Brawler Arsenal

Grounded Attacks

Neutral Attacks

Neutral Attacks

Lucas swings with one of the fastest moves in the game to kick off his neutral attack combo. The first poke is a quick kick that isn’t quite in Zero Suit Samus territory, but is just as fast as the quick pokes of pixies like Mario and Luigi. Tap or hold the input for a similar follow-up kick, then a stronger finishing kick that punts victims away.

When blocked, the first and second kicks of Lucas’s neutral attack combo leave him safe from most guaranteed retaliation. Neutral attacks as fast as Zero Suit Samus’s and Mario’s (and Lucas’s own neutral attack kick) can hit him immediately after blocking, but anything slower allows Lucas to shield or dodge in time. (If someone is insistent upon striking back after blocking in close situations, try ticking with one or two neutral attacks, then sidestepping!). So Lucas is the rare fighter that can tick with one or two neutral attacks freely, whether to set up grab attempts or to interfere with the opponent’s movement and poking. Especially since Lucas’s own neutral attack opener is so speedy, this means he can overpower lots of fighters in close with this kickboxing sequence. As long as you don’t finish off with the third kick against blocking foes, Lucas isn’t at a big disadvantage after neutral attacks. Only perform all three stages when you’re sure the enemy is open, like when you’re attacking out-of-shield with neutral attacks, or punishing a big opening.

Dash Attack

While running, Lucas swings forward with a hook palm strike that projects PK energy ahead of the hand. Max damage and knockback are achieved by hitting with the tip of this attack, aiming with the PK burst. Hitting deeper in with Lucas’s arm is fine too, but deals less damage and pops the foe into a different aerial position, closer in.

Defensive Attacks

Tilts

Side Tilt

Lucas swings quickly with a backhand slap that produces a short-lived PK blast. Damage and knockback are highest within the PK blast, with Lucas’s arm dishing out a lot less. In particular, max-range side tilt flings enemies away almost like a mini smash attack at medium percentages, while a point-blank hit leaves them right by Lucas.

This attack can be aimed by angling the control stick slightly up or down on activation. The side tilt version aimed down-forward can be great to nail a recovering challenger just as they double-jump or up smash from below to grab a safe handhold. There’s a tiny window to snuff their grasp before they’re solidly attached to the ledge and briefly intangible.

Up Tilt

Lucas flips heels-over-head for an upward-striking kick. As he inverts, Lucas strikes out to both sides with his fists, giving him extremely rapid lateral coverage. If you’re close to someone on the ground, up tilt always hits. If they don’t shield or dodge, they’ll be carried into the upward-aimed kick to find themselves launched. Against viable targets in low-altitude airspace, the upward-kicking finish is great on its own, hitting as anti-air as fast as any other up tilt, even though this one has an earlier side-hitting portion.

Down Tilt

Lucas pokes with an extremely fast, low kick. Lucas’s profile isn’t too small for a crouching attack thanks to his big head, but with a move this fast, it’s no big deal. If shielded, down tilt is totally safe from guaranteed retaliation. At upper-low to medium percentages, around 20-50%, down tilt will combo into itself on grounded enemies, and also into neutral attacks. In fact, in that damage range, down tilt x2, neutral attack x3 is a real combo that ends with enemies kicked away!

Smashes

Side Smash

Taking after Ness, Lucas goes for a serious home-run swing with his side smash. The only catch here is that Lucas doesn’t have Ness’s home-run bat! Lucas uses a humble stick instead. This reduces the power compared to Ness’s, but still has an invincible, projectile-redirecting hitbox, and tremendous knockback on a successful hit. It’s also faster to hit than Ness’s bat swing.

Up Smash

This unusual up smash is almost more like a special move. After a long windup period, during which he hunches and gathers tremendous psychic energy, Lucas rises and spreads his arms upward, sending a big PK vortex straight up. When Lucas spreads his arms, there’s a momentary hitbox on either side of his body on the ground, which pops anyone in the way off their feet. This carries them into the main event, the upward-aimed PK blast. It starts out strongest right when Lucas releases it, and diminishes in power bit by bit as it floats up. The PK blast eventually dissipates once it reaches jump altitude—that’s right, it keeps going past short hop height.

This is one of the laggiest moves in the game. It takes a full half-second before Lucas spreads his arms for the side hitboxes and sends the PK blast upward, even uncharged! Once the PK blast is active, it exists as a rising threat for nearly another half-second. Once the PK blast vanishes, Lucas still has about another half-second of end lag before he can act again. All told, this uncharged smash attack takes up a full second and a half of Lucas’s time, an enormous and very punishable commitment.

However, Lucas has a few subtle defensive properties to help him squeeze this off against crowds and fast opposition. The first few frames after input, Lucas is fully invincible. Anything that hits right when he starts up smash just pings off him harmlessly. For the next few frames of start-up, he’s vulnerable normally. But then, as he rises, preparing to spread his arms and trigger the attack, his head is intangible, lowering the likelihood that he’s interrupted by foes rushing from above.

Down Smash

In some ways, Lucas’s up and down smashes are both more like specials than smashes. Down smash starts with Lucas leaning back, before reaching forward to aim finger guns at the ground directly in front of his feet. Where he points, a PK blast emerges. Ultimately, Lucas pantomimes shooting at the ground three times, creating three consecutive PK blasts. The initial attack of down smash doesn’t hit for a third of a second, even uncharged. The follow-up blasts hit quickly thereafter, keeping an active hitbox in front of Lucas for about another third of a second. Like up smash, this is a very laggy attack, both before and after. If an enemy dodge-rolls through the first part to Lucas’s back, he’s in serious trouble. If they shield against down smash, the three-part move will luckily push them far back, leaving Lucas at frame disadvantage but at least not right next to them.

If any of the three blasts hit, the enemy is knocked away. The different portions of down smash don’t multi-hit or combo into each other. However, with three ground hits back-to-back that last a decent amount of time, this move is excellent for interrupting recovering enemies as they lunge back to a safe ledge.

Grabs

Grabs

Lucas’s grab is a special tether grab that puts Rope Snake to good use. It means his grab speed is below average, like most fighters with grappling tools, but that’s a small price to pay if you use the attack from max range. His ultra-fast attacks like neutral attack, down tilt, and point-blank up tilt give him plenty of tools to pressure people quickly, making them more susceptible to a “slow” grab attack.

Both his front and back throws are noteworthy for their powerful pushback. They’re great for pushing foes toward a desired stage edge, or for going for outright KOs when their damage is built up to dangerous levels. Up throw flings them straight up with PK power, putting them in position for immediate follow-up attacks. Down throw plants them in the ground briefly, before they’re ejected forward into a lower juggle position.

Inputting the Grab command in midair causes Lucas to use his Rope Snake tether as a “zair.” It can’t grab enemies while he’s airborne, but instead functions like a long-lasting, unbeatable air poke dealing 5% damage at the snake head. If Lucas is facing a viable ledge, he’ll use Rope Snake in midair like a tether, pulling himself in!

Aerial Attacks

Aerials

Neutral Air Attack

Lucas seems to almost intentionally lose control of himself while jumping, tumbling vertically while PK blasts shimmer around him. He cuts loose with three weak pulses while flipping before finishing with a stronger blast that knocks victims away. Whether the target is flipped forward or backward depends on whether Lucas is flush pushing against them (which usually flips them over to his back) or farther away, grazing them with the edge (which generally launches them forward). If you can either predict or react to the direction they’ll get tossed, you can pursue foes after a successful neutral air attack.

The range on this attack is basically Lucas’s body, so it’s not great, but the active period is useful for plowing into people air-to-air and while short-hopping at grounded enemies. As a bonus, the move is almost tailor-made for instant short hop attacks, using the Jump+Attack buttons together on the ground for a low jump and air poke simultaneously.

Forward Air Attack

Flying through the air, Lucas sticks out a frontal one-legged jump kick. This air move isn’t particularly fast for an air poke, so make sure you have time to stick it out. There’s another reason for making sure you have good clearance before poking with forward air attack. His leg itself can hit, but the sweet spot on the move is actually beyond the foot, where the PK blast appears. Aim with that blast when using this attack, since the damage and knockback are much higher. If you hit with Lucas’s leg closer in, there’s barely any pushback, and foes might fight back immediately, air or ground.

Back Air Attack

Lucas spins backward with a downward-slashing kick. The hit starts out aimed up-back, then swings lower, ending aimed almost straight down on the final hitting frames. Like most other Lucas pokes, this extends an invulnerable PK blast ahead of Lucas’s vulnerable limbs. Unlike other Lucas pokes, the damage and knockback here are highest if you hit squarely around his knee, not with the PK blast (and not closer in, with his hips).

Back air has a terrific hitting area, covering all backward angles, but is sluggish to start up compared to other moves. If using this to attack low-percentage enemies on the ground, especially during a back hop into fast fall, try up tilt immediately upon landing to launch them for a combo if back air catches them.

Up Air Attack

Lucas swings his head upward for a launching anti-air headbutt. The initial hitbox gives a little bit of coverage in the up-back direction, but is mostly aimed straight up. As he sweeps his head forward, the attack shifts forward slightly, but is still mostly aimed up. This move is primarily for attacking airborne enemies above, or foes standing on higher-level platforms. It’s also a great option when juggling helpless enemies from underneath.

Though the side hitboxes don’t cover laterally like some headbutting up air attacks, Lucas is small, so this can be used as a last-moment jump-in falling at foes on the ground. At low percentages, like with back air used air-to-ground, you can catch them with an immediate up tilt on landing, which hits fast on either side and pops them up for more attacks. At mid percentages or higher, up air on grounded foes simply launches them, also leading to a juggle while giving you more time to react.

Down Air Attack

Stomping downward, Lucas kicks four times, with three weaker kicks preceding a heavy meteor smash hit. This move’s active period, with four attacks, stretches over a third of a second. This makes it easy to score hits with any part of down air, but hard to score all the hits. Even using it just off the ground with short hops right next to a foe, the last hit will usually fail to hit before Lucas lands again. And the last hit is the one you want; the rest are just prelude. Get used to the timing so you can aim for hitting the last kick, and consider any earlier kick hits a nice bonus. If you can allow for the lag before the important final kick, this is another powerful spiking move, good used alongside back air attack when chasing recovering foes before they return to safety.

Special Moves

Specials

Neutral Special: PK Freeze

Lucas guides an orb of icy energy like a slow mortar, detonating it on command. Holding the input and steering with left or right guides PK Freeze. On button release, the icy energy crystallizes, dealing heavy damage to anyone close enough while freezing them, if they fail to shield it. The longer PK Freeze travels before the freezing hit, the higher the damage. It launches hit fighters away at a shallow horizontal arc.

PK Freeze makes a great part of Lucas’s projectile-harassing game plan, especially since it gives him an avenue to rush in and transition to close-range offense if foes are frozen solid for a moment. From a full-height backward jump, you can begin charging PK Freeze from the jump’s apex and steer it all the way down for a ground-level frozen explosion. (If you double-jump and use PK Freeze from that apex, even a fully charged projectile won’t reach ground level.) When guarding an edge against enemies trying to recover, PK Freeze gives yet another look at Lucas’s great anti-recovery toolkit, alongside PK Thunder, PK Fire, back air, and down air attack.

Like PSI Magnet, PK Freeze is a decent quasi-recovery tool. PK Freeze doesn’t do you any good for getting back to the stage, but using it temporarily halts Lucas’s fall (with the added bonus that someone coming after you aggressively might run into the freeze detonation in midair off the stage, which isn’t ideal for them). Mix up PK Freeze and PSI Magnet uses while drifting offstage to make aggressors less certain about when you’ll bust out PK Thunder.

Side Special: PK Fire

Whether in the air or on the ground, Lucas throws a small bolt of fire energy straight ahead. This initial shot is low-damage, but blossoms into a powerful flame attack on a clean hit. If the enemy shields it, it simply fizzles out, with no big explosive payoff.

This is lower-commitment than Lucas’s other big projectile attacks, which can occupy much more of his time if you charge and guide them. PK Fire is simply fire-and-forget. With a manual short hop and immediate PK Fire after leaving the ground, you can throw a horizontal fire projectile that catches all but the smallest fighters’ heads (watch out for fighters like Pikachu and Luigi craftily crawling under ground-level shots), while providing more mobility than throwing PK Fire on foot.

Up Special: PK Thunder

Using PK power, Lucas summons and directs a snake of lightning. PK Thunder can be steered with the control stick. A small arrow appears next to Lucas, helping you aim. It disappears if it hits a solid surface or object. While Ness’s version is a single-hit projectile that ceases to be once it hits something, Lucas’s is a multi-hit version that can cut through multiple foes without vanishing. The head of the lightning snake hits hardest, with lighter hits making up the tail. This gives Lucas’s PK Thunder a slightly different flavor as a ranged harassment tool, since you can drag it back and forth across several enemies, scoring lots of hits, instead of threatening with Ness’s single-target all-or-nothing hit.

If you steer PK Thunder into Lucas, he’s launched at high speed as a super-powerful projectile. He doesn’t take any damage, but anyone in the way is in trouble. Electrified, Lucas dishes out rapid hits on a long path, dragging anyone he catches along for the ride. If you score a direct hit and carry the victim through the full duration, they take 32.5% damage, while being launched a long distance!

Aside from his Rope Snake tether grab, this is basically Lucas’s only recovery tool (down special, PSI Magnet, can be used in midair to slow momentum, but that’s about it; he has nothing else that offers rapid lateral travel). Spark up a PK Thunder projectile, then guide it in a tight circle away from the stage, hitting Lucas so he’s launched back to safe ground. This takes practice, but eventually you’ll get used to manually recovering using PK Thunder aim. Try to hit Lucas so he’s shot right at a viable ledge, grabbing it; this gives him intangibility once he’s secure on the ledge, keeping him safe. If you aim to launch him back over the stage with PK Thunder so he floats down after, it’s much easier for foes to retaliate by launching him offstage again.

Naturally, this is a strong edge-guarding move. Unlike Ness, Lucas doesn’t have to bother with worrying about hitting with just the tail, so the projectile keeps going. You can drag the whole thing, head and tail and all, through foes in danger, dealing more damage while thwarting their plays to return to safety.

Down Special: PSI Magnet

Like Ness, Lucas can absorb incoming energy shots, converting them into health. Lucas’s PSI Magnet is centered on his hand, as opposed to Ness’s being centered on his body, so Lucas’s absorption move has a little more reach to the front. Lucas keeps the field going as long as you hold the input. The move ends upon button release.

Lucas’s PSI Magnet has a small suction field, pulling in enemies at close range. This isn’t intended as a physical attack, but it does have a brief hitbox as Lucas releases the field; it’s possible to use PSI Magnet on purpose to pull someone in before releasing it for the hit. This is more like a quirk than a sound tactic, though.

Aside from absorbing enemy energy shots, PSI Magnet also has use as a momentum stopper. When Lucas activates it, he briefly slows his falling speed in midair. This can aid his offstage game, adding unpredictability. Instead of doing the obvious thing everyone knows you’re going to do, which is to use PK Thunder at some point to rocket back toward a handhold, you can “flicker” PSI Magnet one or twice, delaying the timing of your thunderous return to the stage.

Final Smash: PK Starstorm

With old friends Kumatora and Boney by his side, Lucas joins their psychokinetic forces together for a stunning meteor shower. The impactors fall randomly from above, but you can urge them to drift this way or that by holding left or right on the control stick.