Short-hopped dair... with no lag?!

I'm sorry if this has been known, I've kept up with the Falcon forums and the vids around thus far and I sure didn't know about this one.

Anyway, here's the thing. Have you guys seen those Ganon vids where Ganon's short-hopping around dair'ing without lag? The way he's doing it is by dairing RIGHT as he leaves the ground so that the animation finished before he touches the ground. Thus, no lag. Simple, right? The timing for this is pretty strict-- it's definitely easiest to do by flicking up on the control stick then down on the c-stick. Quick jump, quick dair. Timing is fairly strict.

So I was ******* around with Falcon and I was like MAN, I sure wish Falcon could do that with his dair. So I was hopping around with laggy SH'ed dairs and then... suddenly one of them had no lag. The method is exactly the same as described above-- flick up on the stick, then down on the c-stick QUICK. The reason I had such a hard time with this at first is because the timing is super strict. The fact that I used the stick to double short-hop laser with Melee Fox pretty much constantly has really helped me though, because I've got no problem rolling the control stick a quarter circle from the bottom to do a dashing short hop with the stick. Anyway, there you have it-- Falcon's dair has new life. It's pretty awesome and combos super well. Timing was tough at first but after 10 minutes of practice I can do it 100% of the time.

Again, SORRY if you guys already knew this but I haven't seen it before.

Edit: Pikachu's dair is quite similar to Ganon/Falcon's in this respect, though the timing for that is definitely easier than Falcon's. Cool ****-- at low percentages I've been able to shdair my friend and then combo into dash attacks, nair, and even a knee or two. "Buffering" your dash after the dair definitely helps you combo out of it because it gets you on the move again on the first possible frame, and that's more important than ever with Brawl's super-short hitstun. See the thread "New Fast Technique" in the Tactical discussion forum if you're not sure what I mean by buffered dash.

Hmm...very nice, very nice. I hadn't heard about this until now, so I'll have to check it out myself. I wonder if it's possible to do it without jumping with the control stick (I turned it off since I found it kind of annoying for trying to do uptilts).

Would you mind if I added it to the Guide?

Edit: Actually, yes, it is possible to do this without jumping with the control stick, though definitely harder to do, especially consistently. You essentially have to hold down on the control stick AS you short hop, and then as soon as you press the jump button (x for me), you immediately have to hit a, then immediately let go of the control stick or you'll fast fall slightly and ruin the lag-free landing.

Strangely enough, I knew about buffering for a while now (not under that name though), but never found it quite useful til now. Maybe, just maybe, Falcon can achieve some combos now.

No, certainly do add it to the guide. I will say though, I THINK it's possible to do without stick-hopping, but it's nearly impossible to pull off with any consistency that way. The time it takes for you thumb to get from the jump button to c-stick is just too much and the timing is too strict.... unless maybe you mapped jump to a shoulder button, Z maybe? I haven't tinkered with custom controls yet. Anyway I don't mind stick jumping, I've got no problem with utilts and stick hopping is actually useful in some situations (such as this one and a few other character's dairs).

But yeah, I'm stoked about this. Adds a new dimension to what I thought Falcon could do.

Ah, I suppose we can finally begin to see the use and strength of custom mapping buttons. I guess the issue is overcoming the years of hardwired reflexes that have become so honed and accustomed to the default controls.

I actually think that the non-control stick jumping way I found can be achieved fairly consistently now that I've goofed around a bit with it.

I thank you for bringing this to our attention. I had despaired of the Tactical section finding anything that might actually be useful for Falcon, lol.

Edit: Yeah, the non-control stick way is actually quite feasible the more I practice with it. I'm glad, because getting used to having to push up so very slightly on the control stick to uptilt would've taken me a long time to get used to. I also can make a video of this to better demonstrate to people what happens.

Another Edit: I also messed around with trying to full jump dairs with this technique to see if I could do a double dair in the air. While I didn't, I did find that if you did this lag-canceled dair with a full jump, then did a double jump with the lag canceled dair again, you could two dairs at essentially the same vertical position. This could help with dair spiking people off the ledge if you miss. Might it be enough to hit airdodgers? I have to find out because that would be awesome if it could.

thx for the info !! lol
i ve been playing falcon for 20 hours now and i didn't actually know u can do this with falcon
thx lots

Yeah, I was messing around with this last week on Ganondorf. With Ganondorf though it's obviously more dangerous as it is still a very powerful KO move if the opponent is standing and not airborne, but it works just the same with Falcon.

I find it easier to do without the stick by jumping while holding down, then rolling from X to A (GCN controller). Works every time.

Did you know tapping X/Y is easier than flicking up on the control stick.

C-stick uses one finger.

This "rolling from jump to A after shorthop" technique also helps with doing a lag-free sh knee. You can't unfortunately fast fall it at all or make it aim lower, since it will lag then, but it certainly helps with being able to attempt to knee people at a certain height without worrying about lag.

Reaver197 said:

This "rolling from jump to A after shorthop" technique also helps with doing a lag-free sh knee. You can't unfortunately fast fall it at all or make it aim lower, since it will lag then, but it certainly helps with being able to attempt to knee people at a certain height without worrying about lag.

Click to expand...

Yeah, you just have to be really close to sweet spot it from SH. Not something I thought about since SH F-Air with Ganondorf isn't nearly as good an idea.

Dude! I was messing around with this and discovered you can do a no lag short hopped knee! If this was already known then I feel stupid but this is amazing. You can do a no lag knee by just short hopping and fairing right away. It's not as picky as the short hop dair, I can do it by short hopping with Y and fairing witht he c-stick. I tried the short hop dair and found it much easier to do with the control stick short hop. I can do it about 70-80% of the time this way. These could be huge discoveries for falcon's game people. Props to WastingPenguins for finding the no lag short hop dair with falcon, but now we have the knee too!

-Nate

**Edit**

Oh man I just realized, what if you did a no lag flubbed knee? Since it has such little knockback it could lead into combos, actual combos... So doesn't this mean that every single one of falcon's airs have no lag if timed properly? Worst character my ***.

domiNate said:

Dude! I was messing around with this and discovered you can do a no lag short hopped knee! If this was already known then I feel stupid but this is amazing. You can do a no lag knee by just short hopping and fairing right away. It's not as picky as the short hop dair, I can do it by short hopping with Y and fairing witht he c-stick. I tried the short hop dair and found it much easier to do with the control stick short hop. I can do it about 70-80% of the time this way. These could be huge discoveries for falcon's game people. Props to WastingPenguins for finding the no lag short hop dair with falcon, but now we have the knee too!

-Nate

**Edit**

Oh man I just realized, what if you did a no lag flubbed knee? Since it has such little knockback it could lead into combos, actual combos... So doesn't this mean that every single one of falcon's airs have no lag if timed properly? Worst character my ***.

Click to expand...

Yeah this one is more obvious and I'm not sure it'll be terribly useful, cause it's either hard or impossible to sweetspot a sh'ed knee doing it like that. As for doing it on purpose to get the non-sweetspot knee... *shrug*, not sure, but I'm pretty sure that one has about 0 hitstun on the ground like that so I don't think it'll lead to too many combo opportunities. I could be wrong, I'll have to test it.

I've noticed lately that these two things are really hard to land. Approaching is really tough in brawl.

*Edit* Actually I played around with the flubbed no lag knee and I find it kind of useful. It leads right into an f-smash or u-smash, or basically anything. Approaching with it will be very hard though. The only time it will connect is if you opponent is suffering from some sort of lag, and I guess in cases like that you might as well nair, or do a sweet spot knee. Maybe its not as useful as I thought haha. I think it could be useful for mindgames though. If your opponent sees you knee, they might try to shield grab it, when in reality you land right in front of them and and d-tilt them into some combos or grab them or whatever. It could have it's uses, but I doubt it's going to be an integral part of falcon's game.