Fabulous Empire: The Marth and Lucina Game Play Coalition

[Locuan]

@ Shaya
Cool. I have a couple of questions regarding terminology and then some observations and theory-crafting to highlight. My questions would be what does DMG1, DMG2, and hit lag mean?
By hit lag I assume after hitting an opponent's shield or hitting the opponent you see this lag happen. However, how does this affect a move? Does it add those frames to the total amount of frames for the move? Or how does it work exactly? Also were the auto-cancels performed within short hops?

Observations:

MOVE | Original Frames | Auto-Cancel | Difference
Fair | 37 | 36 | 1
Uair | 44 | 36 - 38 | 8 - 6
Bair | 39 | 30 | 9
Nair1 | 50 | 49 | 1
Nair2 | 50 | 49 | 1
Dair | 59 | - | -

Theory-crafting:
WARNING the information on the spoiler tags is incorrect. I am trying to understand how frame analysis works.

Spoiler

From previous data a Short-Hop is from 37-43 frames or so, Uair hitbox is from 5-9 frames.
Therefore, if we auto-cancel a Bair, the move would finish after 30 frames correct? So we have 9 frames of breathing room. If the Short Hop is 37 frames and Uair hit-box is 5 frames then that would mean that if we input things perfectly we can get the Uair hit-box at frame 35. In other words, a Bair to Uair in one single short hop. However, if the Uair is greater than 7 frames then Bair to Uair would not be possible? Now if the Short Hop is > 39 frames then we do not even have to be worried because it should be guaranteed.

On a final note, am I understanding frame analysis correctly?

 

[InfinityCollision]

You're thinking of IASA (interruptible as soon as) frames. Autocancel frames are when you land from the attack with no more landing lag than as if you'd come down without attacking at all.

Those autocancels are a lot later than I thought. Guess I'm still readjusting to having an input buffer.

 

[Locuan]

You're thinking of IASA (interruptible as soon as) frames. Autocancel frames are when you land from the attack with no more landing lag than as if you'd come down without attacking at all.

Those autocancels are a lot later than I thought. Guess I'm still readjusting to having an input buffer.

So basically, after you perform the attack you come on down without any lag unto the ground. Yet, you cannot perform another move because you are still in some sort of animation or buffer system? Anyways, thanks for the correction.

 

[InfinityCollision]

Two different things.

Autocancel = you land with 4 frames of forced landing animation, after which you're free to act. Hold your shield button and jump (continue holding shield), then observe how quickly the shield comes back up when you land. Autocancels allow you to act out of landing lag that quickly.

Input buffer = the game stores your inputs for 10 frames, allowing you to execute actions on the first possible frame if input with reasonably close timing. The latter was introduced in Brawl; I do play a little bit of Brawl but I'm much more active in PM and Melee. The latter two games do not have any buffering at all aside from one very specific mechanic (you can buffer certain inputs using the c-stick while in shieldstun), so it's something that I'm generally aware of but not really used to thinking about in a broader context.

 

[Locuan]

@ InfinityCollision
Again thanks for the help. So let's see if I'm understanding this correctly. Going back to the Bair example. So with the Input buffer mechanic, when you perform the Bair it is 39 frames. You input the next move, the Uair, at frame 29. So the game will perform the Uair at frame 40, with the hit-box coming out at frame 45-49. Since an auto-cancel is different from what I thought (an IASA). Then this has no impact because the auto-cancel (you need to perform a rising aerial for it to work right?) would only occur once you touch the ground. For this reason, the Bair to Uair would not work.

This creates another question for me. When on @ Shaya 's table we see the End area, do these 30 frames include the 4 frames of forced landing animation, or do those need to be added to the total calculation?

 

[Shaya]

They need to be added to the final calculation.

DMG/Hitlag. Kinda just me gathering numbers in a way that probably isn't too useful to others yet, especially not Lucina (which this doesn't apply to at all).
But basically marth has hitlag modifiers. This matters really only when hitting shield, so I'm just getting accurate hit lag without shields so I can take a gander later with the rest of the numbers there.
But yeah, hitlag is based off the damage of a move. So is shield stun. I don't know the formula for them in this game, but observing how the game handles them will come in handy later.

Auto cancelling works like this:
You land on the ground during the animation of your aerial (or special in some cases). You're still in the lag of that move, so no other input can come out just before you land.
Now the game has to decide how much landing lag to give you. If you auto cancel the aerial, you'll have normal landing lag (4 frames), if you don't, you'll be dealt with the aerial's landing like (15+).
If you land on frame 29 of back air, you'll have 19 frames of landing lag, but if you land on frame 30, you'll have 4.

using the auto cancels effectively on a character shows really good understanding/usage for the player. As yeah, landing 1 frame earlier means you're dealing with 14 frames more lag than otherwise. We're unfortunate to not have auto cancels that allow us to produce massive frame advantages (like neutral air in Brawl autocancelled the moment the hitbox ends, so like frame 21, allowing us to have POSITIVE advantage on shield; nair really did get gutted )

 

[Locuan]

So I understood hit-lag from what I read earlier!

Auto cancelling works like this...

Awesome, I just tested it out. I had not noticed the difference earlier but it seems I was doing it unconsciously at times. In conclusion, I learned something new today so thanks!

We're unfortunate to not have auto cancels that allow us to produce massive frame advantages (like neutral air in Brawl autocancelled the moment the hitbox ends, so like frame 21, allowing us to have POSITIVE advantage on shield; nair really did get gutted )

Ah, I see how that would have been beneficial!

 

[KP12]

So what have a lot of people been using as go-to kill moves in the air for Marth? I've been debating for a while whether to switch over to Lucina or not just to have a more reliable hitbox, instead of needing to play around the tipper. A lot of my matches I've played recently I've been having trouble getting successful kill moves in the air. (N-air seems to be most reliable to me.) F-air just doesn't feel as powerful as it used to. (At least IMO, I might just be dumb. or bad.)

 

[Shaya]

Back air and Up air are your aerial kill moves. Nair isn't killing even remotely as well as Brawl (it was his most powerful kill move in the air followed by back air).
As tippers.

Try up air more often I'd say, you'd be surprised, it's our fastest aerial and starts up in front of us and forward, hitting somewhere before fair or nair would. It's not too hard to tipper with it, and if you don't, the move knock back is so slight you can likely follow it up with something (like back air or up air again) to finish them off.

 

[KP12]

Back air and Up air are your aerial kill moves. Nair isn't killing even remotely as well as Brawl (it was his most powerful kill move in the air followed by back air).
As tippers.

Try up air more often I'd say, you'd be surprised, it's our fastest aerial and starts up in front of us and forward, hitting somewhere before fair or nair would. It's not too hard to tipper with it, and if you don't, the move knock back is so slight you can likely follow it up with something (like back air or up air again) to finish them off.

Ok, I have been neglecting U-air a lot recently. The fast start-up sounds pretty nice to me. Also yesterday I came to the realization of how beautiful neutral b is in this game. Thanks for the help!

 

[Shaya]

Special | Hitbox Start | IASA | Something
SB | 19 | 52
DS | 5-7~ | - | 23 (Landing Lag), Invincibility frame 4-6
Counter | 5 or 6? | 60
DB1 | 7 | 45
DB2-Up | 7 | 38
DB2-Side | 8 | 38
DB3-Up | 9 | 43
DB3-Side | 6 | 43
DB3-Down | 8 | 43
DB4-Up | 11 | 50
DB4-Down | 14 – 40 | 72
DB4-Side | 13 | 55

I'm guessing I'm relatively right on dancing blade IASAs (just going by noticeable animation shifts + consistency). Hitbox starts could be a bit finnicky, as like most of Marth's moves, the swing and swoosh effect can come up a frame earlier or at the same time, however Sakurai feels happy about it.
I do know DB4-side is 13 frames start up at least and so is DB1 being 7 frames.

Inputs for Side-B:
Second button press can be input any time the moment of the first strike hitbox being out.
Third and fourth button presses must be timed the moment the hitboxes end it seems.
HOW ANNOYING FOR SAKURAI TO LEAVE IT INCONSISTENT LIKE THIS.

So it looks like you can be hitting on frame 7, 18, 36, 55ish?
And that two hits of side-b is technically slightly safer on shield, although I think it isn't going to be covering rolling behind us.

 

[Shaya]

It seems relatively certain to me that DS does not have invincibility from frame 1 on the ground, and I'd say neither in the air either.
Well **** it then. Pretty sure it's frame 4-6 only.

Welp, that move officially got extremely gutted between games. Has absolutely no horizontal range (angling it forwards does help this a little), nor kill power, and isn't as reliable as a Dragon Punch as you would like it to be. The low landing lag on the move does give it some fringe uses though, likely being almost completely safe to use if you land on the tall battlefield platform.

 

[Big O]

I've noticed that DB1 in the air is much less laggy than on the ground. Do you guys think maybe DB in the air can become something big for the FE duo?

 

[Shaya]

I've noticed that DB1 in the air is much less laggy than on the ground. Do you guys think maybe DB in the air can become something big for the FE duo?

This would seem to not be the case.
There actually is possibly some weird ending lag differences in using DB in the air, but beyond getting shield out 1 frame earlier than expected in a rising case, I'm otherwise getting more lag on the move if I land with it.

 

[Shaya]

REJOICE EMIYA SHIROU
For we are frame data

Action | Active | End
Short Hop | 6 – 20 | 41
Full Hop | 6 – 30 | 61
Roll | 4 – 20 | 30
Spot Dodge | 3 – 19 | 26
Shielding | 2 - 11 | 18
Grab | 7 | 29
Landing | - | 4
Dash | | 16

Special | Active | End | Note
Shield Breaker | 19 | 52 |
Dolphin Slash | 5 | 23 | Invincible 4-6
Counter | 5 – 25? | 60 |

Dancing Blade | Forward | Upward | Down | End
First | 7 | - | - | 45
Second | 8 | 7 | - | 38
Third | 6 | 9 | 8 | 43
Fourth | 13 | 11 | 14 – 40 | 55 / 50 / 72

Aerial | Active | End | Landing | Auto Cancel | Note
Forward | 6 – 9 | 37 | 18 | 36 |
Upward | 5 – 9 | 44 | 15 | 36 | AC pre-move
Backward | 7 – 10 | 39 | 19 | 30 |
Downward | 9 | 59 | 28 | 59 |
Neutral 1 | 6 | 50 | 15 | 49 | AC pre-move
Neutral 2 | 15 | 50 | 15 | 49 |

Attack | Active | End | Note
Downward Tilt | 7 | 23 |
Upward Tilt | 6 – 12 | 42 |
Forward Tilt | 8 – 11 | 39 |
Jab 1 | 5 – 7 | 29 |
Jab 2 | 5 – 8 | 30 | Earliest: 21?
Dash Attack | 13 – 15 | 49 |
Upward Smash | 13~ | 58 | Including feet hitbox
Forward Smash | 9 – 12 | 51 |
Downward Smash | 6~ / 21~ | 64

 

[Big O]

This would seem to not be the case.
There actually is possibly some weird ending lag differences in using DB in the air, but beyond getting shield out 1 frame earlier than expected in a rising case, I'm otherwise getting more lag on the move if I land with it.

Yeah, basically what I meant was that DB1 ends sooner in the air than on the ground. I didn't think about landing with it though so good catch. Getting more lag landing with it than starting it on the ground sounds pretty dumb.

It is weird how DB1 + 2 combined has the same lag as DB1 by itself lol. I suppose this just means you are pretty much always better off continuing the sequence on the ground/landing with it .

 

[Shaya]

Oh, I don't think it's -that- fast, that it's faster than DB1 by itself, but it would be quite comparable.

(Sitting down to figure out the actual "forced" animations of each DB is a bit hard, but generally the moment the "swoosh" particle leaves is when frame 1 of the next attack could be coming).

Yeah, basically what I meant was that DB1 ends sooner in the air than on the ground. I didn't think about landing with it though so good catch. Getting more lag landing with it than starting it on the ground sounds pretty dumb.

And... you're right. DB1 in the air has 33 frames of lag in comparison to it on the ground where its 45.
That's... quite something. God dammit I didn't want to have to test all his specials in the air like this, haha. I don't know if I'll bother anytime soon beyond maybe Dolphin Slash landing lag and shield breaker.

 

[Emblem Lord]

Test dolphin high jump invincibility

 

[Shaya]

^ I'll get to that at some point, sorry I hadn't earlier.
Few days ago I tested the whole aerial db1 shenanigans.

Marth tipper db1 can start true comboing into uair on Yoshi as low as 110%, while otherwise you're looking (on lucina and normal) around 125-130%.
Doubt there is any way to tipper up air out of db1, ever though. So nothing super amazing/broken, but that would mean that the Ramin Combo (dancing blade, neutral air 1 -> something) is REAL THIS GAME

although I didn't test if the first hit of nair reliably hit out of it though, but theory theory..

 

[Shaya]

So yeah, I've been implementing aerial db1 into my game on both Mars and Lucina and ... I'm pretty stoked/impressed.
It could really be a winning ticket to our character.

What I'm finding most distinctive about it is that it's bringing back fast fall uair into my common repertoire, as I get the time (abililty to swerve/etc too) to land with tipper up air, which considering it's our lowest landing lag aerial and does 12 damage, it would have to be our best frame advantage on shield we have (maybe not better than down tilt).

Unlike Brawl, DB1 in the air into follow up dancing blades strikes seem to flow a lot better, I wouldn't be surprised if it's pretty easy to reliably combo the full dancing blade combo (upwards) from a short hop [you'll land after the second hit], and of course you otherwise still then have the option of timing/spacing a fast fall forward air, neutral air, or as I just mentioned up air with variance, a variance you don't have with his regular short hop aerial game. Seems roughly as safe on shield as any sh aerial would be.

Being able to B-reverse it for immediate spacing displacement as well... gah, I think it's really good.

And...
There may be actual usage for Heavy Blade
Cannot do heavy blade sh double aerials, but you can heavy blade 1 out of a short hop into a lagless landing (with finicky timing, unfortunately), and it's basically just an alternative forward air with more range (on the ground with the step forward it takes, its the same range as SHIELD BREAKER)... that also allows those dumb scenarios where you somehow land 2nd/3rd/4th hits, which are all 10%+ each and the 4th can kill at like... the same percent tipper fsmash can.

All the upwards hits (2nd/3rd) can combo into the following hits at low enough percent for 20+ damage true combo. Cray-cray.

 

[ぱみゅ]

DB1 at some point launches at a 80-ish degree angle, pretty far. Not sure how it works or if I can consistently replicate it...

That being said, SHDB1 into nothing and punish opponent's landing lag is amazing.

 

[Shaya]

It's transcended, it's safe on hit, and not too far away from being safe on shield compared to the likes of retreating fair.
(It's a move that'll hit frame 7-9 and ends in 33, while fair is 6-9 ending 37, I wouldn't be surprised if the frame disadvantage remains around the same because of that 4-5 frame "ease" DB1 has.

I guess it kinda replaces (or supplements) carrot and stick strategies that I advocated with Neutral Air.

I believe the final frame of the hitbox of DB1 towards its tip has an awkward launch angle, which I haven't seen at 80 degrees, but more like 0/180, can't combo anything out of it, if you're lucky other DB hits will follow up, but it's generally a "hitbox that stops DB follow ups".
Exists on both marth and lucina for sure. Could explain a lot of dancing blade dramas we have on some of the shorter/smaller characters.

I think otherwise, the general angle I see from aerial db is that 80 degrees-ish you mention.

 

[Emblem Lord]

It's not safe on shield at all, because transcended attacks do very little shieldstun but because the strikes of the combo cancel into themselves people hesitate a bit longer.

 

[Shaya]

In brawl, there was appreciable shield stun on DB1, but like multiple other specials (including MK's tornado, which resulted in buggy shuffling scenarios [i.e. stopped you from being able to]), if it existed in the decay queue at all, it 'killed' the shield stun (for who knows what reason).

Not sure if that's the case this game. I'm more just saying that if you sh db1 and hit someone's shield, you aren't up **** creek. But seeing as sh double aerials were by no means safe in Brawl in the first place (by any one who knew the match up), it really is about emphasizing carrot + stick strategy.

 

[Shaya]

So ever since @TheJerm mentioned Lucina's down smash second hit killing, which at first thought was "probably pretty bad still" as a move (it's still pretty lame how gutted/weak the first hit is).

But then I started to actually take a look at how much stronger it is and ... Hmm.

Anyway, to only be used as comparative within, these are the pre-hit percents that Marth's tippers killed: Forward Smash at 55%, Down Smash Back 75%, Down Smash front 115%.
Dsmash2 foot hitbox is around the same strength as frontal tipper (115%). And the regular blade on the back kills at around 130%.

For Lucina her backhit at the feet and tip kill between 90-95% (yes she seems to have a noticeable amount of extra love given to her feet hitbox! NOTICEABLE DIFFERENCE SPOTTED and the centre blade kills at 120%.

Going by the frame data of it hitting in the front 6ish and 21ish, it actually ends up being... seemingly perfectly designed to cover attacking in the front in such a way that covers both the front and punishes the forward roll. Let's just say someone rolls at the same time as you down smash, the slowest rolls (that I've seen) end at 19 frames. That's a small window, but the faster rolls (they all have 10 frames of invulnerability) actually times a lot better. And then there's this little nuisance that you'd never imagine but if someone rolls at tipper down smash range, their rolls actually space themselves directly into the tipper of the backwards hit.

 

[ぱみゅ]

Hard Reads are now a real thing

 

[A2ZOMG]

So wait Shaya, Up-B is no longer frame 1 invincible?

If that's true, that makes me feel a lot better, because frame 1 invincible things are BS in Smash.

 

[Shaya]

Couldn't have said it plainer, nor any more times without redundancy, I think #_#

 

[Emblem Lord]

I miss my shoryuslash

 

[ぱみゅ]

But that's another lost OOS option. Grab was nerfed, Fair was nerfed, Nair was nerfed, DB is unsafe ON HIT (or I'm doing it terribly wrong most of the time).

I miss jumping being viable

 

[Shaya]

Jumping is awesome!
Fair is fine as long as you hit with it/stay in the air with it~
yeah, nair is nerfed, but as a extraordin-shayaire lover, I'm... working on it. I've noticed that sh rising fast fall nair seems to land at around the time the move ends at optimal timing (I'm pretty sure you can buffer the fast fall, much like in Brawl). But otherwise, I dislike how 'gimped' it is, it was nerfed a lot harder than fair was in my honest opinion, like halved damage (which makes it a lot worse on shield than it should be...), no auto cancel at all, doesn't increase knockback with length out (I think?)...
I could win matches in Brawl with basically just neutral air. Neutral air was so good in so many match ups that it shut down tons of characters in and of itself. There was so much skill to it as well, with an auto cancel just after it ends which allowed for POSITIVE FRAME ADVANTAGE on shield. The amount of kill power it had meant it was fearsome to challenge. It's damage tippered was 18%... now it's 10/11%. WHY?

You shouldn't be getting punished for DB on hit, but I think I know of the scenarios where it's happening. Greninja / Pikachu? I think it has something to do with crouch cancelling or its just not being able to time proper execution of each strike means they just have enough time to avoid/attack. I haven't had such issues offline against any characters, but the ones I've seen 'BS' on wifi aren't who I'm playing against offline, so I don't really know.
I think to some extent, those characters just have extremely suss/lame levels of small hurtboxes during their hitstun animations. God bless that design decision.

 

[ぱみゅ]

Yeah, those DB cases are Netplay. And against Sheik, who's giving me a real headache....

 

[Shaya]

Okay, here we go.

Something I really feel we're under appreciating about our character.

Short hop air dodge.
Our short hop is 41 frames. It's a pretty lucky number I think.
Air dodging is a 30 frame action, however the auto cancel is after 30 frames, so landing with it is often laggy. The AC of them are around 40 frames (I think it's less, going by varying air dodge starting on the rise and still auto cancelling).
A little while back people were excited about being able to break their air dodge lag with the lag of another move that auto cancels, unfortunately for Marth we don't have any such things, but we weren't the type of character who needed it going by our numbers.

Anyway among other things, the animation for air dodges are longer than 30 frames, although you can act out of them.
For marth his air dodge has this dangling leg out the front (awkward) and by the invincibility end he's swung his entire body at a flat-ish angle, he can act out of that and be considered more "forward" than he actually is. This type of spacing technique was something I promoted in Brawl with our mid-air jump backwards, the animation for it flattens the body horizontally and when we act out of it (which is at any time) we reaffirm our previous position with our aerials/whatever, while having been completely "clear" of the area just a frame before hand.

So you can short hop air dodge and then keep swerving away to retreat, maximising safety before landing into shield (or whatever), or weave forward and then aerial (uair, fair, nair, dair, nair all come out [with nair getting just the first strike]; not much "space" to do anything with dair though [you'll land before it gets to meteor]). It is surprisingly versatile/easy to control your moving during your air dodge, very easy/safe to buffer an aerial out of it (you'll get 'perfect' landings with them for frame safety) or just choose not to action at all without really much/any commitment at all.

To compare this to other characters, Pit cannot do something like this at all, he can short hop air dodge without lag but cannot get any aerials out other than nair (just the first frames of it too). ZSS's short hop is much higher, she can air dodge into landing with all of her aerials bar nair, but they're awkwardly timed/placed. Another character like Yoshi can get nair and uair but not anything else.
A character like Falco/Sheiks lands so fast from his short hop he cannot air dodge without using another move to auto cancel; he gets no aerials out either.


I hope people earnestly let this set in. We can throw out an action with 7 frames of vulnerability while using our amazing aerial mobility to swerve backwards/forwards, can use all of our aerials out of it in a way that times/spaces perfectly on the ground (you can even vary timings of them too) except dair, or we can land without landing lag.
All of this isn't very committing at all from my perspective, and it just seems to be really good procedural play.
Other characters don't seem to be even remotely as close to as versatile.

 

[Emblem Lord]

I actually knew this already but...didn't think it was a big deal. It's VITAL vs Megaman though.

 

[Shaya]

someone's gotta write a short essay for it

Eh, the data was there hitting me in the face, but I really didn't connect the dots. Did I short hop air dodge -> aerial before this day? I bet you I did. I just never really realised it was a... semi-unique thing to him haha.

It's one of those things that just when you realise go "oh wow, specific design intentions". You can short hop aerial, or you can short hop air dodge aerial, both having niches in safety (retreating in air vs fastest landing scenario).

SH AD -> Up air (Fast fall the moment you start it) -> up tilt wasn't something I tried before, haha. I just didn't have that much faith in using air dodge aggressively (it's a sin in Brawl) and the "perfectly timed/spaced" near the ground prospects from it are pretty neat.

 

[Shaya]

| Active | End | Invincibility | Invincibility (in the air)
Counter | 5 – 25 | 60 | |
Easy Counter | 5 – 30 | 59 | |
Counter Attack | 24~ | 51 | 1 – 23 |
Iai Counter | 3 – 15~ | 55 | |
Iai Attack | 14~ | 43 | 1 – 13 |

Dolphin Slash | 5~ | 23 | 4 – 6 | 1 – 4
Crescent Slash | 9~ | 36 | 8 – 10 | 1 – 10
Dolphin Jump | 0 | 43 | 11 – 13 | 1 – 10

| Active | End | End (ground)
Heavy Blade | 11 – 14 | 39 | 55
Dancing Blade | 7~ | 33 | 45

Shield Breaker | 19~ | 52
Storm Thrust | 19 – 37 | 67
Dash Assault | 19 – 39 | 65

 

[Emblem Lord]

LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL!!!

Dolphin Jump for the ****in win

 

[LIQUID12A]

...what.

Dolphin Jump confirmed broken

 

[Shaya]

If it had any form of hitbox whatsoever, even if it was a windbox, I'd agree.

Still, so weird/dumb/lol worthy that grounded dolphin jump (which is literally worthless) has those 'restrictive' invincibility frames, haha.

But yeah for both dolphin slash/jump, you have invincibility leading up to you starting to rise. Dolphin Jump starts moving at 11-12 frames.

 

[Big O]

I'm actually most excited for Crescent Slash (in the air) having full invincibility both before and during his active frames.