How To DI Against Captain Falcon's Combos

[Strong Badam]

Since everyone and their ****ing mother can't DI for their lives (quite literally) against Captain Falcon's combos, I'm posting this real quick.

Up-Air:

Trajectory: 361°

Equivalent to 45°

If you're being combo'd, this assumes you aren't about to be KO'd. So, how do you DI? Many players will think "I'll DI up cuz he's going to knee eventually" which is logical enough, right? WRONG! If you DI the very first Up-Air correctly, you land on the ground. The ****ing ground. He then has to tech-chase you, which isn't guaranteed. So where do I DI to do this, Strong Bad?
Perpendicular DI is the most effective DI. So here's where you should DI.

Falcon facing right: 315°

Falcon facing left: 225°

Do be warned, though; the middle hitboxes (the hitbox set between the strongest part of up-air and the "tip") have a trajectory of 30°. This would make proper combo DI:

Falcon facing right: 300°

Falcon facing left: 240°

In most cases, the difference between the 45° trajectory DI and the 30° trajectory DI isn't going to change whether or not a follow-up is possible, but it's worth noting, nonetheless.

So now you're thinking "Okay Strong Bad, I think I've got this down. Any tips on how to DI against the Knee itself?"
You bet your *** I do!

Knee trajectory: 32°

Proper Survival DI is as follows
Knee sending right: 122°

Knee sending left: 58°

Start DIing like a real man, stop getting hit by Wheel of Fortune, and start living longer. Watch out for reverse Knees; which to expect will come with experience.

 

[Ripple]

and then people knee instead of up-air and you die a million % earlier!!!

 

[Strong Badam]

knee hitbox doesn't come out until frame 14. if it takes you almost 1/4th of a second to react to his knee animation you need to get better

take it or leave it, it's not my problem if the information is out there and people don't utilize it. it's out there now. i've done my job.

 

[ranmaru]

and then people knee instead of up-air and you die a million % earlier!!!

That's why you gotta use telekanisis and expect a knee and somehow get hit with an upair lol.

 

[n1000]

Nice post but what does "Trajectory: 361° ...Equivalent to 37°" mean? I understand that you calculated the DI angles based on the 37° trajectory but I'm confused as to the meaning of 361°

 

[ranmaru]

Maybe the arrows can help. :3 Just kidding. I have no idea what he means actually.

 

[Dark Hart]

I wish people did this for other characters...

 

[ranmaru]

Yep.

<3 Strong Bad for inputting info to the community. Specially to me, cuz I sux at DI.

 

[t3h Icy]

I wish people did this for other characters...

When you're at high percent, DI Sheik's Fair down and away.

 

[Tamoo]

Is this a general guide that is universal or is it specific to certain weight groups?

 

[Strong Badam]

n1000: Angle 361 does some weird stuff. It /should/ be equivalent to 1, but the game reads angles differently, much like how only angles between 260 and 280 are meteors, while the rest can't be meteor canceled. Several moves in-game are angle 361; they act as 37 45. In Brawl, this angle also has a random chance of tripping, regardless of the hitbox's "trip rate".
I believe Magus used KO percents to approximate this angle, though I'm not sure.

Magus420 is welcome to come in here and say I'm wrong, though; it's definitely a possibility and I'd rather the information be corrected than I mislead people.

Tamoo: Works with all characters.

Sheik's fair sends at a 25 degree angle, so you'd DI at 115 or 65 depending on direction.

 

[n1000]

Strong Bad: Is there a thread containing info about angles etc.? Meteor cancel angles, who knew?

 

[Strong Badam]

There is not. I'll bug Magus about making one at some point next time I chat with him.

 

[Walt]

Obviously you should be like me and DI uairs up and to the right when getting combo'd to the left.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWquoAvBMy0

 

[Strong Badam]

Update: 361 actually functions equivalently to 45. In Brawl it functions as 37. My bad guys.

n1000: The only special things about angles in this game is that 361 functions as 45 (? i don't know why it even exists) and that 260-280 are meteor cancelable.

 

[Faithkeeper]

EDIT: Strong Bad was right, I was wrong, I didn't know that about melee.

 

[Strong Badam]

someone just had to do it

DI is read on last frame of hitlag.

Hitlag = floor{floor{(Damage/3+ 3)} * Electric}
damage is damage, Electric is 1.5 if the attack is electric and 1.0 if it isn't.

For knee:
Hitlag = floor{floor{(18/3+ 3)} * 1.5}
= floor{9 * 1.5}
= floor{13.5}
13 frames.

This adds 12 frames to the previous 14 frames. So you actually have 26 frames. I might have mentioned that earlier, but yeah, science'd

 

[Bones0]

I've been wondering, what determines whether or not you get reverse kneed? Is it your position relative to the knee? Sometimes it seems like I SDI onto the other side of the knee and end up getting reverse kneed (meaning I DI with the knee, which basically always kills me). Would it then be possible to SDI onto the opposite side of the knee and then switch your DI to the other side? (my friend and I have dubbed this "dash dance DI," but we can't tell if it works on the part of reversing which side you go to.

 

[Strong Badam]

You can't DI into a different hitbox or a reverse hitbox of a single-hit move. DI is read at the end of Hitlag, and hitlag only occurs after the hitbox has hit your character.
What actually determines the reversibility of a hitbox is based on a specific "bone" that every character has called TopN; the location of these two bones (TopN on Falcon and TopN on Victim) are compared when the knee hitbox hits. Essentially, it's positioning; there's no easy way to explain it outside of that.
Information courtesy of Magus420.

 

[SaveTheQueen]

PRO TIP FOR ANYONE WHO'S CHAR DOESN'T FAST FALL

If falcon does Nair smash DI up the first hit then do dair, or nair or w/e you feel like. Works every time just be cautious of them changing it to uair! Peace...

 

[Strong Badam]

and that ends this session of "pro tips" from randoms.

 

[Signia]

First real thread in a long time. Great advice, but I was expecting more. It's easy to tell where to DI, but when to DI in each direction is much trickier. More of stuff like "DI this way at low percent so you don't end up on the ground" would be very useful.

I'd really like to know exactly how Falcon's DI mixups work, and how mixups go at high level play in general.

 

[otg]

Strong Bad, very good ****

 

[Roneblaster]

HOLD IN IF YOU WANT TO BE IN A COMBO VIDEO.

pro tip from a youtube video uploader.

 

[Juggleguy]

This entire thread is wrong.

Your best bet is to DI in against Falcon.

Makes the pain go away faster.

 

[stelzig]

I like the OP a lot, but....

not this--v



http://www.humanbenchmark.com/tests/reactiontime/stats.php

The average human reaction time, to click their mouse, when they know the light will change 100% of the time, (reaction time is faster when you expect something, and only one thing) is ~215 milliseconds.

With the knee, you don't know it's always coming (it isn't), that will reduce your reaction time. Additionally, 14 frames is ~233 milliseconds. I don't know statistical data for the difference between reaction time on something you think might happen vs something you know 100% will happen and are focused on reacting to quickly, but given that it adds at least 20 milliseconds (.02 seconds) to your reaction time, the average person couldn't do it consistently. ( I might suggest that the simple additional motor movement of changing the control stick ~60 degrees might take an additional 0.02 seconds)

Now, we may assume we have faster reaction time than the average user of this benchmark (this benchmark contains over 3.5 million trials, other studies report similar findings), but there is most certainly room for variance even among those with faster than average reaction time.

Now I think the general principles behind your guide are good, although I don't like them because I am a falcon main, but reacting in 14 frames isn't something I think you can expect people to just do consistently. I think the likelihood of the falcon recognizing the DI and being able to react to it, and knowing the proper manner to react to it with, makes use of the suggestions in your guide often a good idea... but yeah, I saw the post and the science Nazi in me got all reared up.

Eh, if you have one type of DI when he doesn't knee and one type when he does, i'd say that counts as looking out for one thing. Hold one type of DI when he doesn't, be ready to react with survival DI if he does (look out for knee).

 

[Stratford]

DIing away from Falcon's combos is for school girls.

 

[Eggm]

Lol, the guide is too complicated its actually really easy. If your not going to die from knee with a hard away DI then DI really hard away so he can't continue his combos with up airs/nairs. If you will die from DIing hard way from knee then you better KNOW its going to be a combo continuer aka as in predict. If you expect knee do survival DI obviously. Also yeah you can smash DI out of nairs even if you are a fast faller I do it all the time, the way to do this is similar to how to smash DI fox'es up air and theres a guide for that with amazing drawings that kirby kaze wrote in the fox section. The coolest part about melee is after the whole positioning game is done and some one gets a hit its not a set combo like every other fighter you have to make even more reads/baits during your combos to keep them going or to not get comboed. So cool.


Edit : Theres a really similar situation that happens when falco is comboing you where if he expects survival DI he can SH fair into f smash and if he expects away DI he can nair kill you early. PP uses this all the time with fair to combo when expecting survival DI. Just a fun fact. ^^

Edit 2 : Basically vs every character if its not gonna kill you from DIing away do it to make any combos harder as rule # 1

Rule # 2 think about what your opponent is thinking and DI accordingly...

 

[Metal Reeper]

Awesome post strong bad <3

 

[Biglard]

theres a guide for that with amazing drawings that kirby kaze wrote in the fox section.

http://www.smashboards.com/showpost.php?p=6430282&postcount=1

It's in my favorites. :<

 

[Fernandez]

Another trick no one uses:

When you get gentlemanned close to the edge you can smash DI the hits in so you don't fly offstage but you get back onstage, its not as hard as it seems, but it only works if you're close to the falcon when he does it.

 

[Dark Sonic]

An even GREATER trick. If Marth is uptilt juggling you and hitting you with the forward part of uptilt (which sends behind him) you can smash DI towards him to avoid more uptilts .

You can DI the second hit of dancing blade (neutral hit) towards him to be sent behind him and avoid the third hit.

Also...the KEN combo shouldn't work on you if he doesn't tip the fair <_<. DIing away and down sends you too far to follow with the dair. Just be aware of Marth's spacing (it's really simple actually. Marths will either try to tip OR get really ****ing close to you. There's rarely anything in between)


my 2 cents

 

[Cactuar]

Lmao. Average human reaction time is nearly 13 frames. That leaves a 1 frame room for error to "react" to the knee and switch DIs. Telling people to react better is not... good... advice.

 

[Seikend]

Lmao. Average human reaction time is nearly 13 frames. That leaves a 1 frame room for error to "react" to the knee and switch DIs. Telling people to react better is not... good... advice.

someone just had to do it

DI is read on last frame of hitlag.

Hitlag = floor{floor{(Damage/3+ 3)} * Electric}
damage is damage, Electric is 1.5 if the attack is electric and 1.0 if it isn't.

For knee:
Hitlag = floor{floor{(18/3+ 3)} * 1.5}
= floor{9 * 1.5}
= floor{13.5}
13 frames.

This adds 12 frames to the previous 14 frames. So you actually have 26 frames. I might have mentioned that earlier, but yeah, science'd

Ten Quotes.

 

[Jonas]

You don't have to react. Sometimes it's pretty obvious if the Falcon is going for the Knee or the Uair, depending on where you are relative to Falcon.

 

[t3h Icy]

You guys could also ask Zgetto for DI advice.

 

[choknater]

good thing there is no "correct" DI for ic's mixups

 

[-ACE-]

Lmao. Average human reaction time is nearly 13 frames. That leaves a 1 frame room for error to "react" to the knee and switch DIs. Telling people to react better is not... good... advice.

You may be right, I don't know about statistics regarding average human reaction time but I will say I have been doing this successfully for years... so imo no one should automatically be discouraged from trying this unless they know reaction time is one of their weak points.

 

[Bones0]

Should I DI knees up or up and diagonally in? I've been told both.

 

[Cactuar]

Lol, I read the ish, I think you misunderstood my post. The room for error is only the time prior to being hit, as the reaction to a move coming out and being hit by a move are seperate. The one frame is the room for error before you must switch your DI. Recognition of the situation, that being whether you will be hit by a move or not, is a different topic, but it links the two reactions.

I'm just gonna let the further explanation on this one go.

Telling people to just react better is still not good advice.