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Smash Apprentice
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- Jan 3, 2013
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People who have pondered effective usages of footstool will have noticed that DJC characters, including Lucas, have one of the best toolkits to capatilize on landing a footstool, but yet I can't remember ever seeing any Lucas player footstool in a real match. In older builds of Project:M this may have been justified by footstools being hard to land and Lucas having better tools at his disposal in almost any situation, but my curiosity was sparked when I read that you could now footstool shielding opponents. Yesterday I finally remembered this fact when I had a bit of time, so I opened up Frame Advance to see what you could do. Here's what I've found by now, hopefully the content here will increase with time and your input:
How Footstools Work
You can execute a footstool by using any taunt input while sufficiently near and slightly higher than an opponent. Footstools execute on frame 1, but only work against opponents that are within certain states. The input will do nothing at all if you're either not in position to footstool or the opponent is intangible or invincible. Against opponents, that are rolling/spotdodging, hanging from the ledge, grabbed/grabbing or performing any attack action, you will perform a phantom footstool, that doesn't do anything but give you upwards momentum, but also doesn't have any lag.
Real footstools result in an upwards jump and recenter the footstooler at a certain point above the footstooled. They also induce 8 frames of lag on the footstooler and put grounded opponents into a 27/28 frames long footstooled animation.* This means about 20 frames advantage! Against airborn opponents, a footstool acts as a weak spike that can't be acted out of for a relatively long time dependent on the opponent's character (~3/4 seconds). Here's a (hopefully comprehensive) list of states the opponent can be footstooled in:
Comboing out of a Grounded Footstool
First and foremost, footstools combo into any DJC Aerials. At high percentages, DJC BAir kills, at lower percentages DAir and/or UpAir lead into combos. This is also a good way to set up DAir combo chains, should they ever get used.
Other options come from an Airdodge. Wavelanding out of a footstool will give you no more than 8 frames advantage and less against bigger characters, but is a way to combo into all non-Smash ground moves as well as PSI Magnet against sufficently small characters. Also from airdodging we gain the ability to combo into ZAir. As ZAir is suspectible to ASDI into the ground on a huge range of percentages, this should be used with care.
Both PK Burst and the OU-wind hitbox were also able to hit all characters I tested it on.
Against certain characters, footstools also combo into Magnet, but due to how high up thils will leave Lucas, my guess would be that waveland Magnet will often be the better choice.
Landing Footstools
Magnet on Shield into Footstool
A magnet that is spaced on top of an opponent's shield combos into a footstool - +7 into jump, who would have thought? This works both from grounded and aerial magnets, but as using up your DJ takes away the option of DJCing an aerial after the footstool, aerial magnets leave you with less options for comboing out of the footstool. With proper execution, the opponent is in shieldstun all the time after getting hit by Magnet, so all they can use to escape is shield-DI. One thing to note is that you have your Magnet much closer on the shield than you would usually do, a problem that can be somewhat mitigated by chaining an aerial into a grounded Magnet while advancing.
While this allows proper spacing of the initial Magnet, it also requires commitment to advancing after the first magnet, is harder to execute and gives more chances to shield-DI.
Footstool during DJC DAir chains
The initial hits of DAir on grounded opponents combo into themselves until >100%, a technique that would allow guaranteed 0->deaths on most characters if it weren't for the difficult execution and the opponent's ability to SDI (and it requiring to hit a grounded opponent with an intial hit DAir to initiate, with which footstools help, too).
While implementing into this chain can make it more difficult, they may be a countermeasure to SDI. With perfect DJC DAirs coming out on frame 9, DAir-chains are a 2 frame window on lower percentages. Using footstools before the DJC DAirs you can theoretically get this window up to ~5 frames. Due to more required inputs, footstool->DJC DAir being dependent on the opponent's character height and not necessarily landing on the frame after you hit, though, this window isn't as easy as it would appear. Still, even if the error margin isn't noticeably wider, footstools at least can lower the effect of SDI by abusing the positional reset with every footstool.
In this example, Lucas uses the exact same inputs to continue the chain against both maximum SDI in and maximum SDI away. Of course, in reality you won't be able to do the exact required inputs. Another weakness is that continoous SDI into the same direction can allow escape by reaching the ledge. While it is possible to switch side during the chain, doing so will only decrease the distance gained per repetition. I don't know whether this will be useful in the long run, but it definitly bears being looked into.
Of course, simply using a footstool after an initial hit DAir also makes it easy to combo into any aerial outside of DAir chains.
Option Selects
Another nifty, but difficult to execute trick is to abuse the fact that missed or phantom footstools have no lag by inputting an action during the 7 frames after the footstool, which then will be performed, if the footstool misses.
For example, you can option select a footstool->DAir if Magnet hits a shield and a WD away on either miss or direct connection by using the WD during the footstool-lag and the DJC-DAir during the special landing lag of the WD.
Lucas' inputs in both these scenarios are the exact same, the only difference is Fox shielding or not.
______________
Any other ideas? While I'm not sure what to think of the DAir-Chain, proper usage of footstools on shield should make shielding against Lucas an even worse idea than it already is.
How Footstools Work
You can execute a footstool by using any taunt input while sufficiently near and slightly higher than an opponent. Footstools execute on frame 1, but only work against opponents that are within certain states. The input will do nothing at all if you're either not in position to footstool or the opponent is intangible or invincible. Against opponents, that are rolling/spotdodging, hanging from the ledge, grabbed/grabbing or performing any attack action, you will perform a phantom footstool, that doesn't do anything but give you upwards momentum, but also doesn't have any lag.
Real footstools result in an upwards jump and recenter the footstooler at a certain point above the footstooled. They also induce 8 frames of lag on the footstooler and put grounded opponents into a 27/28 frames long footstooled animation.* This means about 20 frames advantage! Against airborn opponents, a footstool acts as a weak spike that can't be acted out of for a relatively long time dependent on the opponent's character (~3/4 seconds). Here's a (hopefully comprehensive) list of states the opponent can be footstooled in:
- Shield (!)
- Neutral & Special Fall, Hitstun, Tumble
- Grab
- Wait, Squat, Crawl, Walk, Run, Dash and respective turns
- Jumpsquat, Landing
Comboing out of a Grounded Footstool
First and foremost, footstools combo into any DJC Aerials. At high percentages, DJC BAir kills, at lower percentages DAir and/or UpAir lead into combos. This is also a good way to set up DAir combo chains, should they ever get used.
Other options come from an Airdodge. Wavelanding out of a footstool will give you no more than 8 frames advantage and less against bigger characters, but is a way to combo into all non-Smash ground moves as well as PSI Magnet against sufficently small characters. Also from airdodging we gain the ability to combo into ZAir. As ZAir is suspectible to ASDI into the ground on a huge range of percentages, this should be used with care.
Both PK Burst and the OU-wind hitbox were also able to hit all characters I tested it on.
Against certain characters, footstools also combo into Magnet, but due to how high up thils will leave Lucas, my guess would be that waveland Magnet will often be the better choice.
Landing Footstools
Magnet on Shield into Footstool
A magnet that is spaced on top of an opponent's shield combos into a footstool - +7 into jump, who would have thought? This works both from grounded and aerial magnets, but as using up your DJ takes away the option of DJCing an aerial after the footstool, aerial magnets leave you with less options for comboing out of the footstool. With proper execution, the opponent is in shieldstun all the time after getting hit by Magnet, so all they can use to escape is shield-DI. One thing to note is that you have your Magnet much closer on the shield than you would usually do, a problem that can be somewhat mitigated by chaining an aerial into a grounded Magnet while advancing.
While this allows proper spacing of the initial Magnet, it also requires commitment to advancing after the first magnet, is harder to execute and gives more chances to shield-DI.
Footstool during DJC DAir chains
The initial hits of DAir on grounded opponents combo into themselves until >100%, a technique that would allow guaranteed 0->deaths on most characters if it weren't for the difficult execution and the opponent's ability to SDI (and it requiring to hit a grounded opponent with an intial hit DAir to initiate, with which footstools help, too).
While implementing into this chain can make it more difficult, they may be a countermeasure to SDI. With perfect DJC DAirs coming out on frame 9, DAir-chains are a 2 frame window on lower percentages. Using footstools before the DJC DAirs you can theoretically get this window up to ~5 frames. Due to more required inputs, footstool->DJC DAir being dependent on the opponent's character height and not necessarily landing on the frame after you hit, though, this window isn't as easy as it would appear. Still, even if the error margin isn't noticeably wider, footstools at least can lower the effect of SDI by abusing the positional reset with every footstool.
In this example, Lucas uses the exact same inputs to continue the chain against both maximum SDI in and maximum SDI away. Of course, in reality you won't be able to do the exact required inputs. Another weakness is that continoous SDI into the same direction can allow escape by reaching the ledge. While it is possible to switch side during the chain, doing so will only decrease the distance gained per repetition. I don't know whether this will be useful in the long run, but it definitly bears being looked into.
Of course, simply using a footstool after an initial hit DAir also makes it easy to combo into any aerial outside of DAir chains.
Option Selects
Another nifty, but difficult to execute trick is to abuse the fact that missed or phantom footstools have no lag by inputting an action during the 7 frames after the footstool, which then will be performed, if the footstool misses.
For example, you can option select a footstool->DAir if Magnet hits a shield and a WD away on either miss or direct connection by using the WD during the footstool-lag and the DJC-DAir during the special landing lag of the WD.
Lucas' inputs in both these scenarios are the exact same, the only difference is Fox shielding or not.
______________
Any other ideas? While I'm not sure what to think of the DAir-Chain, proper usage of footstools on shield should make shielding against Lucas an even worse idea than it already is.
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