Why is Lucario's recovery so dumb?

[Liwi808]

Hey board, new Lucario player here. My main is Luigi, but I need a good character against campy/defensive characters, and I figured Lucario is pretty good since their spam just increases my aura and can't really kill me, and I've found counter to be pretty gimpy if you can counter a projectile at close range. Anyway, he's obviously very powerful, but his recovery is the one thing that annoys me about him. I can usually recover pretty well, but sometimes it just fails to glide up the stage for no apparent reason, and I'll SD. Any tips for beginners for trying to recover? I've found that pressing up + B plus up + diagonal on the control stick works most times, but even then his recovery fails sometimes.

 

[QS_meruno]

Hey board, new Lucario player here. My main is Luigi, but I need a good character against campy/defensive characters, and I figured Lucario is pretty good since their spam just increases my aura and can't really kill me, and I've found counter to be pretty gimpy if you can counter a projectile at close range. Anyway, he's obviously very powerful, but his recovery is the one thing that annoys me about him. I can usually recover pretty well, but sometimes it just fails to glide up the stage for no apparent reason, and I'll SD. Any tips for beginners for trying to recover? I've found that pressing up + B plus up + diagonal on the control stick works most times, but even then his recovery fails sometimes.

Maybe elaborate "fails to glide up the stage"...? When you have low aura, help your recovery with walljump/cling since Lucario's wall jumping is the best in the game. Avoid trying to steer after the move initiates unless you absolutely have to. Directly input the direction you want to go just as Lucario stalls in the air (right after upB is initiated), most desirably aiming right towards the ledge, or else welcome to landing lag city. Be extra careful when recovering horizontally, more than enough times I barely miss grabbing the ledge on Battlefield and the ledge just shoots me downwards. Avoid having to freefall after UpB as much as you can. Also when you're using extreme speed above the stage, instead of freefalling onto the stage you want to slam into it at a greater than 60-degree angle which gives you a much shorter cooldown. Just practice, an hour in training mode and you should get the hang of it.

 

[Liwi808]

Wow thanks that was really helpful. What I mean by gliding is that usually with most characters, you can hold up + b + up on your control stick to glide up the lip of the stage and auto-snap onto the ledge, but with Lucario if I just hold up + b, he just bumps off and SDs.

 

[smbmaster99MFGG]

Ever so slightly tilt the control stick towards the ledge you're going for when you're getting close to it (I'm assuming you're recovering low and are trying to zip straight up towards the ledge on a stage where there's slight curvature before the ledge, such as the Mario Galaxy stage). On some stages, I learned the hard way that its curvature will cause Luky to zip passed the ledge instead of grabbing it and thanks to the curvyness it sends Dog w/ Hips away rather than towards the stage. Even stages that don't look like they have any curve before the ledge can still do this (IIRC Pac-Land is like that), so just be aware.

I've found if you try to recover too low but do as I described, you'll glide up the stage wall but zip passed the ledge instead of snapping to it because ES ends before you get there. Be aware of that too, because it gives opponents a chance to smash attack as you're coming back down, and go for the ledge when this happens because you'll get the horrible landing lag if you land on-stage, which is just begging for punishment.