Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[Myollnir]

are going to need more than bugfixes to be playable.

As a main myself, I find AI and belay glitches less frustrating than simply not being able to play the game against a good 60% of the cast.

Arguably the worst mobility in the game when combining every trait, outranged by (but with disjoints) on most attacks, pretty bad frame data, a projectile that can't be used in the neutral most of the time which means they are forced to approach, and I don't need to explain how they don't stand a chance with the aformentioned flaws (shall I mention that they have the worst dash attack in the game and one of the worst dash grabs, leaving them with no burst options?).

There is no fast, non-committal desync that can be used in the neutral (technically, there is, but it's too hard to do to be implemented in one's gameplay), so there's no way to quickly have Bliz + Ice Shot combo to instantly reflect back the icicle, which leaves them with 0 options against projectile characters (they have numerous -2 match-ups and even a couple -3 match-ups , which is insanely rare in Ultimate).

They will get almost every opening with Squall Hammer, which is really good but lacks range and will lose to everything ( jabs can even beat it when timed right), AND Popo gets sent to freefall if you're not on the ground when it gets interrupted.

It deals a good amount of damage but does not combo unless you DI poorly.

You can desync during the endlag (this is a 6F window, which is twice as big as most desyncs, making it very consistent). Combined with the low endlag of the move, you can get easy Nana Blizzards while Popo shields after SideB against clueless opponents. Good opponents will challenge the SideB or respect the low endlag and reset to neutral (which is advantageous for 90% of the cast).

SH landing N-air / B-air can start a great combo at low %, (not going to explain it here because I don't think anyone cares but you can die at 0% from getting hit by a landing N-air at a certain distance from the ledge, or take 60-70% otherwise) but good luck hitting that with the low range and disastrous aerial mobility.

Their last option in the neutral, and the best one, is to simply shield... They don't have any fast OoS option that would justify shielding that much, but they simply don't have the choice. Some characters have laggy throw animations so they can't grab you without getting punished, others will instant throw whichever climber they grabbed and murder Nana for free (usually characters with a tether). Some characters, you have to learn to parry the throw hitbox because it's too big.

If you hit their shield, they can start a desync, which is probably the most used desync, as it can lead to Nana using SideB by herself, which will beat most of the options they can chose after hitting a shield.

SH SideB OoS comes out frame 13 and is good to punish laggy stuff with pushback or retreating, rising aerials.

There are a lot of good stuff to do with this character, unfortunately they have probably the worst neutral in the game, only being able to keep up with the likes of in the neutral. That, plus they get murdered in disadvantage + the fact that it's probably the character that dies the earliest in the game with (it's VERY common to lose stocks at 30-50%, and losing Nana means the opponent should auto-win the stock, as SoPo can really only get a kill, but not rack up damage).

I will however mention that they are pretty good at getting out of the ledge (they have multiple desyncs when getting off the ledge immediatly, plus ledgejump SideB which is a very good option). SideB also carries when they have to land, making it not as awful as it should be for a character with this mobility. It's really a great move, they are just forced to overuse it in situations where it doesn't really shine, simply because it's their only option.

My opinion of them keep being worse and worse, I currently think only are worse characters than .

Match-up inexperience definitely helps (especially people running into the inevitable blizzard desync that comes out after SideB, as well as not knowing how to use their throws against the character, leading to punishes on successful grabs), but most characters can shut them down very easily without having to think much, projectiles are almost an instant win and disjoints are a pain to deal with, meaning you can't really abuse inexperience as the way to play against them is very easy if you're playing one of the many characters with a winning match-up against them.

They are by far the hardest character in the game, both to be effective with and to fully master, and there is currently no incentive to play them, I wouldn't recommand them to anyone. There are match-ups where you can legitimately lose to any player, regardless of skill difference.

 

[MrGameguycolor]

SNIP

Great post!

Didn't feel like bring this up in my own, but the equipment case is still a huge mystery to me.
I guess the devs were satisfied with his movement and decided to leave it as is? (Along with 's and throwing the nerf hammer onto )
But we all know how well that turned out...

is unarguably better than at an overall, raw power-level standpoint.
But at a tier/meta case, nearly everyone else was buffed much further than him, thus he's nerfed in that area. (Now in bottom 3 IMO)

I am actually not quite sure if Doc's full hop height is actually nerfed from SSB4.

I don't have any visual proof on my end, so you'll have to take my word for it.
But 's Full Hop does go higher than , same story with & .

couldn't reach the Smashvile platform doing a moving Full Hop. (Yet oddly enough could with a standing Full Hop)
Full Hop can reach it regardless if he's moving or not.

IDK what was the cause of this change in the Ultimate's code, but eh.

Also, YES to those theoretical mobility stats, please!

Re:

Nowhere near the worst character. He's got Mario tier frame data with absurd damage and insane KO potential, with some ridiculous tools like Tornado (which is straight up a solid reversal). And yet for all his strengths, edgeguarding him is still pitifully easy, so he's the definition of a high risk, high reward character (which in a game like Smash where consistency is King, that's bad)

Those are good, but as I said, he often only gets decent damage off of many neutral interactions, thus has to win neutral multiple times to take a stock unless he wants to go all-in with pills or YOLO setups, which isn't favorable with his recovery.

His advantage state is good, but not good enough to make up for great weaknesses, mainly against dealing with super lame playstyles and getting camped out.

Say what you will about or any other character who isn't .
But at least they will force the opponent to deal with them throughout most of the match. The same can't be said for half the time IMO.

"High risk, high medium reward" is more accurate from my experience.

 

[Arthur97]

Ryu was very likely left alone because they gave the usual speed increase to Ken instead. Maybe they thought speeding up Ryu, and then speeding up Ken would be too much. Which...imagine if Ken had better mobility.

 

[StrangeKitten]

I can even see a slower-but-stronger Mario being useful. Mario can struggle to kill at times, so a slower but more powerful one could be favorable against, say, heavies for being able to close out their stocks easier. The problem is, Doc just struggles too much in general to be worth playing alongside Mario. It almost feels like the two were made to work alongside each other - one could main one and secondary the other, and be working with similar enough movesets. But as it is, Doc just doesn't offer much that Mario doesn't do better.

 

[Alicorn]

Pokemon trainer seems to have an answer to most of his match ups. Does that versatility make them a high tier?

 

[Plain Yogurt]

Pokemon trainer seems to have an answer to most of his match ups. Does that versatility make them a high tier?

Yeah, they're pretty good thanks to being three very different characters all at once. Squirtle has a ton of quick attacks that string together well and his small size combined with excellent air acceleration can make him tough to hit. He even has an extremely safe grounded option in FTilt, which is a valuable trait to have. Ivysaur is a juggling monster with massive aerials and a solid projectile to zone out slower opponents with. And then Charizard can come in anytime with a brutal combination of speed and power to scare a vulnerable opponent into making the one mistake needed to close out a stock.

The fact that they can circumvent their weaknesses by switching to a better-suited Pokemon is where the real power comes in too. Is the opponent really good at dealing with big-bodied characters? Focus on using Squirtle and only bring in the others to finish the foe off. You have to be able to beat all three of the Pokemon to convincingly win the match-up, I'd say.

That brings me to a question myself, as I don't play much PT: is there a shared weakness among the Pokemon that they all struggle with?

 

[meleebrawler]

I can even see a slower-but-stronger Mario being useful. Mario can struggle to kill at times, so a slower but more powerful one could be favorable against, say, heavies for being able to close out their stocks easier. The problem is, Doc just struggles too much in general to be worth playing alongside Mario. It almost feels like the two were made to work alongside each other - one could main one and secondary the other, and be working with similar enough movesets. But as it is, Doc just doesn't offer much that Mario doesn't do better.

I don't really buy that. His All-Star trophy in Melee states that the choice between Doc and Mario is a preference, not really a strategic choice. Now he's way more different today than he was then, but we also now have over 70 characters, many of which have similar movesets. It's easy to point at Mario and wish Doc was more like that, but if your goal is to make his viability comparable, where do you draw the line that indicates where you'd inadvertently have him outclass Mario (which did happen in Melee, even if for incidental reasons), or just make him a glorified skin like Project M? Buffing his mobility with the goal of bridging the gap with Mario or raising him several tiers is tantamount to an admission of Doc's design having no place in Smash, and there isn't even that much point in overhauling him further when that is essentially what Luigi does.

Mario is an all-rounder capable of handling, if not excelling in almost any given matchup. Any problems he may have there tend to be player-based instead of character-based, and in those situations it's more efficient to train more specialized characters to deal with types you struggle with, not a differently flavored version of him. And that's the clincher; unless the viability difference between the two is negligible to nonexistent (again, hard to do without making almost pure clones), one will always see drastically more play than the other. The best you can hope for is making them different enough from one another to stand out, conventional viability be damned.

 

[blackghost]

i have the really simplistic view of just viewing doc as a ffa choice over mario. less combos more kb and power and in other non 1v1 modes doc can get the benefits from his design. some suggested changes to doc really throw him into a new area in other parts of the game. as long as smash isnt solo designed for what this community likes some characters (i.e. ganon) are doomed to suffer in 1v1 while they thrive in modes that often people here dont consider. unlike smash 4 the new dlc characters arent solo designed for 1v1, they are designed to play the entire game as well.

as for the icies, its the same argument bayonetta players had: let the character work correctly.
and there are seriously people arguing no they shouldn't.

 

[Supermodel From Paris]

Doc is so so bad. Completing combos with doc is actually bad for him because most of his moves with knockback put the opponent back into neutral because doc is so slow, and neutral is where basically the whole cast wants to be vs him because his is so bad

Like, the ideal way to play doc after low percents is to not go for follow-ups but instead try to bait defensive options, even if the follow-up is guaranteed (unless it will kill).

 

[Thinkaman]

Man, very little of what is being said for the last page aligns at all with any match you can pull up in 5 seconds on youtube from Lui$ or Big D.

 

[MrGameguycolor]

Man, very little of what is being said for the last page aligns at all with any match you can pull up in 5 seconds on youtube from Lui$ or Big D.

The former of which he rarely uses in tourney anymore.
(Not counting the obvious pandemic)

 

[MrGameguycolor]

Frankly there's a lot wrong with the Ultimate version of Ice Climbers.

I don't believe that Icies are low tier... But WTF is this hitbox:

Spoiler: Popo Fair

At least Nana's is a little better...
(Still unacceptable)

Spoiler: Nana Fair

 

[Leonyx]

Hey y'all, long time lurker (since early in Smash 4).

One thing I find really fascinating about Ice Climbers is just how much more effective their shield is compared to other characters. They can parry and punish many things that other characters would have a harder time accomplishing. I was watching this video and you can see in a few instances how much Big D can get off of punishing Astro's hits on shield.

I think they did a pretty good job in this game of honoring the desyncing history of the Ice Climbers kit while removing the degeneracy of chaingrabbing and wobbling. It comes together in Big D's play. Probably a lot harder to desync than it was before and there's still a bunch of bugs that get in the way though.

 

[blackghost]

Man, very little of what is being said for the last page aligns at all with any match you can pull up in 5 seconds on youtube from Lui$ or Big D.

and very little of what was said Bayonetta would line up with lima's, shadowPR, and purity Bayonetta play and results. some players are so good that they can transcend a character's flaws. but dgoing so is exhausting and frustrating and eventually, they will drop those characters. m Tweek did it in smash 4 with zard and mii swordsman, Lui$ is moving on from doc in event play, lima started playing peach before leaving the scene entirely, and many more cases. even Esam wont use samus except in very particular situations.

fighting your character's major flaws and fighting your opponent drains people and drained players dont win.

 

[Thinkaman]

The former of which he rarely uses in tourney anymore.

No one is arguing that Dr. Mario is a high tier character. No one is expecting a world-top-50 player who is a character polymath (that punches at an even higher weight in Squad Strike) that plays multiple actual high tier characters to commit to a low tier.

But that doesn't stop him from giving us plenty of good footage, even older stuff. Not hype compliations, real games.

Even losing games against players ranked above him still feature quality play that does not exhibit a binary, garbage, or fundamentally flawed character.

There's a great recent online set against Void where he pulls out Doc after his Fox goes 0-2.

Honestly, my main takeaway from these games is that if anything, Doc would love more shield safety on his non-pill approaches. His grab is sufficient and his reward is very high such that there's a lot of 50:50 leverage on anything that scares people into holding shield longer. A hair bigger hitbox on f-smash or couple startup frames shaved off fair would be highly relevant to some of Lui$'s personal plays we see him go for a lot, but what we see him really need is things that actually puts the fear of God into a Lucina who shields a pill from an aerial Doc--something besides Mario-speed dash grab.

 

[StrangeKitten]

Pokemon trainer seems to have an answer to most of his match ups. Does that versatility make them a high tier?

It makes the character top tier, actually

Yeah, they're pretty good thanks to being three very different characters all at once. Squirtle has a ton of quick attacks that string together well and his small size combined with excellent air acceleration can make him tough to hit. He even has an extremely safe grounded option in FTilt, which is a valuable trait to have. Ivysaur is a juggling monster with massive aerials and a solid projectile to zone out slower opponents with. And then Charizard can come in anytime with a brutal combination of speed and power to scare a vulnerable opponent into making the one mistake needed to close out a stock.

The fact that they can circumvent their weaknesses by switching to a better-suited Pokemon is where the real power comes in too. Is the opponent really good at dealing with big-bodied characters? Focus on using Squirtle and only bring in the others to finish the foe off. You have to be able to beat all three of the Pokemon to convincingly win the match-up, I'd say.

That brings me to a question myself, as I don't play much PT: is there a shared weakness among the Pokemon that they all struggle with?

Nothing too bad, imo. I'd say fast characters who can keep up with Squirtle are tough, since Ivy isn't the fastest and Zard is susceptible to combos if used at low % (though, Beast has recently shown me that starting with Charizard isn't as bad as I previously thought). Greninja, Sonic, Mario, the Chus, Roy, Lucina, and Joker are all matchups I'd think would be more difficult than most.

 

[GOAT LC]

Page 420 omg

 

[ZephyrZ]

That brings me to a question myself, as I don't play much PT: is there a shared weakness among the Pokemon that they all struggle with?

Landing can be tough. Squirtle has good frame data and air acceleration so he's the best at landing, but his low air speed and short range can make landing against disjoints tough. Ivysaur's landing options are pretty poor overall, and as everyone knows Charizard is a bug bodied heavy.

It's not so bad though. Squirtle always has withdraw as a landing mix up and Charizard has a triple jump. All three pokemon can also use Pokemon Switch in a pinch.

 

[Supermodel From Paris]

No one is arguing that Dr. Mario is a high tier character. No one is expecting a world-top-50 player who is a character polymath (that punches at an even higher weight in Squad Strike) that plays multiple actual high tier characters to commit to a low tier.

But that doesn't stop him from giving us plenty of good footage, even older stuff. Not hype compliations, real games.

Even losing games against players ranked above him still feature quality play that does not exhibit a binary, garbage, or fundamentally flawed character.

There's a great recent online set against Void where he pulls out Doc after his Fox goes 0-2.

Honestly, my main takeaway from these games is that if anything, Doc would love more shield safety on his non-pill approaches. His grab is sufficient and his reward is very high such that there's a lot of 50:50 leverage on anything that scares people into holding shield longer. A hair bigger hitbox on f-smash or couple startup frames shaved off fair would be highly relevant to some of Lui$'s personal plays we see him go for a lot, but what we see him really need is things that actually puts the fear of God into a Lucina who shields a pill from an aerial Doc--something besides Mario-speed dash grab.

I watched this set with void vs lui$ and I saw exactly what I expected to see before I clicked on it: someone choosing for some inexplicable reason to try to rush down vs doc.

Like, all doc wants is for you to do his job for him by trying to approach. Doc sucks but his strengths *are* strong, and if you play to this he'll obviously have a much higher chance of beating you. Up-b out of shield is a great shield option but like why are you even bothering to get that close to doc's shield, it's not like he can wiggle into good positions before shielding either because he's got trash mobility. That's just one example but there are many.

There's no reason for you to overcommit against Doctor Mario and yet void goes in over and over and over again when all he needs to do is zone him out and run away and doc just can't do anything. He has no options against an opponent who wants to run away, no counterplay, zero, zlich.

Void is obviously a very very strong player but he's playing against the character like he'd play against Good Mario, when you don't need to take anywhere near as many risks and make any where near as many commitments as you would in that circumstance.

He's basically just another brawl ganondorf but playstyles in ultimate are just generally more aggressive so he looks better than he is fairly often, I'll give you that. No one wants to just lame it out. He's got reward on some hits but I mean so do a lot of terrible characters across many smash games. I don't remember anyone who knew what they were talking about saying "yeah but ganon only needs 3 hits, obviously not that bad."

 

[Nathan Richardson]

I actually find pokemon trainer's biggest weakness to be characters with versatile zoning/trapping games. Squirtle and Charizard can approach but if they're facing a solid wall of projectiles especially ones that hit at different angles they'll have an impossible time getting in, it's the reason why characters like megaman and the chus are a hard matchup for them. Also disjoints with good vertical spread make it easy to swat squirtle out of the air while making it difficult for any of PTs other pokemon to get in.
I've found that snake, especially good snake players tick all the boxes for a hard matchup between grenade/nikita spam, C4 traps and camping and CQC range.
On top of that only ivysaur has any real zoning and the zoning is so laggy and linear that 9 times out of 10 ivysaur is going to get outprioritized by anyone with a faster projectile.

 

[Lacrimosa]

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[The_Bookworm]

There was a problem fetching the tweet

Someone already posted this matchup chart, but it was overshadowed by the Doc and ICs conversations taking place there.

It is a solid matchup chart, although I doubt that Wolf has that many +2 matchups.

Edit: However, someone has finally put Roy and Chrom in the same tier when it comes to matchup charts.

 

[Nemesis561]

Imo that wolf chart is a bit too optimistic, but yes wolf is a really great character that I feel some people have slept on lately. He has tools for almost every situation, and while he doesn't really have anything that is necessarily super busted (maybe nair and his air speed), he's above average to really good in nearly every aspect.

 

[Rizen]

is a strong character because you have all the advantages of 3 different weight classes without having to stick with their drawbacks. is small and good at building low % damage but can struggle to kill and is extremely light. The downsides don't matter because picks up where squirtle falters. Ivy has an amazing advantage state and good zoning. I can't stress enough how good PT's advantage state is with Ivy's huge Dair/Uair and upB pared with squirtle's water gun and Charizard's Bair. If you need to survive at high %s or recover switch to . Essentially PT is a heavyweight who can play rushdown/comboing and zoning. Their only real weakness is a mediocre disadvantage but even still they can frame 1 turn invulnerable when switching.

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This is good but a bit optimistic imo. I consider to be winning for Wolf but only slight advantages for example.

 

[Lacrimosa]

Tweek is also the 2nd best player there is, so perception could be skewed in Wolf's favor simply because Tweek is such a dominating player (with every char he touched). Same thing happened (imo) with his Wario MU chart where he put Zelda in winning but Gluto put her as losing. Just as an example.


I would put more chars in just advantage, like Zelda, Samus, the Links, Pac-Man, GnW, Sonic or Yoshi.
I don't think they should be in the same category as the Belmonts or Ganon who can't keep up with Wolf's vast neutral tools, especially laser.

But I wouldn't necessarily change any winning, even and losing MUs.

 

[DougEfresh]

Thought I would share in here the most updated Lucario MU chart made by Lewdcario, a high level main from Texas (IIRC). I agree with a lot of this, but also find it a bit pessimistic in some areas. For example, I would argue that some match ups in -1 are explosive and volatile from both sides, but still even (like and , potentially as well). I also think and are even too, with the latter still susceptible to a difficulty with closing out stocks efficiently despite all the buffs he got way back in 7.0

Some other notes I think are worthwhile:

- I don't believe Lucario has any -3 match ups, although I philosophically view that as being borderline unwinnable and just don't see that being the case with Lucario in any match up (I would likely move and down to -2, and down to -1/borderline -2 or the "easiest" of -2 MUs)

- The wolf placement is an especially intriguing contrast to Tweek's placement of the MU, which I'm assuming is equivalent to +1 (and Lewdcario and Tweek have played each other in the Wolf/Luc MU before).

- and moved from -1 in her 7.0 MU chart to even here in 8.0. I agree with all of these except DK. I think he is still fairly difficult and would be in -1 Imo.

- I agree with being +1, borderline +2. He really struggles to kill, especially when the other player knows the match up well and force palm flame is busted at high aura to go through can and gunman because it's a transcendent projectile that can eliminate those threats from mid range while still racking up damage to duck hunt. If we pressure him off stage hard enough, he's often put in a terrible spot and we can close his stocks out with dair or bair since up b is so slow. Forcing him to approach once we have the stock lead is really where it's at in the MU, since he sucks at that.

- in +1 but closer to even also makes sense. Aura sphere at mid to high aura gives him a hard time because it'll go through all the zoning options he has and pellets only reach so far to pester us in neutral. However, he does have more reliable kill set ups with metal blade and bair is good for killing early off of jump reads, making it a bit more difficult of an MU by comparison.

- From what little I've actually practiced against so far, even seems pretty reasonable. It's a rather volatile MU from both sides; her reach is annoying and off-stage is terrifying but our great air speed is great for preemptively going out deep for edgeguards with dair and bair (possibly even nair) given her terrible air drift to make it back to ledge and her up b seems to require her to be very close to ledge to snap to it and recover back to stage. Our great air mobility also helps with using falling nairs in neutral to get combos and tech chases started and potentially get her in the corner to push a ledge trap/edgeguard scenario.

Any thoughts people have with respect to their mains or characters on this, feel free to share if you feel so inclined. I just thought it would be good to actually see an MU chart from a more notable Lucario main.

EDIT: Just to summarize the most interesting thing about this MU chart is that Lewdcario has all the characters that were buffed in 8.0 in pretty much the exact same match up tiers as 7.0, but there was a decent amount of shifting around non-buffed characters. Like Sonic, Rosa, Terry and Shiek are others that went from even to -1 in the transition from 7.0 to 8.0. I'm not sure what she sees in these MUs that has caused these changes in perception, but it's interesting to note that some previously difficult MUs got moved up to even while formerly even MUs are seen as harder and all the others expected to become more challenging (namely and ) have stayed exactly the same.

 

[Frihetsanka]

Why is Lucina -3 but Corrin even? Also, Marth even but Lucina -3?

 

[DougEfresh]

Why is Lucina -3 but Corrin even? Also, Marth even but Lucina -3?

Apparently she believes the great consistency of Lucina and being able to space so safely on Lucario's shield (since we have no good OOS options to speak of) makes it so we are only able to run away and retreat. Ig if Lucina doesn't respect as a character and plays aggressively, there's not much we can do about it either according to her. I disagree with the absolute severity of the MU and certainly don't believe there's a such a big discrepancy between and ; I'd personally say the former is even with his greater inconsistency with killing and the latter at -1 bordering on -2. Lewdcario claims that Corrin is just "more annoying" to deal with, but doesn't make the match up significantly harder. Idk which notable Corrin mains she played to get that impression, though.

 

[Lacrimosa]

I simply don't see how Lucario goes or even beats characters that have great aerial game and are great at controlling space (i.e. have the tendancy to skip neutral by setting up their advantage state).

This includes chars like for their aerial game and (?) for controlling space.
Then there are really fast chars that are hard to pin down for Lucario I feel. These chars are and who can play hit-and-run with Lucario and while Lucario has (B-reverse) Aura Sphere, I don't think it affects Falcon's or Yoshi's gameplan that much.

That leaves and for even.

Like, I'm really curious what Lucario is supposed to do in these MUs. Like, he has to get at high percent to do stuff and while some chars lack proper kill confirms they make up for it for attributes I think are really relevant (Aerials and space-controlling move like Samus's Charge Shot and Missiles or Pac-Man's Hydrant)

 

[blackghost]

as a bayo player. that lucario MU placement seems correct to me.

 

[BitBitio]

I simply don't see how Lucario goes or even beats characters that have great aerial game and are great at controlling space (i.e. have the tendancy to skip neutral by setting up their advantage state).

This includes chars like for their aerial game and (?) for controlling space.
Then there are really fast chars that are hard to pin down for Lucario I feel. These chars are and who can play hit-and-run with Lucario and while Lucario has (B-reverse) Aura Sphere, I don't think it affects Falcon's or Yoshi's gameplan that much.

That leaves and for even.

Like, I'm really curious what Lucario is supposed to do in these MUs. Like, he has to get at high percent to do stuff and while some chars lack proper kill confirms they make up for it for attributes I think are really relevant (Aerials and space-controlling move like Samus's Charge Shot and Missiles or Pac-Man's Hydrant)

Ehhh, ‘s got bigger, faster, safer, stronger options than Lucario in almost every category, be it aerial or grounded, and can steal the power off of one conversion to further his advantage. He also takes Lucario’s stocks easily and can invalidate him with crouch. -1 for Lucario easily

 

[DougEfresh]

I simply don't see how Lucario goes or even beats characters that have great aerial game and are great at controlling space (i.e. have the tendancy to skip neutral by setting up their advantage state).

This includes chars like for their aerial game and (?) for controlling space.
Then there are really fast chars that are hard to pin down for Lucario I feel. These chars are and who can play hit-and-run with Lucario and while Lucario has (B-reverse) Aura Sphere, I don't think it affects Falcon's or Yoshi's gameplan that much.

That leaves and for even.

Like, I'm really curious what Lucario is supposed to do in these MUs. Like, he has to get at high percent to do stuff and while some chars lack proper kill confirms they make up for it for attributes I think are really relevant (Aerials and space-controlling move like Samus's Charge Shot and Missiles or Pac-Man's Hydrant)

I already addressed in my initial post of her MU chart about some of those (like and ), but I'll do my best to broadly describe (from my own point of view, of course) what Lucario's general gameplan should be based off character archetypes:

Swords: tends to struggle against them because of their disjoints and he lacks range. They also typically have superior frame data compared to him. However, it is not all bad for him. In general, these classifications of characters can struggle against camping (which we can do with aura sphere and use our 5th best initial dash in the game to weave in and out on the ground to bait and punish them accordingly). The vast majority of them also have linear recoveries that we can gimp/edgeguard with dair and outright kill with bair. Parrying their predictable aerial timings is also huge to making these match ups significantly easier for Lucario. in particular lacks timing mix ups on his aerials, which makes parrying even more effective against him and he has even slower frame data than us so we can effectively anti-air him better with fair and nair than many other swordies. Lewdcario cites extensive practice against Darkshad's shulk as support for the contention that the match up against him is even, though Idk which shulk main(s) who are more active these days that she's practiced with to reaffirm that belief of hers. Idk about the reasoning behind being even, but I've never found it to be that bad of a match up for a swordie (though maybe this is a result of my comfort with as a character). They also have a hard time getting off ledge and aura sphere ledge trapping is pretty effective at mid to high percents.

Zoners: just because they often have multiple tools to "control space" and "keep us out" doesn't mean we can't adapt and find ways to get around their walls (in addition to b reverses, we also have wavebounce aura spheres, which are highly underused across all types of match ups, and we have the 6th best air speed in the game). In general, we'll want to rely less on aura sphere movement and more on jumping minimally and getting back down to the ground as quickly as possible to close the gap quickly and abuse them in cqc (which admittedly isn't great in terms of range or frame data for us, but having a good ground game is an essential Lucario skill to have regardless and generally, these characters are weak in cqc and disadvantage, and sometimes struggle to kill). It's definitely an exercise in patience, because aura sphere has horribly low priority and we ultimately are the ones forced to approach, but the general struggle to kill us can really allow us to thrive and snowball on them (a notable exception to this is , but even I don't think he's too bad to deal with at all due to lacking mobility).

Brawlers: this is where, typically, Lucario can camp out characters more effectively. This is especially true with (and other characters who lack effective projectiles) where just like us, they are forced to get in to start anything significant that can take our stocks. We also know that say, a will want to zone break and push buttons on us, which we can rather easily space around jump ins and landing aerials, and punish with grabs to get combos, tilts and smash attacks. We just have to recognize and respect cape (we shouldn't be mindlessly throwing AS at opponents anyway), and he'll need to use fireballs carefully because of double team as a counter (which only scales with our aura and not proportional to the damage of the move being countered). Our mobility and AS movement are pretty effective to enhance our bait and punish playstyle if used well and our mix up game is on point. It's also worth noting that with Mario in particular, Lewdcario has fought Dark Wizzy, and their matches were basically last hit.

I think people highly underestimate the movement that has across the board to minimize getting walled out with projectiles and disjoints, and/or being anti-aired in general with air speed tied with Wolf and once again, the 5th best initial dash in the game for a very good burst option to close in on an opponent to send them away with up throw for low and mid percent combos and fthrow/bthrow to gain stage control for potential tech chases, ledge traps and edgeguards off-stage (in addition to the obvious b reverse and wavebounce aura spheres for movement as needed). It really only takes till 30+ percent before we can start racking decent damage and that damage potential only gets higher with increased aura. This is also roughly the percent where our kill power becomes pretty passable as well, it's just that our options to kill (most notably fsmash and bair) are relatively unsafe options compared to many other characters.

TL; DR: Lucario can use his good ground mobility to counterplay the aerial pressure from swordies and punish their poor landings and ability to get off of ledge safely (and edgeguard them as well) plus camp them out often with aura sphere; use a mix of ground and aerial mobility to maneuver around projectile walls and traps (just don't abuse panic defensive options and stay patient and engaged throughout the match) and abuse zoners' typically subpar disadvantage states with off-stage pressure, ledge traps and combos/tech chases; and capitalize on any and all mobility options and AS camping as needed to abuse brawler characters' weakness in needing to approach to deal with us in any meaningful way. is a character who's gameplan is highly sensitive to the MU he's up against, but he has an answer for damn near everything once you have a solid grasp of MU knowledge but can struggle hard without that (this is a big reason why he's so difficult to play in Ultimate due to the sheer volume of MUs you need to know).

EDIT: BitBitio Lucario can camp him out for a significant portion of the match and we're way faster in the air than Kirby. Crouch is effective but I think you overestimate its ability to invalidate Lucario's gameplan. We both have to approach at the end of the day but we can kill you just as easily as you can kill us. To each their own, but even seems right and it's not a "-1 easy" Imo.

 

[Nathan Richardson]

Word of advice for fellow character loyalists: Don't stress too much about if other people don't play your character. You play them because you like them. It's a personal choice. Besides, there's some charm in maining an underdog - I almost kind of miss the time no one knew the Charizard match up.

That said, Marth's buffs seem really modest to me, especially compared to what some other characters got. I think the devs are being careful not to overbuff him as to not make Lucina competitively obsolete.

View attachment 280560

Thought I would share in here the most updated Lucario MU chart made by Lewdcario, a high level main from Texas (IIRC). I agree with a lot of this, but also find it a bit pessimistic in some areas. For example, I would argue that some match ups in -1 are explosive and volatile from both sides, but still even (like and , potentially as well). I also think and are even too, with the latter still susceptible to a difficulty with closing out stocks efficiently despite all the buffs he got way back in 7.0

Some other notes I think are worthwhile:

- I don't believe Lucario has any -3 match ups, although I philosophically view that as being borderline unwinnable and just don't see that being the case with Lucario in any match up (I would likely move and down to -2, and down to -1/borderline -2 or the "easiest" of -2 MUs)

- The wolf placement is an especially intriguing contrast to Tweek's placement of the MU, which I'm assuming is equivalent to +1 (and Lewdcario and Tweek have played each other in the Wolf/Luc MU before).

- and moved from -1 in her 7.0 MU chart to even here in 8.0. I agree with all of these except DK. I think he is still fairly difficult and would be in -1 Imo.

- I agree with being +1, borderline +2. He really struggles to kill, especially when the other player knows the match up well and force palm flame is busted at high aura to go through can and gunman because it's a transcendent projectile that can eliminate those threats from mid range while still racking up damage to duck hunt. If we pressure him off stage hard enough, he's often put in a terrible spot and we can close his stocks out with dair or bair since up b is so slow. Forcing him to approach once we have the stock lead is really where it's at in the MU, since he sucks at that.

- in +1 but closer to even also makes sense. Aura sphere at mid to high aura gives him a hard time because it'll go through all the zoning options he has and pellets only reach so far to pester us in neutral. However, he does have more reliable kill set ups with metal blade and bair is good for killing early off of jump reads, making it a bit more difficult of an MU by comparison.

- From what little I've actually practiced against so far, even seems pretty reasonable. It's a rather volatile MU from both sides; her reach is annoying and off-stage is terrifying but our great air speed is great for preemptively going out deep for edgeguards with dair and bair (possibly even nair) given her terrible air drift to make it back to ledge and her up b seems to require her to be very close to ledge to snap to it and recover back to stage. Our great air mobility also helps with using falling nairs in neutral to get combos and tech chases started and potentially get her in the corner to push a ledge trap/edgeguard scenario.

Any thoughts people have with respect to their mains or characters on this, feel free to share if you feel so inclined. I just thought it would be good to actually see an MU chart from a more notable Lucario main.

EDIT: Just to summarize the most interesting thing about this MU chart is that Lewdcario has all the characters that were buffed in 8.0 in pretty much the exact same match up tiers as 7.0, but there was a decent amount of shifting around non-buffed characters. Like Sonic, Rosa, Terry and Shiek are others that went from even to -1 in the transition from 7.0 to 8.0. I'm not sure what she sees in these MUs that has caused these changes in perception, but it's interesting to note that some previously difficult MUs got moved up to even while formerly even MUs are seen as harder and all the others expected to become more challenging (namely and ) have stayed exactly the same.

It caught my eye that Lewdcario put Ludwig on his chart rather than Bowser Jr. but I digress, I think the chart is fairly accurate but is squirtle really a -1 along with charizard? His light weight, lack of kill power allowing lucario to build up his aura to dangerous levels, as well as lack of projectiles and range would make him seem more like lucario's more ideal matchup tbh.

Edit: Sorry about the multiquote, don't know what happened there.

 

[Arthur97]

Oh, and back to Wolf seemingly falling off despite still being really good, do you think he suffers from "not being hype?" As I understand it while he can kill decently well, he doesn't have anything too ridiculous.

 

[DougEfresh]

It caught my eye that Lewdcario put Ludwig on his chart rather than Bowser Jr. but I digress, I think the chart is fairly accurate but is squirtle really a -1 along with charizard? His light weight, lack of kill power allowing lucario to build up his aura to dangerous levels, as well as lack of projectiles and range would make him seem more like lucario's more ideal matchup tbh.

Edit: Sorry about the multiquote, don't know what happened there.

Squirtle actually isn't the one that surprises me (he's fast and small so he's hard to hit, which is bad with our lacking range on most moves. Aura sphere is also slow enough for him to easily get around and the PT will likely switch to Ivysaur or zard before we can cheese squirtle's stock), but zard in -1 had me scratching my head a bit. Yes, he has some insane kill power with tipper ftilt and bair and other cheese, but he's a big body who's slow in the air, which means we can combo him very well and stuff his jumps effectively from a safe(r) distance with aura sphere. I'd have imagined it an explosive even against him myself.

P.S: In addition to Ludwig over Bowser Jr., I also caught that Lewdcario put Daisy instead of Peach and listed Link twice (default toward the top of even and dark link toward the bottom of that tier), but ah well. I too digress.

 

[Nathan Richardson]

It doesn't matter if charizard is easy to combo because he kills lucario early before lucario can get his aura up to speed plus you're forgetting about zard's insane ground movement (he's surprisingly fast meaning going to the air is not a sure thing against him) combine that with his flamethrower for easy damage racking and shield pressure and lucario can't get anything started without getting into charizard's insane range plus trying to go aerial against zard is suicide due to zard's super safe Usmash.

 

[DougEfresh]

In theory that all seems sound and perhaps you're right N Nathan Richardson . I didn't necessarily forget about Zard's good ground speed so much as neglect to bring it up but it is something important to note. That said, I think we have the mobility to avoid getting overwhelmed by him in many scenarios and even if aura sphere doesn't rack up a ton of damage, it can still be used to condition shield (or as data to take inventory of for future reads and punishes depending on the preferred option to move around the projectile), which helps us land FPG if the PT isn't careful. Being a bigger body also does help notably with increasing the consistency of ASC to uair and bair (even up smash could work a little bit better out of it but it's still way too risky to go for most of the time) in the event that fails to expediently take our stocks. We definitely should play more cautiously and defensive, but with good awareness of the options Zard has, I believe it at least has potential to become a more explosive even match up if it isn't already just that.

 

[Nathan Richardson]

You also forget about the buffs to zard's nair. If you're trying to condition zard then you're playing the zard matchup wrong. Zard is going to stay anchored to the ground and then force you offstage as much as possible. You're also forgetting about fly, which is even noted in the game tips as a powerful offensive move (which has super armor to tank hits). Trying to use aura sphere all day is just going to get you hit with flamethrower plus as you said yourself lucario doesn't have good range on a lot of his moves, he essentially until he has aura built up has aura sphere and only aura sphere, his force palm isn't going to work well and then you have upb with that nasty endlag you also need to worry about if he gets grabbed (and zard has a good standing grab) you then have to worry about zard's kill throws. Specifically his up and forward throws, and then there's his back throw which allows zard to instantly go into a dash with no endlag. In short zard has all the tools needed to take lucario down with ease while lucario has a difficult time due to zard's survivability and raw KB on all of his moves.
To further elaborate lucario not only has to hit zard a crapton of times but also GET hit a crapton of times. Zard only needs to hit lucario once.

 

[DougEfresh]

You also forget about the buffs to zard's nair. If you're trying to condition zard then you're playing the zard matchup wrong. Zard is going to stay anchored to the ground and then force you offstage as much as possible. You're also forgetting about fly, which is even noted in the game tips as a powerful offensive move (which has super armor to tank hits). Trying to use aura sphere all day is just going to get you hit with flamethrower plus as you said yourself lucario doesn't have good range on a lot of his moves, he essentially until he has aura built up has aura sphere and only aura sphere, his force palm isn't going to work well and then you have upb with that nasty endlag you also need to worry about if he gets grabbed (and zard has a good standing grab) you then have to worry about zard's kill throws. Specifically his up and forward throws, and then there's his back throw which allows zard to instantly go into a dash with no endlag. In short zard has all the tools needed to take lucario down with ease while lucario has a difficult time due to zard's survivability and raw KB on all of his moves.
To further elaborate lucario not only has to hit zard a crapton of times but also GET hit a crapton of times. Zard only needs to hit lucario once.

The issue with this last statement in particular is that PT's often switch to zard when Lucario has high percent/aura since he'll obviously have the easiest time killing Lucario consistently ( cheese notwithstanding, though we have a much easier time camping her out). It becomes a match up in this case where the other can't mess up too bad or else one of two is eating a ton of percent or getting cheesed out of their stock at very early percents (Zard is heavy but can get killed well below 100% close to ledge with a proper bair of fsmash read even once we're in the 80-100% range and I'd also think our ledge trapping with aura sphere would be the most effective against him out of all 3 pokemon). It's volatile, and likely still slightly in Zard's favor, but it's mainly due to the combination of range, kill power and shield safety on certain moves; not due to any one of those qualities being so dominant that it veers the MU heavily in his favor as a result.

Also, I'm not trying to "forget" or exclude certain aspects of Zard's tools or with either of the other two pokemon. I'm just not going to have the full breadth of an understanding that someone like you has being a main of the character and I probably haven't practiced enough against a good PT that knows how to use all three pokemon well enough to their advantage against Luc so I may have some gaps in knowledge as a result of inadequate MU experience at a high enough level (not to mention, even if I had all the info to account for every aspect of an MU, it would be an exhausting process listing those out in a single post, particularly with a 3 MUs in one character as is the case with PT). Anyway, I'll acquiesce to the / MU being -1 for the latter as it stands right now (though I don't think it's worse than that). Appreciate the knowledge and info you provided me with.

EDIT: Just a quick note to be aware of. Lucario's nair can be as safe as -1 on shield starting at 65% (base aura). We're obviously not going to have perfect spacing on those every time, but using nair (especially from a short hop fast fall) with good spacing forces even Zard to respect it in most cases (and if it hits Zard for any reason, it can lead into up throw combos at when he's at low/mid percents or start a tech chase for us rather easily to win neutral and push advantage in the corner once he's reaching mid to high percents). It's not like aura sphere is our only tool in neutral, and we're not going to opt to directly box with him because of his superior range and frame data (and of course kill power). It's heavily bait and punish on our end, which I think is what makes it somewhat competitive still. That's all I gotta say about this.

 

[Nathan Richardson]

True we could go back and forth on this all day but the issue is less PT vs. Lucario and more Charizard vs. Lucario. PT doesn't work that way as was told to me several times by Thinkaman (sorry forgot how to do mentions) at the end of the day PT is a team and individually grading PTs pokemon is grading PT all wrong.