• Welcome to Smashboards, the world's largest Super Smash Brothers community! Over 250,000 Smash Bros. fans from around the world have come to discuss these great games in over 19 million posts!

    You are currently viewing our boards as a visitor. Click here to sign up right now and start on your path in the Smash community!

SBR Weekly Character Discussion: Lucas

SamuraiPanda

Smash Hero
Joined
May 22, 2006
Messages
6,924
Lucas is one big crazy gimmick, which is not to say that is a bad thing. One trick after another can confuse and overwhelm opponents until one of his absurdly powerful smash attacks can sneak its way in between hits. Lucas also has a leg-up on Ness when it comes to gimpability, because of his PK thunder and various recovery tricks like the Zap Jumps or Magnet Pull. But can he make the leap from low tier to mid tier? Thats a question those few Lucas mains out there will have to answer.
 

Percon

Smash Lord
Joined
Dec 11, 2006
Messages
1,945
Location
St. Catharines, ON, CA
I often see Ness and Lucas get compared to one another. Though move-for-move, Lucas is better, for some reason I think Ness is the better of the two... it's like the way I see 'dorf and Falcon: Ganondorf has better moves, but Falcon just seems... better.

Anyway, about Lucas:

Lucas' ground game is pretty good. Ftilt is a solid spacing tool, and all his smashes are really powerful. Fsmash in particular is great - such great power for such a fast attack. Powersheild/shield some attacks to a forward smash for good results. Usmash is a really satisfying "go big or go home" move and a great punisher of very laggy things.

Air moves are ok as well. They're mostly good against people on the ground. Nair is a good poker sometimes and dair has a pretty good hitbox. The other aireals are useful too, but to me they seem awkward, especially with the weird momentum shifts he gets. Though he has two spikes, they're more difficult to land than most and not especially powerful.

One cool trick he has is fullhop dair to a grounded enemy, and if they miss the tech, you can dtilt lock them a bunch and finish with a smash of your choice. SO sexy!

I hate Lucas' grab. It's short and laggy, his throws aren't amazing, and if you're on a stage like yoshi's where there's a slant it totally messes you over.

Um... PK Freeze is better than PK Flash, but still pretty much useless. His PK fire is a decent keep-away move and his PSI magnet is WAY more useful than Ness' - healing for twice the damage is nice (though smart players won't let that happen) and it has a deceptively useful attack as it ends. His thunder is really good too - it's hard for some characters to get around it.

More later?
 

SamuraiPanda

Smash Hero
Joined
May 22, 2006
Messages
6,924
Come on guys, we need more posts in here. We have plenty of new members and nobody wants to contribute?
 

Inui

Banned via Warnings
Joined
Oct 30, 2005
Messages
22,230
Location
Ocean Grove, New Jersey
My name is Lucas. :(

He sucks. He's definitely better than the two-trick pony Ness, but Lucas is also just a bunch of gimmicks, just more of them, and once you learn how to deal with his random shenanigans, he's pretty much screwed. I have a Lucas main at my school, so when I faced Galeon and Pierre in tournaments, they got crushed. >_>; Lucas is really strong in low-tier tournaments, though.
 

vidjogamer

Smash Master
Joined
Jan 8, 2002
Messages
3,069
Location
Cleveland, OH
Nobody likes Lucas.
I do. Also, sorry guys for being away, lost the net for a while. It sucked. Anyway, I think Lucas will make the jump to mid tier. He has decent spacing, and he racks up damage fast. More than anything else though, he can kill and thats something a lot of characters dont have. I think that is more than enough to bump him to the mid tier.

Also, if you dont move with lucas against m2k, you do the super drum attack and win every time. True story.
 

SamuraiPanda

Smash Hero
Joined
May 22, 2006
Messages
6,924
Sorry about forgetting to move this. There wasn't much discussion so I wanted to wait until there was something a little better... But what more can I expect from a character that so few people play, anyways?

Everything after this post is general discussion.
 

Levitas

the moon
Joined
Jul 20, 2007
Messages
5,734
Location
Ann Arbor, MI
it's like a simultaneous attack to both characters I mod for.

An attack of almost 10 posts for lucas. wow, guys.
 

A2ZOMG

Smash Legend
Joined
Oct 13, 2007
Messages
12,542
Location
RPV, California
NNID
A2ZOMG
Switch FC
SW 8400 1713 9427
I do. Also, sorry guys for being away, lost the net for a while. It sucked. Anyway, I think Lucas will make the jump to mid tier. He has decent spacing, and he racks up damage fast. More than anything else though, he can kill and thats something a lot of characters dont have. I think that is more than enough to bump him to the mid tier.

Also, if you dont move with lucas against m2k, you do the super drum attack and win every time. True story.
Whut do you mean Lucas can kill?

His only "good" kill moves are Smashes, all of which are on the slow side (F-smash comes out at eh 14 frames). And none of them are extremely safe.

His Up-air is okay for kills but limited in application. And then everything else he has doesn't kill.
 

Irsic

Smash Ace
Joined
Apr 8, 2008
Messages
929
Location
Michigan
Well honestly a lot of Lucas' drawback come from when an oppoent outpaces Lucas, and is able to out-survive him....or just simple beat out with high priority AKA Game & Watch, Marth, Donkey Kong. These characters are particularly hard to fight as Lucas because their priority simply just outranges pretty much everything we have. It's ridiculous.

Then of course grab release, another thing keeping the little white kid down.

I mean yeah, Lucas is a low tier character probably bound to stay where he is, but that doesn't mean to say that Lucas' isn't a threat. We have many many tricks and a certain lock already mentioned (is hard to time the tech correctly) is very devastating and a sure kill. Only the dair spike is weak, and bair is just hard to land, only bairs landed below about 30% have players survived.

I don't really know what else to discuss though since there already isn't much discussion going on, nobody wants to talk about us. :(
 

Irsic

Smash Ace
Joined
Apr 8, 2008
Messages
929
Location
Michigan
Whut do you mean Lucas can kill?

His only "good" kill moves are Smashes, all of which are on the slow side (F-smash comes out at eh 14 frames). And none of them are extremely safe.

His Up-air is okay for kills but limited in application. And then everything else he has doesn't kill.
fsmash, dthrow, uair, fair, bair, actually all the smashes, PKT2,

Killing has never been a problem for me. Uair is more reliable than you think, and dair sets up for kills REALLY well.
 

ChrisTheCom

Smash Cadet
Joined
Sep 16, 2008
Messages
31
I think Lucas will make the jump to mid tier. He has decent spacing, and he racks up damage fast. More than anything else though, he can kill and thats something a lot of characters dont have. I think that is more than enough to bump him to the mid tier.
Truth spoken. That vid of NinjaLink was great, one super impressive Lucas. Lucas should move to mid tier, its mainly his low representation, bad top tier matchups against Marth, DK, MK and GnW and grab shenanigans that keep him down. Ninjalink proves in the vid that he is a plausible and effective character to use against higher tier opponents at a professional level.
 

_clinton

Smash Master
Joined
Dec 5, 2006
Messages
3,189
Whut do you mean Lucas can kill?

His only "good" kill moves are Smashes, all of which are on the slow side (F-smash comes out at eh 14 frames). And none of them are extremely safe.

His Up-air is okay for kills but limited in application. And then everything else he has doesn't kill.
He has 2 spikes...Bair has almost as much power as Ness' and Dair is pretty good in plenty of situations as well

He also has set ups for his kills as well (Dtilt, Dair come to mind)

Also...I'm pretty sure Fsmash is in the average speed range as far as comparing it to other Fsmash moves...

All of his throws kill as well I might add (with Dthrow being the strong one)

Also I should point out in that video that showed NL vs. MK didn't even get close to using all of Lucas' advanced tricks...but whatever...my opinion on this is the same as what I said for Ness' talk...in that people just don't know enough about him which is easy to see from the posts...
 

Boofy!

Smash Champion
Joined
May 10, 2007
Messages
2,241
Location
Parsippany, North NJ
Lucas is pretty versatile for a low tier character. F^&king great recovery options between Zap jump, Magnet pull, and PKT2 (also tether but that sucks so.. yea).

Not bad at racking damage up (Best pummel in the game 3dmg per sec. say whaa?!?).
Nair is good poker. Good, but laggy kill moves aside from F-smash or F-tilt..

Bair is a good spike that I seriously think is alot easier to land than people think, Dair has it's uses, its spike is decent but it is better used on stage (lol Peregrining?)

Deceivingly hard to gimp, you're not stopping pkt unless you have a projectile like Tinks Boomerang, and it goes right through characters, making it an effective edgeguarding tool as well..

His absorber thingy has a pretty strong attack hidden in the end of it, not to mention absorbs energy damage at a rate COMPLETELY unproportional to the actual damage it would have caused (srsly, you can recover a buttload from Pikachu, Fox, ZSS to name a few. which also helps him in teams a fair bit)

Grab Releases are ghey
 

_clinton

Smash Master
Joined
Dec 5, 2006
Messages
3,189
I should point out that Lucas' tether does have more horizontal range than Link's or Tink's though...and with his air speed and above average 2nd jump...it can be used more...

but yeah...as far as downsides...w/o looking at the grab release...
Lucas has a blind spot in his move set for his head area (which still has coverage though with Uair and Utilt),
His grab is below par a bit overall (granted because it is a tether...still it is on the speedy end of tether grabs...but it is overall lacking in range...however his pivot grab is the reason why it is acceptable), his pummel and throws are powerful though (all of his throws can kill in different ways and his pummel is the best in the game...at low % Dthrow to utilt is a true combo...around 50% or so it pays to only pummel instead of throw...and at higher % Dthrow and Bthrow are his main kill throws and his other ones can work as well)
Oh and while he may have pretty good set ups for his kills...he doesn't have the mind set Ness gives off with his kill moves...in that his air game really only can gimp until very high % levels (however his Fair is sort of like G&W's I might add)...unlike with Ness...who has acceptable kill moves on his ground and air game (as well as low % killers with his specials that can lead to trickery in more than one way and he has a good grab as well)
 

Tyr_03

Smash Champion
Joined
Mar 4, 2008
Messages
2,805
Location
OH
Vidjo needs to start playing Brawl and using Lucas.

Lucas does have difficulty killing. The effectiveness in a kill move has more to do with how easy it is to hit with than its actual knockback. All of Lucas's smash attacks are slow so they are difficult to hit with. His grab sucks so it's difficult to get Dthrow or Bthrow kills.

Really in general, Lucas kill moves on the stage depend on the opponent making pretty substantial errors in spacing.

Atleast he edgeguards well and has lots of gimmicks to catch people off guard.

Yeah, the sbr is pretty accurate in their view of Lucas. Ness is better though.
 

HAGGS

Smash Apprentice
Joined
May 14, 2009
Messages
84
Location
Massachusetts
Is the Lucas main community really as small as it sounds? I thought there were ALOT of Lucas mains.

I agree that the gimmicks definitely make Lucas' game wierd to play against until people get used to it.
 

A2ZOMG

Smash Legend
Joined
Oct 13, 2007
Messages
12,542
Location
RPV, California
NNID
A2ZOMG
Switch FC
SW 8400 1713 9427
fsmash, dthrow, uair, fair, bair, actually all the smashes, PKT2,
D-throw doesn't kill low enough to outweigh the risk. F-air doesn't kill. B-air requires situational spacing. PKT2 doesn't kill.

Which basically leaves Smashes and U-air...U-air requires either situational spacing or is telegraphed. Smashes aren't godly safe and all on the slow side...what setups he does have into them don't make him all that unique either.

I don't think he's anywhere close to being better at killing than over half the cast....He does have decent (but not amazing) camping and spacing...and that's about it.
 

Irsic

Smash Ace
Joined
Apr 8, 2008
Messages
929
Location
Michigan
D-throw doesn't kill low enough to outweigh the risk. F-air doesn't kill. B-air requires situational spacing. PKT2 doesn't kill.
I wish I could be like "Yeah, you're right." But you're not. PKT2 kills, and dthrow isn't situational. You grab an average weight character at about 135% and they're dead, Lucas has a great pummel. Low ceiling stages are probably the only actual "situation" here. Fair kills offstage, use it as an edgeguard, not on a standing opponent. Bair is more reliant on your skill placement rather than it just being spacing, you learn the spot you learn the move. Yeah, it's harder to land than most but it's hard to avoid as it's hitbox length away from Lucas' hurtbox is pretty huge.

uair is a fantastic kill move and it has pretty high priority, really undermined quite often. Yeah, it probably won't be fresh which is why it takes a little bit longer kill, but **** it's a good kill move.


Oh and another note on PKT2 - it obviously doesn't kill as early as Ness', it does a significant amount of damage, and if it catches an opponent in the final hitbox...probably at about 135% (average weight) it'll kill. It's just a lot less reliable than other kill moves, but I've had plenty of kills with this.

I could practically say PKF is reliable kill move, I snipe with that off stage all the time.
 

heytallman

CTALL
Joined
Oct 27, 2007
Messages
1,569
Location
Gravity Falls, OR
I don't really have trouble killing with Lucas....I've killed with Fair, PKT, upair, dthrow, ftilt, and all his smashes. Dang. How can you say he has a problem killing? He also has quite a few setups to land a kill move.

Probably the main thing holding Lucas back is grab release stuff. And a few horrible matchups.
 

_clinton

Smash Master
Joined
Dec 5, 2006
Messages
3,189
I don't really have trouble killing with Lucas....I've killed with Fair, PKT, upair, dthrow, ftilt, and all his smashes. Dang. How can you say he has a problem killing? He also has quite a few setups to land a kill move.

Probably the main thing holding Lucas back is grab release stuff. And a few horrible matchups.
People underestimate Lucas' killing power...it isn't as good as Ness' but overall I'd say he has less issues killing then over 1/2 of the cast at least...
 

A2ZOMG

Smash Legend
Joined
Oct 13, 2007
Messages
12,542
Location
RPV, California
NNID
A2ZOMG
Switch FC
SW 8400 1713 9427
I wish I could be like "Yeah, you're right." But you're not. PKT2 kills, and dthrow isn't situational. You grab an average weight character at about 135% and they're dead, Lucas has a great pummel. Low ceiling stages are probably the only actual "situation" here. Fair kills offstage, use it as an edgeguard, not on a standing opponent. Bair is more reliant on your skill placement rather than it just being spacing, you learn the spot you learn the move. Yeah, it's harder to land than most but it's hard to avoid as it's hitbox length away from Lucas' hurtbox is pretty huge.
D-throw is situational automatically because you have to grab with Lucas. Which sucks for him because his grab is bad, so that means using his throws is not safe.

F-air doesn't kill onstage. Okay yes, you have edgeguard kos...everyone does.

PKT2 doesn't kill anything that knows SDI and rolling out of the way on reaction.

uair is a fantastic kill move and it has pretty high priority, really undermined quite often. Yeah, it probably won't be fresh which is why it takes a little bit longer kill, but **** it's a good kill move.
Landing most upairs in this game is easier said than done in a physics engine where all you have to do to avoid a juggle is airdodge and aim for the edge. And then there are the few D-airs that have better priority than it.

So basically the point is Lucas can only get kills through edgeguarding or by getting a lucky smash or grab at a high percent...doesn't sound that exciting. Especially since none of those kill moves he has is safe.

On paper it looks alright...just I honestly think I could say why *insert over half the cast* is better at getting that ko if I wasn't lazy.
 

_clinton

Smash Master
Joined
Dec 5, 2006
Messages
3,189
D-throw is situational automatically because you have to grab with Lucas. Which sucks for him because his grab is bad, so that means using his throws is not safe.
Well...His pivot isn't that bad...and overall I'd say he has a + over any of the other tether grabs in the game...

F-air doesn't kill onstage. Okay yes, you have edgeguard kos...everyone does.
K...

PKT2 doesn't kill anything that knows SDI and rolling out of the way on reaction.
Well...at least it has respectable set ups...although I like it more because of the % it can add...but whatever

Landing most upairs in this game is easier said than done in a physics engine where all you have to do to avoid a juggle is airdodge and aim for the edge. And then there are the few D-airs that have better priority than it.
Lucas' Uair is DJed...far more than Ness' is...

So basically the point is Lucas can only get kills through edgeguarding or by getting a lucky smash or grab at a high percent...doesn't sound that exciting. Especially since none of those kill moves he has is safe.
Meh...he isn't the only one who has unsafe smash attacks...and at least he has set ups for his smash attacks...and each one has a different use overall...

On paper it looks alright...just I honestly think I could say why *insert over half the cast* is better at getting that ko if I wasn't lazy.
I really don't see how...but feel free to...
 

prOAPC

Smash Lord
Joined
Mar 24, 2008
Messages
1,816
Location
Cartagena/Bogotá - Colombia
i do have problems killing with Lucas, specially for those players that like to run when they have high %
i disaggree with a lot of Lucas' mains, Marth, DK or G&W are NOT my hardest matchups, i hate characters with a better airgame (Peach, not Ness) and a better camping game (like Snake)
grab release aer bad, but still, they are overrated
lucas is better than ness
lucas deserves mid tier
lol at mentioning NL
 

_clinton

Smash Master
Joined
Dec 5, 2006
Messages
3,189
i do have problems killing with Lucas, specially for those players that like to run when they have high %
Well...it varies depending on who the character is I guess...

i disaggree with a lot of Lucas' mains, Marth, DK or G&W are NOT my hardest matchups, i hate characters with a better airgame (Peach, not Ness) and a better camping game (like Snake)
Peach really does show how annoying Lucas' blind spot can be huh?

grab release aer bad, but still, they are overrated
Say it man!

lucas is better than ness
Hell no...

lucas deserves mid tier
At the least brother...
 

HailCrest

Smash Journeyman
Joined
Jan 29, 2009
Messages
371
Location
in lucas' upsmash
Fsmash is very fast and reliably kills at 100%. It may come out on the 14th frame, but face it; it's a smash attack. What kind of strong attack comes out fast? Dair to optional Dtilt lock to Fsmash is hard to tech and otherwise unavoidable.
 

Chuee

Smash Hero
Joined
Jul 20, 2008
Messages
6,002
Location
Kentucky
Fsmash is very fast and reliably kills at 100%. It may come out on the 14th frame, but face it; it's a smash attack. What kind of strong attack comes out fast? Dair to optional Dtilt lock to Fsmash is hard to tech and otherwise unavoidable.
You'd be suprised at how many characters have powerful smashes that come out in less than 10 frames.

Anyways
Lucas and Ness are complete opposites.
Lucas has great ground game
Ness has great air game
Lucas has decent air game
Ness has decent ground game
Lucas has bad grab
Ness has good grab

Lucas has a lot of great moves. There's only a few moves that a lucas main won't use often. He excels in almost every area but he doesn't excel far in many areas. He can camp well with PKF but PKF doesn't go as far as other projectiles and has lag. He has good kill moves but his most powerful ones don't come out fast enough to be relied on so much like snake's utilt or mk's dsmash. His gimping abilities are great with PKT but he can't move while using it, can be canceled by some characters attacks, and leaves him unable to quickly ledge hug after using it. His best areas are recovery and boxing by far. He has 4 recovery options. There's only a few characters that have that many recovery options. Mk being one of them <_<
He has a big double jump which sets up for using his tether. His PKT2's major weakness is characters being able to attack him while he is moving the PKT around but since his tether covers him when he's close to the edge he while only have to use PKT2 when he is out of tether range. It's generally easier to succesfully PKT2 when your opponent is further away from you. He has magnet pulling for horizontal recovery. Though it is easy to hit lucas when he shoots back using his magnet you can reverse magnet pull to escape it. He has zap jump for vertical recovery. Zap Jump is hard to punish because it requires the opponent to predict how far it will send lucas.
His boxing is good because of jab. Gotta love the jab. Comes out in 2 frames. He also has his utilt and ftilt.
All of his aerials combo, except bair, to any of his tilts, jab, Nair, & Dair.

That's all me gonna say for now.
 

Nestec

Smash Ace
Joined
Jun 30, 2007
Messages
916
Location
STL
If I'm not mistaken, Lucas' Ftilt is also a pretty **** good killer, no?

Btw, PKT2 kills aren't as effective as some people think. Particularly for Lucas, that is.
 

Irsic

Smash Ace
Joined
Apr 8, 2008
Messages
929
Location
Michigan
If I'm not mistaken, Lucas' Ftilt is also a pretty **** good killer, no?

Btw, PKT2 kills aren't as effective as some people think. Particularly for Lucas, that is.
...Really, only when it's fresh. It's a reliable return-kill move (where you immediately ftilt the opponent after dying and they're at about 140%) Otherwise it shouldn't be fresh.
 
Top Bottom