響「Hibiki」
Smash Cadet
- Joined
- Sep 22, 2014
- Messages
- 52
Hey guys, Hibiki here.
I've been messing around with auto-cancelled aerials on Rosalina today and to my surprise I found a very useful application for them.
As you may know or not know, it is possible to auto-cancel any aerial in Smash 4 if you execute it right as you hit the ground. What happens is that you start up the animation for a few frames, but it gets cancelled and you suffer no lag.
With Rosalina & Luma, this system has this little quirk that Luma actually still executes the aerial, while Rosalina lands on the ground without lag.
Using this principle, I've modified the well-known Reverse Aerial Rush, added a grab to it and created what I'd like to call the CRARG - Cancelled Reverse Aerial Rush Grab.
I've posted a video about it, so if you prefer that you can watch it. It's not the most professional video editing, but it gets the point across. It also showcases a few other neat things you can do with auto-cancelled aerials, although they're not as useful as the CRARG.
What is the CRARG and why is it useful?
60 FPS .webm of the technique
CRARG is essentially a tool Rosalina has to approach a grounded opponent from the air.
While usually it is very easy to punish an approach like that by simply shielding and then grabbing her out of it, using this advanced technique traps your opponent and gives him very limited time and options to react to your approach.
How to do it:
Short Hop -> (Fast Fall) -> input a Back Aerial right before hitting the ground -> input a Grab in the opposite direction you are facing
If done correctly, the result is pretty amazing: Luma will execute a Back Aerial, and within a 15 frame (0.25 seconds) window, Rosalina will turn around and grab their opponent.
What this means is that if your opponent shields your aerial approach, they have a 15 frame window between getting hit with the aerial and getting grabbed in which they could try to counter it.
I haven't tested this thoroughly to be honest, but my partner (in the video) told me that it is next to impossible to react in that short time frame. React correctly, that is.
Your opponent would need to execute an action out of shield that comes out during that time window. I am honestly not sure how exactly shield stun works in Smash 4 (if there even is any at all), but assuming they perfectly Power Shield the aerial, they'd have to react in that time window and properly execute the appropriate action, if they even have one.
Spot dodging might do the trick in combination with Power Shield, but that might still trap them so you can punish that Spot Dodge with a tilt right after your Grab animation ends. I haven't looked into that too much, as it is hard to test without having a local partner to test with. Online lag makes the whole thing a lot more difficult.
Grabbing could work too, but it would require you to react on the first few frames of the aerial, as all grabs take at least 4 frames (except Rosalina's, who takes 3 frames) to connect. That means almost a third of your window is taken by the start-up of your grab.
I forgot to add, you can do this on shield with Forward Aerial and Neutral Aerial as well (Up Aerial and Down Aerial have a bit wonkier timing for auto-cancel, so I don't recommend them for this). The reason I prefer Back Aerial is the fact that, if you hit them (they don't block it), you still get to grab them up until 100+%. The other 2 Aerials knock them away too far once they have 10-20%, meaning you put 4% damage on them and then they just fly away and you can't follow up.
There are some moves that combo into auto-cancelled Aerials at low % (AC Forward Aerial into Up Aerial for example), but once you get past that you just launch them away pointlessly (talking about 50%+ range here).
All in all I think this is an incredibly useful technique, it's not too difficult to execute after all. With enough practice (and a proper controller, looking at you Wii U version), this should be possible to reliable pull off in actual combat.
I hope you enjoy this, and maybe this will encourage people to test more stuff like this. I'm sure there's still a few more things you can do with auto-cancelled Luma aerials, I'm excited to see what other little combos or even advanced techniques we can discover.
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