Regarding Lucario's shieldlock

[ChikiLucario]

Why was it nerfed/removed? Can someone fill me in on this sort of thing since I (truly) objectively thought that it wasn't broken. It was easy to get out of and hard to do (depending on who you're facing) especially if your percent is low.

I mean, you're telling me that characters like Jigglypuff, Cloud and Little Mac can kill at 45, 50 and 30 respectively and relatively easily (Assuming that the player using the character knows what they're doing) but Lucario's niche and very strict shieldlock is broken? If you get trapped in it, you deserve to lose your stock anyway because of how difficult it is to land it. The ONLY ways I've seen/done to land it is b-reverse when your opponent is recovering and landing on top of them, or just jumping up and charging it to SLOWLY fall down onto them with it. Even a JCUS is easier to land as Lucario, and that's the same concept: They get trapped, they're going to take an up-smash.

Thanks for reading, again, I just want some insight from someone else that may know a little more about game balance than I do. Because from my point of view, it isn't a broken mechanic at all. It's not enough to make me stop playing the character, but it's a darn shame.

For reading the dribbledrabble of a dumb 'cario, have a dumb clip.

 

[Empire~]

Given that (presumably) none of us here are part of Nintendo's development & balance team, we can't give you the exact answer. However, my guess is that it was simply an unwanted and unforeseen side-effect of the shield changes. The dev team has consistently played it safe/conservative around Lucario's balance, and this is no exception.

 

[Pitbuller26]

Given that (presumably) none of us here are part of Nintendo's development & balance team, we can't give you the exact answer. However, my guess is that it was simply an unwanted and unforeseen side-effect of the shield changes. The dev team has consistently played it safe/conservative around Lucario's balance, and this is no exception.

I'd argue extreme in Lucario's balance. As the meta game devlopes, Aura doesn't matter due to all the characters that are viable have some way to kill extremely early under conditions that aren't impossible to recreate in most matches.

This is all my opinion here: Before the ASC nerf, Lucario was one of those characters who could recreate early death situations because of the shield lock and thus viable in the meta. Losing that for a negligible speed buff that also allows him to get combo'd easier, hurt his viability in the meta greatly. Too many characters can kill so early, that we never get to see Aura come into play anymore. The movement and fallspeed increase Lucario received doesn't address his core issues: Bad frame data for moves on the ground, piss poor range in the air.

 

[ChikiLucario]

I'd argue extreme in Lucario's balance. As the meta game devlopes, Aura doesn't matter due to all the characters that are viable have some way to kill extremely early under conditions that aren't impossible to recreate in most matches.

This is all my opinion here: Before the ASC nerf, Lucario was one of those characters who could recreate early death situations because of the shield lock and thus viable in the meta. Losing that for a negligible speed buff that also allows him to get combo'd easier, hurt his viability in the meta greatly. Too many characters can kill so early, that we never get to see Aura come into play anymore. The movement and fallspeed increase Lucario received doesn't address his core issues: Bad frame data for moves on the ground, piss poor range in the air.

Pretty much. He's slowly sliding down the tier ladder and, while he isn't god-awful, he's slowly getting there. Pretty much every character has an answer for him at this point, so it's sad that he's steadily getting worse and worse. As more characters are getting one-hit (basically) moves such as KO punch, Ryu and Luigi's Shoryuken, Jiggs' rest and more recently Cloud's finishing touch, all of which kill before Lucario can even get started. It makes me wonder what Bayonetta and Corrin will get to push him down even further. You'd think that Lucario has Slow Start as an ability. That's a good analogy, actually. Regigigas sucks in pokemon for the exact same reason that Lucario is barely viable. Only hardcore Lucario fans such as myself will pick him even though you have to work much harder than most other characters to get a good rhythm going.

As I said before, anybody who is dumb enough or clueless enough to hold their shield up as the lucario player gently falls down on them deserves to lose their stock. I mean, there are plenty of other characters who can be played even cheaper, or, on the other side of the spectrum, 50%+ comboes.

But, hey, I win with Lucario, I lose with Lucario. I don't care what they do to him. I'd still use him in a tournament.

 

[TTTTTsd]

Adversely Aura is the reason Lucario won't go too far down either. As the meta develops characters (in this case our good ones) get kill setups and whatnot, but all of our lower tiered/weaker characters lack those, and that is very beneficial for Aura as a mechanic in the same way it is beneficial for Rage as a mechanic.

That being said, yeah, I'm not too sure on Lucario's relevancy either, but there's basically a threshold you can be certain he won't drop below IMO.

 

[ChikiLucario]

Adversely Aura is the reason Lucario won't go too far down either. As the meta develops characters (in this case our good ones) get kill setups and whatnot, but all of our lower tiered/weaker characters lack those, and that is very beneficial for Aura as a mechanic in the same way it is beneficial for Rage as a mechanic.

That being said, yeah, I'm not too sure on Lucario's relevancy either, but there's basically a threshold you can be certain he won't drop below IMO.

There's a point where he'll get the crap kicked out of him so much that he'll get extremely good range on his force palm and good landing traps with aura sphere, but against a deflector/counter/absorber, that's so counter-productive. Using a force-palm without grabbing is an invitation to run in and punish because of how much end lag it has. Seriously, I think some characters have less ending lag on their smashes than Lucario does on his specials. Characters like villager and maybe DDD will still wall him out pretty hard. (From my experience, Dedede is a counterpick to Lucario. Not sure why but maybe it's just me not being able to deal with him.)

The kill setups sorta go away as he gets higher in percentage; at 80%, and the opponent at 80%, he loses all ability to combo off his nair, which is my favourite way to set up stuff such as grabs and force palms. At this point, you pretty much need to not be throwing out attacks else you'll get punished, while the opponent can throw out whatever they want. Lucario's only answer is his down-b which I use as an approach tool against campers. I dunno, maybe I'm a bad Lucario, but I'm glad there are GOOD Lucario players out there like Shiny. Because I'm pretty bad x3.

Either way, I just really wished that I could play Lucario the same as Greninja, come back from a stock with a fresh perspective and a "go-get-'er" attitude, but it's so hard when you start off with 0% momentum. Sure the comboes are fun but are they effective? Not really. Unless the opponent is already at high percent. Even then, if you get the first stock, you need to get quite a bit of extra credit to make it worth it.

 

[TTTTTsd]

There's a point where he'll get the crap kicked out of him so much that he'll get extremely good range on his force palm and good landing traps with aura sphere, but against a deflector/counter/absorber, that's so counter-productive. Using a force-palm without grabbing is an invitation to run in and punish because of how much end lag it is. Seriously, I think some characters have less ending lag on their smashes than Lucario does on his specials. Characters like villager and maybe DDD will still wall him out pretty hard. (From my experience, Dedede is a counterpick to Lucario. Not sure why but maybe it's just me not being able to deal with him.)

The kill setups sorta go away as he gets higher in percentage; at 80%, and the opponent at 80%, he loses all ability to combo off his nair, which is my favourite way to set up stuff such as grabs and force palms. At this point, you pretty much need to not be throwing out attacks else you'll get punished, while the opponent can throw out whatever they want. Lucario's only answer is his down-b which I use as an approach tool against campers. I dunno, maybe I'm a bad Lucario, but I'm glad there are GOOD Lucario players out there like Shiny. Because I'm pretty bad x3.

Dunno, I just think there are far worse characters than Lucario who will always remain far worse and have crippling flaws (in particular lower tiered characters who don't have kill setups or ways to force kills easily, or even a lack of strong kill power, which gives Lucario's aura a very meaningful purpose), and that Lucario as a result will only fall so low (assuming he even does.) Lucario's fallspeed increase makes him less susceptible to vertical KOs as well, there ARE benefits to it.

I do think top tier/good characters can be rough for him, though. I play a character who I think is incredibly stupid in the Lucario matchup (it's not Mario or Doc).

 

[ChikiLucario]

Dunno, I just think there are far worse characters than Lucario who will always remain far worse and have crippling flaws (in particular lower tiered characters who don't have kill setups or ways to force kills easily, or even a lack of strong kill power, which gives Lucario's aura a very meaningful purpose), and that Lucario as a result will only fall so low (assuming he even does.) Lucario's fallspeed increase makes him less susceptible to vertical KOs as well, there ARE benefits to it.

I do think top tier/good characters can be rough for him, though. I play a character who I think is incredibly stupid in the Lucario matchup (it's not Mario or Doc).

Yeah, I guess. There's also the fact that his recovery, if you mess it up, makes you smash your head into the stage and succumb to freefall. His recovery is amazing aside from that fact as long as you snap to the ledge, but with the risk of that, I sometimes try to shoot up onto the stage, only to have his atrocious ending lag. I mean, that's just me, but it's like, do you wanna jump into the fire or stay in the pan? Take your pick. Have a chance of getting punished (which is almost 100% guaranteed), or do you wanna go into freefall? I still do it from time to time, but I bet no other Lucario player does it. Haha.

That being said I do agree with you. He could be a lot worse. But the nerfs he's getting lately are just uncalled for. Objectively, but I'm sure people have a better perspective than I do.

 

[Pitbuller26]

Call this extreme wishful thinking or borderline delusion: There is one major buff Lucario could receive that will help him out: Lowering the max Aura from 192% to 120%.

Lucario is almost never living to the Aura cap in this game unless it's against Rosalina with no Luma. By lowering the cap, he gets access to his safer moves when it truly matters instead of being at a percent where breathing on Lucario will kill him. Lucario regains his status as being a truly threatening character if the cap is lowered.

We've all seen streamed, VODs, archives of all other characters killing at ridiculous percents without the need of having to be in rage.

 

[ChikiLucario]

Call this extreme wishful thinking or borderline delusion: There is one major buff Lucario could receive that will help him out: Lowering the max Aura from 192% to 120%.

Lucario is almost never living to the Aura cap in this game unless it's against Rosalina with no Luma. By lowering the cap, he gets access to his safer moves when it truly matters instead of being at a percent where breathing on Lucario will kill him. Lucario regains his status as being a truly threatening character if the cap is lowered.

We've all seen streamed, VODs, archives of all other characters killing at ridiculous percents without the need of having to be in rage.

Even as a Lucario main, that sounds broken as f**k. 120% is way too low, remember it ramps up until the max. So maybe the max could be 150%, I dunno, that's the max I usually go without getting KOed, I've lived once or twice at 190, but 150 seems to be the longest I live.

 

[Pitbuller26]

Which is why I said delusion. But then again, I am getting tired of getting killed extremely early in this game. Luma nair, MK combo killing from 15%. So I figured, why not?

 

[ChikiLucario]

Which is why I said delusion. But then again, I am getting tired of getting killed extremely early in this game. Luma nair, MK combo killing from 15%. So I figured, why not?

That WOULD be cool though, I mean, everything else kills at like 80%, so I don't see why having max aura at 120% would really hurt. If you can't seal off a stock against an opponent that's at 120%, then that's your fault.

 

[RT]

Given that (presumably) none of us here are part of Nintendo's development & balance team, we can't give you the exact answer. However, my guess is that it was simply an unwanted and unforeseen side-effect of the shield changes. The dev team has consistently played it safe/conservative around Lucario's balance, and this is no exception.

Very likely this. The changing of shield mechanics did not account for this move, so the result was very likely unintended. Keep in mind while there is *some* "competitiveness" in mind while balancing the game, most recent changes for character have been intentional. Devs WANT you to play them a certain way, and if they see something unintentional, they remove it.

The shieldlock was definitely not intentional. Any assumption that it was intentional...well, sucks you believed it was. Fun while it lasted, but time to move on...

 

[ChikiLucario]

Very likely this. The changing of shield mechanics did not account for this move, so the result was very likely unintended. Keep in mind while there is *some* "competitiveness" in mind while balancing the game, most recent changes for character have been intentional. Devs WANT you to play them a certain way, and if they see something unintentional, they remove it.

The shieldlock was definitely not intentional. Any assumption that it was intentional...well, sucks you believed it was. Fun while it lasted, but time to move on...

I thought it was considering how rare/hard it was for me to get it. But, yes, pretty much. Just gonna pretend it never existed.

 

[MythTrainerInfinity]

Still surprises me that a reduction of knock back gain from 100 to 93 removed the shield lock. Since the shield stun formula is (x/1.75) + 2 frames that confirms that shield hit lag or hit stun is affected by knock back gain and the formula is missing something...

I need to test some things to see if there is anything we can do with higher aura.

 

[ChikiLucario]

Still surprises me that a reduction of knock back gain from 100 to 93 removed the shield lock. Since the shield stun formula is (x/1.75) + 2 frames that confirms that shield hit lag or hit stun is affected by knock back gain and the formula is missing something...

I need to test some things to see if there is anything we can do with higher aura.

*Probably needs to learn what that jargon means*

>_> But, yes, it's funny how one minor change can break or fix a thing. Pac-Man's glitches are just... wat.

 

[CreatureComforts]

The shield lock is a serious loss, but I feel that Lucario still has good enough tools to be viable, even as characters are killing quicker.

Lucario's overall increased mobility from the most recent patch help offset the loss of shieldlock, and I've been working on some other options for getting a stock off with little aura (mostly involving creative use of ES), though some of it is very stage dependent...but said setups do exist, and probably wouldn't be too much more situational than getting the shieldlock with ASC.

The metagame is still developing. More things will be discovered as we move forward, and it might cause Lucario to rise in the tier list instead of fall.

In my opinion, Lucario is still viable as of now, so don't worry so much.

 

[HakuryuVision]

Given that (presumably) none of us here are part of Nintendo's development & balance team, we can't give you the exact answer. However, my guess is that it was simply an unwanted and unforeseen side-effect of the shield changes. The dev team has consistently played it safe/conservative around Lucario's balance, and this is no exception.

Pretty much this.
Greninja had cool stuff like running shadow sneak and tons of other awesome techs, but they've been all patched out pretty much because of the same reason.

(just my opinion; Lucarios aura-shield thingy was more annoying than anything else though. >__>)