New to P.M. and Lucario

[KaoSerenity]

Hello Im KaoSerenity and new to the forums and P.Ms Lucario

Im not afraid to admit that i was a casual player in SSBM and nothing of a awsome player.
I wana pick up Lucario as a main and start mastering him!

Stuff i know: Basics (Rolling, Aerial dodge, Spot dodge, Edge garding, Wave dashing)
Stuff i dont know: Everything else, Alot of terms, Advanced tech, CANCELING and so on

I wana start training from ground up and not afraid to admit i have alot of ground to cover
Im 24 and played video games for around 14 years.
I love informing myself on forums and via videos (Youtube) sometimes i spend my days doing that.

Basicly what im asking if a list of stuff to start out with and a breff explanation of how and what it does.

Where should i start?

Thanks for your time and patience i know im new and i heard this was a great place to get help with friendly poeple.

Best regards KaoSerenity

 

[KaoSerenity]

Would be cool if i could practice something when i walk out of school in 4 hrs

 

[KaoSerenity]

Been practicing Aerial FP in training mode vs a CPU set to jump XD but i think i have much more important stuff to cover before that

 

[Darkgun]

Hey! Welcome to Project M and it is exciting to see someone else pick up Lucario! Seeing that your thread here is a little... threadbare, spare your subtle hinting at an interest in having something to work off of, I figure I might as well give you a few pointers to start you along.

I would normally start with a "Hey, try this combo in training mode!", followed by droning on into a long string (see the signature for an example), but it seems that the changes to AI prevent this. I usually would also follow up with the fact that you'll never be able to do that combo in actual play, but let's not sweat the details.

How about some Lucario tech skills instead. How about the most popular of said skills? Aura Sphere Cancelling (ASC). ASC is the act of On Hit Cancelling (OHC) any non-special into Lucario's neutral special, Aura Sphere (AS), and then promptly canceling it with the shield input. An example would be jab>jab>dtilt>ASC, or FHfair>ASC [Fun fact: Full Hop (FH) forward air (fair), if performed such that fair comes out as Lucario leaves the ground has been nicknamed "Charlie Brown" by some.]. It is important to understand that the animation of Lucario reverting from AS to his neutral pose can be interrupted with any input, so you can tighten the timing pretty significantly.

Why is ASC useful? The technique allows Lucario to, on hit or shield, create soft resets in combos, reverse aerial momentum and/or facing, and generally greatly shorten the endlag on moves so as to follow up more quickly out of them. In the Lucario Video Thread you can find some good examples of this via iLink, or have a look at Eggz 2.5 Lucario play.

One other skill that is important to learn is how to sweetspot the ledge with Extreme Speed (ES). For sake of mechanic demonstration, jump up off the side of the stage, and then ES downwards to the ledge. Lucario must be facing down near the ledge to sweetspot, regardless of facing, so recovering from directly below the ledge is his worst position (while having a charge alleviates this somewhat, it does, by no means, make this a reliably safer option than a ledge sweetspot). With his downward facing requirement in mind, it merely must be down below horizontal: any degree below will sweetspot.

If you're looking for some other information, the latter posts in the Advanced Tech FAQ might help as well. I would also encourage you to skim through the later pages General Discussion thread, as the topics there usually cover some useful info.

 

[KaoSerenity]

Thanks for the reply :O i will get to practice tonight and see how it goes. Ill post results and thoughts when i feel i have gathered enought info to talk about it XD.

 

[KaoSerenity]

So its been a while since i gave a reply...

I have practiced alot with Lucario and played multiple sets with friends and noticed multiple problems XD

- Not enough approach options so i become very predictable.
- Always rolling back up on the same side so i also become very predictable.
- REALLY not using AS enough
- Practicing combo's in training mode and not able to apply them vs players (Yet i can vs level 9 CPU)
- Practicing ALOT of Usmash canceling into either jump then air moves, DownB or Neutral B+A and Front B.
- Having a hard time landing back on stage without getting juggled 2-3 times.

For now thoses are my problems... but im getting ahold of dash dancing and havent found a use for ASC yet!

 

[Darkgun]

Been nearly three months since you were last round, I see. Let's see here....

• There's a thread discussing approach here.
• Not sure quite what you mean by "back up on the same side", but rolling is a situational solution at best. I can't really give you proper suggestions since I am not sure of just when you're rolling, but if I were to make blind guesses, use shield a little bit more, and instead of rolling, try either grab or jump out of shield and see if you can't find some safer avenues to work with. This problem isn't really a Lucario specific issue, and will probably work itself out as you play more.
• It is important to note that due to how DI works, practicing combos in Training Mode will only really help you learn input consistency (such that if you want to perform an action, it happens) and give you ideas of what combos could work. In reality, most of your combo strings are going to be super spontaneous, though you may have a bread 'n' butter in there somewhere.
• Usmash gets better the more creative you get with it. Try to ASC (or BrASC) out of the first hit, then use that as a setup for something new. It is a pretty open-ended move, and therefore has a lot of good options, and a lot of not so good options.
• If you're able to sweetspot the ledge consistently, it may be time to take into consideration what options you have at ledge. This is less of a Lucario specific issue, honestly. Also, you can use ESC and DTC to aid in recovery, though they burn a charge when you do.

If you've not looked at it yet, there's a Lucario Tech Skill Brief here in the boards as well.

 

[KaoSerenity]

After getting knocked down i always roll to the same side i guess its a bad habit.

 

[#HBC | Joker]

learning to mix up the direction of your techrolls, or sometimes not rolling at all, is something that comes with time.

What combos are you trying to land that work on CPUs, but not on humans? It's important to keep in mind that sometimes things are DI dependent, and CPUs usually have terrible DI, or at least the same DI every time. Also, a lot of things will stop stringing together if the opponent gets too much %. They just pop out cuz they get knocked too far to follow up.

As for recovering, something to keep in mind is that when you have Aura (when your hands are glowing, if you were unaware), you can cancel your upB into other moves, which can make it significantly safer to recover onstage. You can either cancel it into an attack to get them off you, or cancel it into a downB to get away. Just be sure to mix it up.

 

[Sorabotics]

One technique I practice on the AI and humans is dodging through their attacks with down-b and then turning around to a grab, jab to another down b, or u-smash. It keeps the pressure up on your opponent. Just remember that, in order to go from a jab directly into down b, you must get a hit confirm on shield or on the opponent.