Ducking and Crouching

[~ Gheb ~]

Some characters get really low in their ducking animation. Why isn't this abused more? Especially characters that can crawl can sneak under a rising aerial with a reduced hurt box to put the opponent in a bad position but a low duck is already good enough.

Best example where ducking / crouching shines is against MKs approaching with dair and aerial tornado. Some characters can literally avoid all hits of the dair and about half of the tornado without even using their shield by simply ducking. If you get the timing down to spot dodge the final hits of the tornado you can keep your shield at full health without much trouble against that approach. Against a rising fair of like marth you can crawl below him to avoid a second fair or other follow ups and get a safe utilt [and a much better position]

Characters that should duck / crouch more:
Snake, Diddy Kong, Wario, Olimar, Lucario, Kirby, Mr. G&W, ZSS, Wolf, Mario, Luigi, Sheik and Pikachu

 

[Laem]

there's no character that can avoid grabs by crouching(melee jiggz) right?

 

[MrEh]

there's no character that can avoid grabs by crouching(melee jiggz) right?

iirc, short characters like Squirtle and friends can crouch under Ganon's grab.

 

[-Jumpman-]

Kirby can croach under Snake's grab (watch Chudat vs Ally).

 

[Kiru]

I use crouch with marth to setup a Dtilt or avoid an aerial, it works enough to be used often.

 

[teluoborg]

Kirby can stand under Falcon's grab :/
And crouching is useful against some SH Bairs.


Also THIS

 

[rPSIvysaur]

Crouch under Z-airs are great. Makes dealing with TLink, Link and Samus' spam easier to deal with IMO.

 

[Lord Chair]

Wario's crouch takes away his main asset, i.e. mobility.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Yet at the same time it offers him new assets, i.e. a smaller hurtbox.

 

[Dark 3nergy]

not necessarily smaller gheb, it just puts the character model in a more horizontal position. Hurtbox is the same it just has reduced vertical height. In the case of DDD he lies on the side of his body. While characters like Ganon fall to one knee in a somewhat compacted like crouch.

exceptions to this rule obviously would be characters like kirby, jiggs whose hurt boxs drastically lose volume vertically and gain prolly abit more horizontally

ZSS is a strange one too as she has even lesser vertical height while shes moving during her crouch. And if you look at pikachu, if you laser him with falco, while pikachu is crouching and moving back words, the back end of pikachus rump gets hit by the laser. But pikachu doesnt get hit by it if he moves forward.

 

[SaveMeJebus]

not necessarily smaller gheb, it just puts the character model in a more horizontal position. Hurtbox is the same it just has reduced vertical height. In the case of DDD he lies on the side of his body. While characters like Ganon fall to one knee in a somewhat compacted like crouch.

exceptions to this rule obviously would be characters like kirby, jiggs whose hurt boxs drastically lose volume vertically and gain prolly abit more horizontally

ZSS is a strange one too as she has even lesser vertical height while shes moving during her crouch. And if you look at pikachu, if you laser him with falco, while pikachu is crouching and moving back words, the back end of pikachus rump gets hit by the laser. But pikachu doesnt get hit by it if he moves forward.

When diddy kong crouches, he can get hit by falco's lasers. But when diddy shields and points the shield down, the lasers won't hit him even if his shield is to small to protect him

 

[Dark 3nergy]

^^^^^^

Group A: In range for Regrab, Jab, D Tilt, D Smash.

* Jigglypuff
* Lucario
* Ivysaur
* Charizard*
* Bowser*
* R.O.B.
* Wario

*If they shield they bend their head back just enough to not be able to be regrabbed.

happens with other characters too

 

[teluoborg]

Wario's crouch takes away his main asset, i.e. mobility.

I didn't know that crouching took away Wario's jumps :/

 

[Spelt]

i always aim tornado to hit the top of the opponents shield, so this would completely screw me up.

 

[Elyssa Xey Hexen]

Crouching with Snake against ganon is so funny. Around half of ganon's moveset is completely evaded. I bet characters as short as snake in crouches could do the same.

 

[Supermodel From Paris]

If Squirtle ducks, Ganon can't hit him with Wizard Kick.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

I have a quite old topic about this exact thing for Mr. Game & Watch (August 2008!).

http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=191717

If I plan on standing in place and not moving, I try to stay crouching, but it's kinda tricky to use just right. I definitely feel like a stronger G&W player than I could get more out of it though. Owing to the age of that topic, I dunno if I tested pivot grabs or if really every pivot grab hits him. It is the case that most pivot grabs have pretty impressive range all around.

What isn't mentioned in that topic for G&W is that he can up special straight out of crouching and that crouch -> up special is really good anti-air. It's something I'm kinda bad at doing and more often do shield -> up special (which has its own uses), but again, I feel like a stronger G&W player than I could be getting some milage out of this.

I'm pretty sure Kirby's crouch is the actual lowest and that G&W and Jigglypuff are close. I dunno if any of the others are very close to those three, but I'm sure anyone who is kinda low and can crawl (like ZSS or Snake) can have some fun.

 

[Grim Tuesday]

I do this all the time as Jigglypuff.

 

[Supermodel From Paris]

ZSS can crawl under a few hitboxes and most projectiles, if nothing else.

 

[MetalMusicMan]

I love playing the Kirby mains who just crouch against my Falco at the beginning of the match (I'm looking at you Fromundaman and JoWii)

Cracks me up, it's so gay but so awesome.

 

[Starwarrior27]

Crouching is underused for most characters in Brawl. For certain characters it is not so useful (Bowser and Ganondorf), but it is sad to see a Kirby player who does not crouch once during a match. Crouching does not take away a lot of options from the player (they can still jump, shield, etc.), but it does decrease the vertical hurtbox. For any small characters, implementing the crouch more often could change the outcome of the match.

I love playing the Kirby mains who just crouch against my Falco at the beginning of the match (I'm looking at you Fromundaman and JoWii)

Cracks me up, it's so gay but so awesome.

Did you know that Kirby can still get hit by Falco's lasers while crouching as long as it is a silent laser?

 

[TheReflexWonder]

I use it a lot against Meta Knight to avoid D-Air as Squirtle. Perhaps I should do it with D-Tilt more often to counter short-hop F-Air.

 

[SuSa]

I love playing the Kirby mains who just crouch against my Falco at the beginning of the match (I'm looking at you Fromundaman and JoWii)

Cracks me up, it's so gay but so awesome.

I do the same thing, but as Snake.

 

[TheReflexWonder]

I do the same thing, but as Snake.

Same here.

Also, it's D-Tilt in my previous post, not D-Air.

D-Air out of crouch, hah. That's silly.

 

[Rubberbandman]

Dair out of crouch with squirtle sounds viable as a little mixup option.

 

[da K.I.D.]

Any thing sonics crouch height or smaller cant be hit by ikes autocancled bair, I use this against san a lot.

 

[-LzR-]

I guess Jigglypuff like this. Gonna implement...

 

[DarkPikmin]

Olimar's D-tilt can avoid some moves

 

[etecoon]

this is definitely underused vs air camping, dunno as much about other characters but I know specifically a lot of attacks that snake can duck that are very helpful, like a lot of marth's will land with nair because it beats dash attack better than fair but it will miss crouching snake like 99% of the time