Neon's Match-up Discussion

[DarkStarStorm]

If you hit marth with pkf, he'll double jump to avoid getting grabbed. Run under him and up smash for a free kill

Who else do you play besides Captain Falcon?

 

[TheAlchemist]

Anyone have any thoughts on MUs against Falcos, Bowsers, Pits, and Roys?

 

[Eisen]

It could be just that all my 3.5 experiences have been on wi-fi, but it feels unnecessarily hard to approach without fear as Lucas in 3.5. Fair is basically a noodle foot now; I'm about willing to bet it's harder to land the sweetspot on than Zelda's fair/bair, he still has a laggy projectile that gets telegraphed and punished too easily for how precise you have to be to land it, and magnet in general just seems to be increasingly often a bad idea the more I play him.

I did better in online matches with Bowser, Samus, and NESS (whom I pretty much didn't use until Smash 4) than Lucas tonight. I'm holding back too much judgement until I play legit people offline, but so far I just... I hate how finnicky he is at approaches in this build. I do like how skillful and precise he has to be now, but I feel like the changes went just a tad too far, and it's just not the same.

I realize we have DJC fair and it's really fast, but it's so tiny and flubby it just... makes it really hard to get used to. My Lucas approaches depend on fair and magnet doing their job, but they're really not. I can do mixups with nair, baiting the opponent out into a grab or PKF > whatever or dropdown dair, things like that, but it feels really hit-and-miss. Nothing feels like a solid "marth fair" approach or anywhere near it. For what it does, fair currently doesn't feel worth the risk. It's supposed to be his best approaching aerial, but it's still pretty bad. Before people jump in on me, DJCability doesn't make it godlike. It still has startup, endlag, and movement limitations. Not that Lucas is bad at movement, but... so far, I don't feel like his mobility makes up for just how terrible f-air is.

Also as a side note: for me, it's hard to tell when nair is going to launch forward or backward in the heat of battle, which hitbubbles decided to connect. If I could, I'd honestly change the trajectory all to one direction or another so that it's consistent. I can always react but I hate that my followups are occasionally interrupted because I misjudged where the last hitbubble of a superfast move connected on a random extremity on my opponent, and my punish is basically thrown out the window. But that's a random tangent.

Point is that, in general, I feel like 3.5 Lucas has Ness' 3.02 (idk about 3.5) problem of having a crappy approach. Pretty much the only thing he seems good at is solid punish combos and hard read punishes with massive damage, ala OU Usmash. A little DJC pressure in there, but it's nothing anyone who's used to fighting Fox or Falco can't handle. Lucas can't even magnet very well anymore because, ayyy 4 more frames of hitlag for some reason so I can get shined out of pressure. Oh, and shield DI TOTALLY isn't a thing in this build.

Again, it could be wifi messing with me, but I'm also getting the impression that there's a severe lack of any reliable combos with this character now. Like, Samus seems fine, Bowser seems fine, Wolf seems fine (naming characters I've used), etc. I was never one to abuse dair > anything, so that nerf isn't a problem... It just feels like he was designed one way, worked one way, and then half of him was suddenly changed and that half of him is out the window. I'm sure some of this feeling has to do with me not being used to the new moves, especially considering how often I used wavebounce magnet mobility shenanigans to get my combos in 3.02, and now Lucas' wavebounce range got shortened. However, it's starting to feel like the only Lucas players who weren't completely destroyed by this patch A) never used magnet, shield pressure, wavebounce, or fair at all and B) played him "like Ness" (is the best way I can describe it), aka running along the ground in a linear fashion, using boring crap like his fsmash as a common kill option, abusing his comboability into OU upsmash, and didn't utilize his mobility at all, when it was central to so many of his amazing flashy mixups that weren't even OP, just honest, flashy, and solid reads/combos that didn't do a billion % damage.

I know people are gonna want to jump on my ass for even remotely judging based on wi-fi matches, but I promise I'm not making a full assessment. More like, plotting trends of things and giving my opinion on how it MIGHT work out in an offline environment. I also know some people are going to be like "ha-ha, your character sux 3.5 sux don't you feel like an ass for liking 3.5 before!!!!1" but I'm gonna say that I still like 3.5 as a whole, just... Lucas has problems and, while probably viable, is being taken in an unnecessary and boring direction with just a few poor decisions on his 3.5 design, and I may just drop the character and go play a freaking Melee character like everyone else who runs this game's development and wins all the money.

tl;dr, how do approach with 3.5 Lucas in any MU (that's not jigglypuff) and not get punished?

 

[zFrost]

^^^^^^^, all of this, lucas nerfs were unnecessarily strong

 

[PsionicSabreur]

stuff

Practice waiting for the right time to approach, using wavelands out of magnet and good ground movement to threaten an approach without actually commiting. Use DJC shifts more (directional tap jumps work well for this). Fair has deceptive reach and fadeback with it in 3.5, and combined with 3.02 fair it was frankly ridiculous.
Space fair and magnet better on shield. You probably won't get 3.02-esque frame-safe strings, but you can definitely space out shine OoS or bad grabs with ease. Use DJC shifts to back out if you have to, or waveland out of (properly spaced) magnet.
Just a few ideas. Lucas still approaches/pressures/combos outstandingly. Maybe magnet could be a frame or two safer or the utilt flub could not have a terrible angle or something, but this rendition of Lucas is my personal favorite, in all honesty.

I don't mean to sound harsh, but if this isn't working out for you it's possibly time to explore other characters. Sometimes a character's gameplan just won't click with what you want to be able to do. Don't spend too much time feeling betrayed for your character loyalty, just be prepared to move on if you must. No need to drop Lucas yet, but it wouldn't hurt to start developing a pocket Wolf or Falco or Lucario or whatever.

 

[TheAlchemist]

^ Perfect.

 

[SpiderMad]

@ Eisen Didn't you spend the last months of 3.02 playing your own nerfed Lucas build

 

[Hinichii.ez.™]

^^^^^^^, all of this, lucas nerfs were unnecessarily strong

but now i can win

Spoiler

loljk

 

[Kipcom]

So uh


Any chance we could revive this thread for the 3.5 matchups?

 

[zFrost]

please, i would love if someone could make something like what hylian did here http://smashboards.com/threads/tier-list-speculation.331666/page-595#post-18263121

 

[D e l t a]

Hi.

When college isn't bodying me (aka during work term), I'll be compiling my knowledge of Lucas' MU's. Expect some good content in weeks to follow. End of March is when my current semester is over, so around then I'll have plenty of free time to write up extensive content. I have already started a bit on Marth & Falco in the little spare time I have now, so hang on tight! I'll be somewhat following the order of Marth / Falco -> Yoshi (my most practiced MU) -> Mario -> Zelda -> etc...

lmk if anybody wants MU's done before another so I can start working on those sooner than later. Also, speculation / numbers to work off of would be appreciated. ie Lucas vs Yoshi is 60/40 or +2 because of blah blah blah.

 

[zFrost]

marth and yoshi i would love info on, maybe roy and zelda as well as shiek xP

 

[D e l t a]

For now, Roy gets punished on overcommittments and poor spacing. He's slower than Marth with better combos.

Vs Zelda simply requires a better defense or having an amazing offense and playing keep away so to speak. Her moves have decent startup but low end lag. Punishing the low priority and multi-hit attacks is the best route. It's little taps here n there then getting a kill early on her (80-110%)

Still working on Sheik MU. After fighting my friend, I've come to realize it's a harder MU than I once thought. Prior to fighting him, it was mostly outpacing & avoiding grab / tilt combos with good DI. A Sheik with a great mixup game can be scary to deal with.

 

[AntSSB]

does anyone have any tips on the ganon match up? for the past 3 weeks ive been knocked out of tourney by this dumb character. how do i beat him?

 

[zFrost]

be more patient than him, that's kinda his thing

 

[D e l t a]

Vs Ganon

space well to know his SideB & DownB ranges. At close range, be wary of both attacks. This is where your pressure must be on point and make sure to cross up Ganon so you don't get hit by a CC DownB. Side B can mess you up with a terrible tech roll (worse than C. Falcon).

Grab is very good on both sides. Ganon can CG Lucas so be sure to mixup your DI and pick stages with platforms to avoid getting CGed to death. Always DI to platforms and avoid doing predictable techs on the platform.

PKF is good, but not as amazing as with other MUs. Ganon's DownB goes thru the projectile ALWAYS from startup to finish and SideB will only be slightly stunned, but it will be hard to truly punish, so the risk reward isn't too good. Due to his fall weight, after PKF, Ganon will simply fall back to the ground and can CC attacks again. PKF just isn't as great as with other MUs

Pressure Ganon hard and combo him even harder.

 

[AntSSB]

what about his down throw, which way should i DI? and stagewise when i ban stages i get two bans. so out of these which should i ban?
Green hill, wario ware, yoshi story, fountain

 

[D e l t a]

Green hill isn't too bad as his aerial mobility isn't the best and it's better to kill Ganon off the side imo.
FoD is about the same size, only difference being the platforms and GHZ having a slightly lower bottom blastzone. I would say these are bad for Lucas with Ganon being able to platform camp and DownB covering the whole stage. GHZ platform doesn't exactly save Lucas from CGs either

WarioWare I would ban first bc it's been proven many times that the stage is not in favor of Lucas. I enjoy the stage, I love it a lot, I manipulate platforms the way I should, but I still lose on there more compared to larger stages like PS2 or Battlefield. I don't know exactly why, it just happens to be a bad Lucas stage. Pink Fresh and I agreed on this at Shots Fired.

Yoshi's story isn't terrible. The blast zones feel slightly wider than FoD and GHZ. I feel there's more room to work around with here and you can escape CGs with the two side platforms. It's a really nice stage that's at worst, slightly in Ganon's favor.

 

[D e l t a]

For Ganon's Dthrow, it has very little KBG and very little BKB. So DI'ing the throw should be mixed up every time to throw off your opponent, or DI to platforms and tech. The worst that will follow after landing on a platform is eating 14-20% compared to another 20-40% from the CG.

if you're over 90% and DI'ing the Dthrow to check:

1. Where you're at in relation to blast zones.
   • If you're near the farther left/right side of the stage, DI in then use survival DI after the throw to live the attack.
   • If you're in center stage or if the Ganon is bad at getting certain Fair/Bair followups, try to DI so that you get throw directly above Ganon.
2. Where the platforms are.
   • Always DI to platforms and tech on them. This makes followups from Ganon way harder as you can tech on platform then keep holding shield so that your shield will go up the first available frame after the attack. This gives Ganon a very small window to work with in reading the tech on platform and punishing.

 

[Scraket]

Does anyone have any advice on the Samus matchup?

 

[D e l t a]

Does anyone have any advice on the Samus matchup?

Personally I feel confident in this MU. It's a lot of using Fair to swat away & combo Samus and Nair to beat out CC when approaching. Combos are pretty straight forward and she's heavy enough that she will stay in hitstun long enough that her Nair won't interrupt most combos.

Zair stops missiles, but I personally prefer to jab / Ftilt them or shield. Predict the charge shot and absorb it for some free % recovery. It comes out fastest so you can use magnet -> WD back & shield in case you were wrong and Samus instead uses missiles.

Avoid Samus at the ledge, but you can quickly punish her Fair if you're quick enough. If you're too slow you'll eat a Dsmash or UpB. PKF can halt a recovering Samus stalling with DownB. At a far enough distance, you can use PKT1 to tack on some extra % to Samus or knock her slightly away.

 

[D e l t a]

TL;DR Avoid missles most of all. Try to get a read and absorb charge shots. Punish only what you can and don't be greedy. Avoid her Nair. She's bad at horiztonal combos so DI / SDI down and away. On the flip side, Lucas combos work well horizontally. There's not much to the MU, it's mainly being able to outplay your opponent and space out well.

 

[Gいたん]

Anyone have any advice on edge guarding Ike?
Not sure what I should be doing through all of his quick draw wall jump huge up b hitbox sh*t

 

[NeonApophis]

PK freeze hits him out of up b.

 

[Kipcom]

PK freeze hits him out of up b.

But what happens if the Ike player knows what sweetspotting is?

Unless a grounded PK Freeze will still hit him before he grabs the ledge, then that's cool

 

[D e l t a]

The thing about PKF is that it's similar to Falco lasers. The Ike player will still be able to grab ledge. His UpB negates the PKF last I checked. Ike can't truly Sweetspot due to his UpB requiring the full animation to be performed, but he can grab ledge immediately after. When I get recording stuff I can more properly show what I'm describing below.

Overall, wait for the UpB to start swinging so you don't get hit / stage spiked. Bair can spike well on stage between the ledge and full jump height. Rising Dair works well at the ledge as well as Bair. Only Bair, Dair, Fair and situationally Uair have been successful for me to use when ledge guarding.

For non-sweetspot spacing: Fair will sometimes be able to catch Ike (was way easier to hit him in 3.0, now must be extremely precise). If Ike is below Lucas' full jump range, you can get him with a Bair spike

For sweetspot spacing: Lucas can grab ledge before Ike goes to UpB, release -> tether grab ledge while Ike's sword is rotating -> roll onstage. Over 100% this is more effective given Lucas' massive amount of time to roll over 100% from ledge. It will sometimes work below 100% or when they aren't too far above the ledge.
You can also Bair spike much easier on stage as they're right next to the ledge.

When Ike double jumps then goes to UpB: The reverse hit of Uair will send opponents up and slightly behind Lucas. I use this a lot from the ledge to catch Ike players trying to recover. Uair also may block the QD recovery or you will have enough time to whiff then land on stage before they can punish you. Rising Bair from the ledge

 

[AntSSB]

any tips on the marth match up? i cant seem to do anything against him and everytime i play one i feel like SDing all 4 stocks.

 

[D e l t a]

My roommate plays a decent, typical Marth: Fsmash, Grab, attempts at air juggles, etc. I've learned to deal with most of the basic to intermediate scrub level stuff. I'll drop what I know next week

 

[Fortune]

everytime i play one i feel like SDing all 4 stocks.

i'm sure this will be annoying to hear, but the fact you would even say something like that shows that you need to improve your overall mindset.

 

[Kipcom]

@ Fortune still playing Lucas? Interesting.

 

[D e l t a]

I also absolutely hate Marth (in this MU) and I want to SD all 4 stocks too, but I don't necessarily have a bad mindset. Tbh, fighting Zelda makes me want to throw my controller at a wall. I practice the MU a lot and it's still frustrating that I die to an Fsmash / Fair at 80%, whereas Marth's Fsmash kills at 90-120% :/

 

[Fortune]

@ Kipcom not playing much smash right now because it's my last semester of college. In general I haven't played him much in tournament in 3.5, opting for Fox, DK, and Ganon instead. When I start going to PM tournaments again I may play him. He was the most fun character of any smash game when I played him in 3.02, and I think I will feel that way again once I get the magnet hitlag change ingrained in my muscle memory.

2.5 Lucas was super fun too, when his down air was his current back air, his forward air was like a reverse of his current back air, and his back air was like wolf's. You can see them in this video:

 

[D e l t a]

3.6 is dropping. IMO I would wait for that before you try Lucas again, cuz they'll probably do something stupid to him again

 

[Fortune]

I think they're probably pretty happy with where he is right now.

Really interested to see what direction they will take things with the 3.6 balance changes, across all characters.

Just thought of a Lucas combo, can anyone test if it is possible? Down-air into the slip taunt [hold] into getup attack. I don't remember how long the slip taunt takes to go into knockdown state, and I don't have a setup readily available to test it on.

 

[D e l t a]

I think they're probably pretty happy with where he is right now.

Just thought of a Lucas combo, can anyone test if it is possible? Down-air into the slip taunt [hold] into getup attack.

I hope they keep Lucas virtually the same outside of giving back his old Fair Sweetspot range

As for this combo, I would say it might work at low to mid % on the floaties (provided they don't jump out) or at high % on Spacies could be a true combo. Doesn't really seem like it would do much other than be a completely disrespectful combo

 

[Fortune]

It's pretty much just for style. But if you do it at the ledge and it's a true combo, it could set up an edgeguard.

 

[D e l t a]

It could be a true combo on Spacies, but at that point literally every other move of Lucas' should be able to kill. That's why I say it's the ultimate disrespect.

His getup attack from taunt is great when ledge guarding. It's an invincible getup attack and the hitboxes aren't too bad. The angle is sends you at is also pretty brutal, but the knockback is really weak

 

[Fortune]

I don't really understand why people say it's disrespectful to do these kinds of things. I guess I can see how someone would consider it disrespectful if their opponent continually chose sub-optimal options and refused to play their best. I don't really feel that way, though, because it's each player's decision to choose how to play.

If this works, I would do it because it's cool and really non-standard, not because I want to disrespect my opponent.

 

[D e l t a]

This isn't even sub-optimal lol. It's literally the worst option. As it is, Dair -> kill move is already free and people resent it. Add in the fact that you're taunting and using a get-up attack, I'd say it's pretty disrespectful. It would look funny tho, all things considered.

 

[MysteryRevengerson]

The only way I could see this working is if you did it at a super high percent and DJC Dair actually had enough hitstun (I can't imagine that) or something with a platform

If it works call it the Misfortune Kappa