Character Competitive Impressions

[GeneralLedge]

I think Giant Sword may be niche for MUs against heavyweights you don't normally want to go in against, but who can't quite do anything about it if you just spam falling nair over and over.

Nonetheless, having the option between all four would be really neat, IMO.

There's another niche one I have that I didn't mention, which is FatSword. FatSword benefits most in the projectile game with SoL and Chakram (extra damage for both). Unfortunately, there isn't much more to say on the matter, although it works out okay with medium height for walling/retreating.

 

[FullMoon]

I think people who say Lucas's PK Fire isn't as good as Ness's haven't tried or seen wavebouncing with it. Between the distance he gets and the considerably smaller endlag on his PK Fire, the only way you're going to punish a wavebounce from him is if he misses the PK Fire completely and you're fast. His PK Fire isn't for racking up damage, it's a zoning tool and it's amazing at it's job.

Lucas can keep almost everyone out with the combined use of Z-Air and PK Fire, the only exceptions I can think of are Sonic due to him being too fast on the ground and Spindash making his hurtbox considerably hard to hit with PK Fire, and ZSS because Flip Jump exists.

The problem with him is outside of jab (which is still really good), he can't deal with pressure very well, if the opponent gets inside his space it can be really tough to get them out since we can't just shieldgrab them most of the time. Obviously his grab being awful is pretty awful too.

Characters with disjoints are probably going to give Lucas a hard time too due to his poor range and lack of a long lasting disjoint like Ness's F-Air. So sword characters, Rosalina, Greninja and Olimar are probably going to give him trouble in neutral.

 

[Mother/EB]

So is there an official Boards July 2015 tier list yet? Not that tiers matter to me.

Main:
Secondary:
Biggest pockets:
Big Pockets:
Medium Pockets:
Small Pockets:
Smallest Pockets:

^ Just for ****s and giggles.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

You haven't played enough of Pac-Man then. At least Lucas' grab actually grabs until the snake stops extending. Pac-Man's grab is loaded with dead spots with the initial grab box (that's right on his hand, arm is dead >.>) lasts two frames. He has 20 more frames of lag on his standing grab compared to Lucas', and 10 more for the other two. If that's not enough, the tractor beam sound effect ensures that the opponent knows you're a complete sitting duck for more than a full second.

I mostly said that to emphasize how bad Lucas's grab feels (decent tethers like Olimar, Samus, or the Links I don't even mind), but let's actually do a direct comparison... Here's the same source with both characters' frame data:

http://kuroganehammer.com/Smash4/PAC-MAN
http://kuroganehammer.com/Smash4/Lucas

To make it short:

-Lucas's running grab is AWFUL.
-Pac-Man's grabs (all three) will frequently beat spotdodge but have potentially exploitable gaps in the middle.
-Pac-Man's grabs have more commitment in total but a smaller "gap" between the last hitbox disappearing and the user being free to act. Pac-Man actually leaves shorter pure punish windows while taking more total time.

In terms of hitbox shapes, this is purely anecdotal, but I feel both are pretty bad but at least Pac-Man is consistently mediocre on all three while Lucas's running grab is just pitiable. As I see it, reasonable arguments could be made for either grab being better than the other... and I in no way disagree with you that Pac-Man's grab is horrendously bad. My point was that Lucas's grab as well is excessively bad such that comparing it to the known awful Pac-Man grab seems fair, and as I look at it here, I'm still not convinced I'm wrong about that. In either case, Lucas's grab is very unimpressive, and it significantly limits him as a character to have it be this way.

 

[san.]

Large gunner get really dumb dsmash and usmash but that's it. Large gunner can actually be played similarly to the others since fair helps movement. You just can't maneuver high in the air.

 

[BSP]

-Pac-Man's grabs (all three) will frequently beat spotdodge but have potentially exploitable gaps in the middle.

Agree with everything you said for the most part, but I want to point something out about this. Pac-Man's grab beating spotdodges only happens if you spotdodge well into the beam range when Pac-Man starts the grab. If you spotdodge close to his hand, there's a very good chance you'll avoid the grab boxes and reward Pac-Man with a charged Fsmash to the face. Rolling is quite effective too since he sits there for so long, not that Pac-Man should be grabbing frequently to begin with.

If Pac-Man spaces the grab to avoid having hand issues, then the earliest he's grabbing is frame 22 lol. Devs why?

 

[Djent]

Okay, so EVO bracket pools are finalized.

Notable changes:

• People complained about Abadango vs. Zero projecting for R2 in Quarterfinals. So he got moved, and now projects to face Nietono in R1 of Quarterfinals.
• False got moved out of his seeded slot and now projects to fight ConCon in Quarters. As a result, Salem (!) has a pretty free ride into Semis.
  
• They took my recommendation! Rain is now seeded in slot 10.

As a reminder, here are the seeded players.

Spoiler

1 Zero
16 NAKAT
17 John #s

8 Ally
9 Nietono

4 MVD
13 Shaky
20 6WX

5 ESAM
12 (empty)

2 Nairo
15 Mr. ConCon
18 Denti

7 Larry Lurr
10 Rain

3 Dabuz
14 FOW
19 aMSa

6 Mr. R
11 Vinnie

There are 16 winners-side slots in semifinals, so seeds 13-16 will have to play 20-17 in order to make it out in winners. I may do predictions later, but for now this is just FYI.

 

[FullMoon]

We're probably going to see plenty of Heavy Skull Bash use from both aMSa and ESAM.

I'll still be cheering for aMSa through the tournament even though he's not going to go Greninja there.

 

[Kofu]

Large gunner get really dumb dsmash and usmash but that's it. Large gunner can actually be played similarly to the others since fair helps movement. You just can't maneuver high in the air.

I think default-size Gunner is a pretty good character. You get noticeably better mobility if you opt for a smaller one but there are enough movement tricks that it's workable.

 

[Nu~]

Okay, so EVO bracket pools are finalized.

Notable changes:

• People complained about Abadango vs. Zero projecting for R2 in Quarterfinals. So he got moved, and now projects to face Nietono in R1 of Quarterfinals.
• False got moved out of his seeded slot and now projects to fight ConCon in Quarters. As a result, Salem (!) has a pretty free ride into Semis.
  
• They took my recommendation! Rain is now seeded in slot 10.

As a reminder, here are the seeded players.

Spoiler

1 Zero
16 NAKAT
17 John #s

8 Ally
9 Nietono

4 MVD
13 Shaky
20 6WX

5 ESAM
12 (empty)

2 Nairo
15 Mr. ConCon
18 Denti

7 Larry Lurr
10 Rain

3 Dabuz
14 FOW
19 aMSa

6 Mr. R
11 Vinnie

There are 16 winners-side slots in semifinals, so seeds 13-16 will have to play 20-17 in order to make it out in winners. I may do predictions later, but for now this is just FYI.

Hey, at least Abadango has a better chance now. His Wario has trained with nietono for a while now, so he may be able to take this.

 

[FullMoon]

I wonder if Rain can take ZeRo out. He's the best player in Japan, right?

 

[Ffamran]

Hey, at least Abadango has a better chance now. His Wario has trained with nietono for a while now, so he may be able to take this.

Thanks for jinxing it. Now Abadango's going to go 0-2 against Nietono.

Anyway, how does Wario and Pac-Man do against Fox, Luigi, and Sheik? Nietono uses Fox, Luigi, and Sheik, right? That's like Larry Lurr's setup too.

I wonder if Rain can take ZeRo out. He's the best player in Japan, right?

I thought Ranai was?

 

[Antonykun]

I wonder if Rain can take ZeRo out. He's the best player in Japan, right?

Ganbaranai aka Ranai is considered the best player in japan
so good in fact that Zero thinks villager is top 10 because of him

 

[Nu~]

Thanks for jinxing it. Now Abadango's going to go 0-2 against Nietono.

Anyway, how does Wario and Pac-Man do against Fox, Luigi, and Sheik? Nietono uses Fox, Luigi, and Sheik, right? That's like Larry Lurr's setup too.


I thought Ranai was?

Pac-Man can easily handle luigi and fox is manageable thanks to trampoline, but shiek is rough. He uses Wario against shiek even though most believe that matchup to be -1 for Wario.

 

[Ikes]

I think people who say Lucas's PK Fire isn't as good as Ness's haven't tried or seen wavebouncing with it. Between the distance he gets and the considerably smaller endlag on his PK Fire, the only way you're going to punish a wavebounce from him is if he misses the PK Fire completely and you're fast. His PK Fire isn't for racking up damage, it's a zoning tool and it's amazing at it's job.

Lucas can keep almost everyone out with the combined use of Z-Air and PK Fire, the only exceptions I can think of are Sonic due to him being too fast on the ground and Spindash making his hurtbox considerably hard to hit with PK Fire, and ZSS because Flip Jump exists.

The problem with him is outside of jab (which is still really good), he can't deal with pressure very well, if the opponent gets inside his space it can be really tough to get them out since we can't just shieldgrab them most of the time. Obviously his grab being awful is pretty awful too.

Characters with disjoints are probably going to give Lucas a hard time too due to his poor range and lack of a long lasting disjoint like Ness's F-Air. So sword characters, Rosalina, Greninja and Olimar are probably going to give him trouble in neutral.

you do realize almost all of lucas' tilts, smashes, and aerials are disjointed? his only non-disjointed aerials are nair(?) and uair, and his only not disjointed tilt is down tilt. all his smashes have disjoints as well.

his only four non-disjointed attacks are nair(?), jab, uair, and dtilt

 

[FullMoon]

you do realize almost all of lucas' tilts, smashes, and aerials are disjointed? his only non-disjointed aerials are nair(?) and uair, and his only not disjointed tilt is down tilt. all his smashes have disjoints as well.

his only four non-disjointed attacks are nair(?), jab, uair, and dtilt

Characters with disjoints are probably going to give Lucas a hard time too due to his poor range and lack of a long lasting disjoint like Ness's F-Air.

Granted D-Smash and Up-Smash last a while but they're both very slow.

 

[san.]

I think default-size Gunner is a pretty good character. You get noticeably better mobility if you opt for a smaller one but there are enough movement tricks that it's workable.

I don't like default height since utilt is so slow for juggles and I rely on it a lot. I don't like min size since smashes don't work. 25/0 has a good middle ground. 25/0 is also the best height for usmash since it hits shorter characters.

 

[KuroganeHammer]

I didn't make it out of bracket because I died to normal sized Mii Gunner dsmash at 50% recently at a major.

I was less than impressed.

Edit: I don't know why I'm telling everyone about this anecdote. Bahaha.

 

[Smog Frog]

dtilt actually DOES have a disjoint. he does the sweep with his foot, but the actual range is that of another foot on his foot. also uair has a disjoint(its hard to notice since its almost purely a vertical disjoint, but its there. there's even a bubble on it to indicate a disjoint). jab 1 doesnt have a disjoint, but 2 and 3 do.

 

[san.]

Yeah, the taller the Mii, the better the dsmash though.

 

[Djent]

Ganbaranai aka Ranai is considered the best player in japan
so good in fact that Zero thinks villager is top 10 because of him

That's a tough call. Rain has gone undefeated at the past 4 Umebura singles events. His only recent loss is to Ranai at KSB but his overall record is positive against him.

I'd just say Rain is the strongest in Kanto and Ranai is the strongest in Kansai.

 

[Radical Larry]

Just when I thought Link's U-Smash couldn't edge-guard...
I was proven wrong by my own actions. Link's 3rd hit on U-Smash has absurd horizontal reach on the bottom portion of the attack, right when it starts, and boy does it give even Pikachu a headache.

Aside from that, I've played really solid players on FG, all of which could nearly kick the hell out of me, but then I just went berserk with Link again and I finally learned out to tech chase with Ganondorf's S-Spec. But now, I think it's safe to say that if you tech chase up to 100% with Ganondorf's S-Spec, on an opponent such as:



They're asking for a KO with F-Tilt, especially at the ledge. Flame Choke > F-Tilt is still a thing and it's extremely reliable on all of these characters (granted, Mii Fighters need to be huge), and to tech chase it is something very scary. Also, Flame Choke > F-Tilt > D-Air is a Zero-To-Death punish on opponents who camp near the edge, but only ones who can get hit by F-Tilt.

(If there's one buff Ganondorf needs, it's that he needs to hit ALL the characters with F-Tilt)

So if you plan on going against ANY of these opponents, just know that tech chasing and F-Tilt are your best option to KO them. It's best to tech chase at least three times and then F-Tilt them. Mix the bag of attacks up a bit, then tech chase again, and if you get them off the edge, use the damn F-Air.

That's a tough call. Rain has gone undefeated at the past 4 Umebura singles events. His only recent loss is to Ranai at KSB but his overall record is positive against him.

I'd just say Rain is the strongest in Kanto and Ranai is the strongest in Kansai.

That's quite cute considering their names are almost anagrams of one another. Keyword: ALMOST

 

[Zelder]

You know, people say that the 3DS version hampered the Wii U's roster, but I actually think the 3ds was great for the Wii U competitively. The lack of transforming characters seperated Samus & ZSS, Zelda & Shiek, and removed that insanely silly stamina mechanic from Charizard (I hope Squirtle and Ivysaur return in some fashion). It nerfed Olimar a bit by reducing him to 3 Pikmin (I don't think I could live with Olimar being top tier again, he was such a nuisance) and taking away Diddy's two bananas. But perhaps most importantly, and most controversially, it saved us from yet another 6 years of getting 0-to-death'd by those Godforsaken Ice Climbers. Personally, I'm glad for it.

More on topic, I'm very excited to see Abadango play Pac at EVO. Pacman, for me, is "Theorycraft: The Character", and currently he seems like the only man able to make some of those theories into reality. It shall be exciting.

Edit: Though losing the Waddle Dees is a tragedy. They were so much fun.

 

[NairWizard]

Some stuff on Lucas, since I see lots of ideas being thrown around about him that strike me as incorrect:

• Lucas doesn't lose to sword users because he has a tether. You can't space aerials against a tether unless you have very small landing lag (think Sheik f-air) or can double jump away after hitting a shield (like Roy with f-air in some situations). You need to play a grounded game against a grounded tether character. It's part of what makes Olimar so scary in general.
• Lucas doesn't autolose to pressure characters. He has a frame-2 jab that has about the same range as Falco's jab (but he doesn't step forward like Falco does, so it's a little less in practice). d-tilt is frame 3. There is z-air, which interrupts all approaches for free. down-b has a significant blast radius on release, so characters like Pikachu have a hard time simply getting around it, it's a matter of very precise timing. PK Fire is safe with b-reverse.
• Lucas' mobility parameters are the same as Ness' for the most part, but he has a way better initial dash, so he's more mobile.
• Lucas in midrange doesn't suck. His midrange options are few, yes--dash attack is frame 15 and his grab is slow--but you can always z-air instead. z-air leads into combos at most percents. At high percents, when it doesn't, grab becomes much more rewarding due to his KO throws. There's a percent window where you can't get combos or KOs from midrange, which is fine.

I don't know how good he is overall. But I'm looking to lab him soon, and the first part of labbing a character is understanding options, so let's get these things clarified.

 

[bc1910]

It nerfed Olimar a bit by reducing him to 3 Pikmin (I don't think I could live with Olimar being top tier again, he was such a nuisance) and taking away Diddy's two bananas.

Edit: Though losing the Waddle Dees is a tragedy. They were so much fun.

That's interesting. I didn't know any of these changes were because of 3DS limitations, I thought they were done for balance purposes. How do you know they were due to limitations?

I think they were all good changes anyway. Except the Waddle Dees which I don't know enough about to comment on.

 

[A_Kae]

That's interesting. I didn't know any of these changes were because of 3DS limitations, I thought they were done for balance purposes. How do you know they were due to limitations?

I think they were all good changes anyway. Except the Waddle Dees which I don't know enough about to comment on.

Transforming characters were split because of hardware limitations. Don't remember the source, but it's true.

Don't know about Olimar, but I doubt Diddy got the change because of hardware.

 

[Scream]

There are arguments to use default up-B for sure, but Samus's kill power is just overtly poor. If Samus doesn't have trouble killing, who does? Fsmashes are easy to play around, and all of her other kill options mostly rely on the opponent being in bad stage position to kill at early percentages (other than max charge shot I guess, but that has the obvious disadvantages). Samus has some interesting virtues, but kill power would not seem to be one of them.

---

I do not have the knowledge and competence to debate which other characters are having a hard time killing(lol shiek though), but what i can tell you is that Samus does not belong among them.

I'll quote myself:

Especially because Samus does not really struggle killing, having deadly getup coverage, deadly ledge trump game as well as both up-B, that can also be combed into at kill percent, and Bair. Do not forget that, even though the hitbox is very lackluster, her Fsmash ties for the fastest in the game and kill at decent percents.

->

• Ledge Trump leads to : 1. Bair, Killing shiek on FD at a stupid 55%, 2. Reverse Charge Shot(Only guaranteed if done from a tether trump or preemtive trump), killing even earlier(!)
• Ledge Coverage: Samus can always cover multiple options with the help of bombs, which can lead to very early K.O.'s and keeps Trumping a viable Option.
• Gimping: Samus definitly has a solid gimping game with a lot of mix-up options. Killing off one AD read.
• Screw Attack: Not only can she Combo into it at low percents from Up-airs, but the gets SH AD > Up-Air -> Up-B at every percents. She can also "screw" her opponents DI over severely, often times leading to a suicidal DI on their part, by reversing the Up-B OoS or in a Combo.
• Shield Damage: Some of her moves do additional shield damage, including Screw Attack(on a full hit doing 47/50 shield damage!), Charge Shot, Missiles, Bombs. This allows her to set shield-melting traps, that put opponents in Situations where they can not shield anymore. Those traps come in a lot of variety, including different combinations of moves, etc. so they aren't easily recognised.
• Killing off a single Shield Break: Samus can perform what is known as the "Dirty Bomb", she pushes her opponents in shield break to the ledge, drops a bomb on them and combos into Dair offstage, resulting in a kill at very low percents.
• She has Falling Up-Air -> Jab -> Fsmash against a lot of the cast, which is indeed a true Combo
• She has several more deadly moves not even touched upon in the examples above: F-Smash(Frame 10, kills), Bair, Up-Smash(only viable against tall characters), Charge Shot, Up-Tilt
• Rage: Do keep in mind that she ties for 6-7th heaviest character in the game, therefore she often thrives off of rage

There is more but i think i touched upon enough here to make you and many others rethink the killing capabilities of Samus.

 

[bc1910]

Transforming characters were split because of hardware limitations. Don't remember the source, but it's true.

I know, hence why I didn't quote that bit

Also @ Scream I haven't read your whole post as I have nothing to add about a discussion on Samus' kill moves but you should note that no good player will ever get ledge trumped because you can buffer ledge getup actions to avoid it 100% of the time.

 

[Zelder]

Actually I'll admit those two are conjecture on my part. I just kind of assumed that Diddy lost a banana and Olimar lost 3 pikmin because it means less possible bodies/objects on the screen in the case of a 3DS 4 player all Diddy/Olimar FFA.

 

[FullMoon]

Some stuff on Lucas, since I see lots of ideas being thrown around about him that strike me as incorrect:

• Lucas doesn't lose to sword users because he has a tether. You can't space aerials against a tether unless you have very small landing lag (think Sheik f-air) or can double jump away after hitting a shield (like Roy with f-air in some situations). You need to play a grounded game against a grounded tether character. It's part of what makes Olimar so scary in general.
• Lucas doesn't autolose to pressure characters. He has a frame-2 jab that has about the same range as Falco's jab (but he doesn't step forward like Falco does, so it's a little less in practice). d-tilt is frame 3. There is z-air, which interrupts all approaches for free. down-b has a significant blast radius on release, so characters like Pikachu have a hard time simply getting around it, it's a matter of very precise timing. PK Fire is safe with b-reverse.

I don't know how good he is overall. But I'm looking to lab him soon, and the first part of labbing a character is understanding options, so let's get these things clarified.

I think Lucas's tether is too short and that allows sword characters to abuse him more than say, ZSS.

I do admit that I still need to improve my Z-Air usage, I just get afraid of using it sometimes since hitting with it can be a bit awkward at times. Still have to get the hang of PSI Magnet as well.

I guess I should stop pretending I know what I'm talking about when it's a character I don't fully understand myself yet in spite of him being my secondary, haha.

 

[Deleted member]

I know, hence why I didn't quote that bit

Also @ Scream I haven't read your whole post as I have nothing to add about a discussion on Samus' kill moves but you should note that no good player will ever get ledge trumped because you can buffer ledge getup actions to avoid it 100% of the time.

If you buffer options onstage all the time then the ledge trumper can easily read which option you normally buffer by acting like they're going for a ledgetrump and punishing it instead of going for a ledge trump. Its more of a 50/50.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Rain is Japan's best player and seeding him "only" at 10th seems kind of low though he has a history of underperforming in the USA.

He probably has the best chance of taking out Zero too.

 

[David Viran]

If you buffer options onstage all the time then the ledge trumper can easily read which option you normally buffer by acting like they're going for a ledgetrump and punishing it instead of going for a ledge trump. Its more of a 50/50.

Well they can jump and and roll so it's not a guaranteed punish if you read the buffer.

 

[Radical Larry]

@ ~ Gheb ~ I hope someone takes out ZeRo. I wonder if it will be an angry Link, Bowser, Samus, Zelda or Marth player.

On another topic, Link kind of needs huge representation; who is a Link representative? Anyone mind listing like...10?

 

[ZarroTsu]

Actually I'll admit those two are conjecture on my part. I just kind of assumed that Diddy lost a banana and Olimar lost 3 pikmin because it means less possible bodies/objects on the screen in the case of a 3DS 4 player all Diddy/Olimar FFA.

On the side of Diddy, bananas are actual items in the game, and I'd expect from a developer standpoint that (a) items would stop spawning at certain existing-item threshholds, and (b) this threshhold would be at least as large as the contents of crates or barrels, if not larger to compensate 4 banana peels in play and beyond.

I think what actually happened to Diddy was a fear that by controlling two peels, it gave the player an insane advantage wherein Diddy theoretically has full stage control on a whim. So while I haven't experienced top-level Diddy Brawl play, I suspect they decided "okay, we'll remove one of his bananas, make the other one last much shorter, and improve the rest of his moveset to compensate*."

*Idk if 1.0 Diddy is better/worse than Brawl Diddy, statistically.

 

[Baby_Sneak]

@ Nu~ you got to see this.

 

[bc1910]

If you buffer options onstage all the time then the ledge trumper can easily read which option you normally buffer by acting like they're going for a ledgetrump and punishing it instead of going for a ledge trump. Its more of a 50/50.

I see it as something you won't be able to set up often against a good player, to be honest. The only way to make your trump unreactable to the defender is to stand right on the edge of the stage. This limits the rest of your edgeguarding and not only cuts out your offstage options but encourages a the opponent not to go for the ledge every time. If they have a good high recovery they can mix up their recovery even further and avoid the trumping scenario altogether a lot of the time. This is character dependent in fairness though, so someone like Pikachu can choose to recover high whenever they want but for someone lik Falcon, recovering high is a huge risk.

You are technically right though. I probably should change "never" to "rarely". You will never ledge trump a good player if they KNOW it's coming, but yeah, there are ways to make ledge trumps unreactable and force 50/50s out of them. The effectiveness changes a lot from character to character.

 

[meleebrawler]

You know, people say that the 3DS version hampered the Wii U's roster, but I actually think the 3ds was great for the Wii U competitively. The lack of transforming characters seperated Samus & ZSS, Zelda & Shiek, and removed that insanely silly stamina mechanic from Charizard (I hope Squirtle and Ivysaur return in some fashion). It nerfed Olimar a bit by reducing him to 3 Pikmin (I don't think I could live with Olimar being top tier again, he was such a nuisance) and taking away Diddy's two bananas. But perhaps most importantly, and most controversially, it saved us from yet another 6 years of getting 0-to-death'd by those Godforsaken Ice Climbers. Personally, I'm glad for it.

More on topic, I'm very excited to see Abadango play Pac at EVO. Pacman, for me, is "Theorycraft: The Character", and currently he seems like the only man able to make some of those theories into reality. It shall be exciting.

Edit: Though losing the Waddle Dees is a tragedy. They were so much fun.

Hardware issues or no, there's simply no way the Ice Climbers could carry on the way they were (particularly since regrab immunity
pretty much shuts down their chaingrab game, or would at least make it even more difficult than before). Maybe a cool way to reinvent them would be taking inspiration from Playstation All-Stars Fat Princess; normally fight solo, but summon Nana to perform
specials while Popo is free to act.

I think Lucas's tether is too short and that allows sword characters to abuse him more than say, ZSS.

I do admit that I still need to improve my Z-Air usage, I just get afraid of using it sometimes since hitting with it can be a bit awkward at times. Still have to get the hang of PSI Magnet as well.

I guess I should stop pretending I know what I'm talking about when it's a character I don't fully understand myself yet in spite of him being my secondary, haha.

The snake extends far further in the air than it does on the ground, even outside ledge snapping. The only person I see consistently outranging it is like... Shulk.

Still, it's true that as whole his disjoints aren't very large and mainly serve to make his boxing safer (it certainly works on the ground; his ground neutral definitely surpasses Ness in utility).

 

[Luco]

I think people who say Lucas's PK Fire isn't as good as Ness's haven't tried or seen wavebouncing with it. Between the distance he gets and the considerably smaller endlag on his PK Fire, the only way you're going to punish a wavebounce from him is if he misses the PK Fire completely and you're fast. His PK Fire isn't for racking up damage, it's a zoning tool and it's amazing at it's job.

Lucas can keep almost everyone out with the combined use of Z-Air and PK Fire, the only exceptions I can think of are Sonic due to him being too fast on the ground and Spindash making his hurtbox considerably hard to hit with PK Fire, and ZSS because Flip Jump exists.

The problem with him is outside of jab (which is still really good), he can't deal with pressure very well, if the opponent gets inside his space it can be really tough to get them out since we can't just shieldgrab them most of the time. Obviously his grab being awful is pretty awful too.

Characters with disjoints are probably going to give Lucas a hard time too due to his poor range and lack of a long lasting disjoint like Ness's F-Air. So sword characters, Rosalina, Greninja and Olimar are probably going to give him trouble in neutral.

This, soooo much. I thought people had moved past the notion of trying to use Lucas' PK Fire in any way like they'd use Ness'. Lol.

Also Ice Climbers would have been fine because you can't grab the same character twice within a 1.5(ish? Maybe a teensy bit shorter) time period (after releasing them). Although if Nana is counted in this case as a separate 'entity' then actually you might be right.

EDIT: Super 'd

 

[A_Kae]

@ Nu~ you got to see this.

Maybe there's something I just don't know about what's going on there, but why can't the opponent just shield some of that stuff?