Smash 4, Character Discussion Revised (#35 Pikachu)

[Jedi]

Am I literally the only person on this planet that actually doesn't mind Link?

I play Link myself just for giggles, but I don't really play him on a serious level. I do know that him having a tether is nice, and bombs do add to his recovery options not to mention bombs adding to mobility and combos is also kind of nice in general. his dash attack may very well be one of the strongest dash attacks in the entire game AND has enormous shield pressure. If you don't powershield that you're kind of SOL.

My problem with Link, and the reason why I fail to commit to him, is his poor mobility in general. Sure Bombs may help a little bit, but I can't expect myself to have a bomb on me at all times. (Plus this means I'll be damaging myself and putting myself at Kill% sooner than I want to) Also a lot of his stronger moves having massive endlag doesn't help his case in the slightest. But he's fairly solid in this iteration, and has far deviated from the previous 3 smash games where he's pretty much a guaranteed low/bottom tier.

He's actually mid in Melee, but Melee just evolved to the point of where if you aren't top tier you can't cut it, and 64 is funny because the tiers are more by who has more 0 to death combos, Link's been generally OK, thankfully he isn't like his Brawl self which had no redeeming values.

[euklyd]

Am I literally the only person on this planet that actually doesn't mind Link?

I play Link myself just for giggles, but I don't really play him on a serious level. I do know that him having a tether is nice, and bombs do add to his recovery options not to mention bombs adding to mobility and combos is also kind of nice in general. his dash attack may very well be one of the strongest dash attacks in the entire game AND has enormous shield pressure. If you don't powershield that you're kind of SOL.

My problem with Link, and the reason why I fail to commit to him, is his poor mobility in general. Sure Bombs may help a little bit, but I can't expect myself to have a bomb on me at all times. (Plus this means I'll be damaging myself and putting myself at Kill% sooner than I want to) Also a lot of his stronger moves having massive endlag doesn't help his case in the slightest. But he's fairly solid in this iteration, and has far deviated from the previous 3 smash games where he's pretty much a guaranteed low/bottom tier.

tbh fair is probably the strongest of his moves that you should ever be using frequently, and it has only 12 frames of landing lag (which is essentially top-tier landing lag frame data)

also re: bombs - you really should have a bomb on you the majority of the time, and with practice you damage yourself less

you do kind of have to resign yourself to never using dash attack though lmao

[Jedi]

Apparently Dabuz is fighting a Link in Grand Finals at Wtfox2 right now.

Which is kind of insane.

[Zera]

Long range arrows, mid-range boomerang, bombs, and decently spaced ftilt are safe on shield - it's very easy for Link to barrage slower characters until they get bored and SD. I think that is Link's greatest strength.

Edited July 3, 2016 by Zera

[Shin]

also re: bombs - you really should have a bomb on you the majority of the time, and with practice you damage yourself less

I agree with this, bombs really are his main staple. One issue I've seen is people trying to pull them at the wrong moment. The pull's fairly quick, but you do need a little space to do it. One neat trick you can do against shields with bombs is catch when they bounce off whilst doing a nair. That way you can toss it if they drop the shield.

[General Horace]

Apparently Dabuz is fighting a Link in Grand Finals at Wtfox2 right now.

Which is kind of insane.

it was Mr. R playing Link, not a Link.

He got 2-0'd very convincingly and switched back to sheik for the remainder of the set. Looks like he's looking for Rosa counterpicks but it didn't work out.

Edited July 3, 2016 by General Horace

[euklyd]

I agree with this, bombs really are his main staple. One issue I've seen is people trying to pull them at the wrong moment. The pull's fairly quick, but you do need a little space to do it. One neat trick you can do against shields with bombs is catch when they bounce off whilst doing a nair. That way you can toss it if they drop the shield.

when you're pulling a bomb it often helps to be jumping away rather than stationary

also Mr. R played the matchup completely incorrectly from what I heard. he'd said he wanted to get practice attempting to use his secondaries before EVO or s/t which is why he tried it

[Jedi]

Ah so it was Mr.R I do recall him having a Link he pulls out every now and again.

If you guys have more Link questions please ask Euk or Shin, but I feel its time to move on, and i'll try not to overreact again lol.

(Image from Kurogane)

Show em what you got Mac.

The man of extremes is here, Little Mac made quite the interesting splash at launch, being really popular to use in for glory, partly due to his advantage on Final Destination (his best stage probably in competitive play as well).

His ground combat is absolutely scary, he has brutally fast and punishing attacks, a fair number of them having super armor, so he can just shrug you off and give you a good ol punch in the face, his ground speed is also pretty impressive and he has some good follow ups, his grab is lackluster, but what do you expect from a Boxer? His smashes are pretty devastating and is where the majority of his super armor lies, some pros such as Sol use Mac to this day and do fairly well with him, he tends to be fairly solid to pretty bad in tourney play as a whole, so no one has been able to properly gauge his viability, but players such as Sol have been showing that he isn't to be underestimated in the hands of a good player. Jolt Haymaker can even ignore a projectile, and his recovery when used on the ground can actually be a pretty good KO option.

However his weaknesses are pretty exploitable, first of all, his aerial combat, mobility and such are really bad for the most part (aerials like nair can be used to some good effect). You never really want to be in the air or isolated on a platform as Mac, his jumps are also really bad, which makes catching up to some opponents on stages like Duck Hunt can be near impossible, or just plain unsafe. He's also light, so sending him away from the stage isn't the hardest thing in the world, add ontop of that, the worst recovery in the game, Jolt Haymaker barely has any horizontal distance in the air, matter of fact it was NERFED in the air. Thanks to all those Day 1 Little Macs doing so well. Rising Uppercut is poor even for decent vertical distance, but I guess Mac at least has a wall jump?

The key for Mac is to be paitent and only press when he can afford to, also using his trump card, the KO Punch properly, dtilt actually chains right into the move, a brutal kill confirm, however when Mac's meter is full you can wait it out or hit him really hard or out of it, so Mac has to be careful even when using KO Punch, but if you give Mac the chance... That demotivation can really mess with your psyche, and the Mac gets into their opponents head, which gives them control of the match.

Opinions on the Boxer?

Edited July 4, 2016 by Jedi

[Shin]

Shield at the edge, wait for his jab to end, throw him off the edge, enjoy. Mac's good on stage but lives in perpetual fear of being thrown off and gimp. Mac can only really use side B or counter to recovery, neither of which give him much chance. His air game might as well be absent, and his rage-inducing super armour and KO punch really don't make up for it.

Mac's a NICE idea, but he could shed a few of those super armour frames to be able to up B after side B, as well as having up B go further. Aerials too! In short, he's ragey at low level play, but he's really lacking the kit to be too scary.

[Zera]

1. Back throw off ledge.

3. Aerial.

4. ???

5. Profit!

But seriously, if you're playing a slower character against a Little Mac that mixes up his moves, it can be a pretty tough battle.

Edited July 4, 2016 by Zera

[shadowofchaos]

Shield, Back throw aerial only works with For glory Macs.

If you meet a patient mac, you'll hate punishing those fast moves. Any hesitation on the ground and you're gonna eat something.

Also, the whole his are also suck is based on boxers power from the legs.

I think by design, any buffs he get won't be any major changes to his design concept.

[That One Guy]

Shield, Back throw aerial only works with For glory Macs.

If you meet a patient mac, you'll hate punishing those fast moves. Any hesitation on the ground and you're gonna eat something.

Also, the whole his are also suck is based on boxers power from the legs.

I think by design, any buffs he get won't be any major changes to his design concept.

As the man who Rey is most likely referring to here, I'd like to put my two cents in as a Little Mac main.

For Glory Macs are a very different breed of cat then people who actually have some semblance of idea what they're doing. F Tilt is a monster of a move. Safe when spaced right, does good damage, comes out fast, AND has kill power. That's not a fun combo. Just make sure you space it right, otherwise it's REALLY unsafe.

Forward Smash is an interesting beast, given it has three variations. Unangled is vanilla launching power, straight forward, not much to talk about. Angled up doesn't do as much damage, but the launching power and how much space it covers is actually ridiculous. Any amount of rage + decent % on the opponent means a good read and they're probably dead to that. Angled down is another interesting tool Mac has. Whilst it launches you pretty much nowhere, it does HUGE amounts of damage as well as pretty much murdering your shield. Angled down F smash can break shields REALLY easily if you aren't careful. Also, if your opponent misses their tech, you can ground lock them with a short up Dair. Fun!

"But how does he kill if you can't land those?!" you may cry, but Mac has one easy setup into a kill that isn't KO Punch or the previous moves. That setup is Down Tilt, one of Mac's best tools. Fast, pretty safe, good at 2 framing people's recoveries(Rey can tell you about that one), combos into full hop Forward Air for the infamous Air Mac stuff, and most IMPORTANTLY it is usually is a true combo into Up B. Mac's Rising Uppercut from the ground has ridiculous launching power, and will kill you at roughly 105 I believe. I need to do my testing again I lost my notes a while ago.

A few notes on Mac's aerials: They suck yes, but they DO have their uses. Down Air is an untechable meteor that can kill unsuspecting people really quickly. Forward Air is a great combo extender from down tilt, but you have to full hop and then fast fall it to make it work. It's decent for gimping as well, particularly characters like Robin, Captain Falcon, and Ganondorf. I haven't found much use for Back Air, but Up Air can be useful as a combo ender from Down Tilt for a little bit of extra percent. As for Nair, it's just a...very very weird move. You can do some stupid things with it. Nair > Footstool > Nair > Footstool > Nair > Footstool > Rising Uppercut is a real thing. Good luck pulling it off, I sure as hell can't.

Some final things to get you started on Little Mac: Patience is key, as Rey said. An impatient Little Mac is a dead Little Mac. With that said, don't be afraid to force the issue! You have a wealth of safe approach options at your disposal, including but not limited to; Forward Tilt, Down Tilt, single Jab, and for those with the execution, perfect pivot Up Tilt. Up Tilt is Mac's sleeper move, FYI. It's fast, covers a HUGE range(especially if you face away), and combos into itself. A good anti air for sure.

Finally, a couple easy combos to get you started as well: Down Tilt > Jolt Haymaker(Side B) does good damage and can get you away from the corner. Just make sure you don't do it too close to the ledge. Down Tilt > Forward Tilt is always solid, gives you good damage whilst not having the risk that your opponent might land on their feet and punish you for D Tilt > Side B. That combo is a little weird and doesn't always work the way I want it to. More testing is required.

[Elieson]

Ok fellas, since it's America Day today, I'm glad we got a guy with the proper palette to celebrate.

Anyway, let's talk about Mac, being as I'm the resident idiot who plays him all the damn time and basically the resident Mac Main.

He's referred to as the Ground Game God quite a bit, despite it reflecting his ground game not really related to grabs. He has insanely good framerates on his moves (I'll throw down some sweet statistics in a minute), and he's got great walking/dashing speed too. His air game is pretty bad and his recovery is absolute crap. Also, his grab game, while acceptable against the uninformed, is really difficult to capitalize on, due to not having a convenient killthrow. Dthrow and Uthrow combo into UpB if opponents don't DI out of it properly, so sometimes you can net a decent kill out of that (I've killed people at 110% with Dthrow->UpB before).

He has two [Plus 1] common playstyles featuring: Hyper-Defensive or Hyper-Offensive [or a mix, obviously]. HD is a playstyle that revolves around Mac's ability to space properly and avoid attacks, then swoop in with a speedy dash/grab/jab combo to punish. Ironically, this is his best method of play, despite like 10% of Mac players understanding how it works, because Mac is great at closing gaps fast and punishing with swift jabs and mean shield pressure through Smashes and Dtilts. The alternative, HO, is decent, because you have Super Armor to exploit and you can also apply great shield pressure depending on your ability to space and handle Pivoting.

Of course, everything changes when he unlocks his unique move, KO Punch. At this point, he can kill as early as 20% against some characters. It's a one-time use, as it takes effort to fill the gauge to unlock this, but it adds a whole new dynamic to applying pressure, as it ignores shield and has hilarious alternative powers.

Before getting more into things, let's look at his moves:

[spoiler=Jabs]

Jab 1: Godmazing. Average range for a weaponless dude and Frame-1 Hitbox means as soon as your button is tapped, you're hitting. Combos into Jab 2, and hits for 2 damage (meaning it reflects Gordos). Probably one of the bext jabs in the game. FWIW, only ZSS has a Frame-1 Jab hitbox as well.

Jab 2: Also a Frame-1 Hitbox (that lingers for an additional frame). If you land Jab-1, you're landing Jab 2, meaning a swag 4% and an almost assured followup. Combos into Jab-3 or Rapid-Jab.

Jab 3: In the community, we call it the Gentleman's. Gen-tle-man (one two three) jab, which finishes with a decent knockback and hard hit on Frame 4. Usually people cant do much to interrupt out of Jab 2 to this, so it's a safe followup. It's incredibly hard to nail this though, since trigger sensitivity is a genuine problem in this case. More often, you'll land into...

Rapid Jab: A multi hit finisher, like Kirby's, that hits a bunch for 3 % or so and has fairly decent knockback. It's not Captain Falcon knockback, but at over 100%, it'll knock your opponent up high at a huge angle, and really help you get the opportunity to position. It's super easy to shield this though, as it doesn't do much damage to shield, so it's rather risky. Safest to use this on fallers, while 1-2-3 is safer to use on grounded people.

tl;dr JabGame is Great, but shields can really punish.

[spoiler=Tilts]

Utilt: A basically straight-up hit for an easy 9%, that you can often repeat into itself and combo into things like UpB at low percents. This is huge, as it's the only move that Mac has that hits behind him, but the move itself has a huge AoE (compared to the rest of what he's got). It's spammable at Frame-4 hit, and is almost impossible to punish on a successful hit. At low percents (sub-30-40), it's remarkable easy to combo Utilt into another Utilt, an Ftilt, or even a KOPunch.

The best thing about this is that it is basically a completely surrounding shield that even Dtilt swordpokes can't get under), it eats projectiles of most kinds, breaks even with a lot of moves and hits wide for disjointed character moves.

Ftilt: A two-hit move that hits first on Frame 4. Hits about eye-level for Mac, meaning it can bean people as they're recovering high, and has huge knockback, able to kill people at center-stage at around 120-140% depending on weight class. It hammers shields hard and doesn't have that many drawbacks. The first hit usually combos into the second hit, but even if you miss one, the hit that lands will definitely make you feel safe. It's fast to act out of, pushes opponents backwards pretty well and does a mean 12% in full. It's arguably the easiest punish to work with that isn't a Utilt.

Dtilt: Frame-3 hit that knocks your opponent up almost perfectly vertical, and not very far unless your opponent is like at 80%+. This sets up people for so many options including: USmash, FSmash, another DTilt, perfect pivot UTilt, UpB, and SideB, as well as KO Punch if you have it charged. Probably one of my favorite moves, as even on shield, it's relatively safe because of the backpush on strike.

Mac's Bread and Butter. DTilt combos into like a dozen other moves, making this a solid opener, protection tool and combo starter.

[spoiler=Smashes]

Usmash: The Uppercut. Hits hard on the sweetspot and does huge shield damage. It's sweetspot on Frame 1 of the hit (Frame-10 Hitbox) just destroys people, and has SuperArmor on Frame-8, meaning you can Dash and use this, and pretty often just eat an attack to punish with this. It's got a huge 21% damage and a pretty good 75 degree angle or something knockback.

Fsmash: This can be angled in three variants (Up, Down, Normal).

Down-angle does 24% damage, and can break shields straight out of Dtilt (seriously, a quick 2-hit Shield Break). It's kinda tough to pull off, as it depends on opponent StagePosition somewhat, but it's still great early on at racking up %.

Up-angle is basically Usmash but with SuperArmor that lasts twice as long. It doesn't hit quite as hard, and doesn't have the sweetspot punish, but situationally speaking, it's useful if you're trying to get around with SuperArmor spam. Knockback Angle is virtually straight up (even more vertical than a normal Usmash), so it has its niches.

Normal comes out...normally, but has 8 frames of SuperArmor, knocking back at a pretty good angle. Standard stuff, sans SuperArmor of course.

Dsmash: Covers in front and behind, in two hits. Pretty solid Edgeguarding tool, as it has SuperArmor in 6 frames (split between hits) and knocks back hard. Punishes rollers hard and comes fast...technically faster with the Frame-7 SuperArmor on Frame-10 first hitbox. It's key to use this properly when edgeguarding as it can punish so many UpB recoveries and especially hurts people who don't snap to ledge like Cloud and other Little Macs.

All of Mac's Smash Attacks have SuperArmor at one point or another. It's almost mandatory to protect yourself from getting hit, so often, it's important to time these so that your SuperArmor eats an opponents attack (projectile, whatever), so yours will go off successfully. Also, his Fsmashes and Usmash move his body so hitboxes on Mac are slightly different from what you'd expect them to be, occasionally saving you from being hit while charging.

[spoiler=Aerials]

Nair: Has a Frame-2 Hitbox, which while tight on Little Mac's body, hits at himself, armlength and slightly below, acting as a great Combo-Ender for opponents attempting to grab you on your fall or hit you with other moves. Combos into Jab (Frame-1) because of your teeny tiny endlag on landing. Nair is like, one of the best escape tools ever. It can get you out of a Falcon/Kirby/Fox rapid jab and set you up to start your own. It's nuts!

Fair: Not quite as tight quarters as Nair, and makes a semi-decent (and unexpected) gimp tool due to it's gentle knockback. Not great on stage but alright off if you want to gimp. It won't make a good recovery tool though.

Dair: Triggers into Jab-Resets (though it's really hard to do this), and lets you set up for those beefy KOPunches and sweetspot Usmashes.

Bair: Same as Fair, only longer and more narrow hitbox.

Uair: Really bad, I guess. I don't think it's ever really made a use for me, when UpB or Jump-Nair is usually more useful.

Mac's air game isn't stellar, but his Nair is one of the best moves in his arsenal as a defensive option, and Fair/Dair make some interesting technical setups that you'll see players like J.A.P.A.N. and Sol take advantage of maybe 5% of the time...which is cool since only 5% of Mac mains even know how to do these things. Also, they all deal pathetic damage (

[spoiler=Grabs]

Fthrow and Bthrow suck at everything except helping with distance and doing an acceptable 8-9% damage. It's nothing special.

Dthrow and Uthrow are quite different, as they combo into UpB. Dthrow at low percents combos into Utilt and even KOPunch against larger non-floaties.

Grab Range is really bad, so Reverse/Pivot grabs are really helpful to improve his near non-existent grab range. Can usually net three or so pummels off before a throw, so grabs at least net a fair 12% on average before the toss/break out.

[spoiler=Specials]

NeutralB: Charge move that stops you in your tracks to charge for seconds before launching you forward with a burning fist of damage (and potential huge cooldown). The longer you charge, the farther forward it sends you, letting you burst through shields. It's decent because it has HyperArmor (SuperArmor as long as you're hit by something that hurts for less than 8%), which is ok for covering the occasional approach and landing option, or eating weak projectiles that have cooldown, like link's Boomerang and stuff. Hits really hard and zooms you forward, and also makes an ok edgeguard device for people falling, as your punch reaches out really far, but doesn't push you off the stage, and offers some protection in the form of its charge. When used in the Air, unlike Marth/Lucina's ShieldBreaker, it doesn't launch you forward by even an inch, and generally means suicide.

I personally use it when falling, as I can trigger it to be used before I land, sometimes hitting an approaching opponent before they'd hit me, but it's really a bottom tier move and only used for mixups

NeutralB (KO Punch): When Mac deals 333% damage, eats 100% damage on himself, or fulfills a weird combination of the two, Mac's KO Punch gauge fills. He loses it on death, but that's not the point. KO Punch is an incredible move with more than one purpose. It loses its knockback immensely (and Damage% gets cut from 35% to 13% if used in the air), but it has a purpose. It can help with Recoveries, which I go into a bit later in this. It's a huge intimidation tool, and even moreso against people with no projectiles. See, any knockback attacks dealt after 6 seconds of having the charge make Mac lose his KO Punch, so you want to knock it away while far away, so it can kill even if it doesn't hit.

Anyway, the move itself has a Windbox that knocks back even if you whiff (Self-Insert Video Demonstrating it Here)

https://youtu.be/HuIIJHput6g?t=1m

The hit itself can kill super early (Check the spoiler below for raw numbers), so it's a huge intimidation factor. The move itself has a 3-frame hitbox, with super armor before it even triggers (Frame 8-9 Super Armor, Frame 9-11 Hitbox).

[spoiler=KO Punch Kill Percentages on Final Destination]

Jigglypuff 13%

Game & Watch 15%

Kirby 16%

Rosalina 17%

Shulk (Smash-Monado) 17%

Pikachu 18%

Olimar/Alph 18%

Fox 18%

Meta Knight 19%

Zelda 19%

Peach 19%

Sheik 19%

Mii Gunner(Small) 20%

Zero Suit Samus 20%

Falco 20%

Palutena 20%

Toon Link 21%

Greninja 21%

Mii Sword Fighter(Small) 21%

Mii Gunner(Medium) 21%

Wii Fit Trainer 21%

Little Mac 22%

Ness 22%

Pac-Man 22%

Sonic 22%

Luigi 22%

Bowser Jr 22%

Mii Sword Fighter(Medium) 22%

Mii Gunner/Sword Fighter(Heavy) 23%

Mii Brawler(Small-Medium) 23%

Dark Pit 23%

Pit 23%

Lucina 23%

Marth 23%

Villager 23%

Diddy Kong 23%

Robin 23%

Duck Hunt 24%

Mario 24%

Mii Brawler(Heavy) 24%

Dr. Mario 24%

Yoshi 24%

Lucario 25%

Shulk 25%

Samus 25%

Link 26%

Rob 26%

Wario 26%

Mega Man 27%

Ike 27%

Charizard 27%

Captain Falcon 27%

Ganondorf 27%

Bowser 30%

Donkey Kong 31%

Dedede 34%

Shulk (Shield-Monado) 58%

It has a huge punish time though, as it has humongous cooldown. Thems the breaks though.

Tech includes Fastfalling into KOPunch, since even if you hit the move, you have 7 frames to land before the hitbox itself triggers, meaning you can use it in the air, just be close to landing when triggering it.

There's a Frame-perfect Gazelle Punch which you can use immediately out of Ledge-Getup. It's super powerful as an edge climbing tool, and something I've almost got down pat.

SideB:

Jolt Haymaker is kind of weird. When grounded, it sends you in the direction of input at Dash-speed, meaning you can Dash one way then Reverse SideB to cover distance backwards super quickly. It hits hard, killing at about 120-130% based on weight class, and lets you approach pretty safely in lots of scenarios. It punishes Shield rollers hard and lets you fly over projectiles, but puts you airborne, letting you fly off of the stage, get reflected and Windbox'd, etc... Anyway, it has a solid knockback at a nonkilling angle but the main purpose of it is its quick distance travel and quick out of shield approach options.

You can press B to have the swing occur early, which doesn't impact horizontal movement speed at all. It's a decent mixup option to an already-hard-to-predict move.

Also, it send you at a trajectory, when grounded, based on the angle of the ground you're standing on. If you see someone travel in a really weird angle, this is why (Noticable on Yoshi's Island and Delfino Plaza probably more than any other stages).

https://youtu.be/WTZ8SPVOZQo?t=15s

Lastly, when used in the air, the damage is not cut but the distance is.

UpB: Rising Uppercut has intangibility on Frames 1-3, and hits on Frame 3 with full combo into itself. It can be used Out of Shield, and hits out of Uthrow and Dthrow (if horizontal DI isn't applied). It can kill as early as 100% with a shorthop into it, and launches you up pretty quickly, so it can catch people offguard more often than you'd think.

DownB: Counter move with 25 frames of counter-time. Not bad, especially with it's completely average 1.3x% return. This can sometimes help with recoveries, but generally just used for one of three things; Altering Fallspeed on landing, Setting up for a Counter (duh) and the Recovery movement. It's exploitable in this regard ( for the recovery movement). I use it primarily to fall slower while my opponent does something like charge a Smash, letting me land slower. Mac's landing options kinda suck, so it's useful for a bit of Mindgames. Otherwise, it just hits fucking hard.

These are Mac's weirdest moves, as they have such strange Aerial mechanics that make them virtually useless, or at least heavily nerfed. Underestimating SideB (the most joke move ever since Dedede's JetHammer) is a big mistake.

[spoiler=Recoveries]

Mac's biggest downfall is his recovery. He can barely jump (Like, he can't single-jump to most platforms), and his airspeed is middling at best, which isn't that great since he can't combine it with good recovery moves. What's that? His Specials cover great distance? They're nerfed in the air and cover basically 1/2 of the distance if not used while standing.

UpB covers a pitiful vertical distance. It's not a bad move per'se, as it comes out fast and combos into itself, and can act as a Kill move when on stage. UpB doesn't Snap (except for the first frame, which happens to be an attack so for what it's worth, a properly timed based-on-proximity UpB can act as a safe knockback recovery. I've used it...twice in my life.

SideB is lame for distance but surprisingly decent as a recovery option in terms of safety on attack. The damage arc of the Jolt Haymaker strike covers a pretty good area, and even hits on stage while you're snapping. It also strikes chumps that are trying to recovery in with you simultaneously (Pits, Rosalina, Sonic, Megaman). It's not very good, but it has its uses.

Funnily enough, if you have a KO Punch, it provides great horizontal momentum. If you're really high up, it can launch you towards the stage, giving you the kick you need to recover alive. This has worked for me no less than 5 times in my life, but hey, 5 is more than 0.

[spoiler=Overall Speeds and stuff]

Mac sports one of the lighter weight types (Look at the guy), weighing in at tied for 46'th lightest. That means that when he gets knocked back, it sucks, but at low percentages, it helps him avoid getting super wombocombo'd. It just sucks because he'd rather be heavier so he isn't knocked around so hard.

8th fastest Walk/Jog speed

3rd fastest Dash speed

5 frame JumpSquat and WallJump

WallJump gives him a bit of leverage on recovery mixups, but isn't imperative to all that much. It gets some surprising KOs and has scored me dozens of safe returns on FD variants of stages like Pictochat and even Battlefield [right side].

[spoiler=Shield Stuff]Nothing special about his Shield game, but he compresses in tightly, as a boxer would, and is pretty well covered by his own shield due to making a narrow hitbox.

I'll go over some decent Tech stuff tomorrow (as it's a HOLIDAY TODAY) but the tl'dr is that Mac's a Glass Cannon on the edge, and really has to play carefully when around ledges. His quick approach game is punishing to huge extents, and 90% of his success comes from fancy footwork play, featuring moves like Perfect Pivoting to have him kinda spin around to reposition bit by bit to get into optimal spots to unleash his potent kill options and combos. Poor airgame makes for having a rough time, but people need to remember that against a competant Little Mac, just because he has a poor airgame doesn't mean he doesn't have an airgame at all, and mixups of nontraditional moves to rack up %s can set you up for an early KO from a rogue Ftilt SuperArmor'd attack.

Grabs punish Mac hard, but Mac shouldn't often be letting himself get grabbed, if he's played properly (i.e. relatively defensively).

*Edit*

-Self reminder to cover Dash Attack,, Dair Meteors, Jab Resets and UpB's Hitbox hitting people that don't magnet to the ledge, horizontal from him.-

Edited July 4, 2016 by Elieson

[Batter the Beast]

Mac is a defensive behemoth who is terrifying to fight against due to his sheer KO power and his super armor on several of his KO moves. To help his defensive game further, he has IMO the best jab in the entire game (fitting, since he's a boxer), and his uptilt, which comes out fast and covers quite a bit of ground around him. He's also very fast, being the 3rd fastest character in the whole game, as well as not having the absolute worst maximum air speed, though his air acceleration is the 2nd worst in the game, which is something that hinders his recovery more than anything. Mac is surprisngly safe on shield with his fsmash and dtilt being nearly impossible to punish on shield for most characters. Speaking of dtilt, good lord is this move good. It's extremely quick at frame 3 and can combo into a lot of things at low%s, like itself, smashes, and KO punch for starters. Now people generally call Mac's aerials worthless but they actually have a bit of utility. Nair is frame 2, so it can be a combo escape tool, especially vs ground combos since Mac can convert nairs into his jab. Dair can jablock and is a weak spike, but it should generally be used for jablocks since a jablock at like 60 or 70% is a guaranteed stock due to how stronk mac's forward smash is. They are more situationally useful than his ground moves, but they still exist. None of his specials are really that great, except for Up B and KO punch. Up B is his best anti-air as it has pretty good priority and can KO at high %s. KO punch is unblockable, KOs at like 40% on most of the cast, but can get interrupted since it doesn't have as much super armor as his other moves. Mac's biggest flaw is something that everyone is aware of, and that's his awful recovery and inability to play the platform game properly. Little Mac does have options to mix up his recovery, but if he's hit with a move that sends him low or gets his recovery read once, he's as good as dead. His incredible defensive and ground game does make up for this huge flaw a little bit, but several of the top tiers have methods to take his stocks early, so he will likely be held back from being high tier as long as he maintains his terrible recovery.

Edited July 4, 2016 by Batter the Beast

[Elieson]

I miss original Mac's SideB aerial. It actually went places.

IMO he could be ok with it patched back in, as he is exploitable now.

Give him ledge snaps and a platform-reaching first jump and he'd be a whole different fighter. More threatening, i mean.

Edited July 4, 2016 by Elieson

[Jedi]

I personally wouldn't be mad if he got better stuff in the air, for recovery, like he's so extreme as I mentioned he either does REALLY GOOD, or REALLY BAD. It's inconsistent as heck.

[Jedi]

Frame Data

Lucario, a very funky character, his attacks are average as a whole, meh frame data, meh speed, but he has several tricks up his sleeve to unlock his true potential in combat.

​He has a mechanic called Aura, which amplifies his attacks and recovery properties, his basic attacks, tend to be very low damaging and have low knockback, so they can kind of chain into each other, but as he gets more Aura and Rage (yes they stack) his attacks become very powerful and get to the point where even his tilts can kill you, Lucario also has access to some neat tricks, such as one a player I've actually played against used vs ZeRo, his name is Shiny and he is so good at B Revering (B Reverse is basically using your neutral B but shifting your momentum in the opposite direction) he b reversed an aura sphere from a wall cling landing ontop of ZeRo who was then stuck in Aura Sphere's charge and he canceled it into an usmash, getting the ko.

Lucario is pretty great offstage, as he has one of the better recoveries in the game in terms of pure distance, which increases with aura, parts of it have a hitbox, however its kind of funky and you can plink against the stage and die or land on stage, which isn't usually a good idea because unless you do it absolutely perfect, you have huge huge amounts of end lag, to the point where, I'm pretty sure Bowser can punish you with an Fsmash. His aerials are pretty standard, but fair can be chained from dthrow so it has that at least.

Lucario has awkward disjoint with most of his attacks, they are deceptive if you lack experience versus him, Also his Side B is really interesting, at a distance, Force Palm is a beam shot, but upclose its a powerful command grab, which becomes one of his go to KO options at high aura, also his beam at higher aura has more reach, so it effectively becomes a massive projectile.

His tilts are average, although I find ftilt a good attack and dtilt a good combo starter, utilt chains into itself. His smash attacks are fairly standard, but I find usmash to be pretty good, I also like his very Goku like dsmash, it looks like the move he used vs Burter and Jeice on Namek. (Fun fact, Goku and Lucario share an English VA)

His grabs are surprisingly solid, although this is partly because they combo somewhat and he has one of the fastest pummels in the entire game, where he just burns you with Aura.

Overall I find Lucario pretty fun in this game, although that was more recently, I still prefer his moves in Brawl, but this Lucario is still solid and fairly tournament worthy.

His weaknesses are, basically if he dies early and can't utilize Aura properly he's gonna lose 80% of the time, you need to know what your doing with Lucario for the most part, Powerful characters can possibly shrug off his medium and lower high % Aura attacks, so I find he actually struggles with heavy characters, partly also is that his moveset is kinda laggy. He excels vs characters who have a hard time koing in general, because Lucario will just get Aura and mess them up entirely.

Opinions on the Blue Wonder?

Edited July 7, 2016 by Jedi

[Elieson]

His aerials are pretty dang good. Fast and good forward arc on Fair, Dair is a double downward kick that slows vertical descent. Nair is basically a tighter Mewtwo Nair and works great on shorthops...and all of hus aerials are faster to act than ground moves.

Both Force Palm and Aura Sphere can be reflected. It's kind of hilarious watching a 150% Lucario hit himself with Force Palm. It'll come out kinda slowly, where fast reflectors like Fox and Mario can bounce it back (ROBs reflect is kinda slow).

I personally dislike his Smash attacks though. Dsmash, while potent because of it's dual side hitboxes, comes out pretty slow, and Usmash is rather narrow.

I like playing as him a bunch though. Do yourself a favor. Open Training, set % to 999% and use UpB, steering yourself all over the place. It's fun!

[Jedi]

While Force Palm can be reflected, it still doesn't help people if they get grabbed by it instead!

[Jiac]

Since I don't know much/don't have much to say about Lucario. I'll talk about the Lucario-Roy match-up in the perspective of Roy. I personally do believe the match-up is 50-50 (like almost all of Roy's match-ups).

Though the scary thing about Lucario is his aura, and actually okay survivability (4 more units of weight than Roy, 1 less unit of weight compared to Cloud).

As a Roy main, I can vouch that if Roy doesn't kill around mid percents, he's going to struggle in this MU. If the opponent is smart, Roy will struggle to kill at later percents until around the 170% range. That range is the U-Throw range, and the prime spot Lucario wants to be with his aura. This is probably one of the reasons Roy isn't a high tier character. Generally the notion that Roy's sword design is flawed is often misinformed or misguided, but in this match-up it is probably a good counterpoint to the flaw in his design. At these high percents, Roy is probably scared of Force Palm when trying to land a killing grab or finishing blow. He will do all he can to get a tomahawk grab Lucario and end the stock, however, aura + rage Lucario is such a scary mix.

If there were enough results of Roy-Lucario, a graph of win-rate to percent taken or win-rate to time in a match, a graph of Roy-Lucario would probably have Roy's chance of winning plummeting the longer the match takes/the more percent Lucario has taken, while Lucario's chance of victory increase.

This is further mixed with the fact Lucario has an incredible recovery, and it's almost ungimpable. One could argue that this MU is 55-45 Lucario. Though, with Roy's quick and potent kill moves around, you need to play pretty smart considering Roy's disjoint.

As a final note, it's pretty funny to think about how Roy-Lucario are similar, as people think about them as characters flawed by design, when they could probably do alright. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Edited July 8, 2016 by ~Summer~

[Refa]

I don't like randoming Lucario because I suck at playing as him. His moves are probably way better when you know how to actually play as him, all I know how to do is to fair -> fair -> fair. I appreciate that he has a gray pallet so that I can call him Gray Fox, though.

[Falaflame]

I'm not bad with Lucario otherwise, but i really, really hate his recovery, especially when I have a decently high percentage on me. I either clank off the edge and die, or land on the stage and get punished brutally hard. But yeah he's alright other than that major gripe.

[Shin]

Lucario is one of the like 5 characters I have no idea how to play and only use if I random him! That's my contribution.

[Raguna]

Alright time to pitch in for one of my boys Luke (cario) and give out some tips and tricks on how he usually does. I'm by no means an expert so any disagreement is valid to point out and to add more towards his discussion. To begin, let's cover his style and specifically at first his aura.

Lucario is known far and wide for his use of aura in battle because he seriously depends on it to start doing anything too scary. Fighting a Lucario is tricky business since you don't know what they're capable off until they get around the 60% where they start becoming intimidating to most players on what they possibly could do. Aura combines easily with rage and you can do some pretty funky stuff with Aura Sphere since it's a solid edge guarding tool at high percents due to covering the ledge itself and higher up as it's being charged. You can even psyche an opponent into shield with a dair and proceed to charge an Aura Sphere in order to rack up damage or give Lucario a safe landing.

His ground game is pretty average but he does have some neat tricks up his sleeves to compesante without relying too much on Aura. All his tilts come out rather fast especially his up tilt that functions just like Little Mac's for a string of easy hits which can be followed up by a nair or fair. His dash attack is simple and straight forward while Aura Sphere just keeps getting better as Aura ramps up. His side b is great for taking your opponents out of shield and can kill easily once high enough in damage and his down b serves as a rather bad counter, but it can kill if the hit manages to connect.

His smash attacks while very laggy, are really strong. His forward smash really needs to be carefully timed to KO but if you're opponent is prone to spot dodging, Lucario's attack is so slow that it can hit them after they've spot dodged which also applies to his down Smash. His up smash is his quickest and can kill realibly like the others but it has a narrow hitbox so be careful when using it.

His air game is okay, but nothing that really kills except for his uair and bair at high percentages. His nair while decent enough suffers from small range so the opponent would really need to be in his face for it to hit and it usually very ineffective at getting the KO. Fair is more reliable and while also lacking good KO power, it's fast enough to land the hit. Dair is his fastest option but not one that favors Lucario except getting your opponents to enter shield or getting them away from you if it lands because Lucario cannot meteor in any way. Uair and bair are your ways to go but bair has slow start up and Uair has a narrow hitbox and it really depends on where you and your opponents are.

As for his recovery, it can be tricky. It's good but it's hard to get used to and Lucario is the most prone character to wall cling even without you trying to do so. It also has massive ending lag when hitting the ground directly so be sure the enemy can't capitalize on it.

His grab game is excellent but like most it depends on his level of aura. At low percents it combos, at high percents it can kill especially his back throw if facing away from the ledge. It also helps that Lucario has a nasty quick pummel so he can rack up damage easily by getting in some nice grabs. I'm not too sure of what else I can say on this part but the word of advice would be to avoid his grab as best you can which isn't too hard.

As for matchups, Lucario tends to favor fighting opponents that need to get into your face, don't have options to reflect his attacks, have bad recoveries or aren't too quick to react to his faster attacks. I can't give specifics here since it's been a while that I've tried thinking about this but as Summer pointed out Lucario has the edge against Roy.

To conclude, Lucario like Ike in a way relies on reads to get the KO or simply gaining enough of that Aura to compensate for his low base attack power. He's meh at the beginning but if you sleep on him after racking up the damage, he's going to show you pain.

[Jedi]

Good stuff Raguna, I pretty much agree with your whole post, although you think its better if Lucario is in a position where people are forced to approach him? I think I can see that, but I've never heard his few players really describe him as defensive! Probably because some people think being more defensive has some negative connotations or something.

Edited July 9, 2016 by Jedi