S-Critical
Smash Cadet
So guys, I wanted to talk to you about something that might actually be a cool strategy to do with Fox if you struggle to catch people's landings. It requires you to be able to do extended dash dancing, fox trotting and perfect pivot utilt consistently in order to optimize it.
Example
What I did here was use all 3 of those movement techs to constantly stay directly below my opponent at all times. Why? Fox's fox trott, dash start distance and perfect pivot distance make it so easy for Fox to get from one side of the stage to the other with ease, and with a little practice, you can easily do this at least 85% of the time in both directions. I made some comparisons about certain movement techs and their uses, as well.
Catching Mario using run>shield
Looking at this first video, a lot of Foxes typically do this, including myself a while ago. Running up and shielding to where the opponent is currently at. However, the big issue I find with this is that, like you see in the video, it highly restricted movement, and the "stop and go" movement made it hard for me to actually catch up to Mario, and it made it harder for me to change direction quickly when I needed to, therefore I ended up missing most of my attempts to keep the CPU in the air.
Doing the same thing, but with PP Utilt
Now with this way, I was able to be more fluid with my movement. I was able to quick change direction whenever I needed to, and I was able to get to any point pretty quickly without stopping, honestly. It made it a lot faster to get to places in which my opponent will be and to cover the option with dash attack, a grab or a pp utilt. I believe that this can be a viable option to do as Fox, and I will talk more about the comparisons with the frame data we have.
Running and shielding
With this movement tech, you are running back and forth while shielding. However, the frame you input shield, and you actually have to wait 28 frames until you can input something else, which is actually kinda odd once you think about it, and doing that multiple times is restricting your movement imo. It is only really good for when your opponent is landing with an attack and you dash to where they are drifting to and shield their attack. It's not really a good way to follow your opponent, since you will end up delaying yourself due to the big delays after shielding (10 frames after inputting dash to shield, 11 frames of shielding, 7 frames of dropping shield), and this is just the minimum. I've been getting a few frames after that a lot, so you may hold yourself up even longer just by holding the button for a few more frames, which is more than possible.
Extended dash dancing
With this movement tech, you are basically just dashing back and forth. Pretty simple. As mentioned by Skarfelt in his movement video (posted in #resources . Highly recommend watching it), Fox cannot input another dash for 21 frames, but that means he can do another dash 7 frames faster than when doing run>shield. This keeps your movement more accurate so you can make sure that your opponent is right below you when doing. This is also super helpful, because you slide just a bit more when doing the dash start, and this might be able to give you the edge if someone is drifting, as you can followup with a pp utilt, which can easily catch their movement due to the big hitbox. Doing run>shield can potentially end up making you do utilt too late in order for you to cover an option properly (refer back to the video where I did this, and you would get my point).
Also, when it comes to travelling across the stage, I also did tests in which movement techs would be the fastest. It came to normal running taking 82 frames to reach one side of SV to the other, and fox trotting taking 94 frames, which is a 12 frame difference. However, run>shield took roughly 140 frames to get from one side of the stage to another, which is a massive difference.
It proves my point on how many frames you end up wasting just by doing that alone, because there really is no point in stopping yourself by using shield in order to change direction using shield, because you keep yourself stationary for almost half a second every time you do it. When the opponent is in the air, your goal as Fox is to pressure them with uairs and use his juggling skills to rank up percent or to get the kill. Fox's air speed is bad, so you need to use your movement to get to where your opponent will b. If you keep on shielding to change direction, you just give your opponent more frames to escape your pressure. Perfect pivoting comes in handy due to the fact that you can immediately act out of it, and I like to do it when the opponent is starting to get a bit closer to the ground. That way, I can react to whatever option they choose. If they attack, I can shield, and if they drift away from me, I like to do a foxtrott>pp utilt, because it covers quite a bit of distance, and you won't have to stay in shield... THEN do a utilt, which will most likely be too late tbh.
Also, here is an image of the distance comparison between a perfect pivot and a dash>shield. The perfect pivot is a bit behind, but you can actually get 3 perfect pivots by the time you do 2 run> shields, and the 3 perfect pivots actually cover more distance in a quicker amount of time. This is also essential for a good reason. Getting to where your opponent WILL in the most fastest way is optimum if you want to cover their options.
I honestly feel like this is how we SHOULD be doing whenever we get the opponent in the air, and it can be easier on our side to get kills where we couldn't before. Constantly having the opponent in the air means them being in a bad position for much longer than usual, and being vulnerable to more damage, and the potential kill. Opponents can sometimes show their habits just by being in a disadvantageous state like this one, so use it well.
I'd like to hear your guys' opinion on this tho. I just thought about this
Example
What I did here was use all 3 of those movement techs to constantly stay directly below my opponent at all times. Why? Fox's fox trott, dash start distance and perfect pivot distance make it so easy for Fox to get from one side of the stage to the other with ease, and with a little practice, you can easily do this at least 85% of the time in both directions. I made some comparisons about certain movement techs and their uses, as well.
Catching Mario using run>shield
Looking at this first video, a lot of Foxes typically do this, including myself a while ago. Running up and shielding to where the opponent is currently at. However, the big issue I find with this is that, like you see in the video, it highly restricted movement, and the "stop and go" movement made it hard for me to actually catch up to Mario, and it made it harder for me to change direction quickly when I needed to, therefore I ended up missing most of my attempts to keep the CPU in the air.
Doing the same thing, but with PP Utilt
Now with this way, I was able to be more fluid with my movement. I was able to quick change direction whenever I needed to, and I was able to get to any point pretty quickly without stopping, honestly. It made it a lot faster to get to places in which my opponent will be and to cover the option with dash attack, a grab or a pp utilt. I believe that this can be a viable option to do as Fox, and I will talk more about the comparisons with the frame data we have.
Running and shielding
With this movement tech, you are running back and forth while shielding. However, the frame you input shield, and you actually have to wait 28 frames until you can input something else, which is actually kinda odd once you think about it, and doing that multiple times is restricting your movement imo. It is only really good for when your opponent is landing with an attack and you dash to where they are drifting to and shield their attack. It's not really a good way to follow your opponent, since you will end up delaying yourself due to the big delays after shielding (10 frames after inputting dash to shield, 11 frames of shielding, 7 frames of dropping shield), and this is just the minimum. I've been getting a few frames after that a lot, so you may hold yourself up even longer just by holding the button for a few more frames, which is more than possible.
Extended dash dancing
With this movement tech, you are basically just dashing back and forth. Pretty simple. As mentioned by Skarfelt in his movement video (posted in #resources . Highly recommend watching it), Fox cannot input another dash for 21 frames, but that means he can do another dash 7 frames faster than when doing run>shield. This keeps your movement more accurate so you can make sure that your opponent is right below you when doing. This is also super helpful, because you slide just a bit more when doing the dash start, and this might be able to give you the edge if someone is drifting, as you can followup with a pp utilt, which can easily catch their movement due to the big hitbox. Doing run>shield can potentially end up making you do utilt too late in order for you to cover an option properly (refer back to the video where I did this, and you would get my point).
Also, when it comes to travelling across the stage, I also did tests in which movement techs would be the fastest. It came to normal running taking 82 frames to reach one side of SV to the other, and fox trotting taking 94 frames, which is a 12 frame difference. However, run>shield took roughly 140 frames to get from one side of the stage to another, which is a massive difference.
It proves my point on how many frames you end up wasting just by doing that alone, because there really is no point in stopping yourself by using shield in order to change direction using shield, because you keep yourself stationary for almost half a second every time you do it. When the opponent is in the air, your goal as Fox is to pressure them with uairs and use his juggling skills to rank up percent or to get the kill. Fox's air speed is bad, so you need to use your movement to get to where your opponent will b. If you keep on shielding to change direction, you just give your opponent more frames to escape your pressure. Perfect pivoting comes in handy due to the fact that you can immediately act out of it, and I like to do it when the opponent is starting to get a bit closer to the ground. That way, I can react to whatever option they choose. If they attack, I can shield, and if they drift away from me, I like to do a foxtrott>pp utilt, because it covers quite a bit of distance, and you won't have to stay in shield... THEN do a utilt, which will most likely be too late tbh.
Also, here is an image of the distance comparison between a perfect pivot and a dash>shield. The perfect pivot is a bit behind, but you can actually get 3 perfect pivots by the time you do 2 run> shields, and the 3 perfect pivots actually cover more distance in a quicker amount of time. This is also essential for a good reason. Getting to where your opponent WILL in the most fastest way is optimum if you want to cover their options.
I honestly feel like this is how we SHOULD be doing whenever we get the opponent in the air, and it can be easier on our side to get kills where we couldn't before. Constantly having the opponent in the air means them being in a bad position for much longer than usual, and being vulnerable to more damage, and the potential kill. Opponents can sometimes show their habits just by being in a disadvantageous state like this one, so use it well.
I'd like to hear your guys' opinion on this tho. I just thought about this
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