Zoa
Smash Ace
- Joined
- Mar 18, 2009
- Messages
- 788
Just a brief explanation why this is posted. I had some buddies practice with me today at our daily practice session for Smash to practice our tech skill, spacing, and just general critique for one another about what we need to work on. A couple of them mentioned that Lucario seemed kinda lackluster compared to Brawl. I asked them why as I was a strict Lucario player for three years after its launch, and then just haven't touched it since as I'm a Project M player primarily for now. So Brawl Luc was something I was familiar with.
Both of them mentioned that at a glance his air game was nerfed pretty significantly because of the higher knockback scaling. It became much more difficult for all sorts of set ups. I remembered that fair was his go to aerial for combos and set ups. It was pretty brain dead to use most of the time. So after they all left I ran the following rough test:
Training mode, level 9 AI Mario, set was jump, and I put 100% damage on Lucario via four Bom-ombs. I also did this at 0% for Lucario.
I was convinced that the purpose of fair's change was simply to prevent the auto combos while retaining its ability to combo and set up. Lucario received a few nerfs in damage to nair and dair, though bair and uair received damage and knockback buffs. Uair is much easier to land as a combo option thanks to fair's knockback growth, and angle, for DJ to uair follow ups.
The results I got were these:
At 0-7% I was able to do rising fair that was close to Luc's body -> fair -> to uair for 27% damage.
Starting at around 25%ish I was able to do rising fair close to Luc's body -> sweetspot nair -> fair for 23%.
Even at early 80% I was still able to do close body fair-> to DJ uair though it required all momentum be kept.
Even up to 90% I was able to do a guaranteed fair -> FCAS for 27%.
Of course this is only a few small tests, but I don't feel Lucario's air game was nerfed too much. I think it has more to do with the faster aura scaling on uair and bair to soft nerf his aerial game while keeping fair's previous functions in a way. Fair now has faster damage scaling as well and can combo into uair or itself pretty reliably. It can even combo at mid early percents to mid percents with nair. Hell, it sets up for FCAS at up to 90% on Mario for 27% damage. In a way it was to change its functionality while still giving him a reliable combo ability in the air, and maintain damage output in fewer moves. This also means combo changes and set ups compared to Brawl Lucario.
Of course we still haven't really figured out how his aerial game will work in the actual metagame, but I thought I'd share my thoughts on the matter as it's only the tip of the iceberg.
Both of them mentioned that at a glance his air game was nerfed pretty significantly because of the higher knockback scaling. It became much more difficult for all sorts of set ups. I remembered that fair was his go to aerial for combos and set ups. It was pretty brain dead to use most of the time. So after they all left I ran the following rough test:
Training mode, level 9 AI Mario, set was jump, and I put 100% damage on Lucario via four Bom-ombs. I also did this at 0% for Lucario.
I was convinced that the purpose of fair's change was simply to prevent the auto combos while retaining its ability to combo and set up. Lucario received a few nerfs in damage to nair and dair, though bair and uair received damage and knockback buffs. Uair is much easier to land as a combo option thanks to fair's knockback growth, and angle, for DJ to uair follow ups.
The results I got were these:
At 0-7% I was able to do rising fair that was close to Luc's body -> fair -> to uair for 27% damage.
Starting at around 25%ish I was able to do rising fair close to Luc's body -> sweetspot nair -> fair for 23%.
Even at early 80% I was still able to do close body fair-> to DJ uair though it required all momentum be kept.
Even up to 90% I was able to do a guaranteed fair -> FCAS for 27%.
Of course this is only a few small tests, but I don't feel Lucario's air game was nerfed too much. I think it has more to do with the faster aura scaling on uair and bair to soft nerf his aerial game while keeping fair's previous functions in a way. Fair now has faster damage scaling as well and can combo into uair or itself pretty reliably. It can even combo at mid early percents to mid percents with nair. Hell, it sets up for FCAS at up to 90% on Mario for 27% damage. In a way it was to change its functionality while still giving him a reliable combo ability in the air, and maintain damage output in fewer moves. This also means combo changes and set ups compared to Brawl Lucario.
Of course we still haven't really figured out how his aerial game will work in the actual metagame, but I thought I'd share my thoughts on the matter as it's only the tip of the iceberg.
