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Why should you ever be hit while performing it? Your supposed "disadvantage" doesn't happen in real matches if you aren't careless with your spacing when you DJC PKF.
Yes, it's always better to DJC your PKF if you plan to be on the ground when it hits. The techskill requirement is not so demanding that it can be used as an excuse for not learning it. If you are jumping with x can i suggest using y, even if just for DJC PKF? Thats what I had to do so my finger could reach B sooner after the second jump.
Don't take this the wrong way, but if you aren't able to get this down after further practice, then I think there are a lot of important Lucas techs which are far more difficult execution-wise that you are going to really struggle with. Take it slow and try to understand WHY it isn't working (eg. "Was I early?" "Was I late?" "Did I accidentally sweep my finger into the wrong button?").
1) I've been trying to practice DJC PKF for the last week (with y to tap jump) and I cannot get it anywhere close to consistent. Perhaps out of twenty times, I get it once. Either lucas cancels it too close to the ground, or he floats up. Any advice? I think we would all appreciate someone putting a you tube tutorial on how to DJC PKF, if they were kind enough to do so.
2) (To piggy back on Nimihoga) Is DJC PKF really that much better than a short hop pk freeze that releases on the ground? Correct me if I'm wrong, but they both travel the same ground distance and they both lead into DACUS. The supposed advantage of the former is that DJC PKF gets you to the ground quicker than the latter, but it has the disadvantage of you losing your second jump if you get hit. Furthermore, it takes a great deal of tech skill to do consistently, which means one might be likely to mess it up in a high stakes game. On the other hand, a short hop pk freeze released on the ground is still relatively quick, less technically straining, and you maintain your second jump if you get hit. I guess the question boils down to whether or not the option that is "faster" and harder to pull off is going to have a significant advantage over the "slower" yet safer option. Or maybe they both have their spots in the metagame?
DJC PKF is very easy for me. I use the default Melee control scheme but with X and B swapped around. So B for Jump and X for Special. I just double tap Y relatively slowly and RIGHT AFTER the Y press, I roll my thumb over to X for the DJC PKF. Works almost flawlessly for me. The key is not to jump super fast twice, it is to press special right after the second jump.
EDIT: Oh yea, I only use Y Jump for DJC PKF and multi-magnets. Everything else I do with B Jump and Tap Jump.
Thanks for the input Burnsy; I appreciate it. I also do plan to learn it.
I think it is plausible to get hit when you DJC PKF because (1) sometimes your opponent out plays you and (2) it is easy to mess up the timing. Now I understand that many of you are very good at this technique and do it quite consistently (because you guys are incredible players). My question is how consistent do you guys feel you are with DJC PKF in a competitive match? Do you fee like you get it a 100% of the time, 98% of the time, or like 85% of the time? Depending on your personal answer, it might be plausible for you to be hit.
If this is true, then I think considering a short hop landed pk freeze as another option isn't a terrible idea. It does travel the same distance and leads to DACUS. Is it that much slower either?
Like I said earlier, I really appreciate the input. My main intention is to learn from you guys, while sharing my own opinion, and hopefully to get better at Lucas in the process. Thanks!
In the amount of times I do it in a match I'd definitely say a good ~95%
The rest of my recording **** should come in today and DJC PKF is a lot easier to copy/replicate if you can see the height you're supposed to jump at. Also, don't do PKF close enough to the opponent where you'll get punished. Even if you don't throw the ice, at a safe distance landing during PKF only gives you 4 frames of landing lag (someone correct me if I'm wrong)
I have been practicing [ ground-pull -> jump -> air-pull -> jump -> fair ] and if done correctly, it seems to come out incredibly fast. Is this safe on shield?
What should I do about opponents who shield and roll like crazy?
I'm having difficulty against one of my friends who just shields like crazy every time I approach.
What should I do about opponents who shield and roll like crazy?
I'm having difficulty against one of my friends who just shields like crazy every time I approach.
I hit a wall like this pretty early on in my Lucas days, I can remember feeling completely stuck. I'm gonna guess that you approach with Fair/Nair exclusively (That's what I did) Important things to do:
Don't always jump in.
Mix up the moves you use (for example, if you anticipate a shield/roll and have already jumped, fall with Magnet)
Space Fair properly
MAGNETS
Back when I had this issue I didn't have much of a Magnet game at all, so get comfortable using it as a punish, creating good pressure with it, and wavedashing out of it to follow rolls to continue pressure. Also make sure you get down B-Reverse Magnets, I didn't realize how good it was on the ground until I really started using it. It's almost important you get comfortable with your grab, it's a real powerful tool. Jump cancelled grabs and Dash grabs both have proper uses and it's important to utilize them both when it comes to approaches.
are you familiar with shine pressure with the space animals? its basically the same thing. its using magnet to pressure your opponents shield, whether it be multimagnets or magnet > aerial > magnet type of pressure.
Since you can jump out of Magnet and the fact that Magnet has multiple hitboxes you can really scare your opponent with the sudden shield damage. The most important part of shield pressure is to notice what options your opponent chooses. Follow rolls with Wavedashes in the appropriate direction to continue pressure. If you notice them angling their shield jump and do a good aerial to shield poke.
Pressure is only effective if you choose optimal responses to what the opponent does. Or break their shield, whichever comes first.
Made a "Tutorial" for DJC PKF since someone asked. It's pretty much just me doing PK Freeze a bunch in training mode with a bit of explanations in the form of annotations. Anyway, even if this helps anyone at all that'll be nice, sorry if this isn't what people were hoping for, haha. Did this at a stupid time way too early, so it's not perfect.
I have the same kind of question as chrome did. Mine is about DJC Fair over SHUFFL Fair. I can do pretty much every other technical thing (multi-magnets, SH magnet -> DJC aerial, DJC PKF etc.) with decent consistency, but for some reason DJC aerials give me huge problems. I've tried practicing the DJC stuff with double tap B -jump, double tap Y -jump and B to tap -jump, nothing's working even remotely consistently for me.
Would you guys have any tips on how to move the stick, get the timing right, how to flick the C-stick easily or maybe not using A-attack instead of C-stick? I feel like this thing is seriously holding back my Lucas and I can't decide whether I should keep at it with my current methods, learn a new method (which is what I'm asking here) or just ignoring it for now until my fundamentals and basic tech skill are far better.
There's really only so many ways to do it. The fastest possible way is doing your second jump with up, since it frees your thumb to hit the button or C-stick for AS CLOSE TO THE GROUND AS POSSIBLE DJCs. It's important to learn this because some pressure isn't as effective with SHFFL and some combo strings straight up won't work.
This takes a lot of practice to be honest, but being able to do quick DJC is important. I would suggest learning Button > Tap Jump > C-stick because doing this early on is important. Figure out what you want to jump with initially and stick to it. Otherwise this IS a basic tech skill and a very IMPORTANT tech skill, so it's important to learn sooner, rather than later.
Try short hopping then immediately input up on the control stick, that way the Double Jump comes out immediately. Then I input a direction on the c-stick to perform an aerial or a if i want a nair. With this technique, my DJCs are barely off the ground. Hopes this helps!
@Yars Thank you so much for the DJC PKF video. I had no idea why I wasn't getting it out until I see a demonstration of going too fast.
Is there any benefit to doing an Up-Grab DACUS as opposed to an Up-Attack DACUS? I can do both, but if I bind R to Attack, DACUS is so much easier to perform than with Z.
Nope, I think grab is worse since you might do a Dash grab if you screw up for whatever reason. I also have R set to Attack for DACUS (It's a leftover from G&W who had a 1 Frame DACUS and couldn't use the Z-button)
So I was playing Lucas a bit on Wednesday and I'm thinking about picking him up as an alt and possibly another main down the line.
What are some things that I should get down immediately with Lucas? I play Yoshi, Kirby, and Shiek if you're wondering. I do DJC aerials with Yoshi so I could easily apply DJC with Lucas.
You need to first magnet on the ground, jump-cancel it, and then airdodge into the ground to wavedash in either direction. It's nearly the same as waveshining, but not everybody prefers that name.
If my DJC PKF are coming out as a PK Thunder, am I being too slow rotating the control stick left or right? What were ways you guys practiced the input so that didn't happen? I hope this was a common problem and not just me being a derp.
Typically if something like that is happening your finger's are kind of lagging behind what you should be doing. If you flick Up for tap jump, let the stick reset to neutral before flicking to the side for your PK Freeze. Alternatively, use a jump button instead.
Okay Yars, I spent 2+ hours just repeatedly practicing the DJC Fair yesterday with B jump -> Tap jump -> C-stick aerial. I finally got it down and now I can do it 80% of the time as low as possible and L-canceled. For me the things that were holding me back were firstly L-canceling with a soft press instead of hard press and secondly just the correct pattern and rhythm to flick the stick and press the buttons.
Hard press L-canceling just feels more... reliable to me and it helps to have a hard press in the end to finalize the input sequence. Helps my muscle memory I guess. For the correct pattern and rhythm I just went and slowed the game down so I could get the exact limits and the earliest points where I can input the actions for the best results. The last thing I wanted to do is to learn a half-assed DJC move after all that work.
In the end I got it down, but I'm sure many beginner Lucas players would appreciate a proper tutorial for Lucas's B&B DJC stuff like DJC aerials, multi-magnets, magnets to DJC aerials etc. I wish I had recording devices but I don't. :/
Lucas takes a lot of practice, homie, it ain't easy.
As far as B&B's go, for Lucas thinking with that kind of mindset (i.e. I need to land THIS combo) doesn't work so well in my opinion. There are some things that SHOULD be remembered (Dair to U-Smash, Uair to Bair etc etc) but Lucas is very much a free form character, especially with magnet, Magnet > Wavedash > DACUS even works depending on DI and Percent. I think by having an idea of his moveset and a firm grasp of DJCs and whatnot, you'll slowly find what works and what to do where and when.
Basically if I want to try something I simply give it a whirl in a match. If it works, great, if it doesn't, oh well. /shrug
In the end I got it down, but I'm sure many beginner Lucas players would appreciate a proper tutorial for Lucas's B&B DJC stuff like DJC aerials, multi-magnets, magnets to DJC aerials etc. I wish I had recording devices but I don't. :/
If somebody wants to make a video guide on Lucas's advanced techniques I can offer recording any replays you send me, but of course this would involve executing tech skill on the wifi build. I could also TAS anything you need, if you just give me a script of what you want recorded - being a TAS, everything would be executed frame perfect unless otherwise noted in the script. Any updated and extended guide on Lucas ATs would in fact be a nice addition to these boards - all the ones we have seem to be at least partially outdated and from older versions of P:M.
I made a video showing some shield pressure methods and wrote a long post about that video during 2.5b, you can find it here. While it's not up to date, it should still give you a good idea what magnet pressure on shields is about. Note that it's both TASed and partially for entertainment: Spacing in particular has a larger role in human gameplay as you can't brute force through shields as easily if you're techskill isn't perfect.
I have been practicing [ ground-pull -> jump -> air-pull -> jump -> fair ] and if done correctly, it seems to come out incredibly fast. Is this safe on shield?
If you mean magnet by pull: Magnet, if jump-canceled, is one of the safest non-grab moves on shield in the game and aerial magnet is even better. The FAir is the weak link in your string advantage-wise. Whether anything is safe on shield depends on spacing and the options of your opponent, but you can calculate the (dis-)advantage of your moves on shields using these formulas and this data. If anything is missing or unclear, I'll probably be able to get the information if asked. For the moves in your string:
Magnet (into jump): +7 (the hitlag modifier on the release hitbox of magnet is 0.4)
FAir: -(0/1+[air time between hit and landing]) (sweetspot/sourspot)
Magnet's startup is 4 frames (hit on 5) as is fair's. This leads us to the windows your opponents have to act between your attacks (including the frame of the next hit, everything for perfect execution):
magnet->aerial magnet: 4+1+5-7 = 3 (You have to wait one frame before the aerial magnet)
aerial magnet->fair: 1+5-7 = -1, i.e. you hit them again during shield stun
You spend one frame between the hit of fair and landing, so you're at a 1/2 frame disadvantage after the string. If you used a magnet instead of the fair, you could repeat this string any number of times and only leave the 3 frame window between the grounded and aerial magnet. And that would be doing perfect multimagnets.
Nope, I think grab is worse since you might do a Dash grab if you screw up for whatever reason. I also have R set to Attack for DACUS (It's a leftover from G&W who had a 1 Frame DACUS and couldn't use the Z-button)
To be exact: The window for a dash grab and the DACUS overlaps, so if you use grab the window for starting the Up-Smash starts 1 frame later - this is what makes it harder.
________________________
On DJC PKFs: While playing around with different DJC PKF timings to see when you get the ground distance PKF I decided to make a gif to show off the differences in major DJC PKF timings:
I'll refer to them as timings A, B and C from top to bottom.
Timing B is what I'd recommend to aim for out of those three, as it's both the easiest to execute and not hitting the timing perfectly hast the least impact. As long as you either don't double jump sooner than this or leave enough time between the DJ and the PKF you should be golden and may not even notice the difference. This of course also allows mixing up the timing a little bit without having more lag after the attack comes out.
Jumping one frame sooner and PKFing two frames later gives you a ground-distance timing, which I'd guess is the one that randomly happens for some people.
Timing A is the best timing I found (and almost definitly the fastest there is) to get the ground distance PKF. From the gif you can see why it happens: Lucas lands on the frame the projectile comes out, so he is technically grounded when the speed of the projectile is set. PKF also autocancels with this timing, which theoretically would make PKF combo even better in spite of the projectile being faster (and thus hitting the opponent sooner.) Of course, execution is really hard and you can't rely on the lower ending lag unless you can pull the timing off consistently, so I don't think it'll be used, but I'm content with just knowing why the ground distance PKF occurs. On the other hand the advantages are very noticable and even I can consistently hit double 1 frame windows during DJC aerials, so maybe using it is not as unrealistic as I believe.
Timing C is the fastest you can get out your projectile, but it doesn't cancel as fast as other timings. I believe this method was better in older builds of P:M than it is now, but I don't think it's worth learning anymore. It's imo harder to execute, being a single frame off on the DJ makes a noticable difference and the cancel occurs later, all in exchange for being 1/20 of a second faster.
8adge, as I have no recording devices, I don't know anything about video editing either so I don't think I could fulfill the expectations for a proper tutorial on that stuff.
Just from playing against a Level 1 Mario for 30 minutes then playing at my "local" smash tourney/friendlies place I was beating just about everyone. Really getting the hang of him and he's tons of fun. May not have all his techniques down yet but I'm really enjoying Lucas.
One quick matchup-related question: How do I deal with Link's projectiles? Especially against a particularly campy Link who even uses the hylian shield to block power shielded arrows and rangs. If I jump on him, I get U-tilt/U-smashed. If I try to PKF, I flat-out lose the trades. Just shielding doesn't do me any good.
Made a "Tutorial" for DJC PKF since someone asked. It's pretty much just me doing PK Freeze a bunch in training mode with a bit of explanations in the form of annotations. Anyway, even if this helps anyone at all that'll be nice, sorry if this isn't what people were hoping for, haha. Did this at a stupid time way too early, so it's not perfect.
Thanks for the video! I definitely had a complete misconception about the timing, and this video along with also watching Neon cleared things up for me.
I can now do the DJC PK Freeze. But sometimes my joystick keeps going towards up b or down b, instead of over b; its really frustrating. I just have to practice and make sure I hit joystick toward side b every time i DJC with Y and tap jump.
Btw, does anyone have any good, general advice for the charizard match up? My friend plays a mean one, he always gimps me with backwards neutral air (He also uses it as a spacing tool in the neutral game by l canceling it). I also have a hard time getting back on stage without being punished when I'm on the ledge.
I think I have a few ideas, but any advice would be much appreciated!
