Footsool Combos! (Update: Different video, actual locks now)

[Gawain]

EDIT/PSA: Don't use bair with this techinque, it doesn't work! Blame it on my playing too much UNIEL and expecting the training dummy to auto-tech, and not fully understanding footstooling! You just need to replace the hit with a different attack for this to work! Use dair or the backswing of uair at lower percents, and a weak nair will do the trick too if you want a regrab!

EDIT 2: I've changed the video, it no longer contains non-locks except where specified. There are real locks in there now. Check it out if you haven't already.

So I dont know to what extent you guys have been practicing this, but check this video Of mine out. Captain Falcon has some amazing footstool tech, and this is just the beginning guys.

You guys know of any cool applications of this stuff?

 

[Masonomace]

Before watching this, I would always implement footstool > Falcon Kick always even in Brawl because that's all I pretty much knew of unless Jump Canceled Item throws were involved with a lock.

But now watching this, this is awesome. I hope to go farther with this. And alas I don't know anything more than what I've watched.

 

[FreedomTP]

This is cool, never thought of using footstools to combo. Also, would the weak hit of uair work as well for this, or is it only sourspot bair?

 

[Gawain]

This is cool, never thought of using footstools to combo. Also, would the weak hit of uair work as well for this, or is it only sourspot bair?

Weak uair works too but I've find bair to be more reliable.

 

[Shadó Chimera / シャドーキメラ]

That's not a jab reset. A jab reset requires that they aren't sent off the ground by an incredibly weak knockback move. Sheik could have teched or rolled after Falcon's bair in all of those.

 

[Gawain]

That's not a jab reset. A jab reset requires that they aren't sent off the ground by an incredibly weak knockback move. Sheik could have teched or rolled after Falcon's bair in all of those.

After a little more thought I think you're probably right. I'm at work right now so i can't test it more butI think you can probably do this with a weak hit nair and maybe low percent dair Instead. I have limited ability to test it, I was probably a little too hasty. Even still, being able to footstool someone in hitstun is still very useful Since you can't tech it. I will amend this later and get back to you.

 

[Shadó Chimera / シャドーキメラ]

Yeah at the very least you could get a free dair from the footstool. Another thing to note is even though they can't tech a footstool tumble they can at least move left or right before hitting the ground.

 

[Gawain]

Yeah at the very least you could get a free dair from the footstool. Another thing to note is even though they can't tech a footstool tumble they can at least move left or right before hitting the ground.

Oh I'm aware of the movement. I AM hitting with the bair before they are able to move though, I was able to test that much with just my two hands. I wish the training dummy could be set to tech roll. It's such a standard thing in every fighting game's training mode, I guess I'm just used to having it available and assumed these worked as I thought they did. As I said, I didn't play Brawl much and didn't pay much attention to footstool mechanics: I'm only just learning them now. But I'm testing this stuff as we speak. I bet I can do this with the backswing of uair too. I don't think much will change in these combos, you just have to do them at a little lower percents: you can still use this technique to combo into stuff like explosive FD or Falcon Punch.

 

[LuLLo]

Looks awesome, although the Falcon Punch ones don't seem like true combo's. Will mess around with this after testing the patch, thanks for the good video!

 

[Gawain]

Looks awesome, although the Falcon Punch ones don't seem like true combo's. Will mess around with this after testing the patch, thanks for the good video!

Yeah I know heh. It still looks cool though. It's so close to connecting before getup though that I feel like it's just my awful input precision. I don't think I'm doing it fast enough is all.

 

[Pazx]

Is the footstool guaranteed off a dthrow/uair if you don't mess up?

 

[Gawain]

Is the footstool guaranteed off a dthrow/uair if you don't mess up?

Off of a uair (or as I discovered yesterday, weak hit nair on floaties like Mewtwo) it is GUARANTEED if you are fast enough. There is nothing they can do to escape except DI and hope you screw up. Off a dthrow, it's only guaranteed on certain characters at certain percents. Just try to condition your opponent to air dodge as fast as possible from dthrow though and you can just footstool them as a punish.

On Mewtwo I've actually discovered a true combo 0 to death. It's not infinite, just does enough damage that it will kill him in one swift combo. I'll post a video soon.

Edit: There is a video of said combo. I put it in it's own thread, or you can just go to my channel in my signature.

 

[Trifroze]

This thing works with fthrow as well, probably more reliable on floaty characters:

 

[Gawain]

This thing works with fthrow as well, probably more reliable on floaty characters:

I can't tell if he's still in hitstun but it looks like he is. Something else about fthrow is that if you do it at low percents, especially on fast fallers, you can sometimes get them to miss the tech, and you can start the lock with ftilt, allowing you to set up for anything you want. I'll test it out more when I get a chance. Fthrow needs more uses haha

For the record though, I find weak hit nair to be the most reliable footstool setup option vs most floaties these days. Uair is good too.

 

[Trifroze]

I can't tell if he's still in hitstun but it looks like he is. Something else about fthrow is that if you do it at low percents, especially on fast fallers, you can sometimes get them to miss the tech, and you can start the lock with ftilt, allowing you to set up for anything you want. I'll test it out more when I get a chance. Fthrow needs more uses haha

For the record though, I find weak hit nair to be the most reliable footstool setup option vs most floaties these days. Uair is good too.

Weak hit nair certainly is something I don't use nearly often enough, maybe because uair has less landing lag and hits horizontally as well. Gotta start implementing it now though, sounds and looks like it will work well for footstools.

 

[Raethien]

How long did it take to master this?

 

[Gawain]

How long did it take to master this?

Depends on how comfortable you are with footstooling as part of your gameplan already. I never gave it the time of the day in Brawl, so consider me the base here: it took me about a day and a half to be able to do the Mewtwo zero to death combo consistently. I recomend going into training mode and practicing it in stages.

1. Pick a floaty character for your dummy: the smaller the better your training will help you

2. Practice nair into footstool. Do nothing but this for a long time, until you can consistently do it. Then do them from throws.

3. Once you have 2 down, practice going from nair to footstool to dair. This is the hardest part. Essentially what you want to do is fast fall and dair IMMEDIATELY as soon as you can after a short-hopped footstool. The best way to test if you are doing it fast enough is to set the dummy to "Control". If you do it right, the opponent will do the slow get up as soon as they are able, even if the controller isn't touched. Too slow and they'll just lie there on the ground.

Once you get these down, the rest should just come naturally. Experiment with what you can do to them while they're getting up. Grab combos, free falling uairs etc. Fun stuff.

 

[Raethien]

Depends on how comfortable you are with footstooling as part of your gameplan already. I never gave it the time of the day in Brawl, so consider me the base here: it took me about a day and a half to be able to do the Mewtwo zero to death combo consistently. I recomend going into training mode and practicing it in stages.

1. Pick a floaty character for your dummy: the smaller the better your training will help you

2. Practice nair into footstool. Do nothing but this for a long time, until you can consistently do it. Then do them from throws.

3. Once you have 2 down, practice going from nair to footstool to dair. This is the hardest part. Essentially what you want to do is fast fall and dair IMMEDIATELY as soon as you can after a short-hopped footstool. The best way to test if you are doing it fast enough is to set the dummy to "Control". If you do it right, the opponent will do the slow get up as soon as they are able, even if the controller isn't touched. Too slow and they'll just lie there on the ground.

Once you get these down, the rest should just come naturally. Experiment with what you can do to them while they're getting up. Grab combos, free falling uairs etc. Fun stuff.

Thanks for the help ^^ I guess I have lots of practicing to do.
I have been practicing alot with Falcon latley, though I cant seem to put it into actual fights.

 

[Gawain]

Thanks for the help ^^ I guess I have lots of practicing to do.
I have been practicing alot with Falcon latley, though I cant seem to put it into actual fights.

Being able to put your practice into fights is probably the hardest thing to do in any fighting game. There's really no way to teach it either; the only way is just to recognize situations in which a certain tactic could work, or when you could get a certain set up, or when moves will combo etc, etc. There are a million different variables changing all the time and the only way to learn how to recognize advantageous situations when you see them is through experience, and then having the input skill to pull off what you're trying to do when that opportunity shows. This is true in all fighting games, really. Just persevere and it will come naturally.

 

[Lanzoma]

I have a lot of questions about this!

• Do we know the %s at which ftilt, dair, stop working for a jab lock? Are they character dependent?
  
• Does the nair followup guarantee a grab? (my hunch: char dependent)
• Is the fthrow -> footstool guaranteed, regardless of DI? If so, on which characters?

I'll help test some of this stuff once I get home. We should probably start with the most common/problematic chars first (Diddy, Sonic, ZSS, Falcon, Pikachu, Mario, Luigi, ROB, who else?).

 

[Gawain]

I have a lot of questions about this!

• Do we know the %s at which ftilt, dair, stop working for a jab lock? Are they character dependent?
  
• Does the nair followup guarantee a grab? (my hunch: char dependent)
• Is the fthrow -> footstool guaranteed, regardless of DI? If so, on which characters?

I'll help test some of this stuff once I get home. We should probably start with the most common/problematic chars first (Diddy, Sonic, ZSS, Falcon, Pikachu, Mario, Luigi, ROB, who else?).

I've found the percent at which the dair stops locking is pretty universally around ~30 percent for everyone. Nair followup is a GUARANTEED grab if you're in range on everyone in the cast. Now, what I don't know for sure is whether the ground bounce from a dair at higher percents on a "flopping" opponent is untechable or not. I haven't gotten around to testing this and there isn't any info i've found about it for Smash 4. If not this is interesting in that you still stand a LOT to gain from going for the footstool at a higher percent since you can follow up the stomp with a knee at mid percents.

As for throws, I'm pretty sure that they're not guaranteed footstools most of the time. You can for sure get them if they mess up the DI though, or at higher percents (but again, high percents is only really useful if they can't tech the stomp followup). Personally, I find going for the footstool during the weak stun of a falling uair or weak hit nair is MUCH more guaranteed. On some guys like the floaties, you can ALWAYS get the footstool off of a nair, which makes those matchups much better for Cap.

 

[Runeslielo]

can you write up a list of what characters this works on and when it works? if you can, that would be great!

 

[Sakelig]

can you write up a list of what characters this works on and when it works? if you can, that would be great!

^^^^^^

 

[Trifroze]

Ftilt seems to stop working at 25% for jab locking and dair at 30%. Nair to footstool works on characters who's fall speed is below ~top 10 , and you can footstool them on the same frame that they're able to throw an action out if you do it perfectly so I believe it's a true setup (I tested with Yoshi though). It's easier the floatier the character is, but I think you'll be able to footstool them a frame or few sooner if they fall faster.

Dthrow and fthrow to footstool works on everyone but isn't a true setup unless they have horribad DI down and towards you, and uair works as a setup at around 10-15% in which case you should only use dair for the jab lock.

 

[Gawain]

Ftilt seems to stop working at 25% for jab locking and dair at 30%. Nair to footstool works on characters who's fall speed is below ~top 10 , and you can footstool them on the same frame that they're able to throw an action out if you do it perfectly so I believe it's a true setup (I tested with Yoshi though). It's easier the floatier the character is, but I think you'll be able to footstool them a frame or few sooner if they fall faster.

Dthrow and fthrow to footstool works on everyone but isn't a true setup unless they have horribad DI down and towards you, and uair works as a setup at around 10-15% in which case you should only use dair for the jab lock.

Good info. Do you know if they can tech the dair followup from the footstool at higher percents? This is something I haven't been able to test. I think it may be the case though. If not, you can get good knees at mid percents from it.

 

[Trifroze]

Good info. Do you know if they can tech the dair followup from the footstool at higher percents? This is something I haven't been able to test. I think it may be the case though. If not, you can get good knees at mid percents from it.

Yeah it becomes the same as landing a dair regularly on stage.

 

[Alphamew17]

Can you show off the DI options that could potentially prevent dthrow to FS from working? Also, are they able to act out of the dthrow at all, with an air dodge or aerial?

 

[Ryukred]

I've been testing these footstool combos for about three weeks now and I've even found some different amazing combos aswell, including the lightning Falcon kick custom. I've gotten so used to weak Nair > footstool that it's pretty much a habit in regular games and it's even worked in some, which has netted me 30%+ sometimes.

Edit: Think I might take some time to make a video on the applications of footstooling and Lightning Falcon Kick together.

 

[Bear Eyez]

I'm not sure if there is something I am missing, I do the foot stool to dair and the cpu just lays there. It does do a slow get up, does someone know what I am doing wrong?

 

[Deleted member 269706]

Awesome video man! Definitely gonna be spending a lot of time practicing this technique!
Also great to see more Falcon mains picking up Ike. I started out as an Ike player, so I'm super hyped to see the next video you upload. It was an awesome video! Keep it up man.

 

[Ryukred]

I'm not sure if there is something I am missing, I do the foot stool to dair and the cpu just lays there. It does do a slow get up, does someone know what I am doing wrong?

You need to be faster with the dair. If you do it fast enough they instantly get up, that's how you know you're doing it correctly.

 

[Gawain]

Awesome video man! Definitely gonna be spending a lot of time practicing this technique!
Also great to see more Falcon mains picking up Ike. I started out as an Ike player, so I'm super hyped to see the next video you upload. It was an awesome video! Keep it up man.

Thanks. I played Ike (And Captain) in Brawl at the start but kinda shifted around to other characters. Ike's really fun. I feel like he's got a few just god awful matchups (Fox, any of the Links, Megaman etc) but that he also has a few really good matchups, even against some of the higher tier characters. His footstool stuff is really fun to play with.

I'm not sure if there is something I am missing, I do the foot stool to dair and the cpu just lays there. It does do a slow get up, does someone know what I am doing wrong?

As Ryukred said, you just weren't fast enough. You know that green "splash" effect that happens when they bounce on the floor? There is a certain amount of time after that where you need to hit them with a dair (or ftilt) to get a lock. Too late and you won't get the lock: if they weren't locked, then they could have rolled away to escape if they were fast enough. If you get the lock, then there was nothing they could have done to get away. You need to dair and fastfall as fast as possible after the footstool in order to get it. It's not 1 frame, not even close, but it is pretty tight. If you mash fast fall and dair (and only do a short hop footstool) you should get it.

Can you show off the DI options that could potentially prevent dthrow to FS from working? Also, are they able to act out of the dthrow at all, with an air dodge or aerial?

I have found throws to be a poor setup for these sorts of things with more experience, unless you know for sure that they're going to airdodge. If they have bad DI or they try to mix you up by DI'ing in or something, you can get it around the 40% range, but everyone DI's away from Captain Falcon already so It really isn't a great choice most of the time. The best way to get these things is from weak hit nair on floatier characters, or falling uair on everyone else. It requires a lot more speed and precision but it's unavoidable a lot of the time, and in the case of weak hit nair, it's impossible to DI out of it: if you are spaced properly and you don't personally screw up, you WILL get the footstool.

 

[Ryukred]

I feel like we need a thread of certain things that are guaranteed a footstool.

 

[Jrzfine]

can you write up a list of what characters this works on and when it works? if you can, that would be great!

^^^^^^

In order to test this i used the weak Nair footstool combo shown in OP's video, but had Uair > Knee as the finisher instead of Nair > Grab > Dthrow > Knee for easier kneeing and reliability. It also does 3% more (68%) (This way the only variable of this combo is whether or not the opponent can be aerially footstooled and locked in time)
All opponents were fought in training with the 'Control' option selected on Final Destination.

! means it is very difficult lock them in time
* means it can kill the opponent close to ledge

This works on:
Dark Pit !
Donkey Kong ! (When i saw this my jaw dropped lol)
Dr. Mario !
Duck Hunt !
Jigglypuff * (She may be able to act before you can footstool her, need confirmation)
Kirby *
Little Mac * (The knockback doesn't kill him but let's be honest, Little Mac isn't coming back from that)
Lucario
Lucina
Luigi
Mario !
Marth
Meta Knight !*
Mewtwo *
Mii Fighters (Smallest Size, presumably works up until you hit default size)
Mr. Game & Watch *
Ness
Olimar *
Pacman
Peach
Pikachu *
Pit !
Rosalina & Luma !! (If your Dair connects with Luma first you will miss the lock, and im pretty sure the Rosa can mash buttons for Luma to save her anyways. Without Luma the lock isn't difficult)
Samus
Sheik !! (You need to be frame perfect.)
Sonic !
Robin
Toon Link
Villager
Wii Fit Trainer
Yoshi !

A grand total of 33 characters (Including Miis)! Wow! I did not expect over half the cast to be susceptible to this, but there you have it.

 

[Jrzfine]

Update: Certain characters let you use Uair to set up for the footstool for the second lock, for a grand total of 77% damage. These tests were performed on Smashville. It's also worth noting that the Horizontal blastzones of Smashville are bigger that those of T&C and Halberd, meaning that this combo will kill even more reliably on those stages.
! = kills with DI towards stage at default spawn location
% = Both times you use uair you need to hit with the strong hit for it to kill
Characters that let you do this:
Dark Pit ! %
Expand Dong Donkey Kong
Dr. Mario ! %
Lucario !
Luigi !
Mario ! %
Mii Fighters ! (Smallest and Default work,)
Ness !
Pacman !
Pit ! %
Robin !
Samus
Sonic !
Villager
Wii Fit Trainer !
So yeah. Try and set this up near ledge, if you can its a guaranteed KO against quite a few high tiers!

 

[Gawain]

Can you show off the DI options that could potentially prevent dthrow to FS from working? Also, are they able to act out of the dthrow at all, with an air dodge or aerial?

In order to test this i used the weak Nair footstool combo shown in OP's video, but had Uair > Knee as the finisher instead of Nair > Grab > Dthrow > Knee for easier kneeing and reliability. It also does 3% more (68%) (This way the only variable of this combo is whether or not the opponent can be aerially footstooled and locked in time)
All opponents were fought in training with the 'Control' option selected on Final Destination.

! means it is very difficult lock them in time
* means it can kill the opponent close to ledge

This works on:
Dark Pit !
Donkey Kong ! (When i saw this my jaw dropped lol)
Dr. Mario !
Duck Hunt !
Jigglypuff * (She may be able to act before you can footstool her, need confirmation)
Kirby *
Little Mac * (The knockback doesn't kill him but let's be honest, Little Mac isn't coming back from that)
Lucario
Lucina
Luigi
Mario !
Marth
Meta Knight !*
Mewtwo *
Mii Fighters (Smallest Size, presumably works up until you hit default size)
Mr. Game & Watch *
Ness
Olimar *
Pacman
Peach
Pikachu *
Pit !
Rosalina & Luma !! (If your Dair connects with Luma first you will miss the lock, and im pretty sure the Rosa can mash buttons for Luma to save her anyways. Without Luma the lock isn't difficult)
Samus
Sonic !
Robin
Toon Link
Villager
Wii Fit Trainer
Yoshi !

A grand total of 32 characters (Including Miis)! Wow! I did not expect over half the cast to be susceptible to this, but there you have it.

Hey great compilation dude! I was actually going to do just this pretty recently haha.

I think one more thing we ought to test is whether they can tech the dair if they're above 40%, I haven't personally checked this myself, and I've never had an opponent tech it before so I feel like maybe they can't? So if you do nair ---> FS -----> Dair above 45 ish percent on people, the dair will cause them to bounce, and I think maybe it might not be possible to tech, or at least very hard. If you have a good way to test this try it out for me sometime would you?

 

[Jrzfine]

Hey great compilation dude! I was actually going to do just this pretty recently haha.

I think one more thing we ought to test is whether they can tech the dair if they're above 40%, I haven't personally checked this myself, and I've never had an opponent tech it before so I feel like maybe they can't? So if you do nair ---> FS -----> Dair above 45 ish percent on people, the dair will cause them to bounce, and I think maybe it might not be possible to tech, or at least very hard. If you have a good way to test this try it out for me sometime would you?

Thanks!

So I quickly hopped in training mode, set a Marth CPU to the Control setting and used my other controller to control him. Oh my god you can't tech it. Do you know what this means? More knee combos! So after that I experimented with a villager. If you keep doing the nair footstool combo past when dair will lock them i don't think you can footstool them before they exit hitstun (you may be able to though, unsure how to test with only one person). You can, however, get a SH Uair into another Uair as long as you use your double jump for the second uair, which is really hard to time. You can also jab into grab, which is much easier to pull off. The real potential comes out when the opponent is at mid/high percents, though. A weak hit nair from ~ 55% - 85% leads into a guaranteed knee on over half of the cast, which will kill most characters. Oh my. For example:

Looks like falling nair is slowly becoming even more dangerous than falling uair, haha.

 

[Nate22Hill]

is footstolls viable?? they seem like something thats completely DI dependent

 

[Jrzfine]

is footstolls viable?? they seem like something thats completely DI dependent

Weak hit nair puts you in what's called light hitstun, which cannot be di'd. Wak nair also has set knockback, so it will set people up for the footstool at any percent. So yes, it is completely viable in tournament.

 

[Gawain]

Thanks!

So I quickly hopped in training mode, set a Marth CPU to the Control setting and used my other controller to control him. Oh my god you can't tech it. Do you know what this means? More knee combos! So after that I experimented with a villager. If you keep doing the nair footstool combo past when dair will lock them i don't think you can footstool them before they exit hitstun (you may be able to though, unsure how to test with only one person). You can, however, get a SH Uair into another Uair as long as you use your double jump for the second uair, which is really hard to time. You can also jab into grab, which is much easier to pull off. The real potential comes out when the opponent is at mid/high percents, though. A weak hit nair from ~ 55% - 85% leads into a guaranteed knee on over half of the cast, which will kill most characters. Oh my. For example:

Looks like falling nair is slowly becoming even more dangerous than falling uair, haha.

I was able to get a friend to help me test it out and I can confirm too that it is untechable. You can all kinds of neat stuff with it. Essentially, if you're accurate enough in footstooling from nair, you can get a guaranteed stomp bounce at any percent. So stomp to knee at mid percents, stomp to uair at upper percents. That's actually really helpful information.