Airdodging is too good of an option

[leesinger]

title says it all. In its current state, airdodging is too safe and too spammable. this applies to online and offline play, competetive and for glory. For those who aren't aware, in its current form its possible to airdodge and then buffer another airdodge as soon as you can for almost perma invincibility in the air. The time frame for you to punish this option is.......

5 frames. Thats right, 1/12 of a second for you to punish this option. Ever wonder why its so hard and annoying fighting a lvl 50 amiibo or lvl 9 cpu? They have frame perfect airdodges and you have to be able to punish them in 1/12 of a second. This option needs to be nerfed, hard.

 

[Master Raven]

You think it's bad in this game? I can't imagine how you'd react to Brawl air dodges.

 

[Pegasus Knight]

Balancing competitive design around what frame-perfect computers can do all the time with no effort is silly.

You can bait out air dodges and have a lingering hitbox waiting for them as they descend. Lots of top players do this.

 

[Xermo]

Play brawl sometime.

 

[LancerStaff]

Thing is that the game is indeed balanced for them... There's tons of great Uairs in the game and plenty of projectiles that move upwards. Nerf airdodges and all of a sudden our top tiers get even better since it's easier for them to get kills.

 

[smokebomb12]

Its not OP, cause it can be punished and attacks with many HBs punish them well.

 

[1FC0]

AD's are not that bad. You can bait them and then hit your opponent. And if you land while using an AD you get a lot of lag so close to the ground AD's can be very unsafe.

 

[leesinger]

I never said they were unbeatable, but they are still too good of an option. When I'm in tourney and i bait someone to airdodge and then miss my attack because they do another one and can get away with it because of the 5 frame window it makes me annoyed. It could use to lose a few of the invincibility frames.

 

[Mo433]

Air dodges are good, but if you learn people's habits/patterns it can become really dangerous to do. It becomes even more dangerous if you do it close to the ground.

I haven't had too many cases of where air dodging feels too powerful, so maybe that's why I don't feel like they are that bad.

 

[1FC0]

I never said they were unbeatable, but they are still too good of an option. When I'm in tourney and i bait someone to airdodge and then miss my attack because they do another one and can get away with it because of the 5 frame window it makes me annoyed. It could use to lose a few of the invincibility frames.

Maybe you should use R.O.B. His Upair often makes it pretty easy to bait and punish ADs because it is multihit.

 

[FallofBrawl]

Airdodges this game are probably the worst it's ever been. In Brawl there is no landing lag when you AD near the ground, and in Melee it gives you options like wavedashing/landng, recovery. Literally the only game where you don't want to airdodge to the ground lol.

 

[Wintropy]

Treat it as a double-edged sword for your opponent: if they airdodge so consistently because they know you can't exploit it, they will keep doing it. You need to condition them to airdodge on reaction and then punish them for it. Airdodges are very easy to read and, while the window of opportunity to strike between dodges is indeed tiny, you can very easily exploit it with an aerial move that maintains a hitbox for some time (e.g. Pit and R.O.B.'s n-air).

If you know your opponent is going to do it, then it's clear they're comfortable with the option. If you can take advantage of that comfort and force them to adapt, you can catch them at their own game. Airdodges are definitely a good option in this game, but they can be trumped if you put your mind to it. Instead of focusing on how good the option is, then, just work to defeat it!

 

[Raijinken]

The timing is consistent. You can only miss the punish if you were either out of position for it, weren't sufficiently conscious of your own hitbox timing, or just flat mis-timed the punish.

Seriously, I've managed to convince some of the best people I play with that airdodging is suicidal. You just have to time the punish. For Luigi, just use nair. It lasts for a very long time.

 

[Ghostbone]

Play brawl sometime.

You think it's bad in this game? I can't imagine how you'd react to Brawl air dodges.

Lmao wut

Brawl air-dodges have like a 24 frame punish window in the air, and they started up 1-2 frames slower than Smash 4 air-dodges, they're super easy to bait out and punish. LANDING with air-dodge is a really good option in brawl, but only because you bypass the endlag. In Smash 4, it's the reverse. Air-dodge > air-dodge/aerial is super potent in this game because air-dodges have no endlag, but you never want to land with air-dodge.

Air-dodges are meta defining, if your character can't deal with air-dodges with lingering hitboxes or enough aerial mobility to chase, you're going to be a bad character. We only don't think air-dodges are ****ing dumb because all the top tiers are characters who can easily deal with air-dodges (Sheik has like 3 lingering hitboxes, most top tiers have amazing aerial mobility)
They could easily get an extra 5 frames of endlag + 1 extra frame of startup and still be better than their Brawl counterpart, but be much more balanced with more characters being able to reliably punish them.

 

[san.]

2 Frame air dodges are too good. I would like it to go back to 4 frame startup like the previous games or just have everyone at 3, and possibly 2 frames less invincibility at the end. ~9-10 frames of vulnerability makes sense compared to like 6. This is different than rolls where the frame data is okay, but the distance is too much for the quicker ones.

 

[FallenHero]

I think the thing that makes airdoding too good of an option is that a lot of moves don't have enough hitstun to make it so that good DI is the only possible way to escape follow ups.

 

[Kaladin]

I never said they were unbeatable, but they are still too good of an option. When I'm in tourney and i bait someone to airdodge and then miss my attack because they do another one and can get away with it because of the 5 frame window it makes me annoyed. It could use to lose a few of the invincibility frames.

That means you need to git gud. If you bait the thing, if you have timing, you can punish the thing. Easily.

 

[san.]

Lmao wut

Brawl air-dodges have like a 24 frame punish window in the air, and they started up 1-2 frames slower than Smash 4 air-dodges, they're super easy to bait out and punish. LANDING with air-dodge is a really good option in brawl, but only because you bypass the endlag. In Smash 4, it's the reverse. Air-dodge > air-dodge/aerial is super potent in this game because air-dodges have no endlag, but you never want to land with air-dodge.

Air-dodges are meta defining, if your character can't deal with air-dodges with lingering hitboxes or enough aerial mobility to chase, you're going to be a bad character. We only don't think air-dodges are ****ing dumb because all the top tiers are characters who can easily deal with air-dodges (Sheik has like 3 lingering hitboxes, most top tiers have amazing aerial mobility)
They could easily get an extra 5 frames of endlag + 1 extra frame of startup and still be better than their Brawl counterpart, but be much more balanced with more characters being able to reliably punish them.

This, and in Smash 4 you can just air dodge and slide off a platform or stage and be 100% fine as well. In Brawl, only air dodging on the ground level was safe. If you air dodged on a platform, you could get edge slipped if you weren't careful, even from shield.

 

[Emblem Lord]

It is indeed meta defining and one of the main things separating strong characters from weak ones.

As a Ryu main I laugh with glee when someone airdodges, but if you play say Bowser or Zelda then I can understand your frustration.

 

[teluoborg]

Airdodges aren't more meta defining than shields, people just need to learn what zoning is and stop positioning themselves poorly.

 

[leesinger]

Airdodges aren't more meta defining than shields, people just need to learn what zoning is and stop positioning themselves poorly.

Shields are far more easily punished than airdodges and can be punished by any character. As others have said charachters that don't have aerials that are multihit get shut down by airdodges. Also sheilding can lead to heavy heavy punishes from grabs,shieldbreaks, etc. Also regarding your last point about poor positioning, I agree, people should get punished for poor positioning, which is why airdodging frames should be nerfed, in there current state you can get away with having terrible positioning in the air and off stage and get away scott free. Airdodging shouldn't come out on frame 2 and it should have invincibility frames reduced. Something like 10 frames of vulnerability after an airdodge would be just fine with me.

 

[teluoborg]

When I said positioning I didn't mean that. Let me explain :
in a juggle situation any character with a fast aerial (frame 7 or less) can force a 50/50 airdodge just by getting in range of their aerial, and that range can be increased by their jump/second jump height. If you are in the burst range of your aerial then your opponent can't react to it, so he has to guess if you're going to use it or not. From that point you have 50% change of hitting your opponent, and that percentage can be changed with conditioning and mindgames.
Now if you do that and syncronize your fall with your opponent's you can either use your aerial before he airdodges or wait until he airdodges and punish. And if your aerial has low endlag or is a multihit you can cover 100% of the options of your opponent.

There you have it, with basic zoning you can beat airdodges and you don't need a multihit, just good positioning.

PS : stop saying things like "Airdodging shouldn't come out on frame 2 and it should have invincibility frames reduced.". Sakurai doesn't come here, nobody you will talk to has the power to change anything the game so it has no use beside making you look entitled.

 

[NotAnAdmin]

Baiting and frame traps all day.
Get with the program.

Most characters have attacks that come out very quickly and may auto-cancel, or has a move the has a lingering hitbox
I catch air-dodgers with Falco's bair all the time, the recovery frames in between each AD are long enough.
I've even tried these on CPU's that do the frame perfect airdodges when trying to recover to the stage, and I still catch them. It's a matter of using the correct aerials and your spacing. Also your timing has to be spot-on.

 

[Scootch]

I do not think it has to be nerfed. I think amiibo have to be nerfed to not do frame perfect airdodges/spotdodges and doing more damage than players/CPUs.

 

[DunnoBro]

There just need to be harder, more consistent punishes for air dodging as a whole. High tiers give you a reason to not air dodge because they can kill you at 50% if they read it.

But other characters just lack the option coverage for it to matter. Like, even some that can punish air dodges don't do it very hard so it doesn't scare the opponent off doing it again aside from "Oh man I don't wanna get read tho"

 

[Snackss]

The game is and has been played around airdodges for months, they aren't safe at all against most characters and countless games at major tournaments have been lost due to bad or baited airdodges. I don't know why there are still people who think they're "overpowered."

Okay maybe Ness's is a little silly sometimes.

 

[DunnoBro]

Ness's air dodge actually is the only one I'd consider overpowered.

 

[Scootch]

I agree. Airdodging is not OP

 

[ArikadoSD]

I don't think its airdodging as much as most moves having very little hitstun, honestly. Either way, it blows.

Ness's air dodge actually is the only one I'd consider overpowered.

what sets it apart?

 

[TurboLink]

I don't think its airdodging as much as most moves having very little hitstun, honestly. Either way, it blows.

what sets it apart?

Yah, what does set it apart?

And I thought the hitstun in Smash 4 was the same as Melee's hitstun and that too much knockback was the problem. :/

 

[Axel311]

Honestly I think a universal nerf to airdodge, shield and spotdodge would be amazing for this game. Add more frames of lag to all dodges, make shields regen slower.

 

[Snackss]

Honestly I think a universal nerf to airdodge, shield and spotdodge would be amazing for this game. Add more frames of lag to all dodges, make shields regen slower.

How does this not just further screw over characters like Bowser and Samus?

 

[DunnoBro]

what sets it apart?

He has more mobility while in the air dodge than most characters + the best options out of it. (Bair/Nair/Uair)

It makes it so you gotta make 2 reads off every air dodge instead of just one, essentially.

 

[FLYING 7UR7LE]

It is indeed meta defining and one of the main things separating strong characters from weak ones.

As a Ryu main I laugh with glee when someone airdodges, but if you play say Bowser or Zelda then I can understand your frustration.

Zelda and internet browser both have lingering neutral airs.

 

[Emblem Lord]

Neither one of them is killing off an airdodge cept off a bait. Ryu does not need a bait. If he forces an airdodge near the ground, its over.

 

[Gawain]

Airdodges are honestly kind of garbage in this game. Pretty much everyone can hard punish them, lots of character like Falcon will straight up kill people who airdodge at the wrong times. It's almost always better in actual competent play to just double jump out.

 

[FallenHero]

I think the amount of lag and knockback a lot of moves have in this game give the illusion that airdodges are too good. I think if they reduce one of those two for moves that that may have too much of it too be able to be useful at all it would be a lot better than nerfing air dodging.

 

[Shadow_13]

I watch a lot of airdodging in competitive play. It's in For Glory where I see people abusing it and being punished for doing so. I know nerfing airdodges a bit would increase the "OP-ness" of the top tier characters, but I think it would give all the other characters a lot more of a chance to be better AND be able to take on some of the top tiers in the air. I honestly wish airdodging was a huge commitment. Not detrimental like Melee (If we don't count any L-Cancel, Shift, Z or Item Cancel, or some other tech), but something that would not instantly give you an advantage over even the quickest of whifs.

 

[FallenHero]

I think increasing the amount of cooldown in between airdodges could be increased, so that it was not something you can just spam to avoid getting hit.

 

[Ze Diglett]

No. Airdodge baiting is a thing for pretty much every character (especially those with lingering aerial hitboxes), and airdodging even remotely close to the ground is death when you're up against any character with even average punish ability.
Of course, it's no wonder you think airdodging needs to be nerfed. You're judging it by what level 9's/amiibo can do with it! You said it yourself, they have frame-perfect reactions, so of course they're just going to airdodge everything. In an actual match, continuously airdodging to the ground will get you killed.