fastfall before or after the attack

[hectohertz]

so while doing some techskill practice, it occured to me today that you can

jump->fastfall->aerial->lcancel

or

jump->aerial->fastfall->lcancel


i'd never really considered this before, or heard anyone talk about it
so i'm wondering, what does everyone do? is it character dependent?

is one right?

personally i always do my aerials at the last possible moment, but i suppose there could be other ways to do it

 

[CloneHat]

Fastfalling after the drill would allow more hits to come out, I'm pretty sure.

 

[hectohertz]

i didn't mean only using drill attacks, i meant i was 'drilling' techskill

edited OP

 

[jugfingers]

depends on the situation, character and aerial being used.

generally for shield pressure and not getting shield grabbed, fast falling before the aerial is indicated(for space animals anyways).

 

[Bing]

yeah it really does depends on the situation, generally i attack the fall, unless im using spacies or mario

 

[phanna]

For techskill, you should practice fastfall then aerial L-cancel, if you're only going to practice one of the two. Both are necessary.

 

[Doval]

Fastfalling before is generally safer against getting shieldgrabbed. The closer you are to the ground and the faster you land when the attack comes out, the safer. But you don't always want to land ASAP. For example, Falco might do shine -> d-air on a shielding opponent and not fastfall the d-air so that the attack will still be out if the opponent tries to sidestep. Likewise if you're going to do an aerial out of shield after blocking a hit, you'll generally want to get the aerial out as quickly as possible instead of waiting until you're falling so you can fastfall it first.

 

[Stratford]

It depends on character, aerial, and situation. If you need to get the attack out as fast as possible after the jump, then you'll want to do the aerial before you fastfall because you can't fastfall until the apex of your jump height, but you can do the aerial on the way up.

But like people before have said, if you're trying to avoid getting shield grabbed, you might want to minimize the time between when you hit their shield and the time you land, and you would achieve this by fastfalling before the aerial. This way you you give yourself more time to L cancel, land, and then do whatever you need to do (run away, jump, shine, do another aerial, etc.) while they're still stuck in shield.