Lucario (SSBU)/Down special

Hitbox visualization showing Lucario's down special, Double Team.

Hitbox visualization showing Lucario's down special, Double Team, when attacking.

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Overview

Lucario raises its left leg while taking a defensive stance, preparing for any incoming attack. If Lucario's stance is hit, Lucario creates two afterimages at a rapid pace before vanishing very briefly and then reappearing to retaliate with a sliding kick. Double Team is an interesting counter due to the fact that its base damage is not determined by the move countered, but instead by Lucario's current aura. So even at base aura(65%), Double Team deals 12.5% base damage, which is higher base damage than most counters. This would mean that weak moves like jabs or multi-hits activating Double Team either make it very rewarding to hit, kill, or both at higher stages of aura. It has a high launch angle(70°), so using this counter at center stage or above stage becomes very useful. With its fast frame 4 intangibility and frame 5 counter startup, this move becomes a tool having multiplies uses, such as: breaking combos, resetting neutral, frame-trap at early percents, getting combo ability at mid to high percents, netting kills at mid to high percents with high aura, and even recovering off-stage.

Double Team has similarities to Greninja's Substitute counter, but Lucario's is not as dynamic with as much freedom. Lucario can technically choose how it reappears by holding ←, nothing, →, or even a diagonal direction for minimal differences. The correct direction of choice can help Lucario combat against both physical attacks and projectiles that activate the stance. The slowdown property helps punish moves from afar, or assist in avoiding dangerous moments in disadvantage. Unfortunately, Lucario cannot use its counter in the most conventional way––which is edge-guarding an opponent. Though, if done properly, Lucario can reappear in such a way that the kick launches the opponent underneath or toward the stage, which may cause a stage-spike. Like Substitute, Double Team has massive detection range of a nearby opponent when the stance is activated. Lucario can catch someone off guard from the way it vanishes and reappears near the opponent, especially when a fired projectile with long duration happens to activate the quick stance suddenly. This means that Lucario can suddenly turn the tide on someone who's airborne, like Mario throwing fireballs, or Pikachu shooting thunderjolts. And if Lucario's in the air, that means a sudden activation can put it next to Yoshi throwing an egg.

However, Double Team leaves Lucario more vulnerable in Ultimate. Regarding the stance.. having only 10 frames of intangibility(4-13), 20 frames of a counter window(5-24), and a massive 46 frames of ending lag(25-70), it's no wonder that Lucario can rise or fall from overreliance. While it may be rewarding in a way most counters aren't, the counter has enough flaws to keep it from being overused. Certain projectiles will forcibly redirect Lucario to home in on the projectile that activated the stance, causing Double Team to be useless in countering the opponent. A common example is Simon or Richter generating their Holy Water, in which Lucario will teleport by the flask bouncing high into the air, and completely avoiding either Belmont as a result. Additionally, Lucario can somehow whiff against characters who hurtbox shift during their move, such as Captain Falcon using up smash to avoid Double Team's attack. Or, on stages with sloped edges such as Lylat Cruise, which can cause Lucario's kick to completely miss the opponent due to how the grounded counterattack behaves in a straight path.

Hitboxes

Double Team's base damages are completely dependent on Lucario's current stock-aura. Lucario deals 12.5% at base aura, 7.5% with minimum aura(0.6x), and 22.5% at maximum aura(1.8x). Like other counters, Lucario's is an armor buster, beating most armors including Yoshi's doublejump knockback-based armor.

ID	Part	Rehit rate	Damage	SD	Angle	Angle type	BK	KS	FKV	Set weight	Radius	Bone	Offset			H×	SDI×	T%	Clang	Rebound	Effect	Type	G	A	Sound	Direct	Hit bits	Hit part	Blockable	Reflectable	Absorbable	Flinchless	No GFX	Heedless
0	0	0	12.5%	0		Standard	50	105	0		3.5	legl	0.0	0.0	0.0	2.2×	1.0×	0%							Kick		All	All
1	0	0	12.5%	0		Standard	50	105	0		3.5	kneel	0.0	0.0	0.0	2.2×	1.0×	0%							Kick		All	All
2	0	0	12.5%	0		Standard	50	105	0		5.0	toel	1.0	1.0	0.0	2.2×	1.0×	0%							Kick		All	All

Timing

Counter

Intangibility	4-13
Counter	5-24
Interruptible	71
Animation length	74

Attack

Upon countering an attack, Lucario immediately transitions into the attack without undergoing any self-freeze frames, while also inducing up to 6-30 attacker freeze-frames along with slowdown frames.

Intangibility	1-29 or 2-29
Hitboxes	17-28
Interruptible	60
Animation length	Grounded: 91
	Aerial: 77

Grounded

Early active

Late active

Aerial

Early active

Late active

Legend (1 square = 1 frame)

Lag time

Hitbox

Vulnerable

Counter

Intangible

Interruptible

Parameters

Horizontal speed multiplier on startup	0.5
Gravity	0.05
Fall speed	1.5
Slow multiplier	4.0x
Slowdown frames	50
Slowdown gain (physical hitboxes)	40+
Double Team base damage	12.5%
Double Team minimum damage (0.6x)	7.5%
Double Team maximum damage (1.8x)	22.5%
Counter bubble size	8.0u

Trivia

• Mysteriously between the patch Versions 2.0.2 → 3.0.0, the shield hitlag & perhaps also the attacker hitlag had increased. So, either the hitlag multiplier had increased, or by some unknown reasoning. It doesn't buff the move, and in fact, it nerfs Lucario in that it gives more hitlag frames in the form of extra time for the opponent to correctly DI for survival purposes.
• Lucario's Double Team has some secret flaws and a few fun facts:
  • For unknown reasons, Double Team will cause the opponent to not be launched as far as usual while they're under the effect of slowdown, even if the slowdown effect is wearing off while still in knockback. This negatively hinders Lucario.
  • The move countered doesn't generally matter since Lucario's aura determines Double Team's base damage. However, to add to slowdown reducing launch distance, a move with high hitlag will hinder Double Team even further, making moves that either deal high damage, or moves just having higher hitlag will worsen Double Team's kill potential. So when it comes time for Double Team as a kill option, countering a move with low hitlag benefits Lucario more.
  • Out of every counter in Ultimate, Double Team has the highest hitlag multiplier of 2.2x, followed with Shulk's 2.0x, and Roy's and Chrom's 1.9x with their counter's sweetspot. This can be a hindrance for Lucario because higher hitlag frames allows more reaction time for the opponent to use directional influence to survive Lucario's counterattack easier. This makes guessing where Lucario reappears less impactful, as the opponent will have 30 frames of time to react with survival DI most of the time.
    • Additionally, Lucario only needs 45% in a 1v1 setting, which makes aura high enough to cap at 30 hitlag frames as Lucario kicks an opponent.
• Double Team's slowdown property isn't applied to projectiles countered, so an opponent using a projectile won't suffer slowdown. Therefore, this makes countering projectiles useful since Lucario can reappear next to the victim and hit them without worry of slowdown affecting them and reducing launch distance.
• Unlike most characters and their respective counters, Lucario can't easily input its counter while dropping through a semi-soft platform. Lucario ascends slightly during the stance's startup before descending downward again, so if you try to plat-drop and input counter early enough during frames 4-7, Lucario will just float and then land on the platform. Inputting Double Team on frame 8 or later of a plat-drop allows Lucario to continue dropping through the platform.
• Lucario cannot turnaround, B-Reverse, or Wavebounce Double Team during its stance or attack.
• While airborne, the stance cannot stall effectively after using it once due to massive ending lag.
  • However, unlike most counters, Lucario doesn't lose the floaty stall-then-fall property after repeated use. So they're quite floaty during each stance's startup. If you really wanted to stall yourself off-stage, you can comfortably use two of them after surviving a launch near the blastzone.
• Unlike most counters, Double Team doesn't possess falling physics dependent on the counter window's timing after activation. Lucario just reappears near the target without worry.
• If Lucario's stance is hit between frames 5-13, Double Team's attack becomes intangible during frames 1-29. However, if Lucario's stance is hit between frames 14-24, Double Team's attack only becomes intangible during frames 2-29. This means that something like an unblockable hitbox could threaten and damage Lucario.
• The Clang Rebound property isn't transcendent like other counterattacks. Double Team's attack interacts with other hitboxes and hurtboxes by clanking, which causes a rebound if its hitbox doesn't deal more than 9.0% damage than the opposing hitbox.
• The direction Lucario can choose to reappear from allows between frames 1-16 to decide on that direction you press and hold. Inputting your choice of direction on frame 17 or later is too late. The reappearance is usually determined by three choices: left(←), nothing, and right(→). Yet, as it turns out..
  • Double Team has slightly varying results with diagonal inputs too. Though, for example, diagonal up and left is no different from diagonal down and left. There are even minimal differences for the reappearance and where Lucario stops dashing between the analog stick's notches as well.
• Even if Double Team's damage is determined by Lucario's aura, the amount of attacker-freeze frames induced is still dependent on the move countered. The the move that is countered, the more attacker-freeze frames induced unto the victim. The minimum Lucario can induce is 6 frames. Under normal circumstances, the max would be 27 attacker-freeze frames, which is thanks to Roy's fully charged Flare Blade. However, with extra variables applied, spirits reveal that the maximum amount Double Team can dish out is actually 30 frames.
• Most counters that retaliate against powerful moves proc a visual blue and or yellow particle effect. Lucario's Double Team, however, does not induce such a phenomenon.
• Even when Lucario reaches its 1.8x maximum aura multiplier, Double Team still doesn't compare to other strong scaling counters that cap at their maximum 50% damage, except Sora.
• When activated, Double Team's superior aerial mobility can be utilized for recovering back to stage easily. So easy in fact, that Lucario would be more than capable scrooging under an entire stage to recover to the opposite ledge on the other side. Although, choosing the wrong choice can be deadly to yourself when activating Double Team near the camera's blastzone. If you aren’t careful, choosing the wrong direction can send Lucario toward the blastzone, or the reappearance position can straight-up kill you.
• While some counterattacks can drift forward or backward during activation by a bit or by a lot, Double Team causes Lucario to possess extremely fast air mobility after the activation. After both the attack and intangibility finish, Lucario becomes vulnerable, but also still dashing very quickly. Even from just a normal counter result, Lucario moves very quickly, but choosing ← or → will cause Lucario to dash even faster, even if Lucario reappears from further away.
  • During the quick burst speed from activation, halting your drift speed after total frames finish can be done with several options such as a doublejump, but inputting down air is actually very useful too.
• Double Team's aerial activation with a ← or → direction choice causes Lucario to have some of the fastest air mobility in the game, rivaling Captain Falcon running.
• Lucario can undergo something called "animation lag". For Double Team, Lucario's first landing frame isn't actionable for that 1 frame, but they become actionable afterward. So, Lucario has animation landing lag when landing between frames 60-78. Specials can be used to override this 'non-actionable' landing frame, however.
• One last noteworthy trivial fact about Double Team is that it's quite the armor buster like most counters are. Double Team:
  • pierces through Super Armor.
  • beats out Byleth's damage-based armor of a 30% threshold, even with just 0% Aura dealing ~8.2%.
  • bests Yoshi's doublejump knockback-based armor at 0% Aura dealing a measly ~8.2%.
  • versus Kirby's Stone is interesting, since Lucario can break the aerial stone armor with just the ~8.2% base damage at 0% Aura. However, once the aerial armor finishes, Lucario needs to be at 175% or higher for aura to augment Double Team's attack enough to deal more than 25.0%. In this case, Double Team deals ~25.0362% with 175% aura. That's the earliest Lucario must be at to best Kirby's unique HP armor properties. This accounts for the 1v1 damage multiplier, and freshness/staling too.

Lucario's moveset

Neutral attack (1 · 2 · 3) · Forward tilt · Up tilt · Down tilt · Dash attack · Forward smash · Up smash · Down smash
Neutral aerial · Forward aerial · Back aerial · Up aerial · Down aerial
Grab · Pummel · Forward throw · Back throw · Up throw · Down throw
Forward roll · Back roll · Spot dodge · Air dodge · Techs
Floor attack (front) · Floor getups (front) · Floor attack (back) · Floor getups (back) · Floor attack (trip) · Floor getups (trip)
Edge attack · Edge getups
Neutral special · Side special · Up special · Down special · Final Smash