How to play Gunner at a disadvantage?

[Lag Chan]

I've been getting a chance to play some Gunner recently and one of the main problems I've noticed in my playstyle is how once the opponent closes in on me and starts applying pressure, I can't deal with it very well. Gunner's mobility doesn't really help me retreat, their throws are weak so it's easy for characters with good movement to get right back on the offence especially at low percents, Gunner's frame data isn't amazing so the best I have outside of grab is Utilt/Nair. It gets worse off stage since stuff like fair and side b are laggy which would be fine if their recovery was better. So yeah, I could use some help. Are there some other options open to Gunner or am I using the options I have wrong?

 

[marteen_]

Gundashing.

Any Gunner player should be familiar with this tech. You use tiltstick (has to be tiltstick) to fair, while holding the opposite direction to get a sudden burst of movement in the direction your back is facing. It might take a bit of practice, but it's fairly simple and very worth your time.

If you know you might lose neutral and face constant pressure, just gundash away with fair's fast startup. If you have space, you can also turnaround like you're doing a RAR, but fairing instead of bairing if the position warrants it.

If you find yourseld having to fair offstage and you're having trouble recovering, you might want to consider switching to Lunar Launch or Arm Rocket. Cannon Uppercut is such a good KO move, and I can understand if that's what you're using and don't want to switch.

Jab, bair, and shine are also reasonably quick moves to get people off you. Ftilt can work, but it usually has too much startup.

So even with that, Gunner still isn't the best at escaping pressure. So the next best option is to just use our nice neutral game to make sure it never even happens. SHing forward or backwards then using Flame Pillar is pretty effective at walling people out, Bomb Drop can cover landings and space, Gundashing around whenever you feel unsafe is always good, and there's probably a pleortha of other options.

 

[Djmarcus44]

marteen_ , you can still gundash with the c-stick set to smash. Although characters lose momentum when the smash attack c-stick is held, you can still gundash as far as possible by letting go of the c-stick after completing the gundash.

You can also use reflector to change directions in the air and gundash back to the stage in order to mix up your recovery. Pivot flame pillar, pivot fsmash, and pivot ftilt are also pretty good for keeping opponents away. Besides gundashing, Gunner can mix up his/her landing by stalling with reflector, using flame pillar, or using Lunar Launch. You can also use lunar launch when you are pretty close to the ground in order to land without landing lag (With good timing, the hitbox for lunar launch will come out. It can combo into grab and up tilt at low percents. This technique is called Lunar cancelling, and there is a thread for this).

When you get a grab with Gunner at low percents, you should be able to get a true combo or a follow up (Gunner can get follow ups from all of his/her throws. These follow ups are listed in the mii gunner true combo and follow up thread). When you are facing a fast faller, up throw to up tilt is a true combo, and down throw to nair is a true combo on heavy characters and fastfallers (these combos only work at low percents). At mid to high percents, up throw and down throw are usually the best options since they follow up into up air (The long lasting hitboxes for up air are good for covering airdodges. These follow ups also allow Gunner to kill from a grab and a DI read around 100%). If you are not able to read your opponent's DI, it is still a good idea to throw an opponent into the air in order to charge up charge blast or juggle an opponent (Gunner's high priority disjoints and projectiles along with the burst mobility from gundashing allow Gunner to be very good at juggling). When you are near the ledge it is also a good idea to throw an opponent offstage in order to take advantage of Gunner's good edgeguarding tools.

 

[SR-71]

I agree with everything stated above, except I think lunar cancelling is too inconsistent, and it has very limited uses even if you could do it every time. Forget about lunar cancelling. Flame Pillar is also pretty laggy, so I tend to use it sparingly. Gundashing is a great escape tool, but do you really want to be one of those players who always runs away from pressure? Those players always lose. Even with limited tools, one must fight at close-range under pressure, it's necessary in this game.

Reflector is essential, in my opinion, when recovering/landing in conjunction with gundashing, or when the opponent is comboing you or trying to stay very close/behind you. Particularly against Mario, Bayonetta, Pikachu and others like this, reflector can stop a combo just like Yoshi's nair. Without reflector, I feel like easy prey as Gunner.

Another option is fullhop nair and then fair/bair in the same jump while landing. Flama does this a lot, especially against characters like Sheik who aproach with shorthop aerials... your fullhop nair can challenge Sheik's fair approach, and Gunner's fair when landing prevents any followup attempt to punish your nair. This seems to work effectively on any stage, but especially Battlefield, because the 2-layered approach of this attack matches the stage design.

My current favorite mixup is shorthop nairs and RAR bairs, combined with dtilts in either direction. Dtilt is a pretty fast move with a big hitbox, and does like 14 damage, has acceptable lag, and can kill. This makes it superior to most options at close range. If you use lots of shorthop bairs, be sure to practice fastfalling just after the move is finished to avoid landing lag. If you fastfall during a SH bair (or nair) too quickly, you'll get lots of lag, and this is a major reason Gunner might lose to close-range pressure. So practice that, use Jab/Dtilt a lot, and get pro at gundashing (set C-stick to Attack). That's all I can think of so far.

 

[Djmarcus44]

I agree with everything stated above, except I think lunar cancelling is too inconsistent, and it has very limited uses even if you could do it every time. Forget about lunar cancelling. Flame Pillar is also pretty laggy, so I tend to use it sparingly. Gundashing is a great escape tool, but do you really want to be one of those players who always runs away from pressure? Those players always lose. Even with limited tools, one must fight at close-range under pressure, it's necessary in this game.

Reflector is essential, in my opinion, when recovering/landing in conjunction with gundashing, or when the opponent is comboing you or trying to stay very close/behind you. Particularly against Mario, Bayonetta, Pikachu and others like this, reflector can stop a combo just like Yoshi's nair. Without reflector, I feel like easy prey as Gunner.

Another option is fullhop nair and then fair/bair in the same jump while landing. Flama does this a lot, especially against characters like Sheik who aproach with shorthop aerials... your fullhop nair can challenge Sheik's fair approach, and Gunner's fair when landing prevents any followup attempt to punish your nair. This seems to work effectively on any stage, but especially Battlefield, because the 2-layered approach of this attack matches the stage design.

My current favorite mixup is shorthop nairs and RAR bairs, combined with dtilts in either direction. Dtilt is a pretty fast move with a big hitbox, and does like 14 damage, has acceptable lag, and can kill. This makes it superior to most options at close range. If you use lots of shorthop bairs, be sure to practice fastfalling just after the move is finished to avoid landing lag. If you fastfall during a SH bair (or nair) too quickly, you'll get lots of lag, and this is a major reason Gunner might lose to close-range pressure. So practice that, use Jab/Dtilt a lot, and get pro at gundashing (set C-stick to Attack). That's all I can think of so far.

Lunar cancelling is a good option when an opponent's move knocks Gunner into a tumble animation since it allows Gunner to land without landing lag and without being forced to tech. It is also b-reversible and it is very easy to land with the technique (I must admit that it is pretty hard to consistently land with the hitbox, but I will try to get some information about the frames that the lunar launch hitboxes come out).

You are right about reflector even though it isn't the best combo breaker due to the fact that its hitboxes only last 2 frames. I would probably not fullhop nair too often against characters that like to approach with shorthop aerials (unless they are close to Gunner) since Gunner's fair outranges all shorthop aerials when spaced properly. I would also use Jab more often than dtilt in close range since Jab has more range and safety than dtilt (Jab can also start a variety of good mixups that are listed in the mii gunner true combo and follow up thread).

Up tilt is also a good move to use in CQC because it is frame 5, and it can juggle at low percents, set up for up air at mid percents, and kill at high percents. It is one of the best up tilts in the game. Since both nair and bair autocancel in a shorthop, it isn't really necessary to fastfall the landing. While fastfalling will get you to the ground faster after the nair or bair is used, it will also give you a couple of frames of extra landing lag (4 frames instead of 2 frames).

 

[SR-71]

Reflector doesn't need a lot of active frames on the hitbox if you make sure to be touching the opponent when using it. I agree it would be better with more frames, but it's still Gunner's fastest attack and therefore essential in my book.

Regarding fullhop nair: the hitbox on Gunner's swinging arm is big enough to hit most shorthop approaches from the opponent, while keeping you relatively safe. And then you can still use fair before landing, which is why this option is so safe and hard to punish. Often, the opponent is rushing to punish your nair and doesn't expect a fair to come out also. This works more often as a safe and defensive way to bait your opponent, or read a jump approach, rather than being an offensive option. I like to condition my opponents to expect shorthop fairs, then I throw in a fullhop nair and they try to rush in, only to meet another fair in the face.

I would highly recommend fastfalling Gunner's shorthop bair and nair. You are partly correct; if you fastfall during the attack (too soon) you'll end up with landing lag. But there is plenty of time to get a fastfall input after the aerial ends, especially bair, and speed up your game. You just have to practice the timing until it's muscle memory. If you use bair a lot (we should, it's a great move) then you can't afford those extra frames of waiting and falling at normal speed before you can do anything else. Guest-size gunner can actually look pretty fast if you do this a lot, combined with gundashing and well-chosen tilts.

 

[Djmarcus44]

Gunner doesn't have very much time to fastfall without getting the 18 frames of landing lag of the bair or nair. Since nair autocancels on frame 35 and bair autocancels on frame 32 there is only a 5 frame window to fastfall the nair and a 8 frame window to fastfall the bair and still get the autocancel for the aerial. Since these windows are so small, the amount of frames saved by fastfalling the nair or bair is not worth the effort (it only saves about one frame on bair, and it doesn't save any frames on nair) unless you are not able to autocancel the nair or bair. It may make Gunner faster in some cases, but foxtrotting and perfect pivoting are better ways to make Gunner faster.

 

[SR-71]

That sounds to me like laziness. I have practiced fastfalling after shorthop bairs enough to be accurate every time. It's not difficult, just a different timing than most characters. And the increase in speed is definitely worth it, especially in close range fighting. It's a lot easier than perfect pivoting, so if you can perfect pivot consistently then you can do this with no problem.

It's not very necessary to fastfall a SH nair, although it does help a little. But there is no excuse to ignore the fastfall when using bair. My only other question is maybe you aren't doing the bair immediately after jumping, so that causes the bair animation to end later than it should, which could mess up your timing and make the fastfall useless, but I'd have to see a video of yours to be sure. I use claw grip and jump with my index finger, so the bair is buffered and comes out immediately. Every little trick helps with Gunner.

 

[Djmarcus44]

That sounds to me like laziness. I have practiced fastfalling after shorthop bairs enough to be accurate every time. It's not difficult, just a different timing than most characters. And the increase in speed is definitely worth it, especially in close range fighting. It's a lot easier than perfect pivoting, so if you can perfect pivot consistently then you can do this with no problem.

It's not very necessary to fastfall a SH nair, although it does help a little. But there is no excuse to ignore the fastfall when using bair. My only other question is maybe you aren't doing the bair immediately after jumping, so that causes the bair animation to end later than it should, which could mess up your timing and make the fastfall useless, but I'd have to see a video of yours to be sure. I use claw grip and jump with my index finger, so the bair is buffered and comes out immediately. Every little trick helps with Gunner.

The estimates that I made account for immediately buffering the nair or bair on the first frame Gunner is in the air (I did the calculations for the amount of frames saved by this technique in order to evaluate the usefulness of this technique). I am not saying that it can't be done, I am saying that it is not worth it due to Gunner's autocancels. I will definitely use this technique if I am not in a position to autocancel my aerial, but I am not using it in situations where I can autocancel the aerial because of the estimates that I made above (the numbers may be even lower because I didn't account for the amount of frames it takes for Gunner to reach his/her maximum fall speed). I will work on fastfalling the nair or bair when they autocancel if you can explain why it saves more than one frame at most.

 

[SR-71]

It definitely saves more than one frame lol, I'll probly make a vid soon. Learning to fastfall bairs has significantly sped up my game and that's why I found it relevant for this thread. If you're arguing it's too difficult to be worthwhile, I disagree, because it's easy and makes a noticeable speed difference.

 

[Djmarcus44]

I am not saying that it is too difficult (I already said that I would be using this technique when the aerial isn't going to autocancel), I am saying that it isn't that useful when you autocancel the aerial. After realizing that there is a better time to fastfall Gunner's nair and bair in order to land on the frame that it autocancels, I have now determined that Gunner would save an absolute maximum of 6 frames on bair and 3 frames on nair (With perfect mastery of this technique, it may be somewhat useful for an autocanceled aerial. Then again this still doesn't account for the amount of time it takes Gunner to reach his/her maximum fall speed). I will now show the calculations to prove my statements.

Gunner's first active frames on autocanceled aerials without fastfalling:
40 (Gunner's shorthop length)+2 (normal landing lag)=42 frames

Gunner's first active frames on autocanceled bair with perfect timing on the fastfall:
10 (last active hitbox on bair) + 9 (the best amount of waiting time after the hitbox ends) + 21/1.6 (the amount of frames remaining in Gunner's shorthop divided by 1.6 in order to account for the 60% increase in fall speed for a fastfall) + 4 (hard landing lag for a fastfall aerial)= 36 frames

Gunner's first active frames on autocanceled nair with perfect timing on the fastfall: 21 (last active hitbox on nair) + 6 (the best amount of waiting time after the hitbox ends) + 13/1.6 (the amount of frames remaining in Gunner's shorthop divided by 1.6 in order to account for the 60% increase in fall speed for a fastfall) + 4 (hard landing lag for a fastfall aerial)= 39 frames

Although it isn't that useful when Gunner's aerials are autocanceled, I finally realize that there is a good timing to use this technique without messing up and getting the landing lag of the aerial. I will definitely be practicing this technique more because it is even more useful on aerials that don't autocancel.