2 questions on falco's aerials and L canceling

[PsychonautQQ]

So first of all, what is the advantage to delaying falco's aerials? People say you should try to delay his dair. Doesn't delaying his dair make u more vulnerable to get hit because you are floating through the air and not attacking? Why does delaying the dair make it easier to get follow ups?

My second question is wondering if it makes a difference on when you hit your L-cancel. Is it preferred to hit the L-cancel during the earlier frames of it being possible or is hitting it on the last possible frame optimal? I notice that when I turn my 20xx from a 7 frame timing window to a 5 frame timing window i barely ever hit L-cancels, which means i'm usually hitting L on one of the first two possible frames. Is this a bad thing?

 

[タオー]

To answer your first question, if you dair late on shield you will hit lower on the shield. This means your closer to the ground and can more readily transition from your aerial into an L cancel and then any grounded option (shine, grab, jab, ftilt, pivot utilt, etc.) This is so you can keep up the pressure.

For your second question, you should not be practicing with a smaller L cancel frame window. You need to work within that window, given every context. Sometimes you can only L cancel early or late, so its good to know the threshold you have to work with. Furthermore, you should only be using the "light press" analog input to L cancel, otherwise it will eat up a tech window for 40 frames IIRC (might be 60). If you want to always be L cancelling optimally, you should learn to input two L cancels using both analog inputs, one before the hit, and another after the hit. The way this works is if you wiff, your first L cancel will execute and you can then retreat. If you hit, your second L cancel will execute and you can continue to pressure/combo.

As an aside, I do not think that learning to double L cancel is necessary by any means. IIRC you can always fit in an L cancel the frame before you land, so I've always just tried to hit that window consistently. I don't even have 2 analog inputs as my L is dedicated for Powershielding and I disabled the analog input on it. It's good to practice different L cancel timings by fighting three level 1 IC's on Yoshi's Story, it's an old S2J trick to practice L cancelling not as a rhythm, but a reaction.

 

[FE_Hector]

If you do a traditional SHFFL dair, but it connects with shield, you can get shieldgrabbed. If you do a SHFFL late dair shine on their shield, then the shine is 100% safe and can actually allow you to start pressuring them if you want.
Provided you L-Cancel, you're fine. Also, the way that teching works goes as follows:

Frame 0: Digital Press of L/R
Frame 1-20: Window in which the buffered tech is still active (if you land any time here, you'll tech)
Frame 21-40: Frames in which the tech is NOT buffered and you can NOT buffer another one.

 

[PsychonautQQ]

So if you late dair then you don't start the actual attack until you are already close enough to hit their shield? I assume this because the only way you will hit lower on their shield is if you already somewhere inside their shield bubble when you start the attack? Because if you're late dair collission bubble wasn't already in their shield then it would connect as soon as it gets to their shield just like a normal dair, which would be in the same spot?

Does this mean that if you late dair there is a slight risk involved with being hit as you approach? I mean with a normal dair you come in a whirling pillar of death, which I thought is why they went into shield in the first place. Can they read that you are doing a late dair with the intention of starting it up only once you are in their shield and just hit u with something?

See what i'm saying? Where am I wrong here? If you're goal is to hit the dair lower on their shield then wouldn't you be vulnerable coming in? I hope i'm expressing my thoughts clearly.

Thanks for the L-canceling tips, thanks for that, i'll stop turning the window down to 5. I wanted to be like piccolo and take off my weighted clothes when i go into a real game . P.S.: i'm cool

and cool on fighting 3 IC's on yoshi's to practice L-canceling as a 'reaction and not a rhythm' <[[ last part real insightful

 

[FE_Hector]

Yes, you're entirely right that late dair on shield leaves you vulnerable, but that's actually the genius of it all. If they're conditioned to fear you if you SH towards them, then they'll shield. So, the reason that the SHFFL late dairshine works on shield instead of just doing a normal SHFFL dairshine is because they're conditioned. They think "oh crap, he jumped towards me. When he did that before, he landed a super solid dair and started up a combo. Let me shield." If you react to the shield, you can place the dair low, and they won't be expecting it. Since they're not expecting it, they can't react to it. It's really weird, but it's all about conditioning.

 

[C-SAF]

So if you late dair then you don't start the actual attack until you are already close enough to hit their shield? I assume this because the only way you will hit lower on their shield is if you already somewhere inside their shield bubble when you start the attack? Because if you're late dair collission bubble wasn't already in their shield then it would connect as soon as it gets to their shield just like a normal dair, which would be in the same spot?

Does this mean that if you late dair there is a slight risk involved with being hit as you approach? I mean with a normal dair you come in a whirling pillar of death, which I thought is why they went into shield in the first place. Can they read that you are doing a late dair with the intention of starting it up only once you are in their shield and just hit u with something?

See what i'm saying? Where am I wrong here? If you're goal is to hit the dair lower on their shield then wouldn't you be vulnerable coming in? I hope i'm expressing my thoughts clearly.

Thanks for the L-canceling tips, thanks for that, i'll stop turning the window down to 5. I wanted to be like piccolo and take off my weighted clothes when i go into a real game . P.S.: i'm cool

and cool on fighting 3 IC's on yoshi's to practice L-canceling as a 'reaction and not a rhythm' <[[ last part real insightful

U should think of it this way. When u jump in on someone, u have the potential to use ur aerial. As long as ur opponent knows u still have that potential, they have to block because they could potentially be hit. If u spend that potential early, they know nothing else is coming and they are free to counter attack as they please. They could hard read that ur not going to aerial early and attack u then, but that requires a read. When u have the choice of ur opponent having to make a read vs reaction, always pick a read.

EDIT: Just want to point out that nothing is always best all the time. Early retreating aerials are better to get off shield ex. Late dair --> shine --> early nair fading back to not get shield grabbed.

 

[タオー]

Another element that I'm not entirely sure applies to Falco's dair, but is a concept to consider nonetheless, is spacing. you can limit your vulnerability by making sure you're properly positioned (spaced far enough away to have your hitbox out to cover, but not too close as to hit them at the early part of the animation). Since Falco's dair is out for so long, it seems feasible to me to apply this kind of tactic, but I'm not sure how well this will work with Falco's lateral airspeed.

 

[FE_Hector]

Another element that I'm not entirely sure applies to Falco's dair, but is a concept to consider nonetheless, is spacing. you can limit your vulnerability by making sure you're properly positioned (spaced far enough away to have your hitbox out to cover, but not too close as to hit them at the early part of the animation). Since Falco's dair is out for so long, it seems feasible to me to apply this kind of tactic, but I'm not sure how well this will work with Falco's lateral airspeed.

This doesn't work horribly well with Falco's dair just because of how narrow it is overall. However, this is actually part of why it's so important to mix up SHFFL nairs with SHFFL dairs. Also, nair is +/-0 on shield, whereas dair is -2 on shield, which is another part of the reason that you need to do SHFFL late dairshine.

 

[probablydrugs]

When you say +/-0 and - 2 what exactly do you mean?

 

[FE_Hector]

It's kinda hard to explain. Basically, if a move is +/- 0 on shield, the timing for SHFFL timing is going to be the same on hit and on shield. -2 on shield makes it so that you actually don't land for another 2 frames, meaning that you can't L-Cancel for another 2 frames. At least, I'm pretty sure. I've also heard that Falcon's Knee is positive on shield if you wanna look into that. I'm not 100% sure about those statements, but the point is that moves that are negative on shield are less safe on shield than moves that are positive or neutral.

 

[C-SAF]

When you say +/-0 and - 2 what exactly do you mean?

If a move is 0 on shield, then the shieldstun runs out at the same time as the lag of the move, meaning both characters become actionable at the same time. If something is -2 on shield, then shield stun runs out 2 frames before the lag of the move, meaning the shielding player becomes actionable first. If something is +2 on shield, then the shielding player becomes actionable 2 frames after attacking players move ends. For aerials, this usually assumes u've done them as late as possible. Dair might only be -2 on shield, but it is much worse if the aerial is high.

Not everything that is negative is that bad though. Shield grab is 6 frames for most characters, so a -2 move still cant be shield grabbed. That's why dair on shield is usable but not always best. Shine out of shield for fox can literally be frame 2 if done frame perfectly, that's the fastest attack oos in the entire game.

 

[Comet7]

on the other hand from what the guy who talked about light pressing to l cancel, hard pressing to do it can be nice if you're playing against someone like fox who can shine you since you might buffer a tech and there is no way you can tech stuff like that on reaction. i guess it would be optimal to switch between light pressing and hard pressing for l cancels depending on the mu and situation.

 

[タオー]

on the other hand from what the guy who talked about light pressing to l cancel, hard pressing to do it can be nice if you're playing against someone like fox who can shine you since you might buffer a tech and there is no way you can tech stuff like that on reaction. i guess it would be optimal to switch between light pressing and hard pressing for l cancels depending on the mu and situation.

I would always light press to L cancel, and option select the tech option when expecting to get shined out of pressure to tech. Keeping both those inputs as separate moves for muscle memory is recommended. But whatever works I suppose

 

[Archelon]

Just one thing, late nair gives you a better advantage on their shield that late dair, though if you get a poke dair gives you a lot more.