Down smash or side B?

[CoLiteral]

My friend plays as fox most of the time, and so by default I will practice against fox when training. And one thing i noticed was that d-smash would lead into an edge-guard at around 60% on battlefield. Getting a smash is also a lot easier than hitting with side b. Even when side b hit, if you hit onstage it seems unlikely to kill until higher percents.

Now what I was wondering was which move should I use most often to take stocks as wolf? Which move is better?

 

[Jake The Preacher]

Definitely down smash. Shine doesn't combo into side B until really high percents, but it still does. Down smash with good position and percent usually leads into an edgeguard or edgehog. Basically it's a stock if you hit a good down smash against spacies

 

[CoLiteral]

Alright, so definitely down smash on spacies. However what about the other characters? I still feel like dsmash is better as well.

But then, why is side-b so proclaimed?

 

[Boiko]

Side B is proclaimed as a strong kill move that a lot of Wolf's attacks set up into. It is not, however, ideal is every situation. I also don't recommend down smash over a reverse up smash, personally. Face away from the ledge, and hit their recovery with the tail end of your up smash. It covers a significantly larger range than down smash while having a comparable knock back and angle.

 

[CoLiteral]

Hmm, I always find I have trouble edguarding with wolf. I remember reading using upsmash like that, but now I will actually try that, thanks

 

[oksas]

as was noted, the reverse upsmash against a recovering fox can be really amazing, but obviously is only really effective if fox is recovering from lower down. if you attempt it and fox has the ability to go high and land elsewhere on stage, with the endlag from upsmash you'll probably be in a neutral or a bad position since fox will have already landed. something I've been trying to use more against a firefoxing fox is grab ledge to get invincibility, quickly double jump off backwards (away from the stage) or even just straight up, use an uair (to get fox with the hitbox on the tail end of the move), regrab ledge on the way down, repeat. unless fox is at a really high percent though, you're definitely going to have to repeat the process several times.

there are two tough parts about doing this, for me at least. the first is timing your ledge regrabs so you have invincibility at the right time to hop off the ledge and uair, because if you don't have invincibility as you do the uair, often you'll get hit by the firefox and an all likelihood die because of that. luckily, because firefox has such a long startup, if you are patient and don't freak out (which I often do 9__9), you have ample time to calculate when you need to refresh your invincibility. the second thing is being aware of the spacing/where fox is going to end up after you hit him. sometimes he'll end up in a position where he can side b back on stage, so if that happens you'll need to be sure that you A) can punish him appropriately if he does manage to get back on stage with side b and B) avoid getting hit by the side by while doing A

 

[BearFist]

So, first of all, I don't think there's really a correct catch all option between downsmash and side b, especially against spacies. There are going to be situations where side b will be better like when they will be out of hitstun before they hit the ground, or are farther away from you where you won't be able to position yourself quickly enough to downsmash. Also, I just want to note that like half of wolf moves combo in to flash at kill percents on spacies, and if you're good at shortening it's incredibly easy to hit confirm in to it for a guaranteed kill. Just to give examples, strong fair, uptilt, upthrow, and dtilt can all combo in to flash at certain percents where downsmash would have no chance of catching them.

That said, downsmash is definitely going to be better in situations where the other guy is at like 50% and you shined them near the side of the stage and don't have time to extend your combo to get more damage but you can easily set up an edgeguard situation. It's especially good if they don't have their DI ready, but if they do DI the downsmash up, it can be pretty hard to get the edgeguard and you'll probably have to go for a hard read.

To respond to Oksas, I really like the idea of doing invincible upairs since upair covers so much space. The other ways that you edgeguard a fox are waiting on stage with a downsmash if you read the side b since it covers very low, reverse upsmash, or going out with a bair. Invincible bairs are great and wolf has very good aerial mobility so doing it off the ledge with him is amazing. If you think Fox is going to do an up b Wolf can get out there to intercept him before he even finishes charging with a bair. I really think that if you have the time going out to meet Fox if your spacing is on point is the best way to edgeguard him. Also, most of the time when a spacie is offstage they're going to be holding in to try to stay as close to the stage as possible to hopefully not die if they get hit. That's where shine bair offstage comes in, which is also really really good. Oh right, and if you're on stage it's also often worth firing a laser to cover the side b towards the stage, like Falco likes to do.

 

[jollypong]

Downsmash in my opinion is an incredibly good kill move if used with crouch cancel. The time i use downsmash the most often is when the opponent has a high percent and i have a low-ish percent. I would dashdance and wait for the opponent to do something stupid like a nair or dash attack. Before they do this I would crouch cancel and then d-smash after they hit. Gets them everytime. However this doesnt work if the opponent uses a really strong aerial like a falcon stomp. Another way to spice things up is just crouch and just wait for the opponent. When they come in with an aerial I would wd back and then d-smash.

 

[Mr. PotatoBread]

I like using Nair-Shine-SideB or Nair-Downsmash as a 50-50 mixup.
At about 80-100%, a nair downsmash will usually only kill with incorrect DI. If the opponent DIs, up Dsmash wont usually kill (depends on character and stage position). However, if you nair-shine and your opponent DIs up, that's a free sideB, and usually a kill. However, if you shine and your opponent DIs away, its harder to get a followup, but if your opponent reads a shine and DIs away, but you surprise him with a Dsmash, thats usually a kill.