Well and I'm saying that it is those people that probably know best about his competive potential. I think it's not accurate at all to say there are huge gaps between him and ness. At worst it would be like Ness is A tier and Lucas is B tier, not like one is at the top and the other is at the bottom like some people are saying.
Misinterpreting what I said again, dear.
I'm saying that Lucas's strengths
are not as self-evident to the uninitiated as Ness's are.
There are a lot of players that would claim Ness is "OP" due to his PK Fire setups, d-air combos, PKT2 shenanigans and b-throw. Contrast that with Lucas, where the common conception is, at fist glance, "too slow dun liek".
It is in no way a reflection on his merit as a character or his competitive viability. From what I hear, he's as viable as Ness, or at least very close to it.
That said, from what I gather, he has to work for his output more than Ness does: whereas Ness's PK Fire sets up for d-air combos and b-throw kills (which is, as I understand, a terrible strategy at high-level play), Lucas doesn't have that kind of luxury. He has to get creative and play a very different game.
That's the difference between the two: playstyle. One is fast and aggressive, the other is slow and deliberate. That does not mean one is necessarily better than the other. It just means one looks like it has more going for it in the eyes of people who have never played as either of them.
It's the Captain Falcon / Ganondorf dichotomy.
And that's that.