Lucas General Discussion

[SinisterB]

lurky lurk lurk

 

[Burnsy]

8adge! I've been doing frame advance stuff as well. You trying to steal my PK thunder?

Just kidding, thanks for posting that information. I had looked into the true start-up on perfect DJC aerials as you did, but I didn't think to get advantage on sheild, thanks a lot for that. I'm going to mess around with that multi-shine sheild pressure, I still have yet to work that into my game.

 

[Badge]

Hehe. I'd been toying around with frame-advance for about three weeks now. I can't often play this game, but Lucas is fun to experiment with and it helps me a suprising lot when training tech stuff to know when the inputs are supposed to happen. The alternate multimagnet looks very promising to me, but I can't say how feasible it is to do/initiate in practice, so I'm curious to see whether you guys will be able to intergrate it into you play.

 

[Dron]

is multi-shining really better for shield pressure than just keeping the move out and letting the multi-hits do the work?

it doesn't seem like it would be, but I could definitely be wrong

 

[Badge]

In theory it is. Just holding the shine triggers a hitbox every 11 frames with 5 frames of shieldstun, so 6 frames in which the opponent can do something compared to 5/3 frames for the respective multishine variants. Also, you can't move while just holding the shine, but you can move during multishines - enough to keep up with shield DI. I can't say which method has the better payout on hit in practice, but I'd tend to give it to multishine yet again because the release hit has such a long hitstun and it's easy to very quickly DI out of the repeating hits, which may not leave enough time to react. Just holding shine is obviously easier to perform and you can catch any OOS options by releasing it at the right moment instead of having to time a NAir frame perfect, so it's not useless. I'll experiment a bit what you can do with holding PSI magnet, but I don't think it'll have many uses over multimagnets beyond being much easier. Maybe you can use it while airborn to lead into multimagnet pressure on the ground when the opponent acts in a suitable manner and you could still mix it up a bit with early releases into DJ stuff.

 

[Dron]

good information to know, guess I'll get to work practicing those multi-shines

thankfully it seems like it'll be a bit easier than the spacies' shines since there's some leniency with the timing due to double jump cancelling

 

[Burnsy]

Not sure if he wanted to share this himself, but 8adge uploaded a video about a week ago showcasing Lucas shield pressure. I'm sure everyone here would be interested in seeing it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXpc2W510dE

Keep in mind that he made this video using perfect control (advancing the game frame by frame), rather than human reactions. Nonetheless, illustrating what is possible with the highest levels of technical mastery can in some cases lead us to useful strategies that were previously unexplored.

 

[Naughty Pixel]

To me it seems like multishining with lucas is alot harder than with spacies, I can't get a single back to back hit. :/

One thing that I've been doing to my friend is dair -> jab reset, I ****ing love jab resets. But its annoying because sometimes he'll end up stunned on the ground and other times he'll end up on his back. If hes just stunned and I jab i have very few options out of it, and he'll get a grab or something, but if i get the reset then i get a sweet combo.

 

[Badge]

Thanks for reposting it. I made a post in the video thread, but the forum went down just after I did so I already feared it might have gotten overlooked in the chaos. If you have any questions on what I did in that video, you should take a look at this post, where I posted a pretty detailed description.

Grounded multishines are the same as Wolf's, but with the jump after PSI Magnet having to be delayed compared to Wolf. So, while for Wolf you'd just alternate between the buttons at a steady frequency, you'd have to get used to a slightly assymetrical rythm for Lucas. Speaking about assymetrical rythms, that's also where the problem lies for the Multimagnet version that alternates between grounded and aerial shines. You have to get down a sequence of five consecutive inputs frame perfectly if you want to really use it over alternatives and repeat that, which to me is a lot harder than any other Multishines. On the bright side it takes only like three repititions of the sequence to break a shield, so you won't have to worry about keeping it up for long.

Bottom line, it'll probably take a while until anybody can effectively Multishine a shield, so you'll want to stick to more conservative shield pressure until then, which still isn't bad as I see it. Just mixups between (holding/releasing) magnet, DJC Fair and Nair could go a long way.

By the way, can anybody think of any uses for multishines over just holding the magnet aside from shield pressure?

 

[Ishiey]

That's a pretty sexy video.

What 8adge said about why Lucas's multimagnet is a pain in the butt to actually do DJC fair is indeed crazy good though. Possible offensive uses for magnet in general aside from shield pressure, I like it when I'm near the end of the stage with my back to the ledge. Pops the opponent behind me and reverses stage control. It's also good offstage when people overcommit their edgeguards for the same reason. Also also, it's good from a ledgehop. Lucas has some pretty decent underutilized ledge options, I'm trying to work on them more but there are other things that take priority on my life so who knows when I'll actually apply such things properly.

+1 for jab resets being amazing.


Question: What are everyone's thoughts on dair? As far as functionality goes, do you feel P:M Lucas benefits from having this arcing disjointed hitbox, or do you feel like that moveslot would be better filled with a kind of combo/pressure tool, similar to Brawl Lucas's dair?

 

[Naughty Pixel]

I like his current dair alot, it goes well with the rest of his flashy combo oriented kit, if he had brawl dair i feel like it would not only make it hard to kill early but also make him alot less flashy

 

[Burnsy]

I would hate for his dair to be reverted or changed. Many of my kill combos end in a dair.

Edit: How do you guys use d-smash? I find that it is my least used move by far. I most often use it to edgeguard sweetspotting opponents, but haven't been able to find any other uses for it.

 

[GMaster171]

Hey guys, just started using Lucas in the last few days, and hes really fun considering how well the skills transfer between Ness and Lucas. Is there really anything fundamental I should be looking to learn? I feel as though I have the gist of it down, but theres more than likely something important I'm missing.

I'll get vids of myself up in the next few days, showing how I play of course.

@d-smash:
jab reset d-smash is good damage, other than that its edgeguards or another move lol.

 

[Naughty Pixel]

I mostly use it for edgegaurds, once in awhile i can get an offence up buffed dsmash to break a shield after i hit it once. Like once I did dair > jab to catch his jump oos > downsmash. not TOO reliable i try to look for that while im playing but i have a hard time shutting them into their shields.

Also, I LOVE jab resets, thats one of the initial reasons i stuck with lucas. His jab is so low to the ground that its never gonna miss. One issue that I've had with it though is not reacting properly for the right follow up to a dair. Sometimes when I dair it will stun them and I'll jab them and it will just take them out of the stun and they'll punish me. But other times I'll dair and jab reset and make a combo video on the spot

 

[Ishiey]

What is it about the current dair that makes it so useful for your kill combos? Is it the KB of the move, or the range/location? Also, I don't see how something like the Brawl dair would be less flashy than this one, since the Brawl dair was faster and multi-hit which could open up some interesting possibilities with L-cancels before the move is done and whatnot. The current dair to me feels very straightforward, not bad but I don't see how it's particularly flashy or complex.

On dsmash, what everyone else said lol. Do you guys think there are any good ways to change that move so that it becomes more useful, or is that not really necessary? It definitely destroys missed sweetspots.

 

[Dron]

I personally love the current dair because of how fluidly it can be combo'd into offstage, e.g. DJC uair --> fair --> dair meteor

 

[Burnsy]

Fair to dair can be hard to space but at least the sweetspot of dair is disjointed. I most commonly combo to offstage dair off a magnet that pops them over the edge or after fair juggling takes them off-stage. If my reactions are fast enough, I can also sometimes confirm into a dair after tagging them with an offstage PKF.

 

[Master WGS]

Not enough of you are using djc uair really close to the ground. I'm guilty of this myself, but that's only because I'm bad and rarely djc in the first place. I expect much more from the rest of you.

 

[foshio]

Not enough of you are using djc uair really close to the ground. I'm guilty of this myself, but that's only because I'm bad and rarely djc in the first place. I expect much more from the rest of you.

Its really good to use it after nair or magnet. The problem i have with it is I can never seem to follow it up well. I know it just pops people up in the air and seems like I could do anything, and when i'm playing will I can do anything. But it has a pretty small hit lag so you have to be really on point to catch the DI and not make any technical mistakes. I usually do nair close to the edge or go for a grab.

 

[Burnsy]

When I'm trying to poke with from the front with djc on the ground I usually djc fair because of its larger range and good comboability. I've noticed since the uair hitbox surrounds lucas entire head, it pokes from the back one the first few frames and is good for catching opponents behind you. I especially like to use djc uair OoS when they land an aerial behind me. Of course, djc uair is good for comboing as well. As ShELL mentioned earlier in this thread, uair links into u-smash on a lot of the cast at kill percentages.

 

[Dron]

as for OOS stuff, I've been using a lot of DJC'd fairs but also turnaround magnets out of shield for when my shield gets crossed up or even if I just happen to be facing the wrong direction - it doesn't come out as fast as a spacie's shine, but it has the range advantage and is probably the quickest option for scooping up somebody from behind you (and maybe in front of you as well?) OOS

something even neater is that you don't even have to do a perfect magnet OOS in order to do a waveshine OOS because you can still wavedash out of your double jump, which makes waveshine out of shield with Lucas a breeze in my opinion

 

[foshio]

I love the magnet OOS. You can DJC backwards to give you space from shield pressure then pick them up with your magnet and start combos its awesome. Unfortunately for me my controller broke and I won't have one for 4 months T_T.

 

[Archimbald]

I would hate for his dair to be reverted or changed. Many of my kill combos end in a dair.

Edit: How do you guys use d-smash? I find that it is my least used move by far. I most often use it to edgeguard sweetspotting opponents, but haven't been able to find any other uses for it.

Magnet > jab reset > dsmash, makes for some dead spacies.
That said, you're probably better off with a grab after the reset. That's how my magnets usually go against Fox/Falco, leading to a Uair juggle or regrab.
The value from these vary on stage positioning. For example, the Dsmash could make for a better option on platforms.

Or if it's friendlies, you could magnet > jab reset > magnet > JC reverse magnet > DJC nair > taunt

 

[Naughty Pixel]

Jab reset isn't a guarantee, they can tech their landing.

So until about 80% dtilt briefly glues ppl to the ground, what kind of follow ups are there to a low % dtilt? I've been looking into it, but the stun is so brief they'll shield or grab before I can do anything else.

 

[Burnsy]

If you mean d-tilt on a grounded opponent, there aren't very big rewards for using it at low percents if your opponent knows how to crouch cancel. D-tilt has pretty good reach though and sets them up nicely for continued juggling if you catch them with it after you've launched them in the air.

 

[Ishiey]

At mid %s, dtilt leaves grounded opponents in enough stun for more dtilts until they start to DI away (to get out of range), at which point you can go for a dash attack to start a juggle.

 

[fZk]

Went to another tourney this weekend and got 5th. I'm really starting to think that Lucas isn't as good as I originally thought but he's still the most fun character to play for me, so I'll keep at it. There were some recording setups but I don't know if any of my matches actually got recorded.

 

[foshio]

So what precisely is making Lucas falter? Is it the variety but not consistency of combos? Recovery? Players? Combo weight?

 

[Oracle]

The people using him arent good enough. Same reason any other character doesnt do well

 

[Burnsy]

The people using him arent good enough.

I tend to agree with this. Given what I know he is capable of doing, there still aren't any Lucas players who I find impressive (including myself). And certainly no one is playing him at a high level of play.

 

[GunBlaze]

Yeah, and the one Lucas player I know can't show his prowess because we don't have a capture card

 

[Nausicaa]

If there's nothing to inspire people to bother working with this character when our Dazzle arrives locally, I'll go out of my way to get some videos up to showcase some demonstrations of things. Not matches that will showcase 2 good players going at it (you can find that by googling Genesis finals or whatever, and just apply general 'good play' to Lucas), but actually showcasing the offensive and maneuverable prowess of Lucas himself.

Lucas is fine, it's simply the awkwardness of fluidity in the character that makes it odd for people to develop him in any layer of awareness that isn't already developed in the proper place.
In other words, it's a bizarre thing to try and force a change in the way you approach the game, so usually this isn't the path people take to grow with it, but it's the most efficient way to learn how to use 'new' things.

To rely on any well-worn Smash veterans to optimize this character (or several others) is silly for this reason, as overplaying-oneself into being technically fluent and overwhelming, to have awareness of precision-play follow through excessive amounts of direct-experience, is the story of this generation of gamers.

There's a reason he wasn't touched in 2.1>2.5, and I like to think the reason is that the PMBR understand this is the case. Maybe they can't articulate it, or work with it themselves, but Lucas is likely the best character in the game, the question is only how significant of a margin that's by.

Edit: Any character with a versatile Shine-Nair that leads to a gizzilion variations of touch-of-deaths is solid. Some character has to be the 'least' solid, and some character has to be the 'most' solid, by a technicality.
Lucas is pretty darn solid.

 

[Burnsy]

To say he is "likely the best character in the game" seems a bit presumptuous until anyone is able to demonstrate his dominance, but it does seem like he has what it takes to overcome what appear to be weaknesses in low-mid level play.

 

[Nausicaa]

I look at it the other way. Until it's demonstrated that he can't be dominant at top level play, then he's easy to consider as near weakness-less and all low-mid level play is irrelevant.
You don't have to see something to understand it if you're aware of it. If that makes sense.

Seems like he has what it takes? Intuitively, what do you think it will 'seem' like in 2 years from now?

 

[foshio]

Well, i disagree with being top, or even close to that in the game. He has several very hard match ups in my opinion (mario, marth for example). and a terrible combo weight which is death against gannon and very harmful against strong combo'ers like falcon. He also has a subpar/slow recovery which can be punished quite hard. His combo game is strong but technical and very reactive. This makes for a very technically difficult character, with somewhat unsafe combo options, a bad recovery and punished hard. To get a player winning tournaments will take alot of hard work and a never quit attitude.

 

[Burnsy]

I pretty strongly disagree about Ganon and Falcon being bad match-ups. Mario may be at a slight advantage, but he is also manageable. With him I feel like I just need to play more patient than normal.

Lucas can combo Ganon and Falcon even easier than they can combo him. Both characters lack decent approaches, so Lucas can pretty safely hang back and throw ice from a distance then apply pressure/mix-ups, or use his mobility to bait out attacks. It doesn't take many decent length combos & followups to get to killing percentages, maybe like 3-5.

 

[Ishiey]

What do you guys think about Lucas's bair and dtilt? What do you mainly use these moves for, and if you don't like them what changes to those moves do you think would make them better / more useful in Lucas's gameplay?

 

[Oracle]

Ganon has zero to death cg every time he grabs since you can't jump out of it, plus pretty easy edgeguarding with reverse up air, plus he outranges you by a ton

 

[Burnsy]

What do you guys think about Lucas's bair and dtilt? What do you mainly use these moves for, and if you don't like them what changes to those moves do you think would make them better / more useful in Lucas's gameplay?

Bair can be a nice way to end a juggle, after a high % d-throw that won't lead to u-smash, or just punish for a slow wiffed move (djc version).

D-tilt's usefulness depends on percents. At all percents it can be used to continue juggle strings, but it isn't a great idea against a grounded opponent at low percents. At a certain threshold near mid percents, the stun from a d-tilt can lead to more d-tilts (or maybe even jab? It's only 1 frame slower) till they DI out. At mid-high percents the very low to the ground knockdown can lead into easy jab resets, and at high percents can lead into f-smash. This is what I reallly love to use it for. D-tilt -> f-smash is a pretty good bet when fishing for kills.

Ganon has zero to death cg every time he grabs since you can't jump out of it, plus pretty easy edgeguarding with reverse up air, plus he outranges you by a ton

Right, I forgot about that CG. The Ganon I play hasn't exploited it against me much yet. But does that really doom us for the MU if we can also combo them quite well and do our best to avoid getting grabbed?

 

[Ishiey]

So then, you'd say the power on bair is important for its usefulness, correct? No issues with the speed or hitbox/range? They both suit the move perfectly fine when considering its assumed intended purpose (what you mentioned), right? And for dtilt, the speed and KB are the two most important factors for the assumed intended purpose?

Sorry for all the questioning lol. Just want to make sure you're overall getting at what I think you are.