Aura Breaks the Following Match-Ups: (Currently: Donkey Kong)

[RadianB]

Rock Smash isn't Charizard safest kill move. His safest kill moves are Down Throw and Up Smash. His Up Smash takes 6 frames to comes out which I think makes it tied for the second fastest Up Smash in the game. Charizard's wings during the move are invincible so if you're directly under him your gonna have a hard time avoiding that move especially since it has a great verticle hit box. It's also pretty strong given how fast it is, it'll kill Lucario at around 110%.
Also like Zachmac mentioned Charizard isn't a slow running character like the other heavies. He actually has one of the fastest run speeds in the game at number 8 in the run speed list so he won't have any trouble punishing moves with a dash to up smash or grab.
Also Croi you forgot to mention that Flamethrower is an insanely good edge guarding move which will force Lucario to either recover high or very low.
Also regarding Rock Smash your right to think of it more of a counter move. Good Charizard players will be using this to defend themselves in the air from oppents trying to chase them.

I personally don't have much trouble dealing with Lucario at all but it would be unfair for me to assign any type of match up number due to the fact that I need to play many more good Lucarios before I can even give some sort of fair analysis on the match up.

 

[Croi]

Charizard actually has a deceptively good running speed. If I recall correctly, he's actually got the 8th fastest.

Well... I said he wasn't the fastest. So I'm still right

Also Croi you forgot to mention that Flamethrower is an insanely good edge guarding move which will force Lucario to either recover high or very low.

This isn't really an issue for Lucario. Lucario is ungimpable. We probably wouldn't mind taking a few extra percent waiting for your flamethrower to die down.

 

[ZephyrZ]

Yeah, once Lucario reaches kill percent, the appeal of edge guarding with Flamethrower becomes much less...appealing.
For most characters free damage is a good thing. With Lucario, however, we don't want to accidentally get too much free damage.

We should only really use that trick when he's still at a low percent.

 

[Steeler]

I think it's a rough matchup, Charizard basically needs to get a solid read or punish on a kill move early or else aura will be too much. If Luke gets the first kill, Lucario can very quickly and easily build a lot of damage on Lizardon's fresh stock off a grab or something. Basically, a really safe Lucario does not give Charizard many opportunities to land kill moves. With customs though, Dragon Rush is a very good way to punish Lucario in the neutral game for otherwise somewhat safe whiffs. Don't take big risks against Charizard, basically. That goes for any character though, because Rock Smash and Flare Blitz can be insanely rewarding punishes. Dragon Rush too, if high up or near the edge of the stage.

 

[Pentao]

Don't stay above Charizard. Charizard is all about keeping his momentum, and he's got a ton of anti-air options. On stages with platforms, be very careful of him sharking you with u-tilt/u-smash/u-air. A lot of his attacks are just well designed for attacking someone above him, and will often kill.

Charizard's Flamethrower is going to basically just be there for spacing purposes, and edge guarding purposes. While it's not going to gimp us thanks to ExtremeSpeed recovering from anywhere, it will allow him to tack on free % on us if we're off stage. Don't try to recover high since we all know our ExtremeSpeed landing lag is dumb and Charizard will murder us for trying to land with it. Though ultimately, being edge guarded by flamethrower can buff our aura if he's trying to edge guard us while we're around 90%+, ultimately feeling like a net gain. Ballsy Charizards might go for a better edge guard game, but his aerials are pretty meh at edge guarding overall, meaning recovering low is almost always a safe bet.

While Rock Smash can allow him to super armor through a variety of hits, depending on the timing and power of the hits, the super armor either doesn't activate or is broken, and Charizard can actually drop the rock as a result. And amusingly, the rock being dropped doesn't hurt you.


Despite Charizard's kill moves, he can really struggle to land them. Without the momentum on his side, Charizard has it really tough, since Charizard is all about being in an advantageous position, and quite frankly, he can struggle to get there.

His n-air is not that safe. Though it's (usually) lagless (if they fall too early, there is a little bit of landing lag on it), it's basically just going to be a "get off me" move unless it's spaced perfectly.


Though we're not really discussing customs too much, he'll most likely opt for Dragon Rush, which is way safer than Flare Blitz, and can carry us off stage, as in, it carries us directly to the blast zone if done right, but it's not something that's easy to do.

 

[MythTrainerInfinity]

Since Zard is a bit fat he is easily juggled. I agree with most of what was said above. Probably would say it is 55:45 our favor at worst.

 

[SmashRacer]

It's weird his Up B OoS hasn't been mentioned yet. That is something to watch out for. It has kill power to match his Up Smash and kills even earlier with Max Rage

 

[Ulevo]

I realize we're going in alphabetical order, but shouldn't we at least be addressing the match ups we perceive to be the worst for our character or top tier picks first and then go in alphabetical order once we run out of poor match ups to discuss?

I'd rather have match up knowledge available on Diddy Kong than Charizard.

 

[Croi]

My concern was that once we run out of top-tier MUs to discuss, this thread would wind up deader than it is. Nobody's going to care about the Doctor Mario MU unless it gets us one step closer to Fox.

Diddy's only one other MU away anyway, and Pit/Dark Pit aren't the easiest for Lucario (or maybe that's just me).

 

[Pentao]

My concern was that once we run out of top-tier MUs to discuss, this thread would wind up deader than it is. Nobody's going to care about the Doctor Mario MU unless it gets us one step closer to Fox.

Diddy's only one other MU away anyway, and Pit/Dark Pit aren't the easiest for Lucario (or maybe that's just me).

Personally I don't think Pit and Dark Pit aren't that easy for Lucario either, but I've had no issue with the match up discussion thread as is.

 

[RT]

I would say a compromise, one week where you go down the alphabetical list followed by a week that is a community vote, then back to alphabetical next week, then another vote, etc.

This gets a good mix of important/common matchups you'll see in tourney play followed by those random matchups you may rarely/never see (but you'll still have basic knowledge of what to expect/watch out for).

Regardless, covering all the characters will take time. It's very unlikely everybody will have fought a good Fox/Bowser/ROB etc.

 

[Croi]

I should have moved this topic along a while ago, but I was away for the weekend, so here I am. Let me summarize our general thoughts on the MU:

• Most people didn't really give the MU a number, but the few Lucarios that did think the MU is 55-45 Lucario's favour.
• Charizard, like most heavies, hits hard. He has an easy time keeping momentum and he has an easy time walling Lucario out at low percents with jab, Rock Smash, and Flamethrower. His upsmash is his fastest kill move and he is the eighth-fastest runner in the game. Flare Blitz is incredibly powerful and covers a huge horizontal area, so getting caught in our Extreme Speed landing lag is especially devastating versus him.
• Charizard, like most heavies, gets combo'd mercilessly. He's a big guy and he has poor aerial mobility and coverage (aside from his nair). Flamethrower will not stop an Aura Sphere with decent Aura and a blocked Flare Blitz puts him in an untechable tumble, opening himself up for anything we like. In a handful of MUs, Charizard relies on Flamethrower gimping his opponent, but that has not and never will work with Lucario. Although usmash comes out on frame 6, his other kill moves don't come out very quickly, meaning he needs a read to kill us, and with our Aura, our spacing is too good to allow him to even get close enough.
• Charizard is quick on the ground, but we combo him five times harder than he can to us, and his kill moves require close proximity, which we don't ever have to give him.

Next on our ever-descending list is

I'm afraid I don't have a ton of experience in this MU.

Dark Pit is both a spacing character and a rush-down character, like Yoshi. His aerials, his ftilt, and his jab all have enough range to them to wall us out if he wants, and he has the running speed and the grab range, like Captain Falcon, to go in hard if he wants to. He's quite hard to wall out, especially because he has a reflector that covers both sides of him. He doesn't weigh a lot and he isn't a fast faller, so our combo game doesn't last very long against him. His fsmash has crazy good range, especially on the second swing, and his smash attacks don't have a lot of cooldown so they're hard to punish.

Like every MU so far, and likely every MU afterward, the Dark Pit MU starts to get into our favour the higher the percentages climb, especially if you can land the kill move before he can. But with his reflector, his incredible range, and his low-cooldown attacks, getting the landing blow is a bit of a tall order for us. He isn't even lacking in kill power, really. His biggest weaknesses are his aerial mobility and that his recovery is slower and straighter than ours, so if he misses the ledge, he's wiiiiide open to an up air or something.

Like I said, I don't know a ton about him, but going by what I do know, I'd say the MU to be 55-45 for Dark Pit.

 

[ZephyrZ]

There are literally just three differences between Pit and Dark Pit.
-Pit's arrows curve more but do slightly less damage.
-Pit's Upperdash Arm knocks foes upwards while Dark Pit's Electroshock Arm knocks opponents in a 45 degree angle.
-Dark Pit's side tilt has less knockback then Pit's.

Any other differences is probably just the placebo effect, because these three are the only ones to have been actually proven.

That's it. Other then that, they are exactly the same.
So I'd say that the Pit and Dark Pit match ups are basically the same, and almost anything that will apply to Dark Pit will apply to Pit as well.
You may as well fuse those two discussions with eachother.

 

[FullMoon]

Hello Aura Guardians, we in the Greninja boards are going to discuss the Lucario MU and any input would be very appreciated: http://smashboards.com/threads/mast...t-game-watch-lucario-pac-man-3-9-3-16.369356/

No Mega Evolving though, that would be just unfair.

Even though both Greninja and Mega Lucario are Ubers now.

 

[Pitbuller26]

The only things about the Pits I find difficult to overcome is their range on everything. I am salty that our range got neutered while Pits' range got relatively untouched. Pit definitely has speed on his side and can juggle us like Falcon but doesn't really have the kill factor of Falcon. But good luck trying to punish these characters online due to their range and lack recovery on their attacks.

I would say this matchup is even. At worst 55-45 Pit, even with Dark Pit. At best, 5-5 Pit and 55-45 Lucario.

 

[PyroTakun]

Hey guys, we'd like to discuss the Lucario vs Ike MU over at the Ike boards. Any help and input would be appreciated

http://smashboards.com/threads/prepare-yourself-vs-lucario-ike-match-up-thread.372316/page-9

 

[ReRaze]

Im a pit and lucario main and I say this leans slightly towards pits favour, not by much though. Probably 60/40 (at most) in pitoos favour, and the other way around if you go super saiyan.

tl:dr
Play a defensive lucario and you have a good chance of winning

Some random facts about pit:
Pittoo/Pit's smash attacks have just as much cooldown as lucario (except for pits down smash, that move is spammable af comes out frame 5 too so be wary as you have nothing faster than this bar your jab). His smash attacks however are multihit moves and as such give you a little bit more time to punish, especially usmash (which has a wonky hitbox (does't hit from behind) and gives pit a wonky hurtbox (lower half of his body has no hurtbox)). If im not mistaken though pit's Fsmash loses in range only to Megaman, Duck hunt and Shulk. He has crazy range on that thing

Tips:
-As a lucario you shouldn't try to come down on pit with an attack as his usmash will always outprioritize you.
-You cant hit pit from below too as his dair outprioritizes your moves.
-If your above pit and you time a counter right its easy to punish usmash.
-Pit is hard to combo, easy to kill as he is pretty light so just be patient and never go ham.
-Dont get reckless with force palm and aura sphere as pit has two reflectors. They are both pretty slow however so use it when least expected
-Pit has some trouble killing especially if your playing defensive. This way you can live up to higher percents and just wreck pit.
-Pit is pretty good at gimping most of the cast. Lucario however is ungimpable to an extent
-Dont bother trying to approach pit, just bait and punish.
-If you do have reason to go in however im pretty sure reverse counter goes through arrows and has almost no lag so you can do w.e u want from there.
-Pit can also play a bait and punish game so dont fall for it. Here are the moves that either have no lag or are auto cancellable: Fair, Uair, Dair, Nair, Bair, Dsmash (no lag), Full hop arrow, uptilit (no lag), downtilt (no lag). Arrow shot upwards (no lag; can be used for frame traps if you air dodge). These moves are impossible for lucario to punish unless your right in his face or already starting an attack.
-Most pits like to auto cancel sh nairs, fairs and dairs. You can shield grab nair and dair but for fair you might not be able to get that close. In this case you can crawl under it (so cute <3) and follow up or just shoot out a well spaced spirit bomb/force palm.
-Pits Side b has super armour but If you have good timing you can grab pit/pitoo out of his upperdash/electroshock arm although you will more often than not fail (unless your using dashing force palm)
-Do not try and shield a reflected aura sphere as this will break your own shield. pit can also reflect things by falling on them with his shield up, just a heads up.
-A reflected force palm can kill you pretty early so dont use it to space too much
-Both of pit's reflectors have alot of cooldown though so you can easily punish.
-Pit's predictable recovery is easy to punish.

 

[MythTrainerInfinity]

A couple points about the (Dark) Pit MU:

• DI away like mad if you get hit by USmash hit 1 of the Pits. It is hard if not impossible to get out of the second hit.
• You can grab the Pits out of FSmash hit 1, but if you are not familiar with the timing just go for a Dash Attack punish.
• The Pits stuff aren't really safe on shield. Good ones may fake out and grab instead. Don't mindlessly approach, they have a decent keep away game.
• The Pits have horrible landing lag on their air attacks.
• Regular Pit's Arrows are more annoying than his Dark doppelgänger, don't get too frustrated and do a too obvious recovery.
• As is a lot of matchups... Shield DI is amazing.

 

[Ulevo]

• As is a lot of matchups... Shield DI is amazing.

Are you referring to shield angling, or did I miss something.

Also, we should use this for the opening post:

Table of Match-Ups:

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| x | x | x| x | x | x| x | x | x | x

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| x | x | x| x | x | x | x | x | x | x

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| x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x

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| x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

Just a tid bit about the Lucario v Zard match-up.

If customs are on, you can't combo him as well as you could if he uses Rock Hurl, it does less damage but is a frame 1 move with super armor.

Flare Blitz vs stuff Lucario does is also something I haven't nailed down yet on how it works entirely with transcendent priority.

 

[Croi]

I guess I'm not expecting much more input on this MU, so let me summarize what we know:

• The consensus is that the MU is roughly even. Some think it's in Pit's favour; some think it's Lucario's.
• Pit is very fast. His aerials cancel well and his dash speed/grab allow him to rush down fairly well, just like Captain Falcon. His attacks have a lot of disjoint, making it difficult to box him. Out-spacing him with high-Aura Force Palm or Aura Sphere is also risky because he has a reflector that covers both of his sides.
• Lucario has the tools to succeed in this MU not because of Lucario's own strength, but because of Pit's weaknesses. While his attacks have lots of reach and low startup, they don't have a ton of killing power and more than a little cooldown. He lacks kill power, which only makes our kill power all the stronger, and he has a very linear recovery, leaving him open to anything we could ask for. His reflector has the worst cooldown of them all, so if you bait it out, that's gg.
• Like Captain Falcon, Pit gets harder to beat the more momentum he gains, but he also loses a whole lot harder if we can stop him.

I'm sure everyone's been waiting for this. The next MU on the list is .

And by I mean

What's to say about this MU that everybody hasn't already gone over? Diddy is the new Meta Knight/Fox/Pikachu. He's so over-saturated the metagame that whenever anyone asks about character match-ups, Diddy is more than often the one that comes up, whether it's here, or on Skype, or on Facebook.

Don't get grabbed, that's pretty simple. Down-throw combos into any of his aerials, most notoriously his uair. That itself isn't really a big deal - a lot of characters in this game have combos directly out of throws, knock on wood, but Diddy is special because his dthrow has just too little knockback and uair has just too much that the combo will kill anyone anywhere as early as 90%. Maybe even earlier if Diddy has a little bit of Rage.

Diddy has everything, really. None of his moves have any cooldown so he can pressure safely from any distance. He runs quickly enough to rush-down if he feels like. He has two projectiles, and one of them is an item he can throw at his leisure. He beats us at boxing; he out-speeds us; he out-ranges us; he out-prioritizes us; he out-camps us if our Aura is too low, and even if it isn't, he rarely has to approach anyway. Imagine Brawl's Meta Knight with only two jumps: he weighs slightly more than MK does and their recovery is equally as bonkers now that momentum doesn't cancel Monkey Flip. If you want to win at Smash 4, Diddy Kong is how you do it, provided a patch doesn't totally ruin him.

On paper, there is really no way for Lucario to win this MU outside of a good read. Even assuming our Aura is high and Diddy is, let' say 40%, our kill moves are too slow and Diddy is too fast and powerful for that to make a difference. Did you hit Diddy offstage? You better hit him a few more times, because otherwise he's coming back. Did you get the banana? You have three options: throw the banana at Diddy (best-case, it hits him and leaves him open to a grab/Force Palm. Worst cast, he catches it or it misses and he just picks it back up.); throw the banana away (it respawns the moment it disappears or hits the blast zone, so this will buy you a few seconds at most); hold onto the banana indefinitely (you now have no offensive options outside of specials, but at least now Diddy has no banana.)

In Brawl, Diddy's biggest weakness was his kill strength, and this is no longer an issue. Our hope is to do half as well as Diddy is doing and then clutch out a forward smash or something. It's 60-40 Diddy at least, in my opinion. I feel it's actually worse for Lucario, but Aura is such an overpowered mechanic that I'm hesitant to put it as worse.

 

[Ulevo]

It's worth noting that Lucario can reliably down air to force palm Diddy. He can also be edge guarded with charging Aura Sphere the same way Captain Falcon can. I need to play the match up more to give deeper input.

Also, I feel that the Falcon match up should be changed to 6:4 in Falcon's favor. The match up largely revolves around approach mix ups from Falcon's side, and Lucario has to hope the Falcon guesses wrong. Lucario basically can't empty short hop or short hop aerial safely to space out Falcon since Falcon can dash in and grab him on command from a very far distance away, and any aerial will be beat out by shoulder because Falcon's dash attack hit box is absurd. In the event that Falcon messes up the timing, he can roll away from Lucario and Jab immediately out of the roll. This makes it impossible for Lucario to effectively punish Falcon for messing up, and he gets to try again. Because of this, Lucario needs to stay on the ground and space with forward tilt, spot dodge, pivot tilt and shield reactively at the right times. Lucario can also try to mix up wavebounces in hopes that Falcon gets trapped and Lucario can go for a punish, but it's still in Falcon's court to screw up. Overall this match up sucks a lot. Battlefield is very useful, as being able to use the platforms helps to avoid Falcon's approach mix ups, and the relative size allows Lucario to get to a point where he can hopefully attain high aura and throw Falcon off stage. Final Destination is also ideal for this reason. Unfortunately down air to Force Palm is not an option for Lucario, given his weight and fall speed, so if Lucario is going to kill Falcon, it's going to be from off stage gimps and pressure most of the time.

 

[Loota]

It's worth noting that Lucario can reliably down air to force palm Diddy. He can also be edge guarded with charging Aura Sphere the same way Captain Falcon can. I need to play the match up more to give deeper input.

Not going to chime in on the Diddy matchup yet but I'll just pop in and say grounded dair -> FP didn't work for me vs. Diddy even once in the last tournament I was attending to (some videos can be found from our video thread). It's seems highly inconsistent against Diddy from my experience even if it's not the easiest thing to react to. He can definitely get out of it or even hit us if reacted properly which seemed quite easy for my opponent at least.

 

[Ulevo]

Not going to chime in on the Diddy matchup yet but I'll just pop in and say grounded dair -> FP didn't work for me vs. Diddy even once in the last tournament I was attending to (some videos can be found from our video thread). It's seems highly inconsistent against Diddy from my experience even if it's not the easiest thing to react to. He can definitely get out of it or even hit us if reacted properly which seemed quite easy for my opponent at least.

I think that is half you not doing it properly and half you doing it at the wrong %. From what I can tell, the higher the % the longer the initial stun duration from the down air. I had times where I was using it and because I did not instantly use it off the ground, my opponent could get away or retaliate. I will see about testing it later today to verify this.

 

[BugCatcherWill]

Question about the Diddy matchup: Would just sticking to a projectile game be prudent? Although Lucario prefers platforms, I feel as though more flat stages like FD or Duck Hunt would suit Lucario better as Diddy's air game is stupid good. On a bigger, flatter stage, Lucario can just try to space Diddy out and hope for the best.

 

[Ulevo]

Following up on the down air set up, from around 67% ~, dair will reliably connect with only the first hit. You can do it earlier than that, but it requires proper spacing. If you're inside of Diddy's hurtbox, Diddy needs to be above 67%. This is with Lucario at 0%. However, Diddy still has enough time to react out of this, as jab will break Force Palm. I did not bother testing things like jab, regular grab, et cetera.

I then tested it at 130% for both characters, and Diddy cannot break out of this. The stun duration is too long. So basically, somewhere between 0/67% and 130/130%, Lucario can reliably start using this and Diddy cannot avoid it if Lucario times/buffers it.

 

[DomBadZZZ]

Question about the Diddy matchup: Would just sticking to a projectile game be prudent? Although Lucario prefers platforms, I feel as though more flat stages like FD or Duck Hunt would suit Lucario better as Diddy's air game is stupid good. On a bigger, flatter stage, Lucario can just try to space Diddy out and hope for the best.

Yes i often CP Duck Hunt when playing diddy, his aerials destroy us on battle field and even if we shield on a platform monkey flip can catch us with the grab, also the low ceiling on town and city or halberd can be devastating when he gets a hoo hah, Duck hunt gives you the ability to have a large stage to run away from him and fire AS which is my main strategy for beating diddy.

To practice this match up i suggest practicing DIing his down throw combos as well as familiarizing yourself with the banana and how to use it to your advantage. Also you should almost always follow him off stage to try and gimp since our recovery is so good unless you have a good set up and high aura for ASC on the ledge.

At high aura AS goes through all of his projectiles and even destroys bananas on the ground which is awesome but you have to always remember if he gets one grab its over so dont try to space with FP too much.

The only real weakness I see in diddy is that they can be extremely predictable in their approaches and play style which we can take advantage of by mixing up ours and using b-reverses and wavebounces to keep them guessing. Im thinkin diddy wins 60:40

 

[RT]

I can only say that a Diddy that I team with hates Castle Seige, so just keep that in mind I guess. Beyond that, it's Diddy, so you know what to expect and watch out for. His fair is good, Flip Kick is good, uair is good, banana is good...you get the picture. Diddy pretty much has no bad moves imo, each has a purpose or two.

Always have a backup plan and put thought into what you do, Diddy has at least three answers for everything you try (this is not a joke). Always watch your percent, because you will die around 120% if a stray uair hits you. If the Diddy let's you live past this, abuse Aura and play super safe until you poke them to death. Alternatively, watch out if he has rage. Rage uair is stupid good.

Also, be aware of Rocketbarrel shenanigans. Besides it being able to kill if they crash into the opponent for a mere small percent of damage to themselves, a good Diddy will know how to make his trajectory unpredictable (hint hint), since it is basically max Aura ExtremeSpeed when fully charged but slowed down.

Anyways, easily 40:60 at best. Diddy got so much better and Lucario didn't.

 

[Pitbuller26]

If you have a choice of banning 2 stages, always ban Halberd and Town and City. I feel much more comfortable fighting Diddy on FD or an Omega stage due to how absurd his air game is...unlike ours.

Aura Sphere is pretty much our only option in this matchup due to how stupid safe Diddy is on nearly everything while we are stupid safe on nothing. I advise on learning how to use the banana, it helps us so much due to the follow ups we get from it and at high Aura, it could even be a kill setup.

Aura is the one reason why this matchup isn't completely unwinnable. Once we reach high Aura and Diddy is around 70%~80%, it's essentially an even match and one hoo-hah on each side can kill. In our case it being up throw to up air...or bair or Aura Sphere.

 

[LuckyDuck]

With customs its an easier match up. Use the piercing aura sphere to keep constant pressure since it goes through everything and mix up approaches while you grow stronger and you can win. Mix aura sphere and force palm when they anticipate the AS at high %.

 

[Pitbuller26]

There's no reason to use Piercing Aura Sphere against Diddy. You want to kill him, not hurt him. Default can and will do that as well as consuming the banana rather than passing through each other.

 

[Loota]

I think that is half you not doing it properly and half you doing it at the wrong %. From what I can tell, the higher the % the longer the initial stun duration from the down air. I had times where I was using it and because I did not instantly use it off the ground, my opponent could get away or retaliate. I will see about testing it later today to verify this.

I don't really believe there's any chance of me doing it wrong but I didn't think % really mattered that much as the first hit does so little damage anyways. I'll have to try to keep the %'s in mind while playing.

As for the matchup itself, it's definitely one of our hardest (I haven't personally encountered anything harder yet). It's still manageable but we'll have to work extra hard for any damage and not to get killed before aura kicks in. The ~80%-100% range is especially important as dthrow -> uair will connect more reliably and, when it connects, will obviously make our life miserable since getting the kill at lower %'s is something we can only dream of. But on the contrary, when the combo stops working on us we can really start controlling the pace of the match as AS and FP start eating up bananas quite easily and... aura being aura.

Neutral game is a pain for us at lower %'s. Basically all of his moves have the capability to outrange ours while having superior mobility and AS will clank with banana for a long time. Our plan is to carefully space around with nair, dtilt, ftilt and AS while being ready to grab the banana and using it to get some safe grabs for uthrow followups. Try also doing retreating SH airdodges as it can catch bananas and we can still do loads of things before landing to stay safe. When you do get him in the air, Diddy doesn't have a reliable answer to our uair juggles so he's probbly going for Monkey Flips pretty often, be ready to predict those and punish with AS or just maintain stage control. You'll just have to be really precise with all of your moves without commiting too much as Diddy can be really flexible with his options.

For killing, I've got the most success with AS since it can be hard to trap Diddy with our other options due to his mobility and overall safeness. Banana traps is one thing we can also utilize really well as it can lead to free AS or FP but Diddy will probably not be loosely throwing it around at that point anymore. If you do get hold of it, you should keep it as long as you can since we're really scary even without our normals (all the banana followups, AS, FP grab, FP flame and even DT). As for other options, ASC -> upsmash is unreliable because of his annoying frame 3 uair but grounded dair -> FP should work if Ulevo's research is right.

If customs are available, I'd consider Snaring (no experience with Piercing) as an option as it makes our neutral game somewhat easier since it doesn't clank with bananas at all and traps him better for more followups. Our high % game becomes a lot safer too and it's easier to keep hold of the banana. In exchange, we lose our long range pressure & killing option and a reliable followup from a banana trip but it's definitely worth considering if it feels like you want to get more room to breathe and scheme behind the warmth of some Snarings. It's the more risky and harder-to-use move though, one misfired sphere will leave you wide open so you'll have to be really consistent with it. Anyhow, if I were to choose one of the two now, I'd go with the default one.

Well, I guess that was that. For a number, I'd go with -2 or 40:60.

 

[RT]

Please note that Diddy can fair fully-charged AS. Obviously not some of the higher Aura ones, but do not think Diddy doesn't have ways to stop it.

 

[Ulevo]

@ Loota It's not about the damage but the knock back growth. I thought I couldn't be doing it wrong either but then I went and verified the necessary %'s. Once Diddy or Lucario reaches a certain threshold, there's nothing he can do to get out of the follow up.

 

[Steam]

Diddy matchup:

DI dthrow behind him, at high% double jump out, DO NOT air dodge.

Respect fair

Respect Uair.

Respect banana in his hand

Respect his grab game

do not respect his recovery, riverdance on his face.

 

[Locuan]

Hey everyone, we are starting the Lucario discussion today on the Lucina Match-up Thread. It would be great if you could help us out!
http://smashboards.com/threads/lucina-match-up-discussion-update-lucario.373171/

 

[ReRaze]

I honestly think diddy is good, but he's overrated....I've never had any trouble with diddy kongs as lucario. If im not mistaken doesnt lucarios attacks have some sort of aura disjoint. Does that not mean we can beat out his aerials if well spaced? Also aura sphere and force palm obliterates bananas. At worst id say this is 50:50 if you have bad di, but if you have good di out of his dthrow you can make the matchup hell for diddy kong since dthrow to fair shouldnt be killing you from stage nor set you up for edgeguards since you have probably the best recovery in the game.

Here's a tip at lower percents let diddy kong stale his uair on you so that it doesnt kill you early. Then at higher percents he wont be able to use dthrow to combo kill you and this is where diddy kong finds trouble. They'll start looking for the kill the old fashioned way so be VERY patient and defensive and just try to punish him. You'll have not much trouble killing in super saiyan mode, any good read will result in a game or you can outspace him. Also stay away from the ledge at this percent you can survive diddy's kill moves like fair, and uair (youll have more room to di) from center stage.

Personally i like gimping diddy kong. If you can fly from the bottom blast zone to the top why not wreak havoc on offstage diddys?

 

[MythTrainerInfinity]

Please note that Diddy can fair fully-charged AS. Obviously not some of the higher Aura ones, but do not think Diddy doesn't have ways to stop it.

If this http://www.ssbwiki.com/Diddy_Kong_(SSB4) is correct Diddy's FAir does 12% clean and 10% late. So a fresh, fully charged Aura Sphere needs to do 21% to beat a clean ver of it. Which is at 108% at same stock.

It seems a fresh fully charged Aura Sphere starting at 15% will reliably outprioritize a grounded banana. 14% worked 3 times out of 10 or so tries. Otherwise Aura Sphere just goes over it.

I like to sometimes throw the banana smash throw up to delay him from pulling out another and sometimes you can combo into it. Same goes for ROB and Wario too.

Diddy feels like an uphill battle, but we have some tools to deal with him, so I would say it is 45:55 for us. If he fails to get a hoo hah or FSmash kill around 100% we'll live for another 20-40% or so if we're wise about our spacing.

Has anyone tried going matador (stand by the ledge and throw him off) on Diddy? If so how did it work or not work?

 

[A-A-Ron]

Me and one of my friends have a really good Lucario/ Pit rivalry. From that experience I agree with those who say that Lucario has a slight edge. But when I say slight I really mean SLIGHT. The whole match depends on if Pit can get a kill before Lucario hits %85-95. Pit can escape many combos that you can start with an up or down throw so racking up the damage can be pretty hard.

One thing I find useful that really with anybody works but especially with Pit is doing pivot tilts. Pit players will want to approach you and try to get a good dash attack to start something, so if you can run away and at the right moment pivot into a tilt it stops anything they were trying.

A good pit player versus a good Lucario player matchup is all about mind games. We know we have to be cautious about aura sphere and force palm, and Pit will try to get that out of you. This works in our favor too because we have the surprise factor. We can whip out a half charged aura sphere to get out of a combo and it throws them off guard, and now they are wondering when the next aura sphere is coming, so they keep a little distance to try to bait. That's when you bring the real pressure and get the combos.

 

[Croi]

I've been putting this thread off because of the incoming patch, and now that it's here, I'd like to know if it changes our opinion on the Diddy MU.

He got a lot of nerfs and his moves don't kill nearly as easily now. His fair now has a ton of landing lag. His throws do less damage and have less knockback (maybe a stealth buff?). At the same time, Lucario received one buff.

Does this change our opinion on Diddy Kong? We're currently leaning heavily towards it being 60:40 his favour.