Lucaryu Official Discussion thread

[Mr.Pickle]

So is the way lucario's aura system builds based on the damage he does, or is there an unseen value tied to certain moves?

 

[CORY]

just damage, though there are modifiers attached to whether the attack hits or is shielded ( i can't remember them off the top of my head. 1.4 for on hit and .8 for shielded? something like that...)

the only caveat is that grabs (both normal throws and sideb), pummels (i believe), and aura sphere don't build meter. so if you've been racking up damage with aurasphere zoning and grabs, you're not getting meter.

 

[Mr.Pickle]

Ah ok then I've got another question, is the first aura charge gained when he gets 50% or 40%? The tests I've done yield 40%, but I've heard its supposed to be 50%.

 

[Magus420]

Each charge is 50 aura. You gain aura when connecting non-projectiles/throws/pummels at the rate of 0.6x Damage to shields & hitboxes, and 1.2x Damage to hurtboxes.

 

[CORY]

1.2x Damage to hurtboxes.

this is an important point, btw. you get aura for hitting shyguys, balloons, flesh-things on norfair, etc...

 

[Mr.Pickle]

Ok now it makes sense, it doesn't translate to the exact damage you do, there is a formula to it.

Gaining aura from stuff like balloons and shyguys is a good thing to note, its like how ivy can heal herself with them.

 

[Spiffykins]

You can also OHC when you hit them, which I always enjoy doing. Lucario is top tier at popping balloons.

 

[GunBlaze]

Although entirely unrelated and purely for lolrific purposes, can the PMBR make Lucario's FS a Raging Demon-styled move?

 

[Spiffykins]

Does anyone else think it would be pretty sweet if dash attack had a vBrawl-like angle, that is, an angle that sends diagonally behind? It would need to have relatively high base knockback and low hitlag so following up wouldn't be stupidly easy even at high percents, but other than that I don't see any issue with it.

 

[Tero.]

Sooo I picked up Lucario again
Gotta do some training first or else he's no fun :/

 

[Spiffykins]

Sooo I picked up Lucario again
Gotta do some training first or else he's no fun :/

The only character I've ever enjoyed without any training was Mario. Lucario is still the best -ario though.

 

[zman804]

I've heard people mentioning B-Reversing as a good tool. How exactly does it work? As far as I can tell, you press the opposite direction your character is facing right after you use a move in the air.

 

[GunBlaze]

I've heard people mentioning B-Reversing as a good tool. How exactly does it work? As far as I can tell, you press the opposite direction your character is facing right before you use a move in the air.

Fix'd

 

[Strong Badam]

B-reverse is right afterward.

 

[Spiffykins]

I've heard people mentioning B-Reversing as a good tool. How exactly does it work? As far as I can tell, you press the opposite direction your character is facing right after you use a move in the air.

I wish there was more consensus in the community about this terminology. B reversal is sometimes used to refer to, as gunblaze said, pressing the direction you aren't facing right before using a B move so that your character turns around without significantly altering your momentum. This is a tech that's also in Melee and frequently sees use when Sheik players want to quickly jump forward, turn around midair with a reverse needle cancel, and grab a ledge.

B reversal is more commonly (as far as I can tell) used synonymously with wavebouncing, which is when you use a B move in either direction, regardless of which way you're moving or facing before you use it, and then reverse it.

This is useful for Lucario for three of his specials: side B, down B, and neutral B. If you hit someone's shield with a well spaced fair while moving forward and you want to avoid getting punished, rather than pressing down B away, you can down B in the same direction you're moving and then reverse it. Down B preserves your horizontal momentum during the startup, so this allows you to use that momentum to move yourself away from the shield sooner.

You can also use this to help you get side B grabs, or make them happen in favorable positions (for example right above a platform). Let's say you hit with an early fair and your opponent is behind you in the air while you're moving forward. You can side B forward and then reverse it so that you move toward your opponent with the side B. You can even side B behind you and still reverse it, for example if you're in the same situation near the ledge and you want to be facing it when you grab them so your side B spike sends them off the stage.

Finally, for neutral B, I use this mostly as a general mobility tool in the air by cancelling the aura sphere right after reversing it. Lucario has very poor aerial mobility, so this is really just a small trick to help you maneuver in more sporadic and unpredictable ways. I also enjoy firing reversed super aura spheres just for the lolz.

I hope this was clear and not TOO tl;dr and gave you an idea of some of its applications for Lucario.

 

[drsusredfish]

this is an important point, btw. you get aura for hitting shyguys, balloons, flesh-things on norfair, etc...

waddle dees and waddle doos charge aura too. I think link/TL bombs charge aura too since they have a hurt box but i haven't tested out the bombs cause its a bad idea.

 

[Aenglaan]

I feel that while Lucario does well against the Star Fox characters, he has a very difficult time with Sheik. Lucario just seems to be a magnet for combos when he's facing against Sheik, given she has much faster moves.

 

[Spiffykins]

Well yeah, if your name isn't Fox or Falco, it's a safe bet that you're gonna get wrecked by Sheik. Lucario is a combo magnet for a lot of the cast to be honest. He has the same height and weight as Luigi, falls much faster, and doesn't have a frame -2 nair to break 'forced' combos.

 

[CORY]

so, something i've come to notice and use a lot more often lately is usmash-dj-nair. it seems to work on almost every character, regardless of fallspeed (and damage, technically, since the usmash hits are fixed knockback) and deals about 25%.

it can also be a kill setup, if you can somehow land the initial usmash, since nair is one of lucario's better kill moves, as well; though, granted, that's much less likely since the normal setup for usmash is dash attack, and at kill percents, the dash attack usually throws the opponent too far away to follow up with usmash...

 

[Spiffykins]

so, something i've come to notice and use a lot more often lately is usmash-dj-nair. it seems to work on almost every character, regardless of fallspeed (and damage, technically, since the usmash hits are fixed knockback) and deals about 25%.

it can also be a kill setup, if you can somehow land the initial usmash, since nair is one of lucario's better kill moves, as well; though, granted, that's much less likely since the normal setup for usmash is dash attack, and at kill percents, the dash attack usually throws the opponent too far away to follow up with usmash...

This is a step in the right direction and I'd be happy if more Lucarios at least did that, but I think up smash has more potential than that. Setting up tech chases over platforms with it is much better than just going for a nair in my opinion, and the ideal situation is more like final hit usmash > fair/nair/uair > side b. If that's unreliable, the first hit of dair can be used instead, and at higher percents obviously the last hit of usmash will send them too far. Even if pure guaranteed percent is your game and you don't want to bother with tech chasing, I'm pretty sure first hit dair > side b does more than just nair. You can also use it to reliably set up uair > up b > uair kills against non-fast fallers, and side b spikes if you're near the ledge.

So yeah, up smash is basically the shiz and if you're not using it a lot, you're using it wrong.

 

[CORY]

haven't messed around (or honestly even considered : O ) usmash-jc-dair-fp. that might work pretty well, actually, but i'm not sure if it can be di'd out of easily or not. the reason i like usmash-jc-nair is that it literally works on everyone (from my limited playtesting, i know it can work on fastfallers up to zelda; whereas, in 2.5 you could usmash-fp everyone without a problem to set stuff up, and that won't work on anyone past maybe marth in2.5b).

and i personally don't care for fp tech chase setups in general. you're usually too negative on hit (for lack of a better term) and in the air, which is an awkward place to try and tech chase as lucario. setting one up over a platform is pretty damned baller, though, i'll admit. i'll have to start thinking about that one more...

 

[Darkgun]

So I stumbled upon this idea a day or two ago, but I haven't exactly had a chance to test it... has anyone played around with jab resets using Lucario? In theory, it should work gosh darned great, and assuming I'm not crazy, I've been usin' them without my knowledge to help extend the length of the oddly effective [jab>]dtilt>utilt>repeat.

Edit: Ohnowait. I played around with it a bit more, and it appears as though I did not properly comprehend what a jab reset was, so yay for having not used them before and butchering the definition. Jab resets don't seem to be very easy to work into. I found that in most cases it was better to just dash attack into an opponent and start up the combos again. With that in mind, when I did manage a proper jab reset on an opponent, it set them up excellently for FP, any smash, or moar combos, so that's nice. I'd be willing to bet that one could SH FP, jab reset, repeat. At least until your opponent manages to tech. Might not work on the smaller cast members....

 

[Spiffykins]

haven't messed around (or honestly even considered : O ) usmash-jc-dair-fp. that might work pretty well, actually, but i'm not sure if it can be di'd out of easily or not. the reason i like usmash-jc-nair is that it literally works on everyone (from my limited playtesting, i know it can work on fastfallers up to zelda; whereas, in 2.5 you could usmash-fp everyone without a problem to set stuff up, and that won't work on anyone past maybe marth in2.5b).

The first hit of dair doesn't really send them anywhere so the only variable is SDI, and I don't think you need to worry about that too much. Also I'm pretty sure up smash > side b still works just fine on everyone, it's just not really worth doing unless it's to spike them, in which case there's really no reason to do anything else unless they're at a low percent where the spike won't kill them.

and i personally don't care for fp tech chase setups in general. you're usually too negative on hit (for lack of a better term) and in the air, which is an awkward place to try and tech chase as lucario. setting one up over a platform is pretty damned baller, though, i'll admit. i'll have to start thinking about that one more...

I agree, it's really only worth doing over platforms. If you do it way up in the air on FD or whatever, they can easily DI+tech away and you have no hope of getting another hit, not to mention they can meteor cancel.

I'm thinking about making a video demonstrating some of this stuff, along with some up b cancel shenanigans. It will just be camera pointed at tv, doing it in training mode or against a CPU, but it's something.

 

[IceDX]

lucario needs his fair to side b back (i know it has it still but not as good)


and he needs to have his shiny pokemon color btw

 

[CORY]

Also I'm pretty sure up smash > side b still works just fine on everyone, it's just not really worth doing unless it's to spike them, in which case there's really no reason to do anything else unless they're at a low percent where the spike won't kill them.

usmash-fp doesn't work on non-ffers (maybe only works on non-floaties). it just doesn't link up anymore, due to the additional startup frames.

something that i was noticing after my last practice session is uthrow at lower percents, especially on ff-ers, sets up pretty solidly for tech chases.

 

[Tero.]

I've been getting Usmash Side B on most of the cast apart from super floaty ones

 

[Darkgun]

O.K, so I seem to have stumbled across a nifty few tricks with Aura Bomb, namely that it can be used with two separate windup times and that one can simultaneously reduce their exposed hurtbox, drag a huge hitbox across the ground, and move, all while using Aura Bomb.

Startup control.
Traditionally, when using a charge, one will use a special and then interrupt the special with A, correct? This also, naturally, applies with Aura Bomb, however the speed of the startup can be somewhat controlled by when you press A. All I've found so far have been two separate extremes, which I'm fairly certain are the only ones possible: traditional Aura Bomb(B>A) and rapid Aura Bomb(B+A, almost, if not simultaneously). Rapid Aura Bomb, which likely needs a better name, skips (or speeds through) the act of bringing the ball to it's apex above Lucario, therefore using the attack sooner.

Sliding Aura Bomb
This is probably well known already, but using Aura Bomb while close to the ground from a jump will cause the lower half of Lucario's body to clip through the stage until the attack is thrown. This act also carries momentum, therefore allowing one to slide across the stage slowly. I've found that with a traditional Aura Bomb, this can be performed both forwards and backwards, and can be reversed. Additionally, it can be used to slide off of platforms and ledges, which can enable interesting Aura Bomb heights and approaches.

I'll leave the "behold the potential" part of the post out, though I will say that as mentioned either earlier in the thread or elsewhere, Aura Bomb is a great follow up to usmash, and as I've found the Rapid Aura Bomb seems even better. Sadly, isn't a workaround for floaties, though.

 

[Spiffykins]

usmash-fp doesn't work on non-ffers (maybe only works on non-floaties). it just doesn't link up anymore, due to the additional startup frames.

something that i was noticing after my last practice session is uthrow at lower percents, especially on ff-ers, sets up pretty solidly for tech chases.

I'm 99.9% sure it does, you just need to jump first. If nair comes out on frame 10 and side b comes out on frame 12 iirc, it should be fine. You can even jump back and b reverse so you're moving forward when it comes out and you cover more area, making it harder to DI out of.

I'll leave the "behold the potential" part of the post out, though I will say that as mentioned either earlier in the thread or elsewhere, Aura Bomb is a great follow up to usmash, and as I've found the Rapid Aura Bomb seems even better. Sadly, isn't a workaround for floaties, though.

Tr00f. I sometimes forget about that. I gotta say, kill setups for Lucario are pretty weird and you need to think outside the box a little to come up with them, but maybe it's not quite as limited as some people (including myself) thought.

 

[CORY]

jumping out of usmash to fp? you know, that honestly never crossed my mind >< i was still functioning in 2.1 mindset where you could just ohc it and get the fp. one more thing to remember : p

 

[CORY]

so something that just popped into my head, and maybe a pmbr member will happen around here:

why does lucario not get aura from pummels/throws? i can understand projectiles (from the technical standpoint and the hypothetical balance one, if it were possible), but are throw/pummels a coding limitation or something you guys decided against?

 

[Dinowulf]

As a new lucario player myself i noticed that to. Also Do you guys have any advice on setting up the Aura Bomb specials into a combo?

 

[Darkgun]

Everything in red is disproven in my following post.

I would like to assume the reason Aura isn't rewarded off of throws as a way to encourage the use of the Magic combo moves. Visually, this is represented by the fact that all aura generating moves have the aura visual effect (spare ES... huh), though this definition is somewhat broken by the fthrow and uthrow.

Looking at it from a theorized balance perspective, gaining aura off of throws would enable Lucario to easily gain charges off of an incredibly safe action, one that could be so easily performed that it might break the "weak defense for awesome offense", min-max style that Lucario seems to have. Looking at a specific instance, some of the chain grabs are almost, if not perfectly safe and generally extend to 30% damage (I would test this now, but I am not currently able), where as some of the more extensive chain grabs extend beyond 50% damage, and from what I've recently found, can set up into either an grounded or areal (which can then potentially be jab reset or dair'd into a grounded) FP (or alternatively any other fairly lethal non Aura Charge move, for that matter.). The design seems to lend itself towards all proper aura generation being defined as some form of risky, even if the move seems somewhat safe by Lucario standards. Looking at the chain grab specifically, I would presume (theorycrafting, ho!) that aura generation off of grabs would show incredibly unstable (to the point of being gimmicky) matchup improvements across the cast, the least of which would be from floaties, and then the most from spacies and other FF.

I do however personally like the idea of gaining Aura off of pummel, however. I can see it being a rather effective way of giving Lucario a better kill potential at higher percents due to how long one can grapple an opponent (though I suspect it would lead to a conflict in design similar to the above). That, or rather than gaining aura off of an opponent, being able to change the pummel timing to that of Brawl for the duration of the grapple by consuming an Aura Charge (B>AAAAAtoinfinityandbeyond!).

Post updated: Information that has changed will appear in green.

As a new lucario player myself i noticed that to. Also Do you guys have any advice on setting up the Aura Bomb specials into a combo?

Do I!? On probably my favorite high risk, high reward, incredibly versitile, and flipping awesome looking move?
Sadly, I do not. I'm tempted to post a lovely thread detailing all the things I've found that you can do with Aura Bomb, but putting it in a combo? So far I haven't found much....

If I were in a position to test this, I would. In fact, I may come back and correct this post after I do test it. But I have no access to a copy of Project M at the moment so I'll just wrack my brain for this one with some educated guesses. [Hey! I did go test this! And here's what I found.]
>First note: Spacies (Test dummy: Wolf) and fast fallers are toast. They fall ever so gracefully into just about any Aura Bomb setup, so once you get them high enough that they won't touch the ground before you get one off, an utilt that is OHC into Aura Bomb (going to start abbreviating that now) should combo reliably. Bigger characters, due to size alone, may also face this painful fate, though I think sooner, since many of them fall at around average or below fall speed.
>Conversely, floaties will almost never set up into an OHC AB. And the middle range is probably going to be more of a toss-up on most moves.
>You can use an OHC AB out of a DA if you land the DA while within their hurtbox to begin with, as the Aura Fire from AB's windup catches the opponent. This seems to work on most of the cast, if you are that close already, why even use the Dash Attack, as its launch has no real effect on this, from what I can see.
>As mentioned a bit earlier in the thread, I managed to land an Aura Bomb out of an usmash. On FF (Test dummy: C. Falcon), an OHC RAB (an OHC AB will allow the opponent to hit the ground before AB hits) will more than suffice as long as you do so before the final hit of the attack. On the mid-range falling group (Test dummy: Link) (this covers quite a few characters, actually), a JC RAB (using AB from the JC will allow the hitstun to wear off, giving the opponent a chance to act) will likely land successfully, and in the air, no less. On floaties.... Um.... Well, I tested it with Zelda, and heck, nothing would connect correctly... or easily. I did manage to land Aura Fire on her from an usmash that allowed for the Aura Bomb to hit, but I can't effectively reproduce the spacing, so it seems somewhat unreliable.
>Just found this (Test dummy: Link, Zelda): it isn't a true combo by any means, but a SH fair to OHC Sliding RAB will result in an amusing looking tech chase, assuming the timing is correct and the opponent didn't tech behind Lucario. At a certain point, the damage becomes too high and the attack will push the opponent out of an effective range, and the move will likely strike shield at low percents....

Actually, has anyone found anything combo related that works well on floaties? That's where I'm having the most trouble, actually.... I have found some reliable combos, but the come and go so fast I feel as though I blink and miss it. Also, since they're usually... oh, two moves long, they don't really stand up to the Lucario Combo Standard Seal of Approval.

 

[CORY]

what chain grabs does he have? you can sort of chain f-throw at low percents, but if the opponent's knowledgable of it, they can just buffer a roll/dodge (or something akin to gnw's upb) and get out of it right away. dthrow doesn't chain with proper di, and uthrow should be the same (maybe not so much at certain magic percents against fastfallers?).

 

[Darkgun]

what chain grabs does he have?

O.K, so I have had a chance to test out some of the grabs in a bit more thorough manner (being as I wasn't able to at the time of the previous post, as mentioned later... possibly on edit actually.). I'll go ahead and update that post a little bit to point out my mistake and that this post should both clarify (if possible) and rectify (as needed).

Oh, by the way I edited my previous post last night with a bunch of information in regards to Aura Bomb, so there's that tidbit. It is about to be edited again to improve the explanation a bit.

So, chain grabs. Right. Lucario's uthrow can kinda chainthrow, but not reliably, as naturally an opponent can DI out of it, or more importantly, just jump (this was found with Ike, specifically). This was something I wasn't aware of via training mode, but a friend of mine was over to help me test. The heavier (or faster the fall speed.... Not sure which. In this case the two characters I had this work on were Bowser and Tink.) the character is, the longer the chain grab will work, but as I seem to have found, this isn't anywhere near as long as I thought. 30%? I managed that on Bowser from 0% somewhat easily (just tested this again on a CPU, and even when it DI'd across Lucario, he failed to move beyond his reach until 30%, upon which he jumped), but since he is huge, I can't see why I would manage any less. Completely contrary to my assumptions at the time, I can't seem to manage a proper chain throw on spacies (Falco used to test) at all, and the same seems to show true for fastfallers (using Captain Falcon as a test dummy). Heck, unless I've missed something, I am willing to bet that any decent chaingrab is going to be matchup specific, based upon what I'm seeing here. I'm not even going to try it on the floaties, as I believe I already have.

As for dthrow, I don't think I've ever managed to get that to chain off of anything but the worst possible DI option, and I hadn't yet considered one off of a fthrow, so for the sake of time (and the fact that I suspect your experience will speak volumes), I'm going to assume what you said is indeed quite accurate. Overall, I suppose that the one character who would need to worry about chain grabs worth anything (from 0%) from Lucario would be Bowser...? Right, so chaingrabs are out. That's good to know. I suppose, in regards to my previous response then my example was absolutely refuted, so hard in fact that I managed to find nearly the exact opposite to everything I suggested. I'll just edit the previous post with a note in this regards. On subject with the throws generating aura then, all I can manage to muster for an example is the safety aspect of grabs as opposed to traditional attacks or the focus on the magic combo system. Past that, I don't really know....

 

[Mr.Pickle]

So I've been thinking...maybe lucario should only be able to do certain actions with 100% aura, instead of being able to do everything at 50%. Its not that I think its broken or anything now, I just feel like this way it resembles traditional fighters more (seeing how he is kinda designed like one). Plus it would make managing your aura more interesting, because it puts more emphasis on how you use your aura....Idk I don't play this character lol, so what do you guys think?

 

[Tero.]

Yeah I think he needs to get nerfed even more. Especially because his Aura moves are incredibly broken.

Srsly just look at other characters. Lucas has to press b for like 2 secconds and all of his smashes become super strong.

 

[Mr.Pickle]

Sigh good old sarcasm.....no I'm not suggesting a nerf, and even though I could've been more clear on what I meant, I really wish you wouldn't jump so quickly to that conclusion. What I'm suggesting is fleshing out his aura system by giving different actions different costs, like how guilty gear has force breaks, or some over drives cost a full tension bar. So honestly this is really a buff, because while they might make existing actions cost more, they could get creative and add variations to certain moves. An example on how it could be applied to lucario is make the big aura sphere cost 100%, while giving him the ability to use his aura sphere from brawl, which went farther, was faster, and it traveled in a straight line, and make cost 50%. Its pretty much like an ex fireball from street fighter.

 

[Spiffykins]

There's only so much you can do with the aura supers in a game designed for general control simplicity. I think they're ok as is, and they don't need to be the most interesting/deep thing about him.

 

[CORY]

^ that. as is already pretty risky since it's hard to guarantee a landing. you mostly use it to control space against recoveries and to then try to knock them into it. if you have to blow 100% worth of aura to use spirit bomb, it would have to be super ridiculous (i.e. home into the opponent and move faster) or it would be even more worthless than it is now (since ground ex-fp is usually a much stronger kill option).

 

[Mr.Pickle]

So the general consensus is a no. Thats cool, I'm not really pushing this idea very hard. I just thought about it one day at work and wondered what other people would think of it.