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A  Guide to Changing Fate -  Lucina

A Guide to Changing Fate - Lucina

Excellent guide! Well written and very organized. I'm doing pretty decent with Lucina right now and I'm trying to step up my game. I'm sure this guide will help. Thanks for taking the time to write it!
Like most have said, excellent work. I started using Lucina based on this guide. I'm new here but I've read many guides, few were this useful and easy to read. Well done.
This is an amazing guide!!!
Very good, although it would be nice if you gave a bit of data on how to time the auto cancels on her aerials, as I have been having trouble with landing lag
the perfect guide. other guides should do their guides like this one.
Very thorough guide. My one complaint would be the aerials section. By comparison to a Bowser or Ike, her aerials are very weak. That doesn't mean they aren't useful. Her aerials make for pretty effective spacing moves, as hoping back and using her forward aerial usually will best a charging foe. Also her shield breaker is like a strong aerial, so she does have that move. That's my experience anyways, since I played as Roy in Melee and that's kind of how I made my strategy with Lucina. Other than that a very good guide. Nice job.
I admire you, you did an excellent guide, has personally helped me a lot to improve my game, from 3d to now whit the wii u version , however, what do you think about the recent japanese tier list and why Lucina is bottom tier in this one ?.
XKan
XKan
Thank you very much for the kind words. I am glad it helped both your 3DS and Wii U play!

As for the recent Tier lists, I do not pay too much attention to them, but I assume it varies by the way a player is played and who is playing them. The most important thing for you to do is just play at your best against every other character and not worry about whether your character is "naturally good" or "naturally bad" :)
A very well constructed guide about how to play my waifu- er I mean main, Lucina. My only concern is the character analysis with its descriptions of character matchups in an online setting, as most matches online where battles are to be taken seriously are in "For Glory" mode and all are Final Destination variants, making for little meta game development/analysis when all the stages are similar/congruent to each other (the reason I say similar is because while the stages are all set up like Final Destination, some of them have their own little tweaks to them, like how Distant Planet's platform has a wall coming up all the way from the blast zones).
XKan
XKan
Thank you for the kind review! I appreciate you taking the time to write this, and am glad you found some use for it.

Indeed, as some others had pointed out, For Glory, while serious matches, are on mostly similar stages. Flat maps with minor variants on the edge, as you said. That is why the map section lists the maps specifically as they are in their default way too, and what sort of advantages that can give over certain characters.

I understand that it may be better to include these specifically in character sections too.

Meta-game development regardless from personal analysis in For Glory is indeed limited, and I can only rely on match ups with friends to experiment on the non flat maps.

Thanks again! I hope to continue to update the guide to better suit your standards!
Amazing guide. Incredibly descriptive and perfect for new players. As someone who uses lucina a lot, this did help me.
I did want to point that the dancing blade is used to recover in melee with Marth, so I'm curious if it works here?
XKan
XKan
Thank you for your kind words. : ) I am glad you found use for the guide!

From what I have used, you can use the first swipe of it to slow your movement, but it does not really lift you in the air, so can be dangerous to do --especially if you quickly try to do the dolphin slash and accidentally just do another part of dancing blade which will lead you to your death instead.

I would advise not using it for recovery : ) But I have seen some use it as they come back to the stage!
Thanks for helping me! I'm a bit of a newer player, and I'm hoping Lucina turns out to be my main ;)
XKan
XKan
I am glad you found some use for this guide. It is for players of all sorts. If you need any additional or specific help, feel free to ask me. : )
Great job! Really comprehensive and awesome guide. I enjoyed reading through this and will be following closely for updates.

A note on using Side-B to recover - I don't have definite proof of this, but I think using the first swing of Side-B will actually slow your horizontal momentum. It does seem like using Side-B right before the apex of your jump gives you a slight vertical boost however. Unforunately, I don't have a way to record to show this, but perhaps you can confirm?

It's also noteworthy that not all For Glory stages are created equal - I have used a fully charged Neutral B to recover horizontally only to get stage spiked on FD like (non-wall) stages.
XKan
XKan
Thank you for taking the time to write this!

I'll give the Side-B some more testing, from what you say and what I recall using it in general combat, I think you may be right about the slight vertical lift.

Regarding the return with Neutral B --this is a point I should add for sure! The maps do indeed make a difference in that sense. Thank you for pointing this out, it skipped my mind. :)
Could use a couple fixes, but overall really good
XKan
XKan
Thank you for the review! Do you have suggestions as to what can be fixed? That way I can add them in to make it better for you and others who may have similar issues. : )
Excellent guide! As someone who is trying to use Lucina as a main, this will definitely help me a lot. Great job, and thanks!
XKan
XKan
Thank you, and you are most welcome. I hope you manage to put her to good use. : )
Impressive guide!

It covers all the important matters but leave space to play Lucina in your own style, thanks a lot for all the info and I hope that the guide could actualize as the metagame develops :)
XKan
XKan
Thank you very much! I do not like to tell people how to play, a lot of it is simply suggestions to develop your own style : ) I am glad that reflected in this guide.
Jeez, so much information, I love it.

My one (very minor) critique is that you seem to speak highly of all her moves in the analysis'. A master player can likely get lots of mileage out of even the worst of her moves due to mixup potential, but it also comes off as a little overwhelming for people like me who are very new to Marth and Lucina gameplay. I know you mention that things like Fair and Nair fastfall attacks are good, but I feel like this information could be outlined a little more.

Super nit-picky critique aside, I can't see anything else this guide needs improving on. Great work!
XKan
XKan
Thank you for your kind words. I appreciate the nit picking too, as it allows me to expand the guide to cover for all sorts of readers. : )

Can you clarify a bit more in the discussion thread as to what you mean? Do you mean that more downsides should be listed more clearly, or perhaps how to do the moves/methods involved should be more clear? : ) I am just making sure I am reading correctly in order to improve!

Your time is greatly appreciated!
Im not a seasoned player, and I may not even end up settling on Lucina or Marth as a main.

But this guide has helped me understand them better, thank you for helping the community my friend. :)
XKan
XKan
Thank you for your kind words. Indeed, the guide is not just for those who main them, it is for anyone who just wants to know more about them or understand them. I am glad it helped you in this manner. : )
I may not be a seasoned player but this is a really good guide with tons of useful information. I love playing Lucina and will definitely be spending time in your character section more. Well written and well executed. I only have two gripes.

1. Her weaknesses would be nice but I know others have told you this and in the few characters I did look at you did cover certain things like how you need to avoid projectiles vs Link and such.

2. This is a personal thing and you may not see it this way but the Zelda/Sheik/Palutena icon thing is something I view, if used outside of training mode, as cheating. It gives you information you shouldn't have or should have developed. I honestly think it is something that will hurt players in the long run as I would expect it, and hope honestly, to be banned in tournaments.

Like I said I'm not a pro by any means but I do read a lot so hopefully my input amounts to something. Good day.
XKan
XKan
Thank you for taking the time to write this!

1.) I made an entire section of her main weaknesses after the earlier comment by PikaKong. : ) It is under her General Strategies so you may have missed it? Maybe I should put it in it's own category to make it more obvious. If you mean weaknesses against every character though, then that is something that could be worked on, indeed!

2.) Yes, I suppose it may be taken as cheating, or banned, while others may argue as a gameplay mechanic that it has uses. I am not really sure where I stand regarding it, but I could put in a notice anyway for people, warning them not to become too reliant, but perhaps get used to how those three move when teleporting. : )

Your input certainly amounts to something like everybody else who leaves a review. I take it all into consideration and fix the guide accordingly.

Thank you again for your input! I hope I helped clarify some things, and hope to implement what you said, too.
As a Lucina main myself, this has helped a ton!

Thanks!
XKan
XKan
That is all I wanted to hear to make all that writing worth it. Thank you and you are most welcome. : )
Holy guacamole, this is a truly amazing guide with all your details and analysis. You must've put a lot of hard work into this , and I thank you for making this. As Lucina's my tertiary character and I'm not too god with her, your guide may very well be what I need to get my head in the game. Definitely gonna come back later and train while reading this simultaneously.

On the negative side though, I have two personal gripes with your otherwise great guide (which is the only reason I gave 4 stars instead of 5).

1. You said most of this was based on your For Glory experience, didn't you? For Glory mode isn't considered that great for competitive play, since Final Destination and Omega forms are the only stages allowed. In tournaments and some friend matches, some people are gonna use other stages to change strategy and the metagame a bit; some of the stuff in this guide might work differently on said stages. Most competitive players I know agree that Battlefield and Smashville are the most neutral stages instead of FD anyway. FD favors projectile characters like Samus, Little Mac (since he doesn't have to deal with his bad air game as much), and combo ones like Shiek. On other stages some of that may change. Not too big a deal of a gripe, but I thought I'd point it out.

2. For the most part, you've said a lot of stuff that's good about Lucina. What I personally am missing is what's WRONG with her, there's no way this character can be perfect. When providing an outlook on characters in games, some people tend to do nothing but praise the character without considering or mentioning important weaknesses they may have. For most off the guide, I've seen you say far more about Lucy's strengths and hardly any of her downsides. I didn't even see you mention her limited combo options or the fact that she has a lot of landing lag on just about all of her aerials. In response to your advice on shorthopping Fairs, I've heard other people say that it's very unsafe and you'd get punished for it, and its better to do a Fullhop Double Fair instead of a shorthop Fair. Other people have also said that her throws aren't particularly great and her recovery is a mediocre (and really dangerous if you don't recover low)

I could be wrong on most of what I just said, but that's what I heard and in my personal experience, they seem to have a point. Still, it'd be helpful to know the downsides of a character inside a guide, so it lets the readers know what they are getting themselves into, the hardships they'll have to deal with, and if the character is even for them.

Other than this though, great guide! Can't wait to see ya update it.
XKan
XKan
Thank you for replying to this so in depth. I really appreciate it! The guide is still a work in progress, and so I hope to update it with some things.

1.) Indeed! I realize this too, as I was working on specific map strategies, and on maps like Battlefield she can benefit from avoiding the Projectile-only people. I hope to add in strategies that do not have to do with just Omega/Flat maps all the time in a future update. Thank you for pointing it out regardless, however, I really hope to address this in future updates!

2.) Ah, I realize I left out a section from my compiled FAQ, which addressed that what is wrong with Lucina indeed. I will be sure to update that after this reply! Those are great points about her downsides, I think I made an assumption that the fact that she has no real combos listed would imply that she doesn't really have too many great combos XD But you're right in the fact that it is better to point it out, it is a guide after all, and should be as straightforward as possible.

Thank you again for the wonderful and constructive review. I hope to address these issues to make it better for future readers. : )
This is... a lot more detailed than I was expecting it to be. Great job! You do a great job showing all of Lucina's moves in detail.
XKan
XKan
Thank you. very much for your kind words. I am glad the guide managed to surprise you in some way. : )
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