall clings, but also for himself to take advantage of travelling under the stage to go around your edgeguard attempts with Side B JCs.

Delfino & Halberd are double-edged swords. Both of you have ways to KO each other very quickly when there's low ceilings, but Jr can reach that point sooner than you can, since unlike you, he doesn't need rage or Aura to KO you early. I'd imagine Jrs would sooner want to take you to those 2 places if Lylat Cruise & are banned.


With Customs, I'd say this MU would be pretty even on both sides, considering the sheer amount of gains their customs net them.

 

[Blanc]

^ this information sucks.

1. fsmash is in no way our best kill move. usmash oos, usmash to cover your landing and usmash to cover ledge options will destroy you floaty fkrs.

2. high ground vs bjr is useless (esp cus your character only has two jumps and an easily punishable recovery). bjr best aerial is uair and the disjointed hitbox makes it so that you'll just never hit him from above if you camp him this way. kart fakes will bait you so hard to expend both jumps, which will lead to your trouble landing seeing as though your dair's hitbox is small af and puts in you in an unfavourable position vs bjr (stuck in the air = free aerial). a good bjr will only make safe kart approaches (when you're stuck in lag or when you're about to land) so counters are immensely useless.

3. bjr gains next to nothing with customs. the only half decent sets are 3111 (air cannon to deny recovery) or 3113 (sacrifices stage control by giving up normal MK but gains a lot of kill power with big MK). Meteor ejection has terrible height and sacrifices recovery for jank that will never hit a competent player. DO NOT GET ME STARTED ON THAT ****TY PEIRCING CANNON. the projectile does 4% and next to no KB while experiencing the same lag as normal cannon (its a bit faster but really, 4% is not worth it). personally, I find cannonball completely useless 100% of the time so air cannon works to punish linear recoveries and ones that dont snap.

4. lylat cruise is bjr's worst stage and every bjr main will agree with me. the slants mess with kart timings as slants slow the kart down and the constant tilting will push MKs off the edge when deployed and in their bouncing state. DO NOT TAKE A BJR TO FD/OMEGA. the lack of platforms simplify the approach game and also make it so that our MKs are inescapable unless you're in the air (where we can uair you like 3 times before you come down). take us to lylat, delfino or castle seige, jank maps destroy our bnb.

5 (personal advice). don't take any bjr seriously that says "I main (insert Koopaling here) xD". I use the Iggy skin but the character is not Iggy, it's bowser jr. that's like a peach that uses the daisy recolour calling themselves a daisy main cmon thats so dumb.

 

[Splooshi Splashy]

After reading over your post, I'll admit that my earlier post here does indeed suck, and that I somehow did not know my own main as much as I thought I did, prior to this topic, despite me sounding like I did know. I probably know DH more than I know Jr as of this point in time, due to the amount of data, attention, & players he gets in comparison to Jr, which is a real shame.

1. USmash is definitely Jr's most reliable Smash attack, especially OoS. I spoke of FSmash for its KO strength being above USmash. However, FSmash is our least reliable Smash, due to it being DI-able, sometimes not properly connecting, and being slower to come out than USmash or even DSmash. Speaking of DSmash, despite its long recovery frames, it's more reliable & quicker to reach the KO hit than FSmash. Of course, USmash trumps all of his Smashes.

2. Jr's UAir is good enough to protect his squishy head? I genuinely thought the majority of the cast could heavily disrespect it, including Lucario. I also thought that Jr's anti-airing abilities were terrible enough that staying above him was a safe place to be to score headshots (reminds me of 3S!Chun-Li when Parries aren't used...), which folks like Jigglypuff, Kirby, and another Jr could definitely take advantage of. It's nice to read that Side B JC mixups can tempt folks to spend 2nd+ jumps. I was at least aware of how hard it is to land Lucario's DAir, despite it being his fastest aerial and giving him slight hang time, but . None of Lucario's Counters are good against Jr's Side B, especially when JC'd? I was wondering why I found Counter users in general to be among Jr's easier opponents, aside from said Counters denying me UAir & Up B --> A (Hammer) sharking attempts....

3. Really? I coulda sworn that Jr gains SOMETHING worthwhile from Customs, however little it may be. 3111 and 3113 are definitely decent sets, and I'm glad they're on the EVO Setlist. The main reason I like Meteor Ejection as much as I do is for its super armor to help defend against deep edgeguarders, most notably Yoshi, ROB, and ZSS. I don't actively try to spike with it until I've spent all my jumps, including the Side B JC, trying to deeply edgeguard folks. Piercing Cannon is definitely the worst of the 3 Cannons. I normally don't use it, and the only MU I would really want to use it in is against Rosalina, just as a distant tool for KO-ing Luma, and even there, I wouldn't want to recklessly throw it out against a Rosaluma running 2311 or 2313. I'm definitely a fan of Air Cannon, and I'd certainly recommend that over default Cannonball for quite a number of MUs, most notably the likes of Yoshi, Ness, & Falcon. For this MU, however, I'm not sure if Air Cannon's worth running. Sure it's the fastest of the 3 Cannons, and it can catch Lucario when he's in freefall after Up B-ing, but even at 0%, Aura Spheres pass through it and can hit you. If it IS worth running against him, I'd like to know why.
Of the official EVO sets, I'd personally run 1123 against Lucario, since neither 2123 or 3123 are available (I'm ok with 2123 not being there, but not so much 3123), and default Cannonball can at least handle Aura Spheres under 100% when Big Mecha's already out.

4. Non-Omega Lylat Cruise actually sucks for Jr? Whoever I've heard claim that Lylat Cruise was good for Jr must not have known what he was talking about. It seemed decent when I was running Impatient Mechas, since it seemed to be the most reliably functioning Mecha on that stage. Aside from that, I do agree that Lylat sucks for Jrs that run default and even Big Mechas, considering how hard it is for them to stay on the stage. That Side 1 & 2 are slowed down when going uphill... How have I not noticed that, despite playing Smash Run and Side B-ing up 'n down hills? Then again, Grounding Dash is the Side B I've ran the most on that stage thus far, which has the fastest movement speed (once you get past its long grab-able startup, which does have super armor. The grab-able part is another reason why I'm not recommending Grounding Dash in this MU, which Lucario's Side 2 can definitely punish) to counteract the slopes. I also agree that Jrs running Side 1 or 2 hate Lylat for those slowdowns. The full set that I've ran there the most is 3322, and I've come to that combination while trying to figure out what the ideal stage & custom setup would be to fight custom Yoshi. That must be why I made the claim that I did. Taking 2123 or even 1123 to Lylat is definitely a bad idea with all that intel in mind, as would any other set, aside from maybe 3312.

I was aware that Jr was at least decent on FD/non-walled Omegas. I didn't expect FD to be that good of a stage for Jr like it is for DH that banning it would be a great idea for the opponent, let alone Lucario players. I understand Delfino being worse than decent for Jr, due to his lack of super-safe upward KO moves, headshots being very devastating to him there, and default Mechas being unable to patrol much of the stage when the detours show up, but Castle Siege also being a bad stage for Jr? Aside from Mecha throwing & default Cannonballs being blocked off by the stone figures in the 1st transformation, said transformation and transitions being terrible for default Mechas in terms of staying on the stage, and the threat of suddenly being KO'd by the stage itself during the transitions to the 2nd & beginning transformations, I thought it was a decent stage for him. Turns out that's not the case.

5. I did that? Whoops. That was indeed quite dumb of me to do. It reeks of silly fanboyism, and thus I shall stop it.

Thank you for constructively critiquing my above post. I actually needed that wake-up call. I'm already expecting my Jr to substantially improve now because of your post.

 

[Blanc]

@ Splooshi Splashy check out the jr boards for more info such as combos, beneficial stages and debate with better bjrs than me haha