Landing hitboxes on aerials

[Amazing Ampharos]

This is something only a few characters have, but it's pretty useful and I don't think tactically appreciated by many people. Certain aerials in this game generate hitboxes during their landing animation. In all cases, these hitboxes come out on frame 1 of the landing animation. This is very useful for very obvious reasons, but I don't believe which aerials have this property has ever been documented nor has this ever really been discussed.

To be clear about the mechanics of landing animations, if you land during the execution of an aerial one of two things happen. Either you get an autocancel (almost every aerial has this before the hitboxes come out, and many have it very late in execution after all hitboxes are gone) and you have a normal landing animation (same animation as if you landed while not doing an aerial), or you land sometime in the middle and you have your aerial landing lag animation for that aerial. This landing animation has a fixed duration no matter when in the aerial it is initiated; if the aerial has 10 frames of landing lag, landing the frame the hitbox comes out or landing 5 frames later won't change that from the moment you hit the ground you have 10 frames of landing lag. Some of these landing animations have hitboxes though, and that's what this topic is about.

Here is a list of all of them on standard playable characters, courtesy of PSA:

Mario dair (2% damage, fixed knockback)
Bowser dair (2% damage, weak knockback)
Toon Link dair (5% damage decent knockback... also has a large "windbox" surrounding it)
Zero Suit Samus dair (5% damage, decent knockback)
Kirby dair (2% damage, fixed knockback)
Pikachu bair (4% damage, decent knockback)
Pikachu dair (4% damage, decent knockback)
Mr. Game & Watch bair (3% damage, decent knockback: more than bair in general has)
Mr. Game & Watch dair (6% damage, decent knockback)

Most of these are multi-hit moves so if you are thinking of using these multi-hit moves into shields, I suggest making extensive use of these landing hitboxes by varying when you land during the aerials. The plunging down aerials don't make as good of use of this property, but at least Mr. Game & Watch is able to slowfall his key and kinda get a little mix-up on the landing hitbox that way. For Zero Suit Samus and Toon Link, well, the landing hitbox makes your dairs slightly less unsafe (though still very unsafe) so at least you get something, right? Maybe there's an innovative use of their landing hitboxes I'm not seeing...

Some special moves generate landing hitboxes (off the top of my head Falcon Kick and Wizard's Foot do, and they may even be the only notable case), but documenting that would be fairly difficult due to the myriad ways special moves are handled by the game.

Anyway, that's all I have. Hopefully this will prove useful to someone.

 

[Magus-Cie]

I thought that this was known by the community. Since I picked up GnW I use this against people who like to shield my Bair. Vary the number of hits and they have a harder time punishing.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

G&W's landing hitboxes are mostly well known, but it's very seldom discussed (despite being really good!), and the applicability to other characters is not known by very many people. Doing stuff like low to the ground dairs with Mario or Kirby is probably a stronger tactic than given credit for because of this. I think I'm the first person to ever produce a list, and I doubt without looking at said recently produced list just about anyone could actually have listed these characters...

As G&W with bair though, the main use I get out of the landing hitbox is varying the timing but usually placing it after the 4th hit. This effectively causes the landing hitbox to replace the last hit, but it makes the timing of the last hit inconsistent which really messes up attempts to punish in the delay.

Oh, and a fun trick G&W can do with dair because of landing hitboxes. His landing hitbox is flagged separately to the main dair hitbox so low to the ground he can land the initial hit and combo to the landing hitbox. It does 19% which is pretty awesome (note double hitting dairs are really easy to land from platforms against tall characters below); I wonder if Zero Suit Samus can pull a similar trick with her dair (Toon Link definitely can't because of the pogo effect on his dair).

 

[Xebenkeck]

AA your right this isn't talked about much, and maybe people don't even know about it.

Good Read as always.

 

[Kitamerby]

I had no idea Pikachu's Bair and Toon Link's dair had damaging landing animations. I knew Dair had the windbox, never noticed it did damage.

 

[B!squick]

Bowser's DAir doesn't do anything to a full shield, but I have used it successfully and safely against one less than full.

Other than that though, the only real useful aspect of Bowser's DAir is that it beats roughly half of the projectiles in the game which makes it a semi-useful counter measure to camping.

 

[Adapt]

Zero Suit's dair has 3 hitboxes

Aerial: 5% - weak spike
Grounded: 4% - weak hit (~30 deg angle)
Landing: 5% - less weak hit (~60 deg angle)

The 40 frames of landing lag really kill this move's usefullness. You can only use it if you are sure it will hit.
I only really use it as a mixup when you are approaching from above and you have a jump left. You can bait an utilt/usmash and then punish for 9-10%

 

[Praxis]

lol, I know all about landing hitboxes and how to abuse G&W's.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

Ness's nair and fair are good for a lot of reasons, but they don't have landing hitboxes.

I'm not sure how you can abuse the fact that G&W has such an awesome property. I wish we lived in region to each other Praxis; I'd love to try the full majesty of turtle against you. I'd also love to play more games on Green Greens, what a fun G&W stage.

 

[6Mizu]

I had no idea Pikachu's Bair and Toon Link's dair had damaging landing animations. I knew Dair had the windbox, never noticed it did damage.

I didn't know about Tink's (but I knew it had a windbox); I knew about Pika's though.
Btw, Kitamerby I really like your Avi. :D

 

[Praxis]

Ness's nair and fair are good for a lot of reasons, but they don't have landing hitboxes.

I'm not sure how you can abuse the fact that G&W has such an awesome property. I wish we lived in region to each other Praxis; I'd love to try the full majesty of turtle against you. I'd also love to play more games on Green Greens, what a fun G&W stage.

The landing hitbox makes people assume that G&W's bair is a consistent hitbox the entire way. People who realize that the bair is inactive at another point realize that they can drop their shield and punish the bair before the landing hitbox comes out. I also know that some G&W's will fastfall to get the landing hitbox before the bair goes inactive, and that I can just shield through the landing hitbox and bair OOS.


The landing hitbox is NOT a disadvantage, but it's something that cause other people to not see a vulnerability where one exists.

Also, dair's landing hitbox comes with 12 frames of lag that I can drop shield and jab during, buffered out of the dair's landing hitbox shieldstun.


Fun fact; somewhat like G&W's Dair's hitbox, which occurs a second time if it lands, Peach's nair and bair will repeat their hitbox if Peach drops her float while they're out, resulting in what we call the double-hit-glitch. Float, Bair, drop float as the bair is connecting, and Bair hits twice.


BTW, I'm going to VC if you wanna meet up there for a MM ^_^ Otherwise, come out to a TourneyPlay sometime!

 

[Dr. Tuen]

Toon Links is news to me (the hitbox, not the windbox). And so is Pika's. G&W is fun to mix up with. You can also use the key from a standing position on a platform to nail tall characters. (Fall through the platform and dair right away. you cancel the dair and land back on the platform, but both hitboxes come out regardless).

@Praxis after you told me that peach funfact at a GC I used that in a match with nair (i loosely secondary peach, btw :-D). It's a very satisfying maneuver.

 

[Laem]

The landing hitbox makes people assume that G&W's bair is a consistent hitbox the entire way. People who realize that the bair is inactive at another point realize that they can drop their shield and punish the bair before the landing hitbox comes out. I also know that some G&W's will fastfall to get the landing hitbox before the bair goes inactive, and that I can just shield through the landing hitbox and bair OOS.

i think you confused the 5th hit and landing hit in ur first 2 sentences: the 5th hit can be prevented by dropping shield and doing w/e (usually jab), the landing hit can replace this 5th hit and can follow up the 4th hit nearly immediately. this means u cant punish the bair before the landing hitbox comes out.

im sure it was just a slip of the master's mind tho

 

[UTDZac]

Toon Link dair (5% damage decent knockback... also has a large "windbox" surrounding it)

Just wanted to clarify something about the "large windbox surrounding it."

Windboxes, like attacks, restore decay if they connect with an opponent or a living object (like green greens blocks).

Take G&W and stand right next to Green Greens blocks, then UpB without hitting any of the blocks. You may not see anything happening, but in fact the windbox of G&W's UpB is actually hitting the block (even though it doesn't look like its getting hit). Repeat this a total of 9 times and all of G&W's moves will be refreshed, free from move decay.

Now try and do the same thing with Toon Link's dair. We know that if with land right next to someone, it pushes them away. Therefore, logically, it must be a windbox right? Well if we test it on the green greens blocks like we did with G&W we will find it does NOT restore decay.

TL;DR It's not a windbox, it's something else.

 

[Fox Is Openly Deceptive]

Toon's 5% Dair landing hitbox has been known for a little while now to the Toon boards. We call it the Dair shockwave because it's very different from any 'hitbox' I've ever seen. But pretty much, it has a pushing effect that increases with the opponents percent. It also doesn't interupt the opponents moves or give them any hitstun or anything. All it does is give them 5% and a boost in the opposite direction you hit them in (hit them on the left, they slide right). The effect is quite noticable when the opponent is over 100% and being able to do sliding charged/charging F-smashes across the entire stage could be quite usefull in teams, if not a little gimicky.

From what I can tell, the hitbox is quite small and is located at the tip of Toon's sword when he lands, but I'm yet to see any confirmation of this. So realistically, it can only be used if the opponent (or friend) is the right height and is standing below a platform then Toon Dair's on top of the platform hitting the top of their head (to avoid the normal hitbox).

Other then what you would expect, it does some strange things like boost certain Up-B's incredbily high up. Much is untested though, so whether it is ever of any use remains unknown.

 

[RazeveX]

I thought pika's ones were pretty well known too, mainly because quick attack cancelling gives you a way to move right next to your opponent and attack straight away (of course its not a great option all of the time, because the lag after the bair/dair is sizable).

 

[-Axis-]

Can't Kirby's fair register a fourth hit upon landing?

I know for a fact it could in melee, but I can't quite remember if it still does.

 

[jalued]

This problem only exists because brawl's landing detection makes you warp to the ground.

But i agree this is a decent way around that problem without changing LD completely