Uses for Down-air

[KoyalKitKat]

I'm wondering about all the uses for d-air. I used to use it all the time when I first picked up melee (peach being the first character I played playing her in brawl and pm, but better in melee of course) But....

As I am progressing and learning, I have not been using d-airs at all. Is there something I'm missing?

Please list all the things you like to do with dair.

 

[Onoh]

D-air with Peach is something I used somewhat, but began seeing flaws with it. It's a good move for catching jumps in the air but that's about it in my opinion. I would use full hop float d-air n the neutral to keep the person from jumping.
(I am not the best Peach main but I hoped this helped.)

 

[Genuine]

I think dair's MOST important use is the Dair-Nair edgegaurd against characters who have trouble sweet spotting (Falcon, Marth, Ganon, sometimes sheik). If you don't know what I am talking watch Armada play against a falcon or something.

Other minute situational uses of dair (that are rather useless against good people) that I have found:
1. Peach Dittos - Dair is actually really good move against Peach lmao. It can catch another peach in her float and combos into many other moves.
2. Recovering - If you are really high in the air and recovering. Dair is a really good move to catch opponents who like to over extend to hit you. You can really turn a situation around with Dair->Bair when recovering. DONT spam it though, its really easy to avoid and abuse.
3. Full hop dair -> float -> nair: If you just wanna troll. Have at it. If you get this, I guarantee your opponent will rage quit.
4. Dair for shield poke -> if you are floating above them and they shield but their head is sticking out, you can use it here. This is a rather old school peach technique.
5. (While on platform and opponent underneath) Low float -> Dair: I mean it works sometimes, but why use this when you can just Dsmash lmao.
6. FC Dair -> Dsmash: I'm not convinced this a legit combo lol.
7. Single hit dair vs fox/falco horizontal upB or side B. Since they are fast fallers, it can act as a psuedo spike if your opponent isn't paying attention.
8. offstage dair -> nair against fox/falco in upB (AKA the Peach shine spike (AKA the I just made up that name right now)): You don't do this unless your tag is Bladewise.

Ask and thy shall receive.

 

[KoyalKitKat]

Thanks for your list, I'll add this to my things to try. And that dair to nair edge guard is my favorite, but i didn't know people used it on Marth much, at least in my experience I always get hit.

Keep adding you guys, if you have something else

 

[N JA]

Dair ends before you land from a short hop, so I've been experimenting with SH Dair > FC Nair.

 

[ECTO]

1- Float dair into nair edgeguards against certain recoveries (Falcon and Falco/Fox if they are recovering low)
2- Float dair on shield into float cancel nair or bair (mixup)
3- Float canceled dair to do a sort of jab reset
4- Dair when coming down versus certain character (often connects with nair against floaties)

There are a bunch of little tricks to it. But overall it's good to get that little bit of hitstun that dair gives to just be able to connect with something else.

 

[Quetzalcoatl]

Aside from Armada dair edgeguards I find it pretty useful in the Peach ditto as it can be unsafe to float cancel aerials at low percents versus Peach's CC downsmash. Dair will punish a CC downsmash happy Peach pretty well.

 

[Kidney Thief]

You should not be using dair to edgeguard falcon or ganon because it gives them an opportunity to DI out of it, you can just nair them to death to be honest, fair is better at lower percents and nair is better at higher percents due to KBG (Knockback growth) and bair is good as well, especially at mid percents where you can do two in a row against falcon. This is the best time to practice your fc aerials.