Fair Spike Usage

[lRasha]

Hey everyone! First I'm happy to say that Wii Fit Trainer is definitely one of my mains now. I have fun spiking people with her Header. Lol And I love her Ftilt! Ok back to the topic. I've been thinking about how we can use her Fair spike. I kind of want to do some trials with it and see what can work. Here's my thoughts.

1. Of course, the leg goes in a diagonal direction. If my opponent and I are both off-stage and I'm diagonally above him, (maybe) I can use Fair.

2. If I get knocked in the air and my opponent tries to follow up with an attack, (maybe) I can use Fair. I'm not sure how much priority it has. Is it low? Or does it have a small hitbox with deceptively high priority?

3. If I'm grabbing the ledge and my opponent is trying to come back on stage, (maybe) I can drop from off-stage and use it.

4. (Maybe) I can use it against horizontal recoveries. Fair comes out faster than Down Air spike and maybe faster than her Header spike too. Imagine throwing out a Fair in front of a Fox and Bowser Jr using their horizontal recoveries.

5. I saw a Wii Fit Trainer (I think it was a CPU) using a Fair after jumping behind her opponent. I think the opponent shielded the leg though. In a competitive match, the opponent might do the same thing though.

Once again, these are just things I'm thinking about. Do any of you try to use her Fair spike? How do you do it? Thanks for reading!

 

[⑨ball]

Always good to see more people putting interest into WFT.

1. Yep. Works best as an airdodge punish in this regard as fair's hitboxes require you to be either diagonally infront and below your opponent (hand) or diagonally behind and above your opponent (foot). Being difficult areas to challenge and not worth the trade most of the time this will setup airdodge attempts which fair's soft spike handles well.

2. It's possible, but a really bad option. Priority is essentially how hitboxes react to each other, and because aerials don't clank with other aerials, the closest thing you'll get to "priority" is fast or disjointed hitboxes, something WFT has neither other to use when aiming below her. Your best options when trying to land lie in mastering her momentum controllers (downB stalling, B reversing, sideB cancelling ect).

3. Again, possible. Not a bad option this time around but definitely subpar. Header is much stronger spike and is active much longer due to hitting the ball making it a great option for opponents trying to get back to the stage and can even take advantage of the 5(?) frame vulnerability from ledge grabbing. However it's reasonably decent at catching opponents with run off aerials.

4. This works but can be hard to hit with. Header is a much better option here again if you want the spike simply because it lasts so long that you don't have to be as precise as you would if you wanted the weak spike on fair.

5. Fair does some pretty good shield damage,combos into other moves like ftilt at certain percents, can crossup on shield or hit, ground bounces at high percents and is frame cancelable so it's a neat move to throw out every now and then. It's also our fastest auto-canceling aerial so it's great for keeping fluidity in your movement.

I mainly use it for airdodge baits and mixups on stage as it's got some really interesting hitstun properties that let you take advantage of WFT's great movement options. Anyone that can master frame cancels with this is going to be terrifying.

None of this is the end all be all btw. Explore and experiment, there's a reasonable chance you'll find a use no one else has if you put some research and effort into it.

 

[CoolPalMitch]

One neat but rather situational use I've found for fair spike is that around 110% for most characters, you can fair spike them on the ground, causing them to bounce slightly. From this bounce, you can short hop backward and go for another fair spike, essentially putting them in them in a loop. You can finish out of this combo with a short hop bair. The biggest problem with this trick is that you can only keep the chain going if they don't tech, but you do have options in the case that you read the tech. You can do a fully charged SS if they tech in place or away from you, or d-smash if they tech towards you. This trick isn't *too* hard to pull off, but if you get it to work I would only spike twice before going for the bair. It's pretty situational, but it's something, I guess.

Here's a vine I made of this trick in action

https://vine.co/v/OEKwrKnUETW

 

[lRasha]

@ ⑨ball: Thanks for the reply and insight!
@ Complete_Dweeb: That vine was pretty tight. Thanks for sharing. Short-hopping is something I need to become better at.