What is the point of playing Lucina?

[GreenFlame]

OK, let me put out my final point, then we can let this topic die a peaceful death.

Marth has got the same match-ups as Lucina, but does better in all of them. They hardly play any differently apart from Marth having the tipper, so comparing Marth to Lucina isn't the same as comparing Marth to Ganon. Marth and Ganon are completely different characters, with completely different match-ups - one of them might have an advantage on a character, and the other has a disadvantage on the same character. Marth and Lucina, however, have the same match-ups because of how they're exactly the same apart from the upgrades Marth has (tipper stuff and less hitlag).

I said before Lucina is viable; if Marth didn't exist, everyone who would've used Marth would likely use Lucina. But Marth does exist, and he does better in every match-up that Lucina has.

But, Lucina is a great character. She has personality (which Marth is sort of lacking), and I'll admit, a nice voice. I'll be glad when Lucina gets tournament representation (and she will), and people can go just as far with Lucina as they could Marth.


There's no denying Marth is fundamentally better than Lucina, but in the end I agree with both sides.
Marth is better than Lucina, and in the hands of a skilled player he can be used for better results than her.
But Lucina is perfectly viable, only being slightly worse than Marth fundamentally, and can achieve almost the same results as Marth; plus Lucina is also a much better character in terms of personality for many people, including myself.

 

[~ Valkyrie ~]

"I wouldn't be surprised if Lucina will be classified for her personal "L-tier" because she, while viable fighter to tournament play by her own and is not a badly performing fighter by any means, is not recommended due Marth being superior to her and thus, shouldn't be acknowledged by any competitive players in general."

/thread

I personally think trying to play Lucina in style of Marth in higher play has proven already it's fruit: just move to Marth instead. So what is left of her then? That is what we can use to still explore, and surely during these years, people will, regardless of what's been said of her so far.

I personally think Lucina should be explored to play in a different way instead of trying to force her do what Marth can do better already. Heck, start from that rush-down style that many keep saying her excelling at.

All I've seen is her being compared to him and it seems rather ignorant to what could be done with her mechanic that could be used to work around her weaknesses compared to Marth. Not completely, but at least acknowledginly.

 

[Feryn Hyrk]

Once again the "Lucina is not recomended because of Marth"

It's not the same enjoyable fun experience for a person who plays Marth or Lucina. If it's a different person then it can even be Olimar and Alph case, people will still favor one because of character personality/looks.

I understand that a lot of people will think of Lucina as a Marth custom, and thus this will affect their ratio appearance on tournaments. BUT we are the ones who'll play them, we are the Marths and Lucinas, if we stop doing this then people will see them as different chars and the decision won't be "I pick Marth because he's better than Lucina" and it will be something like "I pick Yoshi because he's better than Bowser Jr."

It's like Mario and Luigi on Smash 64 when we first casually played the game... we all thought something like "these 2 are almost the same, but I'll pick Luigi because I like him more"

Also, I like to play with Alph rather than Olimar just because ppl sometimes even forget he exist, it's funny how he looks too, specially in the winning animation, he looks like "WTF, WHERE I AM, WHAT THE HELL I'M DOING IN THIS GAME, WHO ARE THESE GUYS O.O"

 

[GreenFlame]

"I wouldn't be surprised if Lucina will be classified for her personal "L-tier" because she, while viable fighter to tournament play by her own and is not a badly performing fighter by any means, is not recommended due Marth being superior to her and thus, shouldn't be acknowledged by any competitive players in general."

/thread

I personally think trying to play Lucina in style of Marth in higher play has proven already it's fruit: just move to Marth instead. So what is left of her then? That is what we can use to still explore, and surely during these years, people will, regardless of what's been said of her so far.

I personally think Lucina should be explored to play in a different way instead of trying to force her do what Marth can do better already. Heck, start from that rush-down style that many keep saying her excelling at.

All I've seen is her being compared to him and it seems rather ignorant to what could be done with her mechanic that could be used to work around her weaknesses compared to Marth. Not completely, but at least acknowledginly.

I really like your idea, of playing Lucina uniquely from Marth. The issue, though, is that she's so similar to Marth, that there'd be hardly any way to play her differently. Other than not needing precise spacing, Lucina plays pretty much the same as Marth. I like the idea, but I don't see how it's possible unless she gets changed in a future patch to be less like Marth.

 

[Lichi]

I wonder how this thread still manages to go on about the Marth > Lucina thing.
People play her because of personal preference, not logical reasons rooted in game data and stats.

 

[~ Valkyrie ~]

I wonder how this thread still manages to go on about the Marth > Lucina thing.
People play her because of personal preference, not logical reasons rooted in game data and stats.

I guess that's where the disdain is coming from towards her: people see Lucina as a leech to "fanboys" or "waifuing closet casuals" and so on, creating a mess in Smash-community, while providing nothing good in return to more mature or competitive audience of Smash as she's just "inferior Marth".

I wish it'd changed in time as I don't want Lucina to really become truly someone plain "extra" to Smash-community, or just be hated for the fact that she only brought in an unliked fanbase, and nothing more to Smash 4. Sadly well, I guess it's just up to patches to say that.

 

[OmegaSorin]

I really like your idea, of playing Lucina uniquely from Marth. The issue, though, is that she's so similar to Marth, that there'd be hardly any way to play her differently. Other than not needing precise spacing, Lucina plays pretty much the same as Marth. I like the idea, but I don't see how it's possible unless she gets changed in a future patch to be less like Marth.

I play her different from Marth and its proven very fruitful, mainly because I don't have to worry about spacing, where with marth I have to consistently keep people at a distance to hit with the tip of my sword. Being very aggressive with Lucina, from my point of view, is very useful. With Marth, for me at least, I find it difficult to get tippers off, especially in the heat of battle, there for Playing marth aggressively is effectively a bad idea for me and makes my game worse.

 

[guedes the brawler]

I guess that's where the disdain is coming from towards her: people see Lucina as a leech to "fanboys" or "waifuing closet casuals" and so on, creating a mess in Smash-community, while providing nothing good in return to more mature or competitive audience of Smash as she's just "inferior Marth".

I wish it'd changed in time as I don't want Lucina to really become truly someone plain "extra" to Smash-community, or just be hated for the fact that she only brought in an unliked fanbase, and nothing more to Smash 4. Sadly well, I guess it's just up to patches to say that.

not to mention being in playable in smahs when more important characters to her own franchise aren't playable, in particular Chrom

 

[Lichi]

I guess that's where the disdain is coming from towards her: people see Lucina as a leech to "fanboys" or "waifuing closet casuals" and so on, creating a mess in Smash-community, while providing nothing good in return to more mature or competitive audience of Smash as she's just "inferior Marth".

I wish it'd changed in time as I don't want Lucina to really become truly someone plain "extra" to Smash-community, or just be hated for the fact that she only brought in an unliked fanbase, and nothing more to Smash 4. Sadly well, I guess it's just up to patches to say that.

Joining the competition with any character you like is worth while. Competitive gaming has few driving forces.
The possibly strongest and obvious one is the desire of players to compete with others. The more competition you have, and the more diverse it is, the better. Lucina, while being the worse Marth, is still an opponent you'll have to defeat. There's no harm in there. Even if you say you can play against her exactly like you do against Marth, there's still no loss.
Saying that Lucina creates an unwanted mini-community within the scene that leeches of it but offers nothing in return is ridiculous. There is no mess created. There's just players who enjoy a certain character. Where exactly do you see the mess? How is maturity involved in this?
Are you that elitist that you'd like to demand every player to play at the peak of their options and that Lucina being inferior weakens the community?
There may be some or even a lot of waifu (wow I hate this term so much) phenomenons connected to Lucina, but that's not the case for every Lucina player. The same goes for any female character in the game though. I don't even want to know how many ZSS players out there have graphicly explicit content of their character stored on their hard drives, dreaming of having her as a girlfriend cause she's hot or whatever.
As I mentioned earlier and in numerous threads, I play Lucina because I've always liked Marth's moveset but never liked the character himself. That's because to me he has no personality or anything, while Lucina does.
I feel somewhat offended being told that by my character choice I do not contribute to the community am not able to please a mature audience.

While I do hope that she will get differentiating changes in the future by patching, I highly doubt that will happen. But with every other point you've made, I have to strongly disagree.


@ G guedes the brawler
that's just some randomly made up fact of yours. The only character in FE:A that is really more important than the others is the avatar. The only thing that made Chrom special is that he may not die in missions, but ultimately, you can very well leave him behind and slay the final boss without his help.
On a second note, being important to a franchise is no justification for a representation in smash. It might be a factor that influences the choice, but so are popularity, possibility to work in a brawler, and more.

 

[Reila]

The waifu thing is literally the only thing I have against Lucina. Which isn't really against her character, but (a big portion of) her fans. She is legitimately a cool and likable character in her game. It is just hard to even have a conversation or post in a Fire Emblem thread without some stupid **** posting things like "she is my waifu" or some even creepier comment about the character. With that being said, I am still glad we got her instead of Chrom in Smash.

not to mention being in playable in smahs when more important characters to her own franchise aren't playable, in particular Chrom

Importance isn't always the most relevant factor.

 

[Folt]

@ G guedes the brawler
that's just some randomly made up fact of yours. The only character in FE:A that is really more important than the others is the avatar. The only thing that made Chrom special is that he may not die in missions, but ultimately, you can very well leave him behind and slay the final boss without his help.
On a second note, being important to a franchise is no justification for a representation in smash. It might be a factor that influences the choice, but so are popularity, possibility to work in a brawler, and more.

Actually, I'd say Chrom is much more important character than Lucina is in the game they come from, but that I agree with the bolded paragraph.

 

[Hellrazor]

The waifu thing is literally the only thing I have against Lucina. Which isn't really against her character, but (a big portion of) her fans. She is legitimately a cool and likable character in her game. It is just hard to even have a conversation or post in a Fire Emblem thread without some stupid **** posting things like "she is my waifu" or some even creepier comment about the character. With that being said, I am still glad we got her instead of Chrom in Smash.

Importance isn't always the most relevant factor.

In the end it means nothing. When people are calling a character their 'waifu' they're joking; it's become a ridiculous meme at this point. Lucina is fanservice and fluff, nothing more. I can't appreciate her implementation from any other perspective.

So really the only thing to take from this is that people choose Lucina because it's Lucina (or they don't have knowledge of the mechanics), not because of anything remotely related to Smash.

 

[EternalFlame]

Right when I suggested that we put an end to this, we still continue ^^"

both sides are essentially repeating the exact points they had over the course of three pages. Neither side is willing to budge, so again, I ask we let this subject die so people can decide for themselves. Shaya's thread on the data differences already exist, so all that's left is character preference and data property preference.

Lucina players, let's focus on improving instead of defending the position of competitive ability (which has already been done in the past pages). Your ability to perform can speak volumes over the bickering back and forth here.

and Marth players, let's be mature and leave it up to people to decide who they want to play as competitively. Just because a player isn't being optimal doesn't hinder their ability to compete; simply that they choose a different (and probably more satisfying to them) road towards showing their strength.

 

[Kenith]

The waifu thing is literally the only thing I have against Lucina. Which isn't really against her character, but (a big portion of) her fans. She is legitimately a cool and likable character in her game. It is just hard to even have a conversation or post in a Fire Emblem thread without some stupid **** posting things like "she is my waifu" or some even creepier comment about the character. With that being said, I am still glad we got her instead of Chrom in Smash.

Thank you, thank you, and thank you. Although I definitely don't count the fans against her considering she is my favorite Awakening character (aside from maybe Anna) the waifu thing legitimate makes me uncomfortable.
I don't ship Robin X Lucina at all. "Who do you ship her with?" How about nobody?

As for the actual gameplay of the character, I frankly don't care that Marth is "better". Marth is a boring ****ing character compared to Lucina. Lucina's actual costume looks way cooler.

 

[Reila]

In the end it means nothing. When people are calling a character their 'waifu' they're joking;

Some are, some aren't. In the end, the problem isn't even some people being attracted to a fictional character like Lucina (that is perfectly normal, as far as I am concerned). The problem is voicing it publicly. It detracts threads from their original purposes, it creeps out some people (not me necessarily, I only find it obnoxious and I also can't bring myself to take anyone who post waifu shenanigans serious), etc. Sometimes it completely changes the image of certain characters, like Samus, for example.

 

[GreenFlame]

As for the actual gameplay of the character, I frankly don't care that Marth is "better". Marth is a boring ****ing character compared to Lucina. Lucina's actual costume looks way cooler.

I also find Lucina cooler, but hey, there's no reason to start insulting Marth. I think this topic is finished, done, over, ended,
terminado. We can all agree that Marth and Lucina are both great characters in Smash, and Marth and Lucina mains can live happily ever after.

The End.

 

[LightLV]

Unfortunately, this cycle of Marth vs Lucina is not one likely to break any time soon ^^" I side with Lucina being viable still for tournaments, but people will continue to debate about it (even when we have Shaya's post on their actual differences). Even with admitting that Marth is fundamentally stronger, more still assert that Lucina is not tourney viable/waste of space. Lucina has no tipper, but she does not struggle to kill. Marth doesn't struggle to kill either, but Marth is fundamentally stronger

The fact that they're identical and Lucina is worse actually does make her a competitive waste of space, because she's skill capped while Marth isn't.

Actually, that's the only real issue. Their playstyle is identical, yet she gains nothing from playing optimal, unlike Marth who gains alot of power. If she was like Roy, it would be understandable, but she isn't.


Also, my issue with the character doesn't stem from whatever creepy "waifu" **** that goes on in these communities. It's simply that, there's no logical reason why she should be created so shallowly that makes her the way she is.

I can feel the strength difference in Dr. Mario, or in Gannondorf. Lucina isn't made that way. It's just bad design, really.

 

[~ Valkyrie ~]

Joining the competition with any character you like is worth while. Competitive gaming has few driving forces.
The possibly strongest and obvious one is the desire of players to compete with others. The more competition you have, and the more diverse it is, the better. Lucina, while being the worse Marth, is still an opponent you'll have to defeat. There's no harm in there. Even if you say you can play against her exactly like you do against Marth, there's still no loss.
Saying that Lucina creates an unwanted mini-community within the scene that leeches of it but offers nothing in return is ridiculous. There is no mess created. There's just players who enjoy a certain character. Where exactly do you see the mess? How is maturity involved in this?
Are you that elitist that you'd like to demand every player to play at the peak of their options and that Lucina being inferior weakens the community?
There may be some or even a lot of waifu (wow I hate this term so much) phenomenons connected to Lucina, but that's not the case for every Lucina player. The same goes for any female character in the game though. I don't even want to know how many ZSS players out there have graphicly explicit content of their character stored on their hard drives, dreaming of having her as a girlfriend cause she's hot or whatever.
As I mentioned earlier and in numerous threads, I play Lucina because I've always liked Marth's moveset but never liked the character himself. That's because to me he has no personality or anything, while Lucina does.
I feel somewhat offended being told that by my character choice I do not contribute to the community am not able to please a mature audience.

While I do hope that she will get differentiating changes in the future by patching, I highly doubt that will happen. But with every other point you've made, I have to strongly disagree.

I just reflected what others have said in this thread and other ones: I said "people", not "I". However, kinda like what Reila mentioned, sometimes these fans aren't afraid to voice their "waifuing" in a serious sense and as of late, it's been bit pushed with Lucina along with other usually cringed fanbase tropes. (Lucina-social thread at it's craziest)

On the "mature audience", I mostly am pondering about that too. Like I said, I wouldn't tolerate Lucina being labeled like what she is ATM, but sometimes I also voice what is truth here.

I guess I'd be just content with her being at lower than Marth, but not be criticized to the point she'll be the scapegoat of some prejudice in competitive scene because "she's a badly designed Marth-wannabe" and she'll be given no chance due Marth's presence in general.

 

[EternalFlame]

The fact that they're identical and Lucina is worse actually does make her a competitive waste of space, because she's skill capped while Marth isn't.

Actually, that's the only real issue. Their playstyle is identical, yet she gains nothing from playing optimal, unlike Marth who gains alot of power. If she was like Roy, it would be understandable, but she isn't.


Also, my issue with the character doesn't stem from whatever creepy "waifu" **** that goes on in these communities. It's simply that, there's no logical reason why she should be created so shallowly that makes her the way she is.

I can feel the strength difference in Dr. Mario, or in Gannondorf. Lucina isn't made that way. It's just bad design, really.

have you even been reading anything past that quote? ^^" I'm just curious, since we're going around in circles here.

Your focus is still on optimal solution, but you're ignoring the fact that she is not hindered. She can compete, even if Marth is a better choice optimally. Her fundamental properties are weaker than Marth's, but Marth has his own problems too (please refer to the previous point I made before that quote you selected). This is going back to "may as well pick top tier" for competitive play (the principle of choosing the optimal character is the point).

I'm not defending the game design choice of Lucina (perhaps she could have been handled better, I can admit), but I will defend her ability to compete despite Marth being fundamentally stronger. If there is anything I will not let idly pass by is anyone saying that Lucina is a waste of space, because Sakurai was kind enough to put her in, even when the roster was complete without her. Competitive wise is no different, because her properties, her character, and her players are all deserving to have the ability to compete. Such notions of "waste of space" or "no point to play her" (whether in the competitive context or not) only divides the community and creates character biases.

Even if this discussion refuses to end despite my objections, I will continue to defend Lucina (her character), her players, and all Lucina stands for (her properties and gameplay) from people trying to marginalize her as being a waste of space.

 

[LightLV]

I'm not defending the game design choice of Lucina (perhaps she could have been handled better, I can admit), but I will defend her ability to compete despite Marth being fundamentally stronger. If there is anything I will not let idly pass by is anyone saying that Lucina is a waste of space, because Sakurai was kind enough to put her in, even when the roster was complete without her. Competitive wise is no different, because her properties, her character, and her players are all deserving to have the ability to compete. Such notions of "waste of space" or "no point to play her" (whether in the competitive context or not) only divides the community and creates character biases.

The case in point here is that if you're competing then picking Lucina is a stupid choice. You can still make that choice and do decently. But there's little to lose by picking marth over lucina, but plenty to lose vice versa.

And uh, no. Lucina is a pretty big waste of space, especially when more elegantly handled clones like Lucas or Wolf were excluded for a character that doesn't try to be anything other than a nerfed version of another. Dark Pit is no different.

It's understandable since they worked on the 3DS version in parallel and probably wanted to cut down the workload. But it doesnt change the clones in this game being pretty weak.

 

[EternalFlame]

The case in point here is that if you're competing then picking Lucina is a stupid choice. You can still make that choice and do decently. But there's little to lose by picking marth over lucina, but plenty to lose vice versa.

And uh, no. Lucina is a pretty big waste of space, especially when more elegantly handled clones like Lucas or Wolf were excluded for a character that doesn't try to be anything other than a nerfed version of another. Dark Pit is no different.

You're still under the assumption that to compete has the only goal of winning in the most efficent way possible (and that is not the goal of every competitive player, which I'd like to believe). Such a statement of "a lot to lose" marginalizes a lot of the characters that are considered low tier, not just Lucina. To truly compete within a game setting is by doing one's best with what/whom they choose to use. Perhaps I'm being idealistic here, but if the only goal was to win, then we what is even the point of having other players participate in a tournament with lower tiers with the expectation to lose? People should try their best with the characters they have, no matter the kind of disadvantage they may have. That is why fighting games are so popular to begin with; because people choose their characters, make a name for themselves, and see how far they can push themselves with those characters.

People know they are placing themselves at a disadvantage by picking Lucina, but that is far from the only reason to choose her or not. She does not struggle to kill, does not have a point of error, and she has a character that people identify themselves by; good player or not, you cannot deny that these also affect the choice a player makes when they pick a character to compete with. You may choose to pick Marth for optimum results, but that does not negate the above positive points that Lucina players like (particularly the last two points) - nor is it a stupid decision to pick her or any lower tier for that matter. The whole reason why I'm debating like this, again, is to prevent character biases from appearing and dividing the community. You need to understand the implications of such words, which is why I'm making an effort to point it out now.

Lucina is not a waste of space either when Sakurai clearly stated that they were added towards the end when they had time to do so:

http://nintendoeverything.com/sakurai-on-the-clone-characters-in-smash-bros-wii-u3ds/

We don't know the process they went through in the development of Brawl, but I can say this much that they could have been just skins if they hadn't taken the extra time to add the different properties and whatnot. We're not even taking into consideration that patches can very well change the field of play, and we are still in the starting month of Smash 4 as a whole.This is like the debate about character slots in the game, which do not exist as evident to the actual number of character slots someone was able to hack into Brawl.

It is one thing to believe that she is wasted character, its another thing to go into a public setting, state it and not expect reprisal. This is why we have to be considerate of what we say in terms of the community as a whole.

EDIT: really though, people shouldn't get as worked up as I do about the inferiority talk, since what people say shouldn't affect your choices to begin with xD But for those who are swayed by words and create more bias from stuff like this, I want to be sure I have at least tried to set the record straight (alongside the other defenders of Lucina's usage).

Also, @ L LightLV I've edit the last sentence since that made you sound more like a bad guy of sorts. I do appologize for that, but I'm hoping through all this, you'll understand that its more than just the desire to win that makes a player competitive (or rather, a desire to be competitive). Again, I appologize that I went on a bit strong, but please do consider this side of the argument and be considerate of other players (especially since we're in a Lucina board)

Marth is Fundamentally stronger than Lucina. But Lucina is worth playing in her own right, competitive setting or not.

 

[Hellrazor]

"There are 3 fighters [Lucina, Dark Pit, and Doctor Mario] that are alternate models (clones) in the game. Each was originally a color variation, but during development, they were given balanced characteristics. Since their functionality had differences, forms were separated from each other. However, it was vital that this didn’t increase the required man-hours. Some relative tuning was sufficient as it wasn’t necessary to create balancing from scratch." - Sakurai

Emphasis on "balanced characteristics."

I wonder if there's a good chance Lucina's power might be buffed, or if later on she'll be less of a clone. I'd assume Nintendo has the power to make those sorts of changes through patches. Regardless, there still may be hope. I wonder if they'd ever consider giving Lucina a sweetspot, since I doubt that would take much time.

I understand they cloned Marth's frame data because of time constraints, but now that they're doing patches this may not always be the case in the future.

 

[Severn]

Some are, some aren't. In the end, the problem isn't even some people being attracted to a fictional character like Lucina (that is perfectly normal, as far as I am concerned). The problem is voicing it publicly. It detracts threads from their original purposes, it creeps out some people (not me necessarily, I only find it obnoxious and I also can't bring myself to take anyone who post waifu shenanigans serious), etc. Sometimes it completely changes the image of certain characters, like Samus, for example.

I agree, Lucina is one of my all time favorite FE characters, I like her character allot. But when I constantly see her being derailed into an emotional little girl blushing all the time in lewd fan-arts with with other FE characters (looking at you male Robin) it's really disturbing, as it doesn't reflect her character at all. Its the same thing with other characters like Samus and Rosalina. But hey, lets not get off topic.

Point still stands that the only real reason to actually use Lucina is for her looks. The only legitimate argument for using Lucina i've seen is that you can play more aggressively with her, but in the end she has Marth's move set, which is specialised for zoning. I know its been said many times before but Marth's tipper rewards him for his spacing, gives him earlier kills and he safer in most situation due to his hitlag modifier on his tipped and non-tipped attacks. Lucina and Marth are basically the same character, which a little difference between them that makes a big difference. The argument saying using a Marth instead of Lucina for efficiency, and instead just using a better character all together isn't really justified, since if you want to use a character with that moveset you can. Just pick the character that has the same moveset but does it all better. Whether you play casually or competitively you want to win, so why put yourself at a disadvantage when you could use basically the same character but better?

 

[EternalFlame]

...

Point still stands that the only real reason to actually use Lucina is for her looks. The only legitimate argument for using Lucina i've seen is that you can play more aggressively with her, but in the end she has Marth's move set, which is specialised for zoning. I know its been said many times before but Marth's tipper rewards him for his spacing, gives him earlier kills and he safer in most situation due to his hitlag modifier on his tipped and non-tipped attacks. Lucina and Marth are basically the same character, which a little difference between them that makes a big difference. The argument saying using a Marth instead of Lucina for efficiency, and instead just using a better character all together isn't really justified, since if you want to use a character with that moveset you can. Just pick the character that has the same moveset but does it all better. Whether you play casually or competitively you want to win, so why put yourself at a disadvantage when you could use basically the same character but better?

everyone keeps missing the point of error part for Marth/consistency for Lucina xD And you're forgetting that you want to win as a particular character, not just simply win. It does go back to aesthetics, yes, but it is a choice people make. The human element in the equation of play is affected by character choice; you can make a person play Lucina and Marth, but it is who they connect with the most that will drive them to get better. Minor differences like a better challenge, no tipper mechanic, or aesthetics can mean the world to someone, so I feel it only fair to be respectful of their choice.

A person values their characters differently, but the point is that they do and it motivates them to work hard with that character over another should they so choose (^^)

I believe that value is part of what makes a good competitive player, no matter their character choice

 

[ChikoLad]

As someone who has no bias towards either character due to not playing Fire Emblem, and is not a main of either and has only casually tried them in passing in this game - I much prefer Marth.

It might just be because I am good with the spacing naturally (I was OK with Marth in Brawl, and I main other characters where spacing is important, like Rosalina & Luma), but I always feel like his attacks have much more oomph to them. Lucina feels like she is not hitting hard enough for me, and I struggle to get a solid KO in with her, even when playing All-Star Mode or when up against the Fighting Mii Team in Classic Mode. And the thing is, I don't feel like she has any other strengths to counter balance this. She may be slightly faster, but it's not enough. And I swear she gets launched WAY easier than Marth.

Also, the real kicker for me is - spacing is STILL important with Lucina. People say that "well I don't have to worry about spa..." - stop. You do. You are a sword wielder. You have that thing for a reason. It extends your range, and the way the moves are animated makes it easier to hit with the tip.

Problem is, Marth gets a huge benefit from spacing well. Lucina's only benefit from hitting with her tip is the same as any old swordfighter character, in that it's just safer to be doing that in most cases. Yet ignoring the practice is still a bad thing for her (if not more so than with Marth, because she is lighter and whiffing attacks means that much more to her).

So at that point, I literally see no reason to pick her over Marth, for me. If I'm gonna choose between the two, Marth is a far more rewarding character and I don't think you have to be particularly amazing at this game to reap those rewards.

The voice helps, too. :V

 

[EternalFlame]

As someone who has no bias towards either character due to not playing Fire Emblem, and is not a main of either and has only casually tried them in passing in this game - I much prefer Marth.

It might just be because I am good with the spacing naturally (I was OK with Marth in Brawl, and I main other characters where spacing is important, like Rosalina & Luma), but I always feel like his attacks have much more oomph to them. Lucina feels like she is not hitting hard enough for me, and I struggle to get a solid KO in with her, even when playing All-Star Mode or when up against the Fighting Mii Team in Classic Mode. And the thing is, I don't feel like she has any other strengths to counter balance this. She may be slightly faster, but it's not enough. And I swear she gets launched WAY easier than Marth.

Also, the real kicker for me is - spacing is STILL important with Lucina. People say that "well I don't have to worry about spa..." - stop. You do. You are a sword wielder. You have that thing for a reason. It extends your range, and the way the moves are animated makes it easier to hit with the tip.

Problem is, Marth gets a huge benefit from spacing well. Lucina's only benefit from hitting with her tip is the same as any old swordfighter character, in that it's just safer to be doing that in most cases. Yet ignoring the practice is still a bad thing for her (if not more so than with Marth, because she is lighter and whiffing attacks means that much more to her).

So at that point, I literally see no reason to pick her over Marth, for me. If I'm gonna choose between the two, Marth is a far more rewarding character and I don't think you have to be particularly amazing at this game to reap those rewards.

The voice helps, too. :V

Only thing I'll point out is a slight correction; you don't need to worry about spacing with Lucina as much as you would with Marth xD That is what Lucina players are pointing out, but its constantly interpretted as "I won't need to space at all". Spacing is important for both, but Lucina doesn't have to worry about making it more accurate like Marth does when getting a kill is concerned or getting an attack string out. This point can be seen as a plus for Lucina as making it a bit more consistent to get the knockback you want, or a plus for Marth who can also get them, but requires a bit more careful spacing to do it (along with a point of error that may occur). Otherwise, ya got legitimate reasons to prefer Marth over Lucina, especially since you've never played the series (though I'd highly recommend at least trying it xD).

I usually have no problem getting kills as Lucina, but that is personal taste (and the real kicker is that I'm more strictly a Marth main, and only write on Lucina on the side xD)

 

[Elegant]

Heres the thing.

You cannot play more aggressive with Lucina than you can as Marth or you're STILL at a disadvantage

Playing her as a rushdown character is BAD because of the hitlag as I stated at the top of this page. Lucina has nothing going in her favor because Marth will do everything better, absoluately everything.

 

[GreenFlame]

@ ChikoLad I agree with what you said, but Lucina isn't faster or easier to launch than Marth. She's exactly the same except for her lack of tipper mechanic and higher hitlag.

 

[GlitchyFireEmblem]

While I used Marth in Melee, and Brawl, I use Lucina in this because. Lucina is a cooler character and they're so similar it comes down to personal preference.

 

[Folt]

@ ChikoLad I agree with what you said, but Lucina isn't faster or easier to launch than Marth. She's exactly the same except for her lack of tipper mechanic and higher hitlag.

I think that's the reason why most people say she's worse than Marth: She lacks the tipper and has higher hitlag, which means she kills later and makes her attacks more unsafe on shield, both traits along with her moveset that run contrary to the playstyle a rushdown character would want (or an aggressive playstyle for that matter).

 

[eshu125]

Lucina has nothing going in her favor because Marth will do everything better, absoluately everything.

That's just not true and if you would take 1 minute to read what EternalFlame is saying you would know that.

 

[Elegant]

That's just not true and if you would take 1 minute to read what EternalFlame is saying you would know that.

And you still haven't read any of my posts on hitlag or anything about this matter.

Marth having a sour spot can still create combos and is safer on shield with less landing lag than Lucina when hitting shield. This means that he effectively has more approach.

Lucina is just you hit them, you know where they are going. Marth is you hit them with a sourspot, and can follow up quickly or hit them with a tipper, and gain some breathing room while you prepare for an edgeguard.

 

[Hellrazor]

Lucina has nothing going in her favor because Marth will do everything better, absoluately everything.

If you suck at spacing but know how to get in hits, Lucina does have the edge as a choice over Marth, since Marth's damage payout is simply worse when not tipped. The hitlag reduction doesn't really make up for it, as far as I've seen.

 

[Elegant]

If you suck at spacing but know how to get in hits, Lucina does have the edge as a choice over Marth, since Marth's damage payout is simply worse when not tipped. The hitlag reduction doesn't really make up for it, as far as I've seen.

It does. It almost becomes the difference of trying to punish a JC grab in Melee vs Link's hookshot grab.

 

[GreenFlame]

If you suck at spacing but know how to get in hits, Lucina does have the edge as a choice over Marth, since Marth's damage payout is simply worse when not tipped. The hitlag reduction doesn't really make up for it, as far as I've seen.

If one was a high level competitive player, you NEED to learn spacing. It's hardly optional, and Lucina needs spacing anyway because she has a sword. She just doesn't need it as precisely as Marth. Marth is (almost) unarguably fundamentally better, but I support the use of both characters.

 

[Hellrazor]

It does. It almost becomes the difference of trying to punish a JC grab in Melee vs Link's hookshot grab.

I must be playing too much For Glory then. Too many people rolling and airdodging to actually make more than one hit count to the point where a .3x less hitlag changes the result. Meh. Whatever, I'll form my own conclusions after seeing actual competitive play.

If one was a high level competitive player, you NEED to learn spacing. It's hardly optional, and Lucina needs spacing anyway because she has a sword. She just doesn't need it as precisely as Marth. Marth is (almost) unarguably fundamentally better, but I support the use of both characters.

It's one thing to know spacing and another thing to know perfect tipper Marth spacing. Baiting out the hit is the most important thing, and Lucina can cash in on it equally regardless of her distance so long as the sword can hit, and her payout will be mechanically identical every time (provided the situation and actions are the same).

 

[EternalFlame]

And you still haven't read any of my posts on hitlag or anything about this matter.

Marth having a sour spot can still create combos and is safer on shield with less landing lag than Lucina when hitting shield. This means that he effectively has more approach.

Lucina is just you hit them, you know where they are going. Marth is you hit them with a sourspot, and can follow up quickly or hit them with a tipper, and gain some breathing room while you prepare for an edgeguard.

He was trying to get at the point of error that Marth has, where a mistake can break the attack string sooner than it should have, especially at higher percents. Lucina doesn't have that issue because she has no tipper knockback that can throw off the followup. You could argue that a good Marth player should be able to compensate for that, but you're missing the point that its humans that are playing - not perfect machines. To be human means that errors in movement can happen, whether by the player's current condition or other outside factors. So Marth's point of error is still a factor, and not everyone wants to have that risk in their playstyle. The tipper especially, though causes more hitstun, can also knock your opponent too far away for a proper followup (not necessarily a combo). The hitlag can also throw off the timing for a split second if the tipper was unexpected (which you cannot deny has the possibility of happening to even the most expert a player). May not be often, but it is still a point of error.

Lucina's consistent knockback is easier to compensate for, and you seem to attribute this easier aspect as not a positive point in Lucina's favor. Marth's blockstun makes his moves safer, but that does not mean that Lucina cannot be safe either if she spaces correctly. To use that as a negative is assuming that Lucina will just hit the target and not have any form of backup and such. I developed stuff like the FAir assault for the very purpose of keeping your character safe even if the blockstun doesn't keep your opponent there long enough. Another thing is that stuff like blockstun can be canceled by jumping at any point, meaning that regardless of who has the better blockstun, your opponent can position themselves to a better point of attack (especially with projectiles or fast characters). It is a plus for Marth, but not to the point that it cripples Lucina.

Its been said repeatedly that Marth is stronger that Lucina, but this cannot be understated that Lucina still has aspects of her gameplay that give her mild advantages/benefits for players. I reread your post from the previous page, and I will firmly say in response that there are viable reasons for people to play Lucina over Marth. What you've considered as pointless attributes for Lucina can, and probably has, influenced people to pick Lucina over Marth. I will stress again that Marth is stronger (that much I can agree with you and those who side on that end of the specturm), but what I am trying to push is that Lucina's properties can be seen as a positive more than a negative for her - so it is not pointless to use her for competitive scene or otherwise. This is just excluding the character connection aspect, since you seem to be more focused on gameplay aspects (which is not wrong, mind you, but everyone is different).

 

[Hellrazor]

Hnngh. All this thread is making me do is wish Falchion had a longer blade in Sm4sh, where it could actually zone out brawlers like the Monado can with proper spacing. But now it's just so painfully short. Then the non-tippers would matter more.

I wonder how different the balance between Marth and Lucina would be if there wasn't hitlag reduction on the non-tip hits from Marth, or if Lucina's base hitlag was like .85x all the time rather than 1x.

 

[EternalFlame]

Hnngh. All this thread is making me do is wish Falchion had a longer blade in Sm4sh, where it could actually zone out brawlers like the Monado can with proper spacing. But now it's just so painfully short. Then the non-tippers would matter more.

haha xD point there. I find myself loving how Marth is in Sm4sh though, but my view on that is a bit more bias since I didn't take Marth seriously till now.

But going along with this, all this thread is making me do is wish that it would just die already. Defending Lucina I've committed to doing, but I'd like it better if people were just more constructive at this point. We've thoroughly discussed the topic enough, but people keep bringing it back and repeating the cycle :/

 

[OmegaSorin]

Heres the thing.

You cannot play more aggressive with Lucina than you can as Marth or you're STILL at a disadvantage

Playing her as a rushdown character is BAD because of the hitlag as I stated at the top of this page. Lucina has nothing going in her favor because Marth will do everything better, absoluately everything.

i kinda wanna play you to prove you wrong. I play Lucina aggressively. when it comes to playing Aggressively with Marth I will always die, and fail, because my spacing sucks. So when I play Marth i play defensively. What you are incapable of seeing, obviously, is that not everyone is good at spacing, there for you are incapable of seeing the fact that the real difference between Marth and Lucina is how well the player is now how good the character themselves are.

Statistics be damned, Lucina will be better then marth if a player can't space correctly. Thats all there is to it. (Also i rushdown pretty well with Lucina. Hitlag or not.)