Dair Comboing 101

[Tyr_03]

Lucas's Dair is an amazing move. If he didn't have it he would probably be around the level of Captain Falcon. It allows spacing, juggling defense, a high priority aerial, an approach and most importantly, deadly combos. But comboing with Dair effectively is more complicated than you might guess. I've spent a lot of time on it and probably contradicted myself atleast twenty times along the way. But I believe the following will provide a helpful guide to the most effective uses of Dair.

The Pitfalls of Dair
First, understand that Dair is not infallible. Although it has high priority below Lucas, it has very little horizontally. So if they know to hit your side, they can stop it everytime. Also, if the opponent DI's upward, they can often escape before getting hit by the fourth "spike" hit. Also, although it is uncommon, Dair can be teched making combos much more difficult. More on that later. Finally, it's very easy to overuse Dair causing it to go stale and not be as effective.

Dair as an Approach
Dair is useful as an approach because it is very difficult to punish. First of all, you can space with Dair by full hopping toward the opponent and retreating. This will keep you from getting too close should they shield and you can avoid being punished. Also, against a shield Dair has a disadvantage of 9 frames assuming you autocancel. This is remarkably low compared to a lot of moves in this game. As long as you space yourself properly in front of your opponent, or go behind your opponent with Dair, they will be unable to shield grab or do any other move out of their shield to punish you. It's quite effective.

Low Percentage Dair Combo from Approach
Congratulations! Your opponent just walked into your well spaced Dair. What are you going to do now? Well if you're smart, as soon as your Dair connected you realized you should move behind your opponent so you can't be shield grabbed. Also know that you MUST FASTFALL AND AUTOCANCEL TO COMBO!!! Immediately following you have several options that will vary depending your opponent. The most effective moves to combo into after Dair at low percentages are jab, Ftilt and Nair. All of these are meant to rack up damage. They also come out very fast. All of them should work most of the time. HOWEVER, Nair and Ftilt are not always effective. Characters with moves that come out behind them quickly will be able to stop you. This includes ROB, Wolf, MK and probably a few others. At very low percentages you will HAVE to jab or else they'll hit through your Nair and be able to attack before Ftilt comes out. Jab comes out in 2 frames so it will pretty much always be effective. As soon as you rack them up to a bit higher percentages however, you will be able to use Nair or Ftilt.

Some other options that are not preferable and why...
Dtilt - players can shield after the first one and punish
SH Uair - too slow at low percentages and can be punished due to cooldown
SH Fair - too slow at low percentages and can be punished due to cooldown
Utilt - can be punished due to cooldown

High Percentage Dair Combo from Approach
At around 80% or so (depending on the character,) your opponent is in Dair combo kill range. If you hit with atleast hits 3 and 4, your opponent will be knocked on their back leaving you many options. The most effective kill combo from here will vary depending on the situation.

Not near and facing an edge...
- Dtilt lock as needed (it shouldn't take much or at all,) walk forward slightly and Usmash

Near an edge facing outward of stage...
- Fsmash immediately, Dtilt can knock them off especially if they DI away.

On a stage with ceilings (Luigi's Mansion), not near an edge...
-Dtilt lock out of range of ceiling and Dsmash or Usmash (this will depend on character your Dtilt locking and their DI to avoid knocking them off the ledge. Dsmash if unable to completely clear ceiling. Make sure you wait and hit with the first hit of Dsmash rather than the second or third for best kill potential.)

If your opponent knows how to tech Dair...
- Fastfall and immediately hyphen smash tech chase. It's really hard but it gives you a free Usmash and there's nothing else you can do really.

At the same percentage, if you hit with only the 4th hit, which is common against shorter characters and annoying, you have less reliable options. It is difficult to see for sure when this is going to happen and you pretty much have to predict it. The opponent will be sent slightly upward. They will usually airdodge immediately. To punish, Dsmash immediately. If you don't predict it and it catches you offguard, you can often shield and then shieldgrab in their landing lag or punish some stupid aerial they tried out of surprise. Avoid this if you can.

Dair as Punishment Out of Shield or From Close Range
When you're very near an opponent, you can Dair immediately from a jump to pull them upward and slam them back down. Unfortunately, you can only truly combo with this at high percentages. However, it is still very effective for getting off kill moves. Fastfall immediately and Dtilt. YOU MUST DTILT FOR ANY KIND OF COMBO IN THIS SITUATION BECAUSE YOU WERE NOT ABLE TO SPACE YOUR DAIR VERTICALLY AS WELL AS YOU CAN IN A REGULAR APPROACH. From here you can Dtilt lock, Dsmash or Usmash. It will follow the same rules as listed for high percentage Dair combos above.


Summary
Dair combos kick ***. They let Lucas actually get some kills outside of gimping. But you must know when to use which combo. And you must learn how to space your full hop Dairs. I hope this gives some of you some ideas on the most effective combos. I think I covered about every situation. Some of these are more difficult to do than other combos but have greater reward and are very possible. Took me a while to get out of the habit of doing the easy Fsmash after Dair, to spacing approaches so I can always Dtilt for earlier Usmash kills.

 

[Neon Ness]

*applause*

I think you mentioned dair combos recently, and I was wondering about the specifics. A question, though. When approaching with a dair combo, you would need to RAR it if you wanted to follow up with a jab/dtilts, right? For instance, if I run to the right and dair, I'd still be facing right when I landed, and would thus be unable to dtilt/jab in the correct direction since you said to land behind your opponent. Or did you mean land after dair in front of the opponent, then roll behind the opponent? What would be the best way to "move behind the opponent" in this situation?

Also, ever consider putting some of these tactics in the Lucas Back Room? Just so others wouldn't be able to see our playbook...

 

[Tyr_03]

^^^
You can buffer turning around so that there's no need to RAR. In fact, Dair's priority goes slightly higher up on Lucas's body in the front so it's better not to. Just land behind him, tilt the control stick slightly toward the opponent upon landing and jab, ftilt, dtilt or whatever you're doing. It should only matter at low percentages though and when they're shielding to avoid getting shieldgrabbed.

No one outside of Lucas mains visits our boards or cares about our character. I can assure you, M2K isn't coming in here looking for ways he can beat Lucas mains. I don't care about other people knowing how to get past some of my techniques. In fact whenever people ask or if I happen to like them, I make a point of telling them exactly how they can exploit my weaknesses. When I'm better than them it doesn't make a difference.

 

[Dragoomba]

Oh wow, so if you connect a dair at an uber high percentage, you can immediately dtilt lock?

 

[Irsic]

What the balls is hyphen smashing? I keep seeing the term thrown around but I don't know what it means exactly.

 

[Chuee]

^^^
You can buffer turning around so that there's no need to RAR. In fact, Dair's priority goes slightly higher up on Lucas's body in the front so it's better not to. Just land behind him, tilt the control stick slightly toward the opponent upon landing and jab, ftilt, dtilt or whatever you're doing. It should only matter at low percentages though and when they're shielding to avoid getting shieldgrabbed.

No one outside of Lucas mains visits our boards or cares about our character. I can assure you, M2K isn't coming in here looking for ways he can beat Lucas mains. I don't care about other people knowing how to get past some of my techniques. In fact whenever people ask or if I happen to like them, I make a point of telling them exactly how they can exploit my weaknesses. When I'm better than them it doesn't make a difference.

Ive seen co18 here once, and dragoomba doesnt main lucas.

Nice guide. I usually use Fsmash after a dair, ill probably start using some more Dair combos with lucas :D

 

[Irsic]

Now that I think about it, I almost always utilt after a dair that doesn't drop the opponent on his back.

 

[prOAPC]

nair as an approach is better than dair, what i don't like about dair as an approach is that it's precitable, because you have to use it with a full hop, and it is kind of slow
something i'm working on, is to full hop and dair at the same time, if your opponent shields the attack, try to footstool to another dair

 

[ToxiCrow]

What the balls is hyphen smashing? I keep seeing the term thrown around but I don't know what it means exactly.

its running then upsmashing whilst running, canceling ur dash momentum with an up smash.

 

[Tyr_03]

Nair is not a better approach than Dair. Worse priority, less spacing capability, less combo potential. And honestly I don't know what could possibly be more predictable than a Lucas player running up and using a SH Nair. Don't get me wrong. Nair has it's place for approaches because it's a great shield eater. But if your opponent is smart enough to, I don't know, use any move at all when he sees you coming and has decent spacing, it just doesn't work as well. Full hop Dair is a safer and better approach. You can space it to avoid being punished, it has very low lag and it's amazing for combos both for damaging and for killing.

The point of a Dair combo at high percentages is not to Dtilt lock. In fact at most kill percentages they can escape your Dtilt lock with DI and SDI if you do it too long. The only time it makes sense to Dtilt lock is to rack up maybe 10% or so to make sure an Usmash kills or to move them to a more viable position for an Usmash or Dsmash kill in the case of stages with ceilings. Random scrubs are stupid.

A hyphen smash is just a stupid made up term for running and Usmashing. If you Usmash in place it doesn't hit so I usually dash and immediately Usmash. Just make sure you wait a moment after the Dtilt or Usmash will come out before the opponent gets up. Easy to time.

I find Utilt to be not the best choice for racking up damage because often at low percentages, because of its wacky trajectory sometimes the opponent can attack you after they're hit before you're done with the move. I really don't like Utilt because of this and only use it for vertical spacing on juggling and out of Dthrow at 0%.

I've mostly been using Fsmash after Dair for kills because it's easiest to space and leaves the most margin for error. However, considering how much earlier you can kill with Usmash or even Dsmash, it's well worth doing the slightly more difficult Dtilt for the kill. Just means you usually have to steer yourself in front of your opponent at kill percentage rather than behind. Also, if you mistime the fastfall slightly, Dtilt comes out faster and can give you the time you need when you would otherwise miss an Fsmash.

 

[Tyr_03]

After practicing these for a while to get things down I have a few notes on high percentage Dair combos.

First, hyphen smashing is not necesary for the Usmash after Dtilt. It just makes it so you can trip. Stupid Sakurai. You can just walk forward slightly and Usmash.

Also, when you need to use Dsmash, make sure that you wait a moment so that the first hit of Dsmash hits rather than the 2nd or 3rd. The first hit is much stronger and if you're going to hit with 2nd or 3rd you might as well Fsmash since it'd be stronger.

If you don't like jab locking or you just feel like sandbagging, you can Dtilt and then Dair again to another Dtilt and repeat. Racks up damage fast but is escapable for several obvious reasons. It's mostly just funny.

 

[Irsic]

I don't really use utilts other than for low % comboing. You can generally utilt twice before the opponent gets far enough away to retaliate and beat your utilt, so pretty much after two utilts, I get defensive and shield or spot dodge. Some characters like Shiek and Falco, they can react fast enough to beat your utilts so I don't ever attempt more than 1 utilt at a time, and normally just shield. It works in most cases though.

People easily for utilt juggling to follow up with a dair or uair -> Rob and Marth. Marth CAN easily react, you just have to anticipate if he is ballsy enough to attempt to dair, or if you can predict a counter.

 

[~Pink Fresh~]

I don't really use utilts other than for low % comboing. You can generally utilt twice before the opponent gets far enough away to retaliate and beat your utilt, so pretty much after two utilts, I get defensive and shield or spot dodge. Some characters like Shiek and Falco, they can react fast enough to beat your utilts so I don't ever attempt more than 1 utilt at a time, and normally just shield. It works in most cases though.

People easily for utilt juggling to follow up with a dair or uair -> Rob and Marth. Marth CAN easily react, you just have to anticipate if he is ballsy enough to attempt to dair, or if you can predict a counter.

or follow with a pivot grab for extra damage and to reset the situation.

 

[prOAPC]

i want to add sometime abour dair+dtilt+usmash
it's commonly known that you have to hit with the usmash while the opponent is getting up, but all characters get up differently, i mean, i was playing today vs a friend, we were playing in the MGS stage, so usmash after the dtilt was the best option, i did the combo to Olimar, pure sexyness, later on a different fight, he was playing with Pikachu, i did the same combo, but missed the usmash, i think i should had charged a little the usmash. Ok, my point is that it would be nice if someone can make a list of which characters get up faster or slower, that way we can time our usmash the right way
ps: i don't know if the pikmins helped the usmash to last longer than normal

 

[Cloake]

I've noticed that you can footstool dair an opponent, but I was wondering if it has the same combo potential as a fastfalled full hop dair?

 

[Booseter Seat]

This topic is extremely useful. I never knew there was so much to a dair. I'll be sure to definitely use this topic as a reference in my future Lucas-ing.

 

[Cloake]

I've noticed that you can footstool dair an opponent, but I was wondering if it has the same combo potential as a fastfalled full hop dair?

I ask in all seriousness about this too, because footstool-dair can punish any of the fast characters with fast ground back attacks (wolf, G&W, falco, MK, etc...) by just getting at that attack spot while he's been shielding long enough from your easily faked aerial. If you can FF the dair, every time you footstool your opponent, you can combo the #$%@ out of him (this also implies that slower chars can be combo'd too for obvious reasons). Even if it fails, it can be spaced away fast enough (dair priority ftw) to be at the top of your full hop with anything to do.

I might go test that out myself... and the results:

After one game I managed it once fairly easily while MK was doing a ftilt even though it was suboptimal; here's the clip-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AoZlzlwsEc&feature=channel_page

 

[Tyr_03]

In real matches against skilled players, you will rarely find the opportunity to footstool them unless it's near the edge in which case the footstool will most likely hurt their recovery more than Dair's weak spike. It theoretically works in the middle of the stage in a match, it just almost never happens.

 

[lil cj]

Great dair guide Tyr
U should make a nair guide next
Nair jus like dair...is vital to Lucas' gameplay
and should be fully explained

 

[Cloake]

In real matches against skilled players, you will rarely find the opportunity to footstool them unless it's near the edge in which case the footstool will most likely hurt their recovery more than Dair's weak spike. It theoretically works in the middle of the stage in a match, it just almost never happens.

Fair enough, I realize footstool isn't as practical as other chars can make it out to be but I'm always eager to discover more combo potentials.

 

[Tyr_03]

Nair's not nearly as complex as Dair. Dair has tons of options that are actually inescapable or nearly inescapable when done correctly. Most of the mixups with Nair are mindgames and are extremely dangerous when overused.

Nair's greatest use is that it acts as an extremely effective out of shield punishment method since Lucas's shieldgrab is useless in many situations. The only thing I'd be curious to write on about Nair is the exact percentages that unautocancelled Nairs can be used to combo. It's probably around 50 or 60 on most characters. Nair locking is an interesting concept as well but it seems extremely variable. I usually SH Nair and then FH Nair to avoid them escaping it if it happens. I dunno. Might look into it leading into a full hop Dair instead. Not sure if there's enough hitstun. Certain characters it happens way more often against like Samus. Doesn't have to do with fall speed. Something to do with specifics of the character. She takes multihits differently than most characters for some reason. Same with Mario and I think Fox as well. But I dunno. Fast falled SH Nairs into Fsmash and the like really don't work consistently and get you punished a lot but people try to do them like crazy. It'd be hard to write a guide on things like that which are mixups but are pretty unreliable. Nair's just kind of a wacky move. I might write some on it at some point if I have time I guess. But it's definetly not anywhere near as clear cut as Dair is.

 

[Irsic]

As I've found because I generally ask my opponents about these things "Hey, do you think you could have escaped that? Was it your error or physics of the game?" And more than half the time my response is "No, I tried to jump away" or "Apparently my DI did nothing" Which could be the case of bad DI.

These are the responses for nair cancel to fsmash, in which is actually a pretty good kill set-up. More information on this WOULD be great, because then it would be known if it was a guaranteed kill combo, on which certain characters that Tyr already stated, are immune to this. I'm pretty sure Fox falls fast enough to shield just in time of the f-smash, unless his % is really high. Samus gets sent upwards, doesn't she?

Though in situations where opponents escape could be that you let them out of your nair too soon, and thus didn't have long enough hitstun for you to connect with an fsmash.

This is fixable as being that you passed through your opponents slow enough (yet fast enough) that you only didn't get in the final hit of your nair (the knockback hit) and was able to correctly autocancel with as much hitstun on your opponent as possible, allowing an inescapable f-smash.

Granted, these variables also matter on the height you and your opponent were from the ground. The DI your opponent had (if he was DIing upwards, he may just be too high for your fsmash to connect) and the damage of your opponent.

 

[Tyr_03]

Fsmash after Nair is ALWAYS escapable. By either jumping or shielding. I'm almost 100% sure.

 

[lil cj]

I sometimes do nair to up smash as a surprise KO....it works too...lol
Some people dont expect it.

 

[Irsic]

Fsmash after Nair is ALWAYS escapable. By either jumping or shielding. I'm almost 100% sure.

It isn't by shielding, the character's aren't on the ground.

 

[Tyr_03]

You just said Fox might fall fast enough to land and shield before Fsmash connects.

In anycase you can always just jump or do an attack. Fsmash only works if they're dumb enough to airdodge into the ground.