Here's my take on all this.
Instead, aim over the edge, that way you don't have to wory about grabbing the ledge, and getting up.
This won't work. You opponent has to somehow not see it coming, and seeing how well telegraphed it is, that's not likely. The good thing is most people that don't know lucas severely underestimate the priority of this attack, and many will try to attack you out of it (unsuccessfully). However, if this happens, and you get them, consider it luck. A smart player will shield and punish. The only reason you should PK thunder over the ledge (and when you do that it better be straight at the opponent or coming in low) is if you're close enough to get good distance, but too far to get a good tether, or as a mindgame. If he shields it and you go through to the other side of the opponent, get ready to turn and jab combo or run away before you get punished.
On a side, note, never try to PKT2 recover against marth if you're even remotely close to the stage: you will get faired lol.
If it's too steep, that will happen. But I really don't have a problem with that, because if you are under the stage and even if you don't sweetspot the edge, most people will be so surprised that you recovered that they will not punish you. It's happened against people who don't know lucas.
90% of people I've played for the first time sorely underestimate the range of lucas's PKT2 because they are so used to melee/brawl ness. You can use this to your advantage to use it offensively or recover against an opponent that may not bother to edgeguard well assuming you're already dead.
Of course, you also have to know just how far it can go.
Yea but DemonicTrilogy is right. I can't tell you how many hours I've spent in training mode trying to not mess up. And after all that, I'm still like 60% till I get warmed up at which I move up to like 80. I swear its like a just frame or something. And from my experiences, surviving a failed jump (the no jump at all failure where you just do a pk fire as you're dropping) happens when you were already at a decent position to double jump tether. If you get that kind of failure zap jump at or below the point you would have sweetspotted (you can't really sweetspot with zap jump but you get what i mean here, getting just in grab range) if you succeeded, you're dead.
And then there's the unfortunate mistakes like when you get the half zap jump (the normal jump pk fire) and magnet pull the wrong direction to severely hurt your recovery/put you underneath the stage.
But in the end, we all know that if we master it, and I still believe its possible..., Lucas automatically becomes a better character since we took away his biggest weakness.
I can agree with this, and have messed up zap jump quite a good number of times. PKT2 usually reaches far enough to bring you back, but like Galeon points out zap jump is never a requirement. Double jump tether is almost always the safer option.
Zap jump is just another mindgame for me. Observe your opponent before trying this. Most people don't even know that Lucas CAN zap jump, so it's usually a good surprise once or twice. If you're playing up against someone that's over-aggresive about their edgeguarding, it's nice to PKF them in the face and recover simultaneously, but don't count on it. Know your options.
That is all
