Dair to Firebird

[BEES]

After countless hours trying to find a way to shield pressure a lvl 9 cpu, I found this.

It's only a 2 move combo, but the Firebird links seamlessely with an ended or autocanceled Dair, and it is virtually impossible to punish, since the warmup stuns anyone nearby. They have to shield it, DI it, and wait it out.

And it does 20% damage if all of it connects, more than any of Falco's other moves. If the Dair connects, that's a good ~30%.

I've come to appreciate this move for its unpredictability. Nobody expects you to pull out a Firebird of all things. Just make sure to use it only when they're at a low percent, otherwise they'll be floaty enough to escape the warmup and punish with a smash.

 

[Shy Guy 86]

I might try it after 18 days...when I go back home and play melee/brawl ;~;

But Level 9's are totally not like humans, a level 7/8 would do

even though the FireBird sucks, its unpredictable and no one would expect such a move, if it were the same one blow melee FireBird but hits when Charging, this would have been excellent for killing.

Check if you can easily DI out of this, since its going to be useless if someone can easily DI

 

[null55]

What exactly are low percents?
If you mean lower than 15%, you might as well just chaingrab...

It certainly sounds interesting, but would I not be able to do it past 40-50%?

 

[0RLY]

Shiro, don't forget that half the cast can't be chaingrabbed. Useful for Marth and Weegee...

 

[BEES]

What exactly are low percents?
If you mean lower than 15%, you might as well just chaingrab...

It certainly sounds interesting, but would I not be able to do it past 40-50%?

I exaggerated. At some arbitrarily high percent (above 100%) they should be able to DI out fast enough to smash you. I'll work on it a bit more tonight and see if I can get some concrete numbers.

And I agree with the previous poster - if it were one big hit this would be a great kill move. As is, Falco's up+B still does more damage than Fox's, and it has more hitstun, if I remember correctly.

 

[null55]

Shiro, don't forget that half the cast can't be chaingrabbed. Useful for Marth and Weegee...

Yes, that is true but now that I know what percent you can't do it at, it doesn't really matter. However, there are plenty of things Falco can do at low percents that he will not be able to do later– when this combo will still be viable.

And it is difficult to chaingrab Marth, but he is not Kirby.

 

[iDizZzY]

are u saying to Dair, and when they pop up, do a firebird, or dair them into the ground than fire bird?

 

[J4pu]

are u saying to Dair, and when they pop up, do a firebird, or dair them into the ground than fire bird?

I believe he was first going for a Dair into their shield and follow immediately with Firebird to avoid shield grabbing. Knocking them up then firebirding would NOT be a very good idea unless they were at very low percent, in which case a chain grab is better anyways as shiro pointed out

EDIT- oh, and (potentially) nice find BEES, it's good to see people are still out there looking for ways to improve Falco and not just thinking about food.

 

[iDizZzY]

I believe he was first going for a Dair into their shield and follow immediately with Firebird to avoid shield grabbing. Knocking them up then firebirding would NOT be a very good idea unless they were at very low percent, in which case a chain grab is better anyways as shiro pointed out

EDIT- oh, and (potentially) nice find BEES, it's good to see people are still out there looking for ways to improve Falco and not just thinking about food.

well, just looking at the frame data and some testing myself, it seems that the shield hit lag for the dair gives the gives the opponent 8 frames to react before the firebird can be initiated. But, thanks to the discovery of auto canceling, auto canceling the dair upon hitting the shield will only give your opponent only about 2-3 frames before you can initiate your firebird. 2-3 frames IS NOT a lot of time, so it looks as thought this could be a good technique. Although not 100% guaranteed due to the landing lag, this is still and great defensive strategy. Oh, btw, I dont want to make it sound like there is a lot of landing lag. Like i said, there is only about 2-3 frames of lag if you autocancel.
Oh, and in response to you J4pu, he said that if you can connect these attacks, it should do roughly 30%, when the firebird only does about 20%. So it sounds like BEES was referring to the Dair connecting. But again, im not sure. BEES could you clear this up or possibly post a vid?

 

[BEES]

30% refers to the best outcome with Dair and Firebird both connecting.

As iDizZzy mentioned, you have to time the Dair to autocancel, otherwise you leave yourself open.

I will look at timing the Dair to end right before you land, initiating a horizontal Firebird in the air. This might get you less frames. The flipside is lower priority at the end of the Dair animation.

 

[SilentFalcon]

well, just looking at the frame data and some testing myself, it seems that the shield hit lag for the dair gives the gives the opponent 8 frames to react before the firebird can be initiated. But, thanks to the discovery of auto canceling, auto canceling the dair upon hitting the shield will only give your opponent only about 2-3 frames before you can initiate your firebird. 2-3 frames IS NOT a lot of time, so it looks as thought this could be a good technique. Although not 100% guaranteed due to the landing lag, this is still and great defensive strategy. Oh, btw, I dont want to make it sound like there is a lot of landing lag. Like i said, there is only about 2-3 frames of lag if you autocancel.
Oh, and in response to you J4pu, he said that if you can connect these attacks, it should do roughly 30%, when the firebird only does about 20%. So it sounds like BEES was referring to the Dair connecting. But again, im not sure. BEES could you clear this up or possibly post a vid?

Hey no one make fun of me, but how exactly do you "autocancel"? Or does it happen automatically? (Which would make more sense with the name... LOL)

 

[iDizZzY]

fast fall the aerial when your on your way down.

 

[TheX0913]

careful bees, what works on lvl 9 computers won't nessecarily work on humans. Fire bird has too much lag to be used so an opponent can DI and if you do manage to hit them they can DI up and punish you on your landing lag.

 

[iDizZzY]

X thank you for reminding me. If the firebirds surrounding flames hit the opponent, any competent player will smash DI. But hey, why not try it, you know.

 

[BEES]

careful bees, what works on lvl 9 computers won't nessecarily work on humans. Fire bird has too much lag to be used so an opponent can DI and if you do manage to hit them they can DI up and punish you on your landing lag.

I'm well aware that humans are smarter. Level 9s respond automatically to actions with their counter, so they're relatively good at finding vulnerable frames, unless you're abusing the physics beyond their programming (dash/usmash combos usually work on them)

It seems that if you autocancel Dair into UpB, unless they perfect shield, they can't seem to punish. You're not safe before you attempt the Dair though, if they see it coming. Human players could abuse this, however most of them are content to try shield-grabbing any aerial approach, and this would be a nasty surprise for that.


Remember, the point is not the combo. The point is shield pressure. If your opponent is shield camping your aerials, this is an unexpected way of avoiding a shieldgrab from Dair. All this changes compared to Dair-Utilt is it ejects you from your opponent's range if they shield the entire thing, allowing you to start again without punishment.

I checked Dair to aerial Firebird. It's no good. There are too many cooldown frames on Dair if you don't land it. You need to land it to get any appreciable combo going. Oh well. Time to look at Nair and Bair.

 

[Pan!c]

Nice find, Bees. Thanks.

 

[Shy Guy 86]

A sort of n00bish question: How can I auto cancel, I only know how to L-Cancel but thats not in brawl..

 

[iDizZzY]

Like i said in an earlier post shy guy, a few moments before you hit the ground fast fall

 

[J4pu]

Like i said in an earlier post shy guy, a few moments before you hit the ground fast fall

Is this when you use Dair immediately upon leaving the ground or do i misunderstand how timing the auto cancel works?
I was under the impression that auto-canceling an aerial required you to be at a certain point/frame in the attack's sequence/animation, so FF at a certain point wouldn't give the wanted autocancel unless you were referring to a strict starting period of the attack. (of course I could be wrong about this, just say so if I am)

And is it just me, or does the hitbox for Firebird come out insanely late? The flames come out quickly enough, but that's just an animation, when i tried this right next to somebody there seemed to be a long period between when the Flame animation came out and the flame hit box came out, and if this is the case we'll just have to return to doing Dair > Jab combo, which really wasnt that bad to begin with, but something new to throw in would be nice, so I'm just hoping i messed up somehow.

@idizzy I wasn't condemning your idea about the "combo" I was just restating what BEES' initial objective was: "After countless hours trying to find a way to shield pressure a lvl 9 cpu, I found this."

 

[Tengosku]

autocancelling is finishing an aerial's animation before hitting the ground so that there is no landing lag, ffing an aerial is just the opposite

And is it just me, or does the hitbox for Firebird come out insanely late?

yeah

 

[J4pu]

autocancelling is finishing an aerial's animation before hitting the ground so that there is no landing lag, ffing an aerial is just the opposite

According to an "in-depth" thread in the tactical section auto-cancelling is different than finishing the move before landing.
I believe they said something along the lines of: auto-canceling an aerial is when you land at a certain point/frame in the attack's sequence/animation that does not cause landing lag, not all aerials have it, and some aerials that do have it have the auto-cancelling window before the hitbox comes out* which makes it useless to auto-cancel them except possibly for mindgames.

*(if I had an example of this, it would be definite proof it isn't finishing the aerial, but i don't; although Marth's Uair MIGHT be similar, i've heard talk about "scraping" his Uair to eliminate landing lag which i thinks mean using it when he is so low [and moving downward] that the sword seems to scrape the ground, but i believe the hitbox comes out for this). I also may be insane and there is nothing anywhere near this, I really hope that's not the case.

 

[Hawks go Caw]

According to an "in-depth" thread in the tactical section auto-cancelling is different than finishing the move before landing.
I believe they said something along the lines of: auto-canceling an aerial is when you land at a certain point/frame in the attack's sequence/animation that does not cause landing lag, not all aerials have it, and some aerials that do have it have the auto-cancelling window before the hitbox comes out* which makes it useless to auto-cancel them except possibly for mindgames.

*(if I had an example of this, it would be definite proof it isn't finishing the aerial, but i don't; although Marth's Uair MIGHT be similar, i've heard talk about "scraping" his Uair to eliminate landing lag which i thinks mean using it when he is so low [and moving downward] that the sword seems to scrape the ground, but i believe the hitbox comes out for this). I also may be insane and there is nothing anywhere near this, I really hope that's not the case.

Word. Auto-canceling isn't finishing an aerial before landing, mainly because by finishing an aerial before landing, there wouldn't be anything to cancel.

 

[§witch]

I exaggerated. At some arbitrarily high percent (above 100%) they should be able to DI out fast enough to smash you. I'll work on it a bit more tonight and see if I can get some concrete numbers.

And I agree with the previous poster - if it were one big hit this would be a great kill move. As is, Falco's up+B still does more damage than Fox's, and it has more hitstun, if I remember correctly.

Fox's up b does 29% .

 

[Rave925]

What exactly are low percents?
If you mean lower than 15%, you might as well just chaingrab...

It certainly sounds interesting, but would I not be able to do it past 40-50%?

Lol @ chaingrab. Most people easily know now how to get out of falco's chaingrab. This Firebird idea seems really good actually. And i think it only works lower percents.

 

[J4pu]

People, this will not work, sadly, the hitbox for firebird takes forever to emerge, go test it yourself if you dont believe me, it's similar to attempting a Dair > Fsmash in terms of lag time.

So nice try but we will have to return to looking for new things and using Jabs in the mean time.