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Lucas in the other modes

Luco

Smash Hero
Joined
Jan 4, 2011
Messages
9,232
Location
The isle of venom, Australia
NNID
dracilus
3DS FC
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WELCOME!!!

This is the thread concerning Lucas' performance in Brawl's other modes. As this post is updated, more and more modes will be added and put in to discussion. There will be an overall performance mark out of 10, which will be debated and deliberated upon as time goes on. After that performance mark will be a (hopefully) detailed explanation of why Lucas does how he does. This will similarly be changed to reflect popular opinion on him by the community. The rest of the thread will be used for discussing this, while the first post represents more of a guide.

The SWF rules apply here. A little bit of social activity will be allowed but the thread must not be allowed to get particularly derailed and most discussion here should be put in to the task at hand.

With that said, try to enjoy the discussion, don't troll and please don't make a debate in to a flame war. Truth be told, you guys are pretty good with each other so all the stuff i've just said, I doubt will really happen. But it's good for it to stand there anyway.

Colour coding and what the score represents:

0/1 is dark red. If you see it, it means that Lucas is in the bottom tier for that activity and should be avoided if you're trying to clear it or clear it well. Through my experiences with Lucas and the modes, this should come up very rarely, imo.

2/3 is dark orange. If you see it, it means that it's just not worth it with Lucas. Maybe one or two good points but really, the bad far outweighs the good. Again, this shouldn't come up often.

4/5 is grey. If you see it, it means that this is the grey area. Lucas is probably not that great on it and there are definitely better choices but it's possible and with enough dedication you can (just) achieve it well.

6/7 is purple. If you see it, it means the good here generally outweighs the bad and Lucas can do it reasonably well with a bit of effort. It may mean he has to beware a few things and needs to employ a few tricks but he should be all right.

8/9 is dark olive green. If you see it, it means Lucas is really very good at this activity and excels at it for various reasons. He's great to use for good success in it and generally suffers very little against it's challenges through some technique or another.

10 is cyan. If you see it, it means that Lucas is AMAZING at this activity and is very highly recommended. At the top of the tier list or nearly there. There's just about nothing to stop him doing well in the activity if played right.

All of these ratings, as i've stated above are up for discussion. Feel free to comment on them and discuss them at your leisure!

Current status of the post: The post has got it's first 4 topics up for discussion. Community comments will be added to each subject as is needed. The next few topics that I will be putting up will be the 10 and 100 - multi-man brawls, the 3 and 15 minute multi-man brawls, Home-run contest and Classic mode. A few of these will probably need discussing before an accurate opening write-up is produced.

So with all of that...

Stay tuned!




First subject of interest:Boss Battles!

Overall score out of 10? : 9/10



Okay, a pretty good score. Some might call it bias. others would ask why I have rated it so well. Some certainly know why. The reason Lucas is this high is because he essentially has an extra heart over everyone else (except his PK bro, ness). Lucas can heal from the boss Duon. With a little bit of luck, you can encounter him at a high percent and not have to worry about taking a heart. A boss who used to be in my most hated, I now breath a sigh of relief to see him.

The attack Lucas heals from are his missiles, on the white/red Duon side. Which one, you ask? The energy ones, silly! That is, the one of which he actually has two attacks from. His first attack is one where he blasts these missiles from near perpendicular to the stage all the way up to diagonally behind him. The second is where he blasts missiles from near perpendicular to the stage to being roughly parallel to the terrain. Both gives you a heal and they give a LOT. Seriously, 2 or three of these things is usually enough to get you from the 90%-ish region down to 0.

But enough on the healing. Surely this cannot be the only thing at which Lucas excels at? Well no, it isn't. Lucas has quite a few other perks when versing bosses.

First of all, his Dtilt is surprisingly strong and is extremely fast. Where energy does nearly nothing to Rayquaza, Dtilt is definitely the quickest way to kill most ground-based bosses. On bosses where this is impractical (such as versing Galeom) Or air-based bosses (such as Ridley), he has some variety concerning attacks. As a very aerial character with a great double jump, he has some very damaging strings against these bosses, allowing him huge amounts of air time and in quite a few cases, slowing down the boss (just slightly). With most bosses, Lucas can kill them before they do any attacks that can seriously harm him (aka Meta Ridley's second instant KO if-you're-on-the-ship attack - his first one is usually his first move and can be easily predicted, which is ironic considering it's a shorter animation before the attack happens. Even when it's not his first attack, you can predict when he'll do it if you learn the bosses' attack patterns ((they usually have two or three different starting attack patterns which consist of 4 or 5 moves)) ). Coming back to Meta Ridley, Lucas is particularly good in an instance where MR latches on to the ship and begins shooting fireballs. With 1 or 2 good Dsmashes or a well timed bat (which i'll talk about next), Lucas sends him out with no damage to himself. Neato!

Next comes the fun one: His bat. Oh goodness, if I took the percentage of every time i've batted away a boss' ranged attack at once I would surely have over 1000% damage. Lucas has so many things he can deflect it's not funny. I don't think i've even found everything he can deflect. he can deflect Rayquza's two electricity balls, he can deflect just about every ranged attack from Duon... he can probably deflect Galeom's ranged stuff as well. He can deflect Meta Ridley's fireballs... and so on. See what else you can find!

Then comes the miscellaneous stuff. Things like his interesting uses of PKT1 or PKF. If Duon releases homing missiles at you and you saw the attack coming, use PKT1 and blow them up before they have a chance to do anything. Their blast proximity will affect Duon, no running around trying to get them to follow you in to Duon needed! Again with Duon, using PK fire should blow up at least a few mines from blue/black Duon. Using zap jump will usually hit Galeom and leave you safely out of the way for any attacks he's doing, save falling out of the sky in tank form. With his good air time, go behind Ridley when he's using air to push you back. Behind him you don't move, it's normal. You can use that time to do a PKT2 in to him or some other stuff. PK freeze is rather damaging to the Ridleys: Indeed, it's stated in the trophies that Meta Ridley is rather weak to ice attacks, though it could just be me. Zap Jump can be really useful in making some bosses miss (think Tabuu's transformation in to shark-arrow thingy, Ridley's flying across the screen attack, etc.) and can generally get you out of others (The hand's attacks that hurt you if you're on the ground, Rayquaza's flying across the screen attack, etc.). Lucas' great short hop allows him, with good timing on the player's part, to develop a system with Petey Piranha that leaves him with no damage taken at all, using Dtilt and the airdodge. His nice spot-dodge allows him great timing advantages on Tabuu's wings of doom - whatever they're called - attack.

The list goes on. Generally, Lucas is a great, all rounded character when it comes to bosses. His Healing, his ability to reflect and his quick but largely damage-dealing attacks allow him a good spot on the tier list when it comes to bosses. This is why I give him the great mark of 9/10.

[COLLAPSE="Community comments"]
Boss Battles: Lucas generally excels at boss battles, most of the Boss has projectiles that he can absorb with PSI magnet, so he can survive a long time. Surviving other bosses isn't much of a problem either you can zap jumo over them or just camp off stage, and for dealing damage you can get the patten down an spam your smashes which hit strong, or keep your distance and camp with pk fire. 8/10 on this one.
[/COLLAPSE]


Okay, so what's next? Oohhee, you'll like this one, it's Cruel Brawl!

Overall score on this one: 10/10



Wow! A 10/10, you say? What prompts this super-fantastic mark? Well the truth is, I don't play many other characters competitively but I've tried them all at least once and in my experience Lucas/Ness take, the, cake on this one. The technique is simple if a little droney and repetitive. Run to one side of the stage, jump off, use PK thunder (by this time the alloys should have more or less come to the edge of the stage. Not too much of a problem if you miss one though usually) and blast yourself straight in to them! They can't shield, they can't spot-dodge, they usually don't jump... There's nothing to stop you from destroying them every time, unless one jumps off and hits you before you actually PKT2. Better yet, they usually hit each other as they're flying away and this usually makes their knockback even crazier!

Usually this clears the field. If you want to mix it up a bit and get a few extra kills while lessening the use of PKT2 you can do some edgeguarding! Just watch out for those pesky footstools they might do, or reverse edgeguarding which will kill you. Nair usually hits them out of a DJ and cancels it, and with enough edgeguarding you can even take care of those pesky green ones that jump off and jump all 5 times, mocking you from outside the stage and... yeahhh back to the main thing. Chuck in a few Usmashes, Dsmashes, PK fires and what-else-have-you every now and then and you've got a recipe for a great time and a new record. No wonder it's a perfect 10/10!

[COLLAPSE="Community comments"]
Cruel battle: This is my favorite with Lucas. Lucas is the only character I've been able to beat this mode with. At the beginning I run to the ledge and stay there and I wait for all of the alloys to go there then I get off the ledge and PK2 all the way to the other side of the stage hitting all the alloys. Right now my high score is 11 which is the best of any character. 10/10 for Lucas on this one.

I shall edit this with the other modes later.
[/COLLAPSE]

Annddd.... that's about it on Cruel Battle. Have fun!




Okay, up next, it's a favourite of mine and one that my brother and I can't seem to be able to conquer in doubles... yet. It's All-Star!

What's the score on this one? : 6/10



A 6... a decent score, you would say. Why not higher, some might ask? Well, the reason is that some characters plainly do better at this that Lucas. Zelda, for example can keep away everyone and can often finish it without needing to use her last heart.

Lucas does have some pros and cons in this activity. Lets get the cons out of the way first.

Lucas suffers in All-star from a lack of range where it is needed. While the CPU's are stupid, they're usually smart enough to figure out to shield PK thunder and PK fire and if you have more than one CPU, the stage usually allows at least one of them to find a way around while you're attacking the other CPU, leaving you caught in a pincer attack. As well as this, if you have a team-mate in doubles, there's no way to heal each other. Bummer, dude!

Additionally, Lucas has trouble keeping his damage low. On a good day you can get all the way to Ike and Marth without having to use a heart but this is rather rare even if you're good at All-Star because of the huge amount of variables involved (random factors, things like that... no wonder these stages are banned competitively haha!) getting up to that point and even if you do get to Castle Siege and are at 0%, only having used your first heart, from there on in the battles get much tougher and you tend to have to take hearts a lot more often.

Now to the pros. Lucas is a great killer. In All Star, the opponents act as if they're already at about 30% knockback wise, meaning that a fully charged Usmash or two normal Usmashes can usually kill one of these CPUs straight off the bat, unless they're heavy-weight such as Bowser. This, combined with their CPU stupidity even on intense mode allows for some reasonably easy and quick kills.

Often, CPU's prefer to fall in to and hit the ground rather than put themselves in a position where they land on it on their feet. What does this mean? Why, Dtilt lock of course! It doesn't work all the time if they're at a low enough percentage but, especially when it comes to versing only one character, it means a kill every time. Unfortunately as you go on enemies tend not to slam in to the ground as much but there are other ways of going after them than just smashes.

Using PKT1 to chase them off-stage is a really good option, especially if you're only versing one. If you're versing more than one opponent and you see the second opponent sneaking up behind you, angle your PKT1 and turn in in to a PKT2 to hit that other pesky CPU. A note on this: CPU's generally don't expect PKT2 and get hit by it a lot. I have no idea why this is seeing as they do it as well... but so much as jump off the edge and PKT2 and they'll likely - not always but likely - get hit by it. Don't make it a habit though or you'll feel like you're cheating and/or they'll get used to it and begin to shield it every time.

Which in fact brings us to this. CPU's generally begin to shield your attacks more often if you've just used them already. Lucas, as a good mix-up character, doesn't suffer from this nearly as much. PK fire is maybe the only thing you could spam without getting punished for it, so do watch out for moves that are getting a bit stale but otherwise you should have a blast.

Lucas has several other attributes to this that he can use to his advantage. The fact that he can heal off characters such as zelda (and the technique to do it with Zelda is often to leave her till last then keep away from her. She doesn't do it heaps but you should notice the opportunity every once in a while. Look for it when you've got other characters around you as well, otherwise it will hurt you instead of heal you.) and his mobility help him in areas where other characters generally suffer is a positive attribute. This is why the score is pending between 6 and 7. For now, a 6 is appropriate as doubles Lucas seems to be bad compared to some other characters but it is open to debate.

That's what I have to say for All-Star. Hope it helps!




Next up, we have the all familiar Break the Targets!

And our opening score on this? : 7/10



A 7 out of 10 is a nice score. The reasons are rather simple and easy to explain. This might only take a paragraph or two!

So Lucas' main traits that help him out here are his average speed and good air mobility. He can get to targets quicker than, say, Ganondorf, Bowser, probably a few other mid and light-weights as well. He has some good attacks that guarantee to hit the targets (aka, unlike C. Falcon, his Nair will hit things that he's virtually in front of and things that might be slightly behind him.) but Lucas really comes in to his element when it comes to his ranged attacks. If you're falling and there's a target, you don't even have to go near it so much as PKF it and you're done with that target. His PKT1 is better than Ness' in that it won't stop after hitting the first target. Because you can control this projectile you can get strings of 3 or 4 targets in one go and can quickly get hard to reach targets, such as the one on level 1 which is behind the wall with 'arrow slits' in it. Use PK fire and you've got the target you should be breaking last out of the way (come to think of it, I think i've only tested this one with PKT1, which doesn't work. Would anyone like to test it with PKF?) or ones just below a given platform. A high to reach target can be easily conquered with a zap jump or item jump and his generally good DJ allows him to get more air time than other characters, allowing for more target bashing.

The reason Lucas isn't higher with the rating is because he lacks the speed a couple other characters have (such as Sonic) and lack of other useful tools (gliding for one). Still, his performance is really very good on this one and is one of my best in terms of records, leaving his mark pending between 7 and 8. To be discussed, yo!
 

Alberto1866

Smash Journeyman
Joined
Oct 11, 2011
Messages
364
Location
Ontario, California
Boss Battles: Lucas generally excels at boss battles, most of the Boss has projectiles that he can absorb with PSI magnet, so he can survive a long time. Surviving other bosses isn't much of a problem either you can zap jumo over them or just camp off stage, and for dealing damage you can get the patten down an spam your smashes which hit strong, or keep your distance and camp with pk fire. 8/10 on this one.

Cruel battle: This is my favorite with Lucas. Lucas is the only character I've been able to beat this mode with. At the beginning I run to the ledge and stay there and I wait for all of the alloys to go there then I get off the ledge and PK2 all the way to the other side of the stage hitting all the alloys. Right now my high score is 11 which is the best of any character. 10/10 for Lucas on this one.

I shall edit this with the other modes later.
 

Luco

Smash Hero
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Okay, boss battles is up, I can do Cruel battle shortly. I definitely agree Alberto that PKT2 is the best way to deal with alloys in Cruel Brawl. This is the same case for Ness. PKT2 just destroys. I believe my highest is somewhere in the high 10's or maybe in the low 20's. It was a rather lucky streak and I even made it to night-time. I have it recorded and may put it up one day.

Okay, i'm gonna call this a day for now and i'll work on the rest tomorrow.

Oh, I don't suppose some extremely kind moderator would like to sticky this please?
 

Alberto1866

Smash Journeyman
Joined
Oct 11, 2011
Messages
364
Location
Ontario, California
Yeah lol I've tried Ness in cruel battle but his PK2 doesn't go as far as Lucas' so I usually get punished before I can reach the other side lol. Im still able to do decent though with Ness I've been able to get 7. Actually im going to try it now see how far I can get.
 

Luco

Smash Hero
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The isle of venom, Australia
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dracilus
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Well with both, after you've used PKT2 you just run the rest of the way. That's the perfect time to use other attacks to get that little bit of extra damage against the alloys. :D

EDIT: Alberto, you reminded me to add collapse tags with community comments inside them hehe. Thanks for the opening thoughts! =)
 

yoshi8984

Smash Lord
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Feb 18, 2011
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TimmyTendo
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I know that Lucas can also heal from Master Hand's missiles. :p (Crazy Hand doesn't shoot missiles, so don't bother with him LOL)
I believe that and Duon's Pink Lasers are the only things he can heal from though.

Also IMHO it's not worth reflecting Rayquaza's Electric Ball attack, it's like high risk, low reward. =P

Lucas can easily avoid Meta Ridley's instakill attack where he jumps on the ship and makes it sink by having Lucas Zap Jump and then Magnet Stall. (Actually I think Full Hopping then Double Jumping and then Magnet Stalling works too lol)
If he does that attack where he hangs onto the ship and shoots fireballs, just D-Smash him to get him off.

I like using PK Freeze against bosses, just make sure you're out of their range. :p
_____________________________
All-Star... is rather difficult for me as Lucas. I wish items could be turned off so he doesn't get screwed over by random bombs and such >__> And sadly CPUs won't spam energy based items/attacks :/
Though, since Smash Balls are on, if you have a buddy that's good with Peach, I can see interesting things happening. XD
 

Luco

Smash Hero
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The isle of venom, Australia
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I know that Lucas can also heal from Master Hand's missiles. :p (Crazy Hand doesn't shoot missiles, so don't bother with him LOL)
I believe that and Duon's Pink Lasers are the only things he can heal from though.

Also IMHO it's not worth reflecting Rayquaza's Electric Ball attack, it's like high risk, low reward. =P

Lucas can easily avoid Meta Ridley's instakill attack where he jumps on the ship and makes it sink by having Lucas Zap Jump and then Magnet Stall. (Actually I think Full Hopping then Double Jumping and then Magnet Stalling works too lol)
If he does that attack where he hangs onto the ship and shoots fireballs, just D-Smash him to get him off.

I like using PK Freeze against bosses, just make sure you're out of their range. :p
_____________________________
All-Star... is rather difficult for me as Lucas. I wish items could be turned off so he doesn't get screwed over by random bombs and such >__> And sadly CPUs won't spam energy based items/attacks :/
Though, since Smash Balls are on, if you have a buddy that's good with Peach, I can see interesting things happening. XD
When it comes to reflecting bosses' attacks, I agree that it's high risk vs. low reward in the case of Rayquaza... but when you've grown so used to his attacks that you an deflect those two attacks reliably (like 90% of the time or better ) it's just another damager and it's a lot of fun to do (aka moral booster! :p ).

As for all star, my brother and I just cleared it together yesterday with Lucas without losing a life. :D

We got really really lucky.

A few things about all star: When you verse ROB, circle camp him until you can get turtles/crabs, then just use them. They kill him even at like 0% and he doesn't seem to avoid them as much as other stuff.

With Game and watch, if you don't kill him quick he will damage you, so keep the pressure on. PK fire, Fairs, whatever it take to get him off the screen.

With the Ice Climbers, Lucas is very good at separating them with his magic. Do so, keep popo off the edge and you've won.
 
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