Char-Specific Edgeguarding & Spiking

As we all (should) know, yoshi has two great spikes, his fair and dair, as well as a wealth of other edgeguarding options.

Let's use this thread to discuss the best ways to spike or edgeguard specific characters with yoshi. How successful are the various edgeguarding or spiking options against each character? Which options aren't effective at all?

Moves to consider:
- fair
- dair (flutter kick)
- nair (sex kick)
- eggthrow setups?
- bair?

and don't forget yoshi's quick-hog (just run straight off the edge of the level, and tap back and jump as soon as you're off. it's quicker and easier than a regular WD-edgehog.
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I'll start...

against PIKA (or PICHU), I find it effective to try to intercept their upB with a sex kick. usually a medium-hopped sex kick fast falled right on the edge of the level intercepts 'em, unless they're good enough to sweetspot the ledge perfectly. if they try to zip above you, that usually means they'll have prone falling time that you can punish after your sex kick animation is over.

against PEACH or JIGGLY, i won't jump out (or usually up) to try to meet them. this is because they both have very high-priority moves that can cancel out or out-prioritize anything yoshi's got. so for these floaters, i'll just start chucking eggs at 'em. if they hit, free damage. if they airdodge, try to intercept their prone landing and go for a uair or upsmash kill.

against BOWSER, jump out and drag him down with your dair. try to meet him outside of his upB recovery range. although the flutter kick may actually out-prioritize the whirling fortress

that's all for now.... my yoshi has somewhat limited experience against really serious players, but i do have some significant competition in the area, so i'll be adding more soon.

Hey, good topic. I'll see what I can add.


Pika or Pichu- If they are aiming for sweet spotting the edge, I usually find a dsmash more effective than a sex kick. If they try to go over, I usually attempt to upair of nair them.


Peach or Jiggly - Not much worth trying here, as sideburns said. The only time I try to spike these two is if I've dtilted them off the edge, and follow up with the quick fair. However, if they are lower than the edge on recovery, I occassionally try a flurry kick (dair).


Doc or Mario - Normally I try to fair spike these two, as they have very little ability to vary their recovery.

Luigi- If you can interrupt his f-b recovery with a fair, you're doing good. His f-b is too easily punished to well, leave unpunished.

DK- His up-b outranges your fair, making it basically impossible to fair spike him. This leaves you with camping the dsmash or dtilt at the edge, or going for the flurry kick.

C.Falcon- This one's easy. Dtilt him at the edge, as he cannot sweet spot. Then, once his damage reaches too high, dsmash or shffl a fair landing on the edge. It's always fun.

Ganon- Again, the dtilt at the edge is very useful, but is much less efficient at ganon, with him being a non-fast faller. Still, the same strategy applies.

Falco/Fox - Dtilt! If they survive they'll be very lucky. And assuming Falco has lost his double jump by this time, he won't make it back. Fox, however, can make it back if the player is fast enough. So, just give him another dtilt. Also, the sex kick is extremely useful at breaking them out of their f-b.

Ice climbers - As your opponent kind of relies on Nana for recovery, try to jump out and fair spike Nana. As Nana will not meteor recover with up b, that can completely screw your opponent. If you can spike both, however, then only one will meteor recover, and you will be fine. I'm not sure about IC's f-b recovery though.

Samus - I always have trouble with samus. Her attacks have too much priority, and her recovery is very good, making it very difficult to spike her. She's similar to Peach and Jiggly in that way. Best strategy I've managed is to aim for the recovery bombs with your eggs, thus making the recovery a little worse. And if you hit samus, all the better.

Zelda - Um, anticipate the direction of the teleport?

Shiek - Fair is good, but you have to be careful of Shiek's up-b. Since she is invincible in the teleport part of the up-b, you cannot spike her there. And then, if you try to spike earlier than that and miss, the up b can be very good at interrupting your double jump at relatively low %. So, yeah, be careful.

Link and Y.Link - Their up-b has fantastic priority and range, making spiking difficult. I would probably not try to spike these two.

M2 - Jump out to beyond the range of the up-b teleport and fair spike, I guess. If M2 gets too close, you won't hit.

Marth/Roy - Dtilt is very useful. Against marth, if he's used his double jump and you get the maximum distance from your dtilt, the momentum will prevent him from getting back. Roy, however, has greater horizontal recovery than Marth, so he can make it back.


Hmm, that's about all of them... the ones I've missed I don't have enough experience to talk about.

However, the benefit of egging someone off the edge in most cases outweighs the disadvantages. So egg as much as possible. Egg especially if your not sure about what to do.

^ Wow, that's a big post... I feel intelligent

about LINK -

i had an interesting little exchange with a decent link player the other day. it involved his upB, my dair, his upB, my dair, and his upB. pretty funny stuff. basically, the dair, if aimed centered and true, can take link out of his upB without any harm to yoshi, but once the flutter kick is over, another upB is really easy for link to do. so i'm not sure if i'd reccomend this approach or not. I'd say probably not, because a smart link would air dodge the flutter kick and hookshot the side of the stage (of course that's only easy on levels like final or FoD) and yoshi could be left dair-ing to his death.

now if the link or ylink hookshots to the edge of the level, i might reccomend jumping down past the edge and bair-ing, because if you're lucky, you might be able to bounce link off the stage as he tries to jump up from the hanging position. a sex kick might theoretically do the same thing, but with all these options make sure not to fastfall, or else you'll kill yourself. let me know if anyone gets this stage-KO successfully.

by the way, i'm hoping to eventually write a small yoshi FAQ/guide, so any of your contributions will be credited (if i ever go through with writing the thing) i still gotta take yosh to a few more tournaments to get schooled by some serious players.

BOWSER - after an evening of smashin against PXT's bowser... wow. the dair, using the "drag 'em down" technique, is instant death to bowser. it works so ridiculously well. that said, the bowser should try to recover as high as possible to try to avoid letting yoshi land this. i believe if bowsers upB and yoshis dair come in contact side-by-side, the bowser shell might take priority, but if yoshi's squarely on top, the flutter kick cancels bowsers recovery.

GANON also falls victim to the dair drag-down very well. just make sure you're on top of him and not in front of him.

About the Bowser thing -

Basically, if he's lower drag him down with dair. If he's higher, try to egg him or place yourself for an upsmash. If he's trying to recover on the same level as you to prevent spiking, walk/wavedash back to position yourself for an over-prioritising fsmash .


Oh, sideburns, where do you live? (I.e. what time zone?) Maybe we could work together on that Yoshi guide sometime, rather than competing with each other. Either that, or you make your guide and I add a PAL section to it.

US East Coast (EST). Maryland to be exact. I'd love to collaborate to work on the guide. I'll tell you that I'm not so keen on breaking down each individual move to describe %'s, knockbacks, and uses. I would have plenty to say on character specific matchups, edgeguarding / recovery techniques, etc. Would you be able to compile a bunch of combo or setup options as well as uses and (dis)advantages of each of the moves? I'm sure we could both compile plenty of general strategy stuff, as well as "what makes yoshi unique" stuff. Just let me know what you'd be willing to contribute and I'll try to draft an outline of the breakdown and who can write which parts.

ON TOPIC...
umm...

MARF / ROY.
Yoshi can usually CCC marf's upB recovery, much like another marf player can.

Roy's upB with the fire is a different story; I'm pretty sure I've never been able to CC against this move. Also, Roy's added horizontal distance on the upB makes him harder to jump out and edgeguard against, although he's not as floaty as marf. So, against roy's recovery, I reccomend short egg throws to fall just past the edge (because if you throw too far out, roy might be able to use the horizontal version of his upB to get under the egg) In general, don't try to stop him while he's out there. If he recovers high (onto the actual stage), catch him with a charged dsmash on his landing lag (an effective killer since he falls much faster than marf). If he upB's or double jumps into a ledge-hang, just be patient and try to react to what he does. An A attack off the ledge is laggy enough to be sheildgrabbed by yoshi, at which point you should try forward or down throw into a fair spike. If roy tries a regular jump off the ledge, upsmash, and a regular get-up or R/L roll-up can be pretty easily read and punished with appropriate WD / dsmash timing. If your opponent likes to ledgehop with an attack back onto the stage, and does this regularly, try a full hop to sex kick, fastfalled as soon as roy's aerial attack is finished. Yoshi's fastfall is amazing in terms of actual change in velocity (as i've said in another thread). very good for catching your opponent off-guard.

YLINK and LINK -
if they recover with upB and don't sweetspot (very rare for good players), yoshi can CCC to interrupt their recovery, so long as the CCC comes before the last slash of the upB spin. Also, link's upB on the ground can be interrupted by a well-centered sex kick, so long as it's after the intial frames of the animation. Perhaps the aerial upB could be interrupted by the sex kick too?

Whenever jumping out there to intercept someone in midair, yoshi must NEVER EVER FASTFALL

UNLESS the opponent is caught in the flutter kick, in which case the fastfall won't cover as much distance as quickly, but it will allow yoshi to drag the enemy down farther than a regular flutter kick.

Correct me if i'm wrong, but a regular flutter kick (not fastfalled) results in a (cancellable) meteor, knocking the opponent straight down and away from yoshi, but if you hold down after the opponent makes contact with the flutter kick, it's no longer a meteor, but just drags them down to the point at which the attack ends and they have no way of beginning to recover until the flutter kick stops.

Correct me if i'm wrong, but a regular flutter kick (not fastfalled) results in a (cancellable) meteor, knocking the opponent straight down and away from yoshi, but if you hold down after the opponent makes contact with the flutter kick, it's no longer a meteor, but just drags them down to the point at which the attack ends and they have no way of beginning to recover until the flutter kick stops.

Click to expand...

Hehe. *Thinks of dair meteoring a jiggly 5 times in 1 dair* Ah, good times.

You're on the right track there, but not exactly right. The dair meteors if you hit on the bottom of his feet, and the distance that you hit them is greater than Yoshi's falling speed. Otherwise, if you hit in the centre of the kicks they get caught, or if you're falling faster than you hit them away from you, then they get caught also.

Another use from the dair, is against Falco/Fox's up-b. When I fair spike it, it hits up in flames. However, if I dair spike it, the attack doesn't seem to get through my feet, thus safely spiking at high%


I'll get back to you about that guide thing. I don't have the time at the moment with uni and all, but once I get a break with less than 3 assignments I'll see what I can do.

Ness?

You forgot about Ness, or you did´nt have enough experience edgeguarding him..
Anyway, though I am a Biased Ness fan, Ill just try to help.

Ness: If he has his second jump left, DON`T go spiking him in the air! It will only turn the tables to your disadvantage. Ness can easily outrange your aerials and even if he´s below you so you can fair/bair, you´ll probably miss because of Ness´ versatile 2nd jump. Ness can just jump back and PK blast himself to stage because Yoshi is also recovering from the missed spike attempt. If you can predict ness´2nd jump then go for it! although how easy is that against a good Ness?
So what I would with Yo. is I´d try to interrupt his 2nd jump with eggs. It can be hard to avoid some well-aimed egg. If you interrupt Ness´s 2nd jump while he´s under the ledge, he´s 90% of the time DEAD!
When Ness has to rely on PK blast he´s usually in trouble.Though you can´t go jumping and taking the thunder at high levels of play (trust me at this one) because Ness will blast enough far from the edge, but not too far to only rely on sweetspotting.
Yo. might actually have some problems against a good Ness recovering with PK blast above the ledge, because yoshis ledge game isn´t the best out there. You might try d-tilting but if Ness expects this, he´ll blast you away, or at least try. if you try to edgehog, Ness can still shoot hisself to stage or possible platform on the stage. The changes your side with PK blasting, but be wary of those Good Ness players aiming skills, if you ever play against one.
So conclusion:
Be wary of Ness´s 2nd jump and do all you can to neutralize it!

thanks for the ness input. i actually did play against a good ness all summer long (though he wasn't exactly a surgeon with the thunder recovery...) so I know how versatile the DJ is. if ness is coming from far off and has to use the upB, yoshi can jump out and take the PK thunder up the butt, and then DJ back to the stage while ness pitifully falls to his doom. similarly, yosh can just chuck eggs in hope of hitting the thunder; this option is safer, but less reliable. if ness tries to airdodge from up high and catch the edge, you can quick-hog it before he gets there.

the ness i played against often lege-hopped into fair. i dont remember what my yoshi did against him all summer, but i'm wondering if the fair can be CCCd by yoshis dtilt. if so, ness is pretty screwed. i'll try it out tonight.

umm... I still disagree about on taking the thunder by jumping over it.
If for some odd reason Ness shoots near the edge, then maybe. Good Ness shouldn´t do that. It´s really risky to go jumping to take the thunder, Because a good Ness will either
1: direct the thunder from the other side. What I mean is 95% of the time when Ness recovers he directs the thunder first away from the stage, and then blasts himself towards the stage. What I usually do against sheik to avoid Needles is to direct the thunder first towards the stage (works easier at FD and battlefield for example) and direct it so you still blast ness to the edge. This is hard but I know it works.
2: He can use PSI magnet to slow down his falling and confuse the thunderstealer. In this case you might still be able to spike Ness but I think the odds are that both of you die. If you jump back to the stage Ness can still PK blast to stage (if he isn´t too far away)
3: He can just try to attack that thunderstealer and probably both will die.

I wouldn´t go aiming for the thunder. It´s easier to stay by edge/ledge and see if Ness screws or hit him with eggs.

who says you can't fastfall while spiking? Pah, i do it when necessary and have no problems. Now, DJing off the edge is n00bishly stupid. As long as you keep your second jump you shouldn't have a problem. As for LINK and Y. LINK, their b-up tends to spin on an angled axis (like the planet we live on) so it is possible to f-air them whil you're under the attack. I've had instances where I spiked an opponent that was over me before...naturally the timing is different because you have to hit them with the earlier frames of the fair.

I need to start practicing my dair spikes more...it's fun to kick the crap out of ppl and kill them immediately afterward. Although a well shffl'd dair can do massive damage on the field as well, but it can be too laggy to avoid post punishment. Ack, I hate punishment. and I need my friend to come over and give me a decent human opponent match, it's been too long.

Oh, and a couple more things about the fair:
I use it to start ground combos, but that's just me. None of you probably do this so you? maybe, Idk. but the fair is a good spike against any character, even Fox and Falco. it's actually fairly easy to hit them while they are b-upping w/o taking damage. AND IT LOOKS F'ING AWESOME TOO, whee. If they try and sweet spot then just fast-fall slightly below the edge, then hop back up to the stage and WD to instantly ready yourself for another spike if they b-up outta the meteor. (I hate it when people anti spike at 80% damage ) Also against the Fox and Clone, it's quite easy to f-smash their b-smash.

BECAUSE YOSHI'S F-SMASH HAS ARSE KICKIN' PRIORITY, w00t. And his B-air has awesome l-cancel capability. now then, who wants to re-explain the whole Flutter kick spike stuff? Like, when to ff and such.

i either d tilit edge guard or if someone tries to sweet spot the edge, i minihop fair and stay on the stage. since yoshis head is so massive, it can reach over the edge and spike as they reach the edge,and leaves yoshi out of harms way-works really well on: marth, roy, link, Y.link, fox, and sometimes falco

Shiek:

There's a really good way to edgeguard Shiek, assuming you have less than 100% damage and Shiek isn't recovering high. Start with an edgehog, however you want to do it. Then, as Shiek approaches the edge, roll off so you would edgehog her if she aimed for the edge. This forces her to land on the edge. Then, in her up+b lag, you can d-smash her, sending her on a low trajectory, allowing you to rinse and repeat. I've KO'd Shieks from fairly low % with this move, and it can frustrate the Shiek player a lot.

Bowser and DK are fiendishly easy to edgeguard. All you need to do is either tag them with an egg so they drop below recovery level. If that isn't an option then you use a dair directly on top of them. Usually don't fast fall unless you're approaching from say, jumping off a platform in FoD.

Anyways! Make sure you're centered on the middle of their Up-B. This means DK's head, or the top few spines on Bowser's shell. You will NOT get hit and you will knock them down quite a bit, to the point of no return with ease. I suggest not to approach from the side, as it is obvious what will happen. Kick their heads and they will drop out of hope's reach.

EDIT:

My, my, my, my. Aren't I silly. I didn't see everyone talk about dair'ing Bowser. Ah well. Just know it works on DK too!

Second Edit:

I am stupid today.

Uhh...

Against Samus I use fair and d-tilt to take care of her, most of the time. D-tilt to make her use her Up-B, then Fair her. If she up-B's again, try to land and d-tilt once more. This can lead into annoying cycles, but if the person misses a beat, they're gone.

Great stuff. Keep it coming guys.

Just letting you know that there is someone else who appreciates your work, lol.


Edit: I didn't relize this was a bump. lol

3 1/2 year bump ftw! I luv u Xanthyr.

Holy crap, I didn't realize it was years old. The date tricked me x.o

lol well it's a good thread, anyway, so it's not all bad =P

gotta love the d-tilt, kills so many people, especially if they can't sweetspot yet =D

Never, ever forget the mindgame dtilt to instant edgehog, it kills everyone in the f-ing game.