• Welcome to Smashboards, the world's largest Super Smash Brothers community! Over 250,000 Smash Bros. fans from around the world have come to discuss these great games in over 19 million posts!

    You are currently viewing our boards as a visitor. Click here to sign up right now and start on your path in the Smash community!

Half Nair

GPEternity

Smash Journeyman
Joined
Jul 31, 2008
Messages
271
Location
Bay Area, CA
A lot of discussions about Marth's approaching and aerial tactics involve abusing his fair to space and wall. Fair -> Fair chains are also a common practice I see in many matches.

Usually when one wishes to land with an attack, first instinct is Fair. Fair is great an all, in fact fair's comprise some 40-50% of my attacks when I play Marth.

So my question is why not land with a half nair? What I mean is fast falling, or simply timing the nair so that you hit the ground once the first swing comes out. There is virtually no additional landing lag from it, it comes out quick, has decent range, and has low knockback.

The low knockback part is what I want to take a close look at. In a game where hitstun lasts for almost no time at all, attacks that keep your opponent near you are very useful for setups.

Say you hit your opponent with a fair, and they are low enough that you know you can connect with another fair when you land next to them, has anyone considered a half nair to keep them off balance and then go into a tilt/dsmash?

Or say your opponent is running up to you and you are about to land, most people use fair so their opponent is forced to stop or get swatted away. Nair can accomplish this too, because it creates a low lag hitbox in front of you, the difference is that if it connects, it stuns them in front of you as oppose to knocking them away, allowing you to follow up.

At low %%, you can follow it with db, dtilt, maybe dtilt -> db depending on their position speed you could do ftilt, utilt. Of course, I see that this move may not be terribly useful at first because at low percentages some characters will land before you despite being hit and can counter attack with their own quick moves.

However, this becomes less of an issue if they get up in %. At medium and higher percentages, the first hit of the nair pops them upward, connecting with it leaves them in the air right in front of you, or slightly above you at higher percents. This is a very precarious position for them because they will be in range of your fsmash, db, utilt, ftilt. and depending on DI, could be in tipper range too. I recall specifically once I was facing MK and the half nair popped him up and I killed him off the top with a tipper utilt.

I'm not taking away from fair's utility, I'm just wondering what fatal flaw in half Nair makes these wonderful setups null. I highly doubt the follow ups can be airdodged, and if they could you can just delay and hit them as they come out, and most characters don't have an aerial that is faster and longer than marth's moves in general. so why not use half nair setups more often?
 

bludhoundz

Smash Ace
Joined
Aug 2, 2007
Messages
525
Location
New York, NY
You said it yourself. Lack of hitstun. The only thing that combos into the first half of the nair, is well, the second half.

I haven't tested it or anything, but the first hit of the nair really only stuns them for a couple frames. Not really enough time to fastfall and then follow up.

Maybe it's doable, but you'd have to activate the nair with near perfect frame timing probably, just as you were landing, otherwise my guess is that the opponent isn't going to be in hitstun long enough to combo into something else.

I'm curious about the nair though - does it count as 2 moves in the move degeneration list, or just one? (not to hijack your topic or anything, but as long as we're talking about nair, I kinda wanted to know the answer to this)
 

Tuvillo

Smash Apprentice
Joined
Oct 2, 2008
Messages
120
Location
Netherlands
Shorthop double Fair is easily replaced by shorthop Fair half Nair, which immediately transitions into any ground attack- like Fsmash in either direction.

the half Nair isnt useful otherwise, as spending the time reaching the ground can be deadly...
 

Nibbity

Smash Journeyman
Joined
May 20, 2008
Messages
368
Location
Connecticut
If you're terribly concerned about keeping your zoning, then I wouldn't recommend this, because I would normally fair so I could do more damage and keep some space.

You also need to be close to do the first nair swing, so if it's blocked, then you could get shield grabbed much easier. I do enjoy nair's speed, but to approach in any way seems awkward and could get countered easily if blocked. I just think it's a matter of saftey.
 

Nibbity

Smash Journeyman
Joined
May 20, 2008
Messages
368
Location
Connecticut
also bludhoundz to answer your question, i believe it's only counted as one, but my testing could have been messed up.
 

Pierce7d

Wise Hermit
Joined
Dec 20, 2006
Messages
6,289
Location
Teaneck, North Bergen County, NJ, USA
3DS FC
1993-9028-0439
Eh, try chaining it into grab. That's semi-reliable, since it beats the shield option, airdodge option, and do nothing option. If you opponent is conditioned to spot-dodge, then mix it with Dancing Blade.

Of course, I don't use it much anymore, as it's super conditional, and I prefer to maintain spacing with tipper Fairs, dtilts, and the like.

And I don't believe such a thread exists with the data you're looking for.

It is possible for Nair to Dancing to be a combo on SOME characters though.
 

Shaya

   「chase you」 
BRoomer
Joined
Jun 8, 2007
Messages
27,654
Location
/人◕‿‿◕人\ FABULOUS Max!
NNID
ShayaJP
The first hit of nair hitting someone then landing to attack gives you maybe 5-10 frames to attack/do something.

I.e.
Grab, Dancing Blade, Dsmash (they may be too high), dolphin slash, ftilt...

More risky:
fsmash, upsmash

I personally have been attempting to use the first hit of nair to my advantage, but it's extremely hard to time/be certain of its usefulness.
 

Nibbity

Smash Journeyman
Joined
May 20, 2008
Messages
368
Location
Connecticut
yeah, I would love for it to be a very reliable technique to switch things up, which it really could be. I was in love with nair and not only constantly approach with it, which is bad, but use it to edgeguard and defend. But this isn't a bad idea at times.
 

Ilucamy

Smash Journeyman
Joined
Mar 20, 2008
Messages
469
Location
San Diego, California
If you time it just right, half-nair will have NO landing lag, probably a strange property of autocancelling. Still, lack of hitstun makes it so that the only thing that will truly combo into it is the jab....

BTW, you can do a bair and immediately half nair if you're having timing trouble.

Even though DB is fast, I think that you can't do a B move right away for some reason it came out quite slowly when I tested it. D-smash seems like it should combo, but it doesn't come out on the consecutive hit counter.
 

Pierce7d

Wise Hermit
Joined
Dec 20, 2006
Messages
6,289
Location
Teaneck, North Bergen County, NJ, USA
3DS FC
1993-9028-0439
NOTE: There is very little hitstun in this game, what you are experimenting with is not legit.

Evidence: yesterday, my friend was practicing with M2k. He always calls me and lets me know what they learned that day. While they were doing MK dittos, my friend did a point blank Nair on MK, which as you should know, produces two hits. M2k was able to UAIR him in between these two hits.

Conclusion: combos like this are not in this game.

Still, you might get Nair to grab on opponent's that don't have a fast enough aerial (like MK's frame 3 Uair) and like to shield on land. You also might get Dancing Blade for people that like to dodge. But you shouldn't even be trying to hit with first hit nair a lot, because it's bad spacing, and some characters will just punish the attempt (see keyword: ftilt)
 

TheRazaman

Smash Apprentice
Joined
Jul 12, 2008
Messages
89
About the only time I use Nair much is against a DK. His hurtbox is so big that its pretty feasible.

As for the ffnair with only the first swing hitting. I do that a bit every now and again for mindgames. I ff the nair, dtilt (opponents seem to always react to the nair by hitting their shield cause they expect the 2nd nair swing to come) then dancing blade. Even if they shield both the dtilt and db its pretty immense shield pressure and the spacing isnt bad because of the dtilt.

Ironically, DK is really the only person that can punish me for this because if he perfect shields the dtilt its an instant ftilt to the dome piece.
 
Top Bottom