Down Aerial Hover?

[Real Salt]

Hey guys, first time posting on Smashboards here.

I wanted to figure this out myself, but I don't own the game so I don't have enough time to fiddle**** with it, so I've come here.

I play a lot of ZSS at my buddy's house, and one thing I've noticed while playing her is that sometimes her Dair, instead of making her plummet downwards, stalls her in midair in the kick animation, or descends very slowly instead of quickly. I do this relatively often, but I haven't been able to replicate what keystrokes cause this to happen. The hitbox on her foot stays out but she maintains altitude, and I feel like this could be very beneficial for edgeguarding, so I'm hoping someone here has noticed this and figured out how to replicate it.

 

[CupofT]

This happens because of knock back. I believe you can do this with other characters with similar type down airs like Sonic and Sheik. Easy to see/reproduce when you're at 60% and your opponent hits you with a up smash or something similar.

 

[Doctor Saius]

yeah I've seen this a lot, and when used high enough you can do a slow one then a fast one, not useful one bit because it leaves you open to a f-air.

If im trying to come back down quickly i try and use the d-air but wait till i can jump or air dodge before that.

 

[extremechiton]

i can sometimes manually do it by double jumping and dairing at the same time.

 

[Jaxas]

The stalling one is a glitch that carried over from Brawl (speaking of which, I don't think I've seen it since the 1.04 patch...) where stall-then-fall Dairs would just make you float at a very specific height. I believe the Toon Links called it Wind Waking or some such?

If it's still in (and works the same way) the most use you'll get out of it is as a recovery mixup as it can only be used to stall near the top of the screen.

As for the slow-fall Dair, you have to use it while having some form of momentum applied on you I believe; if you use it immediately out of hitstun you're still moving a direction slightly, so you don't get the stall-then-fall effect.