I'm a Lucina main. I'm aware she has received many buffs in the last three smash 4 updates, HOWEVER...I'm still doubtful of her viability in the competitive metagame. I mean, as far as a I know, she has little presence in USA national tournaments (Smash 4 singles). That's not good for her improvement. Plus, she has been recently overshadowed by Marth presence in tournaments. So, what do you think on this?
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Does Lucina have any potential as a character?
- Thread starter xnewbrn
- Start date
Xandra
Smash Cadet
I meannnnnnnn,
She's basically Marth... but I'd say she has a chance. So kinda in between yes and no. It depends on how good the person playing her is, kinda thing?
She's basically Marth... but I'd say she has a chance. So kinda in between yes and no. It depends on how good the person playing her is, kinda thing?
Ok
Uhmm, they have the same moveset. That's true. But they properties are in some way "different"
FamilyTeam
This strength serves more than me alone.
Of course she has! No reason to believe she doesn't.
We used to think Marth had no chance either until people like Pug, Mr. E and MKLeo started getting good results with him. Lucina's problem is lack of representation but that doesn't make her a bad character.
We used to think Marth had no chance either until people like Pug, Mr. E and MKLeo started getting good results with him. Lucina's problem is lack of representation but that doesn't make her a bad character.
So, you think she's underrated I guess??
FamilyTeam
This strength serves more than me alone.
Basically that. People underrate her tons, and have always.
Xandra
Smash Cadet
I didn't say they weren't different, I just said they were very similar. Lucina still has aspects about her that are unique and that's why I said she has her own chance as her own character. Please don't misunderstand; I'm not insulting her character or people her use her. I was just pointing something out is all.
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DarkAuraful
Torpid Dragon
Why wouldn't she? She's the consistent and equal damage counterpart to Marth's tipper, who I hear is lately rising up to top tier glory especially considering his accomplishment in the ZeRo saga.
Lucina may not have the tournament results, but she's open enough to be considered high mid tier or at least top 25 by theory and similarities. I believe that's what she is by this point? Because I know for sure she's not low-mid tier anymore.
I don't really follow competitive meta or have been on this forum much but that's what I think.
Lucina may not have the tournament results, but she's open enough to be considered high mid tier or at least top 25 by theory and similarities. I believe that's what she is by this point? Because I know for sure she's not low-mid tier anymore.
I don't really follow competitive meta or have been on this forum much but that's what I think.
L9999
Smash Champion
Lets pretend Marth doesn't exist and look at Lucina as she is. She has:
A fully disjointed moveset.
Good overall mobility to chase people around, preventing getting camped and good for employing different movement options.
Dolphin Slash that not only is a combo breaker but also KOs on startup. Also a good recovery near the stage.
A general punish button with Dancing Blade Counter to edgeguard bad recoveries or get a bull read KO.
Jab that leads to a lot of damage combos (jab jab, jab ftilt, jab fair, jab to grab, jab Dolphin Slash at kill %) and killer mixups (like jab to Fsmash, jab to Shield Breaker).
A F-tilt that does a lot of damage and kills at the edge at high %s or with rage.
Good poking Down Tilt that nets a grab situationally and interrupts some recovery options.
A good anti aur and combo Up Tilt that kills with rage as well.
A ridiculously good FSmash that kills at ludicrous % at the edge/with rage and if it doesn't kill it does a ton of damage.
Nair that spaces, combo breaks from some stuff, and with the tilt stick at 45 degrees it KO confirms to F Smash.
A Fair that does a lot damage, strings, edgeguards and walls out.
An Uair that combos, keeps juggles, kills Light and floaty characters at high %/rage.
A killer Bair that turns her around to Fair or anything.
Good pummel and good throws to get the opponent where you want them. Down Throw has some combos and Up Throw kills with rage.
Thanks to her good disjointed options, which come out relatively fast, She covers the edge very well and spells death there, and covering the ledge is important in Smash 4.
To me it sounds like a good character. Lucina lacks the top tier player atm since Kogarasuma hasn't played a lot and Nairo's isn't very polished, but just at her toolkit makes you see she is better than most of the cast.
A fully disjointed moveset.
Good overall mobility to chase people around, preventing getting camped and good for employing different movement options.
Dolphin Slash that not only is a combo breaker but also KOs on startup. Also a good recovery near the stage.
A general punish button with Dancing Blade Counter to edgeguard bad recoveries or get a bull read KO.
Jab that leads to a lot of damage combos (jab jab, jab ftilt, jab fair, jab to grab, jab Dolphin Slash at kill %) and killer mixups (like jab to Fsmash, jab to Shield Breaker).
A F-tilt that does a lot of damage and kills at the edge at high %s or with rage.
Good poking Down Tilt that nets a grab situationally and interrupts some recovery options.
A good anti aur and combo Up Tilt that kills with rage as well.
A ridiculously good FSmash that kills at ludicrous % at the edge/with rage and if it doesn't kill it does a ton of damage.
Nair that spaces, combo breaks from some stuff, and with the tilt stick at 45 degrees it KO confirms to F Smash.
A Fair that does a lot damage, strings, edgeguards and walls out.
An Uair that combos, keeps juggles, kills Light and floaty characters at high %/rage.
A killer Bair that turns her around to Fair or anything.
Good pummel and good throws to get the opponent where you want them. Down Throw has some combos and Up Throw kills with rage.
Thanks to her good disjointed options, which come out relatively fast, She covers the edge very well and spells death there, and covering the ledge is important in Smash 4.
To me it sounds like a good character. Lucina lacks the top tier player atm since Kogarasuma hasn't played a lot and Nairo's isn't very polished, but just at her toolkit makes you see she is better than most of the cast.
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ILOVESMASH
Smash Ace
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- Marioman123450
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She has potential as a character, though I feel she's really limited as a character compared to Marth and will always be in his shadow in terms of viability by a fair amount. Previously, I felt Lucina was slightly better than Marth due to her disjoint being all around safer and her having more reliable low percent combos, but after I began playing both characters more, I feel Marth is definetly the superior of the 2.
While Lucina's damage racking game from about 0-30% is generally better than Marth's, past these percentages, Marth's ability to rack damage is overall superior just because he's either doing more damage from his tippers or because his sourspots launch the opponents in more unfavorable positions for tech chases / combos. Additionally, Marth's moves also have significantly greater KO power when tipped and between tech chase setups from his sourspots that Lucina lacks or just stray hits in neutral, he is able to land these tipper hits fairly easily at KO percents, making his KOing ability significantly better. Because of this, I feel Marth's moveset is significantly better past low percents just because he can pick and choose between using his tilts and aeirals to setup tech chases for damage or KO, while Lucina's moveset is, comparatively, significantly worse at doing both.
(Additionally, I find her dancing blade much harder to properly combo into itself. Not sure if this is due to the moves greater KB between hits of the move or due to the greater hitlag that the move has. This is likely just a personal issue, but I thought I should bring it up.)
Thats not to say Lucina doesn't have her advantages though, namely her higher safety against shields, making walling out some characters a bit easier and giving some of her moves like her F-Smash much greater utility. Additionally, she can make much greater use of the first hit of her Nair for combos / kills. However, I feel these small advantages aren't enough to make up for Lucina's noticeably lower reward when compared to Marth.
While I feel Lucina is noticably worse than Marth, I feel as a standalone characters, she's great. Like Marth and to a lesser extent Roy, I feel that her entire kit is good enough to overcome any MU. She still has many of the key advantages that Marth such a threat, namely his amazing options in neutral like SH and FH Fair, DB, Up B OOS, etc.
Main reason I'm making this post is because I see all too often people claiming that Lucina should be ranked alongside Marth due to being "the same character" or just "slightly worse" when this simply isn't true. The different knockback and damage make her entire moveset much worse in advantageous situation. This is also why I feel her results will also stay mediocre, as most players will likely stick to playing Marth in a competitive scenario.
While Lucina's damage racking game from about 0-30% is generally better than Marth's, past these percentages, Marth's ability to rack damage is overall superior just because he's either doing more damage from his tippers or because his sourspots launch the opponents in more unfavorable positions for tech chases / combos. Additionally, Marth's moves also have significantly greater KO power when tipped and between tech chase setups from his sourspots that Lucina lacks or just stray hits in neutral, he is able to land these tipper hits fairly easily at KO percents, making his KOing ability significantly better. Because of this, I feel Marth's moveset is significantly better past low percents just because he can pick and choose between using his tilts and aeirals to setup tech chases for damage or KO, while Lucina's moveset is, comparatively, significantly worse at doing both.
(Additionally, I find her dancing blade much harder to properly combo into itself. Not sure if this is due to the moves greater KB between hits of the move or due to the greater hitlag that the move has. This is likely just a personal issue, but I thought I should bring it up.)
Thats not to say Lucina doesn't have her advantages though, namely her higher safety against shields, making walling out some characters a bit easier and giving some of her moves like her F-Smash much greater utility. Additionally, she can make much greater use of the first hit of her Nair for combos / kills. However, I feel these small advantages aren't enough to make up for Lucina's noticeably lower reward when compared to Marth.
While I feel Lucina is noticably worse than Marth, I feel as a standalone characters, she's great. Like Marth and to a lesser extent Roy, I feel that her entire kit is good enough to overcome any MU. She still has many of the key advantages that Marth such a threat, namely his amazing options in neutral like SH and FH Fair, DB, Up B OOS, etc.
Main reason I'm making this post is because I see all too often people claiming that Lucina should be ranked alongside Marth due to being "the same character" or just "slightly worse" when this simply isn't true. The different knockback and damage make her entire moveset much worse in advantageous situation. This is also why I feel her results will also stay mediocre, as most players will likely stick to playing Marth in a competitive scenario.
FamilyTeam
This strength serves more than me alone.
I feel like some of those comparisons aren't that fair.
Lucina's mid-percent combo game is very far from lacking, actually. Here is an excerpt of a document I wrote, with all of the combos she can do against anyone - these are for Bayonetta:
If you wanted to talk about "lower reward"... You probably would have to remember how many tippers Marth players get per match. I have already done research on that. Analyzing a bunch of matches of Leo, Pug and Mr. E gave me the figure that only roughly 26% of hits Marth mains strike are tippers. People used to say that Marth mains hit 40% of tippers, and Marth would already be on a deficit of damage against her with that percent (approx. 7% less damage than her on average), so with 26%, the difference of damage a Marth would've dealt compared to a Lucina would be even bigger.
Also, their KO%s are about the same as well. Analyzing the AVG. KO% from those matches I got the tipper ratios from, I got 111% for his average KO%. That's not very far from Lucina. I've seen that most Lucinas tend to have their average KO% between 105-125% as well.
Lucina can also KO off of conversions from her aerials, and her tilts can also set up for tech chases as well (UTilt on platforms, DTilt past 70%, untechable DTilt can lead into a frame trap Up Smash, FTilt at some of the lower percents).
And by the way: Marth and Lucina have the same shield safety. If you hit someone's shield and get punished for it as Marth, you wouldn't be any safer as Lucina, and vice versa.
Lucina's mid-percent combo game is very far from lacking, actually. Here is an excerpt of a document I wrote, with all of the combos she can do against anyone - these are for Bayonetta:
This is a pretty healthy amount, really.Myself said:
If you wanted to talk about "lower reward"... You probably would have to remember how many tippers Marth players get per match. I have already done research on that. Analyzing a bunch of matches of Leo, Pug and Mr. E gave me the figure that only roughly 26% of hits Marth mains strike are tippers. People used to say that Marth mains hit 40% of tippers, and Marth would already be on a deficit of damage against her with that percent (approx. 7% less damage than her on average), so with 26%, the difference of damage a Marth would've dealt compared to a Lucina would be even bigger.
Also, their KO%s are about the same as well. Analyzing the AVG. KO% from those matches I got the tipper ratios from, I got 111% for his average KO%. That's not very far from Lucina. I've seen that most Lucinas tend to have their average KO% between 105-125% as well.
Lucina can also KO off of conversions from her aerials, and her tilts can also set up for tech chases as well (UTilt on platforms, DTilt past 70%, untechable DTilt can lead into a frame trap Up Smash, FTilt at some of the lower percents).
And by the way: Marth and Lucina have the same shield safety. If you hit someone's shield and get punished for it as Marth, you wouldn't be any safer as Lucina, and vice versa.
Her main problem imo is just generally being overshadowed by Marth. Other than those who just Love the character, those who play her tend to play Marth due to his generally superior kit which leads to there not being many Lucina mains. But as mentioned above she is still ranked higher than most of the cast and honestly I think shes slightly underrated due to being overshadowed.
I think shes viable.
I think shes viable.
Depends on what you mean by viable: Can she solo a super major? In my opinion, not really. Can she consistently top 16 at super majors? Maybe. But I feel like she can dominate regions and really scare people at bigger tournaments. Kogarasuma is still getting better and we actually have a new player to look at (NAKAT). But let's set aside what we think she could accomplish and we can discuss what we think she is right now. In my opinion, she's a VERY viable counterpick and we already have PR Lucinas in different regions throughout the US.
Rewrite
Smash Apprentice
- Joined
- Jan 22, 2015
- Messages
- 105
I think Lucina has viability as a character. As a solo main she falters due to being out-shined by Marth, but she is seeing use in tournament as a counter-pick secondary by players like Nairo.
Lucina makes for a good secondary because she has a decent match-up spread that can cover quite a few top tiers across their un-favourable match-ups. She also does not require as much commitment, practice, and knowledge to play as Marth does which makes it easier to dual main her.
You're still better off picking Marth as a main or secondary, but if it's just a few particular match-ups giving your main trouble or you play a lot of characters and time investment into each one is an issue you could definitely do worse than Lucina.
Lucina makes for a good secondary because she has a decent match-up spread that can cover quite a few top tiers across their un-favourable match-ups. She also does not require as much commitment, practice, and knowledge to play as Marth does which makes it easier to dual main her.
You're still better off picking Marth as a main or secondary, but if it's just a few particular match-ups giving your main trouble or you play a lot of characters and time investment into each one is an issue you could definitely do worse than Lucina.
Silvia
Smash Ace
Lucina is a viable character, its a matter of knowing her matchups and learning her move-sets.
Cool Trainer Ace
Smash Journeyman
One name: ZeRo.
Lucina's always been viable, but like FamilyTeam said above, she's been really underappreciated and has usually been thrown aside in favor of Marth. If there's one thing Lucina has over Marth, though, it's that she's much more consistent. Yeah, Marth has tippers, but does anyone get tippers 100% of the time? No. I like the way ZeRo put it in his explanation. While tippers can be a game changer, it's almost luck-based as to if you can get that winning tipper. With Lucina, she does more consistent damage, and things like Jab -> Fsmash kills much more often than Marth's. Marth is obviously the better character, but the gap in the tier list between the two isn't nearly as wide as people say.
Lucina's always been viable, but like FamilyTeam said above, she's been really underappreciated and has usually been thrown aside in favor of Marth. If there's one thing Lucina has over Marth, though, it's that she's much more consistent. Yeah, Marth has tippers, but does anyone get tippers 100% of the time? No. I like the way ZeRo put it in his explanation. While tippers can be a game changer, it's almost luck-based as to if you can get that winning tipper. With Lucina, she does more consistent damage, and things like Jab -> Fsmash kills much more often than Marth's. Marth is obviously the better character, but the gap in the tier list between the two isn't nearly as wide as people say.
roymustang1990-
Smash Ace
I can't believe zero mains lucina.its really helping with the meta discussions
DMan64
Smash Cadet
- Joined
- Apr 10, 2017
- Messages
- 71
Going with that, he also stated MK Leo plays more so around actually getting a hit vs getting constant tippers. As for the gap, I actually think the two are equal. If not Lucina would be at least one or two spots away. Yeah she doesn't have that "potential" but realistically, nobody can get that potential all of the time. Off stage I think Lucina does slightly better at than Marth, since she doesn't have to worry about getting a tipper to KO, though on stage I feel Marth does slightly better on stage. To me it's all a matter of getting a KO as soon as possible and create pressure with the tipper vs playing a generally safer character that can effectively rack up damage consistently. I feel like people like Marth though because tipper is such a powerful tool that can put the tide of battle in your favor early, but that doesn't matter if you can't consistently get it, and at top level play, very rarely will someone get that.
FamilyTeam
This strength serves more than me alone.
Although Marth might be better than Lucina, even if that's the case, I do not think that, in any way, shape or form, takes away from Lucina's value as a character in this meta.
These last few months have shown that Lucina as a secondary is a both popular and very highly effective asset. As a solo main, she's just as good as Marth, basically winning the same MUs the same way and not having any real roadblocks other than a few annoying matchups. All she is doing is trading the ability to kill earlier with a Tippered hit with having consistent hitboxes.
People also really overrate how early Marth kills on average. The best Marths kill on average at the 111% mark, and Lucina pre-ZeRo had that average kill percent at 116%. Marth isn't always killing at 40%, and Lucina can kill very well, unlike what you might hear some misinformed people say, thinking they know anything.
These last few months have shown that Lucina as a secondary is a both popular and very highly effective asset. As a solo main, she's just as good as Marth, basically winning the same MUs the same way and not having any real roadblocks other than a few annoying matchups. All she is doing is trading the ability to kill earlier with a Tippered hit with having consistent hitboxes.
People also really overrate how early Marth kills on average. The best Marths kill on average at the 111% mark, and Lucina pre-ZeRo had that average kill percent at 116%. Marth isn't always killing at 40%, and Lucina can kill very well, unlike what you might hear some misinformed people say, thinking they know anything.
SaikaGaleforce
Smash Cadet
lucina is marth but with effortless consistency, so hell yes, lucina has potential.