Lucario is one of four characters that does not have a match-up worse than 40:60. The other three are Meta Knight, Snake, and Wario, which are the top three of the current tier list, so... in short USE LUCARIO PLOX!
...You do realize that our matchup list is pretty much going by our (mostly biased and often uneducated or rushed) opinions alone? <<
Matchups are getting closer and farther apart by the day. DDD is learning to deal with their counters by abusing their stellar air game and weight. Marth has pretty much evened out the MK matchup to a degree. (In which I believe they perform better than us honestly.) Icies are learning how to better destroy their opposition and new methods of stage control. I sure can't name a definite Diddy counter. Can you? Even if we don't have any hard counters (which I honestly am not too sure about in the current metagame), a statement like that really just can't be used. It's just... false. Bleh, and honestly, I think DDD and Snake counter us pretty hard, and most likely Meta Knight, as well.
Anyone mind explaining to me about how Lucario has a good air game? It seems to me that Lucario wouldn't have a good air game with a slow falling speed, moderate jump height and 1/3 to 1 second aerials attacks.
The only plus sides I see to his air game is that it can have variable knockback and range. Except with most situations I do not see these being very helpful. The only times his aerial attacks would linkable are when both players are at low percents. The only time they are useful for knockback and range is when both lucaro and the opponenet are at high percents. Any other time I cannot see the air game being that useful.
I cannot see his air game being in any way a reasonable approach. Maybe for defence, but it would have to be retreating. Bair takes too long to come out, Fair ends a bit quickly and will have him sitting around in the air for a long amoutn of time due to his jump height and slow falling speed. Dair and Uair only have limited range. Nair lasts forever and I think is probably the safest overall aerial he has, but it's range is pretty low compared to other aerials that could be used against him.
Lucario just seems like a ground unit. Or is there something to his aerial game that I am just not seeing?
You're really just not seeing Lucario. Each aerial has a specific purpose, and each aerial performs that purpose very well for the most part.
For approaching and "comboing," Fair is the aerial of choice. It's pretty much a miniature Marth Fair. It works really well with Lucario's high short hop, as he can fair a shield and retreat, as Fair when retreated is actually safe on block. Fair takes 5 frames to come out, which is very good when combined with its good coverage below him, in front of him, and at diagonals, plus the fact that it starts below him, so that you can hit grounded characters even easier! Fair also links into both Dair and Nair until a pretty high %, even when you're at the cap, and actually chains into itself or into a footstool until moderate % offstage. This gives Lucario his "combo" game. Fair chains into a FFnair at low %, which chains into a grounded move, usually a jab mixup to a grab, or possibly a forcepalm, which chains again into a fair nair, giving lucario about 30-40% from a relatively simple and often hard to escape low% string. At more moderate %s, Fair nearly always true combos into a Dair on foes, although in the higher %, Fair only combos into Dair on grounded or foes that were low to start with. Nair seems to work better on aerial foes with more %. Eventually you can even use Uair out of Fair, which is quite funny to land. In short, Fair is the combo tool. It's the jack-of-all-trades when it comes to combo setups, and is our approaching aerial for the most part. Oh, did I mention that Lucario's Fair is the second fastest aerial to end in the game, at 27 frames? It's only bested by Luigi's Fair. This matters a tiny bit in momentum canceling.
Nair is a bit of an oddball, generally being used in odd ways due to its odd qualities. However, it's primarly used after a Fair. It's not exactly as fast as many nairs in the game, but it's still a sex kick. It has very little landing lag, good range, and the strong hit sends people at a very very nice angle, while the weak hit keeps people close to you for "combos." In general, it's used after a Fair most of the time. However, it also works well to pressure platforms above you, as a slightly flawed, but still for some reason useful way to punish shieldgrabbers who try to shieldgrab dair, to kill horizontally (does this quite well when fresh), and works okay for punishing aerials oos that you can't shieldgrab, or people who land behind you due to its odd hitbox behind him on startup. In short, it's generally used after fair, but it kills pretty well if Bair is stale, and you can't get into a position to uair.
Uair juggles. Uair kills. Uair is fast. Uair has very nice range. Uair is just a regular juggling/vertical killing aerial. At high %, it kills very early. Nothing much needs to be said other than that it's meant to hit and/or kill people above you, and it does its job well. Also, if you use it to bait an airdodge, it ends pretty quickly, almost always giving you a free dair as they pass by.
Bair is the knockback aerial, for the most part. You use this to edgeguard, to kill, to space people who beat out your fair, and to return to the stage against people with long aerials like King Dedede. Bair lasts forever, and is strong for pretty much the entire time, meaning that it doesn't take much precision to trade hits or beat out a slightly longer, more precise aerial, like that which belongs to King Dedede. It spaces well against people who beat your fair onstage, too. For example, it really helps in the matchup against Peach, as it usually beats her Fair, even though range-wise her fair should beat us, simply because it's so easy to use. Bair also works very, very well for edgeguarding, killing quite early. Also, for some odd reason, it has very low landing lag, but it's only a tiny bit too much to keep it from being our main approach. :<
Dair is the punisher, the juggle-counter, the vertical-spacer, the combo-ender, the killer, the edgeguarder, the combo-breaker, the recovery stall, the above-platform pressure, and for many people due to being c-stick down and 1 frame slower than fair, it's the momentum canceler. It also has a hitbox on frame 4. Dair is by far our most versatile aerial, being used extremely often over the course of the match, sometimes by itself, sometimes with Fair. It would take a very long time to go into detail about everything that Dair accomplishes for us, so I'll try to keep it short. Dair punishes extremely well both out of shield (with or without rising dair) and as a combo-breaker, as well as having a high damage output. Using it with fair at 0% is about 20% off of a single safe-on-block aerial. At the cap, it does 22% all by itself. Its immense range combined with its insane speed, stalling qualities and sheer linger makes it extremely easy to use as a juggle-breaker, often beating out aerials with better range due to just plain being easier to use, or even outranging it horizontally. Did I mention it has great range horizontally? It kills very well, even though it's the second weakest of our aerials due to its sheer ease of use and great angle that it sends people, as well as the fact that it's often used to gimp recoveries. It absolutely tears apart many generally hard, awkward, or risky-to-gimp recoveries, such as Diddy Kong, DK, or virtually any sweetspot-requiring recovery-special. Doing it instantly from above a platform covers nearly the entirety of the area below it. Using it to stall your recovery can give you time to waste their invincibility frames while edgehogging and strike them with an aerial...
I think other than that it's the easiest aerial to momentum cancel with, that's just about it. Dair is amazing and versatile. It may have "limited range," but it also does 22% at the cap in 4 frames, can be combo'd out of, and its ease of use and "limited range" is nothing to shake a stick at, either.
Lastly, slow-falling is a blessing as well as a curse. Can you imagine if we were a fastfaller? We'd actually have to RELY on ExtremeSpeed as our recovery! *shudder*
If the air isnt lucario's strongest point, then what is? I never play Lucario without repeatedly keeping to the air. ( with certain exceptions of course.)
Try tapping the c-stick forwards sometime.
Personally, I don't think the MU with MK is even either, but certainly NOT ****. 60/40 is fine with me.
Meh, I can't see it. Stat-wise and option-wise, MK just plain wrecks us, from where I stand.
Rockettrainer you know who i'm talking about.... thanks guys ill try it out.
