Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[DougEfresh]

Lucario is wasted potential there was Top teir hype coming into the game but he's the worst character in the game imo his projectile doesn't do anything until he's at a decent Aura and a lighter than average character that is useless until he takes a lot of damage and has a terrible neutral and has almost no combo game. At least Mac is ok on fd.

I've already said my piece on why I think most people severely misunderstand Lucario and is consequently placed lower on many pro's tier lists than I'd agree with (you may be inclined to agree with them as well based off your opinion), but I think it's a hot take to say he's the worst character in the game. He's actually not as useless a low percent/aura as he was in the past, and while he's not a combo-heavy character by any means, he's got some solid bnb combos from up throw that still help to rack up a good bit of percent and they're pretty easy to land for a good portion of your stock (especially if you consistently track their DI) for around 20-30%+ each time you land them. Is that top tier levels of damage? No, but let's get real here: I think a character with his gimmick has an extremely low chance of ever being that high just because it's too easy to make completely busted. Solid mid tier is where he's at imo, and if his tier placement doesn't go significantly higher than that, that's fine as long as he does end up getting the few important changes I think he needs to be "functional".

Aura sphere could be better in some ways and can be an especially limited zoning tool depending on the MU, but you can still use it to throw through the holes of your opponent's projectile walls to tack on damage with it till you finally make your way in to approach the zoner (it also goes through several projectiles at lower percent/aura levels than you'd think). The projectile is what makes his mobility as noteworthy as it is and while his neutral might be linear and centralized around AS, nair, fair and tilts, there's a lot left to be explored and optimized as far as mix ups with these tools because of his incredibly low playerbase. He also does well or fine on nearly all common legal stages (even though it's largely MU dependent like many other characters) except for smashville because of the small blastzones. He's light, but that's fine because of his mobility and if they shave off just a bit of start up on his primary kill tools and reduce start up and cool down on aura sphere, he'll already be in a much better place (and good lucarios know how to maximize their survivability despite the weight nerf).

I do concede that the way his aura mechanic has been conceived by the developers is most likely what's holding him back and why I'm not necessarily expecting any further buffs to Lucario (I might make a separate post later on how he could be better designed with aura still intact) and I realize none of what I've written here will convince you to change your mind (not my intention or goal to do so anyway), but this just feels like a blanket statement supported by superficial reasoning and an incomplete understanding of the character so I felt obligated to chime in on this.

 

[Lacrimosa]

I wonder how Lucario is the worst character when someone like Ganon is in the game.
At least Lucario has some sort of speed and an actual good recovery that has room for mix-ups. It's not a top-tier recovery as it has no hitbox but you have to read him. It's better than similar recoveries of Rosalina and Inkling who also have no hitbox. That's one reason he's better than most bottom-tiers like Ganon or Doc (I think both struggle hard).
Lucario also has speed that gets him somewhere and he can pressure somewhat with a projectile which isn'T as good as Samu's charge shot, though. But he can change momentum quite well when I see Jeda (French Lucario, probably best Lucario main).
Still, he has issues like..he can'T use his gameplan in most matchups. A lot of chars have great aerials that kill (Joker, Peach, Palu), better range (basically every sword character and some others), camp game (YL, Pac-Man, Samus), better neutral (Sheik) or just better kill power at every given point in the game (Bowser, Wario, Zelda). Not all of these chars are meta-relevant (guess who), but Lucario struggles a lot vs. the majority, if not all of the top- and high-tier because they can exploit Lucario's weakness, which is aura or simply ignore it.
So I can see low-tier for Lucario but he isn'tthe worst by any means. But I also don't play Lucario. This is stuff I see when I watch Jeda play him.

Lucario would be better if aura gave him power earlier in a stock. I don'T know when aura reaches max strength but it may be time to lower that percentage, unless it makes Lucario broken.

 

[DougEfresh]

I wonder how Lucario is the worst character when someone like Ganon is in the game.
At least Lucario has some sort of speed and an actual good recovery that has room for mix-ups. It's not a top-tier recovery as it has no hitbox but you have to read him. It's better than similar recoveries of Rosalina and Inkling who also have no hitbox. That's one reason he's better than most bottom-tiers like Ganon or Doc (I think both struggle hard).
Lucario also has speed that gets him somewhere and he can pressure somewhat with a projectile which isn'T as good as Samu's charge shot, though. But he can change momentum quite well when I see Jeda (French Lucario, probably best Lucario main).
Still, he has issues like..he can'T use his gameplan in most matchups. A lot of chars have great aerials that kill (Joker, Peach, Palu), better range (basically every sword character and some others), camp game (YL, Pac-Man, Samus), better neutral (Sheik) or just better kill power at every given point in the game (Bowser, Wario, Zelda). Not all of these chars are meta-relevant (guess who), but Lucario struggles a lot vs. the majority, if not all of the top- and high-tier because they can exploit Lucario's weakness, which is aura or simply ignore it.
So I can see low-tier for Lucario but he isn'tthe worst by any means. But I also don't play Lucario. This is stuff I see when I watch Jeda play him.

Lucario would be better if aura gave him power earlier in a stock. I don'T know when aura reaches max strength but it may be time to lower that percentage, unless it makes Lucario broken.

You make a fair point that Lucario is usually not at liberty to just apply his game-plan in a flow-charty kind of way in most MUs, but if you're equipped with strong character MU knowledge and are acutely aware of how your opponent reacts to aura sphere, you can use all this info very well to condition them and find the punishes/kills that you need to get to make him work. This is much of why I think he's highly demanding, but he's also a character that will make you better at the game since you're left with no choice but to observe your opponent's habits alongside good decision making on when to capitalize on punishing them in order to use aura effectively. Oh, you're shielding my aura spheres? Here, I'll grab you at low to mid percents for up throw combos and fthrow/bthrow for tech chases and stage control (depending on how high my aura is as well). I can also catch you in shield with force palm grab and kill you at 80-90ish if I'm at decently high aura. Now you're jumping over them? Let me catch your jumps with aura sphere, fair, or nair (or just wait to punish the landing with AS, dash attack or even fsmash if position allows for it and it's spaced well enough); etc. He's very reliant on conditioning, which may hinder him somewhat.

Like I said though, I think he's largely unexplored in what his game plan is/should be due to so few players taking the time to play him seriously. Swords can indeed be very difficult, but as I mentioned before, most of them have very exploitable recoveries that we can take advantage of to level the playing field slightly in our favor if we play smart and don't get predictable off-stage to put ourselves in an unnecessarily bad spot to get ledge trapped and reverse edgeguarded. The hitbox at the end of extreme speed (or whenever he bonks against a solid surface like onto stage or underneath ledge) is good for cheeky stage spikes against opponents who failed their attempts at edgeguarding us and the low cooldown of his landing back onto stage from an ES bonk can frequently lead to tech chases that can reverse momentum in his favor to set up a AS ledge trap and/or edgeguard of his own. He's got a ton of even MUs and a handful of losing ones that are manageable in the high and top tiers (he actually does better against a number of meta relevant characters than many other characters are perceived to be able to do against them, but look at my post from 4-5 pages back for more info on that). Zelda is even imo, wario and wolf are the only two MUs I may end up using a secondary for (it's all doable with Luc, just much easier with a secondary sometimes). As an aside, i agree with you that Jeda is the best lucario main currently ever since Tsu practically dropped him and I think he's now the future of the character's meta (a shame he hasn't traveled to the US for big majors).

Currently, his aura multiplier is as follows: 0% aura -> 0.66x, 65% --> 1.0 (base aura levels) and 190% --> 1.66x (max aura). Since you brought it up, I'll briefly mention my resolution to his design. Give him higher attack power at 0% (say, 0.80x), then around 1.2x at 65, and cap out aura at around 130-140% with a multiplier of 1.4-1.5x. Keep these aura multipliers fixed at these three percent ranges and now you might be able to get consistent set ups and combos and different points in your stocks to make him work a bit better. The numbers I used are arbitrary, but I think they illustrate my point well to make him keep his gimmick but make it a bit more stable and consistent so he doesn't have to rely on living so long to make the most of it.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Something I am curious about: why exactly is Lucario worse in Ultimate than in SSB4?

While his max aura got nerfed, he still hits like a freight train in high percents. At the same time, aura in low percents got buffed from SSB4 and his air speed got significantly increased from SSB4, which is directly targeting two of his biggest weaknesses from SSB4.

With that, it seems that Lucario is better than ever in this game. So why is he considered worse? A lot of the flaws people point out about Lucario is present in SSB4, and in some cases even worse in that game. Is his weight nerf considered significant enough to be an overall nerf to the character? Is SSB4 Lucario himself overestimated?

I am curious on all of your thoughts on this.

 

[Space thing]

Something I am curious about: why exactly is Lucario worse in Ultimate than in SSB4?

While his max aura got nerfed, he still hits like a freight train in high percents. At the same time, aura in low percents got buffed from SSB4 and his air speed got significantly increased from SSB4, which is directly targeting two of his biggest weaknesses from SSB4.

With that, it seems that Lucario is better than ever in this game. So why is he considered worse? A lot of the flaws people point out about Lucario is present in SSB4, and in some cases even worse in that game. Is his weight nerf considered significant enough to be an overall nerf to the character? Is SSB4 Lucario himself overestimated?

I am curious on all of your thoughts on this.

Having played him in smash 4 and having tried to play him at the start of ultimate, the two biggest things that stands out are his grab game and faster pace of the game.

In smash 4, Lucario pretty much had the best standing grab in the game. Low traction plus the longest reaching frame 6 grab gave him a huge amount of ability to just stay grounded and punish mistakes and misspacing from the opponent. On top of that, his grab reward was very good. Strong low to mid percent combos, and at later percents he sometimes had an actually 50/50 kill option (character and aura dependent mind you). In ultimate, this is no longer the case. His grab range is pathetic compared to what it once was and the universal grab nerf hurt him more due to his reliance on it. His throw combos are worse and I don't think he has anything near a grab 50/50 now. The only compensation is force palm grab range is longer, but it's less absurdly strong compared to smash 4, so even then.

Next up, I'm sure some Lucario players may disagree especially as we've gotten better at the game, but I remember just hitting players to be a chore. The acceleration on jumps in this game along with the overall movement buffs made it very hard to just hit a moving opponent naturally. Aura sphere is the exception and that move is still pretty great, but you need a little more than that. Smash 4 lucario was a pseudo grappler zoner hybrid, but the grappler was taken out of him while the zoner part is made harder by the mechanical changes to the game. Meanwhile, they nerfed Lucario's weight so needing that kind of precision just makes his life hard.

He did get some neat things in return. Much better air speed; new aura sphere cancel stuff (though there is a slight drop back in that he can no longer go from aura sphere charge to shield frame 1, but that's mostly fine); nair is somehow even more amazing than before, and bair is still really strong and they made it faster.

All of this amounts to his game plan changing a bit (as it most certainly did from brawl to 4 as well) where he's moved from going for grabs to just zoning with some quick burst movement keep away/rush down when it feels appropriate. The problem is none of these aspects of his are very strong. There's obviously a lot more that can go into this (I'm sure a lot of Lucario players will mention when mastered his movement is pretty damn good for example), but at the end of the day, it's just not enough. I'm not sure I'd call him worst or even bottom tier, and I could even see a him as mid tier, but the effort to reward just isn't worth it.

 

[AxelVDP]

Lucario is wasted potential there was Top teir hype coming into the game but he's the worst character in the game imo his projectile doesn't do anything until he's at a decent Aura and a lighter than average character that is useless until he takes a lot of damage and has a terrible neutral and has almost no combo game. At least Mac is ok on fd.

- his aura sphere is an amazing move at any %. it's actually among the best moves in the game imo (I'd argue it's a top 15-20 move, if not better), literally his only redeeming quality
- his weight is perfectly fine and average, yes it was nerfed from previous iterations, but lucario has not suddendly gone anorexic
- his low% combo game is fine, as stated by some other users here, he has plenty of 20-30% combos at low aura, and at high aura one simple uthrow > uair does like 30%
- Mac has plenty of good stages depending on the matchup (and a lot of terrible ones too), FD can actually even be a bad stage for him on certain matchups

I wonder how Lucario is the worst character when someone like Ganon is in the game.
At least Lucario has some sort of speed and an actual good recovery that has room for mix-ups. It's not a top-tier recovery as it has no hitbox but you have to read him. It's better than similar recoveries of Rosalina and Inkling who also have no hitbox. That's one reason he's better than most bottom-tiers like Ganon or Doc (I think both struggle hard).
Lucario also has speed that gets him somewhere and he can pressure somewhat with a projectile which isn'T as good as Samu's charge shot, though. But he can change momentum quite well when I see Jeda (French Lucario, probably best Lucario main).

- I personally don't think Lucario to be the worst character in the game, I'd argue he's just low-lowmid tier, but such a claim cannot be dismissed by saying lolganon (especially when I'd argue that even Ganon is not the worst character in the game, which btw I find a kinda stupid claim for any character in this game but I digress) (fun fact: Ganon has actually a good Lucario matchup)
- Lucario's recovery is trash. has a super long startup and while it can be curved and angled, those angles are super finnicky to attempt and considering you don't want to have 10 seconds of landing lag the path the Lucario player will attempt becomes rather obvious. not like this matter since if you're a good character you'll swat out his recovery during its startup anyway, but in the case you're not/are not in position you still have plenty of time to punish the move afterwards. Inkling's recovery has a huge startup hitbox and Rosalina's at least somewhat fast in startup and rides walls

Lucario's biggest problem is his TERRIBLE defensive game, he has basically no way to deal with shield pressure (no oos game to speak of anymore, dair and grab have no range and you can only punish terribly spaced stuff, lack of range (and speed) on moves means he also has trouble at whiff punishing stuff), he has perfect physics/hurtbox to be combo food and very limited tools to escape disadvantage
and this in a game where almost everyone has gotten faster and has safer options (if you play Lucario you know his Fox matchup is atrocious for these reasons since smash4 + he can easily kill you before aura really starts kicking in)
and again, his recovery (and ledge options) are all bad, making it easy to edgeguard and kill him at %s where aura is still not bonkers for most of the cast

also, aura is a double edged sword (with the sharpest edge facing Lucario), losing a stock before the opponent makes you basically unable to kill him untill you get some decent ammount of aura on you (even with the stock disadvantage aura boost), making it easy for the opponent to snowball the match
while in the opposite situation, while the Lucario player too has a strong snowball potential with his insane aura damage, Lucario is always at the brink of death, and dieing means returning to low aura and making the opponent's comeback easily possible

 

[DougEfresh]

Something I am curious about: why exactly is Lucario worse in Ultimate than in SSB4?

While his max aura got nerfed, he still hits like a freight train in high percents. At the same time, aura in low percents got buffed from SSB4 and his air speed got significantly increased from SSB4, which is directly targeting two of his biggest weaknesses from SSB4.

With that, it seems that Lucario is better than ever in this game. So why is he considered worse? A lot of the flaws people point out about Lucario is present in SSB4, and in some cases even worse in that game. Is his weight nerf considered significant enough to be an overall nerf to the character? Is SSB4 Lucario himself overestimated?

I am curious on all of your thoughts on this.

Tbh, I never actually owned a wii u and sm4sh (only played more casually when friends had it), so I can't really make a solid and accurate comparison between his ultimate and sm4sh incarnations, but I'll list (or perhaps, reiterate) the things that still frustrate me the most as a lucario main in Ult.

The fact that he's lighter in this game should mean that his frame data overall, but particularly his cqc, should be faster than it is. Why on earth is ftilt frame 12 (same as shulk's ftilt, btw) when he's got so little range? I'd trim off 4-6 of those start up frames to make it a usable spacing and get off me tool so he's not so helpless in shield or too slow to properly get a whiff punish at times. Dtilt is pretty good but still at f9, so if that were say, f7, that would be more ideal for similar purposes to ftilt too imo.

Also, why on earth does it take 9 frames to release fully charged AS and 17f to release a partly charged one with 30f of endlag when trying to use it regardless? I get punished far too frequently for trying to use the move that defines his character and neutral. These fdata values of AS and the fact that it's just one projectile are what can make it a limited zoning option for him and he doesn't have the cqc to make up for this potential limitation in some match ups (yet, at least). I said before that force palm grab is still janky and inconsistent because of more frequent whiffs than I'd like to admit on people's shields. This is likely due in part to hurtbox shifts of characters when they're holding their poses in shield, but I don't think it would hurt to increase the range on the command grab just a little more so this issue doesn't come up so much (this is supposed to be a big reward for lucario once we've managed to hold onto high aura and conditioned the opponent to shield frequently, but it's far too risky to use as a finishing blow in most cases, particularly last stock/last hit situations). The flame variation can be a mix up for zoning/spacing and to catch people off guard, but once again, its start up and especially end lag (54f!) make it far too slow to use for anything more than just that. Also the hurtbox problem with his ears when he hangs on the ledge (they stick out above it, making him more susceptible than he should be to 2f's and ledge traps).

Overall, it just feels like Lucario kind of got forgotten in the process of making Ultimate with there being so many other characters in this game (the majority of which are far more popular than him to play as), so while I like a lot of what they did for him (his mobility in this game with jump cancel and ground cancel aura spheres makes him a lot of fun if/when you get used to it), it just seems like they forgot to give him those last few finishing adjustments in a couple key areas that make him feel genuinely good most of the time. I've now put just over a year into the character and it has been hard work, but I can't really imagine myself actually dropping him at this point because of the investment I've made (though believe me, I've considered it a number of times in the past). Even if they're not amazing characters, I also know I'll improve faster as a player if I pick chars I enjoy and have faith in instead of forcing myself to be a "tier *****" even if the high/top tier(s) don't actually jive with me (hence why I switched from Wolf to Luc as a main within the first few months of the game). There's still at least 6 balance patches left to come, so if we're fortunate, maybe we'll get at least some of the fdata buffs and qol changes to help turn the character around and make developing and evolving his meta a bit easier.

EDIT: Just a couple of thoughts I wanted to address regarding the post above mine (which I only saw shortly after finishing this original post). Our mobility is far greater than ganon so we can camp him out quite well even if each hit on us brings us much closer to death than several other characters. He's also got an exploitable recovery and particularly slow in the air, so these factors make the ganon/Luc MU more even than favored toward one or the other. Extreme speed does have the weakness of high start up, but the distances it can allow you to recover from at reasonably high aura levels and above make it NOT trash and it's fairly risky many times for other characters to consistently try edgeguarding us. He also has the bonk tech on FD and Battlefield, which is a good recovery tool for substantially lowering the chance of getting 2-framed coming back to ledge and onto stage. ES can also outright kill at high percents and we can use what's called "vacuum" ES and control the trajectory the opponent is sent at on hit towards the end of the move for a mix up. Agreed that his ledge options aren't great, so that is what it is. Ironically, even without OOS options and fox being a pretty bad MU, he's a perfect example of a character in which abusing shield more than usual is actually good against: his main kill options are all very unsafe on shield and his grab game is kind of poor with no real follow ups or kill confirms off them and none of his throws will outright kill until very high percents. And finally, the only reason he struggles to kill at low(er) aura is because his kill options are unsafe to use and not because he outright lacks the kill power to get the job done at these lower percents (he's able to kill at reasonable percents starting at around 30-40%). Just wanted to say that I'm glad is getting more attention lately since I joined this thread so we can all better understand where the character really stands through discussing our various perspectives and observations.

 

[Notaniceperson]

Im honestly curious to see an Lucario mu chart that is generally agreed on. It cant look pretty because anyone with decent kill power or range or has a reflecter and even some heavys because his meh combo game will be able to beat him.

 

[NairWizard]

Kinda worth noting (and going against what I said earlier, a bit) that Sparg0 played MKLeo on stream in friendlies and while Leo was losing more than he was winning with his secondaries, his Joker destroyed Sparg0's Cloud. I mean, 3- and 2-stocks all around. The chat then asked Leo why he refused to play Joker in tournament and he said that Joker relies on some pretty inconsistent means to win online and that this would ruin Leo's offline play.

Something to think about, I guess.

 

[The_Bookworm]

- Lucario's recovery is trash. has a super long startup and while it can be curved and angled, those angles are super finnicky to attempt and considering you don't want to have 10 seconds of landing lag the path the Lucario player will attempt becomes rather obvious. not like this matter since if you're a good character you'll swat out his recovery during its startup anyway, but in the case you're not/are not in position you still have plenty of time to punish the move afterwards. Inkling's recovery has a huge startup hitbox and Rosalina's at least somewhat fast in startup and rides walls

That is not really true. His recovery is actually more widely agreed to be one of the more solid recoveries, especially in a game where recoveries are weaker than in SSB4.

The startup is definitely not great, but with its distance and traveling hitbox, it can be more finicky than it seems to swat him out of the air, unless you are able to go really deep offstage safely. Also, the move has the ability to smooth land on stage with minimal landing lag, and the hard landing lag is much less laggy than it was in SSB4 (it was the thing that costed Tsu- the tournament in Frostbite 2017).

The controls of the move is a bit finicky, but will become much less of a factor with enough experience/practice.

he has basically no way to deal with shield pressure (no oos game to speak of anymore, dair and grab have no range and you can only punish terribly spaced stuff, lack of range (and speed) on moves means he also has trouble at whiff punishing stuff)

Looking at his hitboxes, his grab range is actually not too bad (at least in comparison to everyone else's). It is not great, especially in comparison to SSB4's standing grab, but it is decent enough to have a statement.

In terms of OoS game, it is an issue with the character. SSB4 Lucario had some issues with it as well if the opponent is able to dance around his grab. Then again, characters like Palutena has proven that having a rather weak OoS game is not always the biggest dealbreaker of a character.

His range is not very great in low aura. However, don't underestimate his range in mid/high aura. They are deceptively big, especially when you take in account that almost all of his moves are disjointed.

 

[AxelVDP]

That is not really true. His recovery is actually more widely agreed to be one of the more solid recoveries, especially in a game where recoveries are weaker than in SSB4.

The startup is definitely not great, but with its distance and traveling hitbox, it can be more finicky than it seems to swat him out of the air, unless you are able to go really deep offstage safely. Also, the move has the ability to smooth land on stage with minimal landing lag, and the hard landing lag is much less laggy than it was in SSB4 (it was the thing that costed Tsu- the tournament in Frostbite 2017).

The controls of the move is a bit finicky, but will become much less of a factor with enough experience/practice.


Looking at his hitboxes, his grab range is actually not too bad (at least in comparison to everyone else's). It is not great, especially in comparison to SSB4's standing grab, but it is decent enough to have a statement.

In terms of OoS game, it is an issue with the character. SSB4 Lucario had some issues with it as well if the opponent is able to dance around his grab. Then again, characters like Palutena has proven that having a rather weak OoS game is not always the biggest dealbreaker of a character.

His range is not very great in low aura. However, don't underestimate his range in mid/high aura. They are deceptively big, especially when you take in account that almost all of his moves are disjointed.

- I don't know who makes up this "widely agreed" group of people you're talking about, but just look at some high level gameplay of people who know the matchup and watch how many times Lucario gets punished while recovering.
- also his traveling hitbox comes out only late in the move. he has no hitbox for the first half or so of the distance it travels
- upB is finnicky even with experience and practice, Tsu was still messing up sometimes when he used solo Lucario
- Lucario's range does NOT increase with aura. the only moves that Aura makes bigger are Force Palm and Aura Sphere.
- His shieldgrab is 13f in startup (6+7), not a great option, considering it's basically his best one. dair has pitiful range and the rest of his kit is slow. Jumping away is basically his only defense, but Lucario does not have particularly great aerials to cover himself, nor the mobility someone like greninja has (his airspeed is great, but he is slower in getting back to the ground and has a worse double jump)
Palutena has nair which is not as slow as Lucario's options and has actually some range and huge reward if it hits

 

[Ziodyne 21]

I am surprised this has not been mentioned yet regarding But the "nerfing " of rage was likely one of the biggest indirect nerfs a character got from the transition to Smash 4 to Ultimate.

The Rage numbers in Smash 4 almost basically gave Lucario "Double Aura" and when he got to damage percents when both his Aura and Rage were nearly maxed out. He could literally kill anyone in 2 hits. I mean there had to be a major fear factor for players once Lucario got to that point.

I believe his worst MU's in Smash 4 were who had easy grab kill-confirms that could easily and consistently deleteLucario's stocks before he reached damage percentages where he could become a threat

 

[DougEfresh]

Rage being nerfed from 4 to Ultimate is a factor, but it's really a rather small one in the scheme of other factors that currently limit him. And AxelVDP shield grab isn't "basically his best option". A more idealized option is to using charge storage cancel to quickly cancel aura sphere while still getting it charged bit by bit and staying mobile and able to whiff punish better. If the lucario player is consistently getting punished for their extreme speed recoveries, it's likely they're being too predictable and should mix up their paths and angles back to ledge more (especially if their opponent knows the MU). I admit ES is a bit unwieldy at times, but with enough practice, it's definitely possible to have the mix ups on deck to recover back to stage more safely. Also, it having a hitbox all the way through the move's animation considering the distance it covers could really make it busted and the fact that it even has a hitbox at all makes it not as free of a recovery to edgeguard as you make it out to be. Lucario forces you to take your mix up game in all areas to a new level, but as long as that's on point, he's considerably less exploitable overall.

 

[The_Bookworm]

I am surprised this has not been mentioned yet regarding But the "nerfing " of rage was likely one of the biggest indirect nerfs a character got from the transition to Smash 4 to Ultimate.

The Rage numbers in Smash 4 almost basically gave Lucario "Double Aura" and when he got to damage percents when both his Aura and Rage were nearly maxed out. He could literally kill anyone in 2 hits. I mean there had to be a major fear factor for players once Lucario got to that point.

I believe his worst MU's in Smash 4 were who had easy grab kill-confirms that could easily and consistently deleteLucario's stocks before he reached damage percentages where he could become a threat

It hurts, but it doesn't hurt as much as it would seem since Lucario is still absurdly powerful at high percents.

As for his worst SSB4 matchups, the two grapplers you mentioned are bad matchups but are not his worst.

• overwhelms Lucario easily with his mobility and has KO confirms he can easily pull out to finish his stocks.
• also gives Lucario a pretty rough time. While Sheik's struggle to KO and cheesable physics may seem bad for her, that is literally all Lucario has going for him in this matchup. Sheik completely destroys Lucario in disadvantage and especially in neutral for him to even get anything started.
• Basically anyone with good speed and KO power, such as , can give him a tricky time.
• and especially are also tricky matchups due to their sheer good buttons and KO power.

This is why was hailed as a very inherently inconsistent character: can cheese opponents off very swiftly with high aura, but is a slow character all around in terms of attributes and frame data, as well as often relying on the fear factor of high aura in order to throw off the opponent. It is the primary reason why Lucario, after Tsu-'s splash in the competitive scene during most of 2017, fell off in the metagame in terms of results and representation (which the latter was already low to begin with).

 

[SwagGuy99]

I believe his worst MU's in Smash 4 were who had easy grab kill-confirms that could easily and consistently deleteLucario's stocks before he reached damage percentages where he could become a threat

If I recall correctly, and were considered to be among his worst matchups at some point during Smash 4. I know that he also tended to struggle against other characters who were faster than him, could outrange him, or could kill him early like and .


I will say this about in Smash 4, he had a bit of a weird matchup spread for a high tier, similarly to and where despite having some good matchups against a decent amount of meta relevant characters, they also go even with or lost against certain mid and low tiers while also getting bodied by the top tiers they don't win against.


To bring this back around to , I think in Ultimate suffers from this issue to a greater degree than or do. While a lot of players will point out that he has evenish matchups against and maybe (the latter due to his very glass cannon nature, the rest due to inability to consistently land kills before certain percents sometimes), he also goes even with or loses to a decent amount of random low and mid tiers that either are able to kill him before he gets full use of aura, have better CQC options than him, are heavy enough to survive longer than Lucario on average, have options for dealing with aura sphere, or some combination of these things.


IMO he struggles against and even and might be a bit of a struggle for him just due to their ability to deal with a lot of Lucario's kit and ensure that he can't take full advantage of aura. I'm not saying he does poorly against every mid and low tier (I think he does fine against some like and just to name a few) but the fact that he struggles in a lot of these matchups is not good for him.


One thing I haven't mentioned is how he fares against the top and high tiers. Some are better than others, but there are a decent amount that kind of just destroy him IMO. are all characters that I can say have a pretty good advantage against him which is quite a lot.

He just feels underwhelming when you fight against him as most characters and the fact that you have to put a more time into practicing Lucario to perform well with him (without being properly rewarded in a lot of situations) is likely why he isn't played very much in Ultimate.

Edit: is probably one of maybe 2 to 3 matchups that I'd argue is better in than .

 

[DougEfresh]

and are actually some of Lucario's better MUs, the former due to a neutral that's easy for us to move around with an exploitable recovery (at least in part, but those are two big factors that help us) and a lack of defense on Ridley. He's got big hitboxes but he's slow in the air and still kinda easily camped out with aura sphere even though he's got good ground speed. Getting off the ledge can be hard for both of them and our ledge traps are solid with AS plus they're both combo food, making our coversions more reliable at the earlier percents. is even imo, mostly because her disadvantage isn't the best and she sort of doesn't have the best get off me options to avoid getting combo'd (maybe nayru's love, but that's about it I think). She's also light, so that helps us seal stocks more quickly even if it's still risky. I could go on, but then I feel like we'll all be going around in circles. I understand everyone will have their opinions about him (just want them to be based on as accurate and updated knowledge about Lucario as possible, not taking pro players' tier lists and opinions as gospel), and I'll stick to my guns and say that many things about the character could change as time goes on and more MUs are optimized (plus any potential buffs he may get in future balance patches).

EDIT: just for a fun fact, there's a set with Jeda against Leon's Lucina at a European major that led to the entire region creating an entire "Lucario Counterplay" guide since so many players were fed up with losing against him (this is what Jeda told us himself in the Lucario cord when we used the VOD to discuss valuable lessons and strategies to take away from the set). Just an interesting tidbit to provide some food for thought as this discussion may continue to proceed for a bit. Here it is:

https://youtu.be/lx-EjAZhBq0

 

[AxelVDP]

Rage being nerfed from 4 to Ultimate is a factor, but it's really a rather small one in the scheme of other factors that currently limit him. And AxelVDP shield grab isn't "basically his best option". A more idealized option is to using charge storage cancel to quickly cancel aura sphere while still getting it charged bit by bit and staying mobile and able to whiff punish better. If the lucario player is consistently getting punished for their extreme speed recoveries, it's likely they're being too predictable and should mix up their paths and angles back to ledge more (especially if their opponent knows the MU). I admit ES is a bit unwieldy at times, but with enough practice, it's definitely possible to have the mix ups on deck to recover back to stage more safely. Also, it having a hitbox all the way through the move's animation considering the distance it covers could really make it busted and the fact that it even has a hitbox at all makes it not as free of a recovery to edgeguard as you make it out to be. Lucario forces you to take your mix up game in all areas to a new level, but as long as that's on point, he's considerably less exploitable overall.

by "basically his best option" I did not mean it as in "the best option you should go for", but rather it's his "best" single move to use while in shield. but as you said, not shielding and moving away/using AS is a better option. my whole point was that a Lucario that's forced to shield stuff is in a really bad spot.
Lucario can afford to mix up his trajectory only when he's recovering high-ish (or on wall stages), and he needs aura to get extra distance. in any other case he should get intercepted by a competent opponent/character. swordies have a literally free edgeguard vs Lucario
you have all the time in the world to react to his up B, get in position and hit him - either by going directly after him if he's "close" to the ledge or by simply putting a hitbox on the ledge if he's far away (Lucario's upB slow startup makes this easy to time)
recovering high gives you more mixup opportunities, true, but the risk/reward of these mixups is still heavily unbalanced

 

[MrGameguycolor]

Edit: is probably one of maybe 2 to 3 matchups that I'd argue is better in than .

I want to agree, but sadly Lucario can just jump away and Aura Sphere camp him.
I know, Doc can't have nice things.

Though I will say this was the case in Sm4sh.

 

[DougEfresh]

by "basically his best option" I did not mean it as in "the best option you should go for", but rather it's his "best" single move to use while in shield. but as you said, not shielding and moving away/using AS is a better option. my whole point was that a Lucario that's forced to shield stuff is in a really bad spot.
Lucario can afford to mix up his trajectory only when he's recovering high-ish (or on wall stages), and he needs aura to get extra distance. in any other case he should get intercepted by a competent opponent/character. swordies have a literally free edgeguard vs Lucario
you have all the time in the world to react to his up B, get in position and hit him - either by going directly after him if he's "close" to the ledge or by simply putting a hitbox on the ledge if he's far away (Lucario's upB slow startup makes this easy to time)
recovering high gives you more mixup opportunities, true, but the risk/reward of these mixups is still heavily unbalanced

Fair enough, perhaps I misunderstood what you meant although you did make it sound as if he had no other options (at least for cqc in shield disadvantage) besides shield grab. I can agree that extreme speed is still somewhat exploitable even when both sides know the MU, but I'll just have to disagree that it's a "literally free" edgeguard for the whole cast or even swords (except maybe Shulk, and even then I can't say confidently it's always easy for him) and leave it at that (but who knows, maybe you're right after all, but I don't think there's enough Lucario VODs/data available to analyze at this time to make such a definitive and foregone conclusion about it as you are).

 

[NairWizard]

For those who don't know, WiFi is generally better in Japan, so watching Japanese matches can slake your thirst for offline if you're missing it.

For example, here we see Ron 3-0ing Zackray's Palutena.

Uh. Wait, what?

Zackray obviously isn't playing this optimally, but we can tell that Palutena really struggles with short characters due to her complete lack of a ground game. Ron also has such an interesting style of Kirby--he barely uses crouch at all, and when he goes on offense it's mostly short hop aerials that he's throwing out. In game 3 he sort of realizes that he hasn't been using d-tilt and he's like, "oh, yeah, that's a move."

In general, I think Kirby is seriously underrated and actually does quite well against random top tiers like Roy, Mario, Pikachu, and Palutena. The Shulk MU isn't even bad since Inhale reads are so strong in it.

Sure, he loses to dedicated zoners, but I mean, this game has over 80 characters. You don't have to play your -2 matchups.

 

[Megamang]

What do pro players do that sets them apart vs Snake? Down here at mid-low level, it really feels like Snake has tons of privilege vs nearly everyone. Zoner archetype that actually has amazing kill buttons, frame data, huuuge damage output, f1 trade option for a heavy... its all terrifying.

And he is a terror here, the stats show. But then when you break out to the top top level, he kinda... falls off. I mean he is still a blatant top tier, but as the meta progressed he isn't really winning stuff or making notable upsets. Can someone shed some light on where they exploit him where others' dont?


I just learned his grenades have a different friendly fire hitbox, eg you can both be the same distance away and it won't hurt him, but it will hit you. Learning to space to hit him without hitting grenades is nice, but when I get a rhythm going with this he starts dropping his amazing aerials. Whif punishing is one thing, but due to his weight and grenades it feels like I trade the whole game... and then last hit situations are rough, utilt goes without saying but the grenades and c4 and especially nikita makes these situations feel like 70-30 losing, because if I get tapped im gonna die to nikita if I end up far enough away, but if we trade I have to be terrified to press my advantage because wakeup utilt is really strong and if I try and space around it he hits my limbs..

This sounded more like a complaint than what I intended, im just curious what above falls off at a high enough skill level where pros are comfortable against snake, because I never feel comfortable.

I felt... ok, against Kola. Like he obviously won and there was a skill gap, but pika-roy felt like I had room. Vs his snake i knew I was gonna lose from the first hit. He does better as Roy generally speaking, but against a low-mid level player like me he pulled out the Snake. What are the factors here?

 

[Rizen]

What do pro players do that sets them apart vs Snake? Down here at mid-low level, it really feels like Snake has tons of privilege vs nearly everyone. Zoner archetype that actually has amazing kill buttons, frame data, huuuge damage output, f1 trade option for a heavy... its all terrifying.

And he is a terror here, the stats show. But then when you break out to the top top level, he kinda... falls off. I mean he is still a blatant top tier, but as the meta progressed he isn't really winning stuff or making notable upsets. Can someone shed some light on where they exploit him where others' dont?


I just learned his grenades have a different friendly fire hitbox, eg you can both be the same distance away and it won't hurt him, but it will hit you. Learning to space to hit him without hitting grenades is nice, but when I get a rhythm going with this he starts dropping his amazing aerials. Whif punishing is one thing, but due to his weight and grenades it feels like I trade the whole game... and then last hit situations are rough, utilt goes without saying but the grenades and c4 and especially nikita makes these situations feel like 70-30 losing, because if I get tapped im gonna die to nikita if I end up far enough away, but if we trade I have to be terrified to press my advantage because wakeup utilt is really strong and if I try and space around it he hits my limbs..

This sounded more like a complaint than what I intended, im just curious what above falls off at a high enough skill level where pros are comfortable against snake, because I never feel comfortable.

I felt... ok, against Kola. Like he obviously won and there was a skill gap, but pika-roy felt like I had room. Vs his snake i knew I was gonna lose from the first hit. He does better as Roy generally speaking, but against a low-mid level player like me he pulled out the Snake. What are the factors here?

Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think Snake has a top 20 player solo. Kola's been known to use him but it's not often. Ally retiring is a small part of it. His most consistent player is MVD and he does alright; he beat Maister in a recent tournament iirc. But MVD's not on that top 20 level. A lot of top tiers have top 20 players like Nairo's Palu, etc. Snake has good rep across the board but lacks that top player.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

Speaking of MVD himself he receny posted a Snake MU chart. Where his losing MU's were only and .

What these characters can do is

1: Are fast and mobile enough to weave though his Gernade game and pressure him upclose
2: have specific tools or moves to counter or negate his zoning game
3: Can just beat him in zoning period .
4: Have some combination of 1,2&3

 

[DougEfresh]

I'm no expert on the Snake MU per se, but I imagine that in addition to the traits of losing MUs that Ziodyne mentioned above, characters who have the mobility to get in on him to abuse him in the air due to his slow air speed (both comboing and edgeguarding) can also do quite well against him. Snake gets a lot of respect in large part because of grenades, and of course they should be respected (to a certain extent), but overall people should probably be more willing to take the risks with them to exploit him a bit more (or at least learn what seem to be the most common and appropriate situations the risk/reward ratio is more favorable for their character to choose capitalizing on his usages of grenades). Top players by nature of their experience and confidence in their skill and knowledge of the game are phenomenal at making these types of crucial decisions almost instantaneously. This plus like Rizen said, no super highly ranked PGR player is holding down the helm of the snake meta as a solo main, probably makes the character look not quite as formidable the closer you get to top 10-15 players on the PGR.

 

[|RK|]

Oh, yeah, Lucario.

So, I practiced him for a bit before realizing he was kinda meh and moved back to Kirby. Basically, why he's not great:

- Grab sucks in comparison to S4. Losing shieldgrab as an option in neutral is HUGE

- Oh, and it's frame 7 in this game as opposed to 6 in S4

- Lucario is basically left with Aura Sphere tricks, but his Aura Sphere isn't fast enough (on charge or release) to prevent him from getting cornered

- Now Lucario is cornered, what does he have? Right, a fair that swings upwards -- which is important because it means you can't cover space in front of you as easily

- Slow tilts -- dtilt is pretty decent as far as safety, but still starts on frame 9

- A garbage jab -- frame 7 doesn't save it from being unsafe on shield and at times poor at connecting

- ...And that's about it really. Everything I didn't mention is punishable in some capacity. Oh, he can jump with his solid airspeed and maybe do some b-reverse tricks, but that's easily covered by chars with actual aerials

- All of this is compounded by the fact that you can juggle Lucario pretty consistently, especially from the sides (double team isn't a consistent reversal)

- Oh, and his up b is perhaps one of the easiest to two frame in the game. The slow start-up only gives the opponent time to position themselves, and by the time it goes far enough to actually trick the opponent, you're at high aura. Which is still powerful, BUT

- Lucario is also lighter in this game as is, in addition to everyone doing more damage. So whenever you lose neutral at high aura, you'll be tossed back offstage into a garbage situation where you need to make a read to get back on, then a read to hit your opponent and hopefully take their stock (if your recovery gives you positioning back)

- But hey, Lucario is good in advantage, right? The answer is... kinda. Once you toss that aura sphere, you'd better hope it hits, because you don't really have any juggle potential to speak of. And ledge options in this game being improved somewhat (hello getup attack, in particular) means that your ledge trapping -- while decent -- is not as strong as it once was.

None of this mentions the game itself, and the characters in top tier. Wario was Lucario's worst MU (him or Fox) in S4, and now he's WAY buffed to top tier. ZSS is still top tier, Palutena is now top tier, Joker abuses Lucario almost like Sheik did but now has the power to end stocks with Arsene.

So on and so forth. When I was studying Tsu to try and pick up stuff from his Lucario, I realized that a lot of his wins were just from outplaying the opponent and making hard reads. This character is pretty terrible. Maybe not worst in the game, but MAN is he very, very bad.

Ah well

 

[PURGE THEM LIKE THE]

Learning to space to hit him without hitting grenades is nice, but when I get a rhythm going with this he starts dropping his amazing aerials.

Excuse me but no. He has one good aerial, that being dair, and it's no joker bair or shulk nair. Dair is a decent out of shield option, being a frame 3 move and dealing about 20% but lacking some range. I say some range since the hitboxes are slightly larger than they appear and he's able to move while using it. Characters do fall out of the move sometimes still. Bair may also be used out of shield, but it's significantly slower at frame 7, and it may miss some short characters.

His aerials are all mad unsafe to use in neutral because of a combination of bad frame data and his garbage air mobility. None of his aerials autocancel out of a short hop. His safest aerial on shield is up air at -10 when landed perfectly. This move hitbox is super narrow and will likely never be used in a match. Nair can be as safe as -11 for the strongest hit but more realistically will get interrupted before then. Shield grab this move. Fair comes out so slowly (frame 23) that I think you may be able to dodge it on reaction. It's also -23 on shield. Shield grab it or up smash it. Terrible move. Bair's startup and hitbox placement are fine. It also lingers a long time and may stuff out a jump occasionally. However, it's still -13 on shield at best. I believe this move pancakes snake on landing (can't remember, correct if wrong), so don't shield grab if you're a tall character. Dair has brilliant startup, but its hitbox placement limits it to only being useful out of shield. It's also -17 at best if snake manages to land after using it. You may be able to drop shield and fsmash or dsmash this move if you have a fast one.

None of snake's aerials autocancel out of a shorthop.

Snake's air mobility is horrible. His air speed is the 57th best, below piranha plant and ivysaur. His air acceleration is the worst in the game, tied with simon and richter. When snake jumps and uses an aerial, you know exactly where he's going. There is no mixup. No matter how he aerials you, you WILL be able to block and punish.

 

[NairWizard]

Excuse me but no. He has one good aerial, that being dair, and it's no joker bair or shulk nair. Dair is a decent out of shield option, being a frame 3 move and dealing about 20% but lacking some range. I say some range since the hitboxes are slightly larger than they appear and he's able to move while using it. Characters do fall out of the move sometimes still. Bair may also be used out of shield, but it's significantly slower at frame 7, and it may miss some short characters.

His aerials are all mad unsafe to use in neutral because of a combination of bad frame data and his garbage air mobility. None of his aerials autocancel out of a short hop. His safest aerial on shield is up air at -10 when landed perfectly. This move hitbox is super narrow and will likely never be used in a match. Nair can be as safe as -11 for the strongest hit but more realistically will get interrupted before then. Shield grab this move. Fair comes out so slowly (frame 23) that I think you may be able to dodge it on reaction. It's also -23 on shield. Shield grab it or up smash it. Terrible move. Bair's startup and hitbox placement are fine. It also lingers a long time and may stuff out a jump occasionally. However, it's still -13 on shield at best. I believe this move pancakes snake on landing (can't remember, correct if wrong), so don't shield grab if you're a tall character. Dair has brilliant startup, but its hitbox placement limits it to only being useful out of shield. It's also -17 at best if snake manages to land after using it. You may be able to drop shield and fsmash or dsmash this move if you have a fast one.

None of snake's aerials autocancel out of a shorthop.

Snake's air mobility is horrible. His air speed is the 57th best, below piranha plant and ivysaur. His air acceleration is the worst in the game, tied with simon and richter. When snake jumps and uses an aerial, you know exactly where he's going. There is no mixup. No matter how he aerials you, you WILL be able to block and punish.

I think that he’s talking about juggling Snake, not neutral. Snake isn’t safe on shield but bair and nair are pretty rough to navigate without a disjoint if you have to attack from one specific spacing (to avoid grenade), and you also have to worry about fastfall up air if you’re floaty. If you’re trying to juggle him out of shield then he’s just going to land for free with a b reverse.

You make a good point though that Snake’s neutral options are pretty limited sans grenade. His lack of shield safety is definitely something to abuse in the matchup.

To answer your original question Megamang the difference is just in how well top players abuse Snake’s disadvantage. You have to be able to end Snake at super early percents. The last-hit situations that you’re talking about won’t happen half the time because Snake lost his stock at 70 already.

Pikachu is the wrong choice for the matchup unless you are very consistent with your edgeguards. Average air speed and limited aerial disjoint with weak multi hits for multiple aerials isn’t super strong at catching Snake so you need to be on point with setting up dairs and hitting the Cypher at the right time. It seems like a +1 for Snake and if you’re not gimping him as early as 30 to 50 once per match then maybe +2.

Pick a character with a disjoint (though maybe not Shulk or Roy) and the matchup is worlds easier. The flowchart is:

1. Force Snake to go high by threatening a gimp if he tries to go low. Should be straightforward to do this, you don’t even need to hit him.
2. Bait an option with air movement when he recovers high. You only need to prepare for two out of three options: b reverse grenade, grenade, and fastfall airdodge, approximately in that order of priority.

Since you have a disjoint you’re not that concerned about his aerials, but in case you are just consider that all of Snake’s aerials are huge commitments so conditioning him into using a lingering bair or super long multi hit dair by jumping without fast falling a couple of times and then suddenly switching up your fastfall timing is very useful. Getting hit by an aerial once won’t lose you your stock but Snake getting hit by a Lucina bair because he chose to nair might lose him his, so Snake turning to his aerials is a net win for you long term.
3. Hit him once, then commit all of your resources into terminating his stock. Killing Snake horizontally is significantly easier than spiking him or killing him vertically (either top or bottom blastzone).

If you’re feeling really malicious, you can also use Joker in this matchup. Wins neutral, up b is super strong for catching Snake in the air, and grenades are Arsene food. Once Arsene is out Snake doesn’t make it back to stage.

 

[Lacrimosa]

A more European-looking tier-list (notice the char on top) from Greward, potentially the best player in the world, but most definitely in Europe:

huh pic.twitter.com/ypmBQG3MjA

— Greward (@Greward3) April 24, 2020

 

[The_Bookworm]

A more European-looking tier-list (notice the char on top) from Greward, potentially the best player in the world, but most definitely in Europe:

huh pic.twitter.com/ypmBQG3MjA

— Greward (@Greward3) April 24, 2020

This tier list, while odd, is interesting to look at.

Without any notable Robin players in the Europe, it is somewhat understandable that he would put him that low in the tier list.
While I think the character isn't very good, it is interesting that he would put him in bottom tier and right below . I don't there has ever been any successful solo Hero players in high level play.
The character is ranked notably low. While there is not too many Duck Hunt players making big rounds in Europe, Raito is one of Japan's most constant visitors to Europe and generally places pretty well there.
Are very interesting. For the former, Rage has obtained some decent results in Europe, but is ranked as the absolute worst character. For the latter, Inkling is ranked pretty low when you consider the strong results Space brings to Europe.
As expected, due to the lack of any notable Pikachu players in Europe, Pikachu falls just short of top 10.
Despite the tier list coming from the best PPlant player from Europe, he interestingly thinks that PPlant is low tier himself.


There are however, two places that leaves me the most curious:
Being ranked in high tier. The only notable Mii Brawler players in Europe, at least listed in SmashWiki, is Regerets and Narayan, the former doesn't participate in a lot of tournaments and uses a bunch of different characters, while the latter doesn't really place all that well.
Being ranked in mid tier, despite there being pretty much no (at least listed) notable Puff players in Europe, and also being ranked higher than in the region where Jesuischoq exists.

 

[SwagGuy99]

A more European-looking tier-list (notice the char on top) from Greward, potentially the best player in the world, but most definitely in Europe:

huh pic.twitter.com/ypmBQG3MjA

— Greward (@Greward3) April 24, 2020

Some things that I personally noticed

• There's a pretty decent gap between and .
• This is probably the lowest I've ever seen on a top level players list, and I can get behind it. This character is much more polarizing than a lot of people thought initially and I think that that is a pretty solid spot for Inkling given her inconsistent results and polarizing design.
• is ranked at 6th. His placings on non-Japanese tier lists keep getting steadily higher and he definitely has the results to back it up.
• in Top Tier is a hot take. She has some pretty bad losing matchups in Top and High Tier, but her consistent results in Europe are likely good enough to back up her being this high despite that.
• is ranked much lower than we usually see him, which given that there aren't really too many notable Bowser players in Europe (as far as I know), it makes sense I guess.
• Same applies to as to Bowser.
• I'm used to seeing in bottom 3 on most European Tier Lists, so I'm actually kind of surprised that's not where she is tbh.
• being in bottom tier is a really hot take. IMO Hero isn't very good, but the fact that with favorable RNG he can turn matches in his favor very quickly makes me think that he's probably somewhere in low tier at least.

 

[BitBitio]

A more European-looking tier-list (notice the char on top) from Greward, potentially the best player in the world, but most definitely in Europe:

huh pic.twitter.com/ypmBQG3MjA

— Greward (@Greward3) April 24, 2020

My personal thoughts on this list:

and have some of the least results of any characters anywhere, especially in Europe, and yet both are higher than characters like and , all of which are borderline top tier IMO. Speaking of , I still think he’s better than , and also is far too low relative to them (they should all be around the top of high tier).
I like those placements, all are high tiers with top tier potential.
In what universe are , two of the characters with the least results whatsoever, especially Europe, better than , , and . Mewtwo should be in low tier by and . Puff is like, bottom 5 because it has no range, a terrible ground game, poor killpower, bad combos, and terrible survivability. Puff is the most overrated character in the game.
Surprising that is so low considering Choq is chillin in France.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

Some things that I personally noticed

• There's a pretty decent gap between and .
• This is probably the lowest I've ever seen on a top level players list, and I can get behind it. This character is much more polarizing than a lot of people thought initially and I think that that is a pretty solid spot for Inkling given her inconsistent results and polarizing design.
• is ranked at 6th. His placings on non-Japanese tier lists keep getting steadily higher and he definitely has the results to back it up.
• in Top Tier is a hot take. She has some pretty bad losing matchups in Top and High Tier, but her consistent results in Europe are likely good enough to back up her being this high despite that.
• is ranked much lower than we usually see him, which given that there aren't really too many notable Bowser players in Europe (as far as I know), it makes sense I guess.
• Same applies to as to Bowser.
• I'm used to seeing in bottom 3 on most European Tier Lists, so I'm actually kind of surprised that's not where she is tbh.
• being in bottom tier is a really hot take. IMO Hero isn't very good, but the fact that with favorable RNG he can turn matches in his favor very quickly makes me think that he's probably somewhere in low tier at least.

Europe has QuiK. Who I believe is ranked the #2 player in Europe afterr Gluttony. So it makes sense how the competive scene there would see Samus in higher regard

 

[Y2Kay]

Lucario is a fine and good character, he’s a regular mid tier whose meta is crippled by a community stigma. That’s about it.

 

[|RK|]

Naw, in S4 people thought he was a mid tier with some people (like myself, ZeRo, and Tsu I think) believing he went as far as top tier.

Mid tier is vastly too generous in this game. If I'm to give you my most honest opinion, I think he's worse than Kirby. Though Kirby has more volatile MUs, he also has more MUs he's solid in. Lucario is bleh across the board, and is an all-rounder, so it's harder to notice his struggles. Kind of like S4 Pit in that regard (who was probably also low tier).

 

[ARISTOS]

Lucario in Smash 4 had an incredible ground game, sporting essentially the same initial dash & dash-to-shield frame data as Cloud (also known for good movement) tied with the best frame 6 grab in the game (as |RK| mentioned). This allowed him to whiff punish a lot of things most S4 characters could not and his confirms off grab were very good.

His dash frame data is still very good but with everyone getting access to better movement and the huge nerfs of grabs across the board his gameplan has taken a huge hit.

 

[DougEfresh]

Lucario is a fine and good character, he’s a regular mid tier whose meta is crippled by a community stigma. That’s about it.

You pretty much summarized my exact thoughts on the whole matter of the character, though he still does need some fixes to his kit before I'd consider him "fine". There's almost no American representation of Lucario at high levels of play besides Vivi (who like Jeda, doesn't travel to big majors outside of his region) and US top players have always had more pull when it comes to influencing community perception of the rest of the cast (for better or worse). He'll probably always be misunderstood and even underestimated to a degree in this game unless something major happens to him in one of the balance patches, but I've really tried taking the time to help clarify and educate people on Lucario as a main of the character, so hopefully people's opinions about him are at least a little more well-informed now that I've done my best with that. I'm gonna let this topic go for a while though, as I think the discussion around him is outliving its usefulness and we're all just committed to our convictions about him one way or another regardless at this point.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Naw, in S4 people thought he was a mid tier with some people (like myself, ZeRo, and Tsu I think) believing he went as far as top tier.

Mid tier is vastly too generous in this game. If I'm to give you my most honest opinion, I think he's worse than Kirby. Though Kirby has more volatile MUs, he also has more MUs he's solid in. Lucario is bleh across the board, and is an all-rounder, so it's harder to notice his struggles. Kind of like S4 Pit in that regard (who was probably also low tier).

in terms of how people saw him in the metagame was... weird to say the least.

The gist of it is that people saw him as a decent character at first (with an actual sizable playerbase), but then Lucario's notable players began becoming more and more inactive (or dropped him altogether) to the point where he was not seen very highly. Then Tsu- came along and reversed a lot of people's opinions. The memories of Frostbite 2017 still leads some people today to view him as a high tier. But then after 2017 (and after the last official tier list), Tsu- didn't really do much at all, not attending much, not placing as well, and using secondaries more often. At the same time, the other characters officially ranked below him in the top 20 (Peach, Falcon, Luigi) and some characters not officially ranked in the top 20 (such as Olimar, DK, Mega Man, Ness, Duck Hunt, and more) exceeded Lucario's placements by a considerable margin.

So SSB4 Lucario's metagame presence is just as inconsistent as the character itself.
I was initially going to turn this into a multiple paragraph-long history lesson on Lucario's place in SSB4's metagame, but I decided to simply it.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As for , the character was actually going to get a sizable playerbase at first (with ANTi interested in maining the character). But then patch 2.0 came around with the Aura Sphere change, which pretty much killed all the playerbase momentum the character was going to get, which never recovered despite 3.1 essentially reverting that change and giving him a lot of other helpful buffs.

It seems that the downturn of results Lucario was getting towards the end of SSB4 has transitioned into Ultimate, and despite getting some solid results here and there (especially from Tsu-), his reception right now is definitely more consistently negative right now.

I personally see Lucario either at the bottom of mid tier or at the top of low tier, as opposed for being a mid tier in SSB4 and a high tier in Brawl. He has some solid stuff, but the stars must align for all that to happens.

In terms of improvements, I think he simply needs his grounded buttons to be faster in startup, Aura Sphere to be released sooner, and maybe more weight. Afterwards, I think he should be fine because the buffs he got from SSB4 (much faster aerial mobility and stronger low %) has made him an inherently less inconsistent character than in SSB4. He just needs some polishing on some essential areas since he is not as jank reliant anymore.

 

[NotLiquid]

Can't call that a tier list from a European perspective when Inkling is ranked 29th despite Europe's third best player being an Inkling main.

And as much as I can respect the notion that Terry rests on the borderline (if only due to really only having one notable achilles heel), the notion that he's half a tier better than Inkling is highly questionable to me.

 

[Cheryl~]

A more European-looking tier-list (notice the char on top) from Greward, potentially the best player in the world, but most definitely in Europe:

huh pic.twitter.com/ypmBQG3MjA

— Greward (@Greward3) April 24, 2020

One thing that's confused me recently is the placement of Duck Hunt on tier lists. Now back in the EVO 2019 days most people had him in high-tier since Raito had some amazing results but it seems after that the character has only been going lower and lower. I can see why, as Raito is definitely the only player carrying Duck Hunt's meta right now (imo every other top Duck Hunt like Vintendo, Wisdom, Paint aren't really top level and will rarely get the results at majors like Raito has) and even his results aren't as consistent as they used to be. Duck Hunt as a character seems very inconsistent in a game where most characters have crazy kill options and his best way of taking stocks is either walling the opponent to 160% or more, or getting a good Up-Air or Smash Attack read. That flaw coupled with his light weight and meh disadvantage state definitely hurts DHD, but I also don't get why players are putting them as far as low-tier given his past results which clearly show that DHD can thrive still, but needs an immense amount of effort to do so. Imo he seems like a good high mid-tier, can do great in certain matchups and has some nice top-tier ones like Peach, but generally takes too much effort for the inconsistent reward. He's always a treat to watch, at the very least.

also Smash 4 Lucario was most definitely high-tier at least but that's the past, and in the now, Lucario sucks ass.

 

[bc1910]

Does anyone really want Lucario to be good? His various nerfs, buffs and tweaks in the transition to Ultimate haven't changed the fact that his design is fundamentally the most idiotic in the game by a significant margin.

Let him languish at the bottom of the tier list. I'd honestly rather buff Mac.