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Help me improve my Lucas

Harvs

Smash Rookie
Joined
May 14, 2008
Messages
5
Location
UK

timandcarl

Smash Cadet
Joined
Feb 15, 2008
Messages
31
Well, one of the things I noticed first is you abuse forward smash bigtime. Sometimes your opponent wouldn't even be near you and you'd start charging up forward smash. For one, it's just unnecessary. Two, it gives your opponent time to think about what he's going to do next. Three, if your opponent is a character exceptionally good with SH, he will SH in your face or use range right after you swing your bat and **** you up. The fourth thing is you're destroying the power of your bat because of the diminishing return effect. If you use one move over and over, it will gradually get weaker with each swing. This isn't something you want, especially since fsmash is a finisher. What you need to do instead is learn to tilt attack more, along with some other moves--because I don't think I ever saw you dsmash, dair, or bair. That's not including ground tilt moves, either.

Your opponents look like they shield abuse. The way to punish shield abuse is to stick on them and never let them breathe. I don't know about you, but as a brawl player I went into the game almost never using shield. Now I do use shield, but I use it at just the right times. People who like to abuse shield are stupid, but Lucas is perfect for punishing that kind of stuff because of his tilt arsenal among everything else. Don't let shield abusers breathe, Lucas has the power to make this possible.

I see you have SH down pretty well, but you only used it for PKF. SH fair and SH bair are both very strong moves, you should use them more. Your game is very ground-oriented and focused on Lucas's ranged attacks. You need to switch it up a bit, because I felt you always gave your opponent so much space when you resorted to PKF's and freezes. Maybe this works for you though, but in any case when they get near you, you need to have more variety with your melee attacks.
 

Harvs

Smash Rookie
Joined
May 14, 2008
Messages
5
Location
UK
Allright, thanks for criticism, ill work on the bat thing, maybe DSmash where i try to bat instead and save the bat for a finisher. Just one thing with the Bair is that i can never get it to conect properly, any tips on that?
 

timandcarl

Smash Cadet
Joined
Feb 15, 2008
Messages
31
Practice. Lucas's bair is admittedly a difficult move to master because it is so unconventional. Unless you SH it (which is actually a bit more difficult than SH fair) there is little need for it unless you pop your opponent in the air or they are off the ledge. A fun trick to do is to run off the stage and have your opponent follow you up until the ledge, then as you start to fall jump back to the ledge and bair in their face. If you are lucky and the percentage is just right, you can do this, knock your opponent back and then bair in their face once more, sending them to the ground to be hit by a Btilt. Triple combo! It's very fun to do and looks very cool. Just get the timing down and get creative.
 

Harvs

Smash Rookie
Joined
May 14, 2008
Messages
5
Location
UK
Thanks for all the dtailed info timandcarl ill be sure to try it all out. And Nessy? shuddap, i started this thread because i wanted to wipe the floor with you, anyway all you seem to get are Red and Yellow Pikmin which go straight through my moves causing me to take damage or stop and perform a Dair to get them off me
 

timandcarl

Smash Cadet
Joined
Feb 15, 2008
Messages
31
Yeah, I dunno what to tell you vs. Olimar. I have a lot of trouble with him, because his pikmin ruin PK fire, I think you can actually SH OVER olimar's head which is gay, and just a bunch of other things that make fighting Olimar gay, including the ****ing gay b-down exploit he has. Just edge hog when he's off the side and **** him that way. Most of the time instant KO cause of his B-up.
 

TheDownSyndromeKid

Smash Cadet
Joined
Oct 19, 2007
Messages
43
I've only watched the first video so far, will edit this post to comment on the others. Both you and ZSS were very predictable in that there were points where you were doing the same move over and over until it connected (i.e. you rolled backwards to fsmash several times, ZSS shot lasers until one landed and dash attacked). As the other person said, mix it up a bit. You both seem kind of new to the game. Definitely don't charge fsmash while your opponent is nowhere near you - that's going to get punished.

Also, you did alot of PKT/PKT2 and PK Freeze - these are incredibly laggy and a better play would punish you for whiffing them. Use them more sparingly and try to be more surprising with them. I do commend your use of PK Freeze somewhat, though, bringing infront of you to shield is good thinking. For approaches, SH Fair is a great option - if properly spaced, you can land it into a jab combo if they shield the fair and try to grab you.

All in all, you need metagame practice - try focusing on what your opponent will do and punish him for it. There were a couple points where you dodged a grab and even with ZSS's *incredibly* laggy grab, you let him get away with it, a dsmash or fsmash would've been far more appropiate.

After watching the other videos, this is all I really have to add....learn to edgehog Olimar. There were a couple times where he was as good as dead, but you don't go off the edge. You cannot do this with Olimar, if upB is his only hope to get back onto the stage - he's dead. On the stage, yeah, it's a hard fight, you gotta keep him away from you because he hits hard, and he has incredible range. SH PKF is a good tactic to either keep him back or the pikmin off, but you have to keep an eye on where the red pikmin are in the lineup - that's something you didn't do. You infact tried to PKF a red pikmin after it landed on you. This is why you have to be wary of the red and yellow pikmin. Also an uncharged fsmash can reflect pikmin so cstick a couple of those things. Other than that, learn to spot dodge a couple pikmin tosses/fsmashes/grabs to punish Olimar as he retracts the pikmin (in the case of the last two options).
 

Harvs

Smash Rookie
Joined
May 14, 2008
Messages
5
Location
UK
Ok thanks for that, i have alot of info to take in but ill try and use all the tips that have been given to me, a real challange for me is learning when to spotdodge or predicting enemy moves. I also seem to become dedicated to FSmashing when my oppponent reaches the 100% mark and become an easy target, any ideas for that?
 

TheDownSyndromeKid

Smash Cadet
Joined
Oct 19, 2007
Messages
43
Yeah, don't "dedicate" yourself to one move. The dsmash, ftilt, fair, and uair can be good killers. Even the downB can be a decent killer using the release knockback. Also, depending on the character, uthrow can kill starting at about 130% or so.

Gimp kills using PKT are also a good thing to try if you knock them out far but they're going to recover, it's typically okay to shoot out a PKT from roughly middle stage and avoid being punished for the lag. Dropping off the edge and downBing can sometimes gimp a character too (depends on the opponent character really, <3 doing it to Marth)

An absolutely *fantastic* thing to master is bair spiking - go into training mode, set the cpu to jump, and just practice it. After awhile, you start to just see where to land it to spike.

Learning to read your opponent is definitely one of the hardest things to do, but it's what makes a good smasher a great smasher. That and (in the case of Brawl more so than Melee) good DI skills.
 
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