Full hop Dair spam. Counter part to Falco's pillaring.

[OoNoiRoO]

UPDATED: Revised it a bit.

I've been testing this out for a while now. As a Falco player in melee, I'm pretty **** happy that this has so far been pretty successful. I played Falco because you can almost mindlessly pressure the opponent. This seems like a viable counter part to Falco's pillaring. Personally, I prefer the ai- I mean, I believe that this technique/strategy(whatever it is) will greatly increase Lucas's Metagame(i actually accidently typed metaknight lol).

And no, no stupid ****ing crazy name like NOIR STOMPS or some ****, just Full hop Dair... jeez. Pillaring would work too I guess.


ANYWAYS

With this, you can...

-constantly pressure shields
-reduces shields fast
-force rolls and chase rolls
-very safe
-very good damage
-leads to a smash at high percents

UPDATE: a fault on my part, this is not a full out approach technique. Use when you're close. Run up shield works well off of this.

As the tile says, You full hop Dair. Be sure to fast fall at the peak of the jump. Fast falling is a vital part of this. Upon landing, you will have no aerial landing lag(auto cancels), thus, you can do another full hop Dair, again and again. The height of Lucas's first full jump is well spaced for him and his move. Since the Dair's 4 hits have pretty good range under him and are disjointed, it's pretty **** safe. Since Lucas's aerial movement is really good too, you can space yourself really well while doing the Dair via. landing behind them to avoid a shield grab(although you can beat a shield grab, explained later), chase a roll, etc. It should be noted again that you MUST fastfall. This is also efficient on platforms. If the enemy is on a platform(Lylat Cruise platforms for example), quickly double jump to Dair.

If you're pretty near the opponent, the first kick should connect and lead into the next three kicks, which should all connect as well. The first three hits should rise them up a bit, then the last hit will send them toward the ground. From here, this is where your options open up. The enemy should be in a bit of hit stun while you aren't. Either way, upon blocked or connected, from here, you can...

1. Do another Full hop Dair (pressures if they shield/roll, or hits if they try a move with a bit start up)
2. Jab combo (will beat out their jabs, grabs, fast moves, jump-out-of-shield aerials. Certain situations it will even combo from Dair)
3. Grab
4. Whatever else you feel/is necessary.

At higher percents, if you connect at least one hit along with the last one, the enemy will be in a knocked down state. Half the time, this isn't entirely consistent, sometimes they will be knocked down, sometimes they won't be, so the foe will sometimes not be ready to immediately get up. Obviously, this is a free Fsmash. I've gotten many kills this way.

For obvious reasons, the bigger the character, the more effective this is, since it is easier to land the Dair and since the second and third kicks will connect because of their height. Against the bigger characters, it's also easy to approach for the same reason. Against smaller characters, the first kick will only connect if you're right near them. Second and third kick will miss if the first kick does not connect, but the fourth hit should be able to connect. Of course, this speculation is according to a standing character. If they jump, the kicks connect easier.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that each kick is 5%. Land all 4, that's 20%. Land a couple more, that's 60-80%, right off the bat. So if the for is trying to fight back and is eating all of your Dairs, that's 0-80% within seconds.

There are some things I speculate that may beat it, such as marth's UpB(which they made better for some stupid reason) out of shield, a perfect block(since they can immediately do an action), Bowser's UpB, etc. The only one I know FOR SURE would be a perfect block. The others just depend on who's timing is better. Luckily, you have the advantage during this.

Some other input...

Another thing:

I've been testing shield-breaking properties of each character out of boredome, and I was surprised to find that Lucas's Dair breaks shields after only 2-3 attacks with all 4 hits connecting each time.

This could be great for tempting the opponent to put up that fragile shield.

I've known this for a while, but I didn't wanna post it if it was useless. Try it out and see if you like it. Post some other things I might have missed out or if you want to add anything.

Maybe I'll put a vid up, but I'm too lazy.

 

[MasterKoga]

This is a good point, my way of full hopping his dair is setting jump to L (which I don't use anyway) and I mash X and L almost at the same time, which produces his full jump. Proceed to dairing. win!

 

[NESSBOUNDER]

Another thing:

I've been testing shield-breaking properties of each character out of boredome, and I was surprised to find that Lucas's Dair breaks shields after only 2-3 attacks with all 4 hits connecting each time.

This could be great for tempting the opponent to put up that fragile shield.

 

[OoNoiRoO]

Another thing:

I've been testing shield-breaking properties of each character out of boredome, and I was surprised to find that Lucas's Dair breaks shields after only 2-3 attacks with all 4 hits connecting each time.

This could be great for tempting the opponent to put up that fragile shield.

Thanks for the input, i'll add that.

 

[Levitas]

Noir, this thread angers me. I was playing some friendlies against scotu's marth, and I kept wanting to try this out, and marth has to be the absolute WORST character to try this against. He's got the uptilt, fsmash, and all of his aerials to punish this with.

That said, I like the idea of doing this against DDD. It may just smooth out the wrinkles in the matchup. And I'm thinking this may actually work on meta if done smartly.

Edit: meta the person not the character <--a lie.

 

[OoNoiRoO]

Yea... Marth isn't entirely the best person to try this against. Fairs are fast, ranged, and thus will beat out your jumps easily. Probably doesn't work well against MK. His Fairs would probably be troublesome and his size doesn't help either.

But yet you say punish. Be more specific? Is he punishing after the 4th Dair hit? After you land? Or even during the hits?

Although I've heard DeDeDe ***** Lucas, I used Lucas against this guy's DeDeDe in tournament this saturday. I 2 stocked him that round(I suicided as well), so he went back to his main(Wario). He actually ended up winning the tournament. Not bragging, just saying that he wasn't just some scrub(nor was it a scrub tournament, placements here, I'm "Dino"), so the technique is actually efficient. Oddly enough, I actually don't use Lucas.

 

[NESSBOUNDER]

I find full jump Dair is best out of a shield actually.

Also, you don't need to attack immediately. the hitbox of the first kick is huge. You can delay the attack slightly while rising to increase your chances of grabbing the opponent on the hexagon and therefore spiking.

 

[OoNoiRoO]

Yea, a lot of times, you will find you and your opponent running up to each other and shielding. It's generally the safest universal approach. So run up, shield, then jump-out-of-shield Dair. Thank you for reminding me.

 

[NESSBOUNDER]

Really? That's the safest universal approach? Man, I'm going to play Jigglypuff more. She can break shields in two hits using just pound.

 

[Levitas]

run up and powershield's strictly better.

Edit: my sig is awesome.

 

[OoNoiRoO]

Really? That's the safest universal approach? Man, I'm going to play Jigglypuff more. She can break shields in two hits using just pound.

Yea, plenty of times me and the opponent will just be standing near each other with our shields up. It's pretty common. Of course, we're just not leaving them out there. It's just a matter of who's more reactionary.

 

[Tyr_03]

I actually prefer double jump dair. Does about the same thing you just jump twice in rapid succesion before using it. It sends you higher and gives you more control over DI allowing you to sometimes actually drag the opponent off the ledge and spike them. Plus if they dodge or shield you're out of the way and pretty much unpunishable. Same idea. It's really great for coming off the ledge too.

 

[GofG]

I personally have not found the dair to be useful in any way whatsoever, but I have to admit, I had not thought of spamming it. Perhaps it might change my perspective.

Any vids of a decent lucas beating and/or destroying someone using this method?

 

[Tyr_03]

Spamming it doesn't really work. I'm pretty sure you can DI out of it even. It's a good move but not one that will destroy a good player single handedly.

 

[Earthbound360]

I ,3 Lucas' dair

Ive naturally been doing this, but hey, let the people know.

 

[Trozz]

I don't like spamming any moves with Lucas. I like constantly mixing up my attacks and approaches. D-air spam? I'd mix in SH n-air and projectiles too. Hell, maybe even a SH f-air or dash attack. Doing one move more often gives opponents the chance to counter your play style. Of course, if you're playing against morons who can't adapt, then you can keep with an attack pattern that works.

Nice post though. D-air seems generally underestimated.

 

[Batteries]

One strategy I used to use was the fullhop-dair to zero lag landing fsmash. Although there is a slight amount of lag with this, only a few characters are able to fully dodge the smash.

 

[Hardcorenesser]

also if you are right next to someone (right after you avoided a laggy move or something) if you double jump fast enough you will go into the footstool jump animation. if you do a dair then it will pull them up with you and hit them with all 4 hits. this is also useful for edgeguarding. just jump off the edge, footstool jump -> dair. they get hit by all 4 then spiked and the footstool jump helps you recover. this is VERY easy to do against level 9 computers, and i don't know how it works against human players. i have tried it against my bro's yoshi but the super armor during his second jump makes it impossible. i managed to do it a couple times to my bro's charizard, but i don't know how well it works against other characters. maybe someone else could try it out on a character a bit quicker. i don't know if the fact that it worked on charizard means anything because charizard is pretty slow, but it worked wonderfully against the computers. it would be perfect if there was a way to combo into it. i find bair spike to be very inefficient, but that is probably because of yoshi's god**** super armor. the best part is, they cannot do anything to avoid it. once you get that footstool jump they are ****ed. even if they could, usually the footstool jump is very unexpected. it would probably work good against characters with slower uairs. not yoshi. i know that much. and because they get dragged into it (and no one so far has DIed out of it) i imagine that if someone is getting up off the ledge with an attack (and you are standing pretty much right next to the ledge so that they stop right in front of you) then you can rapid double jump (which causes a footstool jump) -> dair and when they are dragged up with you then drag them off the edge for the spike. i haven't tried that, but i guess it could work. sorry for saying when i don't know for sure, but i think it deserves further investigtion.

ya... it is easily DIed out of if you try to drag them off the ledge so just forget i said that...

 

[Trozz]

I've been using d-air more often now. It's awesome, especially when you combine it with a fast fall, land on a distant platform, or land next to your opponent after getting in some hits. I just don't recommend it against characters who can very easily punish you being in the air.

 

[Eternal phoenix Fire]

Lol, I thought I was the only one who found this useful.

This is really a good tactic, and can also lead into combos if fast falled at the correct moment.

Lucas's Dair is an amazing tool. Use it well.