Me: Fox
Them: Falco
How come whenever my full hop dair hits Falco, I get shined? I am trying to dair and then shine. When I practice solo on 20xx I am not missing my L-cancels. Is full hop dair to shine not guaranteed (excluding SDI/ASDI)? Or am I just constantly missing my L-cancel in this situation in tournaments? I thought the Falco would either just be running or standing and not in the air, but maybe Falco was in the air and that was the problem (in which case, what aerial should I use at low percents vs a Falco in the air from a short hop?)?
If dair isn't comboing into shine, it's likely because he was airborne when you hit. His landing animation cancels the hitstun of your dair, and he can shine you during your own landing recovery. It could also be that you're starting dair so early that it's finishing before you get close to the ground.
Two tips: 1) Do dair later in your jump to ensure you keep drilling till you land. 2) Do what every top fox does and condition with FH Nair. It's a great spacing tool, stops aerial approaches, and can be safe if you do it properly. At low % it is a disruption tool, at high % it knocks down for easy usmash confirms or techchases. When they get aggravated by it they will try to sit under your landing spot and CC it, but then you switch back to drill. Tada, a ghetto mix-up.
As to your last question, if your opponent is airborne at low %s you should be going for nair > utilt / shine / grab etc
yo
whenever i play against samus, i find myself getting a decent amount of grabs, but uthrow leads into nothing, unless i wanna trade with a nair.
do you think dthrow against samus would be a better option? i'm pretty sure her tech rolls are laggy enough to get usmashed, or punished in someway.
I disagree with never uthrowing Samus simply because you can't combo her with uair. Firstly, assuming that everyone will avoid your uair is faulty thinking. Humans aren't perfect, what if you wait for the bomb jump and catch a predictable Samus who's just mashing buttons? Don't give them the benefit of the doubt, try it first to see if you can get any mileage out of it. You might be removing a tool out of your kit just because it's a good idea on paper.
Secondly, having your opponent above you is one of the classically poor positions in Melee. It's heavily disadvantaged for them, and even if you can't get a combo outright, you can shark them and likely get a free hit as they come down. Their movement options are limited to aerial ones, and imo I'd much rather be dthrown as Samus than uthrown, wouldn't you? When fthrow starts knocking down, I go for that almost exclusively because it has the added effect of also pushing them towards the corner, giving them less d.i. options than uthrow does.
tl;dr sometimes you have to think positionally and for long-term control, and not for simply what gets you the next follow-up hit. Samus is strong on the ground, so throw her in the air and **** with her. Dthrow is good situationally, but it's true value IMO is at kill percent. If you've used it rarely, dthrow to usmash kill at high % is a terrifying situation for Samus.