Tap Jump and Meteor Cancelling

[AMKalmar]

I've read several times in the past that tap jump is needed to properly meteor cancel... Why? What's different about inputting left analog up rather than a button?

 

[Luxor]

If you hit the jump button too early, you get a penalty where you're trapped in hitstun for even longer, therefore you have to time the button press until the meteor cancel window starts. Howver, you can spam tap jump or UpB inputs all you want to get those things right when the meteor cancelling window begins, since those don't penalize you.

 

[AMKalmar]

I see. Is there any way of knowing when the window starts? Can you buffer a jump using tap jump?

I'd like to be able to zap jump out of a meteor. This would be easier if I knew exactly when to input, and easier still if I could buffer it.

 

[Luxor]

Nope, you can't buffer during hitstun. As far as I know, you're pretty much screwed in your quest unless you have a 2 frame reaction time or so. Poor Lucas

 

[Laem]

zapjumping out of spike sounds and should look pretty **** cool though
+rep for doing that consistently

 

[AMKalmar]

Mashing analog up, side-b is no good because there's a chance that the side-b will come out first (since there's no buffer). Is there no indication of when the window opens like a change in animation, an effect or a sound?

How long before the window opens, is it constant or proportional to damage/knockback/something else? I may have to do some testing.

 

[Poltergust]

I think the window differs for each spike. The frames for double-jumping out of a spike from Ganondorf or Ness occurs much later than the frames for double-jumping out of a spike from Yoshi or Mario. I'm not 100% sure, though.

 

[Luxor]

I'm pretty sure it varies by %, character, and the spike. I'd loooooove to be proved wrong and have this be possible, though. Best idea I have is to learn the meteor cancel window, overwait slightly, then input the zap jump and ride it out of there. Of course, you die if you mess up, but... +rep

 

[Technodeath]

I'm pretty sure it varies like Luxor said, higher percents is longer hitstun from each spike.

It would be pretty sweet seeing someone pulling this off though, I'd drop my jaw if I did see it.

+rep

 

[rPSIvysaur]

You can Meteor Cancel 25 frames after you have been hit. It's just you usually die @ higher percents before that happens.

 

[AMKalmar]

Fresh Ganon stomped Lucas at 0%, input jump as early as 15 frames after hit-lag ends, jump occurs 26 frames after hit-lag ends. Inputting jump with a button before frame 15 extends hit-stun. Input side-b after inputting jump but before frame 26 = wasted jump and useless side-b. Input side-b on frame 26 = zap jump.

So you can buffer a jump from hit-stun with either the analog stick or a button, but you can't buffer a zap jump.

In other words, everything that was said in this thread up until this post is LIES AND SLANDER. Including what I said. My questions were the slander.

 

[Luxor]

No, everything that was said is legit. If you time it exactly perfectly a la frame advance or any later, it really doesn't matter if you use tap jump or a button. Neither one cancels the meteor earlier or makes you jump higher or anything. The only difference is since you can't buffer during hitstun (buffer in the sense that you input in the last 10 frames and it comes out ASAP), the fastest way out is to mash jump to get it ASAP rather than timing it, and the only penalty-free way to mash jump in this scenario is tap jump or UpB.

tl;dr If you're mashing buttons to escape a meteor, tap jump moar plz. If you're timing it, buttons or tap jump is fine (although the latter is obviously safer). You can't "buffer" it.

Rereading your post I think I misunderstood you at first, but my tl;dr is still true so whatever.

 

[AMKalmar]

Well... I was just being silly with the last line of my previous post but whatever. You can buffer a jump. When I mashed up on the left analog stick, the jump occurred on frame 26. When I pressed jump on frame 15, the jump occurred on frame 26. That's a buffered jump.

 

[Luxor]

...No it's not, the meteor cancelling just takes that long after input, which is the same in both of these cases of perfect meteor cancelling. Think of it this way: the animation/effect/you could pretend it's a hitbox doesn't come out until frame 26 when the input frame is 15. Buffering is inputting a command during the last 10 frames of something else. 10 frames before the input; buffering in this case would occur frames 5-14. You can't buffer during hitstun; you can only mash or time to get your input in ASAP. You can't input something and only have the input registered 1-9 frames later.

 

[AMKalmar]

Last time I checked Lucas' double jump doesn't have 10 frames of startup but you obviously know better.

Let me make this a little more clear. I tested this over a dozen times. When I inputted jump anywhere from frame 15 to frame 25, Lucas jumped on frame 26. That means If I mash up on the analog stick, Lucas jumps on frame 26. If I press jump on frame 25, Lucas jumps on frame 26. If I press jump on frame 15, Lucas jumps on frame 26. You can buffer a jump out of hit-stun.

Moreover, you can buffer anything that you can normally buffer while airborne out of hit-stun.

 

[Katana_koden]

Well pit really meteor cancel his up b? What about a glide? Glide characters can glide if you wiggle analog left and right. Same as recovering tumble.

 

[Luxor]

Unless the platitude's I've been hearing for years are incorrect, you can't buffer during hitstun. I haven't seen it for myself, but I'm willing to swallow my pride and accept that you can buffer during a meteor at least. Time for some testing of my own.

 

[Katana_koden]

Hitstun is different per character? Charizard or mk barely survives pits spike. But ivysaur can jump almost immediately.

 

[teluoborg]

Last time I checked Lucas' double jump doesn't have 10 frames of startup but you obviously know better.

Let me make this a little more clear. I tested this over a dozen times. When I inputted jump anywhere from frame 15 to frame 25, Lucas jumped on frame 26. That means If I mash up on the analog stick, Lucas jumps on frame 26. If I press jump on frame 25, Lucas jumps on frame 26. If I press jump on frame 15, Lucas jumps on frame 26. You can buffer a jump out of hit-stun.

Moreover, you can buffer anything that you can normally buffer while airborne out of hit-stun.

What happens if you input jump with Y/X before frame 15 ? Can you input it again and still meteor cancel at frame 26 ? Or do you get the penalty everyone is talking about ?

 

[AMKalmar]

What happens if you input jump with Y/X before frame 15 ? Can you input it again and still meteor cancel at frame 26 ? Or do you get the penalty everyone is talking about ?

You receive a penalty:

Fresh Ganon stomped Lucas at 0%, input jump as early as 15 frames after hit-lag ends, jump occurs 26 frames after hit-lag ends. Inputting jump with a button before frame 15 extends hit-stun. Input side-b after inputting jump but before frame 26 = wasted jump and useless side-b. Input side-b on frame 26 = zap jump.

I suppose I could have phrased that more clearly.


Edit: Just did a bit more testing. Ganon stomped Lucas, Jiggs, and Bowser.

frame 0: final frame of hit-lag.
frame 14+: input shield or grab to air dodge or tether (respectively) on the next frame.
frame 15-25: input anything (aside from shield or grab) and it will come out on frame 26. I tested jump, upB, and an aerial attack with this. I assume it works with any action.
frame 1-15: inputting jump using a button will extend the number of frames before you can escape hit-stun.

These results were the same for all 3 characters regardless of the staleness of the dair or the damage of the character.

I didn't do too much testing of this, but the penalty for pressing jump too early increases with damage. At 0%, you can escape on frame 36. If your damage is greater than 0% it's later than frame 36.

Much later edit: If you press jump too early with a button, you can still meteor cancel with the analog stick. Useless information.

 

[teluoborg]

No it's not useless at all, thanks a lot.

 

[Pierce7d]

wtf, even I didn't know that (you could still stick meteor cancel if you button lock too early). FAR from useless information

btw, that goes against your theory that it's a hitstun related lock. Have you tested to see if hitstun is actually increased by monitoring tumble animation?

 

[AMKalmar]

I had also done a bit of testing to see if the penalty (after pressing jump too early) increased with damage but I didn't post the results because they were inconsistant... generally, the greater the damage% the longer the penalty, but I tested one % several times and got 2 different results.

The fact that you can still meteor cancel with the analog stick doesn't go against this, it just means that the game considers tap jump to be a different kind of input. Notice how tap jump has its own switch in the control scheme menu while other buttons must be assigned the jump command.

 

[AMKalmar]

Did this a few days ago, might as well post it.

Frame 0 is the last frame of hitlag
Enter = Enter Hit-Stun (milliseconds on timer : frame equivalent)
Exit = Exit Hit-Stun (same as above)
MC = Meteor Cancel (Exit - Enter = total frames in hit-stun)

Move		Enter	Exit	MC
Ganon Dair	60:24	18:49	25
Ness Dair	85:9	45:33	24
Lucas Dair	68:19	28:43	24
Lucas Bair	110:54	68:79	25
Samus Dair	53:28	13:52	24
DK Fair		43:34	03:58	24
DK Dair		120:48	80:72	24
DK sideB	60:24	20:48	24
Ike Dair	63:22	23:46	24

That one extra frame on Lucas' Bair and Ganon's Dair makes me want to re-test these but I know Ganon's Dair is correct since I've done it so many times and the fact that the majority of these are 24 and not 25 leads me to believe that the data is correct. Perhaps its an effect of electric type moves?

This data suggests that all spikes can be meteor cancelled on [almost] the same frame. I could just test every other spike to confirm the electric = hit-stun +1 theory but... not right now.

IIRC:
[collapse=Full List of Spikes]Captain Falcon: Dair, Fspair
Diddy Kong: Dair, Uspair
Donkey Kong: Fair, Dair, Fspe
Falco: Dair
Fox: Dair
Mr. Game & Watch: Dair
Ganon: Dair, Dspair
Ike: Dair, Dtilt, Uspe
Kirby: Dair, Uspe
Link: Dtilt
Lucas: Bair, Dair
Luigi: Dair
Mario: Fair
Marth: Dair
Ness: Dair
Olimar: Diar
Pit: Dtilt
Ivysaur: Dair
Charizard: Diar
Ice Climbers: nana Fair
ROB: Dair
Samus: Dair
Snake: Fair
Zero Suit Samus: Dair, Dspe2
Toon Link: Dair
Wolf: Dair
Yoshi: Fair, Dair
Zelda: Dair sweet/dull[/collapse]

If it's not obvious, Fspair = aerial forward special

 

[Dajayman]

You're missing Kirby and Ike upb spike in that list of spikes above.

 

[SuSa]

Those aren't spikes dajay.. not in a sense anyways..

Anyways, eletric moves have a special hitlag modifier specifically for them. It's a special flag for attacks, and so it's likely that's why they have +1 frames of hitlag on them. Although +1 isn't a rule (well, it might be but we'd need to look into every move with a special eletric flag to see if it comes out to +1 frames for all these moves... which doesn't make sense, because than why not just change the normal hitlag modifier to come out to be +1 for these moves?)

But uhm, yea...... you should apply for the SL if you haven't

 

[AMKalmar]

I'm talking about hit-stun not hit-lag. Hit-lag varies with staleness so I counted the last frame of hit-lag as frame 0.

I added those moves to the list. What I'm calling a "spike" is any move that sends you at a downward trajectory. Whether you will ever be at high enough damage for the move to send you into tumble was irrelevant to that list. I'm not sure if Captain Falcon's aerial sideB works like a spike though. Probably does.

 

[Dajayman]

I'm pretty sure Sonic's spring is just a semi-spike, but I could be mistaken. It's hard to tell since it's knockback is very low.

Edit: I just tested his spring, it's not even a semi-spike. It pops someone a little up and away.