Fabulous Empire: The Marth and Lucina Game Play Coalition

[Shaya]

So just because I can (with board hax), and I feel that our two characters are especially correlated by both userbase, mains, interest and inherent design I want to try having this run alongside both boards. Let's try to figure out together what our differences and similarities are. Alongside that the likelihood of us sharing mechanics means we can share various insight on how you think things will work for us in this game. I feel the conversation will be rife on both boards individually, so we may as well all be on the same page and work congruently.

As Lucina hasn't been available in any demos thus far, she is still relatively unknown. The latest streams don't give us much clarification, other than seemingly being 1-2% damage extra on her entire sword to Marth's middle hits. I saw a full hop fair auto cancel I thought, or it could have less landing lag.

So what are we looking for?
Landing lag differences,
Animation differences,
Attack differences: She could have moves which have an extra hit (Falco's Up Smash hits twice), different trajectory or completely different hitbox (although as all hitboxes are tied to the sword usually and animations are pretty similar this may not be likely).

I think there may be merit in us having a shared match up discussion during the early stages too, as I feel there may be lightly varied differences in how they get played out. The characters one is weak against will likely be the same for the other, if frame data is pretty much the same between us.

Not a social in any way. Game play observations or discussions of those directly only.

 

[ぱみゅ]

Stealing the second post here and looking forward for this project.

So far we've only seen Marth's newly gained landing lag and Lucina's apparent lack of it, but footage is still not enough to make conclusions.

 

[Katakiri]

Lucina's Damage Values:

Jab - 4.75% (First Jab) (4.75% 2nd Jab)

Forward Tilt - 9.9%

Down Tilt - 8%

Up Tilt - 6.6%

Forward Smash - 14.8% (Uncharged), 20.5% (Fully Charged)

Down Smash - 9.7% (1st Hit Uncharged), 13.3% (1st Hit Fully Charged), 14% (2nd Hit Uncharged), 19% (2nd Hit Fully Charged)

Up Smash - 17.5% (Uncharged), 24% (Fully Charged)

Neutral Air - 2.34% (1st Hit), 6.67% (2nd Hit), 6.67% (Backswing)

Forward Air - 8%

Back Air - 9.99%

Down Air - 11.4%, 13.3% (Spike Hitbox)

Up Air - 9.99%

Neutral Special - 8% (Uncharged), 21.8% (Fully Charged)

Side Special - Dancing Blade
Damage Values Neutral Combo: 3.3%, 3.3%, 4.3%, 5.3% (16.2% total)
Damage Values Up Combo: 3.3%, 3,3%, 4.3%, 6.3% (17.2% total)
Damage Values Down Combo: 3.3%, 3.3%, 3.3%, 2%, 2%, 2%, 2%, 4.3% (22.2% total)

Up Special - 11% (Strong Hitbox at start), 7% (Weak Hitbox near end)

Grab / Pummel: - 2%

Forward Throw - 4%

Back Throw - 4%

Down Throw - 5%

Up Throw - 4%

Final Smash - Critical Hit - Damage Values: 60%

 

[Shaya]

My eye couldn't help but go OOOH DOWN TILT.

Looking pretty good on Lucina, honestly looking about the range I'd expect it to be (if not better), and if Marth's is the same I'm pretty happy.

The camera perspective is warped between the two shots, so it isn't 1:1 scale.
I'm pretty sure you get the general idea (the Mii is in hit lag) of her body's extension (the ground shadow is probably an okay indicator) and the Mii was in the earliest frames of his dash attack (slight move forward) in the frame preceding. Pinkish line is the furthest it looks the sword outline reached.

Marth's down tilt animation in Brawl for comparison

The video also showed an Up Smash that seemed to have an extremely large frontal feet hitbox, but that could also be the guy's propensity to spam dash attacks.
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2fNUare-vg)

 

[Katakiri]

Lucina and Marth seem to have the same running speed, walking speed, air speed, and air momentum shift speed.

They can also both short hop F-Air, B-Air, and Up-Air without landing lag.

The only differences I'm noticing between the two is that Lucina does 1% - 2% more damage than Marth if he doesn't tipper his attacks. Also Marth's F-Air tipper hitbox is REALLY small compared to previous titles. The rest of his tippers seem about on par with Brawl but F-Air is difficult to time correctly.

 

[Katakiri]

EDIT: This was meant for the other thread. My bad.

 

[Wintropy]

Does her playing style differ at all from Marth's? As in, do her natural differences separate how she and Marth engage with other characters?

 

[Katakiri]

Does her playing style differ at all from Marth's? As in, do her natural differences separate how she and Marth engage with other characters?

Not in the slightest. They are identical bar damage numbers and knockback. Marth has more damage and knockback when he tippers but less damage and knockback when he doesn't compared to Lucina's set damage. It's kinda lame but that's what we're working with.

 

[Dagduh]

People streaming have been saying Lucina seems a little bit faster. Any validity to this?

 

[IceAnt573]

Is there any hope for different custom moves from Marth?

 

[Raziek]

Tagged. I have some of Marth's customizations, but none for Lucina yet, so I don't know if they are different.

Marth's Counter 3 gives him a dash forwards like Shulk does, but I think it may shorten the counter window.

Marth's Shield Breaker 3 guts the damage/KB on the move, but gives it a significant dash. On YI:B it travels about half the stage uncharged, and close to the full distance when charged.

 

[MLSword]

Lucina's upsmash is different from marths/ way better

 

[TeaTwoTime]

Tagged. I have some of Marth's customizations, but none for Lucina yet, so I don't know if they are different.

Marth's Counter 3 gives him a dash forwards like Shulk does, but I think it may shorten the counter window.

Marth's Shield Breaker 3 guts the damage/KB on the move, but gives it a significant dash. On YI:B it travels about half the stage uncharged, and close to the full distance when charged.

Seems to me that Lucina's and Marth's custom moves are the same, and none of them sound especially interesting. Oh well.

 

[Raziek]

Lucina Up-B 3 removes the attack on Dolphin Slash, but gives it about 1.5 times the distance.

You can make it out of the literal bottom of the Battlefield blast-zone with DJ -> Side-B Hop -> Up-B.

 

[Ryuutakeshi]

Lucina Up-B 3 removes the attack on Dolphin Slash, but gives it about 1.5 times the distance.

You can make it out of the literal bottom of the Battlefield blast-zone with DJ -> Side-B Hop -> Up-B.

Wow. Lucina can fly apparently.

 

[Raziek]

Lucina/Marth Shield Breaker 2 is a tornado at the end of the sword. The damage is neutered, but it has a pretty large and strong wind-box.

I think SB 3 will probably be best for recovery purposes. SB1 might still be good, depending on how applicable actually breaking shields is.

Dancing Blade 3 gives it even more range and damage, but even worse start-up. 4th hit upwards roofed Sonic at FIFTY on Battlefield.

DS2 is a near-horizontal slash with a sweetspot at the end of the slash, not the start. Might be able to combo Fair -> DS2 for a kill around 120. Will need testing with human opponents.

Counter 2 has longer catch window, longer recovery, less damage.

 

[Shokuryu]

Hey, I'm zxelman from gamefaqs, and I decided to take up on someone's offer to post some data here. I'll just copy and paste what I put from there to here. If you want to see the topic and replies there, just search for topic title. It's the same.

This is a long post.

Alright, so I was curious about the difference between Marth's sword and Lucina's sword. So I kept track of the damage and knockback differences between their swords.

First, some damage samples from these two. KEEP IN MIND, DAMAGE FLUCTUATES. Sometimes I do 1% or 2% more damage, sometimes I do 1% or 2% less. That's how much of a difference I get. I always try to list the highest number that I see, but keep that in mind that's it not consistent.

Notes:
Charged means 100% charged FYI.
And ALL these stats were recorded from hitting the Villager. So both characters are hitting the same enemy.

Lucina:
Side Tilt, 10
Down Tilt, 9
Up Tilt, 7
Down Air, 13

Side Smash:
uncharged, 15
charged, 20

Neutral Special:
uncharged, 8
charged, 22

Next, I introduce two different scenarios with Marth for both uncharged and completely charged. With Lucina, I only recorded one scenario for each because it didn't matter where I hit with her sword. With Marth, the tip of his sword did more damage, while not hitting with the tip AT ALL does less damage. This means you MUST hit with the sweet spot to get the extra damage AND knockback. There is no in-between. You get the sweet spot, or you don't. This damage also fluctuates by 1/2 percent time to time.

Marth:
Side Tilt, 12 with tip, 9 without tip
Down Tilt, 10 with tip, 7 without tip
Up Tilt, 9 with tip, 6 without tip
Down Air, 14 with tip, 11 without tip

Side Smash:
uncharged, 18 with tip, 13 without tip
charged, 25 with tip, 18 without tip

Neutral Special:
uncharged, 9 with tip, 8 without tip
charged, 24 with tip, 22 without tip

What to taked from this data:
As you can see, Marth has potentially the highest damage, but can also hit the lowest. Lucina BARELY hits higher than Marth without the tip. HOWEVER, this data does not tell you how much knockback each of them are doing. And let me tell you, Marth's knockback without the tip, is pathetic, but with the tip, AMAZING. Lucina's knockback is decent no matter how you hit the enemy.

Now in these next stats, I introduce what percentage it takes to knock the Villager off COMPLETELY, not giving a chance to recover. I give two spots where I kill the Villager from on the Final Destination stage. One on the very right side of the stage where it makes the Villager looks like he's tumbling, and the other in these pictures.

imgur(dot)com/iHDWN7I ---This pic details exactly where I put the Villager each time.
imgur(dot)com/AMMB3mN ---This pic details how big the stage is and how far the screen goes.

The 2nd pic will be the "specific mark" that I am referring to in the data. Keep this in mind.
I only record the Side Smash for now for both characters, since this is kind of tedious work to setup and organize in comparison to the data above.

Lucina's Side Smash:
Uncharged:
On very right side/specific mark
77/128 to kill

Charged:
48/82 to kill

Marth's Side Smash:
Uncharged:
45/88 with tip, 100/158 without tip

Charged:
24/64 with tip, 68/110 without tip

So with the above data (and hopefully with the pictures), you can estimate how much knockback is being done by both Marth and Lucina.

In Summary:
If you are really good at spacing and timing, you can predict where the enemy can be at all times, and you like to play a "keep-away" game for maximum kill chance, Marth is your person out of the two.
If you are up against fast characters who are all over the place, making it tough to space and time your attacks, OR you'd rather not have to play a little mind game in your head and just want to focus on getting many hits in with decent knockback, Lucina's your person out of the two.

 

[Shokuryu]

I see my post got moved.

Well, the top half data has already been mentioned, but I hope the bottom half is helpful to some.

 

[Phantom High]

Thanks @ Shokuryu
it really does seem like Lucina plays like an aggro Marth..

 

[Raziek]

Dancing Blade 3 gives it even more range and damage, but even worse start-up. 4th hit upwards roofed Sonic at FIFTY on Battlefield.

Confirming Marth has the same thing, but it kills even earlier, because it has a tipper hitbox.

 

[Shaya]

We have the 9 queue move decay in this game, stuff in training mode are going to be killing a lot later in matches.

Unless you're telling me it's killing at 50 in proper matches, then holy damn, Marth is saved.

 

[Raziek]

I'll check into actual vs. mode %'s later, but I won't really be able to do that with just one copy.

Also, I wouldn't say it saves him, haha. It's a loooot slower, and the early swings don't combo into the later ones for the super strong version.

 

[Shaya]

Well it's probably going to be the same deal as in Brawl then. Dancing blade tipper upwards killed "fresh" at like 70%.
Early testing seems to show that the way move decay works is the same as Brawl.

 

[Severn]

Very interesting thread, as a Marth main i'm considering weather or not to switch to using Lucina mainly (Though i'll probably end up using both, depending on how i'm feeling). I kind of like how she is more rush-down, was never the best at spacing with Marth and fully utilising tipper.

It's interested me ever since I saw Lucina's reveal, but can her Dair spike from anywhere on the hit? or do you have to hit it in a certain area like Marth's tipper or Roy's base?

 

[Shaya]

Both characters have to tipper to spike with their down airs, I don't know if Lucina's has any different properties or if its weaker/stronger.

 

[Shokuryu]

Both characters have to tipper to spike with their down airs, I don't know if Lucina's has any different properties or if its weaker/stronger.

This is correct.

More info on the down airs, Lucina's spike is pretty much almost identical to Marth's, but she swings in a slightly bigger arc. Marth's spike is still slightly better as far as I can tell.

Also, if the spike is not landed for either character, Lucina's knockback is better, but not by much. You'd still want to spike with the tip of your sword, or simply knock them away with side air over missing the spike.

 

[C.J.]

@ Shokuryu the reason you're getting fluctuation in %age done is because of stale moves so before you use a move just run off the stage to ensure that the move is completely fresh.

That being said, can you make a list of Marth's aerial's damage please?

 

[Freelance Spy]

@ Shokuryu
That being said, can you make a list of Marth's aerial's damage please?

And Lucina's! Also I'd like to see the differences between specials. One thing I REALLY need to know is whether or not Shield Breaker can pop shields in one hit or not. If anyone can confirm Shield Breaker's shield pressure I'd like to see all versions...

It seems Marth/Lucina haven't gotten as much coverage as other characters as far as move properties go. If I had a Japanese ds I'd post them myself.

 

[Unicorn]

And Lucina's! Also I'd like to see the differences between specials. One thing I REALLY need to know is whether or not Shield Breaker can pop shields in one hit or not. If anyone can confirm Shield Breaker's shield pressure I'd like to see all versions...

It seems Marth/Lucina haven't gotten as much coverage as other characters as far as move properties go. If I had a Japanese ds I'd post them myself.

Shield Breaker can break shields in one hit, yes. Even completely uncharged it takes the shield down to a pretty low level, and with just a bit of charge on it or previous shield damage, you can get a broken shield pretty easily. It should be a great tool to punish landings since you can't air dodge into the ground and if you try to shield it then you get broken.

I'm thinking Shield Breaker 1 will be better than it's custom replacements because of this. Marth gets a free fully charged tipper f-smash which obviously kills quite nicely. I haven't seen any footage of SB2 or 3 so if they turn out to be good then I will edit this post to make it seem like I predicted that they might good replacements. I have seen footage of SB1 though, and it looks pretty powerful.

 

[Freelance Spy]

Shield Breaker can break shields in one hit, yes.
I have seen footage of SB1 though, and it looks pretty powerful.

That sounds great. I wish I could find someone streaming Marth or Lucina.

 

[Phantom High]

I think who is better really comes down to preference. I'll be using Azen and Ken, two of the most prominent Marth users at their time.

Azen is cool, calculated, and will retaliate when ever he can. He's cool as a cucumber. In this event, will be perfect for him since he's such a spacer.

Ken,from what i understand, is such an aggro Marth. While he does space for tippers, he wants to dictate the match. He does so by being incredibly offensive. In this scenario fits him like PB&J.

 

[Freelance Spy]

I think who is better really comes down to preference.

Marth IS one of those "mood characters" if you feel like playing Marth a certain way then you can (with enough time invested into him of course) pretty much get away with playing in that way.

I feel like Lucina won't exactly be as much of a preference thing, she'll probably be used as well as by most (sane) Marth mains as a counter character. For instance if she really is better at aggro then I'd pick her to counter the insanely high amount of brand new super long range spacers we just got. Or when someone picks Bowser I would feel safer going Marth.

I'm thinking that I may also pick up shulk as he seems kinda Marth-esque... We'll see about that later though.

 

[zer0.]

I've been watching a lot of streams as I dont have a retail copy and I belive that people doing well as marth/lucina in this early days is due to the fact that they are very similar to marth in brawl and their style is a bit rough to play against if you dont know what tools to use. I'm waiting to see a good dk/d3/shiek/wario/mk vs marth/lucina, i think those are pretty interesting matchups. Idk, i just feel like people arent abusing the fact that if you can outspace a marth he cant do ****.

Edit: And how do you guys feel like having a bunch of FD-like stages will influence marth/lucina performance?

 

[Unicorn]

I've been watching a lot of streams as I dont have a retail copy and I belive that people doing well as marth/lucina in this early days is due to the fact that they are very similar to marth in brawl and their style is a bit rough to play against if you dont know what tools to use. I'm waiting to see a good dk/d3/shiek/wario/mk vs marth/lucina, i think those are pretty interesting matchups. Idk, i just feel like people arent abusing the fact that if you can outspace a marth he cant do ****.

Edit: And how do you guys feel like having a bunch of FD-like stages will influence marth/lucina performance?

We had all better have secondaries to take out Duck Hunt Dog... that guy is the most nightmarish match-up I can imagine. Some people's projectiles, like Samus, we can just fair through, but not DHD's. He has spacing tools that will be really tough to get past. This will be exacerbated by having a bunch of FD's. On the Wii U version we'll have more stages though so that shouldn't be too much of a problem.

 

[Gawain]

I think who is better really comes down to preference. I'll be using Azen and Ken, two of the most prominent Marth users at their time.

Azen is cool, calculated, and will retaliate when ever he can. He's cool as a cucumber. In this event, will be perfect for him since he's such a spacer.

Ken,from what i understand, is such an aggro Marth. While he does space for tippers, he wants to dictate the match. He does so by being incredibly offensive. In this scenario fits him like PB&J.

I don't really think it's that cut and dry. Why can't Marth play the exact same offensive game? There's nothing stopping him.

 

[TeaTwoTime]

I don't really think it's that cut and dry. Why can't Marth play the exact same offensive game? There's nothing stopping him.

It just comes down to the freedom that not needing tippers allows. Marth can play up-close and aggressively, certainly, just as Lucina will still need to space to take advantage of her range; however, both are slightly better suited to their particular style of gameplay.

 

[Gawain]

It just comes down to the freedom that not needing tippers allows. Marth can play up-close and aggressively, certainly, just as Lucina will still need to space to take advantage of her range; however, both are slightly better suited to their particular style of gameplay.

But what I'm saying is that a good Marth won't be out of the tipper zone unless he wants to be, to have less knockback for followups etc. So there's nothing really stopping him from playing rush down by comparison.

 

[Rich Homie Quan]

But what I'm saying is that a good Marth won't be out of the tipper zone unless he wants to be, to have less knockback for followups etc. So there's nothing really stopping him from playing rush down by comparison.

I don't think he's going to want to play rush down, on balance. Seems like Marth will be a pretty defensive character given the fact that spacing is rewarded with marginal damage and tipped moves send people further away.

 

[Wraeith]

I don't think he's going to want to play rush down, on balance. Seems like Marth will be a pretty defensive character given the fact that spacing is rewarded with marginal damage and tipped moves send people further away.

Well, based on a few early impressions and the analysis Shokuryu posted above, Marth's non-tipper damage is only slightly less than Lucina's. Given this, I think if the knockback on non-tippers permits it, Marth may still very well be better suited for following up, while Lucina's knockback isn't hindered or punished for missing the tip, meaning she has a wider margin for error on spacing kill moves.

With that said, I'm quite sure any difference between the two characters will be minimal and largely chosen based upon specific match-ups or personal preference. Even still, I'm quite interested to see the difference in full detail and test them myself.

 

[Circa]

Would someone who has the game be willing to do some investigations on how exactly the side-b works with Marth in this game? We already have the percentiles for Lucina, and it's made me mighty curious.

Lucina's side-b dishes out 16-22% in total, and it seems pretty easy to connect the first hit and follow up with the rest. If you're losing 1-2% on every non-tipper strike with Marth, and getting a tipper during the sequence almost always breaks it, then that would be one thing Lucina does better.