Lucas General Discussion

[Inserio]

Ah, I think I know what you mean. As mentioned above, knockback and movement momentum are tracked independently. You also fall during knockback and magnet stops that fall, making you shoot upwards when using it while still suffering from upwards knockback. If you'd already begun drifting towards the stage and b-reverse magnet, you'll also reverse the horizontal movement you had towards the stage, but not the knockback component, and thus also gain a boost horizontally away from the stage, because you're now both moving and being knocked away from the stage.

Your description is of magnet only reversing momentum you yourself have created. Is it not possible to have it work off other momentum?

I think the point I was getting as was that I was still moving horizontally away from the stage (while DIing towards it of course) but I get to a point when I am no longer unable to input a command to my character (which I don't know a good term for). It is at this point that I hit down-b and slide the joystick 90 degrees back toward the stage. Since my momentum is still moving slightly away from stage (it has not gone past neutral and toward the stage yet), my input is considered a wavebounce[?] (e.g., I'm floating to the right -> down-b -> left within the first couple frames) and pushes me farther away from the stage (a la: a small magnet pull?). Again, I haven't had time to test this since when I posted it originally, so I could still be making things up...but I think that's what's happened.

 

[Badge]

Your description is of magnet only reversing momentum you yourself have created. Is it not possible to have it work off other momentum?

Yes, that should be correct.

I think the point I was getting as was that I was still moving horizontally away from the stage (while DIing towards it of course) but I get to a point when I am no longer unable to input a command to my character (which I don't know a good term for). It is at this point that I hit down-b and slide the joystick 90 degrees back toward the stage. Since my momentum is still moving slightly away from stage (it has not gone past neutral and toward the stage yet), my input is considered a wavebounce[?] (e.g., I'm floating to the right -> down-b -> left within the first couple frames) and pushes me farther away from the stage (a la: a small magnet pull?). Again, I haven't had time to test this since when I posted it originally, so I could still be making things up...but I think that's what's happened.

Assuming you performed your wavebounce correctly, this sounds like what I tried to describe. As you're holding towards the stage, you'll start drifting in that direction once hitstun is over. This will usually make you drift at maximum speed before you react to being able to act again and use magnet. Your horizontal air speed now is something like 1 (your movement) - 1.4 (knockback) = -0.4, i.e. you're still moving away from the stage. During the startup of magnet both those values decay at about the same rate (knockback very slightly faster afaik) and when the b-reverse happens, reversing your movement direction, your combined momentum is something along the lines of -0.9 - 1.3 = -2.4, i.e. you're moving away from the stage much faster.

 

[Inserio]

Assuming you performed your wavebounce correctly, this sounds like what I tried to describe. As you're holding towards the stage, you'll start drifting in that direction once hitstun is over. This will usually make you drift at maximum speed before you react to being able to act again and use magnet. Your horizontal air speed now is something like 1 (your movement) - 1.4 (knockback) = -0.4, i.e. you're still moving away from the stage. During the startup of magnet both those values decay at about the same rate (knockback very slightly faster afaik) and when the b-reverse happens, reversing your movement direction, your combined momentum is something along the lines of -0.9 - 1.3 = -2.4, i.e. you're moving away from the stage much faster.

Okay, that makes perfect sense now.
So in summary: Ideally, you should not reverse any momentum during recovery, because you'd only be reversing your own efforts toward stage, not the momentum given to you from being knocked away. Furthermore, magnets should maximally be done at a rate of once every 33 frames, and the first magnet should be done when you reach maximum vertical air speed, which I'm still a little fuzzy understanding (~1/5 second after you gain ability to input a command?)

 

[Sapphire Dragon]

Hey guys.

I'm wondering, what is the generally agreed upon best version of Lucas? Did he have anything notable in previous versions (i.e. like Charizard's 2.5 infinite glide) that has since been taken out? I'm making a custom version of P:M with the best versions of all characters in it. Thanks again!

 

[Lumenebrae]

If you're into mixing attributes, I think he used to have a better usmash at some point and bair/dair might be debatable based on playstyle, but the new features I'd say are probably collectively better than the old. I don't know of anything pre-2.5 though.

 

[GunBlaze]

If you're into mixing attributes, I think he used to have a better usmash at some point and bair/dair might be debatable based on playstyle, but the new features I'd say are probably collectively better than the old. I don't know of anything pre-2.5 though.

2.1 Offense Up Up Smash was da bomb :v

 

[MysteryRevengerson]

Was his Magnet still stupid in 2.6 or was it nerfed by then? If it has to be 2.5 that's fine, old Dair/Bair looked siiiiick

 

[GunBlaze]

Was his Magnet still stupid in 2.6 or was it nerfed by then? If it has to be 2.5 that's fine, old Dair/Bair looked siiiiick

I think either 2.6 or 3.0 brought the nerfhammer to the PK Shine

 

[Master WGS]

Hoooooooly crap. Haven't really played since 2.5 and now it's like a ton of people are playing Lucas. What happened? Why did people decide to suddenly notice him? Is it REALLY all Pink Fresh's doing like I keep hearing?

 

[Kipcom]

Hoooooooly crap. Haven't really played since 2.5 and now it's like a ton of people are playing Lucas. What happened? Why did people decide to suddenly notice him? Is it REALLY all Pink Fresh's doing like I keep hearing?

Seems like that, so pretty much.

 

[Master WGS]

Does anyone use the Offense Up Burst thing that Lucas has? I trigger it by accident 99% of the time and curse the fact it exists. Is there some brilliant utility I'm entirely looking over?

 

[Kipcom]

I use it sometimes to continue combos.

It's also a good option against pressure. Just jump OoS and then OU Burst a quickly as possible. Only characters who you really can't use this on to defend from pressure are the Space Animals, since their Shine/Reflectors are always going to be faster.

 

[MysteryRevengerson]

VGBootCamp is a really powerful stream in terms of Project M just because of how many viewers it pulls in.

Also, as far as Burst goes, I use it to punish obvious approaches if I want to do something fast and also use it OoS in terms of responding to pressure. Be careful, don't use it at low percents or you WILL get punished.

 

[nimigoha]

The fact that it has invincibility on frame 2 and 3 and the hitbox is out on 3 is really good for defensive options. As Kipcom said, shines are faster, but this beats almost every other move.

 

[Dabuz]

Can someone give me the rundown on how to fight Fox as Lucas? Going to a tourney today and he's the character I fear most.

 

[OmegaMuffin]

I'm having trouble on the ledge. I have no clue what I need to do to get off of it safely. The only thing I haven't been readily punished for doing is pk thunder stalling. And I usually end up SD'ing.

 

[Badge]

I'm having trouble on the ledge. I have no clue what I need to do to get off of it safely. The only thing I haven't been readily punished for doing is pk thunder stalling. And I usually end up SD'ing.

This thread discusses options to get back onstage from the ledge in depth. Without anything further to go off, I'd wager your not using your invincibility frames efficiently and generally are not comfortable at the ledge. You'll just have to train acting as soon as possible after grabbing the ledge. You'll also want to be able to perform wavelands and DJC aerials onto the stage consistently without killing yourself. Once you're comfortable at the ledge, coming back should be much easier, but to get there you'll just need training.

 

[Master WGS]

Man, I am balls at being consistent with DACUS and it is really bumming me out. It seems like I can get three in a row, then I hit a dry spell, then suddenly I can do it again. It is the most frustrating thing ever. Not since the first time I learned to wavedash back in '05 have I had such trouble with an input on a Gamecube controller. Sat down to just practice it for like 20 minutes today and could not break 3 in a row.

C-Stick plus Z is pretty much the best way without modifying your control scheme, right?

 

[Spice]

C-Stick plus Z is pretty much the best way without modifying your control scheme, right?

Yeah this will be the easiest input without remapping buttons. I run into a similar problem of doing it 2 to 3 times in a row before messing it up. But I can do it consistently on the first try in battle, which is really all you need. You will never DACUS 4 times back to back (unless a really bizarre situation plus bad DI comes up). Practice doing it out of dash dance or wavedash, it lets you get practice with its practical uses as well as getting the timing. It helped me a lot.

Hoooooooly crap. Haven't really played since 2.5 and now it's like a ton of people are playing Lucas. What happened? Why did people decide to suddenly notice him? Is it REALLY all Pink Fresh's doing like I keep hearing?

Neon and Hammertime have helped a lot too. Overall I think people realize he is incredibly powerful, fast, and mobile, and has odd movement that leads to unique options in almost any situation. He has so many different tools its ridiculous and he has an unreal combo game. I jumped to him just a week ago after working on Diddy for months because I felt he was just better in every respect, and more fun and intuitive for me. Difficulty in execution is not really a factor for turning away people anymore since they have these forums, and Lucas seems to have virtually no ceiling for his potential. I find new tech with him in practice almost daily.

tl;dr Lucas is a ****ing boss

 

[Master WGS]

Thanks for the advice. I've been saying Lucas was a wicked Frankenstein of a toolkit since, like, 2.0. Glad more people are taking note of him and taking him to the lab.

 

[drummaniac28]

Man, I am balls at being consistent with DACUS and it is really bumming me out. It seems like I can get three in a row, then I hit a dry spell, then suddenly I can do it again. It is the most frustrating thing ever. Not since the first time I learned to wavedash back in '05 have I had such trouble with an input on a Gamecube controller. Sat down to just practice it for like 20 minutes today and could not break 3 in a row.

C-Stick plus Z is pretty much the best way without modifying your control scheme, right?

Best way to do it without modifying the control scheme is to use the claw. Using Z, even if the inputs are done properly, can result in a boost grab since grab has a higher priority than the attack. This is really bad to have happen in a match, and can be punished SUPER hard (I used to use Z to DACUS too, not fun). Using the claw is the only way to 100% guarantee a DACUS without changing the control scheme.

You could play normally and only move your index finger to A to DACUS when you need to, but honestly, I'd highly recommend clawing all the time. It makes playing Lucas much, much easier. DJC PKF becomes way easier to do, as does DACUS. Other tech felt strange at first, but after about a week of playing it became second nature again, and the control you get over the character by having different fingers for jumping and attacking is unmatched (unless you map Z to jump I guess, but the whole point of this is to not remap controls, no?) The only tricky thing is, since magnet isn't technically jump-cancellable, you have to make sure you let go of B before trying to wavedash out of it, which isn't necessary with spacies' shines. If you practice in training mode, you should be able to get it down fairly quickly though. I've since switched to clawing all the time, even with characters who don't technically need it, but that's just me ( but it does make doing Marth's SH double fair extremely easy to do).

 

[Spice]

Best way to do it without modifying the control scheme is to use the claw. Using Z, even if the inputs are done properly, can result in a boost grab since grab has a higher priority than the attack. This is really bad to have happen in a match, and can be punished SUPER hard (I used to use Z to DACUS too, not fun). Using the claw is the only way to 100% guarantee a DACUS without changing the control scheme.

You could play normally and only move your index finger to A to DACUS when you need to, but honestly, I'd highly recommend clawing all the time. It makes playing Lucas much, much easier. DJC PKF becomes way easier to do, as does DACUS. Other tech felt strange at first, but after about a week of playing it became second nature again, and the control you get over the character by having different fingers for jumping and attacking is unmatched (unless you map Z to jump I guess, but the whole point of this is to not remap controls, no?) The only tricky thing is, since magnet isn't technically jump-cancellable, you have to make sure you let go of B before trying to wavedash out of it, which isn't necessary with spacies' shines. If you practice in training mode, you should be able to get it down fairly quickly though. I've since switched to clawing all the time, even with characters who don't technically need it, but that's just me ( but it does make doing Marth's SH double fair extremely easy to do).

.....what's the claw?

 

[Zimflare]

Hey sorry for coming in out of nowhere and this is off subject but what are the best combos out of lucas's downthrow? If they DI in or don't DI, I usually go for a Dair to a tech chase (if they DI away i just go Fair or DACUS depending and the char). If they fail to tech then I (jab)magnet->wavedash->followup. But I have noticed in videos that a lot of lucas players, pink fresh for example, usually go for down throw to Uair. Is Dair a bad followup? I am thinking it could be the level I am playing at (netplay mostly haha) and most of them probably don't (they dont) SDI out of it. This could be a possibility of why it is not used so much, but what are some better followups?

 

[drummaniac28]

.....what's the claw?

Using index finger on Y to jump

 

[Master WGS]

I am morally opposed to altering your controls. If you can't play the way you normally do without your tag, don't play is my motto.

 

[MysteryRevengerson]

Reaching down to the Control Pad for Footstools in high speed situations where you can't really afford to miss or hesitate and that's the reason they allow you to remap the input.

There's a reason control swapping has been put in.

 

[Master WGS]

Reaching down to the Control Pad for Footstools in high speed situations where you can't really afford to miss or hesitate and that's the reason they allow you to remap the input.

There's a reason control swapping has been put in.

Yeah, I know. I'm just not a fan of it. It feels like training wheels or something, even though I know it's not. I'M TOO PROUD, MAN. I CAN'T DO IT.

That said, I switched R to "attack" just to test Dacus and could do it all day. Holy crap, it's really a shame I use R for wavedashing/blocking, and L for L-Canceling.

 

[MysteryRevengerson]

Yeah, it's kinda dumb to act like that. It's sort of like how newer players complain about using the C-stick.

I use Attack on R and use L for everything that I need Shield for.

 

[Spice]

Yeah, it's kinda dumb to act like that. It's sort of like how newer players complain about using the C-stick.

I use Attack on R and use L for everything that I need Shield for.

How do you wavedash out of shield? I normally shield with R and use L for the air dodge back to the ground when I jump out of shield.

Also are there other benefits to using L or R for attack besides making DACUS easier?

 

[nimigoha]

Alternate controls are one of my favourite things in PM. I use Z to jump, L as attack for DACUS, X as grab, and Y as footstool. Then I either turn TJ on or off depending on the character.

The Z jump makes everything easier. Everything. Anything to do with Shines, Magnets, OOS tech, DJC, even just faster aerials. It's easier to SH with because you flick it in one motion, not down>up like a button press.

It only took 2 weeks to get used to, but now I'm better than before I made the switch. Other than 'preference' (and admittedly being able to play Melee at all) I don't see why more people don't switch. Pure PM or Brawl players I recommend it to.

 

[MysteryRevengerson]

I hold L to Shield, then jump, then hit L to Wavedash?

Nope, don't use R for anything but DACUS. It is my DACUS button. I also have X set to Up-Taunt.

 

[Master WGS]

I've heard mention of Lucas having an infinite. Is there footage of it out there somewhere so I can know what people mean when they say this?

 

[MysteryRevengerson]

It's just the first hit of a DJC Dair repeatedly. You can see Neon/Plasma do it in some match I think.

It's exactly what it sounds like. Theoretically if you got close to an edge while they try to SDI away (Which isn't very far) you CAN go to the other side of them and keep it going while still comboing them. Footstooling them also works.

 

[Zimflare]

I've heard mention of Lucas having an infinite. Is there footage of it out there somewhere so I can know what people mean when they say this?

http://www.reddit.com/r/smashbros/c...k_fresh_and_i_play_lucas_in_project_m/chybb79

 

[Badge]

I've heard mention of Lucas having an infinite. Is there footage of it out there somewhere so I can know what people mean when they say this?

This is how it looks like. It's not a true infinite as Yars alluded at, because you can SDI out of it (even through Lucas if he tries to cross you up), but due to a 0.4 SDI multiplier SDI getting off the stage takes a while if you don't get all three possible SDI-inputs. It also ends at a certain percentage (depending on the character, see here), but usually combos into either UpThrow or F-Smash for a guaranteed kill before that.

This is the variant of using footstools inbetween the DAirs:

Spoiler

Could be used to counteract SDI mixups by resetting position or because it's easier for certain people against certain characters (larger error window but more inputs that are also dependent on the enemy character height). Or the normal version could just be better in practice, I don't know.

 

[Master WGS]

Alright, that's rad and looks like something I'll be learning ASAP. Thanks for the info!

 

[drummaniac28]

Think I might have found a new tech, so I wanted to see if anyone else knew about this. I've tried and it seems to work only with Yoshi, Ness, and Lucas cause of their weird double-jump (can't get it to work with Mewtwo, but I didn't try very hard cause I only really care about Lucas lol).

If you do a full hop, and then use Lucas' double jump right as he's going through a platform, immediately let go of jump, and then input any direction on the c-stick, you'll instantly land on the platform and perform a smash attack in the direction you inputted. The window to do it is pretty tight, but I think it has promise as a viable and useful tech. So far from my messing around, it seems like a really strong way to tech chase if someone lands on a platform, as you can run towards them, jump up there and immediately throw out an fsmash or dsmash. Also theorycrafting here, but it also could be used to catch someone with an usmash that normally wouldn't have reached, for example to follow up on a dair at high percent/on floaties or to catch someone off guard as they're falling back on stage.

I've tried searching everywhere to see if this tech had a name, but I couldn't find any mention of it anywhere, so I just wanted to check with everyone here before I go around saying I discovered a new tech lol

 

[Zimflare]

I see amsa do it sometimes on platforms when he is just running around the stage doing his mindgames. But this is pretty much useless since you can get the same effect by just wavedashing to the platform... Also now that I think about it thats probably what amsa does too. And peach could also do this "tech" as well because she has the same jump mechanic but that doesnt matter. Anyways, first off its not and immediate smash attack because you have to take into account landing lag. You might as well wavedash onto the platform as soon as you go through it since it is the same lading lag time and it would probably better to just tech chase with an up smash anyways.

 

[Badge]

That's double jump-landing onto platforms. You can do any grounded action out of it, not just smashes and it should at least also work with Peach in addition to those you mentioned. What happens is that you dip down onto the platform during the initial frames of your DJ and as you're moving down with a velocity of <1 you suffer no landing lag at all, i.e. it's faster than even empty landing and much faster than wavelanding (0 frames lag compared to 4 for empty landing and 10 for wavelanding).

Yoshi and Peach have an easier time doing it because their double jumps dip down further, so they might have larger windows (don't play them so I don't know), but Lucas usually has a 1 frame window or it doesn't work at all (depending on platform height).
I don't know too many spots off the top of my head, but it definitely works on PS2 and iirc also on BF. You can't land on the platforms on PS1 though, funny enough. One spot where it's really easy is when ledge jumping on WW. The ledge jump puts you into a position to DJ-land while at near 0 vertical velocity, giving you a larger timing window.

An alternative that's between wavelanding and DJ-landing in terms of both speed and precision required is auto cancelling a DJC UAir, which gives you 4 frames of landing lag. It's not necessarily easier, but should work on almost every stage. You can also use PKF instead of UAir, but as you can't fastfall PKF, it's again more precise.

 

[drummaniac28]

So far I know it works on Yoshi's Island if your on the slope and the top platform, PS2, BF, Dreamland, and FoD on the top platform.

Does it work on moving platforms too? I don't know it it was my timing but I couldn't get it to work on Smashville or the moving platforms on FoD.