Difficult-to-escape setups?

[Unkie Mike]

Hi all. I've started crafting my own setups in an attempt to rack up damage/kill opponents while they struggle to avoid follow-up attacks after being caught. Everyone knows the classic PK Thunder fake-out into PKT2, and most know how to bait rolls and airdodges for the kill move. Here are some that I enjoy trying:

1. Back throw opponent at low percentges. They will fly a short distance behind you. If they attempt to jump over you, try to catch them in an uncharged PK Flash. If the Flash connects, it will halt their momentum and drop them in next to you with no ability to aerial during their descent, if you catch them low enough. You can then punish their landing lag with bat, usmash, dsmash, even PK Fire into bat if you're feeling bold.

2. This is well-documented, but PK Thunder as a close-range aerial (close enough that the head doesn't break on contact) will push your opponent into the perfect angle to finish them with a PKT2. Works best on opponents who have used their second jump.

What sort of things have you folks discovered? I'm especially interested in anything that involves dtilt, edgeguarding, or PK Flash.

 

[Ranias]

I've got to try that back throw into PK Flash.

Some bread-and-butter setups that I use frequently:

• PK Fire is a good setup for a grab (you can pummel for extra PK Fire damage too if at high percent), dash attack (if opponent DIs low), or aerial (if opponent DIs high). I don't use PK Fire into bat much, but maybe I should try it more.

• Down throw at low percents can lead into up to 3 Forward Airs. You can end your chain of Forward Airs with a PK Thunder if you aren't too far off the edge.

• Forward throw has good knockback at low percent. You can throw your opponent off the edge and follow up with PK Thunder.

 

[Eagleye893]

DThrow is the king of "difficult to escape setups". People like to go for simple FAir or UAir on various characters, but I like to throw in a couple silly mix-ups.

Stuff after DThrow
--> Start the Full-hop toward them and cancel it with PKT. this can be a decent mix up if you've been using DThrow to FAir/UAir setups most of the match. Characters that can narrowly escape by jumping or dodging will pre-empt that action and you can just follow for a free PKT hit.
--> Dash underneath them. I used to do this in brawl, but because airdodges were silly in that game, I could never get anything from it. THIS GAME, you can try for an uncharged PK-Flash (Which combos into a lot of things for free), you can UTilt because of the added disjoint, you can predict a dropping aerial or airdodge to catch them with yoyo's or ftilt, or you can just PKT like in the previous option.

Another thing that's basically a mind-game based move:
DTILT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Those of you who saw my countless posts on the Brawl Ness boards about "PSImagnet OP" and "DTILT TOO GOOD!" will experience a blast from the past. Being able to use dtilt close to someone gives you such an advantage because of how quickly you can transition from the action of dtilting to ANYTHING else. You can even dtilt far away from someone to feign that you're in a bad spot from missing a move and bait them into doing something that you predicted or planned for them to do. DTilt can even stop certain moves entirely. This move has significantly short range, but when you can use this move on your opponent, you have so much potential.

--> DTilt can trip, and if it does, you get free follow-ups. According to someone, DTilt trip to FSmash is a legit combo now, but I need to have a more reliable way of testing this to actually have it cleared up. If that's not the case, you can DTilt trip > Usmash, NAir, USmash, FTilt, Grab, Jab combo, or even just wait for the getup option from the opponent and react with something else.
--> DTilt is shield pressure. You can just keep throwing Ness' Big Toe out and at some point you will start to shield-poke. The opponent needs to react to this in some way, and will try to roll out, angle their shield, grab, jump out, or attack to get you off. In most of those cases, you can either continue to DTilt or go for a grab and cover most of their options. DashAttack or U/DSmash can cover rolling options, and you can react to those rolls if you dtilt once or twice past the instance they input those moves. If you want to relinquish that pressure for safety, you can always just jump back or run back or whatever to get out of there before something goes wrong.
--> DTilt is good damage. DTilt hitting once is scary, because you can potentially hit them again... and again... and again... and then after all that hit them with some other move and get some actual percent in. DTilt doesn't do damage by itself, but the extra percent per hit that you rack up will help. After hitting with DTilt, you can likely get a grab or NAir off.

^I had some crazy theory that "2 dtilts in a row is the best way to do it" because if you trip on the first hit, the second hit won't land and they will stay tripped, thus giving you a higher trip rate... but it honestly doesn't matter how many times you use dtilt so long as you know that there's not a guaranteed positive outcome unless you actually hit the opponent

 

[291C]

I've got to try that back throw into PK Flash.

• Down throw at low percents can lead into up to 3 Forward Airs. You can end your chain of Forward Airs with a PK Thunder if you aren't too far off the edge.

I've had some pretty good luck fast falling after the third Fair into a PK Fire on the ground. The Fair generally knocks them back just the right distance and it can be especially devistating if used when they're floating off stage.

 

[Unkie Mike]

Big helpful post

This is all great advice. I like the dash-under after down throw; I'd never thought of that. I'm also partial to two dtilts in a row, but as a pressure tool I need to figure out how to incorporate it. Are there any significant attacks that it beats cleanly, or is it better to use it after shielding an attack or catching an opponent in their shield? I'm curious whether or not it can beat Mario/Mega Man's slides, but don't have a way to test that right now.

It seems like you've got to spray and pray a bit with dtilt in order to follow it up, though. All of the followups I've found require a bit of faith that the opponent will trip, because you've got to start them immediately after the trip occurs. This makes waiting, jab, or ftilt the safest followups to me, but also the least rewarding compared the amount of potential damage that a bat or a PK Fire can do after a trip. Hopefully someone will find some dtilt tech soon that makes the trip easier to predict.

 

[Eagleye893]

This is all great advice. Are there any significant attacks that [dtilt] beats cleanly, or is it better to use it after shielding an attack or catching an opponent in their shield? I'm curious whether or not it can beat Mario/Mega Man's slides, but don't have a way to test that right now.

DTilt can win against certain attacks, but the key is timing it. The active hitbox is only up for about 2 frames, so you have to be able to gauge where the opponent's hitbox is and when it can hit you. I don't know about the slides, but realistically you can shield them, drop the shield, and DTilt afterward because shield-lag is minimal in this game

It seems like you've got to spray and pray a bit with dtilt in order to follow it up, though. All of the followups I've found require a bit of faith that the opponent will trip, because you've got to start them immediately after the trip occurs. This makes waiting, jab, or ftilt the safest followups to me, but also the least rewarding compared the amount of potential damage that a bat or a PK Fire can do after a trip. Hopefully someone will find some dtilt tech soon that makes the trip easier to predict.

There's no real "tech" to it. It's basically all about developing game sense and reaction time.

I tried seeing back in Brawl if there were any places on the DTilt hitbox where it would reliably trip, but it turned out to be inconsistent and proved the randomness of the trip chance.

# of dtilt hits before tripping was also random. You can trip them multiple times in a row with singular dtilt hits, every few hits, or just sparingly.

Smash4 might be different, but I haven't gotten to testing this stuff.

 

[291C]

# of dtilt hits before tripping was also random. You can trip them multiple times in a row with singular dtilt hits, every few hits, or just sparingly.

Smash4 might be different, but I haven't gotten to testing this stuff.

I tested this out a week or two ago, and the tripping is still random in smash4. I even tried to see if a higher damage affected it, but it doesn't occur more often.