The escape and how to escape from the action.

[PokÉmblem]

Notice how a good amount of characters have an "escape" move to put themselves in a better position. A good example of this is diddy's monkey flip. Comment your thoughts on the situation, I'll edit this post on good escape options(based on comments) for each character or if they don't have one, good zoning/spacing tools.

: Nair is a combo breaker
: Nair is a combo breaker and if you're lucky he can misfire
: Floating if you use it well.
: up
: Egg throw and nair
: Luma, it's a shield practically
: Side , down tilt(?)
: Side , waft, fair(spacing)
: Nair(?)
: Monkey flip, banana
: Nair, down tilt
: Side , counter
: Bombs, Arrows, boomerang
: Teleport, Down
: Bouncing fish, fair, nair, up , needles, dair
: Down , rarely side
: Bombs, Arrows, boomerangs
: Missiles, down , up tilt(without teching), charged shot
: Down , nair, paralyzer, down air
: Upperdash arm, arrows







What am I missing so far?

 

[ZeGlasses!]

Luigi is infamous for his "get out of jail free" Neutral air. It comes out on frame 4(I think?), the hitbox covers up a majority of Luigi's model, and it does a lot of knockback.

 

[1FC0]

R.O.B. has no good escaping tools. With R.O.B, you just need to play very well and make very few mistakes against combo'y characters.

 

[ChaikaBestGirl]

I feel Sheik's dair and nair can get her out of a lot of situations along with up b

 

[outfoxd]

Duck Hunt's can. Nigh instantaneous and you either blow everybody up or you at least get reset to neutral.

Only works a couple times though XD

 

[erico9001]

Well, Shulk has Back Slash Charge. It has frame 1-30 super armor. However, end-lag is a lot, so you might be punished for using it in the wrong situations.

Otherwise, without customs, our fastest aerial options are air dodge at frame 3, vision at frame 6, and air slash at frame 10. Oh, and there is also switching into monado shield mid-combo, which while slow to take effect (probably about 1 second of time), can be done while still taking knockback. Doing this can get Shulk out of certain combos, like Meta Knight's signature Uair -> Uair -> Up B, ZSS's Uair -> Up B, and Rosalina's Uairs combos.

Then there's Monado Jump. Monado Jump's double jump goes pretty high pretty fast, so it could also be an option. It really depends on the hitbox the opponent is going to use. Monado Jump can also be used to easily get you out of a bad stage position, and reset the neutral.

 

[John12346]

Sheik has Fair, Nair, and Bair depending on her position to the opponent when she gets hit, and Bouncing Fish escapes vs. pretty much any aerial chase. Honestly, whenever I get damage on Sheik I feel like I never actually hit her because of how trivial it is for her to reset things back to neutral.

Unfortunately, Wii Fit's got nothing. Her Uair and Bair are both fast but have inadequate hitboxes to consistently turn an opponent's offensive pressure around.

 

[UltraMan21]

Luigi is infamous for his "get out of jail free" Neutral air. It comes out on frame 4(I think?), the hitbox covers up a majority of Luigi's model, and it does a lot of knockback.

Luigis nair is frame 3

 

[M15t3R E]

For Pikachu it is his frame 2 nair.

 

[Jandlebars]

Samus has her Nair, too.

...Oh wait, nevermind. Wrong game. :x


I agree, though, that a strong component for characters to perform well, are abilities or traits that give characters a mean of escaping high-pressure situations. While it's not inherently bad design that characters can fundamentally escape the disadvantage state easily, it obviously does cause balance issues if some are overcompensated for how easily they can escape.

 

[LightLV]

Notice how good characters have an "escape" move to put themselves in a better position.

Fixed

It's interesting how the characters that need those types of moves the most (heavies) don't have them, but the combo-heavy, good-aerial having characters that certainly don't need to be able to kill you in the middle of a combo have them abundant

 

[wizrad]

Charizard has Rock Smash.

 

[Bullys]

This is really good - for making people aware on both sides of the coin.

I'd be really interested in a follow up on this logic train; "optimal or common ways" to get out of "BNB / common combos" (E.G DI out of Roy's dgrab > up b combo etc..) - not to side track this tread at all, but I think it could be the next stage of this discussion.

 

[Charey]

Charizard has Rock Smash.

Mostly just for fake combos, the armor comes out 2 frames later then air dodge. Rock Hurl however has frame 1 armor letting you escape some "true" combos if there is any frame you are out of hitstun, like ZSS up-air > up-b.

Rock smash is a great landing option for getting out of juggles, but it's baitable so if you get read it will be worse then if you just landed on an attack.

 

[Ze Diglett]

PAC-MAN's Nair comes out frame 3, knocks the opponent a good distance away, and autocancels, making it a really good combo breaker move.

 

[Peppermint1201]

R.O.B. has no good escaping tools. With R.O.B, you just need to play very well and make very few mistakes against combo'y characters.

I'm not so sure that's true. It is true that he has lots of trouble escaping combos and that none of his aerials have stellar frame data (except for sorta kinda his fair), but he's not completely out of options. ROB's Up-B comes to mind -- after a few Mario up-tilts you should be able to Up-B away, use his back-air's momentum to move yourself around the sky, descend with a neutral air, and land on the ground or a platform to prevent them from pressing their advantage much further.

 

[1FC0]

I'm not so sure that's true. It is true that he has lots of trouble escaping combos and that none of his aerials have stellar frame data (except for sorta kinda his fair), but he's not completely out of options. ROB's Up-B comes to mind -- after a few Mario up-tilts you should be able to Up-B away, use his back-air's momentum to move yourself around the sky, descend with a neutral air, and land on the ground or a platform to prevent them from pressing their advantage much further.

Robo Burner came to mind but I did not mention it because it is very slow and very easy to chase. For example I think that Mario can often just chase R.O.B. and start Uairing him if R.O.B. tries to get away with Robo Burner. Especially since Robo Burner disables Air Dodges.

And I think that using Bair and Nair once you are away is risky. I think that often almost everything that R.O.B. can do is risky when R.O.B. is above his opponent on stage so even after "escaping" with Robo Burner R.O.B. is still not in a very safe position.

I do think that Robo Burner can be R.O.B.'s best "escaping" move in some situations, but often Robo Burner does not allow R.O.B. to escape, it just shortens the combo in addition to placing R.O.B. in a dangerous position. So it is not a good escape move.

 

[JosePollo]

For Pikachu it is his frame 2 nair.

Pretty certain it's frame 3

Offensively, Palutena can throw out nair (frame 5) while she's in the air, but it's not very reliable because the hitboxes on the move are pretty small. Defensively she can use Warp to put distance between her and her opponent, but it has a pretty long start-up (16 frames before invincibility is a long time when you're trying to escape a high-pressure situation) and the landing lag on it makes it easy to punish if your opponent sees it coming. You have to really get your ledge-cancels on-point for it to be a truly reliable escape option, and then only on stages with platforms--mainly Battlefield, Lylat, and Dreamland, since Smashville's/T&C's platforms are dynamic, Duck Hunt's are "awkward", and Final only has the ledges to cancel from. Messing up a ledge cancel can lead to the loss of a stock, either, by the opponent punishing your landing lag, or you SD'ing off the platform.

Lucas has nair and up air, but neither of those are really reliable. Nair's hitbox is basically Lucas's hurtboxes, and has almost non-existent priority due to the first 4 hits only doing 1% damage; you basically have to catch your opponent in it before he can throw out another hitbox since it will rarely win out against other attacks. Up air can be used to challenge weaker moves, but the hitbox on it is pretty small (basically his forehead and tuft of hair), making it somewhat unreliable. Magnet's momentum properties make it useful at escaping juggles by b-reversing or wavebouncing it, but it's got quite a bit of cooldown.

 

[M15t3R E]

Pretty certain it's frame 3

Had to check the frame data. You're correct.