Comparing nair and fair: help me rationalize what makes fair so dang good

[Othayuni]

Obviously, in a tactile sense, it's an amazing, irreplaceable move; rather different in purpose than its melee counterpart but nevertheless beloved in its new shape. What's been tickling my mind lately is that I'm trying to rationalize why it's so much better than nair most of the time. I had thought of fair as unbeatable in terms of speed but nair actually comes out a few frames faster, and of course does more damage. Nevertheless, upon examination, here are the advantages I can quantify with fair:

-MUCH quicker recovery; can make your next action much sooner, making it tighter guarded and giving it more combo potential
-Its exact knockback is extremely favorable to comboing in a way nair isn't
-It actually has better reach than nair
-Its hitbox is very accurate and flexible, and very easy/dependable to hit people with from a variety of angles of approach; nair's hitbox is finnicky
-It has a great auto cancel and can be shff'd with for 0 end lag for followups or tightly guarded attacks
-The quick recovery and/or canceling makes it even better at comboing with
-Priority? (I have no idea how the two compare)
-5 frames until the attack lands is still pretty instant
-Its input is more conducive to using while moving forward; carries momentum better

I don't mean to trash nair, it's a great, valuable move for when you need a sex kick or have a good shot you want to score a little extra damage on, or need the attack to come out truly immediately, and it fits better as a followup to certain combos. I'm just trying to rationalize why fair seems to be one of the nicest aerials in the game right now even after the damage nerf. I'm curious if anyone would like to back up my perception or add anything I didn't think of.

 

[Xeiros]

For me, to put it simply, Sheik's Fair is a solid move one can easily incorporate into a viable pool of attacking options in pretty much any match. I can't say the same about her Dair, but then again that's often most characters most punishable aerial.

This isn't a technical response, but a basic one. See, so long as a move isn't outright bad/risky/highly punishable what have you, it's worth using to at least some degree.

This is good for two reasons. First - Stale Move Negation. It's harder to keep your kill moves fresh while racking up solid damage at the same time if you choose only the very best attacks in her move pool while ignoring all the others regardless of their viability in certain situations.

Second, again even if it's not as useful as another move in your arsenal, the ability to vary your offense is vital to the mix-up game. You want to keep your opponent on their toes. The more options you've got, the more factors your opponent will have to account for.

That's a large part of every fight. You're each trying to overwhelm the other with the number of options you could perform while limiting one another at the same time. Don't limit your own options when you don't benefit in any way from doing so.

Unless again it's her Dair. **** that move. Why do so many characters have that ****** spear into the ground like a god ***** anvil complete with 10,000 years of landing recovery frames as their down aerial?

 

[Jackson]

Has anybody used Nair Oos in this game? It's a big deal in melee and I want to know if it's still worthwhile.

 

[Tristan_win]

This is good for two reasons. First - Stale Move Negation. It's harder to keep your kill moves fresh while racking up solid damage at the same time if you choose only the very best attacks in her move pool while ignoring all the others regardless of their viability in certain situations.

Normally I agree with this but the fact of the matter is Fair is no longer a kill move in Smash4 so you WANT to stale it as much as possible. With a very decay fair you be able to combo additional fairs together even longer and in higher percents then ever before which could allow you to follow up with a finisher like bouncing fish.

Has anybody used Nair Oos in this game? It's a big deal in melee and I want to know if it's still worthwhile.

Well we haven't gotten our frame data on jump yet but if it's still 5 frames then OoS nair would continue to be one of our fastest options at 7 frames. It's also extremely easy to do on a frame perfect level as you can buff the command while in shield stun. Anyways I have but not as much as I did in melee or brawl, in brawl I used it as a dependable kill option after 130-150ish%, run up, shield, full jump, OoS nair would great but due to it's massive knock back nerfs I've stop using it like this.

Still it should still be useful.

 

[Wasserwipf]

Adventages of Nair:
-Much longer lasting hitbox. This alone explains why this move is good.
->Edge guarding tool, keep that ledge occupied
->Aerial interruption, your timing can be way of and still hit (eg against airdodges)
->Drop on youre opponent from above (weak hit)
-->combos great into ground attacks, for some reason Nair->Dtilt works too often (and is my most used basic string)
->overall great for having a hitbox out as a pressure tool
-Weak hitbox is imo easier to get.
-Breaks out of combos, "get off me" move
-OoS Nair (see above...)
-Shield pokes

-It has a great auto cancel and can be shff'd with for 0 end lag for followups or tightly guarded attacks

I don't believe that until I see it.

@ Tristan_win Fair still kills. Offstage. At high %. But you know, we Sheik, we % high.
Never underrestimate your killing options. I have countless Fair and even Ftilt kills already.

 

[Tristan_win]

Adventages of Nair:
-Much longer lasting hitbox. This alone explains why this move is good.
->Edge guarding tool, keep that ledge occupied
->Aerial interruption, your timing can be way of and still hit (eg against airdodges)
->Drop on youre opponent from above (weak hit)
-->combos great into ground attacks, for some reason Nair->Dtilt works too often (and is my most used basic string)
->overall great for having a hitbox out as a pressure tool
-Weak hitbox is imo easier to get.
-Breaks out of combos, "get off me" move
-OoS Nair (see above...)
-Shield pokes

I don't believe that until I see it.

@ Tristan_win Fair still kills. Offstage. At high %. But you know, we Sheik, we % high.
Never underrestimate your killing options. I have countless Fair and even Ftilt kills already.

Hmmm, I know your right but when my opponent get's that high I'm no longer looking for the kill unless I'm losing and I'm afraid of a time out. Instead I try to just wait for them to mess up to allow me to hit them with anything. Even needles become dangerous to some extent once you get them over 150%, maybe not for killing for it gives you complete stage control if you hit them.

 

[Othayuni]

Adventages of Nair:
-Much longer lasting hitbox. This alone explains why this move is good.
->Edge guarding tool, keep that ledge occupied
->Aerial interruption, your timing can be way of and still hit (eg against airdodges)
->Drop on youre opponent from above (weak hit)
-->combos great into ground attacks, for some reason Nair->Dtilt works too often (and is my most used basic string)
->overall great for having a hitbox out as a pressure tool
-Weak hitbox is imo easier to get.
-Breaks out of combos, "get off me" move
-OoS Nair (see above...)
-Shield pokes

I don't believe that until I see it.

@ Tristan_win Fair still kills. Offstage. At high %. But you know, we Sheik, we % high.
Never underrestimate your killing options. I have countless Fair and even Ftilt kills already.

I agree, I'll definitely kill with fair. A lot of my fair kills are edge guarding kills. It takes forever to go edge-to-blast, but it can go offstage-to-blast at reasonable %s. It can be a little easier to aim than bair for that purpose, though of course bair hits a lot harder.

I really enjoy the examination of when nair's the best. I actually started this thread because I wanted someone to validate my perception that fair is awesome (or tell me I'm crazy and that it sucks), but I think I came in here with so much nice to say about fair in the context of "is this correct?" that it sounded like I was asking what's so great about nair instead. Nevertheless, I'm learning a lot of great perspective on nair here so that's awesome too. I'm still inviting people to tell me "yes, you're not crazy, fair is awesome". I won't forget that nair is awesome too. Promise!

As for autocanceling! In the quite reasonable spirit of "believe it when I see it", I decided to film it...sort of.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j50YQrEshtY&feature=youtu.be

Okay, this is a very poorly shot video. In lieu of a third hand, I had to kind of prop my phone up and run the camera while holding the DS in front of it in a way that it sort of looked like the camera was capturing correctly. The result is that the bottom of the screen often kind of gets clipped off. But here's what I see:

Three animations:
Empty short hop: Sheik lands with a slight bend of her knees and guards her arms in front of herself. Can shield instantly.

Fair autocancel: Sheik lands with a more pronounced bend of her knees and guards her arms in front of herself. Can shield almost instantly.*

Fair standard lag: Sheik lands and has to crouch and catch herself with a hand on the ground before standing back up. Can shield after a short moment.

*All aerials use this animation if they land after their standard lag window has finished, and it's the same animation as landing from an empty full jump. Fair's special quality is that it can get this "standard" landing animation even off of short hop tech or otherwise used very low to the ground. To me, the standard nature of this landing animation, and its incredibly quick recovery, affirms that this is an autocancel.

So maybe it's not "0" ending lag since it looks like there's a very short delay, but it looks between 1 and 5 frames to me, and to treat the landing the same as if you'd just landed from a high jump, compared to the full 10-frame ending lag. It seems to treat it the same as though you'd just landed from an empty high jump. I also tossed in a nair land-to-shield so there's a benchmark for what 10 frames looks like.

@ Tristan_win Just wanted to say I -love- the effect even a single needle has on getting someone off their feet at high %s and I'm right there with you.

@ Jackson I'll experiment with the OoS nair buffer just for you. My initial impression on NPCs is that it works and is a great tech I should've known about, but I'll let you know when I've done it more on players!

@ X Xeiros I use dair, actually. It'd be more useful for its meteor qualities if it didn't spear, but the spearing effect adds a tool to our arsenal for regaining footing when we're being juggled, either to punish openings they make from the ground or slip past them if they're coming up high. I've gotten some kills by zipping down past people and knocking them skyward on my way to the ground. I've even figured out how to meteor smash with it, but it's not as convenient as if it didn't spear, I admit.

 

[NairWizard]

f-air is good because of its advantage on shield. If you don't perfect shield it, Sheik can still get in an attack before you can unshield and respond, and it isn't shield-grabbable when properly spaced. N-air does not offer the same frame advantage. If you n-air into my shield I will eat you for breakfast before you can get out that d-tilt/f-tilt/roll.

d-air is really bad, and good opponents won't fall for it

 

[Othayuni]

f-air is good because of its advantage on shield. If you don't perfect shield it, Sheik can still get in an attack before you can unshield and respond, and it isn't shield-grabbable when properly spaced. N-air does not offer the same frame advantage. If you n-air into my shield I will eat you for breakfast before you can get out that d-tilt/f-tilt/roll.

d-air is really bad, and good opponents won't fall for it

Right on--I agree upon examination that the safety (recovery time, convenient autocancel window) of fair makes a big difference for making it a guarded attack.

I won't ever categorically trash dair, though! I don't like giving up on any moves a character has as useless. It seems like a waste of potential. Every move has something it can do. Right now I'm getting a lot of use out of it as, with discretion, an air to ground punish and a foothold reclaimer. We'll see how that evolves over time.

 

[Tristan_win]

~kicks down the door~

I'm hijacking this thread. sort of, not really.

After many hours of testing in training mode here are the results I got while testing Nair into Bouncing fish. These all show up as combo's. Future testing with DI is needed to help confirm if this can be a true combo.

EDIT: Made a thread testing with DI
http://smashboards.com/threads/bouncing-sushi-weak-nair-into-bouncing-fish-combo.386688/


I also tested to see Nair weak hit knock back with rage
Sheik 0%, Mario 0%
25KB
Sheik 100%, Mario 0%
27KB
Sheik 150%, Mario 0%
29KB

Weak hit nair has like no rage effect, it might change 1 to maybe 2% max.

I also confirm that Sheik Nair no longer gets weaker with time. It also has 3 hit boxes

Strong hit box, 8%
Weak hit box, 5%
Backwards weak hit box, 4%
edit: There's also a backwards strong hitbox that does 7%. Thank you Lavani <3
The backward weak hit box is behind sheik and it has 1 less KB then normal.

If you want even better results then what's listed the key is to connect the nair as close to the ground as possible. This will give you the extra time needed to follow up into BF. Doing things like short hop, rising nair to close the distance only to hit them with the weak nair will lead to Bouncing fish combos.

Right now it looks to be even in killing percents.

 

[Othayuni]

~kicks down the door~

I'm hijacking this thread. sort of, not really.

After many hours of testing in training mode here are the results I got while testing Nair into Bouncing fish. These all show up as combo's. Future testing with DI is needed to help confirm if this can be a true combo.

Incomplete

Spoiler

| Point blank Fast fall, weak Nair at their top standing height
Mario | 100-135
Luigi | 100-130
Peach | 95-125
Yoshi | 100-135
Bowser | 95-145
Rosalina | She so tall.
Bowser Jr | 95-145
Wario | 100-150
Game and watch | 75-120
DK | 110-155
Diddy Kong | 90-145
Link | 105-145
Zelda | 90-130
Sheik | 90-130
Ganondorft |
Toon link | 90-125
Samus |
Zero suit Samus | 100-130
Dedede | 115-165
Lucario | 100-145
Greeninja | 95-135
Little mac | 95-135
meta knight |
Kirby | 80-115
Robin | 95-145
Ike |
Marth |
Palutena |
Pit |
ROB | 95-150
Duck Hunt Dog | 85-140
Jigglypuff | 75-105
Charizard | 105-145
Pikachu | 85-125
Falco | 100-130
Fox | 90-130
Ness | 90-130
Captain Falcon | 110-155
Villager |
Olimar |
Wii Fit Trainer |
Shulk |
Pac Man |
Mega man |
Sonic | 95-140

I also tested to see Nair weak hit knock back with rage
Sheik 0%, Mario 0%
25KB
Sheik 100%, Mario 0%
27KB
Sheik 150%, Mario 0%
29KB

Weak hit nair has like no rage effect, it might change 1 to maybe 2% max.

I also confirm that Sheik Nair no longer gets weaker with time. It also has 3 hit boxes

Strong hit box, 8%
Weak hit box, 5%
Backwards weak hit box, 4%

The backward weak hit box is behind sheik and it has 1 less KB then normal.

If you want even better results then what's listed the key is to connect the nair as close to the ground as possible. This will give you the extra time needed to follow up into BF. Doing things like short hop, rising nair to close the distance only to hit them with the weak nair will lead to Bouncing fish combos.

Right now it looks to be even in killing percents.

Holy heck, that is LIT. That's an amazing combo I didn't know we had. I can't wait to use this more. Fair appears to have the same true combo in to fish effect at about a third the % weak nair does, and strong Nair around 2/3rds, so we can do this combo at a lot of different %s if we know which to use. Also, with a short dash, you can keep the weak nair combo going until much higher %s, though I don't think it's a true combo then (but might still be great).

I should probably retitle this thread as a more general discussion of nair and fair.

 

[Lavani]

Strong hit box, 8%
Weak hit box, 5%
Backwards weak hit box, 4%

The backward weak hit box is behind sheik and it has 1 less KB then normal.

There's also a backwards strong hitbox that does 7%.

 

[Tristan_win]

There's also a backwards strong hitbox that does 7%.

Lavani, I love every single post I've seen from you.

 

[Virgman]

~kicks down the door~

I'm hijacking this thread. sort of, not really.

After many hours of testing in training mode here are the results I got while testing Nair into Bouncing fish. These all show up as combo's. Future testing with DI is needed to help confirm if this can be a true combo.

Incomplete

Spoiler

| Point blank Fast fall, weak Nair at their top standing height
Mario | 100-135
Luigi | 100-130
Peach | 95-125
Yoshi | 100-135
Bowser | 95-145
Rosalina | She so tall.
Bowser Jr | 95-145
Wario | 100-150
Game and watch | 75-120
DK | 110-155
Diddy Kong | 90-145
Link | 105-145
Zelda | 90-130
Sheik | 90-130
Ganondorft |
Toon link | 90-125
Samus |
Zero suit Samus | 100-130
Dedede | 115-165
Lucario | 100-145
Greeninja | 95-135
Little mac | 95-135
meta knight |
Kirby | 80-115
Robin | 95-145
Ike |
Marth |
Palutena |
Pit |
ROB | 95-150
Duck Hunt Dog | 85-140
Jigglypuff | 75-105
Charizard | 105-145
Pikachu | 85-125
Falco | 100-130
Fox | 90-130
Ness | 90-130
Captain Falcon | 110-155
Villager |
Olimar |
Wii Fit Trainer |
Shulk |
Pac Man |
Mega man |
Sonic | 95-140

I also tested to see Nair weak hit knock back with rage
Sheik 0%, Mario 0%
25KB
Sheik 100%, Mario 0%
27KB
Sheik 150%, Mario 0%
29KB

Weak hit nair has like no rage effect, it might change 1 to maybe 2% max.

I also confirm that Sheik Nair no longer gets weaker with time. It also has 3 hit boxes

Strong hit box, 8%
Weak hit box, 5%
Backwards weak hit box, 4%

The backward weak hit box is behind sheik and it has 1 less KB then normal.

If you want even better results then what's listed the key is to connect the nair as close to the ground as possible. This will give you the extra time needed to follow up into BF. Doing things like short hop, rising nair to close the distance only to hit them with the weak nair will lead to Bouncing fish combos.

Right now it looks to be even in killing percents.

@ Tristan_win you have definitely earned your pat on the head. Nice research.

 

[Nova The Silly One]

Nair out of shield is legit, because it hits on both sides