Interesting Nair "stage spike" interaction (Video included)

[Kasai]

I was helping a friend get some teching practice when I noticed this interaction that Nair has against opponents sliding along the bottom of the stage towards the ledge. It appears to produce a stage spike effect without the ability to tech. Originally, we tried slowing it down to 1/4 time to see if it was techable or to see if produced the little "impact ring" that appears when you hit into the stage and are able to tech but in every case where it was executed properly, the ring didn't show up and we were unable to get a tech. We were able to get techs in cases where Fox wasn't sliding along the stage, but not in cases like the ones shown in the video.

Interesting/potentially useful bits of info. It works with both a backward and forward facing Nair, so it can be executed while hanging from the ledge or while standing on the stage relatively easy. It also seems to work against basically any character that can produce the effect of sliding along the bottom of the stage. We tested it with C. Falcon to see if the grab interfered and it still produced the same untechable effect.

I looked around and wasn't able to quickly find any examples of this in other threads but I wasn't extremely thorough so if this has been discussed feel free to just ignore this thread, though I would like a link to the previous discussion so I could see if anything interesting came from it.

Anyway, the spikes happen at roughly the 30 seconds and 1 minute mark in the video.

 

[Skitrel]

Nice find. Easier to perform than fair spike because it lingers, safe if they choose a different option because the nair is going to knock them away to a position that's advantageous for you.

I like this a lot.

 

[Sinister Slush]

Nair sends you at an angle, so not too surprising it stage spikes if you get the hit off.

 

[Kasai]

I'm mainly wondering why it doesn't appear to be techable. I'm thinking that maybe the nairs hitbox is somewhat inside the stage and because the recovery move is sending them flush with the stage it hits them from within the stage rather than from where yoshi is and just sends them away from the hit, which in this case is in the stage. This could cause them to appear to be spiked without ever actually bouncing off the stage.

 

[Skitrel]

Stage spikes have three components. Before, during, after. Aerialtravel-hitting stage-aerialtravel after hitting stage.

I suspect that there's a startup time for the second component that requires at least 1 frame beforehand. This means that if the player receiving the stage spike is already touching the stage when it occurs then the game simply skips a step. This results in a player being unable to tech because techs REQUIRE the stage spike interaction/animation in order to be performed.

In essence what occurs here is the game skipping straight to stage 3(after hitting stage) in 1 frame because there was nowhere for the character to travel through the air.

Why would this be deliberately chosen in the design process? I suspect it is better for this to occur as opposed to a player touching a stage being moved towards the stage for even 1 frame of time - if that were to happen then clipping inside the stage could occur. This is the outcome of trying to avoid stage clipping.

 

[Kasai]

That would make sense. In any case it's an interesting and potentially useful mechanic for us and it seems to work on basically any character that would slide along the bottom of the stage during a recovery.

 

[Sinister Slush]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8rpifNUEYo
Thank Slice/his group for finding out more stupid silly **** with Smash 4.

 

[Scootch]

Huh. That is really cool! SPIKES ARE THE BEST!