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Important Frame Syncing

Fox Is Openly Deceptive

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BACKGROUND and INTRODUCTION

In his memorable thread, Izaw revealed to the world video evidence of the mechanic that was first known as "frame cancelling". In the video Izaw proposed a hypothesis for the mechanic which revolved around hitting with the first frame of the aerial and then fast falling during hitlag. While everyone was thrilled to see that such a thing was possible, the explanation didn't sit right with some people, myself included. The thread moved forward, and the underlying mechanic became better understood. Hitlag and landing lag were seen to be overlapping i.e. 'syncing' when this technique was performed correctly. (For the purposes of this article, the technique will be referred to by the preferred name 'frame syncing', as that name more appropriately fits the nature of its behavior.) Unfortunately, the thread lost momentum before the mechanic was fully understood and most people moved on with their lives.

Dr. Tuen Dr. Tuen was one such person who, like me, never fully moved on, and so over the last year or so we've been discussing and testing frame syncing on and off via PM's. The information found in this thread represents the conclusion we finally came to. We must have changed our minds half a dozen times, but at this stage we're finally confident that we know exactly how frame syncing works.

In more recent times a thread was created claiming to understand the underlying mechanism for this technique. The author inferred these mechanisms through the article that was translated by Source Gaming, but as shall be shown, the conclusions that were reached are inaccurate. This thread inspired us to take yet another look at frame syncing through an examination of the claims made in the thread. That effort solidified our conclusions, which are presented below.


Before giving you the definitive explanation for frame syncing however, we must address the many common misconceptions about it, or in other words, "You must unlearn what you have learned."



Frame Syncing Misconceptions

"Frame syncing means that you land on the frame you hit the opponent with an aerial."
First of all, this is impossible; the game does not allow it. Only one of two things can happen on a single frame with a normal aerial if you try to hit an opponent and land at the same time; either the aerial will hit the opponent on your last airborne frame, or you'll land, at which point there can be no aerial to hit with. Second of all, most known examples of frame syncs don't even land on the frame immediately following the aerial hitting an opponent. The most well known example, the Falco Dair frame sync, has Falco landing not on the frame after the Dair hits, but on the frame after that (i.e. the third frame of hitlag). Then there are examples of frame syncs such as Toon using Uair such that it hits on the last airborne frame of his short hop, which has Toon landing on the 9th frame of hitlag.


"You need to connect with the first frame of the aerial."
Technically you can connect with any frame of the aerial, it's just that it's much much easier to connect with the first frame of the aerial on your last airborne frame, otherwise you're more than likely to simply hit the opponent before your last airborne frame. Speaking of which...


"You must hit the opponent on the last airborne frame."
Technically no, though in practice this will usually be true. If there are extreme circumstances (e.g. involving a rising platform) there's no reason why you need to hit the opponent on your last airborne frame, though you'll get a worse frame sync if you don't.
  • Try using Ganondorf's down air on an opponent standing on the rising platform on Kongo Jungle 64. It can frame sync on various airborne frames, not just the last one.

"In order to frame sync you need to fast fall during hitlag."
Fast falling during hitlag is impossible, and in any case hitting down on the joystick any number of times during hitlag will not affect whether you get a frame sync or the degree to which you do frame sync.


"In order to frame sync you need to fast fall."
There are examples of frame syncs working without the need to fast fall at all, such as the Toon Uair one mentioned above or a Ganon using Dair on the 15th airborne frame of a SH. In many instances however, fast falling will be required as part of a 'setup' or will in any event make the already existing frame sync better, but I'll touch more on that later.
  • Note that the Toon Link Up air frame sync can be set up by buffering an air dodge during the jump-squat frames of a short hop then buffering the Up air out of the air dodge.

"Vibration during hitlag is what causes you to land."

This is the conclusion that was drawn from the Source Gaming article and which was for a long time before that considered to be one of the better explanations for frame syncing. However, a few observations will show that this is not so.

First, vibration decreases over time during the hitlag (for example, Captain Falcon stops vibrating after about six frames when he uses his forward air). Combine this with the fact that there are many examples of frame syncs that have the character land toward the end of their hitlag, e.g. Toon using Uair as above and landing on the 9th frame of hitlag out of a total of 11 frames of hitlag. If it was the vibrating that caused the character to land, one would expect it to increase over time during hitlag until Toon Link landed.

Second, the article refers to the vibration as a camera zoom dependent mechanic. The character in question vibrates more if the camera is zoomed out to make the effect visible when there are many characters on the screen. If the vibration caused the frame syncing mechanic, one would then expect that frame syncing would be made easier if the camera is zoomed out. However this is not the case and characters will not land earlier or later during hitlag.
  • You can test this yourself by executing Toon Link's Up air frame sync in training mode. Try it with the camera zoomed all the way in, or all the way out on a large stage. The result will be the same. Toon will always land on the 9th frame of hitlag when the frame sync is performed identically.

"But the attacking character doesn't vibrate when they hit a shield with their aerial, so that explains why you can't frame sync when hitting a shield!"
Actually, the attacking character does vibrate when they hit a shield... so... yeah.


"It's the aerial animation that is responsible for frame syncs. On the frame the hitbox comes out, the aerial moves the character into the ground and therefore makes you land."
While it is true that the aerial you use can in fact play a part (in some instances, a large part), if it was the sole reason why frame syncing worked, it would be impossible to frame sync during the latter hitlag frames when aerial animations play a smaller role. Additionally, if this had any large significance for the cause of frame syncs, there would be no explanation for why frame syncs don't work on shields.


"What matters is that the character visually looks like their body touches the ground, and so certain aerials that don't have any limbs extending into the ground are impossible to frame sync."
What actually matters is the root bone of the character which is unaffected by where your character's limbs are during an aerial. Link's Nair can frame sync just as well as any of his other aerials even though his character model is visually nowhere near the ground on the last airborne frame. In fact, there is a setup which works for all his aerials (except Dair of course) where you're able to get a perfect frame sync, i.e. one frame better than the classic Falco Dair example.
  • To do this, buffer a Double Jump during Link's jump-squat frames, then it's just a matter of timing the aerial of your choice such that you hit the opponent on your last airborne frame.

"Only non-floaty characters can get frame syncs, or at least it is easier for them to get frame syncs."
There is no reason for this to be true, and in any case, characters such as Kirby and Jiggs have demonstrated the frame sync mechanic just fine with the right setup.



How Frame Syncing Works
Frame syncing is a combination of a few things, but in essence it all hinges upon one previously unknown factor: the fact that characters actually continue to move during hitlag, just very very slowly. This effect is mentioned in the article. Sakurai states that the vibration does not affect hurtboxes, but the character moves slowly throughout hitlag. It was previously assumed that characters froze completely and only began to move once hitlag had ended.

This knowledge simplifies the explanation for frame syncing. The character using the aerial hits the opponent extremely close to the ground just before they land, they enter hitlag and continue to slowly fall toward the ground during hitlag, then at some point during hitlag they land, at which point their landing lag begins to occur at the same time that they continue to wait out their remaining hitlag frames (i.e. a synchronization of those two lag types).

You can see this very slow movement during hitlag yourself by using a fast falling character in training mode, standing alongside e.g. the ladder on Palutena's Temple, then fast falling an aerial and hitting a character with it, preferably an aerial with a lot of hitlag. Skip forward two frames at a time by tapping L while using '1/4 hold', and just as the vibrating during hitlag is settling down, for the remainder of the hitlag you will be able to see undeniably that the character actually moves ever so slowly and slightly downwards as they continue to fall. The vibrating unfortunately masks this movement toward the start, but you'll see the movement nonetheless.

Using this method we captured two screen shots that display this movement. The first picture represents the point the vibrations were definitely finished, then the second picture represents somewhere toward the end of the hitlag. I still recommend testing it yourself as it is much more readily apparent, but here you go.
Note that Game and Watch naturally continues to vibrate throughout the hitlag, so ignore his position. What you want to be looking at is Falcon's position in relation to the ladder rungs in the background.





"Does this mean that any aerial can frame sync?"
I had assumed the answer was yes and that any failure to frame sync an aerial was due to the very specific nature of the tech leading to a failure to find the right setup. However, recently Arthur (https://twitter.com/BenArthur_7) demonstrated that not all aerials are made equally, and that there is a specific parameter in the coding of each aerial that decides whether or not you will continue to move during hitlag:
"Set to 0: Allows animation to continue (slowly) during hitlag.
This allows landing during hitlag frames
Set to 1: No animation occurs during hitlag."
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1bTgV0ogNCOK2oZ1t51ERzGzPXgICk0vzb5VXPlZJTz4/edit#gid=0
So yes, Ryu is incapable of frame syncing because all his aerials are set to 1.


"So then, why doesn't frame syncing work on shields?"
A good question! And the answer is quite simple really. As has been shown, characters continue to move very slowly during hitlag, allowing them to continue to fall. However, the attacking character does not continue to move if they hit a shield. Instead they get frozen solid for the duration of the shield hitlag (aside of course from the vibrating, which is purely a cosmetic visual) and do not continue to fall if they were falling before they connected the aerial with the shield.



How to Frame Sync

Now that the mechanic itself has been explained, we'll look at what is required to set frame syncs up. There are a few key things that you can adjust to get a frame sync to work.
  1. Characters need to get as close to the ground as possible before the aerial hits to reduce the distance that will be required to travel downwards during hitlag in order to reach the ground and land. This is by far the most important factor contributing towards why a frame sync will or will not work. For most characters the last airborne frame in a standard SH or FH simply will not be anywhere near close enough to the ground. I'll explain further in a moment.
  2. Aerials with a lot of hitlag frames are best as they will have more hitlag frames to slowly fall to the ground with and then more frames of hitlag for syncing with their landing lag once they have landed. Aerials with low hitlag can definitely still work just fine, but they will require a better setup to get the last airborne frame close enough to the ground such that the character will land during those few hitlag frames.
  3. Aerials that position the character slightly closer to the ground may yield frame syncs in circumstances where other aerials won't. The effect this will have will depend upon the aerial. Often there will be little to no difference, while other times you'll have a more extreme example such as Falcon's Uair which can be very difficult to frame sync, though not impossible. What this means is that certain setups, especially ones that aren't optimised, may either not work well or not work at all for some aerials.
  4. You actually need to use an aerial that allows movement during hitlag. Here's the link again: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1bTgV0ogNCOK2oZ1t51ERzGzPXgICk0vzb5VXPlZJTz4/edit#gid=0

Most frame syncs will require a setup. This generally means fast falling on a specific frame or doing a footstool or a double jump or making use of a platform or something to get your character in an 'abnormal' position relative to the ground. Here's an extremely simplified explanation of this:

Imagine that Smash is divided into segments like on an X and Y graph. Imagine that your character moves exactly 5 units downwards per frame while falling. For the sake of this explanation, we'll say that '0' represents landing on stage. In a standard SH then, the last few positions of your character would be something like '15, 10, 5, then 0', with '5' being your position relative to the ground on the last airborne frame. This isn't anywhere near close enough to the ground to get a frame sync. But let's say that when you fast fall you instead travel 7 units down per frame. Therefore, if you fast fall on the 4th to last airborne frame, your last few character positions per frame will instead be '15, 8, 1, then 0', this time with '1' being your position relative to the ground on the last airborne frame. What you want to do then is get your aerial to hit the opponent on that last airborne frame, and then the final '1 to 0' distance can be covered during hitlag.

Now obviously this is deliberately over simplified and the distance covered during hitlag is minuscule etc, but it is a helpful way to understand how the game actually works. To sum it up, in order to frame sync you need to find a way to get into an abnormal aerial position such that your last airborne frame is (much) closer to the ground than normal. The better the setup, the closer to the ground you'll be on your last airborne frame, the better the frame sync, the more frames you'll save.



CONCLUDING REMARKS

It is hoped that having imparted a correct understanding of the frame sync mechanic, the community will be empowered to do more research into their own characters and find even more ways to make this tech user-friendly, such as finding more buffered setups. Take for example the footstool setup for Ganondorf that can lead to a guaranteed frame synced down air that pretty much leads to... whatever you want.

Feel free to ask questions in the comments below about the research, the results, or anything related to the frame sync technique.

All the best,

Foxy & Tuen.



MISCELLANEOUS NOTES

The technique known as 'the frame sync' is not to be confused by another technique which gives similar results but functions very differently. There are some aerials that generate a hitbox when they land which causes an overlapping of hitlag and landing lag frames, and it works on shields. Bowser Junior's Dair is one such case that benefits from this greatly, though moves like Zero Suit Samus' down air and Sheik's down air technically benefit too.

While conducting frame sync tests with Ganon's Dair on Kongo Jungle 64, I noted while trying to force a frame sync on a shield that even though Ganon didn't continue to fall slowly during the shield hitlag as noted above, and even though the platform moved up during hitlag and actually carried Ganon further upwards while he was still in hitlag, he refused to actually land while still in hitlag, yes, even though the platform was actually moving him upwards. There are any number of explanations for this, but for now my theory is that it has something to do with specifically being programmed to stay perfectly still (disregarding the vibrating) and not continue to fall, therefore perhaps not being open to the possibility of landing.

Finally, one quirk to do with training mode held us back for quite some time there. There was a point at which, regardless of what we tried, we could not get Falco to frame sync his Dair in training mode. Eventually we decided to ask Izaw if he could provide us with a video of a standard Falco Dair frame sync and slow it down so that we could see it frame by frame. Using the video we replicated it frame perfectly in training mode, and still it would not frame sync. At this point, having ruled out all other explanations, I knew that the fault had to lie in training mode somehow. What I found was that the frame sync would not work when skipping forwards by two frames using 1/4 hold, while it would work when skipping forwards by three frames at a time using 1/2 hold. We've tested numerous frame syncs over the past year or so, and this is the only example we've encountered where using 1/4 hold made any difference whatsoever. As for why this occurred, I'm not sure, but we've been on the look-out for differences since then and have had no further trouble using 1/4 hold frame skips.
 
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Zapp Branniglenn

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Don't suppose you guys came up with a running list of moves and setups you've confirmed work? Could be handy for the thread. I know from your hypothesis that every move should theoretically work, but if you've been labbing frame syncs for this long, I'd bet money you were at a point where it seemed only some moves could be synced. My own personal guess was that only moves with a hitlag modifier (in game data or just with an electric element) were the only ones that work, since all the examples I had seen or heard of were moves with that. Then I accidentally frame synced Jigglypuff's Uair one day when making notes about the rest followup and I saw that was not the case. Anyway, I feel like a list of moves and appropriate setups are best chronicled here in order to get a wider variety of people testing the mechanic, rather than just Falco or Ganon mains.

I do think one small tidbit should be added to the OP, assuming I'm not wrong. You mention moves with a hitlag modifier being easier to sync, because more hitlag translates to more time falling to the ground. Doesn't that also mean moves that simply do more damage should also be more accessible for this tech? More damage means more hitlag, and even proficient testers might fail to piece those together after careful thought. It ought to be mentioned.
 

teluoborg

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Damn that was a good read, thanks a lot for the hard work.

Few things I'd add though :
-there's an exception to frame sync not happening on shields which is Jr's Dair (and possibly other moves with landing hitboxes, but Lil Bow's Dair is the most sensible one). Do you have any data related to those ?
-that's the same game mechanism that causes untechable stage spikes. Probably should add a word or two about that.

And yeah I think a list of frame sync-able moves could be of some use but that's probably a lot of work that should be divided among volunteers.
 

wpwood

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Hmm, I've been calling this frame canceling since it "cancels" your landing lag but I guess frame syncing works as a name. A lot of moves can be frame canceled and, in the case of Roy, his moves have more hit stun the closer to him the move connects. It would be a really long list.
 

Pazzo.

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Very nice read. Smash 4's buffering system is something else.

As suggested by teluoborg teluoborg , I'd like to see a list made. I can only imagine how long that'd take though.
 

Fox Is Openly Deceptive

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Don't suppose you guys came up with a running list of moves and setups you've confirmed work?
I kind of didn't see the point of including a list because I didn't want to give off the impression that some aerials couldn't be frame synced under the right circumstances just because we personally didn't bother to find those right circumstances. I fully believe that any normal aerial (excluding obvious exceptions) can be frame synced, and I'm yet to see any satisfactory evidence to the contrary. In any case there was only two of us, a lot of aerials, and any number of ways to set up a frame sync for them, and we didn't even need to find frame syncs for all aerials. We were happy enough to find interesting examples like the ones I did talk about, because our aim was simply to discover the underlying mechanics after all. For the record though, even just fast falling on the last or second last airborne frame (character dependent) was often enough to set up a frame sync, but then, again, there are any number of different ways to set up a frame sync for the same aerial/character, so the impractical setups we found were usually just for the purposes of testing. What you want is a list of practical setups, not a list of all known setups.

So no, sorry everyone, but I won't be including a list of all known setups, though at a later stage I may bother to include a list of the known practical setups. Feel free to post practical setups that haven't been mentioned in this thread.

Then I accidentally frame synced Jigglypuff's Uair one day when making notes about the rest followup and I saw that was not the case.
Jiggs was mentioned, yes. We tested her because she was an interesting case and we wanted to find out whether there was an inherent advantage in being a fast faller or not.

I do think one small tidbit should be added to the OP, assuming I'm not wrong. You mention moves with a hitlag modifier being easier to sync, because more hitlag translates to more time falling to the ground. Doesn't that also mean moves that simply do more damage should also be more accessible for this tech? More damage means more hitlag, and even proficient testers might fail to piece those together after careful thought. It ought to be mentioned.
No, I actually said that more hitlag helped. I never said anything about a hitlag modifier. So yes, moves that deal more damage will help.

Damn that was a good read, thanks a lot for the hard work.

Few things I'd add though :
-there's an exception to frame sync not happening on shields which is Jr's Dair (and possibly other moves with landing hitboxes, but Lil Bow's Dair is the most sensible one). Do you have any data related to those ?
Bowser Jr's Dair is mentioned right at the end in the 'miscellaneous notes'.

-that's the same game mechanism that causes untechable stage spikes. Probably should add a word or two about that.
Tuen actually thought about mentioning this as well... but in the end I decided against it because I thought it was a bit off-topic.

Hmm, I've been calling this frame canceling since it "cancels" your landing lag but I guess frame syncing works as a name.
It doesn't cancel the landing lag though. Not technically. You still endure the exact same amount of landing lag, it's just that some of it is done during hitlag. I prefer to not call it frame cancelling because it gives people the wrong idea of how it actually works.

in the case of Roy, his moves have more hit stun the closer to him the move connects.
I assume you mean hitlag, not hitstun. Have a quick look at the smash dictionary linked in my signature.
 

teluoborg

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You're right my b lol. So is there a name for the Dair mechanism ? Or should we call it not frame sync ?
 

Lavani

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Just call it frame syncing anyway, it's the same principle, just that you're already on the ground by the time hitlag starts instead of needing to fall during hitlag.

If we're going to list moves, I think a list of moves that don't/situationally work with frame sync would be a more feasible list. The only attack I remember ever failing to do a sync with was Captain Falcon's uair, because the way he shifts during the attack makes it ridiculously hard to actually land during hitlag with it, maybe even impossible on flat ground.
 

Remzi

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Very good read, thanks for putting this together. Without knowing the exact mechancis, I've been searching for buffered setups with ZSS for a while to no avail :(
 

Fox Is Openly Deceptive

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If we're going to list moves, I think a list of moves that don't/situationally work with frame sync would be a more feasible list. The only attack I remember ever failing to do a sync with was Captain Falcon's uair, because the way he shifts during the attack makes it ridiculously hard to actually land during hitlag with it, maybe even impossible on flat ground.
Falcon's Uair is definitely an extreme case, but even without using a rising platform I was able to get a small frame sync with it. I did this by first teetering on the edge of one of the bottom BF platforms, running off and falling for 16 frames, starting Uair on frame 17, then fast falling on the last airborne frame. Out of the 9 frames of hitlag Uair induces I was able to land on frame 8 and therefore sync 2 frames. There's probably a more practical set up for it, but you're right to label this a tough case.
 

teluoborg

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Wait in your example did Falcon have 2 frames less on his effective landing lag or was it only 2 frames long ?

Also the easiest example of frame sync I've ever seen is Falco's SHFF Nair, where the only thing you have to do is buffer the Nair out of jumpsquat, FF asap and hit with the last hitbox.
 

Dr. Tuen

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-that's the same game mechanism that causes untechable stage spikes. Probably should add a word or two about that.
Yep! I think the Beefy Smash Dudes did a pretty good job of explaining it. Recognizing the connections between mechanics in this game could really come in handy in future work.

If we're going to list moves, I think a list of moves that don't/situationally work with frame sync would be a more feasible list. The only attack I remember ever failing to do a sync with was Captain Falcon's uair, because the way he shifts during the attack makes it ridiculously hard to actually land during hitlag with it, maybe even impossible on flat ground.
Well... Hm. Some general categories of moves that don't work may be a good place to start narrowing that list of un-syncable moves.
  1. All moves that do not generate attacker hitlag. A nice and easy starter for the list. Item generation moves, item throwing moves, projectiles, gravitational pull, command grabs, etc.
  2. Moves that cannot be directed downward.* A lot of recovery moves would fit here. ZSS's boost kick, for example.
  3. Moves that bounce off of opponents. ZSS's flip kick**, Sheik's bouncing fish, and Bayonetta's downward side B all come to mind.
*The rising platform corner case may make rising moves technically applicable for the frame sync mechanic. That's... a very specific corner case though. I may try to get boost kick for fun someday, just to see if I can.

**There have been some talk of being able to ledge cancel a flip kick that has hit an opponent. If that is truly possible, that might be a weird merger of the ledge cancel & frame sync mechanics. The order of operations may look like: Hit Opponent --> Slow Fall in Hit Lag --> Land before the game bounces you --> Slide and ledge cancel. I've put a few hours into this a while back and could not replicate it, though at the time I wasn't familiar with or regularly using 1/4 frame advance. I'll try again at some point, but there a thread for anyone to pull at if they're curious in the mean time.

Anyways, there's a start. I think normal moves that don't fit those categories should all be fine, especially when we acknowledge the automatic case for some down aerials. Specials are the weird ones though. There's not even a lot of data on their landing lag yet, and some don't even work that way they just have an ending that they reach regardless of landing or remaining airborne. My guess would be that the set time specials (say, the minimum hold time for Bowser's Fire Breath), frame sync is not possible, since there is no "landing lag" to sync with.

Very good read, thanks for putting this together. Without knowing the exact mechanics, I've been searching for buffered setups with ZSS for a while to no avail :(
Ah yeah, I've been looking for this too. No luck yet! I wish I could regularly get the neutral air frame sync. That would be increase the safety of the move by quite a bit... which'd be obnoxious, ha ha.
 
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Fox Is Openly Deceptive

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Is there any use for frame syncing?
Would you say there's any use for L-cancelling in Melee? Because this is comparable to that only you have to actually hit the opponent and without a buffered setup it usually requires frame perfect inputs.
Reducing the amount of experienced/felt landing lag opens up combos that are otherwise impossible, so yeah, I'd say there are some uses for it. Izaw's video demonstrates a few of these.
 
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teluoborg

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Well comparing it to L cancel is a bit unfair as L cancel is universal and will reduce your landing lag no matter if your aerial hits an opponent, a shield or nothing at all.

The main use I see for frame syncs is the extension of combos : reducing the effective lag after hitting someone means more time for follow ups. How much time you gain is character and move dependant, so every character will benefit differently from it.
I could extrapolate and say that the characters that will benefit the most from it are those who can frame sync a move that is already safe on shield/whiff or a move that can be set up in a combo.
Eg : ZSS' Nair is the perfect example of a move that is safe on shield and can be set up via Dsmash at low percents.
Falco's Nair isn't safe on shield, but can be set up from a Dthrow.
Falco's Dair is slow and punishable, and can't be set up except from a read on a dodge or something like that, therefore it will not benefit as much from frame syncing in a real match scenario.

It doesn't make you safer on whiff or on shield (except for the Bowser Jr like cases), it just gives you more time after landing a hit.
 

Fox Is Openly Deceptive

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Well comparing it to L cancel is a bit unfair as L cancel is universal and will reduce your landing lag no matter if your aerial hits an opponent, a shield or nothing at all.

The main use I see for frame syncs is the extension of combos : reducing the effective lag after hitting someone means more time for follow ups. How much time you gain is character and move dependant, so every character will benefit differently from it.
I could extrapolate and say that the characters that will benefit the most from it are those who can frame sync a move that is already safe on shield/whiff or a move that can be set up in a combo.
Eg : ZSS' Nair is the perfect example of a move that is safe on shield and can be set up via Dsmash at low percents.
Falco's Nair isn't safe on shield, but can be set up from a Dthrow.
Falco's Dair is slow and punishable, and can't be set up except from a read on a dodge or something like that, therefore it will not benefit as much from frame syncing in a real match scenario.

It doesn't make you safer on whiff or on shield (except for the Bowser Jr like cases), it just gives you more time after landing a hit.
Yes, that's what I said. And I agree with the elaboration.
 

Skitrel

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Basically what I'm taking away from this is that moves that shift a character's hurtbox downwards would be significantly easier to perform this technique with than others, correct? They would require less special positioning for the landing during hitstun. I'm guessing this is why some moves are easier to perform this with while others are nearly impossible, such as Falcon's uair which definitely shifts his hurtbox upwards.

Beefy Smash generated a list of hurtbox shifting moves for fair as a tool for saving yourself from the blastzone. Perhaps it is time for a list of moves that shift the hurtbox downwards to be generated. Unfortunately I do not know what testing methodology would be best for this, perhaps a lavaflow tile below a platform such that the player can not hit the lavaflow when simply landing on the platform but can if their attack shifts their hurtbox below it? I'm not sure if that will even function.
 

Fox Is Openly Deceptive

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Basically what I'm taking away from this is that moves that shift a character's hurtbox downwards would be significantly easier to perform this technique with than others, correct? They would require less special positioning for the landing during hitstun. I'm guessing this is why some moves are easier to perform this with while others are nearly impossible, such as Falcon's uair which definitely shifts his hurtbox upwards.

Beefy Smash generated a list of hurtbox shifting moves for fair as a tool for saving yourself from the blastzone. Perhaps it is time for a list of moves that shift the hurtbox downwards to be generated. Unfortunately I do not know what testing methodology would be best for this, perhaps a lavaflow tile below a platform such that the player can not hit the lavaflow when simply landing on the platform but can if their attack shifts their hurtbox below it? I'm not sure if that will even function.
[Small correction, but you meant "for the landing during hitlag"]

What's important isn't whether the move shifts the character's hurtbox; it's all about whether it shifts their ECB (environmental detection-box), i.e. the thing attached to your character that detects, among other things, the ground, and determines how far away the character is from the ground. Link's Nair for example definitely shifts his hurtbox up, but it doesn't appear to have any noticeable effect on his ECB, it being just as easy to frame sync. In any case, this is only one of the relevant factors.

The best way to test it as far as I'm aware is to do what we've been doing all along; find a specific setup that works for one of your character's aerials, then try that same exact setup out with all the aerials (the only difference being of course which frame you use the specific aerial on so that it hits on the last airborne frame) and then count how many frames of hitlag it takes to finally land (if you land during hitlag at all, which may simply be because the move itself did not cause enough hitlag frames). If there are any differences between the aerials then this will be because of inherent differences in the aerial's ECB positioning.

Edit: technically it's the root bone, not the ecb in this case.
 
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Fox Is Openly Deceptive

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Important update!

I've inserted the following into the OP:

"Does this mean that any aerial can frame sync?"
I had assumed the answer was yes and that any failure to frame sync an aerial was due to the very specific nature of the tech leading to a failure to find the right setup. However, recently Arthur (https://twitter.com/BenArthur_7) demonstrated that not all aerials are made equally, and that there is a specific parameter in the coding of each aerial that decides whether or not you will continue to move during hitlag:
"Set to 0: Allows animation to continue (slowly) during hitlag.
This allows landing during hitlag frames
Set to 1: No animation occurs during hitlag."
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1bTgV0ogNCOK2oZ1t51ERzGzPXgICk0vzb5VXPlZJTz4/edit#gid=0
So yes, Ryu is incapable of frame syncing because all his aerials are set to 1.
 

Uffe

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So this is practical, so long as your opponent doesn't shield. I know some characters can still frame sync, but why? Maybe others can if you throw your aerial out just before landing against your opponents shield?
 

Fox Is Openly Deceptive

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So this is practical, so long as your opponent doesn't shield. I know some characters can still frame sync, but why? Maybe others can if you throw your aerial out just before landing against your opponents shield?
I believe I talked about this at the bottom of the OP under 'miscellaneous notes', first paragraph.
 
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