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Lucario vs. Pikachu (15) Export

phi1ny3

Not the Mama
Joined
Apr 15, 2008
Messages
9,649
Location
in my SCIENCE! lab
Pikachu

Matchup:

55:45 (advantage)

General info:

Quote:
What moves or tactics should we watch out for? fsmash, jab, QAC. thats all i really worry about. fighting pikachu on the ground is a lot harder then fighting him in the air, most of his ground attacks are faster then ours, but dont be afraid of using Fsmash(which i personally think is awesome in this matchup)

What moves or tactics should we try to enforce in this match up? Aura Sphere is awesome in this matchup, it beats almost all of pikachu's attacks. getting pikachu into the air is what should be aimed for since we beat him there more then on the ground, dthrow and dtilt(at higher %'s). at low %s pikachu is very vulnerable to aerial combo's(as are most, if not all, characters) such as FP->fair->nair etc

Do you feel Lucario has an advantage in any particular scenario of this matchup? i believe that our air and projectile game is far superior to Pikachus, range and power is on our side, and we are not vulnerable to any of his CGs. i personally find approaching pikachu is not that difficult, either.
if you play right, you can easily find yourself living to high %s which means lots o' aura for us.


Do you feel the opponent can shut down aspects of Lucario's game? i think that we beat pikachu's air game. oh yeah, BAS>pika's neutral B and AS>almost all of pika's attacks.

Counterpicks? What to avoid and what to enforce?

i suck for stages... i always pick what i feel like unless i know (insert character here) does bad there/we do better there xD

overall i feel this is a 65:35 advantage for Lucario, 60:40 at worst
Quote:
If you get caught in Pikachu's Dsmash try DIing out and punish.

The main thing that makes Pikachu's ground game good is his speed. We outrange him, but he can get in on us very easily.

In the air we have a much easier time, he lacks the range and mobility to fight us with much up there.

His Tjolt is a nice projectile, if you try going into a camp war with him, it's just make the fight spammy until you hit higher percentages when Lucario's Aura sphere beat out his Tjolt.

If your above him and hear that terrifying, "PIKA!" then move fast and avoid the incoming thunder from above. Lucario is floaty enough to avoid it in the air.

On a positive note, Pikachu can't Dthrow or Fthrow chain grab us, or at least enough to make it matter. So there's another ******** chain grab we avoid.

RJ is right on the stages, go to Lylat, Yoshi's, Castle siege.

I'm saying 50:50, we may be good in the air and we won't die for a while, but Pikachu is still fast as hell and has a good ground game.

What to avoid:

Quote:
First off Pika's QAC is decent for offense, but not to rush into your opponent. Its more of a good approach just to get close. Also keep in mind that Pika has a animation lag after the QAC. It sends him into a 2nd jump and if he lands you can abuse the little time that he hits the floor. He can't cancel the lag unless he goes into the ledge since he has no moves that auto cancel on landing. And before anyone says anything about it, test it, because I am pretty sure that its a true statement.

Now for some extra stuffs. Pikachu will camp Lucario until there is an opening. If my memory serves correctly **I think** Fair cancels his T jolt's. But that's something you might want to test also. The one thing Pikachu has over Lucario is that he is a faster character. Pikachu can get around you pretty fast, but not that easy. There is no chain grab on Lucario for starters, and that is always a plus, so for the most part pikachu loses a great gimmick and has to fight your straight out. Pikachu's love to chain their Uairs together, for most character's its a free 10 dmg, also luckly for Lucario our dair is better then his U air, if you see a Pikachu approach you close in the air just Dair him. If a Pika player Dsmashes, Hold up and also smash DI up, it is possible to DI out of his Dsmash. The floatier the character the easier it is to do it also, and lucario is an easy person to get out of the Dsmash. Your Fsmash Out range's his, but his is a lot faster then Lucario's. The best way to Punish him if he misses is just to use an AS. One of pikachu's favorite options of of shield is his Nair, and he will attempt it if he gets a perfect shield off, not to mention it kills. That option is unavoidable unless its Fsmash, and it has to be at the tip of Lucarios fsmash to be able to react with shield in order to dodge. If a pikachu player knows that he can easily just grab, so the best option is just to Roll dodge. Upsmash kill Lucario around 120 ish ~, Nair around 130 i believe.

On recover Pikachu will try to Skull bash first if hes near the dead line, and then try to recover with his UP B. Pikachu's fastest attacks is his Uair, so he will be using that for SDI input. Pikachu can live up to decent percents against lucario also, so be cautious of that.

The one thing to remember about this match up is that he has Thunder. Also known as T1 and T2. T1 is the thunder itself and is classified as the first stage, while T2 is the thunder hitting Pikachu, classified as the 2nd stage. It makes a excellent edge guard, and an amazing kill move. You need to remember not to air dodge unnecessarily If a Pikachu sends you up and he sees it, he will punish and it will kill you x_x. His T1 and his T2 have different Frames. T1 is faster and ends faster then T2, but T2 has Invincibility frame's on startup. Just keep that in mind.

Overall the matchup is hmm... 45/55 Lucario's favor?
That seems accurate for this.
If you wait for Pika to use thunder so you can airdodge later, you risk him thundering right away. ;; That's the point of it being a gamble.

Thunder is definitely an announced/predictable attack (we're probably gonna try it at some point since it's completely safe unless you lolcounter), but it starts at the top of the screen.... that's where it comes out the fastest. It's not like at the bottom where you have a ton of time to dodge it before it gets there.

Trying to airdodge it on reaction at the top of the screen is...... well. I won't say it's impossible, but it's definitely a risk, especially since you might not be able to see yourself and the cloud.

If you get sent straight up, here's what could happen:

1) You're in too much hitstun to do anything before he thunders. Dead Lucario.
2) You predict that he'll thunder right away and airdodge to one side or the other. Lucario lives, yay!
3) You assume he'll thunder right away and airdodge, but the Pika waits for your airdodge and thunders as you come out of it. Dead Lucario.
4) You assume he'll wait for your airdodge and don't airdodge, but the Pika thunders right away. Probably dead Lucario, although it's not impossible to dodge on reaction. Just not very likely.
5) The Pika incorrectly assumes you'll airdodge and waits for it, at which point he's too slow, and you'll be low enough to dodge thunder on reaction. Lucario lives, yay!
6) You get sent outside of thunder's vertical range, and the Pika thunders right away. Lucario lives, yay!

You also increase your chances of not getting thundered by switching up which way you airdodge. Since most of the time you'll be off-screen, we usually have to predict which direction you'll go in, so always airdodging in the same direction is a huge no-no.

tl;dr: always DI utilt/usmash correctly, and you'll never have to worry about any of this, lol.
How to win:

Quote:
From reading Pikachu's match-up thread, I was able to pull out some helpful tidbits:

Pikachu has to do lots of damage before he can kill at all. Our aura boost abuses this immensely.

To avoid our AS, Pikachus will Pshield, if we throw another one, they jump. We could abuse this by throwing an AS ABOVE him, then punish him if he is smart enough to stay under it.

Keep Pikachu in the air whenever possible, our air game>his. We beat Pikachu in everything but our Uair, which he will punish us with Fair or Dair.

Pikachu’s ground game>our’s. They WILL use their Tjolt, so be prepared. DO NOT ROLL BEHIND PIKACHU, his Dsmash will rip you apart. Both of these will be used to attemt to aggravate you, which is not good for Lucarios as we cannot lose our cool for even a second.

To kill us, Pikachus will use either thunder or nair in the air, fsmash is added to this list when on the ground.


^This is a common strategy taken from Pikachu’s match-up thread.
Quote:
Also people saying that pikachu has a god like recovery, don't really know all of Pikachu's exploit.

Also if you time it right, you can knock pikachu out of his up-b to the edge with Lucario's dtilt.

You can harass his recovery a bit as well. If you're fast enough and know when he's going to skull bash to mid jump, you can carry him back with fairs, even a falling/rising bair.

My favorite thing to do, is to get him with uairs. Especially when Lucario is at high percents.

Don't be afraid to get close to Pikachu either. If he goes airborne he's most likely going to spam jolts, or attempt to quack-uair-nair. If you trot up towards him, interfere with him as much as you can. Harass with utilts when he's above you. If he lands and he's right by you, dont' attempt a grab it's going to get spot dodged, start up with jabs, then pop him back up in the air and unleash some aerials on him. Even though Lucario's damage output is ****, so is Pikachu's but he's got speed on his side to rack up damage on you.

I even find using your tilts, and when you can grab him, fthrow/bthrow work wonders as well.


Helpful tips:

Quote:
depends on size, but a good rule of thumb I keep is to basically wait until 70-80% before I try camping.


Quote:
Pika's recovery is good, there's no reason to undermine it and it's probably the second best in this game. Whether you agree or not, it's still difficult to do anything to Pika's recovery. It's by no means predictable and with a lagless ending he can uB from pretty much anywhere and make it back safely and untouched. Expecting him to jump to the ledge everytime is naive.

Biggest thing in this match is probably trying to get out of the habit of momentum cancelling as soon as you're knocked into the air. You need to be totally lagless while airborne to avoid thundergimps. Watch Pikachu super closely, always make sure you can hear the TV too lol.


Stages:

Quote:
To Hough123: Don't double post, its impolite =].

Also stage counters are Lylat, Yoshi's, Castle siege. Normally I counter on Castle.
Quote:
japes seems like a good idea... lol
almost completely negate the chance of a thunder KO, since the thundercloud doesnt even reach near the top of the screen, you would have to be above about 120 for it to KO, once you get higher, a usmash/utilt/dsmash would send you above the cloud, where it might take like 170 to outright KO :p
The above theory is rather interesting, even though t-jolt becomes much, much more useful on Japes.

Disclaimer: This thread is made for the sole purpose of keeping matchup discussing clean and organized. If people wish to discuss a past matchup, they may do so in this thread without cluttering the current discussion.
 

Rayku

Smash Lord
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Gawd I would never CP a Pikachu to Jungle Japes. They can create a thunderjolt shield just standing there and shooting on one of the platforms.
 

phi1ny3

Not the Mama
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Messages
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in my SCIENCE! lab
Yeah I don't like it either, but I wanted to add that as some lol info. Besides, that's when you start doing some "attempts" at AS camping! (lol)
 

Rayku

Smash Lord
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Feb 21, 2004
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Haha. Lucario camping. Should only work on people who don't know what the X/Y buttons do :p

I had my first experience on Jungle Japes in teams yesterday. I lived to about 190% each life, against a Donkey Kong/ROB team.

Teammate wouldn't let me go Pikachu :(
 

Browny

Smash Hater
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kinda dissapointing how no pikachu mains came here to say anything... and then to settle on an advantage on a higher tier character at the same time lol. not that I disagree or anything, but should get at least some (not one) pika mains ideas

gotta get an idea of pikachus bad stages. ignore lucarios good stages at the moment.

RC will do its typical job of completely disrupting normal approach patterns, always annoying to an enemy and removing the option for pika to ledge camp seems viable. no pika mains near me so I cant really test anything :/
 

Ephyon

Smash Champion
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anagrams into "no hype", "he pony&q
according to their stage discussion thread, pikachus hate:

brinstar (because of platform screwing up QAC, lava)

LM (no thunder cause of high ceiling, QAC screwed up as well cause of house's ceiling, pillars will stop thunderjolts)

somehow BF, only for defensive rodents only though, seems offensive pikas will get advantage from the platforms with QAC. (mainly platforms screwing up thunder and full jump tjolts)

Yoshi's island (big platform interfering with full jump tjolts, as well as random shy guys passing by)

on the other hand, pikas like Norfair, PS 1, Corneria and Smashville.
 
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