I am strongly against camping, or playing in a purely defensive manner. In my opinion, if you are not constantly trying to win, you are a woman.
With Lucario, I begin by charging the sphere.
You can not simply attack from the air, especially when your opponent has a full shield. The trick with lucario is to work at the shield, and know your spacing. If you just run up to people and try to take them on up close, you SHOULD get punished. Lucario's smashes are too slow to play in a close proximity.
Dwindle their shield using your sphere, or with down tilts. Down Tilts give lucario a nice ranged attack. Opponent should block it, but you can't get grabbed. A charged sphere will knock their shield in half.
Once their shield is low, you can begin playing closer, and using your shield penetrating moves, such as your down air, and ground neutral combo. ALWAYS follow your hits with either a fair, or charge a smash. Some opponents like to get in the air to avoid a ground assault. Other opponents like to spring right back and attack you. Know your opponent. Lucario has GREAT range on his smash, and you can punish people before they try to shield or turn around. If you catch them in a FAIR, you can often follow this with either another FAIR, a dair, or a nair. Remember, once you use a Nair, you cant do any more arials, so Nairs should always come last.
If you short hop, fair, and connect a Uair, you can instantly use your second jump and hit them again in the air.
Once your mini-combo is complete, charge that sphere and start over. If you're on a roll, don't get cocky, because their shield is back up and if you attack you'll get punished.
That is my basic strategy. However, like I said, I hate playing defensively. I will often try to attack while breaking their shield down. Lucario is very good at taking a shot, and dodging. I rarely sidestep, since lucario is not a close ranged fighter.
I will mainly use his counter against characters with slow smashes, like Ike, bowser, ganon, etc. Against quicker characters, I will use his counter when an opponent tries to attack me from the air (while im grounded), or just the opposite. It is not always easy to use his counter, since some people prefer to grab rather than attack.
Lucario is a beast in the air. A lot of range and priority. Never let people attack you from the air. It is very easy to push them back with Fairs. DI back, then jump toward them again. Lucario's hangtime gives you a lot of time to fake an opponent out with your next move.
Anyway, do not run from your opponent spamming your aurasphere. You will give Lucario a bad name, and only embarass yourself. No one ENJOYS playing morons that run away the whole game firing projectiles. I dare someone to do that against me in a tournament, where I am only 2 feet away.
