Lucas General Discussion

[Burnsy]

Yes, apparently you can cancel shield knockback and get a similar/possibly the same amount of boost. It seems that, in general, it will work for all momentum not caused by the movement (ex: grounded slide from wolf/lucario up-b). I discovered it a few weeks ago and have been using it when I can remember to. Seems like it could be useful.

 

[SpiderMad]

What's the steps for the shield one? For the aerial hitstun one, you have to wiggle the control stick (which reduces hitstun or tumble?) and then Zair right.

 

[Burnsy]

I always found it funny that people refer to that wiggling action as something "reducing" hitstun. You can't reduce hitstun. That's a Brawl thing. All flicking the stick back and forth does is ensure you are uprighted as soon as your hitstun wears off. Maybe that's what you meant. You can also just react to your character beginning to flip and directly jump or attack out, as flipping is a visual indicator that hitstun has worn off. Either way you are looking for a visual indicator that you can preform actions.

I guess I've never tried doing it out of hitstun without doing a jump first (I'll test this later, obviously would be better if you didnt have to waste a jump), but you definitely have to airdodge first, you can't just wiggle out then zair.

Anyways, the sheild one works the same way. While being pushed back from shieldstun, you quickly jump>airdodge horizontally>zair. The same way you would if you were trying to hit with it while really close to the ground

 

[SpiderMad]

I guess I've never tried doing it out of hitstun without doing a jump first (I'll test this later, obviously would be better if you didnt have to waste a jump), but you definitely have to airdodge first, you can't just wiggle out then zair.

I think you might not have to use a jump but I'm not sure, that's the point of the wiggling I believe. There's tumble after hitstun for certain strong hits or something, and you can do any action during tumble except for air dodge: which is why if you wiggle you shorten/break the tumble allowing you to air dodge sooner (and get within the window to activate the momentum bug) otherwise it seems you break the tumble right away with jump and then air dodge.

 

[NeonApophis]

I accidentally did a snake jump earlier today. It seems like a pretty excellent out of shield option since it lets you escape pretty well and counterattack at the same time.

 

[Nguz95]

Honestly the snake jump sounds like a difficult piece of tech that has limited uses. However, I have never done it, so I wouldn't know. Currently I'm trying to play Lucas like a slippery Falco. I'll dash dance for a while and fire off a few PK freezes until one connects, and then I'll go in with nair or fair or dash attack or (not often) wd ftilt. Usually I'll immediately use magnet if I make contact with their shield. If I hit them then it depends on where they go, but I'll often magnet anyways because I like waveshining a lot. I also like to grab a ton. Dthrow and uthrow are the best and they set up a ton of really good stuff for Lucas. In general my game plan is to try and get them about full hop height above me so I can do my fancy aerials without burning my DJ unless I see an opening.

Is this consistent with what everybody else is thinking? I personally think my current style is a little more defensive than what I see Oracle doing, but I feel pretty comfortable at the moment. I'm still pretty scrubby, so maybe that's why I'm hanging back a little. Anyways, does this resonate with anyone? Or is the more aggressive playstyle more prevalent?

 

[Burnsy]

I use to play more like that. Are you playing on WiFi? That might be more of a factor because going in with well-executed aerials is way more risky with wifis lag, so it seems better to camp more on WiFi. Offline that's not much of a long term strategy as Lucas' PK freeze is certainly no laser, eventually someone gonna blow that up. I'd also be wary of overusing Nair, the fact that you mention it over his other aerials is not good imo. In many situations he has other choices the lead better into combos than Nair, which past low percents usually only leads into techchase or maybe a lucky dacus.

Lets please not call the momentum glitch "snake jumping" that's a terrible description, since you can't actually gain additional vertical height from the move. And its not a limited or useless tech as you seem to be suggesting. Do you think that because nobody else uses it? Its execution (very easy), possible uses, and even existence, are relatively unknown to Lucas mains , so no I think its a case of his metagame bring woefully underdeveloped.

 

[Nguz95]

I don't play wifi much at all. I do think I need to mix up my approach more though. Is fair going to be the best bet? I don't really feel like dair is all that good as an approach, and bair is more of a ko move anyways. Basically my game plan is to hang around them until i can fit a magnet or an aerial in. I love the magnet. Lots of grabs too. I'll start mixing it up more.

 

[Burnsy]

Dair is definitely better than it seems like it would be when you are already up close to them, imo.

 

[Nguz95]

I have to wait out the last hit though right? I can't fast fall it or i'll just hit the first two hits, and that is not good enough. Sort of like cfal's nair right?

 

[SpiderMad]

Dair can do everything

 

[Nguz95]

Is it really that versatile? I remember reading calabrel's arguments against its usefulness, and he made some good points.

 

[SpiderMad]

2.1 Dair was better for certain MUs though they're both really good. Also here's some matches http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzQyRAx2RJE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjCdwEjNnZU I went for your DJC dair thing Burnsy at 1:47

http://www.youtube.com/watch?edit=vd&v=K2ZvHh5CyDs

 

[Nausicaa]

Is it really that versatile? I remember reading calabrel's arguments against its usefulness, and he made some good points.

I has multiple hits on a character who's fast and can control their air-mobility really well. It's going to have diversity more than it will a 'niche' and what Cal was discussing was mainly how it didn't thrive for a direct purpose as the older version. It's more... multi-purpose and kind-of-good at everything instead.
Which is more in the flavor of Lucas, since he has everything for everything and it's more of a 'wtf do I do' based on 'too many' options rather than finding the 'one working' option.

 

[Nguz95]

It's really good at dislodging people from crouch cancels right? I usually use it when my friend, who play Marth, decides to try and wait me out with stupid dtilts. I have begun to look at Lucas the same way as you. He seems to have so many options that there is not a character type he can't deal with. He can camp on all the slower characters, and he can out maneuver all of the faster characters. That's a generalization of course, but I think it still holds true. To me Lucas' general game plan revolves around finding ways to get your opponent on the defensive. Since Lucas is relatively frail, keeping your opponent on his heels is imperative. Lucas has a million options, so he can apply pressure in a variety of different ways.

Anyway, just my 0.02 on what I consider the character in PM with the most potential.

 

[Nausicaa]

If anyone is familiar with other 'fighter games' then the concept of frame-traps should apply well to Lucas. Leave just enough room to act, but not enough to breath. If you just put your opponent on the defensive as a goal, that's fine, but making use of this is where the difference is, because the idea of 'opponent will be defensive' is a pretty natural way matches will gravitate... because Lucas.
Work on traps, piercing this defense, so you're not sitting they're with DJC F-Airs and Jabs and Magnets, or spamming D-Tilt up close and PK-Freeze from afar.
All of that 'pressure' and 'offense' isn't what makes Lucas work/good, and landing hits that convert into Touch-of-Deaths isn't a byproduct of that type of play.
Landing hits that convert into Touch-of-Deaths is what makes him work/good, so aim for that, and that pressure/offense is simply a tool to work with.
Keep that clear in mind, and you'll naturally miss a LOT less stuff, from opportunities to get hits, to free kills.
Also, guaranteed, there's a LOT of stuff to be had. This character is silly.

 

[Nguz95]

What exactly is a frame trap? I've heard that term used to refer to ROBs shffl nair into jab, and in that context it referred to that combination's ability to force the opponent to either roll or get hit. The jab in that case is guaranteed to at least make contact with the their shield because the hitstun from the nair trapped them in their shield long enough that they couldn't act in time to avoid the jab. Can Lucas do that kind of stuff? Does he really have combinations that can keep the opponent from shield grabbing you like Falco's dair into shine?

At the moment my Lucas focuses more on baiting and waiting with pk freeze than starting giant combos. that more conservative playstyle is most likely a result of my relatively low skill level. I have been implementing more and more wd ftilts into my game because I feel they really complement this playstyle. I wish I had some vids, but I don't have any of the necessary equipment.

When you say "work on traps," are you referring to this bait and punish style of gameplay? Or are you referring to combinations of moves that force your opponent to do one thing, allowing you to predict and capitalize off their actions easily?

 

[Nausicaa]

Frame-Trap in a really simple example is like...
Falco late-D-Airs your shield... You try something out of it... He Shines you and combos...
That's a very basic version that's kind of 'built-in' but not really effective because it's so counter-able/not actually a 'trap' in play, but a trap in mechanics. You can just Shield through it, so what the Falco does AFTER is the 'actual' trap...
Peach can F-Air > Grab you if you Shield the F-Air, because there's enough Shield-Stun that you can't move if you Shield it. That's a little more along the lines of/and the EXTREME of, the ROB example you gave. Shine-Grab after that late-D-Air is another example)

The more effective kind is just a slight hole in pressure (can even be mental pressure) that allows room for the opponent to do something. Usually a conscious move, that they think they can get away with, but you set them up intentionally to be ready for it. A reset with a mix-up to catch them out of their attempt as escaping (catching a Roll or Jump away)/possible mistake (Falco D-Air > Shine > Fading N-Air that you try grabbing but can't)/drop in a combo to reset it (common in things like MvC, akin to catching a Double Jump by letting them go and attacking where you think they're going)/simple baits (stand there for a second not doing anything, even Shield, there's a reason Shield is secretly the best approach in the game)

Stuff like that.
Don't go all crazy attempting to break shields, don't fade back to a raw-neutral if your most recently attempted pressure string didn't crack a defense.
Stay on them, don't give them room to breath, but give them room to act, because you want to hit THEM, NOT their Shield, NOT the air on a whiff, NOT with something you can't convert into something.
You want to KILL THEM!!! lol

Baiting with PK Freezes is fine, but more important than what/how/etc your baiting your opponent, is WHY you're doing it.
Why were you baiting with PKF if it got them to commit to something you could punish cleanly, or pressure them for/set-up a mix-up, etc, if all you did was jump away and PKF agian?
Why were you baiting with PKF if it made them approach you, but they did so in a safe way with an attempted PS, or swatting the projectile away, and YOU got baited into approaching?
Why were you baiting with PKF if it made them run away to platform camp or hide on the other side of the stage, and you just stayed in place instead of taking control of the room on-stage?

^That stuff is all that's of value.
Otherwise, I don't care if you're 'baiting' me with PKF or anything else, I'm gonna trick and trap you and if you do something on reaction/habit to it, you're dead, because I like to KILL THEM!!!

 

[foshio]

So... the other day I went to a tournament and came second (only 9 players). I 2-0'd everyone except the winner who stomped me with captain falcon. I just couldn't seem to kill him. My edge gaurds were not working well for me in the set and I couldn't kill with up throw/smash for a long time. What are some good strategies against a good falcon?

 

[Nausicaa]

Combo into horizontal things like F-Smash (instead of upward to kill) when you can.
WD F-Tilt at mid-% sets up epic stage control and catches him easily out of DD-game.
Don't try killing with U-Throw/U-Smash against fast-falling characters when you can just hit them sideways for crazy free kills at mid-%.
If your kills were coming to U-Throw (or close to) ranges of %, then all the way back to the first thing everyone needs to work on, work on your punishment game. :D

For you, if the punishment-game is something that distinctly stuck out to you vs him regarding RECOVERY...
Then try first, to step back from committing to stuff you don't have to. Falcon doesn't have insane recover mix-ups. He has some, but nothing you shouldn't be able to catch. Don't try the 1-hit-wonder things to finish him. Cover a couple things that limit him, let him recover in a way that you can hit him SOMEHOW (lead him to recover a certain way), and he's off-stage/in-combo again, because you hit him AT ALL. Ta-dah!

Step 1: What were you doing, and do you know WHY you did any of it? If it's to auto-kill him when landing the hit, then don't do that, you don't have to. You'll get 10 auto-hits that lead to a kill, instead of a single hit to end it. Lucas can Touch-of-Death anyone, but Touch-of-Death doesn't mean Touch > Blastzone (well sometimes it happens, but not always).
It means Touch > you keep the advantage until their stock is gone. Even if it involves recovering on the stage itself 20 times, if all you get is Grab > Aerial back off stage, eventually they will die. They have been touched, they will die if you do it right.

 

[Nguz95]

Were you trying to kill cfal vertically? the best way to kill cfal is to force him low and far away from the stage. Cfal is really weak off the stage, so you can often just throw him sideways off the stage and use fair to push him just far enough away from the stage that he can't make it back. Good cfals will almost always try to recover high. Sweetspotting the ledge is hard, and lots of cfal mains come from Melee, where sweetspotting the ledge with cfal doesn't exist. That means you need to anticipate that and smash him with bairs when he tries to go high. The general strategy against cfal is to try and keep him from dash dancing as much as possible. That means trying to restrict his movement through controlling space on the stage. You need to follow him a lot and not rely on PKF to space.

Hopefully that helps!

 

[Nausicaa]

Never rely on PKF to space.

Fixed

The rest of the post was good.

 

[Nguz95]

True. I need to realize that PKF is not to space, but rather a tool to apply pressure and help me put them into hitstun. It's too laggy to be a spacing tool like Falco's lasers.

 

[Nausicaa]

Even for pressure-purposes, I'm not a fan. Hit-stun is nice, but when the things are easy to PS + have no more shield-stun than there is landing lag, it doesn't really pressure much unless the opponent LETS it pressure them. :/
Just throwing that out there.

 

[Veishi336]

I think i posted this same thing before on older post just dont know if i got a response to it or not.... buuutt lucas' dair seems a whole lot more accurate off stage when you are turned around and trying to meteor someone. Has anyone used this other than me.? i use it consistently to get kills. Jumping wayy up in the air to get to an off stage opponent and reverse dair-ing them is quite the pleasurable killing experience.

 

[Nguz95]

At that point couldn't you just bair them? I'm fairly certain that you can sdi the first two hits of dair, so against a really good opponent diar might not work.
Edit: when the PMBR fixes shields powersheilding and shield knockback in general Lucas' PKF will see a definite boost. However, I can't really decide if this will help him overall. He has a tether, so most attacks that push you outside of grab range don't bother him.

 

[Veishi336]

well yes the bair would be most ideal but as a secondary option I'd use reverse dair.

 

[Nguz95]

Interesting. Having not explored dair that much, I would be interested to see a reverse dair. I'll check it out.

WD ftilt the wave of the future. It's so good and safe.

 

[Burnsy]

I dont see why reverse dair would be more beneficial than normal dair offstage (both aren't great because of sdi). If you look at the frame data, dair has the exact same amount of range in both the front and back, and the angle it sends at is straight down, so its not like doing it reversed gives you a better angle.

WD ftilt really isn't that safe. Its not bad or like your always gonna be punished, but its not like it lacks endlag that they can punish on shield. It just requires knowledge of what is fast enough to punish. I dont think we'll find anything "revolutionary" in ftilt, but we'll probably find niche applications that help in certain MUs (I've recently found success in using it a lot vs Nazo's Sonic when he is being particularly unpredictable.

 

[Veishi336]

I dont see why reverse dair would be more beneficial than normal dair offstage (both aren't great because of sdi). If you look at the frame data, dair has the exact same amount of range in both the front and back, and the angle it sends at is straight down, so its not like doing it reversed gives you a better angle.

Well maybe its just me. Doing it often might give me the impression that it is a bit better....but hey if the frame data says its exactly the same theenn hey it is *shrugs*

 

[Nguz95]

WD ftilt really isn't that safe. Its not bad or like your always gonna be punished, but its not like it lacks endlag that they can punish on shield. It just requires knowledge of what is fast enough to punish. I dont think we'll find anything "revolutionary" in ftilt, but we'll probably find niche applications that help in certain MUs (I've recently found success in using it a lot vs Nazo's Sonic when he is being particularly unpredictable.

Lucas' ftilt has fewer ending frames than Luigi's ftilt, and it's range is comparable. Although Lucas' WD is not as long as Luigi's, his WD ftilt does fit the same niche that it does in Luigi's game. I realize that often it is an inferior option to the rest of his incredible neutral game, but since it is safer than Luigi's, which is considered to be a fabulous approach and poking tool, I think we should consider its application in Lucas' game. I feel that against especially slow and campy characters, dashing away form them and WDing back in to Ftilt them is an incredibly good option.

 

[NeonApophis]

The problem with ftilt compared to most of Lucas's moves is that it doesn't lead into combos as well. It's still pretty good due to its speed and good range, but it knocks your opponent away from you and they have plenty of time to tech since you'll be in endlag and not be able to follow up immediately. Lucas's other moves are so good at comboing that ftilt is generally not the best option unless you are on the ground and just need a quick attack with decent knockback, and don't care about following up.

 

[Nguz95]

I think it's best use is at mid or high% when you want to get your opponent off the stage for some edgeguarding shenanigans. The standard dsmash edgeguards wors fine, but you could also angle the ftilt down on the ledge if you don't think you can time dsmash right. I kniw dsmash lasts forever, but I thought I would just throw that out there.

 

[Nausicaa]

It`s so fast and ranged, that I don`t think I`ll ever hit a shield with it anyway.
lol

 

[Nguz95]

That's exactly how I feel. Even if they so see it coming it's nbd because usually i'm out of their grab range. Anyway, does anyone have any dthrow followups on spacies? At low % I feel like I'm just better off with uthrow, but I feel like i might be missing something. Mid % i know utilt does work, and high % is just regular Lucas stuff. What do you guys think for low % grabs?

 

[Veishi336]

That's exactly how I feel. Even if they so see it coming it's nbd because usually i'm out of their grab range. Anyway, does anyone have any dthrow followups on spacies? At low % I feel like I'm just better off with uthrow, but I feel like i might be missing something. Mid % i know utilt does work, and high % is just regular Lucas stuff. What do you guys think for low % grabs?

well for dthrow i just jab reset them and grab again but doing a different throw like uthrow. orrrrr i just magnet them if they arent up straight after it.

 

[Nausicaa]

WD/Pivot F-Smash and edge-guard is gg

 

[Lukingordex]

I like Lucas' up angled Fsmash a lot,it's reaaaly broken and works for combos where normal Fsmash doesn't work.

I also got a silly pic where lucas is using normal Fsmash and hitting Falco,but Falco is in the opposite direction in a considerable distance lol

 

[Kone]

Just got into pm and started messing about with lucas - really like him! Ive started to lurk about these forums and see whats what with his metagame so far. Finding it really hard to locate upto date information on lucas and 2.6 without having to trawl through pages of text (theres no current guide etc.). Was hoping people could help me and answer the following questions;

1. Recovery - from what i can tell his pkt2 is balls. I was getting gimped way too easily out of it. What can i do instead?!

2. What are my best options getting back from the edge?

3. Zair - when should i u it and how to use it as attack?

4. Djcing - has this changed from melee? I could do it with peach no problem in melee and ness in 64. I am struggling to do it in pm?

5. Magnet - ive seen vids of oracle doing nice things with the magnet. Also, calabrels magnet video. What are they doing? How should i use this?

6. Are there any brawl techs in pm that weren't in melee that i should be aware of and using?

Thanks for help!!!!

 

[Kally Wally]

1. Rhythmically use magnet to stall your vertical momentum while moving forward, them double jump -> airdodge -> z-air tether. If you don't have a jump, and z-air won't reach, PKT2 is you only option, so use it well.

4. If you hold the button, you'll do a rising aerial instead. Release it, then attack. There's a little bit of leeway, though.

5. When you release the magnet, it sends opponents above and behind you, and it can be jump cancelled at that point. Experiment a bit, and followups should come naturally - wavedashing backward is a good place to start, being able to do that opens a lot of options.

6. DACUS, reverse aerial rush, B-reverse/Wavebounce, tether mechanics (they snap to the ledge - and in PM, you can tether an occupied ledge!). Look them up on the wiki.

I'll let someone who knows that they're talking about answer 2 and 3.