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Lucina Neutral Help
- Thread starter GChanJ
- Start date
chifleaf
Smash Rookie
- Joined
- Apr 10, 2019
- Messages
- 2
Essentially the same as any other character in the game; throw out safe, low endlag moves that allow you time to react if you whiff or hit a shield.
When you're grounded, Dtilt is your best option. The hitbox comes out later than Jab, so don't use it if you need to hit someone fast, but it's the fastest ending move Lucina has, so if you miss you can immediately throw out another spacing option (Ftilt, Utilt, F-smash for the ambitious read) without be worried about punishes. It also gives you low profile so you can avoid some SH aerials from your opponents, and immediately punish with Utilt.
In the air, you want SH Nair or SH Fair. They're fast and have nice hitboxes that help you wall off your opponent or shut down their approach, regardless of height. At high percents (>100%), Nair 2 can get you kills out of Neutral at the ledge.
For mixups, Pivot Cancel Ftilt is a good ground spacer because of the sliding animation, and Utilt can catch roll-ins and short hops w/o the long endlag and commitment of Dancing Blade. Also, remember Shieldbreaker after you hit shield once or twice. Just the fear of the move is enough to have your opponent give up positioning. Lastly, tomahawk grabs. Any player with a basic knowledge of the MU will default to shielding on approach, so just grab em.
Things to avoid: Full hop aerials, as your opponent will have enough time to react and the vertical spacing makes you vulnerable to anti-air moves. Dancing Blade is good for catching rolls and spot dodges but if you get the wrong read and hit shield it's a free OOS punish (I play against an Inkling main, and Dancing Blade on shield -> Up Smash -> Lucina dies). Finally, Dair is a good mixup and a juggle starter if you get the stage spike and has a wide hitbox coverage, but one whiff or hit on shield and you're open to all punishes due to the endlag (Ness/Palutena backthrow, Wolf D-smash, Inkling F-smash, the list is endless).
I'm still working out my own neutral but this is what I've got so far.
When you're grounded, Dtilt is your best option. The hitbox comes out later than Jab, so don't use it if you need to hit someone fast, but it's the fastest ending move Lucina has, so if you miss you can immediately throw out another spacing option (Ftilt, Utilt, F-smash for the ambitious read) without be worried about punishes. It also gives you low profile so you can avoid some SH aerials from your opponents, and immediately punish with Utilt.
In the air, you want SH Nair or SH Fair. They're fast and have nice hitboxes that help you wall off your opponent or shut down their approach, regardless of height. At high percents (>100%), Nair 2 can get you kills out of Neutral at the ledge.
For mixups, Pivot Cancel Ftilt is a good ground spacer because of the sliding animation, and Utilt can catch roll-ins and short hops w/o the long endlag and commitment of Dancing Blade. Also, remember Shieldbreaker after you hit shield once or twice. Just the fear of the move is enough to have your opponent give up positioning. Lastly, tomahawk grabs. Any player with a basic knowledge of the MU will default to shielding on approach, so just grab em.
Things to avoid: Full hop aerials, as your opponent will have enough time to react and the vertical spacing makes you vulnerable to anti-air moves. Dancing Blade is good for catching rolls and spot dodges but if you get the wrong read and hit shield it's a free OOS punish (I play against an Inkling main, and Dancing Blade on shield -> Up Smash -> Lucina dies). Finally, Dair is a good mixup and a juggle starter if you get the stage spike and has a wide hitbox coverage, but one whiff or hit on shield and you're open to all punishes due to the endlag (Ness/Palutena backthrow, Wolf D-smash, Inkling F-smash, the list is endless).
I'm still working out my own neutral but this is what I've got so far.
Lucina is a mid-range spacing character. She has big, quick hitboxes that cover the area around her. A good way to think about it is that it's like she has a bubble around her and you want to poke at people for trying to get in that space. You want to maintain a distance that's slightly further than your sword length. Some characters can use burst options or projectiles to invade that space, but most opponents have to respect it and play around it.
One important aspect of Lucina's neutral is keeping center stage. This is true for most sword characters but it's especially great for the Marth clone characters since they all have great mobility and quick attacks. Center stage makes your range more threatening and it gives you more options in neutral.
Like Chifleaf said, her main spacing tools are Fair, Nair, Dtilt and Ftilt. Fair covers the area immediately in front of her and a lot of characters have a pretty hard time contesting it. Most of the time, falling short hop Fair is better than rising SH Fair since it has a lot of recovery time and at max range, its low landing lag makes it hard to punish. Nair is good as a falling aerial and as a rising one. It's only -4 on shield so only the quickest out of shield options can punish it. Retreating rising Nair is also great for walling out opponents. Against the slower characters, I like to dash at them buffer a SH Nair and drift back. Lucina has poor airspeed but she has great air acceleration, and most importantly, she gets more acceleration from the control stick. This means she can control where she goes (as opposed to Roy/Chrom who have good airspeed but mediocre air acceleration and can't change direction much) and that's important for spacing out your aerials. Ftilt is good out of a dash and for walling out opponents if you're standing. I find it especially useful for stuffing opponents like Jiggs or Yoshi who jump in and can't contest Ftilts size. Uair is also great on shield (it's -3!!)but it's more for juggling the opponent so I won't discuss it too much.
As far as her mobility goes, her most important asset is her dash dance. She has one of the best dash dances in the game. She has the 5th quickest initial dash and the twentieth fastest run speed. This means that good movement is just as important (and in some MUs more important) as which moves you use in neutral. Fast-falling her short hops is also very crucial. As I mentioned earlier, her airspeed is poor and she's pretty floaty as well so jumping can slow you down if you don't FF. If you watch MKLeo's Lucina and even M2K's melee Marth, they FF almost every time they SH.
While Lucina really wants to wall people out with her hitboxes, she also has to be careful when she does. Her hitboxes are big and quick, but they also don't recover very quickly. Characters with better mobility can take advantage of this and consistently whiff-punish her moves. This means you have to be somewhat choosy about when you swipe and why. Also when you successfully wall people out they tend to respond with shielding and especially dashing towards you then shielding to throw off your spacing. While this is a good countermeasure, Lucina can punish this by either tomahawking (landing directly in front of your opponent and grabbing), or using shield breaker. Mixing up your approaches like this keeps your opponent guessing and gives you more control of neutral.
Finally, the most important trait a Lucina player needs is patience. While her good shield pressure and low landing lag let her get away with more aggression than she ever could in Smash4, she is NOT an in-your-face rush down character. In neutral she's best played defensively, even when she's using her hitboxes to pressure her opponents. This isn't necessarily true about her advantage state but we are focusing on neutral here.
One important aspect of Lucina's neutral is keeping center stage. This is true for most sword characters but it's especially great for the Marth clone characters since they all have great mobility and quick attacks. Center stage makes your range more threatening and it gives you more options in neutral.
Like Chifleaf said, her main spacing tools are Fair, Nair, Dtilt and Ftilt. Fair covers the area immediately in front of her and a lot of characters have a pretty hard time contesting it. Most of the time, falling short hop Fair is better than rising SH Fair since it has a lot of recovery time and at max range, its low landing lag makes it hard to punish. Nair is good as a falling aerial and as a rising one. It's only -4 on shield so only the quickest out of shield options can punish it. Retreating rising Nair is also great for walling out opponents. Against the slower characters, I like to dash at them buffer a SH Nair and drift back. Lucina has poor airspeed but she has great air acceleration, and most importantly, she gets more acceleration from the control stick. This means she can control where she goes (as opposed to Roy/Chrom who have good airspeed but mediocre air acceleration and can't change direction much) and that's important for spacing out your aerials. Ftilt is good out of a dash and for walling out opponents if you're standing. I find it especially useful for stuffing opponents like Jiggs or Yoshi who jump in and can't contest Ftilts size. Uair is also great on shield (it's -3!!)but it's more for juggling the opponent so I won't discuss it too much.
As far as her mobility goes, her most important asset is her dash dance. She has one of the best dash dances in the game. She has the 5th quickest initial dash and the twentieth fastest run speed. This means that good movement is just as important (and in some MUs more important) as which moves you use in neutral. Fast-falling her short hops is also very crucial. As I mentioned earlier, her airspeed is poor and she's pretty floaty as well so jumping can slow you down if you don't FF. If you watch MKLeo's Lucina and even M2K's melee Marth, they FF almost every time they SH.
While Lucina really wants to wall people out with her hitboxes, she also has to be careful when she does. Her hitboxes are big and quick, but they also don't recover very quickly. Characters with better mobility can take advantage of this and consistently whiff-punish her moves. This means you have to be somewhat choosy about when you swipe and why. Also when you successfully wall people out they tend to respond with shielding and especially dashing towards you then shielding to throw off your spacing. While this is a good countermeasure, Lucina can punish this by either tomahawking (landing directly in front of your opponent and grabbing), or using shield breaker. Mixing up your approaches like this keeps your opponent guessing and gives you more control of neutral.
Finally, the most important trait a Lucina player needs is patience. While her good shield pressure and low landing lag let her get away with more aggression than she ever could in Smash4, she is NOT an in-your-face rush down character. In neutral she's best played defensively, even when she's using her hitboxes to pressure her opponents. This isn't necessarily true about her advantage state but we are focusing on neutral here.
chifleaf
Smash Rookie
- Joined
- Apr 10, 2019
- Messages
- 2
I should also mention that while obviously having a good and consistent neutral is always good and essential to playing better, there are certain neutral situations Lucina will lose due to how "balanced" the character is (her moves aren't the fastest, but that's compensated by the sword's range; however, the sword's range loses to projectiles, and she doesn't have the air-speed to be a pure rushdown projectile punisher). Certain MUs that come to mind are Fox, Wolf, Samus, the Links, (even Villager/Isabelle probably due to slingshot). This isn't due to skill but just raw move data. What makes these MUs even or even advantage however is Lucina's edgeguarding ability, so be sure not to neglect that. Obviously you can't set up edgeguarding w/o winning neutrals, but knowing how to capitalize off-stage after winning those neutrals is important, because that's where you start taking stocks instead of dealing percent. You can win neutral 9 times out of 10 but after a certain point it doesn't mean jack if you can't get the stock.
And to add on, some good Lucinas to watch: MkLeo (obviously), Mr. E, and ProtoBanham.
And to add on, some good Lucinas to watch: MkLeo (obviously), Mr. E, and ProtoBanham.
Last edited:
Dilan Omer
Smash Apprentice
You use Fair to anti air or catch opponents in the air. Up tilt to punish spotdodge and then combo Up tilt into another Up tilt
Your most important Neutral options are Dancing Blade and Down Tilt/Forward Tilt. Use them to catch opponents in neutral. Use dancing blade to catch rolls or opponents who forget to tech their landing.
Forward Tilt is also a good way to ledge trap with if the opponent does regular getup.
Your most important Neutral options are Dancing Blade and Down Tilt/Forward Tilt. Use them to catch opponents in neutral. Use dancing blade to catch rolls or opponents who forget to tech their landing.
Forward Tilt is also a good way to ledge trap with if the opponent does regular getup.