[Answered] Edge guarding with Fire Blade?

[McDeathstrider]

How effective of an edge guard is Fire Blade? Or is it only a bait and punish kind of move? I've only used it against characters who have counters, and wait for the counter frames to end.

 

[Nintendo Alian]

Well Roy doesn't have the best recovery then he can get gimped and lose a stock. You can try for a drop zone Blade if you know you know you can recover.

 

[Seraphim.]

Flare blade is only a good ledge guard option if your opponent regrabs the ledge for whatever reason, it doesn't hit under the ledge like Ike's eruption.

Roy covers ledge options extremely well anyways so it's not a huge loss.

 

[Meta_X]

Given its large hitbox and very low endlag it can be pretty good offstage in my experience.

Also if you can somehow read a jump getup then with good timing you can easily nail them right as they come up. (I'm not really sure how but sometimes I can just read a jump getup a second in advance)

I also like jumping towards my recovering opponent as if to attack (hopefully to bait an airdodge) but wavebouncing back onto the stage to catch them off-guard with a slightly-charged blast.

 

[ArcanaXIII]

I've personally found it to be pretty good at the ledge when your opponent's going for a ledge snap. It can sort of be used like Ike's because of it's big hitbox. You don't really lose anything from missing the hit cause of its low end lag.

 

[ShiroSSB]

Depends on how good you time it. You could be one frame off and they'll get those ledge invincibility frames.

 

[Jamble]

It's a great edgeguarding tool. If you feel gutsy and pursue offstage, landing a flare blade is pretty much a guaranteed kill. On-stage, what's great about it is that it's good bait, and one a recovering opponent really is forced to respond to. Because of its low ending lag, you can pretty much immediately follow up with other options, making it a very low risk, yet high reward tool in your kit.

 

[ArikadoSD]

^ what he said. I've found that using it to cover ledge getup/jump is really effective. If you mistime it then you have a good chance of going unpunished because of the move's nonexistent lag. If they roll then you have time to shield/spotdodge/possibly punish. Its a good bait.

 

[Solutionme]

Lot of options for onstage edgeguarding with it. If you know how to space it right and assuming you get enough time to charge it to get more range, then you cover three options easily. Even if you don't hit them you can always throw out another flare blade, tech chase, etc. etc., typical onstage edgeguard scenarios but with insane pressure. You can also use double-edge dance right after it to put out lots of hitboxes. For offstage, it's the best edgeguarding option when going farther out due to the lack of endlag, it's even good for juking them and getting back on stage with a reversal, only to ledge trump them or fall down and stage spike them with blazer or some other move, preferably blazer. Point is, use it as much as possible, you can always use flare blade to d-smash to cover two options after letting it go, or shield and if they get up or get-up attack, use blazer OoS to kill them or grab the ledge quickly after using it. To be honest, this move really isn't for baiting in the long run because a well timed perfect shield or the lack of sufficient charge makes it a bit useless for that.