Lucario (SSBU)/Forward roll

Lucario's forward roll

Overview

Leaning forward, Lucario pushes off with the right foot while looking back as it evades any oncoming attack. Eventually, Lucario gets its footing again while closing its eyes briefly, opening them before returning to its idle animation with its left paw and leg in front.

Forward roll's merits are as what anyone would expect. It's an option with plenty of reasons and usage, such as:

• getting up from ledge and rolling toward center stage to escape corner pressure
• evading a frontal attack, getting behind the opponent and looking for an opportunity to punish
• potential technique usage in the form of Roll Canceled Item Toss, or Roll Cancel Grab

To Lucario, though, forward roll specifically benefit a couple of things. While grounded, Lucario can roll forward to cancel Aura Sphere charging, but the roll itself cannot be canceled into anything except a RCIT in any desired direction, or, a simple item z-drop. Otherwise, the other merit is that it's already good even at low levels of aura. Since neutral air is –2 on block even at just 0%, this means the higher aura grows will only make a Neutral Air → Forward Roll sequence better and safer. Pressuring shield or simply witling a shield bit by bit promotes more forward roll usage. Pressuring with neutral air on block from behind Lucario especially leads to forward roll being generally safe to use. As a result, Lucario can reset to neutral game more reliably, even when getting close enough to poke shield with neutral air, back air, or from cross-ups like forward air and back air.

As already mentioned, forward roll comes with innate benefits with techniques such as RCIT and RCG. It's not normally possible to forward roll and RCG with a turnaround initial dash.. yet, it is possible with RCIT or just the item z-drop. The Roll Cancel Grab itself may not be particularly special, however.. Lucario has one of the best initial dash speeds in the game. So in just those few frames(2-5), Lucario's initial dash in combination with RCG is surprisingly nifty. Otherwise, both RCIT and RCG aren't as noteworthy for their prowess. These cancelable techniques don't provide Lucario with much boost to their respective movement. Roll Cancel Grab is possible and helpful when it counts, but it's not as beneficial to Lucario as it is to other characters.

Timing

Fresh use

Item toss window	2-3
Intangibility	4-15
Interruptible	30
Animation length	36

Staled x1

Item toss window	2-3
Intangibility	4-14
Interruptible	32
Animation length	39

Staled x2

Item toss window	2-3
Intangibility	5-14
Interruptible	33
Animation length	40