Oh, how the mighty have fallen. In the late Super Smash Bros. 4 metagame, Lucina was unarguably the strongest fighter available. All she needed was Dancing Blade and forward smash — it only took those two moves to rip almost every other character to shreds. That’s no longer the case in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, though; instead of being top-tier, she’s merely mid-tier. If you’d like to learn more about her metagame history, check out her corresponding wiki page. Otherwise, let’s jump right into today’s training!
Spirits
If Spirits are your thing, then you’re in luck: this is the section for you! If you’d rather not use a Spirit team, you’re welcome to skip ahead to either of our training sections — competitive or Raid Boss. To those of you new to amiibo training, you might want to read our full Spirits guide to develop a basic understanding of how Spirits work in this game. Then, when you’re done, you can come back to this section and read up on Lucina’s best Spirit builds:
- Banned bonuses: Lucina’s best setup is a simple one: Armor Knight plus Move Speed ↑. Generally speaking, Armor Knight is the strongest Spirit effect in the game — and it works perfectly with Lucina, too. You can obtain Armor Knight via the Halberd Support Spirit, which in turn can be found in Funky Kong’s shop (which is initially accessed through World of Light).
- Tournament-legal bonuses: Top Lucina amiibo almost always run at least one instance of Weapon Attack ↑. Weapon Attack & Move Speed ↑↑ is another fantastic option that takes up all three Spirit slots, but provides a slew of benefits in return. Air Defense ↑ works great on Lucina too!
- Raid Boss bonuses: Each of the bonus combinations listed above works well for a Raid Boss Lucina. Armor Knight, and Super Armor, and Great Autoheal are probably the best overall options, but they’re also cheap ones — as in, human players will find those boring to fight against. For a more fair setup, try something like Weapon Attack ↑, Air Defense ↑, and Move Speed ↑.
Once you’ve filled up your three Spirit slots, you’ll have to round out your FP’s stat spread. We recommend either a balanced build (2100 / 2100) or a slightly more offensive one (2500 / 1700). Once that’s all said and done, you’ll need to make sure your FP’s Spirit type is Neutral. If it’s anything else, then it runs the risk of losing Spirit-type matchups if it ever fights other FPs later on down the line. Be careful!
Competitive Training
Lucina is an incredibly popular character, and she’s had several dedicated trainers over the years. As a result, her training strategy is well-optimized! We’ve prepared a bullet point list of her best moves followed up by a full explanation of each one afterward (plus a few optional moves). Let’s break it down!
- Forward tilt, grabs, and especially forward smash at close range
- Down smash out of shield and up smash as an anti-air
- Up air over and over again for juggling
- Forward air, back air, or occasionally down air for landing
- Forward air and back air for off-stage edgeguarding or down tilt at the ledge to intercept recovering opponents
If you’re a new amiibo trainer, you picked a pretty good character to start with! Lucina’s training is straightforward, and she’s a good enough character to get you decent results even if she hasn’t been trained completely optimally. Before you start training, remember to exclusively walk during the matches you play. Dashing is kind of like the ultimate newbie trap; in this game, the AI often initiates a dash right into incoming attacks and takes needless damage. By teaching your Figure Player to walk, it’ll be more likely to stop and shield or dodge instead — a big improvement! When you’re ready to start training, scan in your Lucina amiibo. You can choose to play as either Lucina or Marth, though the mirror match tends to work better.
At close range, forward smash is Lucina’s best friend. It’s fast, serves as a solid anti-air, and has respectable KO power — especially at the edge. Forward tilt isn’t quite as important, but mixing it in prevents forward smash’s power from staling. Lucina’s grab value should be maxed out or nearly maxed out, if possible, as her throws provide lots of value. By Level 50, your FP will combo a down throw into an up air or back air. There’s no need to go out of your way to teach it this combo, but it wouldn’t hurt if you tried it out yourself a few times! Down tilt works at close range too, but as we’ll discuss in a little while, it’s better used to guard the ledge.
Now we’re getting into Lucina’s more situational grounded options. Down smash works well immediately after a parry; its initial hit is decently strong and the attack turns around and strikes from behind with even greater power. Up smash is a decent anti-air, but the FP occasionally misses its scooping hitbox and then whiffs the attack entirely. Use this one sparingly!
Next up: aerials. For the most part, you’re only going to want to use aerials (or be in the air at all) when your FP has launched you upward or while falling off the respawn platform. Otherwise, remaining grounded is your best option. When you are launched upward, use a forward air or back air just before you land. Down air works here too, but should receive less priority compared to the other two moves. When your FP is directly above you, you can temporarily ditch the “no jumping” rule to attack it with as many up airs as you can. Try to hit a whole bunch of them in a row.
When you launch your FP off-stage, you can either choose to wait at the ledge (very little risk) or follow it off-stage and KO It (higher reward, but higher risk). It’s up to you! If you choose to wait at the ledge, simply stand there and poke at it with down tilt. Its horizontal angle makes recovery difficult for certain characters. If you’d rather teach your FP to edgeguard off-stage, you can do so with forward air and back air. It’s actually possible to use a back air directly after stealing the ledge from your FP — the move is incredibly strong in this instance.
Lucina has plenty of great moves, but there are also a few that definitely aren’t worth investing into. Up tilt seems like a good idea on paper, but Lucina’s AI tends to go for two up tilts in a row any time it uses an attack. By the time the second up tilt is over, the opportunity to follow up with an aerial has passed. Dancing Blade was her best move in Super Smash Bros. for Wii U, but that’s no longer the case: in this game, the AI holds its shield against every hit. Counter fell off hard, too; it might have a place as a niche landing option, but Lucina’s aerials do that job much better. Then we have Shield Breaker, in which the AI occasionally tries to charge it while landing. That leaves her vulnerable, so try your best to avoid the move entirely.
If any of these explanations confused you, try reading our general training guide first! It goes in-depth on key amiibo training concepts that would take too long to explain on every single character guide. If you have a specific question, you can direct it to our Discord server! We can help with amiibo training, collecting — pretty much amiibo anything. Special thanks to Bananika for contributing Lucina’s training information.
Raid Boss Training
Lucina is actually a really decent Raid Boss! Decent range, decent power — and it’ll all wind up boosted even further by a Spirit team. She’ll need to use a wide variety of moves to succeed, and – just to be clear – it’s totally fine to teach a Raid Boss to dash and run around (which is the opposite of what our competitive section suggests). Here’s a full breakdown of our recommendations for a Raid Boss Lucina amiibo:
- At close range, your best options are forward tilt, neutral attack, grab, and some down tilt. By the time your FP reaches Level 50, it’ll have learned all its grab combos on its own. All of Lucina’s aerials (minus down air) work well out of a short hop, too! That being said, you actually can’t use the short hop macro yourself (the jump button and the attack button at the same time) — FPs actually do not recognize aerial moves if they’re used with button shortcuts. Lightly press the jump button and then the attack button, and the move will register.
- Up smash, up air, and forward smash are your best anti-airs. Up smash is a bit too thin to be consistent, so mix in plenty of up air juggling chains. Forward smash and dash attack are solid finishers, though you’ll want to keep their usage limited so the FP doesn’t throw these attacks out and get punished.
As you may know, Lucina’s up special halts and kills her momentum after its final hitbox. Other FPs won’t always know to attack at that moment, but human players will — as a result, you should keep her on-stage as often as possible. Between her Spirit team and on-stage attacks, your Lucina amiibo shouldn’t have too much trouble KOing her opponent. By the way: our Marth and Lucina guides actually aren’t identical. Read our Marth guide instead if you’re training him!
Wrap-Up
Sure, Lucina has fallen from grace, but she’s still rather strong and she’s certainly easier to train. Her consistent hitboxes make her a better fighter than Marth, for the most part, so if you’re stuck between deciding which one to train you might want to go with Lucina. If you have any questions, please direct them to our Discord community. Until next time — happy training!
If you would like to read more about amiibo training, please follow this link.
