Bread and butter

[CharlieDW]

I'm having a lot of fun with Corrin after the 8.0 buffs. What are Corrin's bread and butter combos? Do they have reliable grab combos? I get that their main strength is juggling, just wondering what other things I should work on.

 

[Reldan]

I'm having a lot of fun with Corrin after the 8.0 buffs. What are Corrin's bread and butter combos? Do they have reliable grab combos? I get that their main strength is juggling, just wondering what other things I should work on.

I've been picking Corrin up since 8.0 and generally speaking I've found the following. This is just what I've found from playing around with Corrin and watching what vids are out there for her. That said unlike a lot of characters there's very little out there for Corrin that I think ties it all together. I am far from a great Corrin player - I'm still not quite there on the execution side of things

What I love about the character is having a really large toolbox of good moves, albeit some are very situational (but are great in those situations!).

The only moves I don't find myself using are USmash and Dash Attack. USmash is outshone in almost every situation by UTilt. Dash attack is slow (12 frames), doesn't kill, has less range than you'd think, and is incredibly unsafe on shield. Dash cancelling into almost any of her tilts is a better option, or doing an instant pin (see Tips and Tricks).

One really incredible attack with her that isn't maybe immediately obvious is to use the back hit of Uair against grounded opponents. She brings the sword all the way down behind her and it has pretty incredible range and speed, and starts combos. It's -5 on shield and can easily be done at a range that's basically safe. Annoyingly this is probably one of her best approach tools but the execution on doing a RAR SH FF UAir repeatedly and consistently is difficult, and if you mess up you'll probably get punished. Obviously there are high-level players who can do this at will. I do find that keeping you back to them and using this for zoning and mixing it up with Bair (which hits farther and harder) can be effective. It's really hard to get around backwards Uair given how much range and coverage it has.

Uair is your best juggle tool, and it can kill at higher percents. You want to have your back to them as much as possible when using this, as the arc of the swing covers above and behind her making this brutal to try and get around. Most characters are forced to use their DJ or air dodge to avoid this, so you want to keep track of what resources they have left and respond accordingly. Her UpB can also be used especially if they've already used their air dodge. You can potentially DJ Uair, they air dodge, and then you FF and UpB on the way down and catch them. This probably will launch them high enough (or even kill them) that you can land first and continue to juggle.

The range on the tip of FSmash is incredible. To me it's like Byleth's FSmash, and that move is pretty solid. Get used to the exact range and you can use this to get kills. It's great at punishing rolls as you can usually cover two options with it. Also since the patch the tip of FSmash is pretty much safe because the shield stun is massive.

DTilt is an incredible combo starter and all around fantastic move. It's 5 frames so same speed as her jab and you'll get more damage off the combos she can start off it (and then it leads into juggle mixups). Generally speaking you probably want to use this instead of jab when you can. The main thing jab has over this is that jab combo will beat spot dodge, and the jab lands a bit higher than Dtilt and might catch them in the air where Dtilt would whiff.

You can drop from ledge, then immediately jump and pin the ledge, giving Corrin an extra option for getting around ledge-traps.

You can cancel Pin with down pretty fast. Usually fast enough that they can't easily punish you on shield or if you whiff, especially if they are expecting the kick. At low percents you can set up tech chases if you land a pin and cancel rather than do the follow-up kick. Often the tech chase can do more damage than the kick would. If they don't tech, you can jablock them into Dtilt into juggle.

If you can catch somebody with the special charging hit of FSmash they're in for a bad time. It will break and/or poke through a shield and give you the FSmash hit, or it will combo into the FSmash if they just get hit by it right away. Smart players can potentially SDI backwards to get out before their shield breaks, but not if their back is to the ledge. Most players won't even know this is possible though to be honest, in which case you'll get them.

Counter with Corrin has a few good applications as you can use it to edge-guard certain character that have UpB recoveries with hitboxes. It hits all around Corrin so if you trigger it there's very few moves that don't get hit, which can be a problem for the other FE's chars counters that only swing out in specific directions.

Sadly her grab game is terrible. Her grab range is so bad that I feel sad for her. I haven't found any combos off of any of her grabs, and at low% they don't knock them far enough up to lead into any good juggle mixups. At higher percents you're just using them to try and set up ledge/edge guard opportunities. UThrow does kill at ~150% or so. Honestly if you think they're going to just stand there shielding, you could dash-cancel into FSmash and you'll almost certainly get more out of it (or a kill). Her Dash Grab is 10 frames and FSmash's charging hit comes out frame 12, so if you're reading Shield it's probably going to work. It also covers spot dodge and dodge backwards.

Nair and Fair are both great, with Fair being mostly safe on shield and Nair just hitting everywhere at once. Both will pop them up to give you opportunities to juggle. Nair is your fastest OOS option, coming out in 9 frames and hitting all around.


Edge/Ledge Guarding:

My basic edge/ledge guard game is that if they're knocked significantly off the level and are coming in really high I'll just go for a juggle. If they're coming in around platform level I'll go for either the Neutral B or Bair, and if they're coming in low I'll go for Bair or SideB (nice 45 degree angle downward and great range if they're trying to go below you) with a Neutral B stall if needed. If they aren't that far off stage I'll try and land 2-frame Pin at the ledge. If I miss I'll cancel Pin immediately and go for a mixup. Note that if you ever read Neutral Getup, you can run up and do the charged FSmash and that's likely a kill. You can also do the trick where you roll into the ledge so you end up behind them and then do charged FSmash as well. You can also use Dair (see Tips and Tricks) for super low recoveries.

Hopefully it goes without saying that you want to have your back facing the ledge with Corrin when you're ledgeguarding. UAir can then catch jump and will beat out a lot of other ways for them to attack back onto the stage.


Recovery:

Corrin's horizontal recovery leaves a lot to be desired, and she can't really mix up the timing on her UpB. If you are facing the stage you can use a Bair to push you horizontally to get a bit more distance. The bright side is the UpB has a huge hitbox all the way up, so it's hard for many characters to challenge it, and you can hold Down to keep it going above the ledge if you think they're trying to 2-frame you. Your main timing mixup is using Neutral B to stall your fall slightly. I sometimes like to time this to have the projectile come out at stage level to force them to respond to it while I get back to ledge, but as with everything mixing it up is key. If you keep your DJ you can recover from quite low, but if you get knocked even a little bit away after your DJ is used up you can lose a stock really easily. If they really like to try and go offstage to finish you, you do have the option to Counter. One nice thing with Corrin's Counter is that it hits above her pretty well, so this can often catch a spike.

If you're recovering from above I'd suggest getting a feel for how high up you need to be for Dair to cancel so you don't get the lagging ground pound. I find that to be a pretty effective (and fairly safe) way to get back down as you keep the super-fast falling momentum even after the Dair completes. The back hit of Uair can be a good option as you're coming down as it has a huge disjoint, assuming that your back is facing the direction they're approaching from. Otherwise FF neutral air dodge is pretty solid.


Tips and Tricks:

There's some odd quirks with Corrin's moves that are not, at least in my opinion, obvious.

If you're on the ground and you need Pin to come out as fast as possible, I find that doing SideB->A is the easiest technique, since I just slide my finger from B to A in one motion. This is because while in the SideB special hop (Dragon Lunge) from the ground both B and A will cancel into Pin (4 frames, wow!). If you do it fast enough the Pin comes out almost before Corrin even leaves the ground (7 frames total if done frame-perfectly). Also spaced properly this move hits pretty low below ledge and can net you kills if you can time it against recoveries.

SH Uair auto-cancels on landing. This is really good. SH Fair also auto-cancels. Sadly SH Nair and SH Bair do not.

FH Pin is safe on shield and kills. Generally if you FH away from them, throw this out and they shield, there's basically nothing they can do. Plus it hits as hard as her smash attacks. FH Pin will not auto-cancel on landing by itself, leaving you with 22 frames of landing lag. HOWEVER, if you buffer a normal attack on the way down Corrin will start the first frames of the aerial right as she hits the ground and that will auto-cancel, leaving you with just the normal 4 frames of landing lag like an auto-cancelling move would do. It's like you're replacing a move that doesn't auto-cancel with a move that does, which for all intents and purposes means FH Pin auto-cancels (just don't forget to hit A before you land!). You also can do FH Pin and if you Dair right as you hit the ground the Dair will stall your momentum hovering over the ground, then slam down. Also if you FH Pin and Neutral B on the way down, you'll have no extra landing lag and go immediately into the Neutral B charge (since it's a move that by design works if you start in the air and land during the animation).

Neutral B in the air will stall you when you release the shot. There are three great uses for this I've found. First is the obvious one of messing up their juggle or edge guard timing by changing your fall speed. The second is to help you get an edge guard. Jump backwards off (you want to use Bair for this as it will kill off-ledge even at lower percents), and depending if they try and do some tricky movement to get around your Bair you can Neutral B to stall and give yourself more time to line up the hit without wasting your second jump (which you might need to recover). This lets you edge guard lower than you might normally be able to. The third is to use the move to edge guard against opponents coming in high. Jump, Neutral B with a bit of charge (they'll probably try to jump over it) then charge the second hit to catch the jump. This is tricky to do, but if you land it it's probably a stock.

If you B-reverse Corrin's Neutral B you get a pretty significant change in momentum in the air. You can potentially jump away from their attack and whiff punish with a charge Neutral B into charged Chomp for 37%.

You also can use Dair as an edge guard if they are recovering extremely low. If you FH and do Dair at the peak of the hop, you can buffer your DJ so it happens as soon as the Dair ends and then UpB at the peak of that jump and you will just barely make it to ledge. Do not do this without some practice or you will SD. That said, Dair has a huge disjoint hitbox below Corrin and will catch and drag them down. Some chars with poor vertical recoveries will not be able to make it afterwards, especially if their DJ is used up. Since Corrin has such terrifying edge guard potential, you can use this if they keep trying to go super-low to get around your other options.

On stages like Yoshi's and Kalos with ledge walls that go all the way down, you can use Pin to basically get an extra jump for recovery. If you Pin the wall you can jump out of the Pin and it does not use up your DJ. Other options can be to use this for edge guarding by jumping off, pinning the wall behind you, and then you've still got a couple jumps and your UpB still to try and land that Bair for the kill.

 

[CharlieDW]

I mean, this is great. Thank you!