Why NO ONE Plays: Lucas | Super Smash Bros. Ultimate 

I love that u spend the first half of these videos strictly talking positively about the character which actually makes people wanna play him, despite the title. Lol

I think Lucas is one of those characters with a kit that just has.so.much.damn potential. Like megaman, Wii fit, duck hunt, just a super underrated character that is begging to have a top player main him and go on an unprecedented run

just taking some rolecall for the lucas mains here! (and if you're a REAL one, tell me your fav skin alt! mines is the claus one :D)

Lucas mains ALL swear he’s really good; solid high tier at least. But there just isnt the results to back it up. Being weak to swords in the game big sword aerials are at their strongest is pretty bad, as well as competing with Ness which is wayyy easier to play as Vars said. His mains although low in numbers do all really love him at the very least. Big character loyalty vibes

Because Mother 3 hasn’t been released yet.

One of the factors I think why Lucas is underplayed is that he is too technical for how much you get out of him. For example, Lucas’s very good jump-cancel zair loops are, if I’m remembering correctly, like frame perfect (having to press jump and grab at the same time), which is a turn off when others of similar or greater strength can do other things while being much easier to play.

I think a Why No One Plays Chrom would be interesting. I cant think of any other character where its literally just one thing holding them back and how obvious that one thing is

Another thing holding Lucas back is his lack of out of shield options. Having a slow up-smash, a slow projectile up-b, and a slow grab means that his only oos options are his aerials. Oos nair and up air are frame 10; oos fair and zair are frame 12; oos dair is frame 13; and oos bair is frame 18.

as lucas main i have been WAITING to see a why no one plays lucas video

Something you eluded to but didn't outrite state is how Lucas is a glass cannon. His OoS is -10 (disregarding advanced tech: footstool djcz, upsmash parrying). He also has no decent button in disadvantage, which is totally opposite of Ness, and Lucas is floaty. It makes his best option when above his opponent to retreat to ledge. However, his ledge options aren't that terrible. Djcz will force the opponent to shield. Which then sets up for drop-down rising magnet into an almost guaranteed up-air. This makes ledge trapping Lucas a RPS match that favors lucas against most characters. This necessitates learning advanced techniques+combos and having a great grasp on fundamentals in order to avoid downward spiraling during a game. Making the skill-floor for Lucas higher than players are willing to commit to in order to play a character that's "only above average"

Interesting, I like how you bring up and point out that the "I have to think more than you do" is a big drawback. I think BOTW Link has this problem as well? It just turns into a ton of "i need to always make the right play/react" instead of "they have to react to me".

Lucas feels like adult Link in the sense that he feels stronger than his counterpart's AND has a higher skill cealing but Lucas and adult Link lack the results to backup those statements

My boy Lucas

imagine if one very highly ranked player said rob was bad and no one really gave him a look for years. that happens all the time in smash. like amsa with yoshi, all it takes is one good player to take the time to learn a character and show that theyre more than people originally thought

Most people aren't trying to do a 3 frame window input 50 times a stock just to have a neutral

I love Lucas

the other problem with lucas is just how tiring he is to play in terms of moving. his movement is ridiculously complicated, with wavebouncing being required for him to even have ok movement. he will definitely get better as ultimate ages due to him still having stupid amounts of tools and mixups, but yea his frame data and slow ass air speed make him super vulnerable to swords, which is a slight problem. but always remember that just because someone has bad tourney showings does not mean the character is bad it means the players are.

As a lucas main, I agree wholeheartedly. I've never quite been able to put into words what that feeling is of the "two part" system, but Vars did it great. There is also the added difficulty of just how unintuitive some of the Lucas-specific tech is. Double jump canceling zair has taken me so long to figure out, and then even then it's not the most amazing tool in neutral by any means. I think the joy of playing Lucas (and my personal enjoyment of the character) comes from the fact that he is just SO difficult, so a win really feels like you earned it with all the hours and brain power required that other characters simply just don't require

Thank you for the video. To add on to what you’ve said (as an old Lucas main), 1.) PK thunder in neutral is good. It’s best used within a close range of the opponent and should be used to shield poke and apply pressure to the opponent's shield. PK thunder shield stuns so the opponent can’t do an action while PK Thunder is circling around their shield. This can be used while trying to land from above your opponent. Hitting lucas while PK thunder’s tail is still hitting the opponent will cause massive shield damage and provide lucas with an escape option and it’s fairly safe on shield. Not meant to be spammed because the opponent can predict this and HARD PUNISHED PK Thunder’s slow start up. 2.) Lucas is like Lucario and he suffers like min min and greninja. Lucas oos is awful. So like greninja he shouldn’t shield. Lucas also can’t punish cross ups (behind him) just like min min. Neutral air can’t help as long as the move is disjointed or safe. Lucas can’t anti air. This alone makes him a D tier character. Lucas cannot cover vertical and diagonal vertical air approaches without putting himself at risk. It’s easy to jump in to approach lucas because either he can’t cover an angle (like vertical diagonally behind him) or if he can it’ll trade. Upsmash, pk thunder, uptilt are laggy. Up air and neutral air both risk lucas trading hits with the adversary. 3.) Lucas is bad defensively. Lucas’s hair is also a hurt box. A couple hits on his shield and he can be shield poked because his hair sticks out. This applies to ledge trapping. Lucas on the ledge has to make an immediate decision or he’ll get hit because his hair stands up above the ledge. One good thing, if you main Lucas for years and switch to another character you’ll automatically be good cause DANG LUCAS IS HARD!!!.

Been waiting for this video. I love that you mention the inconsistency of nair, too. It's a decent tool for those not suspecting it, but while similar it will never compare to Palutena's. Excellent video through and through.

As someone that mained Lucas since he was introduced into Smash 4 and really enjoyed playing him as a solid mid tier... Lucas most certainly feels like a low tier character in Ultimate. The second I started playing as Lucas in this game I was disappointed. They nerfed his down throw combos, footstool combos, added lag to his PK Fire, added landing lag and a terrible knockback angle to his Nair, made his jab connect less consistently, and the list goes on. The minor buffs to his moves do not compensate for what he lost in addition to the weaknesses the character already has. His PK Fire kills earlier, his PK Freeze sends horizontally, and his Dsmash easily 2-frames. These buffs would have been nice if Lucas didn’t receive significant nerfs that really hurt him. In ultimate his disadvantage state is poor, his advantage state is unremarkable, recovery is relatively exploitable, his out of shield options are weak, and his grab just doesn’t cut it. These are certainly the makings of a character lower on the tier list. I don’t think he’s unplayable, but he is nowhere near the top half of the cast. I’ll always play him for fun though! (I main Ness for tournaments at this point).

one thing that I think you neglected to mention about why the few people who do play lucas play him is because of you being forced to be creative to get to the edge guarding state - he is a character that demands you to play him creatively, which to many people is really fun - along with that idea of having to switch gears makes him a really unique character to play, even if those things that make him unique also hinder him

Lucas was my literal first main ever in this series (started with brawl), and I've never changed my mind. Love the little guy! Also, I need to start practicing those zair djc

The comments you made about his toolkit being incongruous reminds me of other characters you've covered like Banjo and Mewtwo.

I'm very much a casual player but this was so insightful and well explained. Great video!

I’m a Lucas main (and a casual) and I love this. Ironically I love his Jack of all trades nature - feels like just so much untapped potential and creative potential that, when figurd out, can go into any situation. I feel I could play him forever and keep learning cool ways to use his arsenal and I LOVE that. Plus I’m ass at edge guarding in general so he covers that for me so it’s a nice perk. Fantastic video and I learned a lot about why I love Lucas through it, thanks!!

I've been so curious about this.

As a Lucas secondary main, I confirm this 100%. Lucas is good for players that don't know him well or have moves with punishable windows. Lucas is what I call a "1-2 combo player" you have to covert your own combos with no grantees or truth. Edit: OMG, you mention it right after I typed the comment out... xD (10:40)

thank you for making this I’ve asked forever!

I was waiting for a lucas video! thanks

Definitely one of the hardest characters in the game to play with tricky tech, strange physics, and an unusual set of moves

1:08 that is the funniest shit ive seen a villager do

Surprised you didn’t mention how they removed his D-Throw combos. I think that plays a big part in why he feels like he lives and dies by edge guarding now because the D-Throw conversions he had last game played a huge part in making his on stage presence much more dangerous. It helped his damage racking and as we all know led to that infamous D-Throw U-Air kill combo that worked on many characters as early as like 75% with rage. Now it’s good they removed the kill setup as it was degenerate but removing consistent on stage conversions off grab like that altogether hurt his on stage presence to the point where he now feels forced to get you off ledge ASAP and has to use more advanced stuff to do it. Further making him more unforgiving to master.

I grew up maining Lucas and Toon Link, and Lucas is honestly my favorite. If you really know what you're doing, he's beautiful to play when in rhythm.

Calling Lucas a "D,H,L,Q,S,W" makes more sense than it has any right too. I think you covered most of Lucas well here, and I do appreciate how Ness was compared as a similar archetype rather than a 1-to-1 character as other guides do (seriously there are way too many Lucas guides or viability rankings of him that just boil down to "how good is Ness lmao") I do think there are two things that weren't covered in this video that do need to be mentioned. Lucas basically doesn't have a part 1 for his game plans, as you did mention in your video, and this is a serious problem for his pressure game. You have some of the best aerial combo moves in the game (up air, nair, dair and bair to an extent) but how do you start a combo? If this were a character like Fox, Diddy Kong, or Pikachu you could start a combo by using grounded tilts and throws, or a really fast aerial. Lucas has no grounded combo starters up until about 130% where down tilt can combo for a KO. This means that if Lucas wants to start raking up damage he has to be jumping and doesn't really get a moment to do anything on the ground. This becomes an even worse problem when you realize Lucas' fastest aerial is frame 7. Other character can just hold forward and press button and will most likely beat out Lucas in a direct confrontation. Cloud also kind of has this problem, but cloud back air controls the entire game and his sword means that even if his up tilt doesn't true combo his large range and safety still put him in a great spot to juggle or pressure platforms. Also Lucas not having a combo down throw means his entire shield pressure game (REALLY GOOD BTW) just goes out the window because why would the opponent not keep shielding? Mario has basically the same level of safety on shield, but because his throws actually do something at lower percents it makes it much harder to shield against him. Lucas just doesn't have any glue to hold his move set together and you start to really feel just how useless or conditional some of his moves can really be (up tilt especially that move just doesn't have a use)

I think the only thing you didn't mention about lucas that really matters is the four ways his recovery is better than ness'. The first you actually pointed a bit, which is his pk thunder being transcendental and less susceptible to edge guard. The second is how far his floatiness takes him with his air dodge. The third is his tether, and finally, his upb itself goes a longer distance. Given the inherent vulnerability of his and ness' upb recovery, having ways to work around is really important. But I agree that none of that compensates the flaws you mentioned of not integrating enough his gameplan.

Lucus is my main! I clicked on this video just to defend him! having watched your video, I notice you never mentioned his up smash which has I-frames that overlap with its cancel window allowing you to use it as a safe approach. Yes, it's hard to pull off but that's what makes Lucus so good, he rewards high skill.

I feel like lucas is weird because he has tools to deal with everybody, very well too. His neutral is actually FREE if the opponent isnt a swordie like cloud, but bis advantage state more than makes up for it. Rising nair dragdowns that go into your entire kit forever, insane multihits that cover any options, and disjoints that go ludicrously far. When people say lucas loses to swordies i genuinely think its only neutral that is an actual problem. Almost every swordie gets robbed by pk thunder outright no matter what they actually do, the only way they make it back is if the lucas main lets them. Lucas needs somebody to really push them and when that happens its joever

Wait, you literally said EVERYTHING I’ve ever thought about him in my years of playing him!

I tought i opened my blue archive in the background bc of the music in the start

This is crazy cause he is my go to. He has some of the best standard moving attacks (whatever they’re called when you flick the stick) that make for perfect surprise hits that pack a punch. Love to launch himself too with pk thunder

Why NO ONE Plays Lucas Me: *looks at my elitesmash Lucas* yeah, no one

Reminds me of what you said about Falco. Amazing if he can get to the part of the game where he shines, but it's just a little too hard to get there as consistently as you need to.

His kit doesn't feel like it flows together imho. Ness', for how annoying it can be, works with itself really well due to the synergy between his throws, specials, and normals, while Lucas' doesn't have that

Finally, now give us the Duck Hunt video 🥺

You’ve done a video on almost every super heavy but Dedede, and I would like to see at video analyzing his flaws.

I have always loved PM Lucas while not liking this version exactly because of the problem you outlined: that his tool just don't synergize very well despite being strong in a vacuum. PM really let his movement and pressure come together to solidify his combo game and edgegaurds by letting him betted flow between the two, as well as gave him additional win conditions besides edgegaurding to make up for his trouble actually getting in to start with. By making him a faster faller and increasing his movement speed to allow him to transition his combos better, and by giving him the power up mechanic and adding some on stage kill confirms so he could finish opponents with combos into smash attacks if he couldn't effectively edgegaurd them, all of a sudden his gameplay flows extremely well while still having the identity of short range and trouble approaching.

this is a good video and explains a lot of the character’s issues. i think another point of note is how lucas’s air stats just don’t suit his moves all that well. he’s just a touch too slow and a touch too floaty to have some really nasty strings that would look closer to his PM iteration

Will you do an episode about the belmonts? if so what will it be about and when will it be?

The capacity for Lucas' broken toolkit to punish untrue combos with immediate death is also a highly conditional but effective application. Arguably the best between stock strategy too, in tether hanging, dropping, and reattaching to wait out their invincibility before using ledge invincibility

Vars, here’s where I heavily disagree. You talked about him having a two part game plan, which is true to an extent. Yes, he has onstage pressure and edge guarding, but Lucas’s win conditions on stage are just as strong. For one, the zair chain can be reliably combo’d into bair or dair, which means that he’ll kill you straight up hitting one of these. Additionally, Lucas’s nair combos are a lot stronger than you’d think. They are true if u fast fall in between and can either lead to a potential zero to death if you use less nairs or ~80% with ur opponent off stage already as long as you end with a fair. Also, Lucas’s onstage pressure is superb. He has footstool djcz oos which leads into the majority of his busted combo game off of a frame 4 option oos, he has a moderately nerfed melee wave dash in snake dashing and nair, djcz, and pivot ftilt are all good approach options. Additionally, he can keep opponents stuck in shield with his shield pressure, and he has some of the best kill confirms in the game. From about 65% to like 150% he can reliably kill confirm, either with dair loops, nair drag downs, dtilt ftilt, grab confirms, or some combination of this. Plus, his movement isn’t bad. His shield out of dash is frame 8, so he can dash dance a lot, making his movement a lot better than you think, while also having the option to snakedash in between to really mix up approaches since it lets u cancel initial dash. Really the only reason why no one plays him is that he’s hard and placed low in the tier list. But honestly, optimized Lucas is likely a top 10 character, and his tech is definitely possible to perform consistently.

If I want to get into the tournament scene which characters should I consider using? Note I do not have any of the DLC fighters. My current mains are Bowser, Pikachu, and Corrin.

Does anybody else remember when a random pm player named neon randomly came out of nowhere and styled on mew2king

Lucas is one of my absolute favs. His PK up smash is, literally, killer. And he's got multiple meteors.

This is my issue with what makes a character viable in the ultimate meta just because someone is less commonly played and lacks solid tournament results doesn't mean their not good and ultimate has a balanced roster (Now that steve is banned) Is That most People Just are unwillgly to focus effort into playing those characters they just pick a high or top tier and call it a day. I have achieved Max GSP Or Very High Gsl with Most Low Mid to bottom tiers with only one exception being Game and watch who i only use if I want to play with minimal effort and energy. Dr Mario,Bowser Jr, Villager, Toon Link, Mewtwo,Including Lucas are all the characters I achieved high or max GSP Like for example You Couldn't Tell me A Notable Zelda Main right this second but you can certainly name a whole family pyra and mythra mains. Why cant you tell me a notable Zelda main but a buttload of pyra and mythra mains I mean Zelda has been in here since Melee? Because the ultimate meta is so obsessed with top tiers and high tier characters that they automatically assume those that they dont play are automatically considered Bad. And the reason why their bad is the same EVERY. Dang. Time Range,Recovery,Mobility or damage racking or killing Trust me look up a top tier main's tier list and you will hear one of these 5 reasons all the dang time for the lower tiers but man as soon as they reached the high tier and up they make Multiple strong arguments to their viability make multiple notable mains and go on and on and trust me when i say the high to top tier characters segments are always gonna be longer because players these days are so biased

Haven't played this game in a while, nice to see Lucas is still underrated

Assuming Pk freeze and thunder are only edge guarding tools is your first mistake.

He finally made it, holy shit

It also bears mention that Lucas' recovery is positively God tier. Thunder 2 goes prosperously long and he's got more mixup options than Ness by an order of magnitude. None of which abates your thesis

It's funny, I feel like I run into him inordinately often online. Competitively not there, but casually popular.

I feel like if you aren't a fan of Mother 3, it just makes more sense to play Ness. He's close enough to Lucas, but easier, like you said at the end. Lucas HAS some crazy potential, but the mechanical skill and mixups needed to get things going is a lot more to ask for. High skill floor, high skill ceiling.

PK Freeze is an anti camping tool and forces approaches.

Why a character that has a very good kit but is condered mid is very hard to explain but you do a very good job in these videos

You should come to New Zealand. 3 out of our top 10 players play Lucas.

Villager and Lucas are so over reliant on edge guarding in a game where the recoveries are busted

Lucas has a lot of potential with his kit but he's too difficult with the amount of effort he has for minimal reward

I've always felt this way playing Lucas but never had the words to explain it. You did a fantastic job outlining why he's so unconventional to use

If people actually took the time to learn how to play lucas instead of just picking up ness because hes easier to learn, Lucas would probably be a top tier character, maybe even higher up than ness… but unfortunately a live in a world where nobody knows what the mother series is… and even more unfortunately we live in a world where MOTHER 3 STILL ISN’T LOCALISED

Ayyy BA music😭

Lucas is among my all time most played smash characters for sure, but if he's against a player/fighter that doesn't get completely obliterated by pk fire it almost always at best feels like a coin flip xD

Knew this day would come...☹

I’ve been a Lucas main since brawl and I never looked back

I think Lucas is a character that suffers from being actually fair and balanced in a game full unfair and broken characters

Lucas is my main. He's so much fun, I get a lot more enjoyment doin air juggles, hitting pk fire/ice, and landing the up smash. Also, no mention of up smash in this video? I mean it's slow but it has super armor and I think is the strongest smash in the entire game?

as a lucas main, a lot of people don't play him because he is wayy too technical for quite little reward. he is very hard to get inconsistent but if u can make up for it i think he is high tier. his kit is very underrated and actually insanely good. also as u mentioned in the video, he has one of the best edgeguarding capability in the entire game which is insane. the only reason that he is pretty much a mid tier is because he is very unrepresented and doesn't have the results to make him higher than mid tier on tier lists

Who decided Lucus should have three kill throws on a grab that can true combo from his normals? I want to have a long chat with them.

Blue Archive OST lets go!!!

Yaaaaaay vars upload

Jokes on you, lucas is one od my top 3 mains

Another thing Lucas is good at especially against slow characters is circle camping. If you come right in front of Lucas linearly, he can PK Fire. If you approach, he can easily escape with his massive jump and decent air speed. If you’re above him, he can hurt you real bad with Up Smash

Lucas has been my main since Smash 4, and I don't see that changing anytime soon. I am better with Lucas than basically every other character in the game, with Ness being the closest to Lucas. I do want to point out that one possible reason why Lucas isn't a super popular character in competitive Smash could be because he has a hard time against swords, which many of the top and high tier characters have. It is something that Ness also has a hard time dealing with.

this sounds very similar to zelda actually. she’s my main, and it definitely feels like she plays in parts the same way lucas does. looking forward to her episode to see what your thoughts are 😊

Ness and Lucas were fairly even in Smash 4, but Ultimate made Ness much better than Lucas. Ness' PSI Magnet getting a hitbox effectively invalidated Lucas' since Ness' hitbox comes out at the beginning of the move rather than the end.

10:57 If it’s not 100% chance it’s a 50% chance

Video idea: why no plays lil Mac

Regalo, true to his name, is a gift to Lucas players globally

It's simple, all the good Lucas players just go to P+

Anyone knows what the song is that plays throughout the video?

Can u do one episode for sonic?(I know there's one for the problem with sonic)but I really wanted silmilar vids for sonic

I'm a Lucas main and this is the first thing I see when I open RU-vid today 💀

Man I need to learn how to do the Z-air combo

I think Lucas’s combo game is top 10 in the game. It’s surprisingly technical and finicky but can reliably take most of the cast from zero to 80 percent without relying on reads. People write him off as having stupid edge guarding and projectiles, but he genuinely has the whole kit necessary to succeed. I really think most people just don’t want to play to his real strengths, because of that strange technicality.

Literally all of Lucas’ moves kil, and I think that’s the funniest thing. That’s why I main him

In short, as someone who picked him up for a while, he's weird! He's so weird, none of his attacks follow the usual conventions of their peers, up b doesn't instantly send him up, down smash doesn't cover his back, neutral b is the weirdest projectile and freezes! He's so fun though.

Justice for Lucas!

LET'S GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO THANKS YOU

You actually nail everything about the issue with Lucas in Smash Ultimate Smash 4 Lucas is truly the best version of Lucas since he was a lot more consistent with his gameplay compared to Ultimate Lucas Though honestly, with how you described Lucas in Ultimate, you have to realize that Lucas still feels essentially like a Ness rehash, he's never been really differentiated from Ness despite getting some changes to make Lucas different. Both Ness & Lucas are strong versatile all-rounders, but Ness's moveset actually syncs well into each other & his tools are actually versatile while Lucas's moveset are just all over the place & don't properly link together like Ness, you can just see that through their specials, Ness's specials are versatile & have a lot of usage & reward cause of that (even PK Flash, it's more versatile than PK Freeze since u can get more out of PK Flash & not just for edgeguarding only), Lucas's specials are merely specialized for one thing only & that only, which makes Lucas feel so one-note unlike with Ness who has more expressions & uses in his tools. Ultimately, rather cut Lucas, make him an alt for Ness, & just give Lucas's best aspects (slightly faster ground speed & air speed, forward tilt, & forward smash) to Ness. Could give Lucas's up smash as well to Ness so Ness actually has a PSI smash attack, but is reworked by making uncharged up smash come out quick, but vertical range is small & only kills in reasonable percents, but charging will allow up smash to have more range & deal devastating knockback, essentially useful for reads & not just a gimmicky strong up smash). If they are to keep Lucas, he needs a serious rework, Project M/Project + actually completely reworked Lucas & it made him a hella fun character despite being very technical, shows what happens if Lucas finally stops being held back as a Ness rehash.

I LOVE LUCAS

Once you learn how to do DJCZ with Lucas. You can't go back.

One of the most fun characters to play!!!