Trying to learn Lucario. Hitting a brick wall vs very fast characters.

[Reikou]

I've been playing Lucario for the last few days on SSB4, and am looking to main him for now.

I didn't really play Brawl a lot, so I've had to learn the game/character from scratch, while both playing and reading up on some old Brawl info.

Now I've done decently in 1v1 matches online, but I seem to simply hit a brick wall when facing super fast/mobile characters such as Shiek, Fox, Zero Suit Samus, Little Mac, or even Pikachu. They can just rack up damage on me, and I simply can't seem to do anything about it. Additionally, their speed allows them to avoid pretty much everything that Lucario can output because of the huge windup or recovery on many of his attacks. Is there any jab that Lucario has that can possibly outspeed these characters?

It doesn't help that those characters seem to have farther range, faster attack frames and higher priority than Lucario either. Not to mention a far more superior air game.

If anyone has any tips on what sort of mindset and strategy I should have while facing these types of characters, it would be very helpful.

Thanks.

I keep reading that Lucario is also supposed to have a great Air Game. However, after playing for the last few days, I simply don't see it. Low range, low priority on all of his aerial attacks. and incredibly slow fall speed makes it very difficult to get anything done in the air.

 

[Masonomace]

I've been playing Lucario for the last few days on SSB4, and am looking to main him for now.

I didn't really play Brawl a lot, so I've had to learn the game/character from scratch, while both playing and reading up on some old Brawl info.

Now I've done decently in 1v1 matches online, but I seem to simply hit a brick wall when facing super fast/mobile characters such as Shiek, Fox, Zero Suit Samus, Little Mac, or even Pikachu. They can just rack up damage on me, and I simply can't seem to do anything about it. Additionally, their speed allows them to avoid pretty much everything that Lucario can output because of the huge windup or recovery on many of his attacks. Is there any jab that Lucario has that can possibly outspeed these characters?

It doesn't help that those characters seem to have farther range, faster attack frames and higher priority than Lucario either. Not to mention a far more superior air game.

If anyone has any tips on what sort of mindset and strategy I should have while facing these types of characters, it would be very helpful.

Thanks.

I keep reading that Lucario is also supposed to have a great Air Game. However, after playing for the last few days, I simply don't see it. Low range, low priority on all of his aerial attacks. and incredibly slow fall speed makes it very difficult to get anything done in the air.

Hmmmm. . .Btw welcome to Smashboards. Okay so, Lucario in Brawl was very defense-orientated as play-style goes, so Lucario camping was common, plus AuraBoost% back then was very powerful. But in Sm4sh I see what you mean. Lucario's AuraBoost% from what I've heard no longer relies on being behind by stocks, so this doesn't make Lucario come-back as strong.

My advice to you, if I'm even allowed to do that because frankly I don't own the game, but what I can tell you with any past Brawl Lucario experience is:

• Utilize your Aura Sphere. If you knock someone off-stage & you have time & the plenty of space, always charge it up. The biggest improvements between Lucario then & now is his Aura Sphere being a bigger threat. Usually when you charge it up at a fair distance between you two, your opponent will most likely stop & put up a shield. Mind-game him / her. When they're landing on the stage with no jumps & you're not in reach, it's never a bad thing to fire your Aura Sphere at them, whether it's uncharged or fully charged.
  
• You may say to me, "you don't know what you're talking about, you haven't played the game" which is true, but if you can, utilize your Double Team. Especially in the Pikachu-matchup. Pikachu in Brawl was very easy to Double Team against due to the see-able predictable path of ThunderJolt coming you way. Countering it while Pikachu comes at you running behind it's projectile can bite Pikachu for it landing you a punish. So in general, if you see a move coming, like Zero Suit Samus taser shot, or Little Mac charging at you with a fist out, keep in mind you have a counter, that may prove useful to you.
  
• Lucario is heavier in this game than he was in Brawl, so that can lead to be an advantage or a setback depending how you see it.
  
• Lucario's Down Smash got a good improvement, worth using to punish players who roll. So if they play the kind of way that outspeeds you & makes circles around you, perhaps it's best to roll away or get a DSmash read. (Idk yet)
  
• To handle , I'd just juggle him in the air. He's apparently terrible in the air, & that was developed on purpose. Grab him & juggle him, what's he gonna do?
  
• And finally for what it's worth, master how to recover with ExtremeSpeed. You can wall-cling to surfaces still like you could in Brawl with it, so that's something to note when your opponent is very pinpoint & punishes your recovery. Though with how ExtremeSpeed works now there's probably no need for having to cling to surfaces.

From what I'm seeing so far without seeing Lucario's full-potential:
Go-to tilts: Dtilt & Utilt
Go-to Smashes: DSmash & FSmash
Go-to aerials: all of them

Go-to throws: Dthrow for combo'ing / juggling
Fthrow or Bthrow to throw off-stage

When you launch characters off-stage, the new ledge mechanic makes it that edge-hogging is useless practically, so go deep & Fair, Dair, or Nair them off-stage to secure KOs.

As for your point on his air-game being weak, try doing a Fair>Nair & tell me how that works, because Brawl Lucario's setups involved a lot of SH>Fair>Nair or SH>Fair>Dair, making Lucario a combo monster. In Sm4sh you can still Dair stall but not as effective, which is you pressing Dair repeatedly when being above them. For Bair, if you space properly, Bair appears to be a good aerial.

 

[Reikou]

Thanks for the in depth reply.

Unfortunately it seems one of the biggest things Lucario has lost is its ability to combo and juggle very well at all. Maybe I'm just doing it wrong, but I've not really been able to pull off many of the brawl combos, even in training.

First of all, I've tried doing the whole FAir NAir combo, but it doesn't seem to be guaranteed at all anymore.

FAir knocks the opponent too far up, so the recovery frames make it impossible to follow up with the NAir as well. This also makes it impossible to chain 2 air attacks in a SH at all. FAir/NAir/DAir/BAir whatever, you'll land before you can start/finish your second attack.

You can only fit two attacks into a full jump.

Additionally, it is worth noting that the game will prematurely cancel your attack if you land on the ground before you finish/execute it. New game mechanic or not, I'm not sure, but this is what I've found after messing around in training a lot.

Additionally, the recovery frames from his N-A (the 3-step combo) attack make it much more difficult to chain AA->FA or AA->FB. Unless there is some guard-canceling mechanic that I don't know about (I already tried normal guard canceling,) then you have to wait a full second after AA before you can input FB. Even then, if you try FA or some other A-attack it just goes into the third part of the comb (the kick.)

 

[Masonomace]

Thanks for the in depth reply.

Unfortunately it seems one of the biggest things Lucario has lost is its ability to combo and juggle very well at all. Maybe I'm just doing it wrong, but I've not really been able to pull off many of the brawl combos, even in training.

First of all, I've tried doing the whole FAir NAir combo, but it doesn't seem to be guaranteed at all anymore.

FAir knocks the opponent too far up, so the recovery frames make it impossible to follow up with the NAir as well. This also makes it impossible to chain 2 air attacks in a SH at all. You pick FAir/NAir/DAir/BAir whatever, you'll land before you finish the first attack. Additionally, it is worth noting that the game will prematurely cancel your attack if you land on the ground before you finish/execute it. New game mechanic or not, I'm not sure, but this is what I've found after messing around in training a lot.

Additionally, the recovery frames from his N-A (the 3-step combo) attack make it much more difficult to chain AA->FA or AA->FB. Unless there is some guard-canceling mechanic that I don't know about (I already tried normal guard canceling,) then you have to wait a full second after AA before you can input FB. Even then, if you try FA or some other A-attack it just goes into the third part of the comb (the kick.)

That's a bummer to hear about Fair > Nair not being such a strong string anymore within a single SH. If you say Fair launches them more higher up in front of you, it sounds like a Double Fair string could work, or going for a Uair to finish the combo. This is assuming you can SH, input Fair, then DJ to do the second aerial before hitting the ground after the SH Fair input:

• SH > Fair > DJ > Fair or Uair.

What I underlined in your quote sounds insayian & I'd like to see it on video just to see it. It sounds, crazy. I'm not sure if I wanna believe that, was it like this in any way? Look closely at 0:35 in the video.

Here he does a Uair right before landing, but the hit-box still hits Villager anyways. So I'm not sure what you mean when the move upon landing is canceled.

Finally about the AAA combo, yeah I was recently aware that it looks like it can't be jab canceled to lead into Jab1 > Jab2 > FP or grab, OR Jab1 > FP or grab or Ftilt or Dtilt. Which is another bummer.

 

[Reikou]

Oh hey, you're still around.

Not sure if this is allowed/not allowed, but I'll turn on my stream to show exactly whats going on. I'd appreciate it if you could drop by so I can kind of explain it real time? Maybe Its just me being bad though.

twitch.tv/ailesdelumiere/
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Stream is ended for now. But I tried to show what combos were possible/impossible to do on Lucario. Hopefully Masonomace (or perhaps others that were watching) can back me up here, but it seems to me that Lucario lost a lot of its combo ability available to it in Brawl.

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Highlighted/uploaded the experiment session onto Youtube, just to give you guys a better idea of what Lucario is like now.

 

[Vanargand]

Hey Reikou, Vanargand here.

The Extremespeed short cancel video that the guy posted does not work in SSB4. That's all.

EDIT: Though, there is a funny thing where if you hold left while you're using it on the ground, you'll land facing the opposite direction. Gonna do some more research with this.

I still highly do not recommend using this at high percentages though. You'll just SD :V.

 

[Zoa]

Looks like nair still sets up nicely at low percents. Fair has a bit of lag in between uses now so it seems to be a move you'll have to DJ and hit with another aerial this time around.

 

[hichez50]

From that video I think lucario will be alright. It looks like he has things, but generally stronger. This means he might have a greater emphasis on edge guarding. It just goes to show that brawl lucario doesn't equal smash 4 lucario.

He also used very few tilts. I also saw that DT has a sweetspot range down. That could be very interesting.

 

[ShadyWolfe]

I am liking the visuals of Lucario's attacks. He was my Brawl main and he seems slightly buffed now so I'm excited to try him out though I wished Sakurai would've made him more aggressive and strong rather than defensive and weak like in the Pokemon games and Project M without that ridiculous double team and spirit bomb. I want to see his custom moves to see if I can get rid of that down special I never liked that move.