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Consistent Bomb Jumping

SYickX

Smash Cadet
Joined
Dec 17, 2010
Messages
66
Location
Buffalo, NY
Bomb jumping is dependent on the following:
1: Stale moves
2: Which hitbox hits the bomb
3: Link's position relative to the explosion
4: DI and SDI


1: Stale moves in Melee is a list that holds at most 10 attacks. For each appearance on the list, a move deals less damage.
A move is added to the Stale List whenever it does damage (this includes the secondary Ice Climber).

For bomb jumping, Link's spin attack must not appear on the list even once. That means, if you did damage with up-b in any way (grounded, any hitbox of aerial, teammate, opponent) then you must deal damage 10 times with other moves before bomb jumping is possible again. Bombs don't count because they are items independent of Link. Link merely spawns the bombs instead of the game spawning the item. Arrows and boomerangs do work because they are specifically tied to Link.
You do not deal damage to bombs, so hitting them does not stale, nor refresh a move.
Death clears the Stale List, so your spin attack is fresh when you begin a stock.
Hitting shields does not count as doing damage, so it doesn't count for stale moves.

2: You must hit the bomb with the hitbox on/near Link's head. You can see it in Link's frame data.

3: For maximum distance, you want the bomb to land just behind Link's head relative to the stage so it propels him toward the stage.

4: DI and SDI toward the stage, or where ever you feel gives you the best chance to live.

Sad thing:

If your opponent jumps into the weak hit(s) of your spin attack while attempting a bomb jump, it will fail. This happens because stale moves are evaluated on hit, not after the move is over. You can see the by hitting multiple opponents with a single move on different frames.

Tips for making it to the stage:

Thanks to Thor for pointing out that all projectiles can throw off the bomb's trajectory, ruining your bomb jump. Be mindful of your opponent's projectiles, including both lasers, needles, turnips, etc. Other Link players (not necessarily mains) will be especially conscious of anti-bomb jump techniques.

Try setting up your bomb jump closer to the ledge so you can choose between going directly do the ledge or hitting your bomb. This way, if your opponent tries to intercept the bomb in some way, you should have a free path to the ledge and a possible edgeguard. If they take ledge, you can bomb jump to the stage and tech away from them.

Don't always use the bomb jump as a last resort. We know how to do it consistently now, so add it to you usual recovery patterns. FoD, FD and DL have ample space to do multiple bomb jumps from near the upper corners, but don't kill yourself off the top.

Stale Moves Addendum:

By squirrels4ev, his tag is Petalchaser (my edits in brackets, some extraneous information deleted)-

1.) There is no limit to the number of times the same type of attack (such as nair or dsmash) can appear on the Stale List [until the move completely fills all ten slots in the list].

2.) Multi-hitbox moves, such as upsmash, bair, upB, and dsmash only go on the Stale List once per input, even if multiple hitboxes make contact and deal damage more than once. This is easy to test on Bowser by getting the double hit of bair on him 5 times after hitting him with upB once. Even though you've dealt 10 increments of damage to him of around 4-7% each hit depending on the staleness of bair, you've only used 5 moves in the eyes of the Stale List. If you try to bomb jump here, it won't work.

3.) Grabbing does not deal damage, and therefore doesn't occupy a spot on the list, but it should be noted that pummels and throws do not count as multiple hitboxes dealing damage from the same grab. This means that if you grab->pummel->pummel->uthrow, that you're going to fill 3 slots on the Stale List (with pummel, pummel, and uthrow).

4.) Although you cannot see the AI controlled Ice Climber's percentage, if you hit the AI climber with a move without hitting the human, you have still dealt damage and the move will go on the stale list.

5.) Hitting both Ice Climbers with the same move is comparable to the situation described in part 2 of this post. Although the same move has dealt damage more than once, it is still only one move and still only goes on the Stale List once.
 
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Bravo_10

Smash Apprentice
Joined
Oct 2, 2013
Messages
111
Location
Atlanta, GA
He's telling the truth about that last part. Dude jumped into my up-B when I was bomb jumping during a friendly yesterday. I think he wound up just smacking into the bomb too? Troll move, but effective. Kinda like jumping offstage and intentionally getting hit by a green missile to halt it in its tracks.
 

Thor

Smash Champion
Joined
Sep 26, 2013
Messages
2,009
Location
UIUC [school year]. MN [summer]
He's telling the truth about that last part. Dude jumped into my up-B when I was bomb jumping during a friendly yesterday. I think he wound up just smacking into the bomb too? Troll move, but effective. Kinda like jumping offstage and intentionally getting hit by a green missile to halt it in its tracks.
Although both of these were in PM, I've had a Ness use PK Thunder on my bomb and a Yoshi egg my bomb to break it. I've also had a Fox shoot the bomb and a Sheik needle the bomb.

So it may be worth adding to the guide that you should do this with the enemy in mind - go high vs Sheik with this (or hope they miss their needles - unlikely though...), go very low vs Fox/Falco (So they can't laser the bomb) and position based on your opponent's other projectiles (those are the most notable ones).
 

squirrels4ev

Smash Apprentice
Joined
Jul 16, 2011
Messages
85
Location
Eugene, OR
More information about the Stale List:
1.) There is no limit to the number of times the same type of attack (such as nair or dsmash) can appear on the Stale List. This wasn't clear from the first time reading this so I hopped on my setup to test it out.
2.) Multi-hitbox moves, such as upsmash, bair, upB, and dsmash only go on the Stale List once per input, even if multiple hitboxes make contact and deal damage more than once. This is easy to test on Bowser by getting the double hit of bair on him 5 times after hitting him with upB once. Even though you've dealt 10 increments of damage to him of around 4-7% each hit depending on the staleness of bair, you've only used 5 moves in the eyes of the Stale List. If you try to bomb jump here, it won't work.
3.) Grabbing does not deal damage, and therefore doesn't occupy a spot on the list, but it should be noted that pummels and throws do not count as multiple hitboxes dealing damage from the same grab. This means that if you grab->pummel->pummel->uthrow, that you're going to fill 3 slots on the Stale List (with pummel, pummel, and uthrow).
4.) Although you cannot see the AI controlled Ice Climber's percentage, if you hit the AI climber with a move without hitting the human, you have still dealt damage and the move will go on the stale list.
5.) Hitting both Ice Climbers with the same move is comparable to the situation described in part 2 of this post. Although the same move has dealt damage more than once, it is still only one move and still only goes on the Stale List once.

More things I want to test but can't right now:
1.) In teams, if a single move, such as a nair, contacts multiple targets, be they 2 opponents, an opponent and a teammate, or 2 opponents and a teammate, will it go on the Stale List more than once? I suspect not, given how the Stale List interacts with Ice Climbers, but it would be interesting to know.
2.) Do phantom hits go on the Stale List? I suspect so, given that they deal damage, but I'm not so sure on this one. It's not a common enough occurrence for me to attempt to test, but I'm still curious.
 
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