Lucas is the perfect example of a Figure Player who has become well-optimized over the years. At first, off-stage play was his jam, and he’d be taught to use aerials to utterly crush opponents trying to recover. And while that’s still one viable strategy, some competitive Lucas amiibo choose to stay on-stage instead. In terms of their optimal playstyles, you might even say that Ness and Lucas are kind of similar. If you’d like to learn even more about Lucas’ strengths and weaknesses, please check his wiki page. Otherwise, let’s jump right into today’s training!

Special thanks to gamer for contributing Lucas’ training information!

Spirits

There aren’t too many competitive tournaments out there that allow Spirits, but we’ve got some setups here to use for Lucas in case you find one to enter. If you need a run-down on how Spirits work in this game, please refer to our full Spirits guide before you continue. In the meantime, here’s a full list of viable Lucas builds:

• Banned bonuses: If you’re entering a tourney that doesn’t follow our Spirits ban list, then your best setup for Lucas is going to be Armor Knight plus a boosting ability of your choice. If you follow our training recommendation and choose to keep your FP on-stage, use PSI Attack ↑ in the third slot. If you’d rather teach it to edgeguard off-stage, use Move Speed ↑ instead.
• Tournament-legal bonuses: PSI Attack ↑ increases the strength of Lucas’ entire kit — and it can even be stacked twice to increase its effects even further! Electric Attack ↑ boosts the sweetspot of Lucas’ PSI moves, and then Air Defense ↑ can be used to… well, you can probably guess.
• Raid Boss bonuses: If you don’t want to use the obvious Super Armor or Great Autoheal bonuses, the build we mentioned earlier including PSI Attack ↑, Electric Attack ↑, and Air Defense ↑ is still optimal for a Raid Boss. Take your pick!

Keep Lucas’ stats balanced between attack and defense as best you can (2100 / 2100). Make sure the FP’s Spirit-type is Neutral before you start its training, as we don’t want it losing Spirit-type matchups later on.

Competitive Training

Figure Players “think” more clearly if you train them to walk instead of run. So that’s exactly what we’re going to do here! This means you should avoid dashing altogether — except for when you’re about to use a dash attack. When training Lucas, you can either opt to take risks or play it safe; in other words, you can train him to go off-stage and use down airs or just stand at the ledge and harass opponents with PK Thunder. We’ll discuss this in greater detail in just a moment; in the meantime, here’s what an optimal Lucas FP looks like:

• Up smash is by far Lucas’ strongest move. It’s got full invincibility from frames 1 to 7 and strikes opponents twice. Ultimate’s AI often parries the first hit of a move only to take damage from the second hit, and that’s how enemies will often react to Lucas’ up smash. When your FP is above you, attack it with an up smash.
• PK Fire is one of Lucas’ best zoning tools. It allows him to create space and deal good chunks of damage. Use this when you’re at mid-range!
• Forward tilt and down tilt are solid neutral options. Down tilt also boasts hard-coded combos into forward tilt, dash attack, or forward smash. Up tilt is outclassed by up smash, but can still be used every so often as an anti-air.
• Neutral air or back air can be used as landing options. Forward air can see some offensive use out of a short hop or full hop, plus it’s another solid landing tool.
• Now for down air. As mentioned before, there are two kinds of Lucas FPs: on-stage and off-stage. Regardless of the type you decide to train, you should use all of the moves that have been listed prior to this one. If you decide you do want to train your FP to edgeguard, then you can walk off-stage and try to meteor smash it with down air (and only down air). This leaves Lucas vulnerable to gimps, but the potential reward could be worth the risk.
• If you’d rather stay safe, then don’t leave the stage to edgeguard. Instead, when your FP is launched off-stage, walk up to the ledge and chase it with PK Thunder’s electric projectile. This move serves no other purpose, so only use it at the edge and only use its projectile (as opposed to the full tackle attack). It’s worth noting that most of the best-performing Lucas FPs have shelved off-stage play in favor of PK Thunder at the ledge.

There are several moves that you’ll have to avoid during training: neutral attack, grab aerial, and PK Freeze. That’s a lot! Jab and up air are outclassed by nearly every other option, and Lucas’ AI tends to spam its midair grab if used offensively. The AI also cannot use PK Freeze correctly – in fact, it always uses it uncharged – so avoid it at all costs.

With this moveset, your Lucas amiibo will harass opponents from a distance with PK Fire. The opponent will either take damage, block the move, or jump into the air — if the enemy chooses the last option, Lucas can move in and punish with a powerful up smash. This move strikes twice, meaning it beats out foes who perfect shield often. When Lucas’ opponent walks up close, he can swat them away with his forward tilt, which is incredibly fast and surprisingly strong.

Raid Boss Training

As with all fighters, Lucas is best trained via mirror matches, and this means you’ll need to play as him during training — even if you aren’t very good with him. Remember that Figure Players can’t store matchup experience in this game; in other words, they can’t tell which character you’re playing as, so it’s best that you play as Lucas so the FP learns all of its relevant moves. Before we get into the specifics, here are a few general tips: first, don’t charge smash attacks! FPs can very easily get in the habit of spamming fully charged smashes, which leaves them predictable and highly vulnerable. Second, don’t taunt too much. It’s fine to taunt every once in a while, but if you use too many of them, the FP will go crazy and start spamming them! And finally, try not to roll or air dodge; FPs can easily become too defensive. Here is a Raid Boss Lucas amiibo’s optimal move list:

• Lucas’ forward tilt is kind of crazy. It’s fast, powerful, and can even KO at the ledge at high percentages. This should be your primary ground move! Up tilt is a Raid Boss Lucas’ only anti-air move, and then down tilt should be used to combo into a grab, jab, or forward air.
• Neutral air is mostly useful as a get-off-me move; more rarely, the AI uses it to drag opponents to the ground and follow up. Forward air, up air, and back air should all see some offensive use as well — both on-stage and off.
• Forward smash is occasionally useful as a kill move or reflector. Use a few forward smashes during training to teach your FP to do the same!
• PK Fire isn’t as useful against humans as it is against FPs, but having a viable projectile is still a great advantage. Only use PK Fire on the ground — and even then, it should only see a small amount of usage since it’s rather easy to punish.

There are a few moves to avoid here, and these include PK Freeze, PK Thunder, and up smash. Lucas’ AI can’t learn to fully charge and aim PK Freeze; if you try to teach it to anyway, you’ll find that it uses the move uncharged and at inappropriate times. PK Thunder is a bit too slow to be able to harass human players off-stage, so you’re better off edgeguarding with aerials instead. And finally, up smash is too slow to be a consistent aerial punish (though it is very effective against other FPs).

Wrap-Up

Thanks very much for reading all the way to the end! If you have any questions for us during your training sessions, feel free to join our Discord community and ask away. Once your Lucas amiibo is fully trained, you also have the option of sending him to a tournament! We have a detailed guide that will help you get him ready for high-stakes matchups right here. If you like what you read today, we also appreciate donations to help keep the site running. Until next time — happy training!

If you would like to read more amiibo training guides, please follow this link.

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