Data SSBM Compendium of Knowledge

[Stratocaster]

The 2007 edition is 6 years old, so I think an update is an order. This should be a great way to find and keep track of useful threads, but is not a replacement of the search function. I'm going to post it in an unfinished version so it can be used while I flesh it out, so you all can tell me what I am missing, and so I can post some mini-compilations within the thread and link to them from the main post (like join some Magus on similar topics together so you don't have to open 10 tabs to read about it).

Magus is in purple (lol).

Basics/Fundamentals (for Beginners)

Terminology and Techniques (2007 Compendium, Outdated, will be replaced)
Advanced How to Play (Wak)
Your First Tournament (Scotu)
How to Hold and Use Your Controller Most Effectively (Bones0)

Improvement in Competitive Play

Compete Complete (Wobble's Blog)
Drastic Procrastination Improvement (Umbreon)
How to Practice on Your Own (Dr Peepee)
Regaining Stage Control/How I Solve Problems (Dr Peepee)
Motivations (Dr Peepee)
10,000 Words of Power (Little England)
Playing to Win (Sirlin)
Staying Healthy - A Guide to Playing Melee Better and Longer (thespymachine)

How to Improve - A Compilation
Positioning - The Divide Between Good and Great (Omni)
Intelligent Aggression (Cunning Kitsune)
Understanding the depth of mix-up games in SSBM (Emblem Lord)
7 Habits Of A Professional Smasher (LunInSpectra)
The 4 Aspects of Melee (Wobbles)
Reaching the Pantheon: An Analysis of Ascending to the Next Level (The King)
Observation: The Key to Higher Level Smash Play (MookieRah)

Scotu's Series on Competitive Smash (for Brawl but mostly applies)
A Guide to Playing Smash Competitively
Playstyles
Match Control
Developing Strategies for Counterpicking
You're Doing it Wrong
Glitches, Exploits, and Intentional
A Guide to Not Suck
Aiming to Miss
The Physics of Attacks

Gameplay Mechanics

Techniques
Pivoting
Various Platform Dropping (Phanna)
Shield Dropping (Dashdancedan)
Shai Dropping (Shai)
This section needs a lot of work...

Chaingrabs
Doc's downthrow
Ganon's downthrow
Peach's upthrow
Fox's upthrow (KirbyKaze)
Sheik's downthrow (DtJ Jungle)
on Ganon and Pika (KirbyKaze)


DI and Teching
Guide to DI, SDI, ASDI, CC, and Teching (Doraki)
Spectacular Guide to DI (Yuna)
Double Stick Teching Guide
How to Smash DI Fox's U-throw U-air and not die (Kirbykaze)
Magus Posts on DI, SDI, ASDI, CC, and Teching

Character Traits (Mew2King)

Spoiler

Weight
Falling Speed
Aerial Mobility
Wavedash Length (traction)
Running Speed
Walking Speed
Full Jump Height
Short Hop Height
Double Jump Height
Shield Size
Ducking Ability

Hitboxes

Spoiler

Bowser- Seikend
CFalcon- Stratocaster
Donkey Kong- Strong Bad
Doc - standardtoaster
Falco - Seikend
Fox- Stratocaster
Ganon- standardtoaster
IC- Stratocaster
Jiggs - Massive
Kirby- Shoopman
Link- standardtoaster
Luigi- standardtoaster
Mario- Stratocaster
Marth- Stratocaster
Mewtwo- standardtoaster
Mr G&W- standardtoaster
Ness- standardtoaster
Peach- Emma Watson's Boyfriend
Pichu- Seikend (Including Ledge Options)
Pikachu- Stratocaster
Roy- Aizen (incomplete)
Samus- knihT
Sheik- Stratocaster
Yoshi- mastermoo420
YLink- standardtoaster
Zelda- mastermoo420

Other
Angles in Melee (ajp_anton)
Knockback, Launch Speed, Hitstun, Hitlag & Shieldstun Calculation (StrongBad)
Stage Starting Positions (thespymachine) Video (Phanna)
Ledge Grab Boxes (Scotu)
Item Catch Boxes
Shortened Jumps via Frame-Perfect Aerials (Shai)


Frame Data

Attacks, Dodges, and Ledges (SuperDoodleMan)
Dash/Movement
Techs and Get-ups
Throws
Hitlag and Shield Stun (Phanna)
Shield pressure (Scotu)
Out of Shield Options (Wiseking)
Shield Release (Release vs Wavedash)
Misc from M2K:
Jump Start-up
Landing
Run Stopping Speed
Run Turning Speed
Item Throwing Speed
Taunt

History of Smash

Year in Reviews (Juggleguy and Alphazealot):
2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2007
Smash History 2008-2010
Evolution of Smash (the thread not the OP)
Armada Retiring

Common Discussions and Debates

These are some good threads to inform yourself on these issues that plague us.
Existence of Tiers (Do Character Match-ups matter?)
Wobbling, 2 (Should this infinite be tournament legal?)
Stage-list (Should there be more or less legal stages?)
Overview of Banned Stages (Why stages are banned) (XIF via Juggleguy)
Alternate Stock/Time (Why 4 stock, 8 min?)

 

[Stratocaster]

Post reserved.

I think this is a good start.

 

[Onomanic]

Excellent thread. It's about time we had another info thread around, especially in the wake of Evo with lots of potential new players.

 

[AppleAppleAZ]

10/10 thread. Awesome work

 

[TerryJ]

Thank you so much for making this thread, I was wondering when someone would get around to centralizing information.

<3

 

[Bones0]

You should change Tires Don Exits to what it really means since new players will be extremely confused by the meme. lol Other than that, good work so far! Definitely needs a section laying out the benefits and drawbacks of certain controller configurations. Something like this.

 

[TreK]

Hmm, is there not a thread where we explain why items are banned, and more importantly, that they have not always been banned ? If there is, you should add it to the discussion section, it's something newcomers might want to read.

Excellent thread. 10/10 would bang read.

 

[thespymachine]

Awesome!


Is this post good enough? http://smashboards.com/threads/staying-healthy-a-guide-to-playing-melee-better-and-longer.332355/

I'm still working on finding all the studies I was using as some of the basis for what I was putting in it, but it's basically 100% complete.

 

[Stratocaster]

Thanks for the complements and feedback.

Bones0, I thought the explanation after was sufficient, but I may change it anyway on your suggestion. Your post on holding the controller is a beneficial read too, I think I'll put it in the beginner section because you want to start good controller habits early. I wish mine were different, though I have learned to do most everything well the way I do it.

Teneban, I thought about that, but I don't know of a thread. I looked, but didn't find anything easily and decided to come back to it. Most of the other ones I listed are actually things I had read before and specifically remembered.

thespymachine, I've read that before. I'll add it in too.

Edit: changes made, I appreciate the suggestions

 

[Insom]

someone sticky this thread plz

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

Here are a few things you may consider including:

Starting Positions (Youtube)
Regaining Stage Control/How I Solve Problems (by Dr PeePee)
Frames of Hitlag and Shield Stun (by Phanna)(incomplete)
[Tool] Knockback, Launch Speed, Hitstun, Hitlag & Shieldstun Calculation v1.11 (by Strong Bad)
Ground and Aerial Catch Boxes (by Magus)
An Overview of Banned Stages (by Juggleguy/XIF)

 

[Juggleguy]

Here are a few things you may consider including:

Starting Positions (Youtube)
Regaining Stage Control/How I Solve Problems (by Dr PeePee)
Frames of Hitlag and Shield Stun (by Phanna)(incomplete)
Ground and Aerial Catch Boxes (by Magus)
An Overview of Banned Stages (by Juggleguy)

I didn't actually write any of the banned stage argument. That was a quote from XIF, so credit him.

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

I gave you joint credit i guess? I'll leave it up to stratocaster to decide what he wants to do

 

[Stratocaster]

Updated to include Sveet's suggestions, some chaingrab info, and a few other things.

Edit: Condensed Magus Posts

Magus Compilation of Posts on DI, SDI, ASDI, Shield DI, Crouch Canceling, and Teching
*To be condensed by topic and remove repeat information in later post*

Spoiler

ASDI is just like SDI which directly repositions your character slightly in that direction except the amount of movement is smaller, and instead of happening duringhitlag it happens automatically (it's what the 'A' stands for) on the 1st frame of knockback right after hitlag based on the direction being held on either the control stick or c-stick, so unlike SDI you don't need to actually smash the direction for it to happen. Since it happens by simply holding a direction on either stick as hitlag ends you are ASDIing stuff all the time except it isn't usually noticeable since it's both a small distance and is also combined with the KB itself.

If a direction is being held on both sticks, then the direction on the c-stick is what's used for the ASDI. Because of that part, it lets you directional DI to change the launch angle on the control stick while also ASDIing in a different direction than the one being held on the control stick.

The reason holding down on the c-stick does a weaker 'crouch cancel' is because it does the main component of it which is ASDI downwards. A normal CC by holding down on the control stick is a combination of crouching (reduces the launch power/KB and halves the hitlag you get from the attack), ASDIing down into the floor to instantly land on the ground on the 1st frame of KB, and usually holding down also causes a lower launch angle which reduces the amount of upward movement from the KB that the ASDI has to overpower to keep you from leaving the ground.

ASDI like SDI is mostly helpful for escaping multihit attacks, low knockback hits/combos where normal trajectory DI has less of an overall impact on where you end up after the KB, for certain things like wall teching, and stuff that's specific to ASDI are for CCing and ground teching (since floors can't be SDI'd into).


You can also A/SDI during shield hitlag (c-stick can't be used for it obviously since it'd make you roll/dodge/jump with the shield being up). Shield ASDI is actually what makes the lightshield edgehog on Marth work. You ASDI off the edge and when the movement offstage from the ASDI is greater than the shield pushback from the attack towards the stage you slip off the edge and fall.

Holding towards someone while shielding their attack will make you ASDI towards them which keeps you closer and allows you to shieldgrab some things that you'd normally be pushed too far away to reach them. Doing the opposite, you can hold away while shielding Peach's d-smash to take less hits and damage to your shield while getting pushed out of range sooner to be able to punish.

Another thing you can do with shield A/SDI is stuff like SDIing Falco's shine away in your shield into a grab so if they multishine it doesn't reach you and they get grabbed, and if they jump out of the 1st shine then Ganon's tall enough to grab them out of their jump.


Using the c-stick to ASDI is only useful when the direction you want to ASDI is different from the direction you're going to be holding on the control stick. The reason being is that ASDI, which is the only thing the c-stick does as far as DI, is also read from the control stick anyway. Holding both sticks in the same direction results in the same thing as holding just the control stick in that direction.

ASDI happens on the same frame as the 1st frame of KB, while SDI happens before KB, so technically you're moving towards the ground while also moving up and away from the f-smash's KB at the same time. Whatever the net distance of those 2 is is your movement on the 1st KB frame. If the total vertical movement is into the ground you'll land in your regular air->ground landing animation if the KB is weak enough to not cause a knockdown/tumble (2, 4, 5, or 6 frames depending on the character), or you'll fall down directly on the floor or tech if the KB is strong enough to knockdown.

Anything that hits on the ground and has a launch angle of horizontal or lower and the KB is weak enough to not cause a knockdown can't be trajectory DI'd or A/SDI'd upwards or downwards (grounded stomps still launch downwards, they just bounce you off the floor and you go upwards once it begins causing a knockdown). Some examples are Fox's shine, Sheik's needles, Falco's d-air at lower damages, and the weakest hit of Ganon's reverse u-air.

Since the 'cancel' part in 'crouch cancel' requires you to ASDI down into the floor to cause a regular landing to cancel the stun with that animation, these attacks can't be crouch canceled. They can still be crouched, but all that does is reduce the launch power which reduces the stun by some since stun is calculated from it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9sa8133NBI#t=1m08s

He's in hitlag that entire time, so there's no KB actually happening at that point. SDI is what allows him to move around like that.

When rotating the stick along the outside for SDI it triggers by passing specific points depending on which direction you're rotating.

The ones with Pink arrows are the trigger points for clockwise rotation and the Blue arrows counter-clockwise. Once you cross over/pass those points it will trigger a SDI in the direction your stick is pointing if you're in hitlag. The Orange area is the area that can trigger SDI. Having the stick within the inner Blue area can't cause SDI.

Since there are only 4 points for a direction of rotation, some rotations are inefficient for getting a SDI. Starting at Down-Right and ending at straight Up would only cross one of those points and would result in 1 SDI, and so would starting at full Right and rotating like 10° upwards. If you were to start Right and go up slightly to cross that counter-clockwise point, and then go down slightly down to pass the clockwise point right below it you'd get 2 SDIs from rotation from only about 30° of total rotation.

It doesn't work for most characters when the hitlag is 10+ frames (hitbox does 21%+ of damage for normal attacks, or 12%+ damage for electrical attacks) unless you SDI back down towards the floor since they get lifted up and are no longer touching the floor after 9 frames of being in hitlag. Only DK, G&W, Jiggs, Kirby, and Mewtwo stay along the floor after that point. If the hitlag is 9 or less than every character can do it just fine.

Also, it's only really useful for surviving KO hits with launch angles that are about 50° or lower. When the angle is too vertical the upwards KB starts overpowering what the ASDI down can do before the point you'd start dying from the attack anyway.

Characters with extremely low traction and poor recoveries from low and out like Luigi will slide very far off afterwards and be unable to make it back much earlier than if they just survival DI'd it. It's probably just Luigi who's better off always DIing normally and not teching for diagonal and lower KO hits though.

http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?p=4854764#post4854764

also this includes a list of attack's launch angles and the top speeds of those angles that are techable with dual-stick DI:
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?p=7078167#post7078167

You are mistaken about ASDI. It occurs on the 1st frame of knockback, and so the movement from ASDI is combined with the movement from the 1st frame of knockback. Basically, when the knockback's movement away from the wall is more than the ASDI's movement towards the wall you won't collide with the wall on the 1st frame of knockback and won't be able to tech.

SDI however occurs before any knockback and will allow you to tech at any damage so long as it is strong enough to knock you down.

Also, not all characters hug the wall as well as others. Ganon & Falcon for example push themselves away from the wall near the end of their up-Bs when they flip and the up-B is not reversed, which makes using ASDI to tech like that much less effective and will more often require SDI to hit the wall.

Keep in mind that the c-stick does not do anything in 1 player/training mode besides controlling the camera. That means you would only be able to use it for ASDI in multiplayer mode.

You can still just hold the c-stick to use it for ASDI. If you're going to use the c-stick you'd only need it if you're holding a different direction on the control stick. If you wanted to DI normally to survive by holding up&towards you could use the c-stick by holding it horizontally into the stage for more useful ASDI for teching (like if Marth f-smashes you you'd hold up&towards on control and just directly towards on the c-stick). Like if the edge is directly to the right of you it'd be better to have the full amount of the ASDI move you to the right by overriding with the c-stick rather than half of it to the right and half upwards like the ASDI would be like from the control stick in that situation.

For the partial circle to do the SDI, you do it just after you press L/R since the L/R must be before hitlag but the circle should overlap with the hitlag. So it'd be [L/R->Hitlag begins->Input SDI] all in quick succession. Timing it so the L/R happens before but the SDI happens after it begins is the tricky part and takes practice.

Yeah, press it as late as you can but also before you get hit, otherwise you would need to press it on the EXACT same frame you hit the wall which is a 1 frame window. Unless of course you got hit a good distance away from the wall and the attack sends you towards it normally then there'd be more time inbetween, but that isn't really an 'edgetech' in its usual meaning at that point and just teching off the wall that you got sent into.

Relying on just ASDI to edgetech will fail with higher knockbacks. After you get the feel for timing L/R and just holding towards the stage using ASDI to tech, you should probably learn to SDI by setting your damage to 999% or something when doing that.

Also, relying on ASDI to tech becomes more and more difficult to time the tech as the hitlag on the attack increases, since you can't press it during hitlag and the ASDI tech occurs after the full amount of the hitlag has passed. With SDI you can hit the wall and tech at anytime during hitlag. A powerful smash attack might only give you a 10 frame window to press the button before it with ASDI, and is even worse for electric attacks which have 1.5x the normal hitlag. Falcon's knee for example would only give you a 7 frame window using ASDI, and Samus' charged shot just 2 frames.

A good way to do it is press L/R just before you get hit like normal, and then with the control stick at neutral just as you'd go into hitlag, smash a fast 1/8 to 1/4 circle on the control stick starting from towards (if doing 1/8 circle) or down&towards (for 1/4 circle) and then ending at up&towards and holding (also gives good DI in case you miss the tech).

This is generally better than just smashing into the stage with a straght line on the control stick since it's spread out over a longer length of time and will give you a SDI if it overlaps with the hitlag much easier. Also you'll get good DI for just about any attack you'd be hit with at the edge in case you don't tech correctly.

You would hold down & away (away is left in that case) and down on the c-stick. Down and away is perpendicular (at a 90 degree/right angle) to the f-smash's default up & away trajectory and would have the strongest change on the angle of knockback, and brings the angle it sends lowest to the ground and launches the most horizontal in this case. The other perpendicular angle up & towards would also have the strongest change in trajectory angle, but in the opposite direction to launch you at more of a vertical angle.

You only need to hold the directions on the sticks and it doesn't matter when/for how long as long as they are still being held as the freeze frames end. The only thing timing-wise that matters is you need to time the L/R press correctly.

If pressing L/R before you're hit allows you to shield or dodge then you can just avoid being hit in the first place. You'd want to use it when you are on the ground and in significant lag with no control over your character or any other way to defend yourself, like after a laggy move or something (say you whiff a smash attack, miss a rest with Jiggs, or your character has a good amount of landing lag on their recovery), breaking your shield, or not teching on the ground/platform.

To tech on the floor you automatic smash DI directly towards the surface to tech on and directional DI it to get the lowest angle of knockback along the surface to stay as close as you can. You directional DI with the analog stick, and ASDI can be done with either stick but what is held on the c-stick overrides the input on the control. Because of that you can directional DI one way with the control stick while ASDIing a different way with the c-stick.

Holding both sticks in the same direction does nothing different than just holding the control in that direction, since all that would do is override with the ASDI input on the c-stick with the same ASDI that would have been input by the control anyway.

You only need to HOLD the c-stick directly towards the floor (so on flat ground it'd be straight down), DI with the control stick to get the lowest angle you can (generally opposite of what you'd use for normal survival DI), and press L/R just before the hitlag (pressing it DURING hitlag will not work, and obviously doing it after would mean you already missed the tech).

So if you're grounded and in lag so you can't avoid say Marth's f-smash which sends diagonally up & away, you hold down & away on the control stick (normally you'd want to DI it up & towards to survive in most cases), and hold down on the c-stick and time the L/R press just before it connects.

Even if you don't time the tech right but hold the correct directions you will slide along the ground if you would have been able to tech it. If you hold the directions correctly and still lift off the ground from the hit the vertical knockback on the hit was too powerful for the ASDI down to cancel out to make you hit the floor.

It works best for diagonal and lower sending moves. Vertical KO hits have too strong vertical knockback for it to be useful, and will overpower the ASDI downward far sooner than other hits.

Smash DI does not help you tech stuff on the ground because you can't collide with floors using SDI, and only automatic smash DI can do that. For edgeteching you want to SDI if you can because you can hit walls/ceilings with it and it happens during hitlag and before knockback so it wouldn't matter how high your damage is (ASDI is combined with the 1st frame of knockback so if it's powerful enough you'll go too far away and the ASDI won't be enough to make you hit the wall and be able to tech it).

Yeah, while you can collide with walls/ceilings by either ASDI or SDIing into them, you can only hit floors with ASDI. Trying to SDI into a floor doesn't do anything, so to ground tech like that you'd only be able to use ASDI which doesn't require timing like SDI does.

It should be inescapable at any % if you do it right. At low damage it depends a lot more on when the last needle comes out before landing though.

ASDI down only works on moves if it causes you to land, and the landing animation is what cancels the stun. Needles have a horizontal trajectory so you never lift off the ground from them to be able to land and cancel the stun unless on a downwards slope.

Also, since it doesn't have a trajectory above horizontal the game doesn't let you A/SDI upwards, so you can't force a landing that way. You also can't use trajectory DI on these hits before they put you into a tumble either, so you can't directional DI the needle upwards to have it send you at a slightly upward angle and lift you off the floor while ASDIing down to land.

For spikes and meteors they send you down into the stage, and the same DI restrictions apply to prevent landings that would cancel the stun. The way they work is before the launch power is strong enough to make you go into a tumble you get hit down into the floor without bouncing off of it and just stay there in stun. After it puts you in a tumble you instead bounce off of it and lose 20% of your speed from the impact and go upwards with your stun.

By using both, you can trajectory DI one way using the control stick, while overriding the ASDI you'd normally get with that direction on the control with a different ASDI you want instead by using the c-stick for it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ei-iOIN32i4

You can trajectory DI a hit you can't avoid to get the lowest angle of knockback (and with it minimizing the amount of vertical knockback), while also ASDIing straight down into the stage so the ASDI will cause you to hit the floor and be able to tech until much higher damages than ASDIing down alone.

It works great for things like recovery move landlag and other very laggy moves to avoid getting KOed or escaping a move that would otherwise set you up for a combo. For example, a lot of the cute combos mentioned in this thread can be escaped with it

You Automatic-SDI by holding a direction on either the control stick or c-stick on the very last frame of hitlag, and it happens on the 1st frame of knockback and is combined with the movement from the hit... automatically, lol. If both sticks are being held the direction on the c-stick is used.

Think of Crouch Cancel as 2 words. Crouch + Cancel. Crouch is... crouching, as in the animation your character goes into when you hold down, and being in that state reduces the power of the knockback. Cancel is ASDIing down to instantly land instead of going upwards, and the landing animation cancels the stun.

You can Crouch needles/Fox's shines/Falco's lasers/spikes/meteors to get reduced launch speed and stun time, but they can't send you upwards until they knock you down and go into a tumble, so you can't Cancel them by instantly going into a regular landing by ASDIing down.

An opponent that is shieldbroken/in stun/missed a rest/in up-B lag/etc can't Crouch to get reduced launch power and stun time, but for hits that have a trajectory above horizontal they can still Cancel using downward ASDI to cause an instant landing on the 1st frame of knockback and the landing animation cancels the stun.

That video is pretty dumb. He does nothing beyond basic DI and is just holding Up&Towards the stage on pretty much every one of them. The Link's D-Air one is actually just a clip of him getting shieldstabbed at the top of his shield and not even DIing at all, lmao. That's just how the move sends normally.

Fox's D-Air does have knockback (and other moves that appear to not have knockback), but it's extremely weak. You can see it by upping the damage ratio and handicap. To SDI/ASDI it just needs to have hitlag, and you can also do both when your shield gets hit. Shield ASDI is what makes the lightshield edgehog on Marth work. In NTSC v1.0 though there isn't hitlag on attacks that do less than a full 1.0% of damage, so you can't do it with those (they really shouldn't have 'fixed' this in later versions imo).

They are impossible without ASDI, and actually there wasn't any SDI used. A big difference between SDI and ASDI is that while you can ASDI into any surface to collide with it and be able to tech, you can't use SDI to collide with floors. The reason being is that you can't collide with floors during hitlag which is when SDI is performed, but since ASDI actually takes place on the 1st frame of knockback (the movements of the KB and ASDI are combined), you can hit the floor as long as the downward movement of the ASDI is enough to counteract the upward movement of the knockback on the 1st frame.

This is why it's much easier to ground tech lower angled sending moves, since less of the knockback is upward on the first frame and is more easily balanced out by the ASDI. It's also why there's a limit to how long it can work (assuming the lowest trajectory you can get on the move with DI is above parallel with the floor), even on low angle moves since eventually the knockback will be so great that there will be enough upward movement. It also depends on the floor's slope, and if being knocked into and upward slope you can hit it while being at higher damage, and on downward slopes it will stop working at lower percents.

It's because of the upward slope that Jiggs can tech the ground after being hit by a Falcon Punch with over 300% here...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFxdYCr5yAI

...while the normal cap on flat ground is under 60%. Your momentum doesn't get cancelled after a tech, so if it hasn't worn off by the time the techroll has ended you'll slide off and keep going. Some things prevent you from sliding off though so they can be used to stall at the edge while the momentum wears off.

- When you press L/R to tech you will tech if you collide with a surface for the next 20 frames, and be unable to tech for the following 40 after that.

- You can't press L/R to tech during hitlag.

- ASDI occurs directly after hitlag, so if you rely on ASDI to tech then your window to time the tech will be 20 minus the hitlag of the attack, and you should press it before you get hit.

- The movement from ASDI is combined with the 1st frame of knockback from the attack, so if the attack is strong enough the movement towards the surface from ASDI will not be enough to make up for the movement away from it from knockback and you won't collide with it and will be unable to tech.

- With SDI, however, you can edgetech any techable attack (has enough knockback to put you into a tumble) at any damage as long as you're within SDIable distance from it when you get hit, since SDI happens during hitlag and is before you are sent anywhere from the attack.

- Since you can SDI and hit the surface at any point during hitlag, the window to tech with SDI is much better than relying on ASDI where the full amount of the hitlag will always be removed from the 20 frame window.

- The more hitlag the attack has the easier SDI teching will be (larger window to input the SDI) and the timing for teching using ASDI becomes harder (smaller window before hitlag to time the tech), while the less hitlag an attack has the harder SDIing becomes and easier ASDI becomes. Again though, if the attack has enough knockback or you are not close enough to the stage it doesn't matter since ASDI will be unable to do the job and you will need to SDI.

- Not all characters can hit the stage as easily as others when riding the wall. Ganon/Falcon's up-Bs for example push them away from the wall when they flip near the end of it and the up-B isn't reversed. While they may be able to edgetech an attack at a certain percent with ASDI when hit partway through the up-B when hugging the wall, they might not be able to if they were to instead get hit near the end of the up-B. In this case you would need to SDI to hit the stage.

- As long as you can maintain good normal DI right afterwards in case you don't get the tech, you should really always try to get the SDI off before you do.

You can SDI in more directions than you'd ever want to try counting. It's not restricted into a limited set of angles like 4/8/16 or whatever, and the exact angle you input is the exact angle you get. The angles are more precise than you'd even be able to find on the stick while playing.

To get an idea, on the character select screen hold one of the 4 directions in such a way that the cursor remainsperfectly still along the side of the screen without drifting in a direction. That's a SDI angle. Easing the stick in one direction or another (you probably don't even need to try to do this at all as it's that precise) so that it then begins drifting along the outer edge would give you a slightly different angle.


The points on that diagram just show where you need to go past while rotating to trigger a new SDI. You don't actually move from the SDI in the direction of the dots themselves. You would still move in whatever direction you're inputting on the frame you moved past the dots to trigger one.


The initial movement of an airdodge also follows the exact input of the stick, resulting in waaay more WD/WL lengths than just 9 or whatever. After a couple frames the dodge's movement follows only 16(?) different directions though.

Sources:

Spoiler

A Post on ASDI/SDI
More DI stuff
Even More
Even More
Even More
Even More
Interesting information about DI
Double-Stick DI
Crouch Cancel and how it works
A Post on Double-Stick Teching
More stuff about teching
Even more stuff about teching

 

[Stratocaster]

Dash Frame Data

Data is like so
Character X - Y - Z (W)
X is the number of frames before a dash becomes a run when you hold the control stick over.
Y is the number of frames before you can fox trot.
Z is the total number of frames in the dash animation.
W is the number of frames to complete a wavedash, included for comparison's sake and is always jump start lag + 10
*fox trotting is when you dash the same direction you just dashed after the lag of one dash has almost finished and after the full run input window is over, which seems to be 20 frames across the board.
I'll give a full break-down of your dash options below

Organized by Viability (Tier List)

Fox 11 - 20 - 21 (13)
Falco 11 - 20 - 21 (15)
Sheik 7 - 20 - 21 (13)
Marth 15 - 20 - 27 (14)
Puff 12 - 20 - 23 (15)
Peach 15 - 20 - 21 (15)
C.Falcon 15 - 20 - 28 (14)
ICs 13 - 20 - 21 (13)

Doc 10 - 20 - 21 (14)
Pikachu 13 - 20 - 22 (13)
Samus 8 - 20 - 22 (13)
Ganon 15 - 20 - 28 (16)
Luigi 10 - 20 - 21 (14)
Mario 10 - 20 - 21 (14)

Y.Link 12 - 20 - 30 (14)
Link 12 - 20 - 30 (16)
DK 15 - 20 - 30 (15)
Yoshi 13 - 20 - 26 (15)
Zelda 15 - 20 - 22 (16)
Mewtwo 18 - 20 - 29 (15)
Roy 15 - 20 - 27 (15)
G&W 8 - 17 - 17 (14)

Ness 13 - 20 - 25 (14)
Bowser 13 - 20 - 28 (18)
Kirby 12 - 20 - 23 (13)
Pichu 13 - 20 - 22 (13)

By frames before entering run:
7 - Sheik
8 - Samus, G&W
9
10 - Mario, Luigi, Doc
11 - Fox, Falco
12 - Puff, Y.Link, Link, Kirby
13 - ICs, Pikachu, Yoshi, Ness, Bowser, Pichu
14
15 - Marth, Peach, C.Falcon, Ganon, DK, Zelda, Roy
16
17
18 - Mewtwo

Full Breakdown and how to use this information:
Options available in dash or running positions
During all times dash grab, jump, JC grab, JC Up smash, JC Up B, side B, wavedash, and sheild are available options
Frames 1-3: FSmash is also an available option (either direction! C-stick only for reverse FSmash). However, out out of a dash dance* this is not an option, only the first dash (or fox trot works too). Out of dash dance another dash dance, dash attack, or pivot are additional options.
Frames 4-X: Dash dance, dash attack, or pivot are additional options.
Frames X-Y: Dash dance, dash attack, pivot, enter run are additional options.
Frames Y-Z: Dash dance, pivot, fox trot are additional options.
Running: dash attack, crouch**, all B moves, run stop, and run turn are additional options. Those last two are pretty bad options, crouch or wavedash is better.

*Dash dance is just to dash the opposite direction of the last dash.
**technically you move into run stop for at least 1 frame (if you do it right) then crouch.

A good note:
Holding the control stick controls the length of your dash. If you were to hold the control stick for 1 frame vs 15 frames, you will go considerably further when you hold it for 15 frames. However, If you hold it for two long, you will go into your run animation, which you may not want.

An example of using this data:
Say you want to move a fairly short distance and do an ftilt with Sheik, what is the fastest way to get the ftilt out (ignoring what will cover the most distance). Well wavedash will take 13 frames. Well by dashing, entering a run on frame 8, crouching takes 2 more frames, that leaves you with 10 frames until you can start the ftilt. This assumes frame perfection though, and while you can probably get pretty close to this because an instant crouch out of run isn't that hard, the ftilt probably will be. It's a close call but the wavedash is probably easier while the run and crouch method is more ideal.

 

[Cactuar]

This is really useful information.

 

[Kadano]

Excellent post!

Frames 1-3: F Smash is also an available option (either direction!).

Fsmash behind is only possible with C-stick, though – not with A.

Running: dash attack, crouch, run stop, and run turn are additional options.

Down-B, Up-B and Neutral-B are also possible straight out of run (but not during dash or runbrake). Also, crouch is not available directly from run, but only out of run stop. Runbrake starts as soon as the run input (|x-128|>49) is no longer active, holding down is one way to trigger this (neutral position does as well). Runbrake can be canceled into crouch during all of its frames by holding downward.

 

[Stratocaster]

Thanks Cactuar, means a lot coming from you, though I'm not sure if you're talking about my latest post, the whole thread, or both.

Leave it to Kadano to nitpick all of the details of frame data. Yes, FSmash behind is only possible with the c-stick, I guess I can add that information, but I was just kind of assuming that you'd use the c-stick in that situation anyway. There is 1 fricken frame between run, runbrake, and crouch. I just said it takes 2 frames to crouch and called it a day. Come on. The other B moves are a good point though, I'll give you that. Can't you ever cut me some slack ;P It was just something I tacked on at the last minute to give more explanation of how the data is useful and it was really late... lol.

 

[Cactuar]

I was referring to this post on dash frame data, but the whole thread is useful. :D

 

[thespymachine]

Still not stickied? Whatevs. Amazing stuff.

Here are a few things you may consider including:

Starting Positions (Youtube)

I made a post about that. http://smashboards.com/threads/stage-spawns.344617/

 

[Stratocaster]

Still not stickied? Whatevs. Amazing stuff.
I made a post about that. http://smashboards.com/threads/stage-spawns.344617/

Yeah, I'm not gonna ask. I figure if it happens it happens. I have it bookmarked for my own use anyway. I updated the thread to have that thread you made in this. It's a lot better to use than the video.

 

[thespymachine]

Yeah, I'm not gonna ask. I figure if it happens it happens. I have it bookmarked for my own use anyway. I updated the thread to have that thread you made in this. It's a lot better to use than the video.

Yeah, I try to do the same with good posts.
Thanks.

 

[Kadano]

Leave it to Kadano to nitpick all of the details of frame data.

Didn’t mean to sound nagging – your post was so close to perfection, I felt adding the few details left might be a good idea. Before I looked into the frames, I always wondered why inputting run → dtilt doesn’t feel as immediate as run → shine, so maybe knowing every frame detail will be helpful or interesting for some other players as well.

 

[SAUS]

Thank you for this. This is great!

 

[Kadano]

Please sticky this thread!

 

[tauKhan]

So the samus boards noticed that samus can fast fall twice, and I did test and think that if you do fast fall very fast from dj, your fast fall will end quickly and you have to fast fall again. Could somebody look into this? I believe transitioning from dj to normal fall cancels ff the same way attacks cancel ff. I think this compendium could do with some info regarding ffing.

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

You got trolled man lol

 

[Kadano]

So the samus boards noticed that samus can fast fall twice, and I did test and think that if you do fast fall very fast from dj, your fast fall will end quickly and you have to fast fall again. Could somebody look into this? I believe transitioning from dj to normal fall cancels ff the same way attacks cancel ff. I think this compendium could do with some info regarding ffing.

Just tested this in develop mode and I can confirm this. When JumpAerial ends and transitions into FallAerial, your falling speed slows down to normal. The frame window for the second fastfall input starts after JumpAerial 47 (for Samus, this animation’s length is different for every character. Forward and backward jumps make no difference).

This is not Samus-specific, it works with Marth (and, I suspect, all characters) as well. The difference is comparably small with him, though – 2 frames (Marth) vs. 4 frames (Samus) in similar testing environments¹.

¹Final Destination: full jump, double jump at the apex, fastfall as soon as possible with Samus / slightly delayed with Marth (to make up for his faster fall speed and longer JumpAerial animation). Fastfall again after JumpAerial 47 (Samus) / JumpAerial 49 (Marth). Compare the frame count of another stand-by human player’s Wait animation with those of the same procedure without the second fastfall to get the frame differences.

 

[tauKhan]

It doesn't happen with djcers as their dj ends before moving downwards, also to jigglypuff it seems to apply only to last jump.
This is actually pretty useful knowledge esp for floaties: If you dj out of combo or to avoid aerials, you should ff twice to get to ground asap.
@ Kadano Is the slow down immediate, or is it gradual?
@ Fortress | Sveet I did independent research myself >_>

 

[Kame-Sennin]

This is awesome! Thanks!!

 

[Bones0]

So you are FFing before the jump animation finishes as well as after to ensure you are FFing for as many frames as possible? Is this at all related to simply FFing multiple times from really high up?

 

[tauKhan]

I don't quite understand what you mean by

Is this at all related to simply FFing multiple times from really high up?

You can't ff if you are already ffing. So you simply can't ff again however long you fall, unless something interrupts the ff such as jump ending, performing attack etc. The first sentence is spot on though. However I don't think it's important at all anymore.

 

[Kidney Thief]

Good info very useful, could I fast fall and then nair (or any move really) all the way to the ground from up high or would that take longer than just taking one fast fall

 

[MikeHaggarTHAKJB]

You're amazing. Thank you.
Free blowjob for you at Apex if you request it.

 

[Phan7om]

I still dont know why this isnt stickied

 

[Spak]

I noticed you don't have anything on moonwalking, so you could probably include this thread as it covers it in part 3 (and goes over how to perform a moonwalk) or this thread that covers the information on who is the best at moonwalking. Both go over applications and the picture Scar included in his thread was made and posted by Red Shirt KRT (on post 53) in masterwumpus' thread.

 

[tauKhan]

@ Spak It would be better to just make a new up to date post on moonwalking. Especially now that we have access to numerical data on dashes, thanks to Magus420.

 

[Stratocaster]

Yeah there are lots of things I could add and I've been thinking about a new terms and techniques list would be good and I could put together a very thorough list with detailed explanations at this point. It just has to be high enough on my priority list. The moonwalking info in those threads is ok, but it is missing information on walk -> moonwalk which is very important information. tauKhan I've seen your posts before and you write things up very clearly and have a good knowledge of the game mechanics. If you decide you want to write up anything I'll definitely add it to the OP.

 

[ranmaru]

Why is this not stickied.

 

[Arche]

If it was, newcomers wouldn't have reasons to create new threads, and the board would appear dead.