Get up options from the ledge, lets find out our best options!

[CT Chia]

Okay everyone, one of my biggest like 'wow I need to adjust to this from Brawl' things is getting off the ledge, It's a lot harder, or perhaps just different now. In Brawl we were granted with one of the best ledge attacks in the game over 100%, and I know I abused the hell out of it lol

Well, I finally started doing some frame data testing tonight, and want to share the initial findings with all of you so we can put our collective minds networked together to determine the best options we should consider.

Here are some general ledge mechanics:
-If you grab the ledge off stage a second (or more) time in a row without landing or taking damage, you do not receive invincibility frames.
-You can regrab the ledge roughly 55 frames after letting go of it.
-The amount of time you spend on the ground prior to grabbing the ledge does not change the amount of ledge invincibility frames you receive, only air time and current percent. The more air time you have gives you more invincibility, and the more damage you have gives you fewer frames of invincibility.
-Ledge grab invincibility frames do not carry over into other animations.
-Invincibility for all of the below options start on the first frame that the animation starts. There is no start up to this.

And now, your options off the ledge:

Ledge Attack:
16 frames of invincibility
Attack comes out on frame 19
Leaves you completely vulnerable for 2 frames, not the best hitbox. The hitbox is relatively far away from you, and you have no invincibility frames as you are doing it.

Ledge Roll:
28 frames of invincibility
You can act 20 frames after the invincibility ends, making it roughly a 48 frame maneuver

Ledge Jump:
10 frames of invincibility
Can act on frame 16, leaving you vulnerable for 5 frames.
This means say nair comes out in about 18 frames, that means ledge jump nair leaves you vulnerable for about a total of 23 frames.

Ledge Get Up:
34 frames of invincibility
Can act on frame 35. This means you have 0 frames of vulnerability for this, and the only vulnerable time you would have is based on the start up lag of whatever option you pick.

So here is what we have. Ledge Get Up is the safest option, since there is no time between the ending of invincibility and when you can act again, however it is one of the slower options, thus making it easier to read and react. Despite this, it also gives you the best mixups, since you're going to be acting out of invincibility every time. Jumping is the quickest option, allowing you to act the soonest, but also has fairly poor vulnerability, especially considering the position it puts you in, the 5 frames of vulnerability between invincibility and action, and the start up lag for any ROB aerial not named fair (all others could be called unfair ). Rolling leaves you vulnerable for a disgusting 20 frames, but moves you during invincibility, to assist in having opponents whiff moves on you. But seeing that get up invincibility is longer than rolling, it's a pretty poor mixup in practice (if they try to time the punish for get up, they're also covering rolling at the same time).

So everyone, what do you think are the best ways to go about this? I don't have the frame data for the rest of ROB stuff (yet), but imagine things like get up > dtilt, get up > grab, get up > roll, jump > fair, etc etc. What are some of the major options, and advantages/disadvantages of each?

Lets break down this character and figure it out.

 

[Max Ketchum]

Wow, stand up is broken. I thought there were at least two frames of inactionable vulnerability. If that's the case, how come people still get hit with charged smashes from the ledge when they do stand up + hold shield? Shield should theoretically have 0 frames of startup, making it impossible to hit someone with anything if you do that.

My conclusions:

-stand up is OP

-best option against it is to react and grab them on their first actionable frame when all they can do is shield (assuming roll and spot dodge are still not invincible on frame 1 like in previous games)

 

[CT Chia]

Because shield doesn't protect you on frame 1 I believe (or does it?). idk how long it is, but the amount of start up shield has would be the vulnerability from it. Unless this is just ROB who has 0 frames of vulnerability lmao (didn't test anyone else yet). But yeah, shield on get up would mega lose to grab anyway. Great option, easy to predict though. All about finding the other options to that are viable to cycle between in mixups.

Edit: Going back in the lab to test shield.

 

[Max Ketchum]

I'm pretty sure shield has always protected you on frame 1 in Smash. You should definitely test this to make sure if it's still the same in Smash 4, and also test a few other characters' stand up animations from the ledge.

I wouldn't say it "mega loses" to grab though, cause grabs are only active for 2 frames and you'd have to time it perfectly with their minimal vulnerability between standing up and the invincibility on a spot dodge or roll (usually begins on frame 2-3)

 

[False]

So you only have a 2 frame window to punish get up? Its like trying to punish Falco/D3/Wario/TL spot dodge in Brawl lol.

 

[Max Ketchum]

According to this data, you have 0 frames to punish it with anything other than grab if they hold shield, and you have however many frames it takes for spot dodge/roll to become invincible (likely 2-3) to punish with grab

Edit: or however many frames it takes for shield to start up, but I think it comes out on frame 1

 

[CT Chia]

yeah, but the shield action can be beaten by grab at least. The soonest you can have would be side dodge invincibility, which get up > side dodge has 3 frames of vulnerability. Side dodge end vulnerability is about 6 frames.

 

[CT Chia]

Okay so here is from shielding:

http://imgur.com/5p27Lt8

Frame 0, I'm still in the middle of my idle animation.

Frame 1 of hitting shield, my animation changes majorly, obviously the start of the shield animation. No shield bubble yet, no invincibility frame, etc. I look vulnerable.

Frame 2, shield is out.

Now if I'm hit during frame 1, it might just kind of go into the powershield animation/noise routine, however, idk, ROB looks fairly vulnerable.

I did this again and took the screenshots of getting up from the ledge:

http://imgur.com/Nj5SbPw

Frame 0, I'm still invincible and I'm in the very last frame of my ledge get up animation.

Frame 1, oh hey, that's the exact same animation frame as before when I shield. Definitely consistent. Again, I look vulnerable.

Frame 2, shield is out.

Now I can't say for certain if I'm considered 'shielding' or not during this frame 1 animation, but it honestly looks to me like I'm not, and could mean that shields in this game have a one frame start up. This also means that get up > shield has a 1 frame vulnerability.

 

[Max Ketchum]

Gotcha, good work. Now the final verification is to test if that "block start-up" animation produces a powershield if it interacts with a hitbox, but from the looks of it, I'd reckon that you'll just take the hit. Test and let us know!

 

[False]

I definitely recall reading somewhere that shields are active on frame 2 in Sm4sh. Could be wrong, but I swear it sounds familiar.

 

[CT Chia]

Working with Lux on a way to test this for 100% fact, and we have some ideas. It's late (lol 7am) and next time I lab up I'm gonna stream the session so we can figure it out, and maybe take some viewer requests for frame data at the same time

 

[Max Ketchum]

Best way to probably test it would be to do a move with a ton of active frames just outside your character's hurtbox, so that when they shield, it expands the outer edges of the shield into the hitbox

 

[False]

Best way to probably test it would be to do a move with a ton of active frames just outside your character's hurtbox, so that when they shield, it expands the outer edges of the shield into the hitbox

You could probably spam a rapid jab.

 

[DeLux]

Collect frame data for characters, finding one with a frame 1 hitbox (ZSS's Jab I suggest, but needs to be confirmed to remove variables).

Force a ground break from grab between the two characters and use the frame 1 hitbox at the earliest time for both characters. If the moves clank, then the grab break scenario is frame neutral. If one gets hit, that one has frame advantage.

If it's frame neutral, use jab vs. shield to see if jab hits or not. If jab is frame one, the grab release is frame neutral, and shield works, shield still comes up frame 1.

You can attempt to account for deviations in frame neutrality by having the character with frame advantage use a longer framed move. If there is a character with a frame 2 move, try that. Frame 3 move etc. But you can attempt to distinguish the frame advantage on grab release based off the difference in hitbox active frame of clanking moves.

If you want to watch it in frame by frame, you could also just use shield on first possible frame and see at what times shield comes up for each character via frame by frame break down. The clank test is just like the quick and dirty way to figure it out without frame by frame video assuming we knew frame data on hitboxes for some moves (which we have in various places online)

Preliminary speculation -
Characters are able to shield the ZSS jab from grab break. Assuming ZSS's Jab is Frame 1 and Grab Release is frame neutral, this would indicate shield still works frame 1. However, Chibo could confirm the frame 1ness of jab and the neutrality of grab release via video testing.

 

[Max Ketchum]

In case ZSS's jab isn't frame 1, I'm pretty sure Little Mac's is

For the constantly active hitboxes, I would avoid testing on a rapid jab because they're only active every few frames. Try something like Link's nair

 

[Indigo Jeans]

I always suspected that ledge invincibility didnt carry over to actions since my ledgejumps and attacks would always get beaten out by rapid jabs but now its Chibo confirmed

Stand up has been my go to option since you dont have to act immediately out of it and can mix things up with respect to when it is that you do react, though I never imagined just HOW safe it was

 

[GwJ]

That's really cool that ROB's standup has so much invincibility. I'll have to make more use of that, most of the time I've been ledge dropping and using fair or something to get back on stage.

 

[Mister Eric]

b-rev fo lyfe

 

[Jigglymaster]

Had a feeling that standard get up from the ledge was the best option, I've been using it for a while as Mii Brawler, you wouldn't know how many times I got free punishes because my opponent tried to punish the get up animation and missed.

 

[extremechiton]

so best option is not to grab the ledge at all?

 

[GwJ]

If you don't get hit, you'll never have to grab the ledge.

 

[PowerHungryFool]

next time I lab up I'm gonna stream the session so we can figure it out

Let us know before you stream, please, because I'm quite curious.

 

[CT Chia]

Follow the channel so you'll get an email when I do
twitch.tv/clashtournaments

 

[standardtoaster]

Okay so here is from shielding:

http://imgur.com/5p27Lt8

Frame 0, I'm still in the middle of my idle animation.

Frame 1 of hitting shield, my animation changes majorly, obviously the start of the shield animation. No shield bubble yet, no invincibility frame, etc. I look vulnerable.

Frame 2, shield is out.

Now if I'm hit during frame 1, it might just kind of go into the powershield animation/noise routine, however, idk, ROB looks fairly vulnerable.

I did this again and took the screenshots of getting up from the ledge:

http://imgur.com/Nj5SbPw

Frame 0, I'm still invincible and I'm in the very last frame of my ledge get up animation.

Frame 1, oh hey, that's the exact same animation frame as before when I shield. Definitely consistent. Again, I look vulnerable.

Frame 2, shield is out.

Now I can't say for certain if I'm considered 'shielding' or not during this frame 1 animation, but it honestly looks to me like I'm not, and could mean that shields in this game have a one frame start up. This also means that get up > shield has a 1 frame vulnerability.

Shields in smash have always worked starting frame 1. Brawl shield also worked like your images. Frame 1 no gfx, frame 2 shield gfx

 

[Belgrim]

When ROB is on the ledge, fall down from the ledge and then jump into a uair

 

[Indigo Jeans]

That isnt necessarily a good option. It was safer in Brawl, but with the new ledge invincibility mechanics, not so much. Characters with disjointed attacks can either poke you out of it (Marth and Wario) or clank/shield it. At that point youre asically back to square one without making any progress and in fact in a worse position because you either make it onstage unsafely, or regrab and lose your invincibility.

 

[B_Bech]

Avoiding edge-guards is much easier to do when you mix in recovering high and low, fast falled nairs and dair stalling works pretty well for me. When it comes to ledge mix-ups... I almost always get punished for the attack. Roll I hardly ever use, but I tend to use it later on when my opponent has become conditioned to anticipate me getting up empty. Your frame data coincides with what I usually find to be my best option = doing nothing. After that I either spot dodge, shield, dtilt... jump but not often. Sometimes just grabbing is a good option. Boxing too. Honestly, I think you should be doing anything you can. There may be a single best option, but not being predictable, to me, seems more advantageous than going for the absolute best option all the time. Then again, that could just be my own personal preference.

The regrab options aren't too bad with ROB. Fair punishes are good for reading an opponent trying to dtilt you or smash you for going for the regrab like little mac. Like someone said before, poking through the stage with uair is an awesome option. Sometimes going for a regrab and immediately dropping down and uairing is awesome, easy dair bait. Uair has surprisingly good priority-- especially against most of the cast's dairs. I would say don't go for more than 3 regrabs though if you're stalling/ camping with laser/gyro off edge because fuel seems to drain pretty fast in this game.

Bad options for an empty pullup are dsmash (way too much start up lag now) Gyro launch (whiffs when the opponent is close up) and side b unless they are trying to punish with a projectile. Side b is alot to commit to when you might be low on fuel. Smart opponents will push/throw you right back off if they know about the nerfed refueling time. That's why I think recovering high is much better in this game, especially on a stage with platforms like battlefield.

 

[1FC0]

If you don't get hit, you'll never have to grab the ledge.

You still might have to grab the ledge though if you gimp offstage and go really far.