Any opinions on
? I swear everyone forgets he exists...
For most people if anyone is going to main a Mother character, their first choice would likely be Ness. But I dunno, Lucas is a really fun alternative. Instead of needing to constantly spam PK Fire, Lucas has a lot of new tricks with it that can catch enemies by surprise to get some distance. My favorite example is running off the platform at the beginning of the match and using PK Fire immediately as I'm descending. Since 90% of players immediately go under their platform at the start of the match, it's almost guaranteed to hit anyone not expecting it.
Also has anyone seen how long his tether reaches? I was playing with a buddy on Twitch and that snake extends so far. However, Lucas still has his cons. Getting back to the stage can be a nightmare unless you pull off a well timed down air or back air, which are both unreliable a lot of the time. But Rope Snake and PK Thunder definitely make up for that because they both cover really long distances, on top of Lucas' already floaty nature. It can be hard to kill him off stage without a spike, he just keeps coming back.
You guys think Lucas has potential?
As a Lucas main myself, my opinion on him is that he's a good character that lacks any truly amazing qualities to make him succeed at the top levels of play. His moveset is certainly more complete than in Smash 4, as moves that were deemed unviable in that game, mainly PK Freeze, got buffs to make them usable assets in his movesets while other moves got good QOL buffs to just make them more threatening in general. One of the more notable buffs is PK Fire having sizable knockback now, making it much more threatening when the opponent is offstage as it can kill them off the side way earlier, while also being a viable kill option on-stage at very high percents. While his grab game is as a whole worse because of his endless D-Throw combos ceasing to exist, he doesn't need it quite as much as one would think since his moveset was made more cohesive as a whole. (Lucas' throws are useful though, don't get me wrong - Down-Throw can lead to early-percents combos on most characters while Up-Throw and Back-Throw are very strong kill throws, with F-Throw also being a kill throw but is mostly good for positioning opponents offstage for edgeguarding.)
However, that's not where all of the positives end. Lucas still has a pretty decent neutral, but the real saucy parts of this character start to turn up when the opponent's off the stage. Lucas' edgeguarding kit is without a doubt Top 5 in the game easily. Between PK Thunder (one of the best gimping tools in the game), PK Fire snipes, two usable spikes, F-Air in certain situations, and the situational but usable and infamous PK Freeze at his disposal, Lucas has a myriad of tools to stuff out people's attempts to recover and can often secure very early stocks because of this against some characters. Oh and I forgot to mention, even if the opponent manages to get past all of that, they also have to worry about Down-Smash at the ledge, a very potent 2-framing option that reaches ludicrously below the ledge and also kills crazy early. So yeah, Lucas' edgeguarding is easily the best part of the character and what makes him stand out from the pack.
Now from all this gushing, you're probably wondering why I think Lucas is only just a mid-tier. Sadly, even despite his good neutral, zoning capabilities, and edgeguarding game, along with a more cohesive kit, a lot of other characters got buffs too in the transition to Ultimate that make them just.. better. More damage output (scarily more in the case of some top-tiers... Olimar… PEACH...), better range, and more useful "busted tools" in general. Lucas doesn't really have much "busted" stuff to him besides PK Freeze's knockback, and even then that's in the form of a very situational move that's very easy to avoid unless you're smart with how you're using it. His range, while not terrible, still gets stuffed out in the eyes of swordies (although the matchups against most of them aren't
that bad!) or even moves like Bowser's F-Air. This issue also isn't helped by his grab range getting nerfed from Smash 4, where it now goes a pittance of the distance. You can really feel it when you go for a dash grab and it just barely whiffs and you know it would've hit in Smash 4... His recovery is a double-edged sword against these top-tiers as well, as while his tether goes amazingly long and PK Thunder 2 also travels amazing distances, Lucas is also very vulnerable when using PK Thunder 2 which leads to easy edgeguards at times from characters like Lucina. He also struggles super hard with getting juggled as he has crappy landing options on top of being floaty, makes fighting some characters like Palutena a nightmare at times. What I'm trying to say here is that while Lucas gained a lot of good QOL buffs in the transition to Ultimate to make him a better character, other characters got that too and more that just make him feel a little undertuned compared to them. (Good example is Ness actually, some of his aspects are crazy overtuned compared to Lucas)
However, I do think Lucas has the potential to go up as new tech like the DJC Z-Air being discovered opens up new options in the character's kit to be explored, and could make his rough matchups less annoying. Buffs in later patches would also help to make him feel less undertuned, perhaps increase his combo game to make his damage output better?
Make Up-Smash's intangibility the same as Smash 4 Game and Watche's Up-Smash? He still has great player representation even if it's small in the form of Mekos, ShiNe, and Pink Fresh. (Oh and don’t forget Regalo, who placed 25th at Glitch 6 while taking a set off of former EVO champ Lima!) And even if his top-tier matchup spread isn't too hot Lucas does have some niche matchups against the likes of Snake, Pichu, and debatedly even ones like Ike and Wolf. tl;dr: Lucas does have the potential to go up in the ranks as his playerbase continues to find new tech and optimize his meta, but as of right now he might be a bit undertuned compared to the upper half of the cast leaving him in mid-tier imo.
He's still the most fun character to play as though~