Apparently, Meteor Cancel WASN'T removed

I know this is a pretty strong claim and it smells like trolling, but read first before you flame, k? Ok.

In my other thread, DethSmasher claimed that he had spiked an Olimar player at around 80% with Diddy Kong, and that Olimar managed to Up-B early and grab the edge. This didn't make any sense to me, so I did a bit of messing around, and to my surprise, I managed to cancel Ike's d-air spike with Olimar's Up B, far before the stun from the d-air should've worn off (in fact, the stun wouldn't have worn off at all and Olimar would've died, normally.) I also noticed that sometimes, I could Jump early as well. I tried it on a couple of different characters to make sure the jumping thing wasn't a fluke, and that the Up B thing isn't Olimar-specific, and I was able to consistently cancel Ike and Samus's d-air spikes with Up B moves.

After some experimenting, I've come to the conclusion that Meteor Canceling wasn't removed from Brawl after all, but it certainly behaves VERY differently than it does in Melee. First off, you can't Meteor Cancel right away like you could in Melee - your character must fall a certain distance before you can Meteor Cancel. The harder you got meteored, the more your character will fall before you're allowed to Meteor Cancel.

The other catch is that if you repeatedly tap the Jump button, you won't Meteor Cancel, much like repeatedly hitting L or R will prevent you from teching. You can, however, mash Up B as much as you like, and you'll get a Meteor Cancel every time (assuming you weren't mashing the Jump button too.)

I don't have a way of recording this, but I can tell you how to verify it yourself easily. Make a Large-sized Stage Builder stage, and place platforms up on the top of the grid. Go to Training Mode, pick a character with a good, strong Meteor (Ike or Samus will do) and any other character you want. Set the training Dummy to Control, and give him at least 100-200%. Now set the speed to 1/4, have both characters fall through the platform, and Meteor the dummy. Now, with the dummy, mash Side B or Down B all you want - you'll die before it comes out. Now try that again, mashing Up+B. Your character will use his Up B move before dying off the bottom. Now try again, mashing the Jump button as fast as you can - the dummy will once again die. Finally, try again, but this time wait until the dummy falls at least as much as the time you got the Up B off, and THEN press Jump. The dummy will break out of stun, and jump.

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EDIT:
Here's all the known information so far:
- You can only Meteor Cancel using a jump or an Up-B special, like in Melee.
- Your character will always fall a certain distance (roughly half of the distance you'd normally fall while stunned) before you're allowed to Meteor Cancel.
- If you hit a Jump Button before your character is able to Meteor Cancel (this includes the attack's hit lag), you won't be allowed to Meteor Cancel with your Jump Button(s) for a certain amount of time. If you press any Jump Button again before this time passes, the timer will restart. In other words, if you hit the Jump Button too early and continue to tap the Jump Button, your character won't Meteor Cancel at all.
- There's no penalty for hitting Up on the Analog Stick too early, even if you have Tap Jump on.
- Even if you hit the Jump Button too early and can't Meteor Cancel using the Jump Button, you can ALWAYS Meteor Cancel using the Analog Stick (assuming you have Tap Jump ON), or with your character's Up-B.

Find someone who can record. I want to see this confirmed.

I think people should look at spikes now as they look at any other knock back. It's just in a downward momentum. Eventually, the knock back wears off and you're free to move again, but the more damage you take, the longer it'll be before you can act.

Big breakthrough: You can buffer your jump during the period of time that you can't Meteor Cancel yet. Just tap the Jump button once shortly after you've been launched, and your character will jump as soon as it can, assuming you're not at like 200% (in which case, you may end up buffering it too early in relation to the amount of time you have to wait to meteor cancel.)

I think people should look at spikes now as they look at any other knock back. It's just in a downward momentum. Eventually, the knock back wears off and you're free to move again, but the more damage you take, the longer it'll be before you can act.

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This is clearly not what's going on. As I mentioned, you get to Up B BEFORE the stun wears off. There's no reason I should be able to Up B (or Jump) earlier than I can Down B, neutral B, or Side B.

Try it with a character that doesn't have a tether.

I did - Samus and Fox's Up Bs. Also, in the Stage Builder stage I'm using to test it, there were no edges for Olimar to latch on to when he Up-B'd.

This is really interesting, and a little depressing to me -- I rather enjoyed the lack of meteor recoveries, given how annoying it is to land the spikes anyway.

it works with everyone, i consisntly gets destroyed by my bros dedede because he can upb right after i spike, no mater the damage, basically upb cancels WHENEVER, you jsut have to be quick enough to do it before you die,

edit: technically not any % since at like 200% you cant humanly respond enough to up before you hit the death line, but i have spoiked my bros dedede at like 160ish and he recovers, but doesnt make it to the stage, so its kinda mostly reactionn time

i dont have two people, but check how side b tethers work with it, like sheik, do tethers cancel stun even though its a side b ? i cant test, some maybe look into it

Sorry, my attention span is short when I'm at work.

Yeah I jumped out of a meteor with Lucas from Ike at a tournament last Saturday, I surprised a lot of people

SalaboB said:

This is really interesting, and a little depressing to me -- I rather enjoyed the lack of meteor recoveries, given how annoying it is to land the spikes anyway.

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I know what you mean, but there's probably still spikes out there. We just have to find them.

@DethSmasher: No, Side B tethers won't work. It's either Jump, or Up B.

@Ran Iji: it's cool. It happens.

@doval, there are absolutly NO spikes, all meteor smashes, the strongest dair spike i know of it ganon and you can still cancel diddy just dropped in the nonexistent tier list lol

DethSmasher said:

@doval, there are absolutly NO spikes, all meteor smashes, the strongest dair spike i know of it ganon and you can still cancel diddy just dropped in the nonexistent tier list lol

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The spikes that would still exist would be ones that weren't intended to be meteors, like the way Marth's dair in Melee would send people downwards but couldn't be meteor cancelled. We'll have to find the attacks that have variable angles and can send people down but aren't flagged as meteors, basically. Strength of the attack doesn't impact that.

Edit: It is possible, though it seems unlikely to me, that they managed to make any attacks with a significant downwards component a meteor. If that is the case there won't be any spikes that can't be cancelled. Considering how many odd little quirks slipped in I'd bet more on there being at least a few non-meteor spikes than none at all.

Could this be Tap DI? Spamming Up-B inputs could give the machine a series of <Up> inputs, which would count as repeated tapping, and so DI as strong as your button-pressing is fast.

@pkowl, you dont have to press it multiple times, one time still saves you

@salabob, i cant think of any atacks that can do that in brawl, i know that i personally have at least canceled the fall with a large amount of characters, maybe not survived, but at least canceled, if there are any then they are really obscure, but i still beleieve there aren't any

DethSmasher said:

@salabob, i cant think of any atacks that can do that in brawl, i know that i personally have at least canceled the fall with a large amount of characters, maybe not survived, but at least canceled, if there are any then they are really obscure, but i still beleieve there aren't any

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They'd be likely to send you at an angle downward, any that send you straight down are unlikely to have been missed (Or even have that as their check, if they have a stronger downward component than horizontal they may trigger the cancelling). Alternatively, it's possible that *any* downward trajectory can be cancelled so meteor cancelling isn't what's happening anymore, it's simply the ability to cancel a downward stun hit. If that's the case then there will indeed be none that can't be cancelled.

More Info: Repated Jump Button tapping isn't penalized after all. It's just that if you hit the Jump BUTTON during the meteor's hit lag, then the game won't allow you to Meteor Cancel using the jump buttons (but it will let you Meteor Cancel using the Analog Stick.) This penalty doesn't happen if you smash Up on the analog stick during the hit lag even if you have Tap Jump On (the game interprets it ONLY as Smash DI). So for fail proof jump meteor cancels, spam the analog stick up.

PK-Ow: This isn't Smash DI. First off, I spam Up B after I get sent, not during the hit lag. Secondly, I'm not tapping Up repeatedly, just leaving it held and spamming the B button. Thirdly, Smash DI doesn't change the stun time of attacks, and can't account for the enormous difference in time and distance between being able to Up B, and being able to use my other B moves.

Doval, I don't think he meant smash DI. I think he meant wiggling. Tumble time is reduced by wiggling the joystick back and fourth. I'm not sure if that was even included in brawl, but I know it was in Melee for sure.

@salabob, i am more the just canceling stun idea

doval, since you can test right now, try testing luigis taunt kick while a character is hangingon the ledge to see if you can cancel it, jw

Sudai said:

Doval, I don't think he meant smash DI. I think he meant wiggling. Tumble time is reduced by wiggling the joystick back and fourth. I'm not sure if that was even included in brawl, but I know it was in Melee for sure.

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If this is the case, mashing any B move should enable earlier use of it but that hasn't been what's described at all.

I wish I still had a wii :/

Wiggling makes even less sense - tumbling happens after you've become unstunned, and no amount of wiggling will shorten your stun time. Tumbling doesn't prevent you from taking actions, either.

antoher cool thing i jsut thought of, i am 90% sure that when ness/lucas get spiked, their pika thunder cancels momentum, then they fall at normal speed

DethSmasher: Luigi's taunt can be canceled, but it's so insanely powerful even at 0%, that you won't be able to cancel it in any tourney-legal stage.

Also, the shine spike can't be canceled.

@doval, are you sure about shine, or is the hit stun so good that you can, jsut really late?

and i jsut tested ness/lucas, you can cancle with pika thunder, they stop their spike speed, go to normal pika thunder drop speed and can recover, its epic

Pretty sure about the shine. It doesn't send you downwards anyways, it sends you horizontally and your character just freefalls.

ok, that makes sense, the spacies HAVE to have priority over game mechanics lol

ah. so there are NO spikes? only meteor smashes? is that it, or do both still exist like in melee?
just wondering because spikes are far more effective then meteors I believe. this could be unfortunate
for characters that use meteors much.

...Who said meteor canceling wasn't in the game? Whoever did is silly. It was established since day 1 that there are no spikes and only meteors...

idk apparently everyone

...Who said meteor canceling wasn't in the game? Whoever did is silly. It was established since day 1 that there are no spikes and only meteors...

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I don't know where I read it originally, but it's even in the Meteor/Spikes thread I believe.

his jet pack is a meteor, absolutly

Edit: i think the stun just lasts a litle longer because it does fire damage

I actually thought I'd read somewhere that everyone was in fact a spike but the hitstun was so low that you could get out fast enough. So this is a new one on me. I'm assuming stage spikes can't be cancelled this way?

i dont know of any stage spikes what stages have stage spikes?

DethSmasher said:

i dont know of any stage spikes what stages have stage spikes?

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I believe that things like hanging off the ledge in FD count as a stage spike -- if you get hit in towards the level you'll ricochet under the lip and fly down to your doom.

Yeah, a stage spike is when you get knocked into the underside of a stage, don't tech, and bounce off to your doom. I don't believe they're meteor cancelable but I can't check right now.

Hah! I knew Meteor Canceling was in! I did it a few times and then people told me "No, it's gone" so I stopped looking.

Stage spikes cannot be meteor canceled (kinda). They have to be teched.

Yeah, I tested the stage spike thing last night, you definitely can't meteor cancel them.

The reason people thought it was gone is probably the fact that the game stops you from meteor canceling if you hit the jump button too early. It's pretty interesting that you have to fall half the distance you normally would before you're allowed to Meteor Cancel though - it makes it useful, but it also doesn't completely ruin the usefulness of the stronger Meteor Smashes either. People with bad vertical recoveries (e.g. Peach) should still be gimpable.

Doval said:

Yeah, I tested the stage spike thing last night, you definitely can't meteor cancel them.

The reason people thought it was gone is probably the fact that the game stops you from meteor canceling if you hit the jump button too early. It's pretty interesting that you have to fall half the distance you normally would before you're allowed to Meteor Cancel though - it makes it useful, but it also doesn't completely ruin the usefulness of the stronger Meteor Smashes either. People with bad vertical recoveries (e.g. Peach) should still be gimpable.

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And if you add the Footstool jump, a meteor smash is still useful ^^