HeyGuys. I was messing around with debug mode and frame counter, and I realized that Falco's FAir has a really interesting property: If you input FAir on the first airborne frame and do not fastfall, you can get 3 hits to come out in a single short hop and the 3rd comes out on the frame immediately before Falco lands. This IS a one frame input, if you are even one frame late inputting the fair, only 2 hits will come out.
I thought "that's interesting," but ignored it for a long time because FAir isn't that good anyway. BUT, I was thinking about it today, and I realized that it might be useful for shield pressure. I did some calculations, and here is what I found:
Frame Perfect Shine>SH FAir
*Frame 1 – grounded shine input– (HITBOX on frame 1)
Frame 2-3 – stuck in shine
*Frame 4 – jump input
Frame 5-7 - stuck in jump squat
*Frame 8 – forward air input (first airborne frame)
Frame 9-31 - stuck in forward air (HITBOXES on frames 13, 23, 31)
Frame 32-42 – landing lag (assuming it is l-cancelled)
This is significant for a couple of reasons.
I thought "that's interesting," but ignored it for a long time because FAir isn't that good anyway. BUT, I was thinking about it today, and I realized that it might be useful for shield pressure. I did some calculations, and here is what I found:
Frame Perfect Shine>SH FAir
*Frame 1 – grounded shine input– (HITBOX on frame 1)
Frame 2-3 – stuck in shine
*Frame 4 – jump input
Frame 5-7 - stuck in jump squat
*Frame 8 – forward air input (first airborne frame)
Frame 9-31 - stuck in forward air (HITBOXES on frames 13, 23, 31)
Frame 32-42 – landing lag (assuming it is l-cancelled)
This is significant for a couple of reasons.
- So long FAir is unstaled, the 3rd hit is -6 on shield. If you shine on the first possible frame, the only characters that can oos punish the landing lag of 3rd hit FAir are Samus, Fox, Bowser, DK, Mario, Doc, and G&W (all of them with Up B oos except for Fox, who punished with Shine oos). Falco and Marth (with shine oos and dolphin slash oos respectively) can clank with the shine if you both are frame perfect. Puff's rest oos technically will clank with shine as well, but I don't think anyone will complain about clanking with rest.
- The only window that most characters can punish during shine>fair on shield is between Shine and the first hit of FAir (-8 frame disadvantage). I estimate that no character can punish you oos between the 1st and 2nd or 2nd and 3rd hits of Fair, but I have not actually done the calculations for these. Nair and bair come out 2 frames faster than fair, so they can cut the window after shine to -6, but since they are not multihit moves, there will be an enormous window which Falco can be punished after the hitbox comes out.
- After 2 or 3 multishines on shield, you will have pushed your opponent far enough away that they are out of range for another shine. Standard Westballz pressure (double shine>wavedash forward>double shine) uses a wavedash to close the gap, but most characters can easily oos punish the wavedash. Using FAir instead of the wavedash is a much less punishable way to close the gap and resume shine pressure and gives you additional hitboxes which help deteriorate their shield faster and can shield poke.
- Fair will not always have great followups if it shield pokes or catches an oos option. It often will lead to shine, up or forward smash, another aerial, or grab, but depending on percent, opposing character, and DI, follow ups may be difficult or impossible.
- Once the opponents shield deteriorates, 3 hit fair is almost guaranteed to shield poke. Since the first hit is relatively high on shield and the third is relatively low, it would take some god-like shield angling to block all of the hits. Poking shield is often a good thing, but if you are going for a shield break you will probably need to avoid using fair.
- If fair is staled, the third hit can be reduced to -7 on shield, making the landing lag punishable by a much larger portion of the cast. However, this should not be to big of a problem because fair is infrequently used, and it is very rare for the move to be staled.
- This strategy requires incredible precision. There is only a 1 frame window to input the fair, and if you do not shine on the first active frame after landing lag many more characters will be able to punish you oos (i.e. Sheik nair oos, ICs dair oos). However, it requires the same amount of precision as multishining, and we see players that can consistently triple and quadruple shine mid match.
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