Lucina: Perfect Pivot Mechanic and Applications

[LucinaNab1]

I've been working on this just now, and anything that even comes out looking like a perfect pivot requires very fast input of the first direction, barely enough for a tilt. If I can barely manage that, how will I combine attacks with it? It would be even harder to do online...

On second thought, there seems to be short perfect pivots, and longer ones. But the timing is just so strict.

 

[Emblem Lord]

Ever seen videos of Marvel vs Capcom or even Melee? Humans can do great things. Give yourself time and plenty of practice. 2 hours a day of practice and give yourself two weeks. You will be a master. Trust me.

Also what controller are you using?

 

[LucinaNab1]

MvC and Melee videos give me a headache (I have bad vision). I mean sure, I can see the characters like anyone else, but it's one mostly good eye doing all the work, vs two good eyes of most other people. When the action is that fast, I simply cannot keep up, and my hand to eye coordination doesn't help to compensate.

And so I end up raging, acting faster with my fingers and my reaction, but not my logic or common sense. It's obvious that over a decade of CPU battles hasn't trained me well. I'm not doing quite so good in this human competitive scene, even though my FG record dwindles around 58%. Only after a bit over 100 battles though.

What I really need is a human tutor to take some time and teach me. To watch my replays in Spectator mode and what not, or to battle. And by the way, I'm using the Wii U Pro controller. It feels comfortable enough and I've gotten used to it. Input lag though, messes that all up half the time.

 

[CommanderRin]

By going to control settings and changing your right stick to "Attack" you'll be able to do tilts fairly quickly.

However, keep on practicing the perfect pivot until you're comfortable enough with it before you start adding attacks into the formula.

I can perfect pivot decently but I still have trouble putting it into a match, so just give yourself time and eventually you'll get the hang of it

 

[LucinaNab1]

I've already set my right stick to Attack, as well as turning off Tap jump. I feel comfortable enough jumping with my L button, as it lets me keep my thumb on my attack button and do short hopping attacks a little easier. Tap jump never was all that great for me anyway, I'd end up pressing the joystick too far and jumping too high. I'm sure everyone has their own set of preferences and button layouts to do stuff with. I also take some influence from Playstation button layouts and controls, so there's that.

 

[CommanderRin]

I've already set my right stick to Attack, as well as turning off Tap jump. I feel comfortable enough jumping with my L button, as it lets me keep my thumb on my attack button and do short hopping attacks a little easier. Tap jump never was all that great for me anyway, I'd end up pressing the joystick too far and jumping too high. I'm sure everyone has their own set of preferences and button layouts to do stuff with. I also take some influence from Playstation button layouts and controls, so there's that.

With Gamecube controller I use.

Jump = L
Attack = A
Special = B
Grab = X
Shield = Y/Z/R

 

[LucinaNab1]

I believe the 50 dollars for the Pro controller was a good investment. I just wonder how many people are actually using that. I have four Gamecube controllers lying around, I just don't feel like buying the third party adapter and definitely not the 70 dollar Nintendo one. I'd rather get a Wii Lan adapter, that might actually help with these strict perfect pivot inputs when going online.

 

[CommanderRin]

I believe the 50 dollars for the Pro controller was a good investment. I just wonder how many people are actually using that. I have four Gamecube controllers lying around, I just don't feel like buying the third party adapter and definitely not the 70 dollar Nintendo one. I'd rather get a Wii Lan adapter, that might actually help with these strict perfect pivot inputs when going online.

I've got two pro-controllers and they work splendidly, I've taken a liking to them but as soon as I saw the third-party adapter I just had to order it... I didn't spend $80 on Smash GCube controllers for nothing...

 

[DrCactus]

I'm starting to get the hang of this when going to the left, but it's still really tricky with the Pro Controller.
I'll just need to keep at it though.

 

[LucinaNab1]

I never found the Gamecube controller particularly favorable for inputs like that. It was hard enough for me to do a 360 for Ocarina of Time Master Quest. In my personal opinion, the N64 joystick was best, but that's just me. Pro controller is good enough, but there's also third party controllers I suppose.

 

[Saclam]

Been messing around with perfect pivoting ever since the mysmashcorner video came out,took me a few days to finally get the timing down and tried to utilize it in real matches,2 useful things I found were

-Lucina's grab game becomes way better,her grab was good to begin with and with the boost from perfect pivot,her range improves greatly and also helps her movement on platform stages like battlefield(short hop pp on the platform and fall on the other and pp to the center).

-her spacing game gets a lot better,the added range of her up and foward smash helps her a lot with punishing characters who outrange her in situations where spacing with aerials isn't a option.

I'm still experimenting to see more uses for it,lets hope perfect pivoting helps lucina improve in the meta.

 

[LucinaNab1]

I've tried to do this more today and it seems you can't even input the full dash command to do correctly. The correct input seems really quick, like the minimal movement needed for a tilt. Then I'm able to do it some of the time. But trying to figure out how to attack out of such an animation seems much harder.

I was able to find out more things from actually trying to dash instead. For instance, there were times I would shield out of dash but end up doing a smash attack instead. How strange...

 

[Locuan]

I've tried to do this more today and it seems you can't even input the full dash command to do correctly. The correct input seems really quick, like the minimal movement needed for a tilt. Then I'm able to do it some of the time. But trying to figure out how to attack out of such an animation seems much harder.

I was able to find out more things from actually trying to dash instead. For instance, there were times I would shield out of dash but end up doing a smash attack instead. How strange...

Practice makes perfect! Keep at it. I'm still practicing it myself but I'm able to get it pretty consistently. It's a difficult input but definitely beneficial to Lucina's play.

 

[LucinaNab1]

So, what is used to attack out of the pivot? The right stick? I at least want to start trying to apply attack tactics to the movement instead of just dash dancing for an hour. It gets really boring. I don't know what else to try, unless I try using the nunchuck and wii remote instead. I used it a lot to play Brawl.

 

[Locuan]

So, what is used to attack out of the pivot? The right stick? I at least want to start trying to apply attack tactics to the movement instead of just dash dancing for an hour. It gets really boring. I don't know what else to try, unless I try using the nunchuck and wii remote instead. I used it a lot to play Brawl.

As a more general question, have you seen the original video explaining perfect pivots? Now answering your question, I use the C-stick to perform my tilts out of a perfect pivot.

 

[EternalFlame]

So, what is used to attack out of the pivot? The right stick? I at least want to start trying to apply attack tactics to the movement instead of just dash dancing for an hour. It gets really boring. I don't know what else to try, unless I try using the nunchuck and wii remote instead. I used it a lot to play Brawl.

Primarily what Locuan said is what is commonly used. Personally I still prefer using just the A button, as that can produce the same result but for a little more effort with timing. In a sense, what I do is a bit more handicapping than helping, so use the c stick (right stick for the pro controllers) to your advantage to make the most out of perfect pivots. Remember you also have the grab options and your B attacks are independent of whether you pivot or not to do a turn around attack with them.

 

[LucinaNab1]

Hmm, this will take a lot of practice and patience. Two things I'm not very good at in particular, lol. My thumbs usually can do amazing things, it's not like speed is a problem for me. Frame data, however, is my weak point. I've said it elsewhere, but even things like Just Input in Soul Calibur was mostly beyond me. Try as I might, I could hardly ever hit the right frames.

 

[EternalFlame]

Hmm, this will take a lot of practice and patience. Two things I'm not very good at in particular, lol. My thumbs usually can do amazing things, it's not like speed is a problem for me. Frame data, however, is my weak point. I've said it elsewhere, but even things like Just Input in Soul Calibur was mostly beyond me. Try as I might, I could hardly ever hit the right frames.

You'll get it in time xD I haven't quite gotten that far with perfect pivoting + tilting, but timing just comes with enough practice. Thankfully, playing other fighting games like Blazblue or MVC3 help with pushing your reaction times to the limit with all the frame perfect juggles and stuff you have to do.

 

[LIQUID12A]

Hmm, this will take a lot of practice and patience. Two things I'm not very good at in particular, lol. My thumbs usually can do amazing things, it's not like speed is a problem for me. Frame data, however, is my weak point. I've said it elsewhere, but even things like Just Input in Soul Calibur was mostly beyond me. Try as I might, I could hardly ever hit the right frames.

Although you do have a significant head start when it comes to this because you played an input heavy game like Soul Calibur. As someone who has a years' experience with both UMVC3 and PSASBR(year and a half in this case), some of Smash's complex things, like the perfect pivot, come naturally to me. In any case, practice is key.

 

[LucinaNab1]

Well, my left and right perfect pivots are coming out a lot better, but still, figuring out the timing to attack with them is hell. I've come out of them with neutral, up tilts, and even a down tilt once, but it's purely accidental. With just the movement alone, it seems more useful to just do a short dash and turn around with a tilt to punish. The end lag for stopping a dash is shorter than trying to turn around while dashing, and you return to neutral position faster.