You guys are really sensationalizing what I am/we are saying... this is not a matchup guide or a how to guide. Its a conversation about a characters current "strength" based on the present metagame and future growth.
If you think a character has more to offer than we give them credit for, then perhaps you should speak openly and with tact rather than immediately chastising a conversation that was meant to foster open discussion. Why else would we release these to begin with and let you read the discussion if we didn't want some feedback?
At any rate, the aura is definitely a huge strength of the character, the way I see it. Lucario rarely spends much time below at low percents to begin with. Once he gets combod up to a higher percent, he quickly regains ground from the aura.
This doesn't mean I'm saying a good PLAYER can't avoid damage and maintain a lead. I'm talking about strictly the character.
It's kind of a blessing you can say. We do deal an increasing amount of damage near and in high percents, but I feel the true strength behind it is that people become cautious because of the risk. That overall increases our chances of living. all and all, it does balance him out to a great extent. God knows what would happen if we didn't have it in the first place.
Lucario's tools are not bad, they are just weird. Lucario is a character of prediction, and while his aggressive style is not looked at, he does have a solid aggro game when done correctly. His oos option are not the best in comparison to some characters in the game, but imo his OOS option are good enough for what he needs to accomplish. His stronger point is how safe he is, despite his average frame data. Looking past the Perfect shielding factor, since most characters become punishable when you perfect shield their move of action, lucario Fsmash is relatively safe on shield from a set distance. It's not a bread and butter move, but it is good for over spacing opponents and keeping people in check for distance, since outside it's range there are only a few select characters who can punish it with anything notable. His Ftilt is -6 on shield when he is at 0%, same stock as your opponent, and becomes as safe as -3 when you are 2 stocks down, high percent. The move lingers around -6 though.
Dtilt is really safe on the back of someone's shield. People just don't use it properly. I fall into this statement.
Dair is over rated, but you must understand that because it is SDIable does not make any less of a solid move. It out ranges MK's Uair in terms of range, and depending on how you SDI it, we have other follow ups as well. If you are at high percent, the first part of dair carries enough hitstun to do a follow up with Nair if you happen to SDI, and Nair will kill you. Also, while most people don't see it, we have this little tidbit if rising and falling Dairs, where lucario does not stand in place when he is dairing, which you will have a very hard time to DI it by any means. It is caused but shield push or not fully momentum canceling after launch, and it is very easy to do to a point where you can recreate it to use as a strat. We all have not mastered it, but it is something you should all look out for.
His jab has outrageous range, and has a follow up for each type of option a person can do to get out of it. The basic option is to spot dodge, but normally that is actually the worse option, due to the amount of punishes we have if we read that you are going to spot dodge. We can stutter step Fsmash after the jabs, and if you Spot dodge, you are taking a high amount of damage. We can AS the spot dodge as well, which leads to an attional 20% on average. If you shield, we can grab, which is less threatening, but still a very solid option. The best option is to actually jump away after the jabs, but if we read the jump we can follow with fairs depending on the character. It does not work on people like marth who has his most used move being fair, and the range of it is pretty long, but on most characters it's a good follow up.
Force palm is something everyone should take a look into. It is a kill move, and a pretty good one at that. It acts like a normal grab, so at low percents you can break out of it decently easy, but after the 45% marker, breaking out of it is really hard to do. It deals a lot of damage for a grab as well. Of the top of my head I think the max damage is 18%, but I could be wrong.
Bair is a beautiful baiting move, since it lingers for about 4-5 frames, and its weak spot is below. It is hard to get below lucario to begin with due to his tools to move in and out of situations. Your best bet is to confront him face to face, but his weak spot is his back.
I could go on and on, but im getting tired. Ill continue this later.
Also, I would like for each player here to take into account that steam is right, as far as I know anyway. Lucario at the beginning is outputting negative damage, and around the 60-70 mark is when he actually hits neutral. In other words, iirc its like this:
Instead of Lucario being seen as
@ 0 = neutral
every percent is an addition
Its more like
@ 0 = -7
@ 70 = neutral
@ 80+ = + 1 until cap
This data is really really old though, and it is most likely buried in the lucario boards so deep you may not find it, so my remembrance on it could be wrong, but to my own knowledge I believe this is right.
