Lucario+ (Aura Extraordinaire)

[KarateF22]

LUCARIO

(a work in progress)​

Hello fellow Lucario players! As you have probably noticed, Lucario is an awesome comboer in Brawl+, probably in the top five concerning the ability to combo... Lucario's combo prowess and ability to chain virtually all his non-killing moves is a great asset to him.

CHANGES

-Lucario Double Team 2x winddown (slightly less worthless now, try to land some KO's with it)
-Lucario upB softlanding endlag 20x (basically 0 lag, MAYBE 1 frame)
-Lucario upB travels 25% faster
-Freefall modifier: Yoshi, Ike, Lucario, and Pit do not go into freefall after a special (can't use upB more than once though)
-Lucario utilt BKB increased to 50 from 43
-Lucario dair first hitbox now has a set knockback and no KBG
-Lucario Up and B works 1.5x faster
-Character Specific Momentum Settings: Lucario: 75%
- Lucarios Short Hop is 90% of its original, his full hop is 2.5% higher, and he fastfalls 20% faster.

I copy all this from the changelist, so it should be accurate.

COMBOS

Jab + jab + forcepalm - Great way to start a forcepalm chaingrab, or just deal extra damage.

Jab + jab + grab - Similar to above, though this allows you to uthrow into your aerial game.

Fair+fair+fair etc. - Great for damage racking, can often finish with nair or dair. On stages with small side boundries, you can literally fair chain them to death.

short hop nair + dash short hop nair etc. - Works great, but only on stage... Can shift into a fair combo at the end.

Utilt + uair juggling trap - unsweetspotted utilts and uairs can be stringed together for a long time to do vast amounts of damage to the opponent.

Uthrow + utilt/angled up ftilt/fsmash depending on DI, or any aerial - Our swiss army knife, makes getting grabbed by us a dangerous prospect as it sets the opponent up for getting the sh*t comboed out of him.

TECHNIQUES

1. Extremehog - This is now useful with the update to extremespeed. Execution is simple: Wait until the opponent must use up+B to recover. Then while standing on the stage, execute extremespeed and hold the direction towards the ledge and down. If done correctly Lucario will snap on the ledge due to his massive sweetspot on his up+B, effectively edgehogging them. Due to the new updates, you can now use an aerial if you miss then proceed to recover with your second jump and extremespeed (yes, again). *UPDATED 5/4/09*

2. Force Palm Pseudo Chaingrab - This actually got a bit of a buff due to increased hitstun, allowing it to be done a little longer on some character. Works only on low to mid percents, you basically spam side+B... dashing towards the opponent if need be. It CAN be broken out of, which is why it is not a true chaingrab. You can set up the Force Palm chaingrab with an upthrow on some characters, though the most common way to set it up is jab+jab+Force Palm.

3. Jab Canceling - On some characters this is useless, but for Lucario its actually pretty useful. This also goes in the "mindgames" section due to it being partially prediction. Anyways, jab canceling is hard without buffer, so if your just starting to use it i recommend putting buffer to 10 frames. Normally, when jabbing lucario does punch punch kick, three hits. However, when you jab cancel you can do punch punch punch punch punch punch, etc, and can finish with a smash or simply finishing the jab combo. It is done by doing his first and optionally his second jab, then tapping down on the control stick very briefly to make him crouch for a split second. This resets his jab counter back to the first jab, and takes him out of the sequence. This is useful of Lucario's low knockback on his first two jabs, allowing him to continue a jab onslaught for long periods.

4. ExtremeAwesome - Extremespeed got a massive buff in the recent patch, it went from a recovery only move to a swiss army knife that has a myriad number of options. Not only does it start faster and move faster, you can now attack after the end of it and if you have yet to use your second jump, use it. If you start Up+b from the stage while on the ground, it gets refreshed upon use due to starting on the ground... so you can use it again. This makes for some wicked edgeguard options, like Extremespeed + dair/fair/bair/uair, jump, pursue with another attack or return to stage, Extremespeed back to stage if you used jump to purse. You can also chase after someone knocked upwards.... Lucario can move faster vertically than anyone atm... because you can use two up+b straight up back to back if you start from the ground, then use a uair or any other aerial... and you'll still have your second jump! Experiment with this guys... Extremespeed just became a key part of our playstyle. Another thing to note is that an extremespeed that ends moving up gets a very small upwards boost after the end of it that can help with recovery.

MINDGAMES

In this section we will talk about psychological ploys you can use to trick your opponent into a disadvantegeous situation. Lucario has some mindgames, but not many new ones in the transferrence from vBrawl to Brawl+.

1. Nearly Full Aura Sphere (NFAS) - An excellent mindgame, as people often forget about that Aura Sphere you were charging if your arent blinking with awesome cosmic POWAAAAAH!!! But seriously, dont ALWAYS fully charge that thing. Cut it just short from time to time and unleash it when your opponent least expects it. Excellent way to get a surprise kill.

2. Aura Sphere conditioning - This basically means, making your opponent EXPECT to get Aura Sphered, but proceed to not do so and hit them for being foolish enough to defend against nothing. Firing an Aura Sphere at a safe distance so they reflect typically puts them into the right mindset for this mindgame This mindgame works best against those with reflectors like fox, falco, wolf, etc.

3. Jab Canceling - As mentioned above. The jab canceling can make an opponent waste his shield or simply do the wrong reaction.

VIDEOS

Videos concerning Lucario matches, guides, and technique demonstrations will go here. Note that only quality videos will go here. If you wish to submit one, please PM me... include the names of the people fighting and who is playing which character.

Ninjalink (Lucario) vs. 10chars (Mario) - good stuff, be sure to watch at 1:40 for a well done Lucario combo.
Chudat (Ice Climbers) vs Meep (Lucario) - nice fight between two experienced players, title is wrong, but its not mine so i can't fix it.
5ive (Lucario) vs. ??? (Ganon) - nice and close match, shows some good Lucario combos.

MATCHUPS

Scale: Neutral is 50:50 to 55:45, Advantage is 60:40 to 65:35, Counterpick is 70:30 to 85:15, **** is 90:10 to 99:1

MetaKnight: 50:50 (Neutral); pages 3-4
Marth: 45:55 (Neutral, Marth's favor); pages 4-5
ROB: 45:55 (Neutral, ROB's favor); pages 6-7
Sheik: 50:50 (Neutral); pages 7-8
Captain Falcon: 60:40 (Advantage, Lucario's favor); page 8
Snake: 45:55 (Neutral, Snake's favor); page 9
Pikachu: 45:55 (Neutral, Pikachu's favor); page 9-11

I will make this post look nicer as times goes on...

 

[5ive]

is an awesome comboer in Brawl+, probably the best... only Marth and maybe Metaknight come close to Lucario's combo prowess

I disagree. Lucario is indeed buffed though.

 

[Roxas215]

Lucario good? Hell yes. Arugably best? Umm not imo. Fox zss and tl are by far better.(Of course this is just from my experience)

I will say in the right hands(though this could be for any char) Lucario is godly. Like the top said he can chain all of his non killing moves very fluently. I feel with his floatiness though he gets comboed alot(when im zss i get off 40% combos easy)

 

[KarateF22]

I disagree. Lucario is indeed buffed though.

Well, ill change it if more people disagree.

*EDIT* Ok changed, i still think he is top five concerning combo ability though.

 

[Samuelson]

Lucario is okay in Brawl+

It's hard to say if he's better or worse. You can do some pretty cool things out of Uthrow though.

 

[nightSN]

back in vbrawl lucario had to space alot more then in brawl+
lucario now is all about combos and juggles.
so like Samuelson said its hard to say if hes better or worst

 

[KarateF22]

back in vbrawl lucario had to space alot more then in brawl+
lucario now is all about combos and juggles.
so like Samuelson said its hard to say if hes better or worst

Combos are the staple of Brawl+... excelling at combos typically makes you a very good character... especially since lucario DOES have decent kill moves like dair, bair, nair, fsmash, sometimes utilt, uair, etc.

 

[Sudai]

Lucario has low percent chain grabs. It's kind of situational as you need your aurasphere partially charged and it gets better when Lucario's at 55-60% but starts to do less actual percent around then.

UThrow > Charge Aura Sphere for one hit > Cancel into grab. You have to follow their DI so you can charge the aura sphere and still have them in front of you to be able to grab them. Pivot aura charge is actually pretty easy once you get use to it and you have to pivot it if they cross over since hitting with it, canceling, then turning and grabbing is -not- fast enough.

After the chain grab your aura sphere should be pretty charged so you can go through with one of two combos. UThrow > SHFF UAir > FH UAir > falling aura sphere. If close enough to the edge it can KO, but that will be rare if your opponent knows to DI the UAirs into the stage. This will put them off stage though and Lucario's edge guarding is top notch.

If they DI into the stage you're probably better going with , UThrow > SHFF UAir > FAir strings and if you're good enough at reading DI, it's possible to end with an aura sphere again.

Lucario has some pretty massive grab combos. The best part is, they don't have to be started at 0% and if your aura sphere isn't charged a bit (I always leave mine partially charged just for this when they're below 40%, actually.) you can replace the aurasphere charge with jabs/utilts (hitting with the end of the UTilt animation) or straight up regrabs depending on how floaty they are, but I've found this is not nearly as reliable.

Also, after a bit in the chain grab, you might have to SHFF the aura charge to follow your opponent's DI. I'm not sure exactly where you need to do this but just stepping usually works until the opponent's at 35% while Lucario's at 0%. You'll probably just have to get a feel for this.

PS. We though DAir was amazing in vBrawl? Super duper edge guard against everyone but the few that can still auto-snap. :x

 

[KarateF22]

Lucario has low percent chain grabs. It's kind of situational as you need your aurasphere partially charged and it gets better when Lucario's at 55-60% but starts to do less actual percent around then.

UThrow > Charge Aura Sphere for one hit > Cancel into grab. You have to follow their DI so you can charge the aura sphere and still have them in front of you to be able to grab them. Pivot aura charge is actually pretty easy once you get use to it and you have to pivot it if they cross over since hitting with it, canceling, then turning and grabbing is -not- fast enough.

After the chain grab your aura sphere should be pretty charged so you can go through with one of two combos. UThrow > SHFF UAir > FH UAir > falling aura sphere. If close enough to the edge it can KO, but that will be rare if your opponent knows to DI the UAirs into the stage. This will put them off stage though and Lucario's edge guarding is top notch.

If they DI into the stage you're probably better going with , UThrow > SHFF UAir > FAir strings and if you're good enough at reading DI, it's possible to end with an aura sphere again.

Lucario has some pretty massive grab combos. The best part is, they don't have to be started at 0% and if your aura sphere isn't charged a bit (I always leave mine partially charged just for this when they're below 40%, actually.) you can replace the aurasphere charge with jabs/utilts (hitting with the end of the UTilt animation) or straight up regrabs depending on how floaty they are, but I've found this is not nearly as reliable.

Also, after a bit in the chain grab, you might have to SHFF the aura charge to follow your opponent's DI. I'm not sure exactly where you need to do this but just stepping usually works until the opponent's at 35% while Lucario's at 0%. You'll probably just have to get a feel for this.

PS. We though DAir was amazing in vBrawl? Super duper edge guard against everyone but the few that can still auto-snap. :x

I will put that in once a few people verify that it is indeed a chaingrab with DI... Im going to need volunteers. As for Dair as an edgeguard tactic, ill put that in now.

 

[Dark Sonic]

Sudai is way too good. I just might have to pick up Lucario after seeing all that stuff (charge aurasphere->cancel grab chaingrab? WTF?!)

 

[shanus]

never thought to charge aura inbetween chaingrab, too good sudai

at low percent following uthrow fair nair regrab also works well.

fair fair regrab works on floats and SHFFL fair utilt uair juggles as well

 

[GameSystem]

Lucario counters falco. His crawl completely nullifies the SHDL and dtilt can hit him out of phantasm if he tries to use it to run away. For some reason Falco has a really hard time setting up kill moves because of Lucario's physics. You will easily enjoy aura bonuses. GRAB PUMMEL AT HIGHER %! It does huge damage with aura and with no damage staling you can add on like 30% from a few seconds. Lucario's grab pummel is super fast. Like when you are both at high %, don't even throw him, just grab pummel until he breaks out and he'll be in killing range with the next hit. Charge an aura sphere and throw it at long range against him. Falco will try to reflect it. Let him. Now he has it in his head. Charge another one later on and get into position to use it. Don't use it and bait him into using reflector and punish it with whatever because it's super laggy. Dair ***** him when he tries to combo you in the air. You can also mess around with down b when he tries to do phantasms.

 

[KarateF22]

Lucario counters falco. His crawl completely nullifies the SHDL and dtilt can hit him out of phantasm if he tries to use it to run away. For some reason Falco has a really hard time setting up kill moves because of Lucario's physics. You will easily enjoy aura bonuses. GRAB PUMMEL AT HIGHER %! It does huge damage with aura and with no damage staling you can add on like 30% from a few seconds. Lucario's grab pummel is super fast. Like when you are both at high %, don't even throw him, just grab pummel until he breaks out and he'll be in killing range with the next hit. Charge an aura sphere and throw it at long range against him. Falco will try to reflect it. Let him. Now he has it in his head. Charge another one later on and get into position to use it. Don't use it and bait him into using reflector and punish it with whatever because it's super laggy. Dair ***** him when he tries to combo you in the air. You can also mess around with down b when he tries to do phantasms.

Im not going to start matchups yet, I will probably start them on Sunday... making them a weekly thing. Thanks for the contribution though.

 

[shanus]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkiu258pubQ

Watch at 1:45

 

[KarateF22]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkiu258pubQ

Watch at 1:45

Im going to add that to the video section shortly... who was fighting there?

 

[goodoldganon]

Ninjalink
10chars

 

[KarateF22]

Video link is up.

 

[Sudai]

I will put that in once a few people verify that it is indeed a chaingrab with DI... Im going to need volunteers. As for Dair as an edgeguard tactic, ill put that in now.

I'll do some more testing on the ASCG once I go home this weekend, but I'm 90% confident it works right now. I play with people that have been playing competitively since Smash 64 and are very proficient at DI. I know that doesn't mean much to you guys, but yeah. I'll try to get video of it recorded this weekend. Cursing myself for selling my recording equipment right now..but I know people that can get it recorded for me. XP

 

[KarateF22]

I'll do some more testing on the ASCG once I go home this weekend, but I'm 90% confident it works right now. I play with people that have been playing competitively since Smash 64 and are very proficient at DI. I know that doesn't mean much to you guys, but yeah. I'll try to get video of it recorded this weekend. Cursing myself for selling my recording equipment right now..but I know people that can get it recorded for me. XP

I believe you, however, with something that at least SOUNDS as complex as you are saying, Id like a youtube .

 

[Sudai]

Nono, I get that. At worst I should be able to get a replay file for someone else to upload by the end of this weekend. I'd like to get actual video footage of it though so I can put in comments and explanations. but chyeah. Looking forward to getting the video to you guys. :o

 

[KarateF22]

Ok guys, we are going to start having Match-up discussions this Sunday. I need everyone to post, in order, who they think the first three characters we should talk about are. I will do this every three characters to ensure the most important matchups are dealt with first. While I recommend that you chose the matchups that you believe trouble Lucario the most, you may choose whoever.

My opinion is:
1. Metaknight
2. Marth
3. Captain Falcon

What about you guys?

 

[IC3R]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkiu258pubQ

Watch at 1:45

O____________O

That combo was well executed. Lucario is indeed a Combo King.

 

[KarateF22]

O____________O

That....

Was..........

SICK!!!!!!

Please contribute to the discussion. More specifically, look at the post above you. Sorry, but stuff needs to get done and i dont need my post lost among other posts.

 

[IC3R]

Please contribute to the discussion. More specifically, look at the post above you. Sorry, but stuff needs to get done and i dont need my post lost among other posts.

Rawr.



In my opinion, the best approach to Brawl+ matchup discussions should be to start with whoever the character played the worst against in vBrawl. But...seeing as the vLucario matchups are far from completion, why not just start with:

1. Metaknight <<< This should be a given
2. Snake
3. Marth

 

[Sudai]

Re Aura Sphere Chaingrab: It doesn't work. There's a few specific percents where it can work, but it's not worth learning, especially since with a little bit of good SDI, they can use the aura charge to pop out of your grab range. Sorry to get anyone's hopes up.

As for the match-up discussions, I'm going to suggest we do the characters I know the most about just so I can contribute. >.>

1) Toon Link
2) Squirtle
3) Fox

 

[|RK|]

If D-Throw is less DIable, then he has been buffed to the max.

 

[shanus]

KarateF22, I recommend you try out the latest nightly build because I think you will be pretty excited.

Cough upB no special fall cough cough

 

[Sudai]

Wait...we can attack out of Up-B now?

 

[Deleted member]

yes we can, and it turns out that lucario even has wing refresh

 

[Sudai]

....................................................
*dies*

#_#

 

[|RK|]

Oh, what? No helpless after ES? Lucario is sooo broken in B+...

 

[KarateF22]

Oh, what? No helpless after ES? Lucario is sooo broken in B+...

Not really, he is the only character in the game with a damageless upB that goes into helplessness... Its not that broke. In B+ his recovery is still just as gimpable, just less gimpable in relation to others... the non-damaging part stillr eally hurst it.

 

[Sterowent]

hey, guys.

with the new code, you can't jump out of the tumble, but if you AD or use an attack, you can use your second jump if you haven't already.

with that out of the way, here's something pretty interesting. If you JC your upB onstage(can't use it on the ground), and stay near the ground, like let's say on BF or FD, then you can do anything at the end, with pretty much no lag. Let's say you JCXS(don't know the acronym for this move, but look! Caps!) on FD, horizontal to the ground. at the end, you should be able to smash, tilt, dash, another upB, whatever you want! up to you to figure out how useful this is, but was worth mentioning, guys.

another juicy tidbit: if you do this, and fly off the stage, you can upB back. Yes, that's right. You can upB from your upB so long as it was skimming the ground(can use double jump too).

is this awesome?

Edit: Okay, if you're on a stage like brawl's Yoshi's, just hold down some near and/or during the end and it'll smooth out...This is easy on any buffer.

 

[jalued]

yeah, the new changes to lucarios up b is really really good. as in, it makes lucario actually feel unique finally to other characters, and not just in the shadow of mewtwo

i love upb skimming along the ground behind opponent and then fsmashing, its fun :D

also, cause u dont go into helplesness now after ur up b, it opens up alot more combos and really deepens his metagame, he is basically a different character now, and i REALLY like!! lucario is fun wooo

all this from 1/5 update (or 5/1 depending on if ur american or british)

 

[KarateF22]

Lucario Vs. Metaknight

LUCARIO VS. METAKNIGHT MATCHUP

Time to discuss mach tornado... er... i mean... meta knight! Be sure to talk about both good and bad, and be as objective as possible. The point of this is not to make Lucario look better, but to learn what to watch out for and what to do against him. You may also give your rough estimate on the matchup though it may or may not be taken into account. Use the ratio format if you wish to say where Lucario stands against him.

Matchup estimate - 50:50 (Neutral)

Lucario's advantages
-Extremespeed shenanigans
-Better range in some cases, better at comboing for the most part
-Very good at comboing Meta Knight due to a combination of his floatiness and our aerials' trajectories
-Can outcamp metaknight with projectile
-Lives long enough vs. Metaknights weakened attacks to utilize aura property

Meta Knight's advantages
-Superior edgeguarding game, though not near as good vs. lucario than before due to our ability to defend ourselves
-Superior grab range, very good dashgrab
-Good OoS options
-Has better GTFO moves
-Better at racking damage, though if he doesn't act fast this quickly backfires

Things that are useful against him
-Fsmash (outranges everything he has)
-Dair can outprioritize tornado at higher percents
-His floatiness allows Lucario to abuse the hell out of his aerial combos
-Our new upB is ideal for getting past Metaknight's edgeguard game due to our ability to attack to get him off us
-Aura sphere spam, using that and the fact that many of our attacks have better range we can force him to come to us and punish his approaches if he happens to make a mistake

Things to watch out for
-He has transcendental priority just like us
-Tornado
-His uairs can chain together quite a few times, especially at low percents
-UpB is still a good move, as is dsmash, despite the nerfs
-Nair (can kill)

MATCHUP DISCUSSION CLOSED
The above tag signifies that Metaknight discussion is over and will not be talked of again unless there is a significant change in either character's game.

 

[storm92]

Hm, that could mean as far as edgehogging goes, Luc could easily end the ES above the hogging enemy, Dair them to knock them/pressure them off the edge, and as it stalls, grab onto it?

 

[Rkey]

Hey, karatef22 is actually the threadstarter, nice karate ^_^ and hi, sup?

I don't get what softlag x20 on up-b means, does it mean that the up-b on ground has like no endlag or what?

Oh, and versus MK: "Mr. Malevolent Knightmare" can't kill as early now as he used to be able to, right? And MK's a light character... If MK doesn't capitalize Lucario early, he will have serious troubles since Lucario will probably get some real power going.

 

[Deleted member]

it means that his aerial cooldown (also straight horizontal over stage) is reduced to almost 0.

 

[KarateF22]

Hey, karatef22 is actually the threadstarter, nice karate ^_^ and hi, sup?

I don't get what softlag x20 on up-b means, does it mean that the up-b on ground has like no endlag or what?

Oh, and versus MK: "Mr. Malevolent Knightmare" can't kill as early now as he used to be able to, right? And MK's a light character... If MK doesn't capitalize Lucario early, he will have serious troubles since Lucario will probably get some real power going.

If you do up+B horizontally, as in completely horizontally or end your up+b going horizontally on the ground... there is NO end lag and you can instantly do anything.

Another cool thing to note is that if you start up+b from the ground (MUST be on the ground when it launches) you can immediately do another up+b, or attack, jump, up+b, etc. Tehre is also a bug with up+b where if you dont leave the ground you cannot up+b again til you jump.

 

[Rkey]

If you do up+B horizontally, as in completely horizontally or end your up+b going horizontally on the ground... there is NO end lag and you can instantly do anything.

Another cool thing to note is that if you start up+b from the ground (MUST be on the ground when it launches) you can immediately do another up+b, or attack, jump, up+b, etc. Tehre is also a bug with up+b where if you dont leave the ground you cannot up+b again til you jump.

Wow, stakesauce. No wonder people call it "Super Saiyan" ^_^