For Christ's sake, I can't stand this circle jerk of bemoaning and self-pity anymore.
The recent fad seems to be wistfully looking back at Brawl Lucas and wishing Sm4sh Lucas was more like that, but looking past all the positive bias towards that, Brawl Lucas was awful in his own right, with his aerials being more often than not outclassed by others despite being... what's that magic word again... ah yes, autocancellable, his inability to kill efficiently outside of smashes, a poor grab that has little reward most of the time, and a pretty much useless offstage game, all of which is exacerbated by his 40 frame grab release bullsh*t. He may have had the ability to rack up damage very well, or had the ability to create d-tilt locks, but other characters in that game could achieve the same end result with much less effort.
Sm4sh Lucas loses his "dominant" aerial abilities, which is apparently the only thing Lucas will ever have going for him and he will now never be viable without them. Honestly, the presence of a long lagless z-air with a projectile eating hitbox is already a boon to his neutral game, and he still retains a good, if not improved, ground game with deterring jabs and d-tilt that sets up into everything. And it's not like his aerials are useless now either, with a n-air that strings into other moves well enough that people still want to shield against it, and a b-air that's safer on stage against grounded opponents and actually spikes very well, which, along with other tools, giving him considerable offstage presence. I acknowledge the weakness in needing to use a terrible grab in order to get the most rewards with him, but Lucas is definitely not cut down to the point of being unable to put on enough pressure to make opponents want to shield, so find ways to get it.
There's a number of other small improvements made with Lucas' moves, all of which is seemingly overshadowed by having what Lucas was strongest at in Brawl neutered. But you know what that calls for? A change in playstyle. Labbing up. Working harder. You all knew and accepted the possibility of being handed a subpar character when Lucas was announced for this game (which that in and of itself is still a goddamn miracle in my eyes), but the one thing I personally cannot stand is complaining. Not when Zelda and Bowser and Kirby fans have had to suffer through this same thing for 3 games, and certainly not when it's from the person who made Brawl Lucas feared and respected, or the person who created such hype montages for Sm4sh Lucas.
It took years for Lucas to make the slight presence he had in Brawl, thanks to the few dedicated players he had. In this game he's barely been here for 3 months. In my opinion, he's never going to be massively high tier based just on character design, in the same way Sonic is made super fast, or Ganondorf super powerful, or Pikachu super agile. And whining and relying on possible game patches to fix the issues he has instead of working around them is, in a way, shameful.
Seriously though, cut down the griping, for at least the rest of page 167.
