Teh Awesome Q's

[Zero_Gamer]

Hey pplz, I always, ALWAYS put the word "Awesome" in every single forum post I make, so yeah... Anyways...
1. I live in North Carolina, the most uncompetetive Smash state in existence so I have to resort to Wifi. I play competetive online tournaments and lag kills my Lucario. Anyone know a counter to this most horrid of nemesis (character wise)?

2. Not a question, but a suggestion to the effort of bettering ourselves (sounds like another thread?). Do a regular stock match and don't do ANY aerial attacks at all. Even if it whiffs, u must SD (still sounds familiar XD) I would love to hear of some strictly ground-related combos, if possible, and some approach tactics. This would be a great way to figure out how to fight against opponents with reflectors who are familiar with Lucario's aerial approaches.

3. What exactly is Lucario's limit to his increase in power, I mean, in one match, I was at 200% (still alive!?) and I was so strong, that it was like Ike and Meta Knight made babies.

 

[Milln]

1. Ew, WiFi.

2. Can't really play like that. Lucario needs both his ground and aerial game or most of his aerial game to be effective. Training like that wouldn't procure anything, I don't think, but I suppose it's worht a shot....

3. I'd like to know, too. There's speculation between 167%, 187%, and 200%.

 

[Browny]

event match.... something

Lucarios max damage is capped at 182%. ive said this many times >_>

anyway for wifi, Aura sphere is your friend. the slight delay is enough to prevent enemies from shielding it, spam full charge ones from close range for free damage every chance you get

 

[manhunter098]

Well for question 3, I did a match to see how much damage I could pull off with Aura Ball, and it maxed at 35 damage. It did this on a 20 stock match with me at 200% damage and one life left, and my opponent with 20 lives left. I guess its a real shame that we have to do versus mode in order to get any data back on how fast we send our opponents flying, which limits us to one try per match.

I have yet to try it with a higher stock disparity, and I think that some part of it is based on a ratio of the stock count anyways. So you may only need to do 10 lives to get the same effect. Either way just being down a stock is like adding upgrading lucario's damage and knockback by a single notch without having the damage, not that you want to be down a life at all.

 

[Milln]

event match.... something

Lucarios max damage is capped at 182%. ive said this many times >_>

anyway for wifi, Aura sphere is your friend. the slight delay is enough to prevent enemies from shielding it, spam full charge ones from close range for free damage every chance you get

That doesn't necessarily mean that that is Lucario's true modifier cap. If it is, why such a seemingly arbitrary number? I think the "When Lucario is at lethal damage!" is just Sakurai saying that pretty much any attack is gonna nuke you.

 

[Evan BlazE]

try getting the LAN adapter, I heard it really helps

 

[Nodrak]

If your ahead one stock or behind 2 stock, beyond that it doesn't make a diffrence.
200% is the general concensus, 182% was the event match %, doesn't necessarily mean it's the highest it'll effect damage.

Faster characters seem to deal with lag best, cause you don't have to worry about timing attacks perfectly. (Marth comes to mind)

Edit: Ha! I beat Jeepy Sol to it! =P

 

[Jeepy Sol]

Well for question 3, I did a match to see how much damage I could pull off with Aura Ball, and it maxed at 35 damage. It did this on a 20 stock match with me at 200% damage and one life left, and my opponent with 20 lives left. I guess its a real shame that we have to do versus mode in order to get any data back on how fast we send our opponents flying, which limits us to one try per match.

I have yet to try it with a higher stock disparity, and I think that some part of it is based on a ratio of the stock count anyways. So you may only need to do 10 lives to get the same effect. Either way just being down a stock is like adding upgrading lucario's damage and knockback by a single notch without having the damage, not that you want to be down a life at all.

Your damage dealt is only affected at up to two stocks ahead/behind.

Edit: Drat! Nodrak beat me to it! : )

 

[Kitamerby]

Also, in order to get less lag, you have to make sure both parties have somewhat good internetz.

It doesn't matter how fast your internet is, though, if your opponent has crap internetz, you'll get some lag. However, you'll get much less lag than if you both had crap internetz.

 

[Tallen]

the problem is that between 182% and 200% the differences are minimal, so it's hard to say. It might even be an in-between.
I also lag awfully via wi-fi but that is due to living in another country (Brazil, BOOYA!!), but at least I have a lot of friends right next to me to play. hell even my girlfriend tries to play every now and then (to me and my friend's amusement she uses ZSS...)
and no, I NEED to use air attacks for combos. not using them is just suicide because I don't like ground combat that much... and I can never FP chain grab properly... (I always let my friends escape before grabbing them...)

 

[Zero_Gamer]

My internet connection is just fine, escept for the occasional lag spikes, but I guess I should just use Snake and Wsnake when there's a lot of lag.
Also, the ground combat only excercise has taught me not to use the Dair so much and save it as a killer. And some ground only combos I have found so far are:
1. Force Palm CG (Derrr)
2. (Works best on idiots at DI'ing, but works decent on veterans as well) Forward tilt --> forward tilt -->Ftilt --> Ftilt --> etc. virtually unpunishable.
3. At lower percentages you can trap someone in a series of UpTilts.
This excercise is only a suggestion to better ourselves, don't just knock it till u try it! It's also a great, defensive strategy as opposed to our offensive aerial strategy.

 

[pockyD]

there's no need to "practice" repeated ftilts or utilts

imo practicing without a specific part of your moveset really only hinders you instead of helping you, with the possible exception of projectiles

some moves were just born to be spammed

 

[VirisKnite]

1. Force Palm CG (Derrr)
2. (Works best on idiots at DI'ing, but works decent on veterans as well) Forward tilt --> forward tilt -->Ftilt --> Ftilt --> etc. virtually unpunishable.
3. At lower percentages you can trap someone in a series of UpTilts..

Umm... hasn't Milln discussed this in inner fire?

 

[Rebonack]

The damage cap is really easy to test. Just go into training and set a Lucario CPU to control. Keep upping his damage until he isn't getting boosts any longer.

From fiddling with training mode in the following fashion I found that the damage growth seemed to stop at 170%. The exact number was 167 or 168, I forget which now.

And the 'extra aura' seems to add a bonus 1.2 multiplier for one stock behind and 1.4 for two. I've only tested the extra aura at 0%, though. Still needs some more fiddling.

<.<

*boots up Brawl to get the exact numbers.*

 

[Nodrak]

Just be sure to watch out for decay!

 

[Rebonack]

That's why I set the stock waaaaay up high and have Lucario and his buddy fling themselves off the edge after each hit.

Oooookay. Lucario gets his first damage boost at 29% and the last one at 167%. I used the aura sphere since it deals the most damage and is thus the most sensitive to changes.

As for the extra aura, the x1.2 per stock behind still stands, but that only applies when Lucario is at 0%. I hopped off the edge a few times and then hammered myself up to about 200% with smart-bombs. However, at this point the aura sphere was dealing 35% which is about a x1.7 boost rather than the expected x1.4. So either being behind in stock raises the max damage level for your base aura or it causes some sort of wonky growth curve that differs from the normal one.

I'll need to fiddle some more to get the exact answer. Jab punches are probably going to be the way to go for raising his damage above 150 >.>

 

[Milln]

And then there's the fact that we can't check just one move because the seeming "max" just might be the last possible multiplier for the move that yields a percent change before the actual cap kicks in, or it might just be a cap on Aura Sphere itself. =\

There might not be any way we can ezmode this data.

 

[Rebonack]

Oh don't worry about that. I've tested all Lucario's moves to make sure they hit x2 damage at 167% and several of them higher to see if they keep growing. AS is just the 'general' move that I use to gauge everything else.

The REALLY easy way to test is to set him to 999% and see if any of his attacks go above x2 damage. They don't. Apart from ones like Fair, but they actually deal 3.5% as opposed to just 3%.

The only real odd duck is the Extra Aura. Need to do some rigorous testing with it. Which is harder since you can't use training mode >.>.

 

[Milln]

Lemme know when this is truly solidified, so I can put it in the guide. <3

 

[Rebonack]

Okay, so after doing a fair bit of testing with extra aura I've found that it has two effects on your damage. The first is a flat 1.2 boost at 0% per stock life you're behind your opponent, up to two lives behind. It ALSO changes your max aura boost from x2 at 167% to x2.2 and x2.3 when you're one and two stock lives behind, respectively. Which means a total aura boost of x2.4 and x2.7.

Some attacks seemed to deviate from this a bit (notably Bair, it seemed to be getting boosted by x2.9 or so there at the end) though the vast majority of them fell neatly into the expected range.

When you're AHEAD of your opponent you take a base de-buff of x.9 or x.8 depending on your stock advantage. Furthermore, your maximum damage aura boost is decreased to x1.9 whenever you have a stock advantage. So your total aura boost is x1.8 at a one stock advantage and x1.7 at a two stock advantage.

I'll go post a summary and some graphs over at the guide topic now >.>.

 

[Zero_Gamer]

So there is a cap on the amount of damage that can be applied, but is it possible that the knockback power continues to increase at higher percentages?

 

[Trapt497]

So there is a cap on the amount of damage that can be applied, but is it possible that the knockback power continues to increase at higher percentages?

Maybe, but I don't think so. I wouldn't know, but it seems to me the increased knockback would stop increasing at or at least around the same time the damage capped.