Why do people play Lucina over Marth?

[JagerCry]

I know the characters are almost identical and the only differences at all I think are that Marth's body is a little taller which doesn't make too much of a difference and the tipper mechanic. I know Lucina doesn't have a sour spot nor a tipper. I think that's more than enough reason to play Marth instead of Lucina. I think he's a better character solely bc of tippers. A lot of Lucina mains get defensive over this subject and argue that it's like a preference thing. Arguments like no sour spot and no tipper make Lucina more consistent or like well Lucina might do better against Sonic.
Some big name pros like ZeRo and Nairo have been using Lucina but I genuinely don't understand why. IDC if someone casually plays Lucina over Marth bc she speaks English, or is a girl, or they like the fire emblem game she's in or whatever. But I genuinely don't get why pros use Lucina. I think both Marth and Lucina are fairly easy to play. I don't think Marth is significantly more difficult to play. I usually only watch top 8 of Sm4sh tourneys but I'm genuinely baffled by this. Am I just getting a tiny sample size and a lot more pros use Marth and I just hear about Lucina bc ZeRo uses her? Is there some advantage Lucina has I'm not aware of? Am I underestimating how bad sour spotting is? Overestimating tippers?

 

[Lola Luftnagle]

Well, suppose y'all were in a doubles match. will have a harder time than usual connecting with that tip what with two opponents to contend with. Now, could be a better choice here simply 'cause of consistent damage with some of her moves yielding more KB than his sourspotted attacks. Side smash is a pretty good example of that.

 

[FamilyTeam]

I'd say you are overestimating tippers.
There are genuine reasons to use Lucina, and "she's easier" is more than just the beginning. ZeRo has gone on record several times as to why he uses Lucina over Marth. In some of those, he kept his temper better than others.
"If I Back Air a ************ at 150, they're going to die," is something ZeRo himself said, basically responding to the fact that he can't kill with stray hits as well with Marth.
Consistency is a big deal. That's the reason why we Lucina mains use her over Marth. We want to know exactly what's going to happen every time we hit our opponents, and we much prefer having the consistent output with consistent results rather than killing at 40 today and killing at 180 tomorrow. Tippers are hard to get, and they're even harder to get at a top level, where apparently MKLeo has even described them as being "basically random". You are spacing around your moves to hit the tipper, but you can't factor your enemy out of the equation who's doing the exact same thing to not get hit. That's where Lucina comes into play. She's basically gonna have the same gameplan as Marth, but she's always going to consistently get a big reward out of every hit of hers: she can still combo with her hits to get 20-40% combos, and even if she doesn't get combo, she gets ridiculous amount of stage control (RAR Bair with Lucina is literally "I'm tired of playing Neutral and I want you at the ledge even if you're at the other side of the stage). All of this, and she still keeps the dangerous early kill moves of Marth (FSmash, Up Smash, Bair, Nair, Dancing Blade) while having exclusive kill confirms of her which also really help (Sliding Jab>Dolphin Slash, Sliding Jab>Down Smash, Sliding Jab>Up Tilt, SH DB1>Nair 1>FSmash).
The reason why top players such as ZeRo, Nairo, Komo and Ranai have been opting for Lucina instead of Marth is because they're essentially the same character with things that will appeal to different people. ZeRo has said he doesn't like Marth, and prefers Lucina's strong hits and the ability to more reliably kill in reasonable percents rather than having to always rely on tippers that may or may not come for that to happen.

 

[Jaypen7]

You're overestimating tippers, underestimating how potentially crippling a sourspot can be, and underestimating how strong some of Lucina's moves actually are. Using a quote from ZeRo "If I back air a mf at the middle of the stage at 150, I expect a kill" or something along those lines. That's not to say Marth isn't a really good character, because he is. But when you play Marth, you will need to accept the fact that there will be a time when you want to kill but get a lot of sour-spots or mess up a combo because you didn't hit with whatever you wanted to hit with. Lucina players don't want that inconsistency. It quite literally is a preference: I don't want my opponent surviving a side smash/back air/etc at 100 because I ended up hitting with the sourspot.

 

[FallenHero]

Tippers are hard to get, and they're even harder to get at a top level, where apparently MKLeo has even described them as being "basically random"

DId he actually say that? I've heard some people say that before, but I never expected a Marth main, let alone a top Marth player like MKLeo to ever say something like that. Maybe this is just me, but I've always found landing tippers with Marth to be pretty easy after putting in some time to work on your spacing and warming up every now and then. However there are a few moves with Marth that I personally seem to land the sourspot far more often then the tipper thanks to Marth having a lot of broken hitboxes (broken as in they don't work properly) that actually give Lucina more range on some moves over Marth, though with amazing spacing you could probably still land tippers with those broken hitbox moves.

The reason why top players such as ZeRo, Nairo, Komo and Ranai have been opting for Lucina instead of Marth is because they're essentially the same character with things that will appeal to different people. ZeRo has said he doesn't like Marth, and prefers Lucina's strong hits and the ability to more reliably kill in reasonable percents rather than having to always rely on tippers that may or may not come for that to happen.

I think the reason these top players seem to prefer Lucina over Marth is because they don't want to put that much time into practicing with an off pick when they should be focusing most of their practice on their mains. If my main was a different character I would not want to play as a character like Marth as an off pick.

 

[JagerCry]

Maybe this is just me, but I've always found landing tippers with Marth to be pretty easy after putting in some time to work on your spacing and warming up every now and then.

I feel the same way, Marth is prob my 2nd or 3rd most played character. I find I land tippers often and since I've played Marth at the very least like a secondary in Melee, Brawl, PM and Sm4sh maybe I just have experience with the character. Then again I guess I'm not playing top pros so maybe spacing against pro level opponents is much harder but I honestly felt all the Lucina secondaries were kind of a cop out, like they weren't practiced enough to properly space with Marth so they just go Lucina. Especially after I saw ZeRo's rant about Marth's bair. *insert salt here*
I think when people think of Marth tippers they fixate on his f-smash bc that's his "early KO tipper move" but it's not his only move that benefits from tippers. IDK if you can even say landing tippers is harder in doubles bc if you have synergy you can combo with a teammate with jab locks, footstools, and grabs and get tipper kills.
I also think sour spot combos are underdeveloped in the Marth meta. You get your opponent to certain percents and every Lucina move will knock an opponent away too far and make follow-ups more difficult. (In Melee Marth's Ken Combo uses a sour spot fair followed by a dair so there's potential for sour spots to be useful)

 

[FamilyTeam]

I feel the same way, Marth is prob my 2nd or 3rd most played character. I find I land tippers often and since I've played Marth at the very least like a secondary in Melee, Brawl, PM and Sm4sh maybe I just have experience with the character. Then again I guess I'm not playing top pros so maybe spacing against pro level opponents is much harder but I honestly felt all the Lucina secondaries were kind of a cop out, like they weren't practiced enough to properly space with Marth so they just go Lucina. Especially after I saw ZeRo's rant about Marth's bair. *insert salt here*
I think when people think of Marth tippers they fixate on his f-smash bc that's his "early KO tipper move" but it's not his only move that benefits from tippers. IDK if you can even say landing tippers is harder in doubles bc if you have synergy you can combo with a teammate with jab locks, footstools, and grabs and get tipper kills.
I also think sour spot combos are underdeveloped in the Marth meta. You get your opponent to certain percents and every Lucina move will knock an opponent away too far and make follow-ups more difficult. (In Melee Marth's Ken Combo uses a sour spot fair followed by a dair so there's potential for sour spots to be useful)

"Marth gets exclusive combos because of Sourspots" is a very old argument. What people are forgetting on the other side of the coin is that Lucina also just so happens to have exclusive combos for her due to how her sword works.
People have been labbing Marth's sourspots and the potential combos it can do very well since he was last buffed, actually. People have found plenty of stuff, but Melee/Brawl level sourspot combos will simply never exist in this game just simply due to how this game works in general and how very little hitstun Marth's sourspots have in this game (I saw stale Sourspot Up Air be unsafe on hit once with Marth), alongside how horrible the FAF in Marth's moves are in general here.

Then again I guess I'm not playing top pros so maybe spacing against pro level opponents is much harder but I honestly felt all the Lucina secondaries were kind of a cop out, like they weren't practiced enough to properly space with Marth so they just go Lucina. Especially after I saw ZeRo's rant about Marth's bair. *insert salt here*

This is actually a kind of mentality we from the Lucina community just really don't like witnessing: seeing Lucina as "cop-out Marth".
Using ZeRo again as an example, on his streams he has shown time and time again that he is more than qualified to play Marth if he wanted. He just doesn't want to. He doesn't like him. He prefers to play Lucina, he finds her far more consistent and also on his streams he implied he values this consistency far more than whatever tipper has the potential to offer him. MKLeo supposedly saying tippers feel random is something ZeRo said Leo told him, and also according to him, whenever Leo practices with him, the outcome of the match seems to be dictated way too much by whether or not Leo lands a tippered kill move, which leads to the extreme outcomes of "Marth destroying his opponent" or "Marth getting destroyed without taking a stock", which further drove him to playing Lucina.
You see, Lucina has lower highs, yes, but she also happens to have much lower lows. She's just safer. You still retain your ability to occasionally KO somebody at 50-80% with FSmash at the ledge (yes, her FSmash is still that strong) or with a Shield Break punish at 30-40, while also having the ability to still kill well and not needing tippers if you get to more common KO% (90-140);
Also, some of these comments of yours kind of seem to imply that to play Lucina, you don't need to "properly space"? You still need to space just as much as him. She has a long sword so you need to use it to its fullest extent to keep people out of you. The only real difference in spacing they have is what I mentioned earlier in kill moves, where it's much easier to get kill moves with her and get them to kill more consistently because you don't need to worry about hitting them at the tip of the blade. But that's still more a matter of preference than it is somebody "not being able to space their moves".
Lucina is more suitable as a secondary because of these traits, but don't be mistaken. Just because she is "easier" than Marth, that doesn't make her worth any less, and it also doesn't even make her an "easy" character period.

Also, yes, landing tippers in doubles is way harder. Tippers require tight spacing and patience, and no amount of that will fix the incredibly hectic pace that a match with 3 other people generates. When it's time to kill in doubles, Tippering FSmash and Up Smash is way too difficult out of throws, and Lucina's versions of those moves happen to hit like a truck at 200KM/H regardless of where the opponent was thrown, and that really pays dividends in matches. That's not the only example, obviously. If an opponent gets up thrown by your teammate at kill percent and you need to rush to Up Air them, you don't need to aim for the tipper and you will still kill, while on a same situation with Marth, you either need to waste time spacing yourself for the tipper and risk the opponent popping out of hitstun while you're at that or content with the sourspots (and also not getting the kill, which was the entire point). There's also the fact that on 1v1, when team comboing somebody, Lucina's hits deal very high damage and send at a friendly distance to keep the combo going very well. The sourspots deal too little damage and might not knock back far enough for your teammate to safely continue the combo and juggle the opponent back to you, while the tippers send people too far and too fast and might make the team lose the rythm of the string they're attempting (especially if you get an unexpected one).

This all just leads back into the question you posed at the title: Why do people play Lucina over Marth?
Preference.
Just that.
I personally started playing her over Marth simply because I liked her better than Marth. Nowadays. I just really prefer the way she handles and the way I can kill with her. I prefer her combo game and I like the stage control I can get with my hits regardless of where I hit them. I also like 2-framing people at the ledge with my FSmash and then KOing them sub 65 and just watching them complain how "broken" that move is. Or landing DB1>Nair1>FSmash and complaining how broken that string is.
She has her own worth over Marth. That is what you need to see.

 

[JagerCry]

If an opponent gets up thrown by your teammate at kill percent and you need to rush to Up Air them, you don't need to aim for the tipper and you will still kill, while on a same situation with Marth, you either need to waste time spacing yourself for the tipper and risk the opponent popping out of hitstun

This is the kind of answer I was looking for. Like that makes sense. No offense to people who took the time to reply but just seeing people say "well you're overestimating tippers" or "CONSISTENCY" doesn't really explain to me on a technical level. Like I know Marth has higher highs and lower lows, I'm more interested in why specifically Lucina is a better option over Marth in X scenario.
As far as spacing goes like I know Lucina is played similarly to Marth in that you want to space as far away as possible. Lucina has nothing to gain from hitting with the middle of the blade or the hilt, she's not Roy. Like even though she doesn't have a sweet spot at the tip you still want to space yourself in a similar manner as Marth essentially trying to hit with the tip, I get that.

 

[FamilyTeam]

I don't know how much more technical you want us to be. The easiest, most straightforward objective answer to "Why do people play Lucina over Marth" really is as simple as "Personal preference of consistency over tippers". If you want to dig a little deeper, then you could go to another big reason of "Making sure all of my kill moves always kill reliably and consistently early regardless of my spacing or the enemy's position".

 

[Ravengeance]

Difficulty spacing is really the only reason. Doesn't mean the player doesn't know how to space properly with Marth but sometimes it can be match-up dependent or simply that bc marth/lucina have a decent amount of end lag on their moves that one sour spot can lead to getting punished heavily. It doesn't matter if you can KO 20% earlier with a tipper if one sour spot gets you 20% damage so it's how confident are you that at low percents that you are going to space properly. Marcina doesn't have a ton of combo game to begin with so you aren't going to get a lot of like sour spot combos. There are few exceptions with both characters as far as combos but in general it's mostly the same just kinda spacing and zoning away. It does come down to preference in the end as there are some pros and cons to both.
So Lucina is slightly shorter so she actually has a slightly easier time landing hits on shorter opponents. Her lack of sour spot gives her an easier time trying to zone away rush down opponents i.e. sonic that get right in your face. It's much harder to space tippers against a sonic than say a bowser. Lucina's biggest advantage over Marth is that she receives the same shield stun no matter where she hits with her blade whereas Marth has to tipper so she is generally speaking safer on shield. That's probably her biggest advantage over Marth.
As far as landing tippers as Marth in doubles goes it's super match-up dependent. Like yeah Marth is going to be better than Lucina in 2v1 scenarios but how often do you get those? In doubles I think it's really preference or match-up as the slower your opponents are the better Marth is and the faster your opponents are the better Lucina is. It's still a marginal difference. Double the opponents does mean Marth is a lot more likely to land a tipper in doubles. Whether doubles tippers are harder or easier to land is purely opinion. You don't have as much time to space out your moves but if your teammate has someone grabbed or footstooled or in jab lock it can open up some tipper opportunities.
Marth does have more range than Lucina but it's a very very tiny amount. In a given match it probably won't make a difference but Marth does have a few advantages. Marth reaches higher with his Up B, meaning he can actually land on certain platforms that Lucina can't reach without jumping first. It's such a small difference though I wouldn't consider it a big advantage. Especially since marcina has ridiculous magnet hands chances are if marth can make the recovery back so can lucina. I feel like that's gonna be the case 999 times out of 1000. Aerial combos, Marth tippered up B reaching just a tad higher is nice but you aren't likely to get Up B KO's off the top with marcina anyways. Like if you are looking for early cheese KO's there are better characters like ZSS or Mario.

In risk of sounding like a broken record it's preference and it's consistency. If you can play the character consistently than Marth offers the advantage. But low % sour spots do lead to getting punished. Once percent is built up even sour spots are gonna knock away far enough. There honestly aren't too many scenarios where a Marth f-smash KO's and the Lucina f-smash won't. The reason pros are using Lucina is bc in a two stock match unless you land a tipper KO there's not much advantage to Marth. Against like Bayo a crouch cancelled sour spot can lead to a giant combo on you. There's also tournament nerves. Tippers rarely allow for any follow up but the knockback and % is nice. I genuinely think the main reason is bc sm4sh (especially at competitive levels) is so focused around shielding that Lucina's safer on shield factor is a big thing. I don't think it's all oh her bair is more consistent bc it's easy to space opponents that are recovering or in hitstun. It's not a make or break reason one way or the other. You are going to see people playing Lucina just bc ZeRo and Nario have used her but you are also going to see guys using Marth bc of MKLeo's success. Most people are using Marth/Lucina as secondaries anyways and not like as solo mains so which one you use prob depends on which match-ups you are trying to cover. I think that's why ZeRo uses lucina, bc match-ups like Sheik/Sonic that aren't super in Diddy's favor lucina is prob a little better than Marth.

 

[FamilyTeam]

Aerial combos, Marth tippered up B reaching just a tad higher is nice but you aren't likely to get Up B KO's off the top with marcina anyways. Like if you are looking for early cheese KO's there are better characters like ZSS or Mario.

Just a little thing: I don't know what yo'ure implying with this but Dolphin Slash has no tipper.
The rest is pretty spot on tbh.

 

[Nyhte]

You kind of are underestimating how bad sour spotting can be. One large reason people say "consistency" is because they agree with it being frustrating when you're fighting someone at higher percents and you just don't land a tipper, Marth's sourspots can be very frustrating depending on the move and the thing about that is also how it changes the match being played-

As a comparison:

Ike has a good back air- but the hitboxes aren't the best.

Roy has a good back air- the hitboxes are good but he needs to be close, or else he gets the 'sourspot' effect if he's spaced out

Marth has a good back air- if he can land the outer hitboxes

Lucina has a good back air- if it lands

Marth's back air without the sour spot can mean having to do another move, or two, or three, or getting % racked up against you or even losing the game because of it- and sometimes the difference between lucinas back air and marth's was negligible. That's one example but that is one of their more noticeable differences. If we're being specific, Marth has a bad back air non-tippered and a great one tippered, Lucina just flat out has a good back air.

When you're skilled you can place hitboxes and avoid them better, this is both why Marth is potentially better but also worse- Lucina can be more flexible and get better results, when Marth is playing clean then he gets better results than Lucina could ever hope for, it is the difficulty of being limited to the movement options and that tug rope interaction between players that makes the gameplay, (naturally, characters and game design, too) interesting, and it is that difficulty of "you're both trying to hit each other and avoid each other, you need a tipper or you're just racking up % when you could kill" that makes Marth impressive. When he gets the tipper, it's great and he can get early kills, and if you measure the distance properly, you can throw out a raw fsmash and it'll kill at ridiculously low %s even mid stage. And when you're wrong it sucks. Perfect pivot isn't the most natural thing, same with lagless get up and fox trot EDD, their difficulty is why they're impressive. If I wasn't being clear, you can delay your moves for fluidity and get better results on Lucina than Marth, you can still be fluid with Marth, but his tipper mechanic for his reward is gating his flow. He'd be more smooth if he didn't have a tipper mechanic, it's naturally limiting.

That's also probably why Lucina is better for doubles, you'll naturally know some things but you still need to focus on and react to three people doing things versus just one, if you play Lucina over Marth you can worry more about general spacing and get better results if you do mess up compared to Marth where you're trying to have extremely good spacing for good results when you're not in a 1v1 and there's a lot more information to process and decide on.

I've always thought Marth was better, I still think he is, but there's definitely a case for Lucina being around as good. The truth is that with differences- which there are- it's unlikely they'll ever be a truly equal, that's as true of Marth and Lucina as it is anything else. But which one is it? Does anyone know or can they only speculate? Regardless of Marth being superior or inferior to Lucina, I highly doubt that they'd be truly equal in the equation of human interaction and skill. However, I don't think it makes much sense given what we know about the characters and game to say that either one of them was notably better than the other.

The MKleo thing always puzzled me. If he felt that he always just tried to hit his opponent instead of spacing out I don't know why he picked Marth over Lucina. Maybe he just thought tippers are slightly better overall.