How to play the neutral with Lucina?

[Edwrd]

Hey guys, first post!

Anyways, ive been wondering about how to play the neutral with lucina because I feel like most of my work with her goes to edge-guarding, but in order to do that I need to know how to get the opponent there. Any thoughts?

 

[Pyrofishy]

She's sorta weird until the enemy gets close. And then you just sorta rush them down. Once you get close, try to keep constant pressure.

 

[aBlackCat]

Dont use unsafe moves, you arent going on the attack with lucina. dont dash attack them, dont throw out fairs on their shield. bait them into you safely and dont over commit into strings. sideB is very good here because until the third hit you can get yourself out of there.

 

[LucinaNab1]

Sounds interesting to me, I suppose. I'd rely on fairs too much and get punished. Her back airs are nice though.

 

[A_Kae]

This was posted in the Marth question thread a couple of days ago:

Alright, I’ll layout a simple game plan for Marth’s neutral. By no means will this be the be-all-and-end-all strategy for how to play Marth, but it will provide you with the basic building blocks. Marth’s goal in the neutral is scare the opponent into inaction, thereby letting Marth safely approach with his offense. The way Marth does this depends on his opponent.

Against characters with less reach and disjoint than Marth, such as Jigglypuff, you have to scare the opponent through walling in the mid-range. The mid-range is that spacing where you’re safe from normal attacks, but are still in danger of sudden burst options such as dash attacks/grabs and specials like Diddy’s monkey flip. Walling is the act of putting up large hitboxes to discourage sudden approaches. Marth’s main walling tools are pivot F-tilt and retreating short hop F-air/B-air for their wide coverage. At moments when you think your opponent will use a burst option, use one of Marth’s walls. If you guess right, the opponent will run head first into a barrier of sharpened steel. If you guess wrong, your attack will whiff, but the backward movement of your wall will likely keep you safe. Either way, a few repetitions of your wall will teach your opponent that he can’t blindly rush you down. Once your opponent starts waiting for the right opportunity to attack (I.E. after your wall), that’s when you’re safely free to get closer and use your main pressure tools (jab, D-tilt, N-air, grab).

So what about characters with greater reach than Marth, such as Rob with his laser eyes? Against these characters walling isn’t as useful, as the opponent can just shoot through Marth’s sword with an energy blast. Instead Marth uses dash-in shields and short hop airdodges in the mid-range whenever he suspects the other will fire their blaster. Guess right, and Marth now has the frame advantage to attack. Guess wrong, and Marth can just retreat to try again as his shield and airdodge have a low-commitment. Do this enough and the opponent will learn they can’t rapidly fire projectiles all willy-nilly, granting Marth the respect he needs to walk in and pressure them.

I hope this mini-guide helps. It’s the shortest I can make it without going into all the intricacies of footsies, yomi, and stage control.

 

[Wilty]

Nairs with fast falling, also fairs in the momentum input the oposit direction to ensure a safe hit... a air match works only with characters with big hitboxes... with medim, and tiny hitboxes you require a special hability with the jumps. ground matches... tilts, or first jab and forward smash. I run away from the enemy, usually to start a pursuit, and then b reverse and pum... shield break 7/10 for sure ;D

 

[CommanderRin]

Only use F-air for punishes, gimping and retreating. Please never ever try to approach with it unless you feel like getting a Smash attack to the face.

Walking has ridiculous potential, really the only thing I can say is that if you hit a shield you'll most likely get punished.

 

[LucinaNab1]

I guess now I know not to approach with fairs and use nairs or bairs instead...

 

[Project_B]

For Approaching
Use nAir on shield while in a position to land both hits. You may be punished for it, but if you have approached this way more than once, you have an almost guaranteed empty short hop to grab mixup. If you have more tech skill, you can do an empty short hop then dash back and B-reverse shield breaker, or even just short hop over their shield and B-reverse shield breaker. Aerial shield breaker is good because it gives you a rock/paper/scissors way of making reads beat an attack with nAir, beat shield with shield breaker, and beat spot dodge/roll behind with an empty hop to slightly oversimplify it, plus it can break shields very well, allowing for ridiculously early kills or big damage.

On Defence
Against opponents that rush you down, try short hopping and doing an immediate air dodge, then mash out an up air before you hit the ground. Lucina's falling up air gives you a guaranteed f-smash or up tilt on almost every character at 0-20%. Up tilt is good defensively against aerial opponents but only if you are sure to hit it, as it's laggy. Retreating fAir or bAir is a decent option, but a fast opponent can run in and get a chance to punish. Jab is good to stop grounded opponents in their tracks, and the first hit, after being buffed, can actually set up into f-smash if your opponent doesn't mash jump. If they try to fast fall and shield, try using jab1 to shield breaker as an alternative.

Do not use any more than 1 hit of dancing blade of it collides with a shield, and (aside from conditioning/mindgames) don't approach or defend the same way twice. And remember that shield is one of the most powerful options in the game, so use it and beat it! I hope you Lucina mains (or Marth mains - this works for him too) an get some good ideas out of this, and if I made a mistake anywhere, please let me know in a reply!

 

[SuperScope]

Do not use any more than 1 hit of dancing blade of it collides with a shield, and (aside from conditioning/mindgames)

I'm not sure if this is condition or mind games, or if this was written before the shield stun patch, but I find mixing up the timing of how you use dancing blade will confuse players about how long to hold shield. Often I can get people to hold shield long enough after hit 2 of dancing blade to run in for a dash grab. Sometimes I try repeating hit 1 to get them to drop shield.

Maybe that is conditioning now that I read it. lol

 

[krosswerks]

Does anyone feel like non-retreating FAir has any utility at all in the neutral? I know that's it's punishable on shield (as has happened to me many times lol), but I've also had a lot of success with it as one of my staples in all stages of the game; retreating short-hop FAirs are great as has already been mentioned, but does anybody else use it to set up Ike-style full-hop FAir walls? I use Ike as well, so some of his play style leaks into my Lucina, and I've found that throwing out a FAir from a full-hop gives you enough frames of damage to last you until you hit the ground, and a wide enough hitbox that basically completely covers you in front. I find that, if you've gotten your opponent used to seeing the FAir accompany a short hop, you can surprise them by mixing it up and approaching with it from a full hop.

I also like to mix it up with the occasional DAir; I know it's considered a pretty crappy move but I've had some success with it as an unorthodox approach, and since most discussion of the move starts and ends with "it's crap, don't use it," I figure there might be some untapped potential there. If you short hop out of a dash into your opponent, you can catch them with the move's hurtbox at it's horizontal edge as Lucina sweeps her blade up. The move actually has some pretty fearsome horizontal range, and the hitbox stays out long enough that you can kind of glide into your opponent with it and sweep them away; a lot of the time I will use this to sweep the opponent off the stage, and then immediately pursue with another move. Naturally, you are boned if you hit shield; however, throwing it out of a dashing short-hop gives you enough momentum to land behind the opponent, so unless they're insanely aware, you can confuse them when they try to punish you with one of their forward-facing options. I think DAir has enough damage to give you some frames of shield stun under the new shield changes as well, so there's a plus (not near enough to offset your landing lag tho).

 

[Izayoi]

Does anyone feel like non-retreating FAir has any utility at all in the neutral? I know that's it's punishable on shield (as has happened to me many times lol), but I've also had a lot of success with it as one of my staples in all stages of the game; retreating short-hop FAirs are great as has already been mentioned, but does anybody else use it to set up Ike-style full-hop FAir walls? I use Ike as well, so some of his play style leaks into my Lucina, and I've found that throwing out a FAir from a full-hop gives you enough frames of damage to last you until you hit the ground, and a wide enough hitbox that basically completely covers you in front. I find that, if you've gotten your opponent used to seeing the FAir accompany a short hop, you can surprise them by mixing it up and approaching with it from a full hop.

I also like to mix it up with the occasional DAir; I know it's considered a pretty crappy move but I've had some success with it as an unorthodox approach, and since most discussion of the move starts and ends with "it's crap, don't use it," I figure there might be some untapped potential there. If you short hop out of a dash into your opponent, you can catch them with the move's hurtbox at it's horizontal edge as Lucina sweeps her blade up. The move actually has some pretty fearsome horizontal range, and the hitbox stays out long enough that you can kind of glide into your opponent with it and sweep them away; a lot of the time I will use this to sweep the opponent off the stage, and then immediately pursue with another move. Naturally, you are boned if you hit shield; however, throwing it out of a dashing short-hop gives you enough momentum to land behind the opponent, so unless they're insanely aware, you can confuse them when they try to punish you with one of their forward-facing options. I think DAir has enough damage to give you some frames of shield stun under the new shield changes as well, so there's a plus (not near enough to offset your landing lag tho).

I feel that short hop N-Air is much better during neutral for approach because immediately after you land you can transition faster into another option than trying to wiggle out a non-retreating F-Air. Playstyle preferences, I guess.
I can't speak much for D-Air, though, since the only times I actually land them are rare because of how laggy the move is. (Pls Skrai buf dair)

The only time I can actually see your methods work is when an opponent is conditioned to play a rather careless offensive, or they just don't know how to transition from defensive to offensive.

Lucina just isn't built to be openly aggressive. Her entire kit is for punishing opponents and that's how she wins. If she's the one getting punished, she has very little going for her. (We're lighter than the rest of the Fire Emblem cast, and we have the least amount of options, too.)

 

[Baby_Sneak]

It depends on the MU and most importantly, your opponent.
Everybody posted basic ideas, but optimizing neutral is a life-long journey. It aint simple.

 

[H-O-G]

It depends on the MU and most importantly, your opponent.
Everybody posted basic ideas, but optimizing neutral is a life-long journey. It aint simple.

That last part is the truth about neutral

 

[Kealmir]

Also funny thing about Marth and Lucina is they can do a short-hop airdodge and still act out of it with an Aerial. I've baited people to drop their shield when approaching with it plenty of times, and if you decide to use Nair it always hits with the first weak hit only. I usually punish with Fsmash/grab if it lands. Just remember it's only useful as a mix up and will get punished if you throw it out a lot. Down-tilts also go a long way in neutral, single hit jabs into Fsmash are particularly effective against Floaty Characters but not so much against fast fallers like Sheik or Characters with a quick Nair.

Lately I've been playing around with using the C-stick for specials and stalling with a single short hop dancing blade and following up with an aerial before landing or going for a grab depending on how they react.

I am by no means a Lucina main but I do love experimenting with her move set every patch, and this has been my experience so far.

 

[Nika]

Just wanted to mention that you can short hop fair (or bair) into DB with no landing lag or anything. This is super important for maintaining an aerial assault. You can use this to combo or just continue an approach, especially if they miss a tech.

Also, short hop fair autocancels - not as useful, but still nice to know.

 

[G-sen]

In Lucina's neutral you just gotta be creative is suppose. Use tilts to rack up damage, Usmash OOS for a heavy punish, and Shield Breaker when you feel like it's time to change fate. Dancing blade is great for punishing rolls. Just spice things up i guess, space your aerials, and keep the Dair ready for a 1-frame snapback spike.

 

[Floor]

You can easily rack up about 50 damage by Forward Air strings. At low percents, when you hit the ground, keep them in the air again with a jab before starting another forward air string. At mid percents, a forward tilt should replace a jab on the ground before chasing them through the air again. Lastly, when they're at a high enough percent that chasing them down with more Forward air strings won't work, Finish off with a forward air or a Sheild Breaker. I might just upload some of my replays on youtube, so I'll link the video if I do

 

[Jaypen7]

A little update on Lucina's neutral, you should focus on keeping your opponent in the air when possible. If not, don't approach too often and keep your opponent out of your space with tilts. And try to keep moving