Lucina (SSB4)

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Lucina (, Lucina) is a playable character in Super Smash Bros. 4. She was revealed during a livestream on July 14th, 2014 on the official Super Smash Bros. website, during which was announced and her fellow fighter was also revealed.
 and , who voiced Lucina in the English and Japanese versions of Fire Emblem Awakening respectively, reprise their roles in the international and Japanese versions of the game with newly recorded voice clips.
Lucina is ranked 14th out of 54 on the tier list, placing her in the B tier. Lucina shares many traits with Marth and as such possesses above-average mobility, minimal start-up lag in her moveset, and relatively long disjointed range, all of which grants her access to useful combo starters and useful KO options. The main difference between the two are their swords, as Lucina's lacks a tipper. As a result, Lucina's moveset is less polarized than Marth's and, in turn, possesses several benefits: her KO potential is noticeably more consistent at high percentages, and she also has guaranteed horizontal KO set-ups unique to her, while her moves inflict higher shieldstun at close range, which makes her slightly more difficult to punish out of shield compared to Marth's sourspotted moves. Lastly, Lucina is slightly better at defending against close-ranged pressure, most notably against rushdown-oriented characters like Captain Falcon. 
However, Lucina also shares Marth's flaws. Her attacks have short hitbox durations, some of which also have noticeable ending lag, which can make her susceptible to punishment if she does not space efficiently. Lucina also has a poor grab game: each of her throws have meager damage outputs, while her only throws that do have utility (up throw for KOing and down throw for starting combos) are only effective at very high percentages and low percentages, respectively. Lucina also has difficulty dealing with aerial pressure: Dolphin Slash's linearity leaves her vulnerable to edgeguarding and gimping, while her lack of reliable anti-pressure options leaves her vulnerable to combos and juggling. Lastly, The Parallel Falchion's lack of a tipper hitbox also gives Lucina several disadvantages compared to Marth, such as her best KOing options being weaker than Marth's tippered attacks and the lack of sourspots removing several noteworthy sourspotted combos that Marth possesses at high percentages. As such, Lucina's attacks are more punishable than Marth's if they are not spaced sufficiently because of Marth benefiting from his tipper's higher shieldstun. 
Overall, Lucina's strengths outweigh her nerfs. Though both Marth and Lucina were viewed terribly in the early metagame, subsequent patches that buffed both characters allowed them to rise significantly on the tier lists. Even with these buffs, Lucina was commonly viewed as inferior to Marth, which was reflected in their respective tier placements on earlier tier lists. However, significant improvements to Lucina's representation, especially in later years thanks to and several players who used her as a pocket character, has led many to question this belief, and as such Lucina only sits a few spots behind Marth on the current tier list.
==How to unlock==
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*Play 40 VS Matches.
*Complete as without using any continues.
After completing one of the two methods, Lucina must then be defeated on Arena Ferox.
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*Play 30 VS Matches.
*Clear on Intensity 5.5 or higher.
After completing one of the two methods, Lucina then must be defeated on Coliseum.
==Attributes==
420px|thumb|Lucina's lacks a specific sweetspot compared to Marth's , as demonstrated by the trails emitted by their swords' blades.
Lucina is a clone of Marth: her moveset and animations are primarily based off of his, while their attributes are identical. As such, Lucina is tied with Marth as the lightest middleweight in the game, yet she boasts great overall mobility like he does: she has the fastest walking speed in the game; above-average dashing speed and air acceleration; average air and falling speeds; and low gravity. Lucina is also slightly shorter than Marth, which makes both her hurtbox and range marginally shorter than his.
The primary difference between Lucina and Marth is their swords: Lucina's Parallel Falchion has a consistent damage output throughout its blade, whereas Marth's Falchion is more powerful when hitting with its blade's tip, but is significantly weaker throughout the rest of its blade. By extension, the power of all Lucina's attacks is approximate to the weighted average of Marth's sweetspotted and sourspotted attacks, if not very slightly higher.
These traits collectively grant Lucina a few advantages that help her set apart from Marth; in particular, her neutral game is overall safer because of the higher shieldstun on average her moves can inflict, which makes her moves safe on shield when spaced correctly. A prime example of this is her forward aerial, which is arguably her most useful spacing option, especially when utilizing the middle or tip of her Parallel Falchion.
Another advantage that Lucina possesses is her consistent KO potential: unlike Marth, precise spacing is not required for all her moves to deal dependable knockback, whereas Marth's sourspotted attacks deal mediocre damage and knockback even at high percentages. Noteworthy examples include her up smash, down aerial and Dancing Blade, which are all more powerful than Marth's equivalents in any given case. Although Lucina does not have as many intricate sourspot combos or set-ups that Marth can utilize to set up his tippers, she gains more consistent damage off her own combos than Marth due to her lack of such sourspots.
Lucina also has her own KO set-ups different from those of Marth via the first hit of neutral attack, while sharing some of them with him, and those she shares being arguably easier to perform because of the Parallel Falchion's consistent hitboxes; the most prominent example is the KO combo consisting of her neutral attack's first hit into forward smash, which is overall more effective when compared to Marth's, thanks to her balanced hitstun and knockback.
There are also many strengths Lucina shares with Marth. Like him, many of her moves possess good range, fast start-up, and cover wide arcs, allowing her to pressure the opponent without leaving herself open to punishment. Lucina's special moveset also possesses immense utility, and in two cases, more than that of Marth. Shield Breaker can break shields thanks to its high shield damage, even when uncharged, and it is useful for punishing rolls. It also grants some horizontal movement, which is amplified when fully charged. Dancing Blade can be used to punish sidesteps and boasts combo, mix-up, KO and even recovery potentials. In comparison to Marth's version, it does not link as well because of each hit's higher knockback, but it has much better KO potential.
Dolphin Slash has quick start-up; provides intangibility during its start-up; and is relatively strong upon coming out. These attributes make it Lucina's primary method of recovery, as its speed can make it difficult to intercept, especially from out of shield. In addition, its power makes it capable of breaking combos and even stage spike reckless edgeguard attempts. Lastly, Counter is a counterattack with a 1.2× damage multiplier that can KO an opponent who uses a sufficiently strong attack.
The last strength Lucina shares with Marth is her strong edgeguarding potential: her forward and back aerial's fast start-up and good range make them go-to edgeguarding options. Down aerial is relatively quick, and can strongly meteor smash opponents if it hits at the center of the arc. Forward smash's range makes it a good choice against opponents aiming their recoveries directly towards the edge, such as and , and down tilt's range and speed make it good at exploiting an opponent's 2 frame-long vulnerability when grabbing the edge. Both have the ability to hit below the edge as well.
Nonetheless, Lucina also possesses notable disadvantages compared to Marth. The lack of a tipper is both a strength and weakness: while the lack of a tipper does make her combos and rushdowns more consistently damaging than Marth's, if Lucina does not successfully use one of her reliable KOing options, she must rely on scoring KOs with options that are vastly inferior compared to Marth's tippered attacks. On a related note, she cannot secure early KOs with hard reads, or gain as much positional advantage off precise spacing against approaches or shields. This makes Lucina slightly less threatening in the neutral game; attacking opponents do not have to space their approaches relative to the Parallel Falchion's blade the same way they would with Marth's Falchion, and defending opponents do not need to adjust their spacing to avoid being hit by a tipper.
As such, in order for Lucina's attacks to be safe on shield, she must still utilize her Parallel Fachion's range in order to space her moves at the middle portion or the tip of its blade. Opponents also do not have to worry about being KO'd early from a powerful and timely tippered attack, which in turn makes Lucina somewhat inferior at pressuring opponents in comparison to Marth.
Lucina also shares some of the weaknesses Marth does: despite having below-average weight and average falling speed, she is susceptible to combos, and her slightly above-average height makes her a rather easy target. Lucina also has minimal defense against juggling, as her aerials are ineffective at relieving pressure. Though her attacks have quick start-up, many of them come with high ending and landing lag, and lack lingering hitboxes, making her attacks unsafe to use on shield up close despite their greater power. Lucina's moveset also lacks a projectile, making her struggle against projectile-oriented characters.
While Lucina can pressure characters and force them to hold shield and block her attacks, she often struggles against shields, as improperly spaced aerials leave her susceptible to punishment, and Shield Breaker is highly punishable if predicted. This is further compounded by Lucina's poor grab game: although her pummel is fairly quick, each of her throws have low damage outputs, while only two of them (up and down throws) have utility. However, even these throws are ineffective: up throw only KOs at very high percentages, whereas down throw fails to combo past medium percentages.
Lastly, Lucina is vulnerable to edgeguarding. Dolphin Slash is her only reliable recovery option, and despite being hard for edgeguarders to outcome thanks to its speed and power, it has a linear path with fixed distance, making it predictable regardless. Due to its below-average horizontal distance, she is also vulnerable to semi-spikes. She does have options to mix it up, though: Shield Breaker can aid her horizontal recovery when fully charged, while Dancing Blade stalls her after a midair jump. Even so, she is also heavily reliant on her double jump for mixing up her recovery, and she is in significant danger of being gimped if off-stage without it.
Overall, Lucina is a "lower-risk, lower-reward" version of Marth. She trades heavy power and range for more consistent spacing and damage racking abilities, as well as more consistent KO potential. Like and , she has a low learning curve thanks to her straightforward playstyle, since she benefits from spacing at close range while also having several fast and reliably strong KOing options. Despite this, and due to Marth's more rewarding KO and spacing potentials, she must play more defensively in order to utilize her moveset to the fullest, namely her moves' consistently high knockback, though without getting the extra reward Marth obtains by doing so.
While Lucina does possess some advantages that allow her to fare better in certain matchups compared to Marth, such as and , she still lacks the main advantages that Marth's tipper provides. Despite her flaws, Lucina's actual level of viability is debatable: although her playerbase is fairly small, she receives strong results from the players who do use her, with the most notable examples being 's numerous tournament victories upon adopting her as a secondary in 2017.
==Differences from ==
Lucina's differences from Marth mostly boil down to her lack of sweetspots. Lucina's attacks will deal the same damage regardless of where on her sword the attack lands (excluding Down Aerial). This change made players view Lucina as an "easy mode" of Marth, with players not having to worry about spacing to maximize damage output. Lucina is slightly shorter than Marth, which makes her slightly harder to hit, but would also slightly shorten her range. Her up tilt has a timing sweetspot opposed to a tipper sweetspot.
Lucina overall performs similarly to Marth, but her lack of tipper sweetspots makes her play noticeably differently. Her differences essentially boil down to a more consistent version of Marth that isn't capable of getting early KOs compared to Marth's tipper sweetspots.
===Aesthetics===
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===Attributes===
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===Ground attacks===
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===Aerial attacks===
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===Special moves===
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==Update history==
Initially a poorly regarded character like her ancestor, Lucina has been buffed significantly thanks to game updates. Updates 1.0.6, 1.0.8, 1.1.0 and 1.1.3 collectively improved her overall damage output, decreased the ending lag of several combo-oriented moves, and increased the knockback of many of her standard attacks.
However, the biggest buffs Lucina received were indirect. Originally, the low shieldstun used in SSB4 made her neutral game quite unsafe, and the fact that her moves (aside from neutral attack) lack hitlag modifiers resulted in them being less safe on shield than Marth's sourspotted attacks. The changes to shield mechanics brought about by updates 1.1.0 and 1.1.1 remedied this by making her moves safer on shield, especially when compared to Marth and 's sourspotted moves. Shield Breaker was nerfed as a trade-off, however, as its shield damage was decreased.
Lastly, update 1.1.4 increased all of the damage outputs for all of Lucina's aerials, which not only improved her aerial combo and juggle potentials, but further closed the gap between her overall damage output and Marth's. Her grounded attacks and aerial attacks' hitboxes were also increased to the point where, like Marth, her range now overreaches certain characters' ranges, such as 's. When coupled with her multitude of buffs, Lucina is much better than she was during SSB4s initial release.
 1.0.4
 1.0.6
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 1.0.8
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Technical changelist 1.0.8
Change 	Old value 	New value
Jab 1 damage 	4.75% 	3.325%
Jab 1 angle 	Sakurai angle 	78°/65°/90°
Jab 1 knockback scaling 	50/70 	30
Jab 1 base knockback 	20/30 	55
Jab 1 hitlag 	1× 	0.7×
Transition from Jab 1 to Jab 2 	frame 21 	frame 17
Jab 1 ending frame 	frame 29 	frame 26
Jab 2 angle 	Sakurai angle 	100°
Jab 2 initial base knockback 	50 	65
Jab 2 (late) base knockback 	40 	52
Up tilt angle 	Sakurai angle/100°	100°
Forward tilt damage 	9.975% 	10.925%
Up tilt base knockback 	50/40 	65/52
Up tilt ending lag 	frame 42 	frame 39
Neutral aerial landing lag 	15 frames 	12 frames
Dolphin Slash knockback scaling 	68 	74
Dolphin Slash/Crescent Slash hitlag multiplier	0.5 	0.7
 1.1.0
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Technical changelist 1.1.0
Change 	Old value 	New value
Up tilt damage 	6.65%/7.125%	7.6%/8.075%
Up tilt ending lag 	frame 39 	frame 36
Neutral aerial damage (1st hit) 	2.375% 	3.325%
Neutral aerial damage (2nd hit) 	6.65% 	7.6%
Forward aerial landing lag 	18 frames 	16 frames
Up aerial landing lag 	16 frames 	14 frames
Back aerial landing lag 	19 frames 	17 frames
Down aerial landing lag 	28 frames 	24 frames
All variations of Shield Breaker ending lag	frame 52 	frame 50
All variations of Dolphin Slash landing lag	23 frames 	20 frames
 1.1.1
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 1.1.3
 1.1.4
==Moveset==
*Lucina's overall damage output is close to the weighted average of each of the hitboxes of 's attacks.
For a gallery of Lucina's hitboxes, see here.
===Stats===
===Announcer call===
Lucina English Announcer SSB4-SSBU.wav|English
Lucina Japanese Announcer SSB4-SSBU.wav|Japanese/Chinese
Lucina French Announcer SSBU.wav|French
Lucina French EU Announcer SSBU.wav|French (PAL)
===On-screen appearance===
===Taunts===
===Idle poses===
===Crowd cheer===
 	Cheer (English)	Cheer (Japanese)	Cheer (Spanish)
Cheer 	 	 	
Description	Lu - ci - na! 	Ru - ki - na! 	Lucina! Lucina! Rah! Rah! Rah!
 	Cheer (French) 	Cheer (German) 	Cheer (Italian)
Cheer 	 	 	
Description	Lu - ci - na ! 	Lu - ci - na! 	Lu - ci - na!
===Victory poses===
==In competitive play==
===Official Custom Moveset Project===
===Most historically significant players===
See also: :Category:Lucina players (SSB4)
* - Considered one of the best Lucina players in the United States. Placed 4th at , 7th at , 9th at , 13th at , and 25th at . Formerly ranked 10th on the New England Power Rankings.
* - Picked up Lucina in 2017 and is the greatest Lucina player of all time, as well as the only player at the highest level of competitive play to use her as a main instead of a secondary or counterpick. His success with Lucina, which includes placing 5th at defeating and as well as defeating at , led many to believe Lucina was not necessarily inferior to . He is ranked 37th on the PGR 100.
* - Formerly used Lucina as a secondary alongside and was considered the best Lucina player in the world in the first half of 2017. Won , , , and .
===Tier placement and history===
Upon SSB4s release, Lucina was quickly compared to due to her inheriting many of the flaws he had received in his transition from Brawl. Although her Parallel Falchion boasts consistent power, this strength has been viewed as less effective in comparison to Falchion's tipper, resulting in Lucina being widely regarded as worse than Marth, as well being poorly regarded early on. As time went on, however, game updates gradually improved Lucina, with the vast majority of her buffs being shared with Marth. These changes helped her mitigate some of the problems she initially had, although they were not sufficient enough in comparison to Marth's, who began developing a much more dedicated playerbase than her. As such, Lucina achieved much poorer results in comparison, which saw her ranked 47th on the first 4BR tier list, placing her in the bottom-tier and six places below Marth.
However, Lucina continued to improve over time, and gained some other significant buffs in update 1.1.4, with some of them once again being shared with Marth. These improvements allowed Lucina's offense to flow more consistently than before, giving her a niche over Marth in certain matchups. Although these buffs were still not enough to enable her to achieve significant results, even from her best players like , they still improved her perception within the community. As a result, Lucina ranked 36th on the second tier list, resulting with her being reassessed as a mid-tier character, and gaining the fourth largest rise between the first and second tier lists. Even so, players such as and considered Lucina's position on the tier list as too low, due to most of her strengths being shared with Marth. To reflect the drastic improvements brought about by game updates, as well as her stronger, if rare, results, Lucina was then ranked 18th on the third tier list; by extension, this was the largest rise between the second and third tier lists.
Although Lucina was still considered to be inferior to Marth overall, some smashers claimed her placing to be somewhat low, especially considering the briefly improved results brought by ZeRo during the spring and summer of 2017 after picking her up as a secondary, as well as better results brought by other players like Kogarasuma and . Thanks to these results, she has rised to 14th on the fourth and final tier list. She is the only bottom-tier character to ever become a high-tier one and is one of the characters who have improved the most overall.
Lucina also began to earn more results as Mr E got 5th at EVO 2018 while defeating , , , and to qualify for top 8 before losing to and and continued to do very well with her such as getting 17th at Super Smash Con 2018, 25th at Shine 2018, 4th at Canada Cup 2018 and 17th at both GameTyrant Expo 2018 and DreamHack Atlanta 2018. These results which were previously unspoken of for Lucina have not only been more impressive than a fair amount of the characters above her, but also Marth. Due to this and with some people noting that Marth has not achieved that much success with out a secondary on top of him being significantly less consistent at killing as a character, some have said that Lucina is a superior character to Marth. This however, is highly debatable.
==In Solo Modes==
===All-Star Mode===
In All-Star Mode, Lucina is fought in Stage 7 in the 3DS version or Stage 1 in the Wii U version if she has been unlocked alongside , , , , , , , and .
===Event Matches===
====Solo Events====
* In the Name of the Hero-King: As , the player must defeat Lucina in a Stamina Battle.
* New Challengers 1: Lucina is among the opponents fought in this event, alongside , , , , , and 
====Co-op Events====
* Mirror Magic: Lucina and must defeat , a giant metal dark Lucina, and a giant metal dark Ike.
* The Ultimate Battle: Two players select a character and must defeat the entire roster.
===Congratulations Screens===
====3DS====
SSB4-3DS Congratulations Classic Lucina.png|Classic Mode
SSB4-3DS Congratulations All-Star Lucina.png|All-Star Mode
====Wii U====
SSB4-Wii U Congratulations Classic Lucina.png|Classic Mode
SSB4-Wii U Congratulations All-Star Lucina.png|All-Star Mode
==Trophies==
Lucina's default trophy is obtained by clearing Classic Mode as Lucina. Her alternate trophy is obtained by clearing All-Star Mode as Lucina in the 3DS version or purchasing it in the Trophy Shop for 1000G in the Wii U version (the latter can only appear after clearing Classic or All-Star as Lucina). The Critical Hit (Lucina) trophy is obtained only in the Wii U version by clearing All-Star Mode as Lucina.
==Alternate costumes==
							
							
==Reveal trailer==
==Gallery==
SSB4 Newcomer Introduction Lucina.png|Lucina's splash art.
Lucina amiibo.png|Lucina's amiibo.
Lucina unlock notice SSB4-3DS.png|Lucina's unlock notice in .
Lucina unlock notice SSB4-Wii U.png|Lucina's unlock notice in .
Robin and Lucina Poster.jpg|Artwork of Lucina and from the official site.
Lucinascreenshot1.jpg|Lucina in .
Lucinascreenshot2.jpg|Using Shield Breaker on .
Lucinascreenshot3.jpg|Using Shield Breaker on a Phantom.
Lucinascreen-4.jpg|Using Counter.
Lucinascreen-5.jpg|Alongside and .
Lucinascreen-6.jpg|Fighting Ike on Coliseum.
Lucinascreen-7.jpg|On Smash Ball standby alongside on Coliseum.
Lucinascreen-8.jpg|Lucina in .
Lucinascreen-9.jpg|Alongside female Robin.
Lucinascreen-10.jpg|Laying supine alongside .
KirbyHatLucina.png|Using her down taunt alongside , who is wearing a copy of her mask.
==Trivia==
*Although Lucina was originally planned as an alternate costume for , she was transitioned into being an entirely separate character later in development once her attacks were given differing traits. Masahiro Sakurai elaborated on this by explaining that "whenever there is even a small difference in abilities, that character gets an actual roster slot." She was one of three intended alternate costumes to be made separate in this way, with the other two being the returning and her fellow newcomer .
*Lucina makes a few references to her home game:
**Her pose in official art of her for Super Smash Bros. 4 is identical to . Lucina also strikes this pose for her Counter (though she instantly shifts to 's Counter stance for an extremely brief moment if her Counter is triggered), her up taunt and a victory pose.
***Her father, Chrom, also strikes this pose in his official art, albeit .
**The battle stance she assumes when her reveal trailer's tagline appears is identical to the stance she and Chrom assume simultaneously during their duel in the Arena Ferox tournament.
**Her in-game model in bears the Brand of Naga in her left eye.Sakurai Talks About The Difference Between Lucina And Marth In Smash Bros.
**The mask she used while disguised as Marth is used for her on-screen appearance and down taunt.
**Both of her lines emitted after successfully using Counter are the same lines used when she performs a Dual Strike.
*Lucina is the first clone in the entire series whose special moves, including custom variations, all share the same names with the character she is a clone of.
**Additionally, she is the only full clone in Smash 4 not to share a voice actor with the original character. Dark Pit and are both voiced by the same actor, but use different voice clips, while Dr. Mario reuses 's voice clips.
*Robin and Lucina are the only playable Fire Emblem characters in Smash 4 to originate from the same game in their home series.
*Lucina is the only unlockable character in both versions of SSB4 who was officially revealed prior to the release of SSB4 and the only unlockable character to appear in the opening movie for Super Smash Bros. for Wii U.
**Lucina is also one of three unlockable characters prior to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate to be revealed as a playable character prior to the release of the game, with the other two being and in Super Smash Bros. Brawl. Of these, Lucina is the only one not to be a third party character
*Lucina is the only one of the three clone characters to not share their counterpart's screen KO animation.
*Lucina, and are the only characters that players are not forced to play as in any single player Event Matches.
*Lucina is the only Fire Emblem character whose Counter does not involve her holding her sword in a reverse grip during either her stance or counterattack. However, as stated earlier, she will instantly shift to Marth's stance for an extremely brief moment when her Counter is triggered.
*In the Japanese version of the game, Lucina has an alternate blast KO voice clip, while she grunts in the international releases. The line itself is "" (Must I fall here...?), a reference to her death quote in Fire Emblem Awakening.
*Bizarrely, in the English version of her reveal trailer, Lucina uses female Robin's attack grunts during the showcasing of her moveset rather than her own.
==References==
 
Category:Trophies (SSB4-3DS)
Category:Trophies (SSB4-Wii U)
es:Lucina (SSB4)