Dancing Blade and its Uses

[wizardto1]

I'll be honest, I don't know how to use Dancing Blade. Like every time I tried it, I can do the two neutral hits with the occasional up hit. But I never really get its uses as well. So could you help me with why I should use it and help me with the button inputs.

 

[Kidney Thief]

Sometimes I'll use the first hit of it in the air and I'll follow it up with a fair because I find that it comes out quickly

 

[Satan-]

I've actually been using it a lot and with great success. I played 220 for glory matches exclusively with marth and lost only 11 so I can say that DB is working for me at least.

I usually just use it as a cross up. Someone will be guarding and I run past there shield and DB towards them. A solid mixup from the usual pivot grab.

 

[BBC7]

I wouldn't go too crazy with the Dance Blade around characters that can hitstun cancel, which are Mega Man and Diddy so far. I don't play Marth, but I do play Mega Man and you really don't want to have an attack that's essentially a guaranteed whiff if the opponent knows what they are doing. I played Marth players that used the Dancing Blade against me, it didn't go well for them since they gave me all that extra time to reposition and get myself out of Marth's danger zone.

 

[Xinc]

You should use DB mainly as a punish (approach works but it's risky). There's a timing. Like the time it takes for you to bit your lower lip slightly, but faster. Bad explaining, but think of it as slightly slower than Brawl's, and a little more like Melee's

 

[ClickDecision]

I've actually been using it a lot and with great success. I played 220 for glory matches exclusively with marth and lost only 11 so I can say that DB is working for me at least.

I usually just use it as a cross up. Someone will be guarding and I run past there shield and DB towards them. A solid mixup from the usual pivot grab.

Hey how do you even do the pivot grab? the ftilt seems to come out every time I attempt it despite me trying to vary up the timing/letting the circle pad return to neutral. : /

Edit: wait I think I'm getting it. looks like you just have to do it rapidly. I think.

 

[BBC7]

Hey how do you even do the pivot grab? the ftilt seems to come out every time I attempt it despite me trying to vary up the timing/letting the circle pad return to neutral. : /

Don't just turn the Control Stick the opposite direction, jam it the opposite direction. You need to turn around quickly which requires a quicker motion than usual.

 

[ClickDecision]

Don't just turn the Control Stick the opposite direction, jam it the opposite direction. You need to turn around quickly which requires a quicker motion than usual.

as soon as I was typing my edit I got an alert haha xD but yeah alright I just wasn't doing it quick enough

thanks ^

 

[Satan-]

Hey how do you even do the pivot grab? the ftilt seems to come out every time I attempt it despite me trying to vary up the timing/letting the circle pad return to neutral. : /

Edit: wait I think I'm getting it. looks like you just have to do it rapidly. I think.

Yeah I can do pivot grabs consistently. Literally the first thing I did when I got the game was go in training mode and memorize Marth's tipper range and then practice pivot grabs and pivot FSmash.

Once you get used to it, it's pretty easy to do.

 

[HiImBleep]

I've been messing around with using only the first hit of dancing blade from short hop as a combo starter. My main experience with fighting games is in Street Fighter/Tekken, so sorry if I get some of the Smash slang incorrect.

Short hopping into the first hit of dancing blade seems to set up combos once you have gotten some percentage on the other player. The first swing perfectly sets up nair and up air to auto-cancel upon hitting the ground due to it only being out for a small number of frames. Depending on the other character/percentage/your percentage/move freshness/vectoring/etc you can follow up short hop side b, nair into tilts, jabs, full dancing blade and possibly smashes. This isn't as good as short hop double fair or anything, but it could open up more possibilities for Marth. You can also use the first hit of dancing blade to meet an opponent in the air and link it into fair/up air depending on their positioning.

I haven't fully confirmed any of this, but I thought I would throw it out there so the better players can try and come up with something using it. Here are a couple of quick gifs against a level 9 Mario. It's not the best way to show off the possibilities, but it was a quick way to get some footage. Unfortunately I'm blocked from linking the webm versions because I'm new!

Short hop side b, nair, up tilt:

Short hop side b, nair, forward smash:

You can see I'm a bit slow with the forward smash here, it might have been possible to have air dodge out of it. I tested against a level 9 ai in training, which usually dodges or jumps out of this if I mistime it. I think it's possible to land a smash using this under the right conditions, but I didn't capture a good example of it.

 

[Satan-]

That's very interesting. I'm definitely going to incorporate that into my game.

I've also been practicing and now using run past shield pivot tipper shield breaker. Can't tell you guys how many shields I've broken.

People usually see the regular shield breaker coming but never expect a pivot shield breaker...

 

[_Magus_]

Don't know if anyone's figure this out yet, but after messing around in training, I found that SH fair > db cancels fair's ungodly ending lag. Don't know how this could be used, maybe for combos or something.

 

[Remzi]

Don't know if anyone's figure this out yet, but after messing around in training, I found that SH fair > db cancels fair's ungodly ending lag. Don't know how this could be used, maybe for combos or something.

No offense, but I'm very skeptical that this is true. I would be thrilled to eat my words and be wrong about it, though. I'm at work, can someone test this?

 

[_Magus_]

No offense, but I'm very skeptical that this is true. I would be thrilled to eat my words and be wrong about it, though. I'm at work, can someone test this?

You're probably right, being a smash god lol

But i'll hit the lab and test it some more today

 

[Xisin]

Just tested this and I can't get the lag to stop unless the move would autocancel as it normally would meaning that the fair finished completely before you landed it.

 

[_Magus_]

ohh okay. Sorry

 

[Xisin]

On topic though I think the heavy and light variations have potential and due to being able to edit customs on the go we should use all 3 variations based on the match up. The heavy Db offers a really strong aerial, it also punishes ground moves to an extent with its decent knock back + has good ko potential if you manage the last hit. The light version just reminds me of brawl DB - ko potential in how easy it is to string together all 4 in a punish.

 

[Remzi]

ohh okay. Sorry

No worries! I figured it was probably too good to be true.

On topic though I think the heavy and light variations have potential and due to being able to edit customs on the go we should use all 3 variations based on the match up. The heavy Db offers a really strong aerial, it also punishes ground moves to an extent with its decent knock back + has good ko potential if you manage the last hit. The light version just reminds me of brawl DB - ko potential in how easy it is to string together all 4 in a punish.

I haven't unlocked the light version yet, but I'm really hoping that it resembles Brawl DB as you say. How are the IASA frames on DB1 for the light version? It's atrocious for the standard one.

 

[Xisin]

they are faster than the standard version. Problem with the light variation is 1. it only lets you use red variation db, and 2 it simply a light punish like it deals around 9-14% as a combo. It is very difficult to mess up the input on this Dancing blade. As a heads up (as I wasted alot of time trying to farm this out) DB light is unlocked through the 3rd pane of challenges.

I would use it for light characters for example.

Also as much as I hate to say I wouldn't use "For Glory" as a proper citation. It doesn't appear to match based on skill; for instance I haven't lost on it yet and have yet to encounter someone even capable of almost beating me. Based off of that I'd assume that your odds of drawing a proper smasher is exactly that of the population playing - it's drawing for marbles essentially. Where as if I go and play against people that I know are good, quality tournament players its often a close game.

 

[Rad]

Third hit dancing blade down still spikes lol. I'm liking it if you hit a shield and somehow aren't punished. Seems to cancel into f-tilt / jab earlier than anything else(?) but you can follow up with fh retreating fair or shieldbreaker.

 

[Deathwish238]

Lets give hilmbleep a dam cookie! That was good stuff right there.

My crappy contribution is a paper rock scissors theory that I have.

Since this game doesn't have l cancelling, dash dancing, or wavedashing, and shield grabbing/punishing is more prominent, when you jump towards somebody who knows what they're doing their first instinct is to shield (and then punish you with a grab).

So, you jump towards them with shield breaker. And once you've conditioned them to spot dodge, you use dancing blade since it's multi hit you'll punish them.

This looks better on paper because it hasn't worked as well as I thought it would, but at least it makes ppl uncomfortable and sometimes it works.

 

[EternalFlame]

I've been messing around with using only the first hit of dancing blade from short hop as a combo starter. My main experience with fighting games is in Street Fighter/Tekken, so sorry if I get some of the Smash slang incorrect.

Short hopping into the first hit of dancing blade seems to set up combos once you have gotten some percentage on the other player. . .

That's exactly what I found around the same time too actually. It follows up to so many different options for Marth like Nair>Grab, or Uair>Dancing Blades or even just double jumping away to safety. Pity I hadn't read anything from SmashBoards till today. Its sort of our new Fair when you think about it (except the hitbox is smaller). Mixing up between the two I'd say would work just fine. Also really like that Dancing Blades>Nair>FSmash. I'll have to give that a try sometime. Though be careful between that Dancing Blade to Nair, since by the game's standards, it does not truly link. That means your opponent can counter, air attack, or jump out of the initial hit. As long as you hit as close to the tip as possible, you should be safe using this approach.

Though we came up with this idea separately, I should definitely point to you as well on my own post regarding this xD Also gotta add last combo you came up with too if you don't mind.

 

[Kinslayer]

A good use is using dancing blade in the air to change your direction or to stick out a fast move then follow behind it with neutral b and it will scare a lot of people into blocking or they will charge at you and eat the shield breaker.

 

[HiImBleep]

That's exactly what I found around the same time too actually. It follows up to so many different options for Marth like Nair>Grab, or Uair>Dancing Blades or even just double jumping away to safety. Pity I hadn't read anything from SmashBoards till today. Its sort of our new Fair when you think about it (except the hitbox is smaller). Mixing up between the two I'd say would work just fine. Also really like that Dancing Blades>Nair>FSmash. I'll have to give that a try sometime. Though be careful between that Dancing Blade to Nair, since by the game's standards, it does not truly link. That means your opponent can counter, air attack, or jump out of the initial hit. As long as you hit as close to the tip as possible, you should be safe using this approach.

Though we came up with this idea separately, I should definitely point to you as well on my own post regarding this xD Also gotta add last combo you came up with too if you don't mind.

Thanks for the tips! Feel free to use anything you see, I'm not very good at Smash Bros. so I was mainly throwing the idea out there so other people could run with it and improve on it.

 

[EternalFlame]

Thanks for the tips! Feel free to use anything you see, I'm not very good at Smash Bros. so I was mainly throwing the idea out there so other people could run with it and improve on it.

Good to hear xD I also come from a Street Fighter/Tekken background (general fighting game player in a nutshell). Suppose why we both got similar conclusions too xD

I'd say I'm in a similar boat as you, as I had decided to go semi-competitive with this Smash over the previous iterations. Still learning the ropes of playing Smash at a high level, just like you. Hopefully we'll be able to help each other out on that regard

 

[Joe73191]

the third down hit of side B no longer sends them down.

 

[Reynitsu]

Is this move still good for stale-move degeneration in SSB4?

 

[**Havok**]

Hilmbleep is a genius.

@

Is this move still good for stale-move degeneration in SSB4?

I hope it is lol

 

[Reynitsu]

I would test but my friend is borrowing my 3DS atm. (worst decision ever. I'll never get it back xD)