I love that u spend the first half of these videos strictly talking positively about the character which actually makes people wanna play him, despite the title. Lol
@@henkiestudios5117me too. i play krool now and im trying out link because of these videos. they both have a ton of downsides but they fit my playstyle so its a nonissue. i would’ve never guessed id like them but these videos showed me how cool they could be
I think Lucas is one of those characters with a kit that just has.so.much.damn potential. Like megaman, Wii fit, duck hunt, just a super underrated character that is begging to have a top player main him and go on an unprecedented run
I highly doubt it. He's way too floaty and his disadvantage sucks. For a character with so many different tools and character expression, he only really wins by being annoying rather than being good.
@@SerenadeURA I like how Smash players first instinct is to assume that you just lost on quickplay if they don't like your opinion on a childrens party game lol. Cope harder.
@@orangeslash1667 I feel like the could just change the music while keeping the same bpm and it would be fine. The problem is that would cost them more money than it would make them
@@EmilXOM Most of music in Mother 3 take too much inspiration form other songs. There is a video called (All Known Musical References in MOTHER 3) for more detail.
Another thing holding Lucas back is his lack of out of shield options. Having a slow up-smash, a slow projectile up-b, and a slow grab means that his only oos options are his aerials. Oos nair and up air are frame 10; oos fair and zair are frame 12; oos dair is frame 13; and oos bair is frame 18.
@@owenduffy5745 yep and its one of the best oos options in the game. At like 10 percent it leads to a djcz train, at zero a nair loop which is pretty much guaranteed 70%, at 60+ optimized lucas Will undoubtedly kill confirm you, and thats off of a frame 4 oos option. Its footstool djcz.
@@electricssb Is there anyone out there using oos footstool djcz consistently? If you can point me to a set or two to see it in action I'd love to check it out
@@tracerbullet85 theres no set that i know of but theres a yter who does it consistently. His name is lyro. Look up lyro lucas and youll find some footstool vids.
Lucas mains ALL swear he’s really good; solid high tier at least. But there just isnt the results to back it up. Being weak to swords in the game big sword aerials are at their strongest is pretty bad, as well as competing with Ness which is wayyy easier to play as Vars said. His mains although low in numbers do all really love him at the very least. Big character loyalty vibes
To be fair I don't think he's as bad as others make him out to be. Imo he's just very mid. Then again a lot of people don't realise that even with that low tier in Ultimate doesn't mean much unless your like bottom 10 and even then most of them are viable with another character. Except for the bottom 3 they're just bad
Admittingly Ness Loses to Big Swords as well and his hitboxes actually are less disjointed so admittedly your gonna need different arguments to prove Lucas lack of viability
Definitely not true. Lucas mains barely go to majors and they still have great results-look at nitox. Plus, he has many ways to deal with swords. Djcz, pk fire, and nair can all catch landings, plus he has footstool zair oos which leads to his entire combo game past 0. Also, Lucas’s combo game is a lot more ridiculous than Vars gives credit for and he will likely get way more off a single neutral interaction than the swordie, while being able to win neutral more bc swordies have to approach him.
I think a Why No One Plays Chrom would be interesting. I cant think of any other character where its literally just one thing holding them back and how obvious that one thing is
@@PineapplePineapplePineapplePin I mean you could say the same to Lucas if you looked at it simpler: he is just missing a consistent way to get people offstage, that would make him automatically top tier
Interesting, I like how you bring up and point out that the "I have to think more than you do" is a big drawback. I think BOTW Link has this problem as well? It just turns into a ton of "i need to always make the right play/react" instead of "they have to react to me".
I don't think this is true because like does not have to operate in big brain mode. The most historically successful Link T just played Melee-Sm4sh style link, where you can get a lot from being smart but being good with fundies was usually enough. I still think that's probably true and the Link players may be optimising his gameplay too much into tricks and goofy stuff
One of the factors I think why Lucas is underplayed is that he is too technical for how much you get out of him. For example, Lucas’s very good jump-cancel zair loops are, if I’m remembering correctly, like frame perfect (having to press jump and grab at the same time), which is a turn off when others of similar or greater strength can do other things while being much easier to play.
You’re actually spot on, it’s all execution and how much you can get out of it, people who don’t have to be as precise can get just as good or better reward than Lucas does. And consistency is very very very crucial in top level play. That’s why I think Kirby and doc are better not only because they are not held back by multi hits you can sdi out of but also because they have no sour spots inconveniencing them so killing is not a problem along with them being mad easy to use. Just get good at the game and you’ll have good results as long as the character doesn’t need a whole rework essentially like lucas
I’m a Lucas main (and a casual) and I love this. Ironically I love his Jack of all trades nature - feels like just so much untapped potential and creative potential that, when figurd out, can go into any situation. I feel I could play him forever and keep learning cool ways to use his arsenal and I LOVE that. Plus I’m ass at edge guarding in general so he covers that for me so it’s a nice perk. Fantastic video and I learned a lot about why I love Lucas through it, thanks!!
Lucas feels like adult Link in the sense that he feels stronger than his counterpart's AND has a higher skill cealing but Lucas and adult Link lack the results to backup those statements
He's also like adult Link in the way that their mains love to theorycraft and bark about potential that will realistically never happen consistently. ( Link bomb loops and Lucas rope snake z-air chains. I swear Link losing his tether grab/recovery was a big enough hit to his viability as is, but the changes to his bomb ruin his growth because the players are always too focused on the bomb potential. The fact Remote Bomb won't detonate on it's own is a blessing and a curse. Link can't z drop another bomb to cover his landings nor poke with clawshot/hookshot anymore. Limiting Remote Bomb to only one out at a time, while it makes sense, really really hurts his defense. )
Lucas was my literal first main ever in this series (started with brawl), and I've never changed my mind. Love the little guy! Also, I need to start practicing those zair djc
Something you eluded to but didn't outrite state is how Lucas is a glass cannon. His OoS is -10 (disregarding advanced tech: footstool djcz, upsmash parrying). He also has no decent button in disadvantage, which is totally opposite of Ness, and Lucas is floaty. It makes his best option when above his opponent to retreat to ledge. However, his ledge options aren't that terrible. Djcz will force the opponent to shield. Which then sets up for drop-down rising magnet into an almost guaranteed up-air. This makes ledge trapping Lucas a RPS match that favors lucas against most characters. This necessitates learning advanced techniques+combos and having a great grasp on fundamentals in order to avoid downward spiraling during a game. Making the skill-floor for Lucas higher than players are willing to commit to in order to play a character that's "only above average"
As a lucas main, I agree wholeheartedly. I've never quite been able to put into words what that feeling is of the "two part" system, but Vars did it great. There is also the added difficulty of just how unintuitive some of the Lucas-specific tech is. Double jump canceling zair has taken me so long to figure out, and then even then it's not the most amazing tool in neutral by any means. I think the joy of playing Lucas (and my personal enjoyment of the character) comes from the fact that he is just SO difficult, so a win really feels like you earned it with all the hours and brain power required that other characters simply just don't require
I remember practicing the DJCZ for so long before getting the muscle memory down. Not played smash in a while but I'll admit it was definitely a trying time and if that's what can really wrap up a big chunk of his neutral, I can't blame people for having apprehension towards him.
Thank you for the video. To add on to what you’ve said (as an old Lucas main), 1.) PK thunder in neutral is good. It’s best used within a close range of the opponent and should be used to shield poke and apply pressure to the opponent's shield. PK thunder shield stuns so the opponent can’t do an action while PK Thunder is circling around their shield. This can be used while trying to land from above your opponent. Hitting lucas while PK thunder’s tail is still hitting the opponent will cause massive shield damage and provide lucas with an escape option and it’s fairly safe on shield. Not meant to be spammed because the opponent can predict this and HARD PUNISHED PK Thunder’s slow start up. 2.) Lucas is like Lucario and he suffers like min min and greninja. Lucas oos is awful. So like greninja he shouldn’t shield. Lucas also can’t punish cross ups (behind him) just like min min. Neutral air can’t help as long as the move is disjointed or safe. Lucas can’t anti air. This alone makes him a D tier character. Lucas cannot cover vertical and diagonal vertical air approaches without putting himself at risk. It’s easy to jump in to approach lucas because either he can’t cover an angle (like vertical diagonally behind him) or if he can it’ll trade. Upsmash, pk thunder, uptilt are laggy. Up air and neutral air both risk lucas trading hits with the adversary. 3.) Lucas is bad defensively. Lucas’s hair is also a hurt box. A couple hits on his shield and he can be shield poked because his hair sticks out. This applies to ledge trapping. Lucas on the ledge has to make an immediate decision or he’ll get hit because his hair stands up above the ledge. One good thing, if you main Lucas for years and switch to another character you’ll automatically be good cause DANG LUCAS IS HARD!!!.
Been waiting for this video. I love that you mention the inconsistency of nair, too. It's a decent tool for those not suspecting it, but while similar it will never compare to Palutena's. Excellent video through and through.
If people actually took the time to learn how to play lucas instead of just picking up ness because hes easier to learn, Lucas would probably be a top tier character, maybe even higher up than ness… but unfortunately a live in a world where nobody knows what the mother series is… and even more unfortunately we live in a world where MOTHER 3 STILL ISN’T LOCALISED
the other problem with lucas is just how tiring he is to play in terms of moving. his movement is ridiculously complicated, with wavebouncing being required for him to even have ok movement. he will definitely get better as ultimate ages due to him still having stupid amounts of tools and mixups, but yea his frame data and slow ass air speed make him super vulnerable to swords, which is a slight problem. but always remember that just because someone has bad tourney showings does not mean the character is bad it means the players are.
Project M/Project + Lucas's movement is ridiculously complicated as well, but u don't see that holding him back Also his air speed isn't even really slow
Lucus is my main! I clicked on this video just to defend him! having watched your video, I notice you never mentioned his up smash which has I-frames that overlap with its cancel window allowing you to use it as a safe approach. Yes, it's hard to pull off but that's what makes Lucus so good, he rewards high skill.
As someone that mained Lucas since he was introduced into Smash 4 and really enjoyed playing him as a solid mid tier... Lucas most certainly feels like a low tier character in Ultimate. The second I started playing as Lucas in this game I was disappointed. They nerfed his down throw combos, footstool combos, added lag to his PK Fire, added landing lag and a terrible knockback angle to his Nair, made his jab connect less consistently, and the list goes on. The minor buffs to his moves do not compensate for what he lost in addition to the weaknesses the character already has. His PK Fire kills earlier, his PK Freeze sends horizontally, and his Dsmash easily 2-frames. These buffs would have been nice if Lucas didn’t receive significant nerfs that really hurt him. In ultimate his disadvantage state is poor, his advantage state is unremarkable, recovery is relatively exploitable, his out of shield options are weak, and his grab just doesn’t cut it. These are certainly the makings of a character lower on the tier list. I don’t think he’s unplayable, but he is nowhere near the top half of the cast. I’ll always play him for fun though! (I main Ness for tournaments at this point).
Yeah, it wasn't fair seeing some characters have their throw combos practically gutted (Lucas) while others got to keep theirs in this game. (Luigi is the worst offender of that)
I do not main either of these characters, so I'm reading this moreso to learn rather than to contribute, but I do think this is well said. That being said, I don't remember Lucas ever being IN Smash 4, and would love a memory jog and / or something new
As a Lucas secondary main, I confirm this 100%. Lucas is good for players that don't know him well or have moves with punishable windows. Lucas is what I call a "1-2 combo player" you have to covert your own combos with no grantees or truth. Edit: OMG, you mention it right after I typed the comment out... xD (10:40)
I play Lucas and I just saw another Lucas in online, we both inmediately greet each other with the d pad messages and down crouch at the start of the match one of my favorite moments in ssbu
imagine if one very highly ranked player said rob was bad and no one really gave him a look for years. that happens all the time in smash. like amsa with yoshi, all it takes is one good player to take the time to learn a character and show that theyre more than people originally thought
Great analysis, loved the analogy with letters: a multitude of tools in his arsenal, yet not synergizing effectively to form a successful workflow. There are many on-the-spot solutions utilizing excellent tools, but they are not designed to work in unison. This results in highly creative solutions, yet they are not as efficient as ABC or XYZ. Local optimum can be different from global optimum. The system will always outperform the individual. Very enlightening, thank you!
one thing that I think you neglected to mention about why the few people who do play lucas play him is because of you being forced to be creative to get to the edge guarding state - he is a character that demands you to play him creatively, which to many people is really fun - along with that idea of having to switch gears makes him a really unique character to play, even if those things that make him unique also hinder him
Surprised you didn’t mention how they removed his D-Throw combos. I think that plays a big part in why he feels like he lives and dies by edge guarding now because the D-Throw conversions he had last game played a huge part in making his on stage presence much more dangerous. It helped his damage racking and as we all know led to that infamous D-Throw U-Air kill combo that worked on many characters as early as like 75% with rage. Now it’s good they removed the kill setup as it was degenerate but removing consistent on stage conversions off grab like that altogether hurt his on stage presence to the point where he now feels forced to get you off ledge ASAP and has to use more advanced stuff to do it. Further making him more unforgiving to master.
The capacity for Lucas' broken toolkit to punish untrue combos with immediate death is also a highly conditional but effective application. Arguably the best between stock strategy too, in tether hanging, dropping, and reattaching to wait out their invincibility before using ledge invincibility
This is crazy cause he is my go to. He has some of the best standard moving attacks (whatever they’re called when you flick the stick) that make for perfect surprise hits that pack a punch. Love to launch himself too with pk thunder
this is a good video and explains a lot of the character’s issues. i think another point of note is how lucas’s air stats just don’t suit his moves all that well. he’s just a touch too slow and a touch too floaty to have some really nasty strings that would look closer to his PM iteration
I think the only thing you didn't mention about lucas that really matters is the four ways his recovery is better than ness'. The first you actually pointed a bit, which is his pk thunder being transcendental and less susceptible to edge guard. The second is how far his floatiness takes him with his air dodge. The third is his tether, and finally, his upb itself goes a longer distance. Given the inherent vulnerability of his and ness' upb recovery, having ways to work around is really important. But I agree that none of that compensates the flaws you mentioned of not integrating enough his gameplan.
Reminds me of what you said about Falco. Amazing if he can get to the part of the game where he shines, but it's just a little too hard to get there as consistently as you need to.
Calling Lucas a "D,H,L,Q,S,W" makes more sense than it has any right too. I think you covered most of Lucas well here, and I do appreciate how Ness was compared as a similar archetype rather than a 1-to-1 character as other guides do (seriously there are way too many Lucas guides or viability rankings of him that just boil down to "how good is Ness lmao") I do think there are two things that weren't covered in this video that do need to be mentioned. Lucas basically doesn't have a part 1 for his game plans, as you did mention in your video, and this is a serious problem for his pressure game. You have some of the best aerial combo moves in the game (up air, nair, dair and bair to an extent) but how do you start a combo? If this were a character like Fox, Diddy Kong, or Pikachu you could start a combo by using grounded tilts and throws, or a really fast aerial. Lucas has no grounded combo starters up until about 130% where down tilt can combo for a KO. This means that if Lucas wants to start raking up damage he has to be jumping and doesn't really get a moment to do anything on the ground. This becomes an even worse problem when you realize Lucas' fastest aerial is frame 7. Other character can just hold forward and press button and will most likely beat out Lucas in a direct confrontation. Cloud also kind of has this problem, but cloud back air controls the entire game and his sword means that even if his up tilt doesn't true combo his large range and safety still put him in a great spot to juggle or pressure platforms. Also Lucas not having a combo down throw means his entire shield pressure game (REALLY GOOD BTW) just goes out the window because why would the opponent not keep shielding? Mario has basically the same level of safety on shield, but because his throws actually do something at lower percents it makes it much harder to shield against him. Lucas just doesn't have any glue to hold his move set together and you start to really feel just how useless or conditional some of his moves can really be (up tilt especially that move just doesn't have a use)
I mean with how Lucas is described, Lucas still feels like a 1-to-1 character to Ness, which is a shame when Lucas feels like he's supposed to be play differently, but is held back by him basically being a Ness rehash, but the moves aren't properly in sync with each other. The 1-to-1 issue has always been around since Brawl, the reason Lucas wasn't having this problem in Smash 4 was simply cause he was the better character & Ness was the inferior one, their roles were reversed. Literally, what I truly hate about this is that because of the way Lucas was designed since Brawl, it's always going to stem on which is superior & inferior. Even you can't really do a 1-to-1 with Mario & Dr. Mario because they literally play too differently & the similar moveset is an illusion, which ironically makes Dr. Mario feel more unique & fun than Lucas.
@@BragiZero it's not about sharing the exact same moves, but rather how they play. Lucas's gameplay is versatile just like Ness in the game, but as video mentioned, Lucas ends up being "D,H,L,Q,S,W", to put simply, is all over the place with no really sync & proper connection to properly form the character's gameplay. They simply don't properly link together & all of Lucas's moves come off as completely one-note like Lucas's specials. PK Freeze is only useful for edgeguards alone while PK Flash does more than for edgeguarding, PK Fire is a great zoning move & edgeguard move, the one special move that is not merely specialized, but Ness's PK Fire does that, but there's so much you can do with Ness's PK Fire than Lucas's, PK Thunder, same like PK Freeze, only really useful edgeguarding alone, meanwhile Ness's PK Thunder is also useful for juggles & you can even combo out of it when in the right position. And PSI Magnet, which Lucas is extremely hard to use due to the changes unlike with Ness where his PSI Magnet is a lot more reliable & more versatile. Again, the problem with Lucas is he tries to be different, but is stuck as a Ness rehash since Brawl (it's really not something to past that when he originally was gonna replace Ness in Melee, but Mother 3 never came that time so Ness was kept).
@@psiforce8342 oh okay I understand now. So their special moves do different things and have different use cases so clearly Lucas is just Ness. I'm joking of course but you also never mentioned their normals, ranges, physics or movement which put them in completely different archetypes. Ness is a close range bruiser that wants to get into his opponents face and deal a devastating combo while Lucas is a close to mid range zoner that wants to pressure his opponent into shield and punish them after limiting their options. If anything, Lucas plays much closer to a character like Palutena. Both have great aerials for pressure their opponent's shield and both have great projectiles for taking space and creating edgeguards. The main differences is that Palutena has a grab that actual does things to the opponent, with her down throw having good combos and back throw being a good kill throw. Palutena also has a more effective and impactful combo game that is also more intuitive to execute, something that Lucas struggles to have. So no, I don't think the entirety of Lucas and his viability to be played comes down to "is Ness good?" because that completely ignores the archetypes the characters fall into. I also find it very strange how you claimed Mario and Dr. Mario are more distinct characters than Ness and Lucas. You're telling me you can notice the difference in knockback values, angles, and overall utility in moves that have the same animations, but can't do the same for characters that have completely different moves with unique animations, frame data, knockback, and utility?
@@BragiZero Thing with Ness is he's versatile, an all-rounder, he has disjoints & projectiles for a reason to help play both aggressively & defensively. If there's one thing I'm the most hateful with Lucas is that aspects of him should've been given to Ness (ground speed, air speed, forward tilt, & PK Thunder 2 travel distance). Even when they have different attributes, moves & animations, they both still play the same way: versatile PSI fighters. I would be more forgiving if Ness & Lucas end up being designed to cover each others' backs instead of essentially "who just does it better?". I really would want Lucas to be reworked completely so Ness can be properly updated himself, otherwise rather have Lucas an alt than a separate character. I've literally played Ness & Lucas since day 1 & I still do not understand Lucas. He tries to space & zone, but they feel one-note. He tries being a more aggressive combo character, but his approach is pretty limited & hard to start combos (especially with the stupid nair change for Lucas). Lucas doesn't have to be exactly like PM/P+ Lucas, but he just needs to completely play like his own character just to the point u can't really compare Ness & Lucas. At least with Marth & Roy and then Mario & Dr. Mario, they're able to stand out from each other thanks to how reworked they are currently.
I have always loved PM Lucas while not liking this version exactly because of the problem you outlined: that his tool just don't synergize very well despite being strong in a vacuum. PM really let his movement and pressure come together to solidify his combo game and edgegaurds by letting him betted flow between the two, as well as gave him additional win conditions besides edgegaurding to make up for his trouble actually getting in to start with. By making him a faster faller and increasing his movement speed to allow him to transition his combos better, and by giving him the power up mechanic and adding some on stage kill confirms so he could finish opponents with combos into smash attacks if he couldn't effectively edgegaurd them, all of a sudden his gameplay flows extremely well while still having the identity of short range and trouble approaching.
thank you thank you THANK YOU for making a video about Lucas that just blatantly compares him to Ness or talks bad of him just to make Ness more favorable. The comparison with Ness is annoying overall because they have completely different moves. So I appreciate that you didn't really get into that and instead positively talked about Lucas' moveset, as well as making me understand his weaknesses in a respectable manner. You're the only video that does this. Thank you so much.
Vars, here’s where I heavily disagree. You talked about him having a two part game plan, which is true to an extent. Yes, he has onstage pressure and edge guarding, but Lucas’s win conditions on stage are just as strong. For one, the zair chain can be reliably combo’d into bair or dair, which means that he’ll kill you straight up hitting one of these. Additionally, Lucas’s nair combos are a lot stronger than you’d think. They are true if u fast fall in between and can either lead to a potential zero to death if you use less nairs or ~80% with ur opponent off stage already as long as you end with a fair. Also, Lucas’s onstage pressure is superb. He has footstool djcz oos which leads into the majority of his busted combo game off of a frame 4 option oos, he has a moderately nerfed melee wave dash in snake dashing and nair, djcz, and pivot ftilt are all good approach options. Additionally, he can keep opponents stuck in shield with his shield pressure, and he has some of the best kill confirms in the game. From about 65% to like 150% he can reliably kill confirm, either with dair loops, nair drag downs, dtilt ftilt, grab confirms, or some combination of this. Plus, his movement isn’t bad. His shield out of dash is frame 8, so he can dash dance a lot, making his movement a lot better than you think, while also having the option to snakedash in between to really mix up approaches since it lets u cancel initial dash. Really the only reason why no one plays him is that he’s hard and placed low in the tier list. But honestly, optimized Lucas is likely a top 10 character, and his tech is definitely possible to perform consistently.
@@user-be3qc7re9o aegis cant kill. Maybe the fox one was out of line. But lucas’s combo game is nuts and his edgeguarding invalidates half thr cast. He also can cancel an inital dash with a snake dash, making his neutral really busted.
I feel like lucas is weird because he has tools to deal with everybody, very well too. His neutral is actually FREE if the opponent isnt a swordie like cloud, but bis advantage state more than makes up for it. Rising nair dragdowns that go into your entire kit forever, insane multihits that cover any options, and disjoints that go ludicrously far. When people say lucas loses to swordies i genuinely think its only neutral that is an actual problem. Almost every swordie gets robbed by pk thunder outright no matter what they actually do, the only way they make it back is if the lucas main lets them. Lucas needs somebody to really push them and when that happens its joever
I agree, I main Lucas, but I would also add one of my biggest problems is not having a get off me move. It’s tough, you’re kinda this fake zoner with pk fire and zair for good movement/spacing options and when fast characters get on top of you, nothing is really good OOS
Another thing Lucas is good at especially against slow characters is circle camping. If you come right in front of Lucas linearly, he can PK Fire. If you approach, he can easily escape with his massive jump and decent air speed. If you’re above him, he can hurt you real bad with Up Smash
I think Lucas’s combo game is top 10 in the game. It’s surprisingly technical and finicky but can reliably take most of the cast from zero to 80 percent without relying on reads. People write him off as having stupid edge guarding and projectiles, but he genuinely has the whole kit necessary to succeed. I really think most people just don’t want to play to his real strengths, because of that strange technicality.
His kit doesn't feel like it flows together imho. Ness', for how annoying it can be, works with itself really well due to the synergy between his throws, specials, and normals, while Lucas' doesn't have that
In short, as someone who picked him up for a while, he's weird! He's so weird, none of his attacks follow the usual conventions of their peers, up b doesn't instantly send him up, down smash doesn't cover his back, neutral b is the weirdest projectile and freezes! He's so fun though.
I don't play Lucas, but I really enjoy watching Lucas matches (especially Nitox), so I wanted to point something out. Lucas does have a pretty solid on-stage game, it's just really difficult to access, because of the difficulty involved in zair techs, like DJC Zair, or snakedash.
Ness and Lucas were fairly even in Smash 4, but Ultimate made Ness much better than Lucas. Ness' PSI Magnet getting a hitbox effectively invalidated Lucas' since Ness' hitbox comes out at the beginning of the move rather than the end.
It also bears mention that Lucas' recovery is positively God tier. Thunder 2 goes prosperously long and he's got more mixup options than Ness by an order of magnitude. None of which abates your thesis
Optimal lucas IS a touch of death character so explosif when he gets going , my main for 4 years dropped ness for him for better or worse hes just so satisfying to play , very hard but satisfying
This is my issue with what makes a character viable in the ultimate meta just because someone is less commonly played and lacks solid tournament results doesn't mean their not good and ultimate has a balanced roster (Now that steve is banned) Is That most People Just are unwillgly to focus effort into playing those characters they just pick a high or top tier and call it a day. I have achieved Max GSP Or Very High Gsl with Most Low Mid to bottom tiers with only one exception being Game and watch who i only use if I want to play with minimal effort and energy. Dr Mario,Bowser Jr, Villager, Toon Link, Mewtwo,Including Lucas are all the characters I achieved high or max GSP Like for example You Couldn't Tell me A Notable Zelda Main right this second but you can certainly name a whole family pyra and mythra mains. Why cant you tell me a notable Zelda main but a buttload of pyra and mythra mains I mean Zelda has been in here since Melee? Because the ultimate meta is so obsessed with top tiers and high tier characters that they automatically assume those that they dont play are automatically considered Bad. And the reason why their bad is the same EVERY. Dang. Time Range,Recovery,Mobility or damage racking or killing Trust me look up a top tier main's tier list and you will hear one of these 5 reasons all the dang time for the lower tiers but man as soon as they reached the high tier and up they make Multiple strong arguments to their viability make multiple notable mains and go on and on and trust me when i say the high to top tier characters segments are always gonna be longer because players these days are so biased
Lucas is among my all time most played smash characters for sure, but if he's against a player/fighter that doesn't get completely obliterated by pk fire it almost always at best feels like a coin flip xD
As a Little Mac player, Lucas is by far my worst possible matchup due to the reasons you’ve explained. He’s a nightmare to fight for Mac players due to his edge guarding tools and Mac’s abysmal recovery.
I feel like if you aren't a fan of Mother 3, it just makes more sense to play Ness. He's close enough to Lucas, but easier, like you said at the end. Lucas HAS some crazy potential, but the mechanical skill and mixups needed to get things going is a lot more to ask for. High skill floor, high skill ceiling.
this sounds very similar to zelda actually. she’s my main, and it definitely feels like she plays in parts the same way lucas does. looking forward to her episode to see what your thoughts are 😊
as a lucas main, a lot of people don't play him because he is wayy too technical for quite little reward. he is very hard to get inconsistent but if u can make up for it i think he is high tier. his kit is very underrated and actually insanely good. also as u mentioned in the video, he has one of the best edgeguarding capability in the entire game which is insane. the only reason that he is pretty much a mid tier is because he is very unrepresented and doesn't have the results to make him higher than mid tier on tier lists
Lucas has been my main since Smash 4, and I don't see that changing anytime soon. I am better with Lucas than basically every other character in the game, with Ness being the closest to Lucas. I do want to point out that one possible reason why Lucas isn't a super popular character in competitive Smash could be because he has a hard time against swords, which many of the top and high tier characters have. It is something that Ness also has a hard time dealing with.
Smash 4 Lucas was my main and my favorite fighting game main, they took away so much from his combos with the nerfs to down throw and Nair and just gave his moves slightly more damage. He had the most satisfying combo routes in the series, but now in Ultimate o barely play him because he so much more basic and boring
Lucas is most definitely not as good as the better half of the cast, aside from Z-airand.. maybe psi magnet? he really doesn't have anything that can be compared to anything the high tiers have. I love playing him though! Mother 3 is my favorite game ever, and I love playing him. (I love trying to get his back air spike.) So honestly, he's not good but you can definitely make him work, I hope a Lucas main can win a tournament, but Regalo's win against whydo's Steve is still my favorite smash match ever.
a few things missed here imo. another reason why no one is picking him up is because reaching his potential isn't just hard, it is waaaay too hard. fucking up 1 djcz leaves you floaty above the enemy without a doublejump... using his up smash cancel invincibility is also super execution heavy (imagine up smash canceling into djcz - would be bridge comboing but with melee yoshi parries added to it). you have to be not only super good at mixing up, you have to master it because your neutral is not straightforward. for that kind of mixup game you have to master slingshotting and snaskedashing to have a wide enough room of mixup game. basically he needs to be pushed in ways most people havn't done yet because most characters' have an easier time reaching their potentials and their kits offer good powerbudget in specializing in a few areas. imagine Lucas had an easy way to get people offstage consistently - he would be broken. needless to say, great video. I enjoyed it!
![[LIVE] : ONE ลุมพินี 88 | คู่เอก "ป้อมเพชร vs อัสลามจอน"](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/1ZqTVVbMgbo/mqdefault.jpg)
I love that u spend the first half of these videos strictly talking positively about the character which actually makes people wanna play him, despite the title. Lol
The k rool video is what pushed me over the edge to fall into the void
@@henkiestudios5117 I'm not even gonna pretend I understand what that means.
@@theshadowspider97 honestly a joker isn’t a good thing
@@henkiestudios5117me too. i play krool now and im trying out link because of these videos. they both have a ton of downsides but they fit my playstyle so its a nonissue. i would’ve never guessed id like them but these videos showed me how cool they could be
@@Gelt5 You understood correctly what is was trying to say, I rly wasn’t expecting someone to understand but yeah congrats
I think Lucas is one of those characters with a kit that just has.so.much.damn potential. Like megaman, Wii fit, duck hunt, just a super underrated character that is begging to have a top player main him and go on an unprecedented run
I highly doubt it. He's way too floaty and his disadvantage sucks. For a character with so many different tools and character expression, he only really wins by being annoying rather than being good.
@@Sh1v3rIZAE bad day on elite smash huh bud
@@SerenadeURA I like how Smash players first instinct is to assume that you just lost on quickplay if they don't like your opinion on a childrens party game lol. Cope harder.
He gets a lot of bad rep from the 12 year old wifi warriors on elite smash
Bro typing like asap rocky
Because Mother 3 hasn’t been released yet.
💀bruh
Mother 3 has too much incense music, Nintendo could get sued.
@@orangeslash1667 do you mean licensed music?
@@orangeslash1667 I feel like the could just change the music while keeping the same bpm and it would be fine. The problem is that would cost them more money than it would make them
@@EmilXOM Most of music in Mother 3 take too much inspiration form other songs.
There is a video called (All Known Musical References in MOTHER 3) for more detail.
just taking some rolecall for the lucas mains here!
(and if you're a REAL one, tell me your fav skin alt! mines is the claus one :D)
Here! I use the 6th skin (the one based on Duster!)
Here!
Representing!
Here
HERE
Another thing holding Lucas back is his lack of out of shield options. Having a slow up-smash, a slow projectile up-b, and a slow grab means that his only oos options are his aerials. Oos nair and up air are frame 10; oos fair and zair are frame 12; oos dair is frame 13; and oos bair is frame 18.
Oos djcz is a thing
@@owenduffy5745 yep and its one of the best oos options in the game. At like 10 percent it leads to a djcz train, at zero a nair loop which is pretty much guaranteed 70%, at 60+ optimized lucas Will undoubtedly kill confirm you, and thats off of a frame 4 oos option. Its footstool djcz.
@@electricssb Is there anyone out there using oos footstool djcz consistently? If you can point me to a set or two to see it in action I'd love to check it out
@@tracerbullet85 theres no set that i know of but theres a yter who does it consistently. His name is lyro. Look up lyro lucas and youll find some footstool vids.
@@electricssb sweet, thanks! I'll check him out
Lucas mains ALL swear he’s really good; solid high tier at least. But there just isnt the results to back it up. Being weak to swords in the game big sword aerials are at their strongest is pretty bad, as well as competing with Ness which is wayyy easier to play as Vars said. His mains although low in numbers do all really love him at the very least. Big character loyalty vibes
To be fair I don't think he's as bad as others make him out to be. Imo he's just very mid. Then again a lot of people don't realise that even with that low tier in Ultimate doesn't mean much unless your like bottom 10 and even then most of them are viable with another character. Except for the bottom 3 they're just bad
Oh yeah I definitely agree, his stubby hit boxes VS a swordfighter really suck playing against.
Admittingly Ness Loses to Big Swords as well and his hitboxes actually are less disjointed so admittedly your gonna need different arguments to prove Lucas lack of viability
Definitely not true. Lucas mains barely go to majors and they still have great results-look at nitox. Plus, he has many ways to deal with swords. Djcz, pk fire, and nair can all catch landings, plus he has footstool zair oos which leads to his entire combo game past 0. Also, Lucas’s combo game is a lot more ridiculous than Vars gives credit for and he will likely get way more off a single neutral interaction than the swordie, while being able to win neutral more bc swordies have to approach him.
@@RealityParrotness has much better punish game and combo game, better side b as well.
I think a Why No One Plays Chrom would be interesting. I cant think of any other character where its literally just one thing holding them back and how obvious that one thing is
Cuz roy exists
Upb bad.
Upb bad.
You just explained why the video would not be interesting lol
@@PineapplePineapplePineapplePin I mean you could say the same to Lucas if you looked at it simpler: he is just missing a consistent way to get people offstage, that would make him automatically top tier
as lucas main i have been WAITING to see a why no one plays lucas video
Same here bro
Same here bro
Same here bro
NOT same here bro main krool
@@notlucas6859 krool is more cringe than lucas
Interesting, I like how you bring up and point out that the "I have to think more than you do" is a big drawback. I think BOTW Link has this problem as well? It just turns into a ton of "i need to always make the right play/react" instead of "they have to react to me".
I don't think this is true because like does not have to operate in big brain mode. The most historically successful Link T just played Melee-Sm4sh style link, where you can get a lot from being smart but being good with fundies was usually enough. I still think that's probably true and the Link players may be optimising his gameplay too much into tricks and goofy stuff
@@illford T might have benefitted from playing in the early unoptimized meta. What he was doing back then might not work now.
One of the factors I think why Lucas is underplayed is that he is too technical for how much you get out of him. For example, Lucas’s very good jump-cancel zair loops are, if I’m remembering correctly, like frame perfect (having to press jump and grab at the same time), which is a turn off when others of similar or greater strength can do other things while being much easier to play.
You’re actually spot on, it’s all execution and how much you can get out of it, people who don’t have to be as precise can get just as good or better reward than Lucas does. And consistency is very very very crucial in top level play. That’s why I think Kirby and doc are better not only because they are not held back by multi hits you can sdi out of but also because they have no sour spots inconveniencing them so killing is not a problem along with them being mad easy to use. Just get good at the game and you’ll have good results as long as the character doesn’t need a whole rework essentially like lucas
I’m a Lucas main (and a casual) and I love this. Ironically I love his Jack of all trades nature - feels like just so much untapped potential and creative potential that, when figurd out, can go into any situation. I feel I could play him forever and keep learning cool ways to use his arsenal and I LOVE that. Plus I’m ass at edge guarding in general so he covers that for me so it’s a nice perk. Fantastic video and I learned a lot about why I love Lucas through it, thanks!!
Lucas feels like adult Link in the sense that he feels stronger than his counterpart's AND has a higher skill cealing but Lucas and adult Link lack the results to backup those statements
He's also like adult Link in the way that their mains love to theorycraft and bark about potential that will realistically never happen consistently. ( Link bomb loops and Lucas rope snake z-air chains. I swear Link losing his tether grab/recovery was a big enough hit to his viability as is, but the changes to his bomb ruin his growth because the players are always too focused on the bomb potential. The fact Remote Bomb won't detonate on it's own is a blessing and a curse. Link can't z drop another bomb to cover his landings nor poke with clawshot/hookshot anymore. Limiting Remote Bomb to only one out at a time, while it makes sense, really really hurts his defense. )
Lucas was my literal first main ever in this series (started with brawl), and I've never changed my mind. Love the little guy! Also, I need to start practicing those zair djc
Something you eluded to but didn't outrite state is how Lucas is a glass cannon. His OoS is -10 (disregarding advanced tech: footstool djcz, upsmash parrying). He also has no decent button in disadvantage, which is totally opposite of Ness, and Lucas is floaty. It makes his best option when above his opponent to retreat to ledge.
However, his ledge options aren't that terrible. Djcz will force the opponent to shield. Which then sets up for drop-down rising magnet into an almost guaranteed up-air. This makes ledge trapping Lucas a RPS match that favors lucas against most characters.
This necessitates learning advanced techniques+combos and having a great grasp on fundamentals in order to avoid downward spiraling during a game. Making the skill-floor for Lucas higher than players are willing to commit to in order to play a character that's "only above average"
As a lucas main, I agree wholeheartedly. I've never quite been able to put into words what that feeling is of the "two part" system, but Vars did it great. There is also the added difficulty of just how unintuitive some of the Lucas-specific tech is. Double jump canceling zair has taken me so long to figure out, and then even then it's not the most amazing tool in neutral by any means. I think the joy of playing Lucas (and my personal enjoyment of the character) comes from the fact that he is just SO difficult, so a win really feels like you earned it with all the hours and brain power required that other characters simply just don't require
Most people aren't trying to do a 3 frame window input 50 times a stock just to have a neutral
Thats called short hopping. Also, ppl play melee.
But it’s so cool
@@electricssb And that's the problem, this game is not Melee.
I remember practicing the DJCZ for so long before getting the muscle memory down. Not played smash in a while but I'll admit it was definitely a trying time and if that's what can really wrap up a big chunk of his neutral, I can't blame people for having apprehension towards him.
Thank you for the video. To add on to what you’ve said (as an old Lucas main), 1.) PK thunder in neutral is good. It’s best used within a close range of the opponent and should be used to shield poke and apply pressure to the opponent's shield. PK thunder shield stuns so the opponent can’t do an action while PK Thunder is circling around their shield. This can be used while trying to land from above your opponent. Hitting lucas while PK thunder’s tail is still hitting the opponent will cause massive shield damage and provide lucas with an escape option and it’s fairly safe on shield. Not meant to be spammed because the opponent can predict this and HARD PUNISHED PK Thunder’s slow start up. 2.) Lucas is like Lucario and he suffers like min min and greninja. Lucas oos is awful. So like greninja he shouldn’t shield. Lucas also can’t punish cross ups (behind him) just like min min. Neutral air can’t help as long as the move is disjointed or safe. Lucas can’t anti air. This alone makes him a D tier character. Lucas cannot cover vertical and diagonal vertical air approaches without putting himself at risk. It’s easy to jump in to approach lucas because either he can’t cover an angle (like vertical diagonally behind him) or if he can it’ll trade. Upsmash, pk thunder, uptilt are laggy. Up air and neutral air both risk lucas trading hits with the adversary. 3.) Lucas is bad defensively. Lucas’s hair is also a hurt box. A couple hits on his shield and he can be shield poked because his hair sticks out. This applies to ledge trapping. Lucas on the ledge has to make an immediate decision or he’ll get hit because his hair stands up above the ledge. One good thing, if you main Lucas for years and switch to another character you’ll automatically be good cause DANG LUCAS IS HARD!!!.
Been waiting for this video.
I love that you mention the inconsistency of nair, too. It's a decent tool for those not suspecting it, but while similar it will never compare to Palutena's.
Excellent video through and through.
If people actually took the time to learn how to play lucas instead of just picking up ness because hes easier to learn, Lucas would probably be a top tier character, maybe even higher up than ness… but unfortunately a live in a world where nobody knows what the mother series is… and even more unfortunately we live in a world where MOTHER 3 STILL ISN’T LOCALISED
the other problem with lucas is just how tiring he is to play in terms of moving. his movement is ridiculously complicated, with wavebouncing being required for him to even have ok movement. he will definitely get better as ultimate ages due to him still having stupid amounts of tools and mixups, but yea his frame data and slow ass air speed make him super vulnerable to swords, which is a slight problem. but always remember that just because someone has bad tourney showings does not mean the character is bad it means the players are.
His air speed isn't slow, though.
Wtf are you talking about. He has the same air speed as Cloud. Plus some bonkers frame data. It’s range on his moves that he lacks.
@@infinityheart_tm9270 Dude, I was just correcting him because he said his air speed is slow, while it isn't. Didn't say anything else.
Wavebouncing isn't hard lmao. DJCZ isn't hard on its own either it's more getting it consistently in the heat of the moment.
Project M/Project + Lucas's movement is ridiculously complicated as well, but u don't see that holding him back
Also his air speed isn't even really slow
Lucus is my main! I clicked on this video just to defend him!
having watched your video, I notice you never mentioned his up smash which has I-frames that overlap with its cancel window allowing you to use it as a safe approach. Yes, it's hard to pull off but that's what makes Lucus so good, he rewards high skill.
My boy Lucas
I love Lucas
thank you for making this I’ve asked forever!
I grew up maining Lucas and Toon Link, and Lucas is honestly my favorite. If you really know what you're doing, he's beautiful to play when in rhythm.
Bro wtf we are the same person ????!!?!? Literally everything u said applies to me wtf. Same mains same favorite same opinion same everything WTF😂😂😂
@@kossibwaya Add me and let's train
As someone that mained Lucas since he was introduced into Smash 4 and really enjoyed playing him as a solid mid tier... Lucas most certainly feels like a low tier character in Ultimate. The second I started playing as Lucas in this game I was disappointed.
They nerfed his down throw combos, footstool combos, added lag to his PK Fire, added landing lag and a terrible knockback angle to his Nair, made his jab connect less consistently, and the list goes on.
The minor buffs to his moves do not compensate for what he lost in addition to the weaknesses the character already has. His PK Fire kills earlier, his PK Freeze sends horizontally, and his Dsmash easily 2-frames. These buffs would have been nice if Lucas didn’t receive significant nerfs that really hurt him.
In ultimate his disadvantage state is poor, his advantage state is unremarkable, recovery is relatively exploitable, his out of shield options are weak, and his grab just doesn’t cut it. These are certainly the makings of a character lower on the tier list.
I don’t think he’s unplayable, but he is nowhere near the top half of the cast. I’ll always play him for fun though! (I main Ness for tournaments at this point).
Yeah, it wasn't fair seeing some characters have their throw combos practically gutted (Lucas) while others got to keep theirs in this game. (Luigi is the worst offender of that)
I do not main either of these characters, so I'm reading this moreso to learn rather than to contribute, but I do think this is well said. That being said, I don't remember Lucas ever being IN Smash 4, and would love a memory jog and / or something new
@@spartacusthememelord6890 He was DLC, not base roster. Maybe, u didn't have the DLC.
@@theshadowspider97 ah, yeah that checks out.
Really? He was nerfed that badly from Sm4sh? I'm an ult Lucas main so I had no idea.
As a Lucas secondary main, I confirm this 100%.
Lucas is good for players that don't know him well or have moves with punishable windows. Lucas is what I call a "1-2 combo player" you have to covert your own combos with no grantees or truth.
Edit: OMG, you mention it right after I typed the comment out... xD (10:40)
I play Lucas and I just saw another Lucas in online, we both inmediately greet each other with the d pad messages and down crouch at the start of the match
one of my favorite moments in ssbu
imagine if one very highly ranked player said rob was bad and no one really gave him a look for years. that happens all the time in smash. like amsa with yoshi, all it takes is one good player to take the time to learn a character and show that theyre more than people originally thought
Great analysis, loved the analogy with letters: a multitude of tools in his arsenal, yet not synergizing effectively to form a successful workflow. There are many on-the-spot solutions utilizing excellent tools, but they are not designed to work in unison. This results in highly creative solutions, yet they are not as efficient as ABC or XYZ. Local optimum can be different from global optimum. The system will always outperform the individual. Very enlightening, thank you!
Haven't played this game in a while, nice to see Lucas is still underrated
Lucas is one of my absolute favs. His PK up smash is, literally, killer. And he's got multiple meteors.
As a Lucas main who actually knows how to play Lucas, yea hes a beautiful character
I’ve been a Lucas main since brawl and I never looked back
OMG Same. I Still give m'y Brother hard Time when I Play Lucas and this is since brawl 😂😂
The comments you made about his toolkit being incongruous reminds me of other characters you've covered like Banjo and Mewtwo.
one thing that I think you neglected to mention about why the few people who do play lucas play him is because of you being forced to be creative to get to the edge guarding state - he is a character that demands you to play him creatively, which to many people is really fun - along with that idea of having to switch gears makes him a really unique character to play, even if those things that make him unique also hinder him
💯💯💯 I play Lucas and this is how I feel, well said
@@vkshravi88that s True 👍
I've been so curious about this.
Surprised you didn’t mention how they removed his D-Throw combos.
I think that plays a big part in why he feels like he lives and dies by edge guarding now because the D-Throw conversions he had last game played a huge part in making his on stage presence much more dangerous. It helped his damage racking and as we all know led to that infamous D-Throw U-Air kill combo that worked on many characters as early as like 75% with rage. Now it’s good they removed the kill setup as it was degenerate but removing consistent on stage conversions off grab like that altogether hurt his on stage presence to the point where he now feels forced to get you off ledge ASAP and has to use more advanced stuff to do it. Further making him more unforgiving to master.
The capacity for Lucas' broken toolkit to punish untrue combos with immediate death is also a highly conditional but effective application.
Arguably the best between stock strategy too, in tether hanging, dropping, and reattaching to wait out their invincibility before using ledge invincibility
Why NO ONE Plays Lucas
Me: *looks at my elitesmash Lucas*
yeah, no one
This is talking purely about Competitive Tournament play.
This is crazy cause he is my go to. He has some of the best standard moving attacks (whatever they’re called when you flick the stick) that make for perfect surprise hits that pack a punch. Love to launch himself too with pk thunder
I think Lucas is a character that suffers from being actually fair and balanced in a game full unfair and broken characters
I tought i opened my blue archive in the background bc of the music in the start
this is a good video and explains a lot of the character’s issues. i think another point of note is how lucas’s air stats just don’t suit his moves all that well. he’s just a touch too slow and a touch too floaty to have some really nasty strings that would look closer to his PM iteration
I think the only thing you didn't mention about lucas that really matters is the four ways his recovery is better than ness'. The first you actually pointed a bit, which is his pk thunder being transcendental and less susceptible to edge guard. The second is how far his floatiness takes him with his air dodge. The third is his tether, and finally, his upb itself goes a longer distance. Given the inherent vulnerability of his and ness' upb recovery, having ways to work around is really important. But I agree that none of that compensates the flaws you mentioned of not integrating enough his gameplan.
Assuming Pk freeze and thunder are only edge guarding tools is your first mistake.
Fr i said the same
Reminds me of what you said about Falco. Amazing if he can get to the part of the game where he shines, but it's just a little too hard to get there as consistently as you need to.
Calling Lucas a "D,H,L,Q,S,W" makes more sense than it has any right too. I think you covered most of Lucas well here, and I do appreciate how Ness was compared as a similar archetype rather than a 1-to-1 character as other guides do (seriously there are way too many Lucas guides or viability rankings of him that just boil down to "how good is Ness lmao") I do think there are two things that weren't covered in this video that do need to be mentioned. Lucas basically doesn't have a part 1 for his game plans, as you did mention in your video, and this is a serious problem for his pressure game. You have some of the best aerial combo moves in the game (up air, nair, dair and bair to an extent) but how do you start a combo? If this were a character like Fox, Diddy Kong, or Pikachu you could start a combo by using grounded tilts and throws, or a really fast aerial. Lucas has no grounded combo starters up until about 130% where down tilt can combo for a KO. This means that if Lucas wants to start raking up damage he has to be jumping and doesn't really get a moment to do anything on the ground. This becomes an even worse problem when you realize Lucas' fastest aerial is frame 7. Other character can just hold forward and press button and will most likely beat out Lucas in a direct confrontation. Cloud also kind of has this problem, but cloud back air controls the entire game and his sword means that even if his up tilt doesn't true combo his large range and safety still put him in a great spot to juggle or pressure platforms. Also Lucas not having a combo down throw means his entire shield pressure game (REALLY GOOD BTW) just goes out the window because why would the opponent not keep shielding? Mario has basically the same level of safety on shield, but because his throws actually do something at lower percents it makes it much harder to shield against him. Lucas just doesn't have any glue to hold his move set together and you start to really feel just how useless or conditional some of his moves can really be (up tilt especially that move just doesn't have a use)
I mean with how Lucas is described, Lucas still feels like a 1-to-1 character to Ness, which is a shame when Lucas feels like he's supposed to be play differently, but is held back by him basically being a Ness rehash, but the moves aren't properly in sync with each other. The 1-to-1 issue has always been around since Brawl, the reason Lucas wasn't having this problem in Smash 4 was simply cause he was the better character & Ness was the inferior one, their roles were reversed. Literally, what I truly hate about this is that because of the way Lucas was designed since Brawl, it's always going to stem on which is superior & inferior. Even you can't really do a 1-to-1 with Mario & Dr. Mario because they literally play too differently & the similar moveset is an illusion, which ironically makes Dr. Mario feel more unique & fun than Lucas.
@@psiforce8342 give me one example of lucas being a ness “rehash” without mentioning pk fire or pk thunder
@@BragiZero it's not about sharing the exact same moves, but rather how they play.
Lucas's gameplay is versatile just like Ness in the game, but as video mentioned, Lucas ends up being "D,H,L,Q,S,W", to put simply, is all over the place with no really sync & proper connection to properly form the character's gameplay. They simply don't properly link together & all of Lucas's moves come off as completely one-note like Lucas's specials. PK Freeze is only useful for edgeguards alone while PK Flash does more than for edgeguarding, PK Fire is a great zoning move & edgeguard move, the one special move that is not merely specialized, but Ness's PK Fire does that, but there's so much you can do with Ness's PK Fire than Lucas's, PK Thunder, same like PK Freeze, only really useful edgeguarding alone, meanwhile Ness's PK Thunder is also useful for juggles & you can even combo out of it when in the right position. And PSI Magnet, which Lucas is extremely hard to use due to the changes unlike with Ness where his PSI Magnet is a lot more reliable & more versatile.
Again, the problem with Lucas is he tries to be different, but is stuck as a Ness rehash since Brawl (it's really not something to past that when he originally was gonna replace Ness in Melee, but Mother 3 never came that time so Ness was kept).
@@psiforce8342 oh okay I understand now. So their special moves do different things and have different use cases so clearly Lucas is just Ness. I'm joking of course but you also never mentioned their normals, ranges, physics or movement which put them in completely different archetypes. Ness is a close range bruiser that wants to get into his opponents face and deal a devastating combo while Lucas is a close to mid range zoner that wants to pressure his opponent into shield and punish them after limiting their options. If anything, Lucas plays much closer to a character like Palutena. Both have great aerials for pressure their opponent's shield and both have great projectiles for taking space and creating edgeguards. The main differences is that Palutena has a grab that actual does things to the opponent, with her down throw having good combos and back throw being a good kill throw. Palutena also has a more effective and impactful combo game that is also more intuitive to execute, something that Lucas struggles to have. So no, I don't think the entirety of Lucas and his viability to be played comes down to "is Ness good?" because that completely ignores the archetypes the characters fall into. I also find it very strange how you claimed Mario and Dr. Mario are more distinct characters than Ness and Lucas. You're telling me you can notice the difference in knockback values, angles, and overall utility in moves that have the same animations, but can't do the same for characters that have completely different moves with unique animations, frame data, knockback, and utility?
@@BragiZero Thing with Ness is he's versatile, an all-rounder, he has disjoints & projectiles for a reason to help play both aggressively & defensively. If there's one thing I'm the most hateful with Lucas is that aspects of him should've been given to Ness (ground speed, air speed, forward tilt, & PK Thunder 2 travel distance). Even when they have different attributes, moves & animations, they both still play the same way: versatile PSI fighters. I would be more forgiving if Ness & Lucas end up being designed to cover each others' backs instead of essentially "who just does it better?". I really would want Lucas to be reworked completely so Ness can be properly updated himself, otherwise rather have Lucas an alt than a separate character. I've literally played Ness & Lucas since day 1 & I still do not understand Lucas. He tries to space & zone, but they feel one-note. He tries being a more aggressive combo character, but his approach is pretty limited & hard to start combos (especially with the stupid nair change for Lucas).
Lucas doesn't have to be exactly like PM/P+ Lucas, but he just needs to completely play like his own character just to the point u can't really compare Ness & Lucas. At least with Marth & Roy and then Mario & Dr. Mario, they're able to stand out from each other thanks to how reworked they are currently.
Wait, you literally said EVERYTHING I’ve ever thought about him in my years of playing him!
I have always loved PM Lucas while not liking this version exactly because of the problem you outlined: that his tool just don't synergize very well despite being strong in a vacuum.
PM really let his movement and pressure come together to solidify his combo game and edgegaurds by letting him betted flow between the two, as well as gave him additional win conditions besides edgegaurding to make up for his trouble actually getting in to start with.
By making him a faster faller and increasing his movement speed to allow him to transition his combos better, and by giving him the power up mechanic and adding some on stage kill confirms so he could finish opponents with combos into smash attacks if he couldn't effectively edgegaurd them, all of a sudden his gameplay flows extremely well while still having the identity of short range and trouble approaching.
Lucas is my main and I will stick with him till'' 2098 no matter what.
me too
thank you thank you THANK YOU for making a video about Lucas that just blatantly compares him to Ness or talks bad of him just to make Ness more favorable. The comparison with Ness is annoying overall because they have completely different moves. So I appreciate that you didn't really get into that and instead positively talked about Lucas' moveset, as well as making me understand his weaknesses in a respectable manner. You're the only video that does this. Thank you so much.
Definitely one of the hardest characters in the game to play with tricky tech, strange physics, and an unusual set of moves
I just unlocked lucas. Ive never seen him before! I love everything about him and came on here to find more info.
PK Freeze is an anti camping tool and forces approaches.
Vars, here’s where I heavily disagree. You talked about him having a two part game plan, which is true to an extent. Yes, he has onstage pressure and edge guarding, but Lucas’s win conditions on stage are just as strong. For one, the zair chain can be reliably combo’d into bair or dair, which means that he’ll kill you straight up hitting one of these. Additionally, Lucas’s nair combos are a lot stronger than you’d think. They are true if u fast fall in between and can either lead to a potential zero to death if you use less nairs or ~80% with ur opponent off stage already as long as you end with a fair. Also, Lucas’s onstage pressure is superb. He has footstool djcz oos which leads into the majority of his busted combo game off of a frame 4 option oos, he has a moderately nerfed melee wave dash in snake dashing and nair, djcz, and pivot ftilt are all good approach options. Additionally, he can keep opponents stuck in shield with his shield pressure, and he has some of the best kill confirms in the game. From about 65% to like 150% he can reliably kill confirm, either with dair loops, nair drag downs, dtilt ftilt, grab confirms, or some combination of this. Plus, his movement isn’t bad. His shield out of dash is frame 8, so he can dash dance a lot, making his movement a lot better than you think, while also having the option to snakedash in between to really mix up approaches since it lets u cancel initial dash. Really the only reason why no one plays him is that he’s hard and placed low in the tier list. But honestly, optimized Lucas is likely a top 10 character, and his tech is definitely possible to perform consistently.
I love Lucas, but top ten is pushing it. Def needs someone to tap into his full potential though
@@firebal6129not really characters like fox and aegis have way worse weaknesses and milder strengths.
Lmao top 10? Y’all are on some crazy hopium
@@electricssb
"milder strengths."
What?
@@user-be3qc7re9o aegis cant kill. Maybe the fox one was out of line. But lucas’s combo game is nuts and his edgeguarding invalidates half thr cast. He also can cancel an inital dash with a snake dash, making his neutral really busted.
It's funny, I feel like I run into him inordinately often online. Competitively not there, but casually popular.
Lucas has a lot of potential with his kit but he's too difficult with the amount of effort he has for minimal reward
I've always felt this way playing Lucas but never had the words to explain it. You did a fantastic job outlining why he's so unconventional to use
I feel like lucas is weird because he has tools to deal with everybody, very well too.
His neutral is actually FREE if the opponent isnt a swordie like cloud, but bis advantage state more than makes up for it. Rising nair dragdowns that go into your entire kit forever, insane multihits that cover any options, and disjoints that go ludicrously far.
When people say lucas loses to swordies i genuinely think its only neutral that is an actual problem. Almost every swordie gets robbed by pk thunder outright no matter what they actually do, the only way they make it back is if the lucas main lets them.
Lucas needs somebody to really push them and when that happens its joever
I agree, I main Lucas, but I would also add one of my biggest problems is not having a get off me move. It’s tough, you’re kinda this fake zoner with pk fire and zair for good movement/spacing options and when fast characters get on top of you, nothing is really good OOS
Does anybody else remember when a random pm player named neon randomly came out of nowhere and styled on mew2king
1:08 that is the funniest shit ive seen a villager do
Another thing Lucas is good at especially against slow characters is circle camping. If you come right in front of Lucas linearly, he can PK Fire. If you approach, he can easily escape with his massive jump and decent air speed. If you’re above him, he can hurt you real bad with Up Smash
I was waiting for a lucas video! thanks
Who decided Lucus should have three kill throws on a grab that can true combo from his normals? I want to have a long chat with them.
Forward Throw only kills at percentages when Up-Throw would kill from anywhere onstage. He really only has two.
@@infinityheart_tm9270That's two too many. Me personally I think that characters with tether grabs shouldn't have kill throws at all
@@ojutay8375 Isn't that what separates him from Ness, since Ness is easier to learn??????
@@orangeslash1667 ness has the most infamous kill throw in smash unless you're referring to something else
@@lum_berry111 oh really???
Literally all of Lucas’ moves kil, and I think that’s the funniest thing.
That’s why I main him
I think Lucas’s combo game is top 10 in the game. It’s surprisingly technical and finicky but can reliably take most of the cast from zero to 80 percent without relying on reads. People write him off as having stupid edge guarding and projectiles, but he genuinely has the whole kit necessary to succeed. I really think most people just don’t want to play to his real strengths, because of that strange technicality.
Why a character that has a very good kit but is condered mid is very hard to explain but you do a very good job in these videos
His kit doesn't feel like it flows together imho. Ness', for how annoying it can be, works with itself really well due to the synergy between his throws, specials, and normals, while Lucas' doesn't have that
In short, as someone who picked him up for a while, he's weird! He's so weird, none of his attacks follow the usual conventions of their peers, up b doesn't instantly send him up, down smash doesn't cover his back, neutral b is the weirdest projectile and freezes! He's so fun though.
You’ve done a video on almost every super heavy but Dedede, and I would like to see at video analyzing his flaws.
10:57 If it’s not 100% chance it’s a 50% chance
focus miss
@@FinnishArsonist what?
@@henkiestudios5117 Focus blast is a pokemon move that is notoriously inaccurate, people call it focus miss
@@FinnishArsonist I know the move i just didnt know that people called it focus miss, this is actually a MandJTV reference
I don't play Lucas, but I really enjoy watching Lucas matches (especially Nitox), so I wanted to point something out. Lucas does have a pretty solid on-stage game, it's just really difficult to access, because of the difficulty involved in zair techs, like DJC Zair, or snakedash.
Ness and Lucas were fairly even in Smash 4, but Ultimate made Ness much better than Lucas. Ness' PSI Magnet getting a hitbox effectively invalidated Lucas' since Ness' hitbox comes out at the beginning of the move rather than the end.
It also bears mention that Lucas' recovery is positively God tier.
Thunder 2 goes prosperously long and he's got more mixup options than Ness by an order of magnitude.
None of which abates your thesis
Optimal lucas IS a touch of death character so explosif when he gets going , my main for 4 years dropped ness for him for better or worse hes just so satisfying to play , very hard but satisfying
He finally made it, holy shit
This is my issue with what makes a character viable in the ultimate meta just because someone is less commonly played and lacks solid tournament results doesn't mean their not good and ultimate has a balanced roster (Now that steve is banned) Is That most People Just are unwillgly to focus effort into playing those characters they just pick a high or top tier and call it a day. I have achieved Max GSP Or Very High Gsl with Most Low Mid to bottom tiers with only one exception being Game and watch who i only use if I want to play with minimal effort and energy. Dr Mario,Bowser Jr, Villager, Toon Link, Mewtwo,Including Lucas are all the characters I achieved high or max GSP Like for example You Couldn't Tell me A Notable Zelda Main right this second but you can certainly name a whole family pyra and mythra mains. Why cant you tell me a notable Zelda main but a buttload of pyra and mythra mains I mean Zelda has been in here since Melee? Because the ultimate meta is so obsessed with top tiers and high tier characters that they automatically assume those that they dont play are automatically considered Bad. And the reason why their bad is the same EVERY. Dang. Time Range,Recovery,Mobility or damage racking or killing Trust me look up a top tier main's tier list and you will hear one of these 5 reasons all the dang time for the lower tiers but man as soon as they reached the high tier and up they make Multiple strong arguments to their viability make multiple notable mains and go on and on and trust me when i say the high to top tier characters segments are always gonna be longer because players these days are so biased
Steve is not banned in the vast majority of tournaments. The few tournaments that have him banned are huge outliers
Lucas is among my all time most played smash characters for sure, but if he's against a player/fighter that doesn't get completely obliterated by pk fire it almost always at best feels like a coin flip xD
As a Little Mac player, Lucas is by far my worst possible matchup due to the reasons you’ve explained. He’s a nightmare to fight for Mac players due to his edge guarding tools and Mac’s abysmal recovery.
Regalo, true to his name, is a gift to Lucas players globally
I feel like if you aren't a fan of Mother 3, it just makes more sense to play Ness. He's close enough to Lucas, but easier, like you said at the end. Lucas HAS some crazy potential, but the mechanical skill and mixups needed to get things going is a lot more to ask for. High skill floor, high skill ceiling.
If you finish Mother 3, you automatically play all Mother games
You should come to New Zealand. 3 out of our top 10 players play Lucas.
this sounds very similar to zelda actually. she’s my main, and it definitely feels like she plays in parts the same way lucas does. looking forward to her episode to see what your thoughts are 😊
Finally, now give us the Duck Hunt video 🥺
It's simple, all the good Lucas players just go to P+
Because there he doesn’t feel like an afterthought by comparison anymore. He feels like he actually wants to kill you.
as a lucas main, a lot of people don't play him because he is wayy too technical for quite little reward. he is very hard to get inconsistent but if u can make up for it i think he is high tier. his kit is very underrated and actually insanely good. also as u mentioned in the video, he has one of the best edgeguarding capability in the entire game which is insane. the only reason that he is pretty much a mid tier is because he is very unrepresented and doesn't have the results to make him higher than mid tier on tier lists
Knew this day would come...☹
Lucas has been my main since Smash 4, and I don't see that changing anytime soon. I am better with Lucas than basically every other character in the game, with Ness being the closest to Lucas. I do want to point out that one possible reason why Lucas isn't a super popular character in competitive Smash could be because he has a hard time against swords, which many of the top and high tier characters have. It is something that Ness also has a hard time dealing with.
Blue Archive OST lets go!!!
Smash 4 Lucas was my main and my favorite fighting game main, they took away so much from his combos with the nerfs to down throw and Nair and just gave his moves slightly more damage. He had the most satisfying combo routes in the series, but now in Ultimate o barely play him because he so much more basic and boring
Basic is the wrong way to describe since he can still be stylish
One-note/one-dimensional is a better way to describe
I'm a Lucas main and this is the first thing I see when I open TH-cam today 💀
Villager and Lucas are so over reliant on edge guarding in a game where the recoveries are busted
Lucas is most definitely not as good as the better half of the cast, aside from Z-airand.. maybe psi magnet? he really doesn't have anything that can be compared to anything the high tiers have. I love playing him though! Mother 3 is my favorite game ever, and I love playing him. (I love trying to get his back air spike.)
So honestly, he's not good but you can definitely make him work, I hope a Lucas main can win a tournament, but Regalo's win against whydo's Steve is still my favorite smash match ever.
Once you learn how to do DJCZ with Lucas. You can't go back.
i firmly believe lucas is one of the most difficult characters in the game, though it being closer to hand strain difficulty than brain strain
His combos are really hard to master too, I mean for the rewards.
a few things missed here imo. another reason why no one is picking him up is because reaching his potential isn't just hard, it is waaaay too hard. fucking up 1 djcz leaves you floaty above the enemy without a doublejump... using his up smash cancel invincibility is also super execution heavy (imagine up smash canceling into djcz - would be bridge comboing but with melee yoshi parries added to it). you have to be not only super good at mixing up, you have to master it because your neutral is not straightforward. for that kind of mixup game you have to master slingshotting and snaskedashing to have a wide enough room of mixup game.
basically he needs to be pushed in ways most people havn't done yet because most characters' have an easier time reaching their potentials and their kits offer good powerbudget in specializing in a few areas. imagine Lucas had an easy way to get people offstage consistently - he would be broken.
needless to say, great video. I enjoyed it!
Reason YOU should play Lucas: Mother 3 is the greatest thing Nintendo has ever created besides maybe Majora's Mask
Will you do an episode about the belmonts? if so what will it be about and when will it be?