Browny
Smash Hater
The psychology of Aura Sphere
*The following is not an essay on how to use Aura Sphere, its about threatening your enemy with it. Throwing out Aura Spheres to hit your enemy is simple and effective, but frustrating your opponent into getting hit by them over and over again is a very powerful tool I believe Lucario can use to sway a lot of matchups in his favour by varying degrees.*
When people think of Lucario, the first thing that is often spoken is how much they hate the aura sphere. In the same style of Metaknight's edge-guarding, having an aura sphere, even partly charged, can often be enough to reduce a characters options to 1; airdodge it or die. It seems a simple enough strategy to combat but its so much more devastating than theorycrafters will ever give it credit for. As a low % spammable projectile it works great to get easy, safe damage, at mid %'s its one of the most powerful projectiles in the game already and by full charge it is a legitmate KO move. But that's merely what the aura sphere is, at a face value DDD's waddles and needles are superior. The hidden power, and extremely powerful at that, lies in what the aura sphere does; instil fear.
What I'm about to go into is theorycraft yes, but I also speak from experience of what people say when they play against my Lucario. Every single person gets angry playing against it and the reason why is all too common; they just keep on getting hit by aura sphere. So allow me to explain how I use aura sphere and why people fall into it.
The thing which makes aura sphere, in my opinion, so incredibly devastating, is how it ties into brawls approach-and-retreat playstyle. Almost all characters in brawl rely heavily on approaches (when they need to of course) which are safe on block (Wario dair, Marth nair) or especially safe on whiff when retreating (Ness fair, DK bair). Damage is typically done in 'chips' and the situation is reset over and over again until someone loses a stock then the game changes drastically. Most of the good characters can do this safely without any fear of being punished. The enemy must anticipate an aerial approach if they are to counter with a projectile due to the risk of an airdodge-punish by the approaching player which is often heavily disadvantaged for the projectile thrower due to the typical low damage of projectiles. Even if they do predict it well, many aerials will simply beat projectiles and continue to hit the enemy. With the obvious exceptions of Diddy's bananas, stitchface, gordo etc. it is not too large of a risk to approach a projectile spammer.
Lucario however makes the situation much more difficult for other characters and the scales are tippled heavily in his favour when he has a full charge aura sphere in hand. You have to consider how many options this shuts down for characters. Someone like DK can normally throw out bairs all day long as they are completely safe on whiff while retreating. This tactic wrecks so many characters and is one of the best bairs in the game; vs Lucario normally these are his options, All of which are very safe
1) Bair to challenge an aerial approach from Lucario, which will beat/outdamage any Lucario attacks
2) Wait from an anticipatory reaction from the Lucario (such as fsmash), delay, then bair or...
3) Retreating bair spamming if he has a % lead.
But now what happens when Lucario has a full charge aura sphere waiting?
1) The FCAS will outprioritise the bair and DK takes a lot of %.
2) Hold shield and beware of an aerial sideb from DK, you can avoid it on reaction. Afterwards...
3) Lucario simply waits for DK to use his second jump and place the aura sphere directly underneath him, making the aura sphere unavoidable by catching landing lag frames.
Suddenly DK's safe options have reduced by 2. The only thing he can do which doesn't risk eating an aura sphere it is to simply not bair at all since he will run out of stage eventually by retreating bair spamming. PATIENCE IS THE KEY. When Lucario can reduce his opponents options to not being able to safely use their best attack, while remaining safe, he's got a good thing going on. An important note is that the effectiveness of this is HIGHLY dependant on the other characters movement speed and acceleration, it gets increasingly difficult to abuse AS vs fast opponents or ones with fast long range moves. Its Aura Sphere's major weakness imo.
Lucario can force this against so much of the cast its insane. I can list other attacks which typically wreck most of the cast do to their pure safety, however turn into very risky moves vs Lucario who sits in anticipation with a full charge aura sphere and punish with almost no risk to himself. Marth/Peach/Ike fair, DK/G&W/Sonic/Luigi/Kirby/TL/DDD/ZSS/Jigglypuff bair, All of those attacks will be overridden by a full charge aura sphere if they connect and have just enough commitment such that if they attempt to space it such that it is safe on whiff, you can either punish the attack lag (G&W bair, Ike fair) or camp the landing lag (Luigi/DK bair) quite easily.
Now look at those attacks I listed and tell me what other high/top tier characters can do about it. How does Falco/G&W deal with Marth's fair? Does Snake have any reliable answer to DDD's bair spamming? Is it ever worth the damage trade off for Marth to attack DK's bair directly? Nothing Lucario has is guaranteed but the fact that he has one universal tool which doubles up as a KO move to limit characters best attacks, sometimes completely (turtle and even the amazing retreating nair is never safe against Lucario anymore), is worth so much more than people ever give it credit for.
Of course this implies a neutral state between players, you wont always be on the ground with an FCAS. Thats where the chip damage style of brawl comes into play. If this was melee AS would be bad. Shadow ball was decent because it packed full strength at all %'s. But being brawl you will often have more than enough time to charge one and reset the situation. Lucario thrives off brawls slow nature similarly to Wario. This is why I get so angry watching peoples Lucario videos to critique and they spend so much time jumping around, acting flashy and doing everything except charge an aura sphere. Every single encounter for chip damage to be laid onto either character should have a FCAS at the ready. With Lucarios incredible evasive game, escaping a whiffed AS scenario to charge another should be utilised as often as is safely possible imo.
TL;DR version, Aura sphere shuts down characters options. When you remove a characters options, they become predictable. Falco is great because he can remove options every single second of gameplay. Lucario not only removes options (he completely negates peaches float, FCAS will hit her out of her airdodge), he punishes with a KO move. Some other attacks in the game share a similar trait. Snakes Utilt is a good example and powerful upb-oos attacks are another.
So that's my interpretation of WHY aura sphere is a great move, but now we get onto the HOW.
Landing lag frames. Lucario's best friend in brawl and an extremely important game mechanic which must be mastered to be a top player. Grabbing and smash attacking people out of landing lag is simple enough, but its what turns Aura Sphere into one of the best projectiles in the game. Forcing the enemy to think twice before making an approach is one thing, but making them think three times if the result is losing a stock and facing a powered-up Lucario on a fresh stock is worth far more.
Its quite simple, when the enemy is about to land once they have run out of jumps, shoot the aura sphere such that they will land on it. While some characters like Wario/Jigglypuff can simply move to the side or Metaknight upb/tornado, majority of characters without reflectors/absorbers will be forced to airdodge into the ground since no attack can override the FCAS reliably. While some attacks actually can, (Full power Lucario nair, Marth/Ike fair) the timing/spacing on these attacks required, combined with the speed of FCAS, I'd honestly rather they try to attack it, my money is on the Aura sphere winning and if I lose, the situation is reset. Charge another AS
With the only option left an airdodge into the ground, the aura sphere becomes unavoidable as it will catch the landing lag. Nowhere on the stage is safe.
Consider this situation. Snake is recovering over the ledge on a stage like final destination. Once he has reached his max height and is falling he has 4 usually safe options. I'll spare you the details, but with an FCAS in hand you reduce his safe options from 4 to 2 and Snake becomes more predictable. Also consider when a tornado didnt shield poke and MK retreats away from oos punishment range? Who else can punish that with a KO move? An enemy MK knows this. If he tornadoes any other characters shield he can normally shield stab for a bit then safely retreat away. With a FCAS ready, you just removed that option completely as it will result in him dying if you release the FCAS oos and MK has become more predictable. 2 simple examples, I could go on all day.
Now it would appear this only applies if Lucario is at high %'s and the enemy is also at high %'s. This is true, aura sphere at low %'s is not threatening at all as it does low damage and can easily be outprioristed and even if it hits it doesnt really matter. I find it to be worth more in the sheer anoyance factor. No one likes getting hit by things they believe they should have dodged. Even if you only do 10-13% with it thats one more step in conditioning your opponent to dodge the AS from now on, reduce their options by 1. How many times do you expect a Kirby is going to eat aura spheres before they realise bair is no longer an approaching option in the matchup and is forced to use his far worse approaches?
Don't get me mistaken, I do not think Aura sphere is the answer to all of these problems. The enemy can mix-up their approaches often and avoid it without too much trouble. However only certain characters have this luxury against Lucario which isn't exactly safe vs everyone else (Marth can fair spam Lucario to avoid it, but that doesnt help him much vs DK's bair) while Lucario can abuse Aura sphere vs the entire cast. Especially when they are recovering and/or are now on the ledge.
Aura Sphere allows Lucario to punish an extremely wide variety of the best moves in the game. No character in the game has such an extremely powerful attack which beats the retreating tornado, glide toss banana, lasers, DK's bair reliably. But remember its not the fact that you CAN beat those attacks, its that they are no longer 100% safe. Its a slight annoyance if a typically safe tactic can be stopped by wolfs laser, its downright scary if it will cost you the stock.
The next criticism is how is aura sphere any better of a projectile compared to Sheik's needles or Wolf's laser? They both have overrding priority and are fast enough + damaging to discourage those attacks. The benefit of AS is the sheer size of the hitbox, its ability to hit through spotdodges, extremely easy to hit out of landing lag, can snipe people offstage, has huge shield knockback/damage while the major downside being its threatening ability to KO is diminishes rapidly, while other projectiles can be staled all day long. This however I believe doubles up and once again makes it far stronger than other projectiles. It is often completely unavoidable and will send the enemy offstage. Thats always a good thing which AS has over all other projectiles, but on top of that now the enemy has to recover while you have another FCAS ready. You play the shutting down options game again, needles and laser are completely inferior to AS's potential offstage pressure. Aura sphere may not be the best projectile in every situation, but it is undoubtly the best across all scenarios if you ask me.
So the final comprimise I think, is if it is worth spamming FCAS as much as possible, staling it and making it useless to KO with if you could throw 1 out unpredictably and get an easy KO in the many unavoidable situations? Well that IMO ties in directly to who you are up against. If we consider someone a lightweight Peach who cant KO reliably until around 130 and will die by almost all of your aerials and smashes at mid %'s, fire away. You need AS to shut her float and glide toss down as much as possible. Vs someone like Wario though trying to hit him with a smash without dying at around 110% is not easy at all and AS isnt exactly good at stopping his high-angle aerial approaches. In this situation, keeping one ready for a surprise KO may indeed be your best option. But test what works for you? In the end...
The moral of the story is, ALWAYS HAVE A FULL CHARGE AURA SPHERE. If you are not about to be hit by an enemies attack, charge one up. There is no excuse for ever wasting time doing nothing, waiting for an enemy to approach/recover/respawn or anything which doesnt not involve attacking you when you should have a full charge aura sphere charging up or ready. You have one of the most powerful tools in the game; use it often. Know the enemies options, reduce them, read and punish.
*The following is not an essay on how to use Aura Sphere, its about threatening your enemy with it. Throwing out Aura Spheres to hit your enemy is simple and effective, but frustrating your opponent into getting hit by them over and over again is a very powerful tool I believe Lucario can use to sway a lot of matchups in his favour by varying degrees.*
When people think of Lucario, the first thing that is often spoken is how much they hate the aura sphere. In the same style of Metaknight's edge-guarding, having an aura sphere, even partly charged, can often be enough to reduce a characters options to 1; airdodge it or die. It seems a simple enough strategy to combat but its so much more devastating than theorycrafters will ever give it credit for. As a low % spammable projectile it works great to get easy, safe damage, at mid %'s its one of the most powerful projectiles in the game already and by full charge it is a legitmate KO move. But that's merely what the aura sphere is, at a face value DDD's waddles and needles are superior. The hidden power, and extremely powerful at that, lies in what the aura sphere does; instil fear.
What I'm about to go into is theorycraft yes, but I also speak from experience of what people say when they play against my Lucario. Every single person gets angry playing against it and the reason why is all too common; they just keep on getting hit by aura sphere. So allow me to explain how I use aura sphere and why people fall into it.
The thing which makes aura sphere, in my opinion, so incredibly devastating, is how it ties into brawls approach-and-retreat playstyle. Almost all characters in brawl rely heavily on approaches (when they need to of course) which are safe on block (Wario dair, Marth nair) or especially safe on whiff when retreating (Ness fair, DK bair). Damage is typically done in 'chips' and the situation is reset over and over again until someone loses a stock then the game changes drastically. Most of the good characters can do this safely without any fear of being punished. The enemy must anticipate an aerial approach if they are to counter with a projectile due to the risk of an airdodge-punish by the approaching player which is often heavily disadvantaged for the projectile thrower due to the typical low damage of projectiles. Even if they do predict it well, many aerials will simply beat projectiles and continue to hit the enemy. With the obvious exceptions of Diddy's bananas, stitchface, gordo etc. it is not too large of a risk to approach a projectile spammer.
Lucario however makes the situation much more difficult for other characters and the scales are tippled heavily in his favour when he has a full charge aura sphere in hand. You have to consider how many options this shuts down for characters. Someone like DK can normally throw out bairs all day long as they are completely safe on whiff while retreating. This tactic wrecks so many characters and is one of the best bairs in the game; vs Lucario normally these are his options, All of which are very safe
1) Bair to challenge an aerial approach from Lucario, which will beat/outdamage any Lucario attacks
2) Wait from an anticipatory reaction from the Lucario (such as fsmash), delay, then bair or...
3) Retreating bair spamming if he has a % lead.
But now what happens when Lucario has a full charge aura sphere waiting?
1) The FCAS will outprioritise the bair and DK takes a lot of %.
2) Hold shield and beware of an aerial sideb from DK, you can avoid it on reaction. Afterwards...
3) Lucario simply waits for DK to use his second jump and place the aura sphere directly underneath him, making the aura sphere unavoidable by catching landing lag frames.
Suddenly DK's safe options have reduced by 2. The only thing he can do which doesn't risk eating an aura sphere it is to simply not bair at all since he will run out of stage eventually by retreating bair spamming. PATIENCE IS THE KEY. When Lucario can reduce his opponents options to not being able to safely use their best attack, while remaining safe, he's got a good thing going on. An important note is that the effectiveness of this is HIGHLY dependant on the other characters movement speed and acceleration, it gets increasingly difficult to abuse AS vs fast opponents or ones with fast long range moves. Its Aura Sphere's major weakness imo.
Lucario can force this against so much of the cast its insane. I can list other attacks which typically wreck most of the cast do to their pure safety, however turn into very risky moves vs Lucario who sits in anticipation with a full charge aura sphere and punish with almost no risk to himself. Marth/Peach/Ike fair, DK/G&W/Sonic/Luigi/Kirby/TL/DDD/ZSS/Jigglypuff bair, All of those attacks will be overridden by a full charge aura sphere if they connect and have just enough commitment such that if they attempt to space it such that it is safe on whiff, you can either punish the attack lag (G&W bair, Ike fair) or camp the landing lag (Luigi/DK bair) quite easily.
Now look at those attacks I listed and tell me what other high/top tier characters can do about it. How does Falco/G&W deal with Marth's fair? Does Snake have any reliable answer to DDD's bair spamming? Is it ever worth the damage trade off for Marth to attack DK's bair directly? Nothing Lucario has is guaranteed but the fact that he has one universal tool which doubles up as a KO move to limit characters best attacks, sometimes completely (turtle and even the amazing retreating nair is never safe against Lucario anymore), is worth so much more than people ever give it credit for.
Of course this implies a neutral state between players, you wont always be on the ground with an FCAS. Thats where the chip damage style of brawl comes into play. If this was melee AS would be bad. Shadow ball was decent because it packed full strength at all %'s. But being brawl you will often have more than enough time to charge one and reset the situation. Lucario thrives off brawls slow nature similarly to Wario. This is why I get so angry watching peoples Lucario videos to critique and they spend so much time jumping around, acting flashy and doing everything except charge an aura sphere. Every single encounter for chip damage to be laid onto either character should have a FCAS at the ready. With Lucarios incredible evasive game, escaping a whiffed AS scenario to charge another should be utilised as often as is safely possible imo.
TL;DR version, Aura sphere shuts down characters options. When you remove a characters options, they become predictable. Falco is great because he can remove options every single second of gameplay. Lucario not only removes options (he completely negates peaches float, FCAS will hit her out of her airdodge), he punishes with a KO move. Some other attacks in the game share a similar trait. Snakes Utilt is a good example and powerful upb-oos attacks are another.
So that's my interpretation of WHY aura sphere is a great move, but now we get onto the HOW.
Landing lag frames. Lucario's best friend in brawl and an extremely important game mechanic which must be mastered to be a top player. Grabbing and smash attacking people out of landing lag is simple enough, but its what turns Aura Sphere into one of the best projectiles in the game. Forcing the enemy to think twice before making an approach is one thing, but making them think three times if the result is losing a stock and facing a powered-up Lucario on a fresh stock is worth far more.
Its quite simple, when the enemy is about to land once they have run out of jumps, shoot the aura sphere such that they will land on it. While some characters like Wario/Jigglypuff can simply move to the side or Metaknight upb/tornado, majority of characters without reflectors/absorbers will be forced to airdodge into the ground since no attack can override the FCAS reliably. While some attacks actually can, (Full power Lucario nair, Marth/Ike fair) the timing/spacing on these attacks required, combined with the speed of FCAS, I'd honestly rather they try to attack it, my money is on the Aura sphere winning and if I lose, the situation is reset. Charge another AS
With the only option left an airdodge into the ground, the aura sphere becomes unavoidable as it will catch the landing lag. Nowhere on the stage is safe.
Consider this situation. Snake is recovering over the ledge on a stage like final destination. Once he has reached his max height and is falling he has 4 usually safe options. I'll spare you the details, but with an FCAS in hand you reduce his safe options from 4 to 2 and Snake becomes more predictable. Also consider when a tornado didnt shield poke and MK retreats away from oos punishment range? Who else can punish that with a KO move? An enemy MK knows this. If he tornadoes any other characters shield he can normally shield stab for a bit then safely retreat away. With a FCAS ready, you just removed that option completely as it will result in him dying if you release the FCAS oos and MK has become more predictable. 2 simple examples, I could go on all day.
Now it would appear this only applies if Lucario is at high %'s and the enemy is also at high %'s. This is true, aura sphere at low %'s is not threatening at all as it does low damage and can easily be outprioristed and even if it hits it doesnt really matter. I find it to be worth more in the sheer anoyance factor. No one likes getting hit by things they believe they should have dodged. Even if you only do 10-13% with it thats one more step in conditioning your opponent to dodge the AS from now on, reduce their options by 1. How many times do you expect a Kirby is going to eat aura spheres before they realise bair is no longer an approaching option in the matchup and is forced to use his far worse approaches?
Don't get me mistaken, I do not think Aura sphere is the answer to all of these problems. The enemy can mix-up their approaches often and avoid it without too much trouble. However only certain characters have this luxury against Lucario which isn't exactly safe vs everyone else (Marth can fair spam Lucario to avoid it, but that doesnt help him much vs DK's bair) while Lucario can abuse Aura sphere vs the entire cast. Especially when they are recovering and/or are now on the ledge.
Aura Sphere allows Lucario to punish an extremely wide variety of the best moves in the game. No character in the game has such an extremely powerful attack which beats the retreating tornado, glide toss banana, lasers, DK's bair reliably. But remember its not the fact that you CAN beat those attacks, its that they are no longer 100% safe. Its a slight annoyance if a typically safe tactic can be stopped by wolfs laser, its downright scary if it will cost you the stock.
The next criticism is how is aura sphere any better of a projectile compared to Sheik's needles or Wolf's laser? They both have overrding priority and are fast enough + damaging to discourage those attacks. The benefit of AS is the sheer size of the hitbox, its ability to hit through spotdodges, extremely easy to hit out of landing lag, can snipe people offstage, has huge shield knockback/damage while the major downside being its threatening ability to KO is diminishes rapidly, while other projectiles can be staled all day long. This however I believe doubles up and once again makes it far stronger than other projectiles. It is often completely unavoidable and will send the enemy offstage. Thats always a good thing which AS has over all other projectiles, but on top of that now the enemy has to recover while you have another FCAS ready. You play the shutting down options game again, needles and laser are completely inferior to AS's potential offstage pressure. Aura sphere may not be the best projectile in every situation, but it is undoubtly the best across all scenarios if you ask me.
So the final comprimise I think, is if it is worth spamming FCAS as much as possible, staling it and making it useless to KO with if you could throw 1 out unpredictably and get an easy KO in the many unavoidable situations? Well that IMO ties in directly to who you are up against. If we consider someone a lightweight Peach who cant KO reliably until around 130 and will die by almost all of your aerials and smashes at mid %'s, fire away. You need AS to shut her float and glide toss down as much as possible. Vs someone like Wario though trying to hit him with a smash without dying at around 110% is not easy at all and AS isnt exactly good at stopping his high-angle aerial approaches. In this situation, keeping one ready for a surprise KO may indeed be your best option. But test what works for you? In the end...
The moral of the story is, ALWAYS HAVE A FULL CHARGE AURA SPHERE. If you are not about to be hit by an enemies attack, charge one up. There is no excuse for ever wasting time doing nothing, waiting for an enemy to approach/recover/respawn or anything which doesnt not involve attacking you when you should have a full charge aura sphere charging up or ready. You have one of the most powerful tools in the game; use it often. Know the enemies options, reduce them, read and punish.
