Interesting Use For Z-Cancel

Ballistics · Jan 1, 2009

Most players are aware that cancelling your aerials can be done with L, R, or Z. It usually just comes down to personal preference.

But there appears to be a unique use for Z. When you perform aerials on platforms, sometimes unintentional or intentional (if your phanna) ledge cancels occur. Ledge cancels are when you just slip off the end of a platform with momentum and your aerial is automatically cancelled. Well when you use Z instead of L or R on platforms, in the case of a ledge cancel, instead of cancelling the move you will do another immediate aerial (exceptions are Samus and Link who launch grapples). This second aerial comes out INSTANTLY.

Hypothesis: This is very handy for quick characters like falco. He can do some really neat double hits with aerials if you do it really quick.

This might be old news but I think its worth bringing up. Try it out!

battousai555 · Jan 1, 2009

Ballistics said:
Most players are aware that cancelling your aerials can be done with L, R, or Z. It usually just comes down to personal preference.

But there appears to be a unique use for the Z-Cancel...

Z-canceling is in 64. No making up names for ATs, ploxes.

Ballistics · Jan 1, 2009

battousai555 said:
Z-canceling is in 64. No making up names for ATs, ploxes.

Duly noted

IrArby · Jan 1, 2009

Well you wouldn't use L/R to ledge cancel normally right? Ledge canceling takes the place of L-canceling only better. I'm pretty sure of this but anyways . . .
I'm not sure this would make a huge improvement on Falco as his bair produces enough stun and cancels quickly enough to drop through platforms (thus creating the dropped bair he's known for) without getting shieldgrabbed or what have you. .

Ballistics · Jan 1, 2009

Z for Platforms

IrArby said:
Well you wouldn't use L/R to ledge cancel normally right? Ledge canceling takes the place of L-canceling only better. I'm pretty sure of this but anyways . . .
I'm not sure this would make a huge improvement on Falco as his bair produces enough stun and cancels quickly enough to drop through platforms (thus creating the dropped bair he's known for) without getting shieldgrabbed or what have you. .

Yes thats true if you intentionally ledge cancel I suppose you wouldn't even need to hit L or R, but I ledge cancel all the time unintentionally so in a general sense, its better for me to use z on platforms so I can get two hits in a matter of 15 frames or so, its really fast. And if I don't ledge cancel, my aerial gets canceled cause I hit z, so its a win win scenario. I don't see why anyone if they had no preference to L wouldn't use Z for platforms.

I believe this is most useful when hitting opponents in the air or when the opponent jumps off the floor, so your right that its better to do a drop down aerial if your opponent is on the floor.

I'm sure there are many characters with many reasons for using something like this. Just try it!

DRD · Jan 1, 2009

Very interesting

Unfortunately, that's another tech I have to learn now. I wonder how this would benefit Doc...

Ballistics · Jan 1, 2009

DRD said:
Very interesting

Unfortunately, that's another tech I have to learn now. I wonder how this would benefit Doc...

Its not hard at all! Well if you can't L-Cancel in general it might be, but if you can, just use Z to cancel aerials on platforms and use whatever you want on the floor.

Also its helpful to give yourself alot of momentum (hold the direction all the way over). This just favors the ledge cancels.

DRD · Jan 1, 2009

I suppose so; but I wonder why Z-canceling would cause another attack to come out? Is it because Z is an attack button like A?

I'm not the best at smash tech knowledge so yeah

Super Mari0 · Jan 1, 2009

i tried it and its very interesting actually
its not as useless as it sounds

on stages like yoshis story and battlefield its pretty ****, especially with fox dair to nair, bowser dair to nair, mario dair to nair/bair and more ways to use it

nice find, its pretty good, but you can do it without the Z-Cancel thing, its safer that way i guess though

battousai555 · Jan 1, 2009

Ballistics said:
Duly noted

Well, I meant making up names that already exist. Kudos on this discovery if no one already knew of it. Perhaps we can suggest names for this tech. Maybe "Z-ballin"? ^^

Ballistics · Jan 1, 2009

DRD said:
I suppose so; but I wonder why Z-canceling would cause another attack to come out? Is it because Z is an attack button like A?

I'm not the best at smash tech knowledge so yeah

Exactly right, Z pulls out another aerial if you ledge cancel, or if you miss it, it cancels the aerial on the platform. If you canceled with L or R and accidentally ledge cancelled you would do an instant air dodge which doesnt look cool at all!

Super Mari0 said:
i tried it and its very interesting actually
its not as useless as it sounds

on stages like yoshis story and battlefield its pretty ****, especially with fox dair to nair, bowser dair to nair, mario dair to nair/bair and more ways to use it

nice find, its pretty good, but you can do it without the Z-Cancel thing, its safer that way i guess though

Thanks for trying it!

Yes, thats the point, in GENERAL I think its just better to use Z because ledge cancels default to this aerial technique. So its a safe bet to just use Z. I have nothing new to say about the actual Z - Cancel itself.

battousai555 said:
Well, I meant making up names that already exist. Kudos on this discovery if no one already knew of it. Perhaps we can suggest names for this tech. Maybe "Z-ballin"? ^^

I'm not sure you could pin a name on this type of technique, its more of a quick play style than anything else. Maybe Platform Z's?

Thanks for the input!

Cero · Jan 1, 2009

Hasn't Silent Spectre been doing this for a while now? I sometimes notice him doing Falcon d-airs to ledge-canceled up-airs.

IrArby · Jan 2, 2009

I'd probably call it something like Zledgecanceling or ZLC (not to be confused with TLC) for short.

I wouldn't doubt that Silent Spectre uses this since its not really a new technique rather a much lesser known application of techniques. Good find though. Now you won't waste a tech or airdodge if you get hit first or miss the edge completely.

Ballistics · Jan 4, 2009

IrArby said:
I'd probably call it something like Zledgecanceling or ZLC (not to be confused with TLC) for short.

I wouldn't doubt that Silent Spectre uses this since its not really a new technique rather a much lesser known application of techniques. Good find though. Now you won't waste a tech or airdodge if you get hit first or miss the edge completely.

Yes I like that alot. Good way to phrase it.

LLDL · Jan 4, 2009

battousai555 said:
Z-canceling is in 64. No making up names for ATs, ploxes.

You know what he meant

battousai555 · Jan 4, 2009

Hence my 2nd post.

Shai Hulud · Jan 4, 2009

When you edge-cancel you don't need to L-cancel the aerial. That's not how it works. Are you saying that if you hold Z and edge-cancel it does an aerial on the first available frame? If so that's pretty interesting...I'll go try this out.

I tried it out and this doesn't work. You're pressing Z late and just doing an aerial after the ledge-cancel.

Cactuar · Jan 5, 2009

Shai Hulud said:
When you edge-cancel you don't need to L-cancel the aerial. That's not how it works. Are you saying that if you hold Z and edge-cancel it does an aerial on the first available frame? If so that's pretty interesting...I'll go try this out.

I tried it out and this doesn't work. You're pressing Z late and just doing an aerial after the ledge-cancel.

What he said. Your L-cancelling timing is just bad, causing you to aerial after landing and slipping off.

SpaceFalcon · Jan 5, 2009

Only way to ledge cancel the second aerial immediatly after the first is by releasing the first one when the hitbox comes out, then ending it with another on the next frame.

easier with Fox, but only useful with Falcon.

Ballistics · Jan 5, 2009

Shai Hulud said:
When you edge-cancel you don't need to L-cancel the aerial. That's not how it works. Are you saying that if you hold Z and edge-cancel it does an aerial on the first available frame? If so that's pretty interesting...I'll go try this out.

No thats not what I'm saying.

Cactuar said:
What he said. Your L-cancelling timing is just bad, causing you to aerial after landing and slipping off.

Yes, thats exactly what I'm saying. When you use Z instead of L or R on platforms and accidentally ledge cancel (which I do often), instead of your Z cancelling the aerial it turns into another aerial. I think this extra aerial is beneficial, thats the whole point.

SpaceFalcon said:
Only way to ledge cancel the second aerial immediatly after the first is by releasing the first one when the hitbox comes out, then ending it with another on the next frame.

easier with Fox, but only useful with Falcon.

I have no idea what your talking about.

Mokumo · Jan 5, 2009

Then why can't i just ledge cancel and use any other button for my aerial?

Ballistics · Jan 5, 2009

Mokumo said:
Then why can't i just ledge cancel and use any other button for my aerial?

You could, but what I'm talking about is a general sense of which button to use to cancel on platforms. Alot of times when I ledge cancel its accidental, so using Z allows me to do another aerial even if I just meant to cancel my aerial on the platform.

This technique is about using Z ALL THE TIME on platforms so that when you do ledge cancel you always do another aerial. I have nothing to say about the actual ledge cancel.

TidalWave · Jan 6, 2009

Mokumo said:
Then why can't i just ledge cancel and use any other button for my aerial?

This is what I do. I can usually always see the ledge cancel coming and prepare for an aerial immediately afterward if desired.

TheManaLord · Jan 6, 2009

Interesting concept but all it is is edge cancel -> attack. Which can be done using other buttons.

KevinM · Jan 6, 2009

well at least you are trying to find something but it's just simply ledge cancelling.

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