Lucas' Weekly Matchup Discussion Review - Diddy

[ParanoidDrone]

So ....lucas is outranged and is hard for him to get close to ivy and start hurting her (my ivy is a girl ), ivys anti air game does hurt lucas from my experience
I think the debate here is... does lucas have to aproach???

Lucas doesn't approach much in general, so...not really? Unless Ivysaur has a surefire way of getting around PK Fire. If Ivysaur's anti air is as good as is told here (I have zero Pokemon Trainer experience), then it could shut down the dair->fsmash combo, but this is where I start talking out of my *** and theorytarding. Shutting up now.

 

[Levitas]

I agree, that's really important here.

Ivysaur can fire razor leaf a little faster, and it goes a little farther. Lucas's does more damage and has better knockback.

Ivy has no additional measures against pk fire. Lucas has fsmash for reflecting the razor leaves.

At really long range, there's pk freeze. Ivy has nothing. PK thunder doesn't matter.

 

[Blackbelt]

Huh. It really is a question of who can defend better.

 

[ChaosTheoryX]

and in terms of defense. I give the game to lucas, but we are not focusing on one play style for lucas. Just lucas over-all, and for that I say the match up is still 50-50

 

[Levitas]

Why? If lucas can camp better, it's his advantage. If Ivy can camp better, it's between neutral and his advantage (due to recovery differences)

 

[Steeler]

yeah, part of it depends on who camps better. but its not the entire debate.

also i don't know why you guys bother to mention pk freeze lol...too easy to avoid and leaves lucas kind of vulnerable. but if you use it to where lucas can't be punished...then you probably aren't going to accomplish anything with pk freeze in the first place!

also, remember that twigging the razor leaf won't always work, depending on where ivy is, because at a certain distance, the leaf won't make it back to hit ivy. so basically, the twig is most effective at around mid range where it'll still hit ivy...and at that range, bair and its various follow ups become options.

so basically, near razor leaf's max range, the twig becomes a lot less effective. when you get nearer, razor leaf isn't ivy's only option then. i think yall are forgetting that. my point is that twig doesn't completely make razor leaf useless like some may think.

i think ivy bair goes through pk fire, but i don't know how effective that is as i haven't tried it.

another point i want to make in the pk fire/razor leaf debate is that ivysaur can actually use razor leaf as a part of an approach. lucas really can't do that very well.

 

[ChaosTheoryX]

Why? If lucas can camp better, it's his advantage. If Ivy can camp better, it's between neutral and his advantage (due to recovery differences)

well just because lucas can do pk fire and reflect razor leaf doesnt mean that razor leaf is all that ivysaur has. dont forget that there is lag at the end pk fire and fsmash. and ivysaur CAN get around these options and approach lucas

 

[Levitas]

Lucas wouldn't want to follow up a PK fire, even if it didn't send the opponents away like it does, it doesn't leave them in enough lag to be a good follow up option. For that matter, razor leaf has the same flaw in stun.

So we have two camping games that can be gotten around, are both risk vs reward games that get riskier and have more reward as you get closer, and blah blah blah.

Both characters have really flawed tools. Debating them sucks. Oh, and Steeler, you should NOT discount PK freeze entirely. At 1.5 times the range of PK fire, it can be used against a shield to bait an approach on most characters into a jab combo/ftilt/nair/dair. It's safe on block at most ranges. It can be a yomi tool if you predict an aerial approach correctly. It follows up into itself (does ~1.5 times the normal damage). It is lucas's safest long distance kill at high percents. And it edgeguards charizard's glide quite nicely.

 

[Steeler]

well, i'll try and compare ivy/lucas.

i think that ivysaur definitely has a more effective aerial deterrent in bair than anything lucas has.

while on the ground, both characters are fairly similar. for spacing, lucas ftilt is similar to ivy ftilt and dtilt. lucas jab is faster than anything ivy has, but has poor range.

punishment wise, ivysaur has bullet seed as a very quick and painful punisher up close. lucas on the other hand, has jab/ftilt/dtilt. otherwise, both characters' fsmashes and usmashes are similar in terms of start up and kill power.

razor leaf is more spammable than pk fire. razor leaf has more uses than pk fire (both approach and retreat/space). razor leaf can be reflected but will only hit ivysaur when he's close enough to use a different option, usually bair into follow up, but also a dash grab. at that same range, lucas only has pk fire and perhaps a dash grab, afaik. additionally, i'm fairly certain that moves like bair/ftilt/dtilt/jab will cancel a reflected leaf anyway.

just a few things i wanted to put on the table.

edit for levitas

i agree, debating this is boring.

however, ivysaur CAN follow up a razor leaf, because unlike lucas, ivy can di forward as he uses it. at closer ranges, it becomes much more difficult for lucas to reflect the leaf. this is why razor leaf is a nice tool for ivy to use as an approach, not just to force an approach from the opponent. finally, leaf has less ending lag, although it isn't a huge difference.

why would someone be shielding at 1.5 times the range of pk fire? O_o lol. if i see the pk freeze coming, i'll try to get in lucas's face as quickly as possible, or just air dodge/sidestep/roll from the freeze. shield is an option but why let your shield diminish by taking the attack when you can easily avoid it otherwise?

you mention that lucas doesn't want to follow pk fire up...but if that's true, then how are you going to follow up a pk freeze into shield?

sure pk freeze is pretty safe for lucas...but again, how often will you hit with it?

charizard's glide sucks hardcore lol. chaos can tell you how most of the guys here laugh at his glide and glide attack lol. usually glide is just used in place of midair jumps. glide attack has poor range. basically glide isn't very useful in any matchup, but particularly against lucas because of pk freeze. regardless, zard doesn't lose much, if anything at all, by not gliding.

 

[Levitas]

People have this really absurd idea that pk freeze has a ton of lag after it. If it taps your shield, people think you can get a free hit/smash in. That's why it works.

In general, lucas is really only good at punishing bad players for poor playing.

And for the record, in games that I feel like using PK freeze, I'll hit with it 1-2 times a game and virtually guarantee a followup or that they're in KO range.

 

[Irsic]

It's...not as hard to hit with as you think. Because of it's hover/floatiness you're not guaranteed to airdodge it because we can follow you while you air dodge with it. I don't know why people make these terrible assumptions against PK Freeze, the only real lag it has is at the beginning, if we use it too close to you then we'll get punished for sure.

Do not discount PK Freeze entirely, you've just never seen anyone skilled with it (considering I've seen a decent amount of Lucas', and not too many of them use PKF in their arsenal) but it's a slightly underrated ability.

I know right now I'm making it sound amazing and it's not, but it's not horrible either.

Steeler can you play some games?

 

[Levitas]

What's with all these lucas players in MI that I've never met?

 

[Irsic]

What's with all these lucas players in MI that I've never met?

I'm coming to Ann Arbor possibly this winter (assuming there's a biweekly anytime between Dec. 10th - Jan 11th) then any in summer that occur.

 

[Brinzy]

Squirtle and Lucas both have interesting things to work with here, but I feel that Lucas just might have the upper hand. His moves are very damaging overall to Squirtle, and his smash attacks all kill very early. SH nair -> combos work effectively vs. Squirtle because it's hard to answer to it, even if it's shielded. Lucas's aerials actually do give Squirtle a bit of trouble overall. I like to rely on grabbing Lucas for the most part because his attacks are pretty problematic for Squirtle as it stands. Lucas also edgeguards Squirtle far better than Squirtle can edgeguard Lucas. PK Thunder kills off his recovery quite effectively.

In order for Squirtle to win, he has to keep moving and he has to constantly tilt and jab to reveal Lucas's weaknesses. This is definitely easier said than done.

Ivysaur fares alright against Lucas. Lucas's quick and powerful attacks on the ground can prove to be incredibly annoying because if Ivysaur can't keep Lucas away, it won't be too hard for Lucas to take the match. Ivysaur seems to do much better when Lucas is airborne, however. He can outrange Lucas, and he can also get decent KOs from this area. Lucas can spam his aerials when he's around Ivysaur, however, because aside from bair, it takes a fair bit of prediction to stop Lucas from landing hits. One screw-up grants enough time for Lucas to take control again. PK Thunder bothers Ivysaur a lot, along with Dsmash because of its deceptive range. All in all, Lucas should probably stay on the ground until Ivysaur is airborne.

Charizard has a tough time against Lucas, mainly due to his size. This allows Lucas to get very easy damage on him. Lucas apparently has a grab-release -> dtilt on Charizard, which can mean death. PK Fire isn't very difficult to deal with, but it's not viable to try and evade it in the air because of Charizard's relatively slower aerial mobility. Another big problem for Charizard is how Lucas can counter Rock Smash. All of Lucas's disjointed moves can hit Charizard out of it, and Fsmash can reflect it. Flamethrower is still viable because, to my understanding, Lucas still can't pull PSI Magnet out while he's caught in the flames. Regardless, Lucas should just stick with his quicker moves, because it's hard for Charizard to do anything but shieldgrab and jab them.

Charizard also doesn't like to face Lucas in the air. One aerial is all it really takes to shake Lucas off, but it's still not a very viable position to be in vs. Lucas. PK Thunder also screws with Charizard, so use that as much as you'd like. Force Charizard to contend with PK THunder and take advantage of his size. Overall, it's a hard fight for Charizard.


I really, really don't know much about Lucas, so feel free to correct whatever needs to be corrected.

 

[Irsic]

Alright guys, me and Successor of Raphael played about 14 matches and I only didn't get one of them I think. It's late right now so I just uploaded 5 of them and I'll get the rest tomorrow. Yes, 13 Lucas vs. PKT videos.

Battlefield R1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGisZGmLwUk
Smashville R2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ru-xO68AZE0
Yoshi's Island R3 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SALsBz9cxss
Lylat System R4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12AFG4313EY
Halberd R5 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3rNB8BEFUM

 

[Brinzy]

Oh no, you recorded ALL of those? lol

 

[Irsic]

Everyone but one, lol. Can't believe I didn't get that one either, I tore up combos in it. >_< Still mad about it. Alright I'm going to sleep, gotta wake up in like 4 hours.

 

[Brinzy]

That you did.

Good night.

 

[heytallman]

Irsic, thanks a bunch for the videos. From watching them, I would say that Ivy/Lucas is about 55/45 or so in Lucas' favor, and I think the Charizard matchup needs to be moved up a bit, like to 57/43 Lucas (60/40 is probably too high).

But then again, this is just one PT and one Lucas. A bit later today I could play a few PT's online, but I have hardly any experience online, I haven't played on it since about three weeks after Brawl came out. I have no way of recording matches too, except with a digital camera.

 

[ChaosTheoryX]

ill be getting more recorded friendlies with steeler tommorow probably

 

[prOAPC]

nair to nair ***** charizard, and i didn't see that in those videos
also, 3-stocked in last match, i'll say 65-35 lucas favor (in general)

 

[Brinzy]

Bear in mind that I suck (compared to Irsic anyway) and I'm still learning PT, but yeah, I was 3-stocked. I didn't do too badly, though.

 

[Irsic]

nair to nair ***** charizard, and i didn't see that in those videos
also, 3-stocked in last match, i'll say 65-35 lucas favor (in general)

Was having a little bit of difficulty pulling it off but I remember attempting it.

 

[Irsic]

Rest of the vids:

Frigate Orpheon R6: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWNWI-0N1bk
Battlefield R7: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWmU1mJpiUw
Final Destination R8: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABtVcOKX5ZA
Smashville R9: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujyvkHAArDU
Final Destination R10: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12ld18Jevrs
Battlefield R11: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQPtTyOVRpI
Smashville R12: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULPRU_mKOlI

 

[Brinzy]

lol, I can't watch!

 

[Steeler]

i'd love to play some online matches. not as effective as offline matches though.

and yeah, chaos and i will have more vids for yall later this week.

 

[Irsic]

I might be able to play some later tonight, Steeler.

Also, Raph and I had a pretty solid connection, it was rather enjoyable.

 

[Steeler]

alright irsic. i'll add you ahead of time.

 

[Tyr_03]

We shouldn't base this matchup on those vids of Irsic vs. Raphael. Irsic has better spacing and is less predictable. He's just the better player. Raph, learn how to powershield and mixup your approaches more. Don't do the same thing over and over hoping it'll work. You spent way too much time grabbing air. Also learn your combo breaker moves. Every character has a few fast moves that can punish the lag from missed autocancels from Nair or attempted Dair combos at too low of percentage. You could have done a lot more punishment on Irsic if you'd had these in mind. Even shieldgrabs would have worked in some cases.

That said, we're probably not going to get an accurate matchup number on this. I've only ever seen one really good Pokemon Trainer player. Hardly anyone uses him and when they do they're usually mediocre at best. I can't blame them because PT pretty much just sucks as a character. You have to know exactly what you're doing and exactly what your opponent is doing to be any good with him. I think of it pretty similarly to trying to learn Pichu or Kirby in Melee. Whereas learning Lucas is more like trying to learn DK in Melee. Characters that are only going to beat better characters if you know exactly what you're doing.

I'd stick it at 60-40. Maybe even as high as 70-30. Change it when some PT player proves it wrong. Pokemon trainer is just really easy to take advantage of. Simple to edgeguard in any form, stupidly easy to combo as Charizard, stupidly easy to gimp as Ivysaur (oh yea and extra knockback for PK Fire.) The biggest threat is Squirtle and even that isn't anything extraordinary. Once you've got him out of the way it's an easy enough matchup in general.

 

[Steeler]

i'd love to prove you wrong.

comparing pt to melee pichu/kirby is lulz.

 

[Irsic]

We shouldn't base this matchup on those vids of Irsic vs. Raphael. Irsic has better spacing and is less predictable. He's just the better player. Raph, learn how to powershield and mixup your approaches more. Don't do the same thing over and over hoping it'll work. You spent way too much time grabbing air. Also learn your combo breaker moves. Every character has a few fast moves that can punish the lag from missed autocancels from Nair or attempted Dair combos at too low of percentage. You could have done a lot more punishment on Irsic if you'd had these in mind. Even shieldgrabs would have worked in some cases.

That said, we're probably not going to get an accurate matchup number on this. I've only ever seen one really good Pokemon Trainer player. Hardly anyone uses him and when they do they're usually mediocre at best. I can't blame them because PT pretty much just sucks as a character. You have to know exactly what you're doing and exactly what your opponent is doing to be any good with him. I think of it pretty similarly to trying to learn Pichu or Kirby in Melee. Whereas learning Lucas is more like trying to learn DK in Melee. Characters that are only going to beat better characters if you know exactly what you're doing.

I'd stick it at 60-40. Maybe even as high as 70-30. Change it when some PT player proves it wrong. Pokemon trainer is just really easy to take advantage of. Simple to edgeguard in any form, stupidly easy to combo as Charizard, stupidly easy to gimp as Ivysaur (oh yea and extra knockback for PK Fire.) The biggest threat is Squirtle and even that isn't anything extraordinary. Once you've got him out of the way it's an easy enough matchup in general.

Eh. I kind of had that as a feeling during the matches. I didn't even get to attempt all of Lucas' combos, and I did get a grab release dtilt fsmash on Raph, but only in one of the matches...and it was the one I didn't get recorded. Oh well.

I still had an easier time taking advantage of some of the characters flaws (as always when I play PKT) and tilts still seem to be quite a problem for PKT. Also, Charizard is strong, but get in close and with the exception of his fantastic grab, I can't really give any other props. Squirtle can be difficult, but he has a weird (making it easier for Lucas) and even though he has strong aerials Lucas can still get through them. This matchup is in Lucas' favor. I have no doubt, and it's not based on those matches. I'd really give Ivysaur the benefit of the doubt in the matchup, Squirtle just falls short of Lucas' decent ranged attacks, and Zard is easily comboed, and all 3 characters are easily edge-guarded. (though I did learn that Ivy's tether is quite nasty)

All in all, it shouldn't be mucher higher or lower than an overall 60-40. I don't know the exact numbers. Right now Steeler I'm posting from the art building and hopefully I can play later tonight. I'll have time then.

 

[Itburns]

if we cant decide this match up watching videos then its pretty much a never ending argument.

it does obviously depend on each players skill level. Im gonna agree with the 60:40 overall in lucas favor.

 

[HiddenBowser]

if we cant decide this match up watching videos then its pretty much a never ending argument.

wow, scrub post. How the **** are you planning on deciding the matchup by watching vids of two scrubs who are uneven in skill, playing online. Like really? There are three major things wrong with that. Scrubs, uneven skill, and online. Wow. It seriously sounds like you just want to say that it's 60:40, don't really care what it really is, and want to move on to the next character... This is why you can't get an accurate matchup ratio by letting a bunch of scrubs and no good people give their inputs.

 

[Steeler]

problem with some of this, bowyer, is that good players for either side are hard to find. i'm really glad that chaos and i are in the same crew, so that at least one of those factors you mentioned doesn't matter. and we are both solid players (or at least i'd think so).

and i think this discussion is far from over.

 

[HiddenBowser]

problem with some of this, bowyer, is that good players for either side are hard to find.

You're a complete ****ing idiot, like Palin stupid. You would rather use something ****ty that will give you completely false information over not using it at all? That seriously doesn't make any ****ing sense at all. Well whatever, if you scrubs want to use ****ing ******** **** to give you at least something to look and make your ****ty character look better, then whatever, go ahead, but every decent or better player is just going to sit back and laugh while you guys make a ****ing fool of yourself. Congrats on making everyone think of you guys as scrubs, though it's not like they thought otherwise before.

i'm really glad that chaos and i are in the same crew, so that at least one of those factors you mentioned doesn't matter. and we are both solid players (or at least i'd think so).

You guys suck and if any of the problems I listed are present, it'll throw everything way ****ing off.

...I'm surprised I don't have more censored words in this post, lol.

 

[Levitas]

flaming post is flaming, bowyer.

If you remove the flames, it looks like this: Flawed assumptions find flawed conclusions.

Or it's just ash. I can't really say for sure.

 

[HiddenBowser]

Wasn't it supposed to be a flaming post while getting my point across? Anyways, people get it better if I use harsher words... though sometimes they go away, lol. Whatever, if they want to get better, they'll endure a few words of constructive criticism.

 

[Irsic]

scrub scrub scrub scrub

videos are videos you can make what you want of them. of course its online, i cant just walk out on the street and someone to play PKT well.

anyway, uneven skill.






p.s. i highly doubt bowyer watched any of the vids.

 

[Blackbelt]

As I've said before, bowyer, if you're too hard, than the message gets ignored.


But yeah, we need quality videos.

 

[HiddenBowser]

p.s. i highly doubt bowyer watched any of the vids.

You're right, I didn't watch any of them. But I've heard what others are saying and don't really feel the need to check it out myself.

As I've said before, bowyer, if you're too hard, than the message gets ignored.

lol, if people want to just get all pissed off and leave instead of getting the message then so be it. They probably wouldn't get the message if I was nice either, but my way gets them to shut up.