I'm confused about landing lag

[Yong Dekonk]

Can someone explain to me conditions in which landing lag happens and conditions in which it can be cancelled? Are there universal principles or is it that dome aerials have LL while others cancel?

I was playing a Link yesterday who was able to fast fall a neutral A immediately into another attack after landing. to me it seems that some aerials have landing lag while others don't. Yoshi for instance also seems to have very little/no landing lag on some moves. The distribution of lagless aerials seems unfair and inconsistent as it seems the overall goal with Sm4sh was to make it so landings could actually be punished unlike Brawl. Why would an attack have no landing lag while just landing normally ALWAYS has lag. Can someone explain how to cancel landing lag with any character or is it unique to certain characters?

 

[Aphistemi]

I noticed the more powerful the move, the more landing lag you'll get.

- Lucario's netural A, it's kinda hard to hit them with but he gets almost no landing lag with it. and it's kinda weak depending on the damage and rage

- Mario's netural A, it's weak. but you can't punish it, even on shielding it.

- Link's netural A, weak. but no landing lag

- Ganon's netural A even has less landing lag than his other moves.

Alot of netural A's have little to no landing lag, while brawl nearly had every move with no landing lag. I think in sm4sh they did this so you can have a quick plus frame move to use no matter who you are, to get some damage up. Every fighting game should have a weak poke plus frame move, to make the punishes less likely to happen on you, it's fundamental to play it safe and to respect frame data, instead of just throwing out the most powerful move every single time and getting punished for it.

 

[popsofctown]

Can someone explain to me conditions in which landing lag happens and conditions in which it can be cancelled? Are there universal principles or is it that dome aerials have LL while others cancel?

I was playing a Link yesterday who was able to fast fall a neutral A immediately into another attack after landing. to me it seems that some aerials have landing lag while others don't. Yoshi for instance also seems to have very little/no landing lag on some moves. The distribution of lagless aerials seems unfair and inconsistent as it seems the overall goal with Sm4sh was to make it so landings could actually be punished unlike Brawl. Why would an attack have no landing lag while just landing normally ALWAYS has lag. Can someone explain how to cancel landing lag with any character or is it unique to certain characters?

You can't cancel universal landing lag by using aerials. It's just hard to see universal landing lag with the naked eye. You can probably use an aerial to cancel the visual effect where a characters all like "whoa man, I was in the air, now I'm landing on the ground", but that animation doesn't have any actual meaning, you're only forbidden from acting out of it for the first one or two frames and autocancelling an aerial will block you off for one or two frames too.

 

[Yong Dekonk]

You can't cancel universal landing lag by using aerials. It's just hard to see universal landing lag with the naked eye. You can probably use an aerial to cancel the visual effect where a characters all like "whoa man, I was in the air, now I'm landing on the ground", but that animation doesn't have any actual meaning, you're only forbidden from acting out of it for the first one or two frames and autocancelling an aerial will block you off for one or two frames too.

There's definitely different amounts of landing frames though. I think @ Aphistemi is right that in general stronger moves have more landing frames than weaker moves. Obviously a move like Link's dair has more landing frames than his neutral A. I think different aerials have varying amounts of landing frames if interrupted by landing and if my observations are correct some aerials have almost no landing frames at all if cancelled by landing. I think canceling aerials by landing should create more landing frames, not less. An empty jump should be less punishable than one that is landed with an attack. Most people will think this is no big deal but in my opinion this is something that should be patched out as it arbitrarily creates almost unpunishable moves that only certain characters can execute.

 

[ATH_]

Actually, something happened to me recently and not even the player could explain...
I play Jigglypuff in casual games, but because I'm a competitive player I do studdy in Jiggly's frame data and whatnot, now I know that this is going to sound fake, but it legitimately happened...
I was in swiss against a friend who also plays Jiggly but in competitive. I was playing Falcon, and I was put into a situation I heavily recognized from when I would play Jiggly. I was standing just the right amount of distance to look like a BAir would hit from Jiggs, but I knew it wouldn't if he didn't time it right. Alas, he did NOT time it right and whiffed the BAir.
As I predicted he would use the BAir before being in range (I was only a few pixels out of range), I started charging an FSmash with Falcon and Aimed it slightly downward in case he ducked.
I expected jiggly to touch the ground, and have LL, possibly be able to hold down and duck in time, but I covered both possibilities anyway. He somehow received NO landing lag from BAir and power shielded my FSmash. I was really confused, as I let the FSmash go the moment I knew that the BAir would be interrupted by the ground. As said, I play both characters and SAW what happened. I have NO idea how he received no LL but it felt like the game just WANTED him to win, as he jumped oos and BAir'd me before FSmash ended.

I lost that game and I asked him about the BAir and he was just as confused as me. He even said, "I should've lost but I somehow power shielded??"
It's confusing and I just, don't know what happened. If it's something I'm missing, then please, tell me.

 

[DungeonMaster]

I agree it can be very confusing and with terms like "autocancel" and "universal" floating around it gets worse.

Essentially whenever you land in smash4 you have 4 frames where you can't do anything. The only exception to this rule are reflectors, counters and a few special moves like shield breaker. These 4 frames are the "base" landing lag, and it's very small but a good player (with say charge shot) can exploit that window of vulnerability. Don't land into projectiles, doesn't work well (for you). If all you do is hit the "jump" button and land, you get these 4 frames.

All aerials have landing lag, here's the list: http://smashboards.com/threads/all-character-landing-lag-frame-data.371503/

Many aerial attacks have auto-cancel frames. Some have them at the start, some have them at the end. When you land in the attack within those frames, you "auto-cancel", and rather than receiving the landing lag in that big long list, you get... 4 frames.
Many aerials out of short hop (flick the jump button instead of holding down hard) land within their auto-cancel frames.
Some moves additionally have IASA frames - which is to say the move will continue through its full animation if you do nothing, but if you hit a button right within those frames, you can act, cancelling it and getting another move.
So if you perform an aerial with long landing lag and it has IASA frames, then as you land you cancel that aerial into another aerial with auto-cancel frames, it will look like you should have landed with a ton of lag, but you don't. You get the 4 frames.

Hope this helps.

DM

 

[ATH_]

I agree it can be very confusing and with terms like "autocancel" and "universal" floating around it gets worse.

Essentially whenever you land in smash4 you have 4 frames where you can't do anything. The only exception to this rule are reflectors, counters and a few special moves like shield breaker. These 4 frames are the "base" landing lag, and it's very small but a good player (with say charge shot) can exploit that window of vulnerability. Don't land into projectiles, doesn't work well (for you). If all you do is hit the "jump" button and land, you get these 4 frames.

All aerials have landing lag, here's the list: http://smashboards.com/threads/all-character-landing-lag-frame-data.371503/

Many aerial attacks have auto-cancel frames. Some have them at the start, some have them at the end. When you land in the attack within those frames, you "auto-cancel", and rather than receiving the landing lag in that big long list, you get... 4 frames.
Many aerials out of short hop (flick the jump button instead of holding down hard) land within their auto-cancel frames.
Some moves additionally have IASA frames - which is to say the move will continue through its full animation if you do nothing, but if you hit a button right within those frames, you can act, cancelling it and getting another move.
So if you perform an aerial with long landing lag and it has IASA frames, then as you land you cancel that aerial into another aerial with auto-cancel frames, it will look like you should have landed with a ton of lag, but you don't. You get the 4 frames.

Hope this helps.

DM

I understand things like this, but, with the situation with Jigglypuff the player shielded likely within the first 10 frames of landing from BAir which resulted in a power shield from my FSmash. Is it possible to ac BAir with Puff? It would've been really specific, since, they didn't just SHop BAir towards me, they were already in the air and reverse NAir'd into BAir.

If it's just a solid coincidence that they hit the right frame for the ac, then I think it makes sense. I know I timed it really well but I won't rely on that and say that it was within those first 4 frames.

 

[DungeonMaster]

Jigglypuff definitely has auto-cancel frames on B-air.
http://pastebin.com/PzTjdtx8
look up Purin, japanese name for it.
Enables transition to Bair landing state (landing lag) on real frame 4
Cancels transition to Bair landing state (landing lag) on real frame 28

DM

 

[Sausage Zeldas]

I've always been confused on a couple of things about auto-cancels.
For AC at the beginning of an attack, is there any point to learning that? What sort of advantage could you gain from it?
And why is it still called auto-canceling at the end of an aerial? Shouldn't that just be called "the attack is done so there's no real reason to have landing lag now"?

 

[ATH_]

I've always been confused on a couple of things about auto-cancels.
For AC at the beginning of an attack, is there any point to learning that? What sort of advantage could you gain from it?
And why is it still called auto-canceling at the end of an aerial? Shouldn't that just be called "the attack is done so there's no real reason to have landing lag now"?

It's still auto-cancelling at the end of an aerial because not all aerials have no lag after their use. I'm fairly certain (not 100%) that some aerials when done have a different window of time for all LL to cease. Some may have it be a longer window, others may have it be directly after it finishes.

 

[Sausage Zeldas]

It's still auto-cancelling at the end of an aerial because not all aerials have no lag after their use. I'm fairly certain (not 100%) that some aerials when done have a different window of time for all LL to cease. Some may have it be a longer window, others may have it be directly after it finishes.

I guess I sort of understood that, it's just that I'm just a bit uncomfortable with the term auto-cancel over just saying that the attack has a certain window of time where it gives landing lag. I guess I can't really change a term that's been used for several years now though.
And I figured out the answer to my first question myself, being that there are definitely things (airdodges, for one, and maybe some moves like what you mentioned) that let you act before their landing lag period ends.

 

[Lavani]

I've always been confused on a couple of things about auto-cancels.
For AC at the beginning of an attack, is there any point to learning that? What sort of advantage could you gain from it?
And why is it still called auto-canceling at the end of an aerial? Shouldn't that just be called "the attack is done so there's no real reason to have landing lag now"?

Some actions have landing lag past their ending lag, and thus don't autocancel until they're actually done; airdodges are the prime example that applies to the entire cast, but there are some other moves such as Palutena's uair and Ness' PK Fire like this as well. You can cancel these to use the early autocancel of other aerials to avoid the added landing lag.

Example gfy:

The right Greninja airdodges two frames later than the left one, but is able to start nair just before landing and autocancels; the left Greninja suffers airdodge landing lag.

EDIT: Guess I kind of got 'd, oh well.

 

[Yong Dekonk]

I agree it can be very confusing and with terms like "autocancel" and "universal" floating around it gets worse.

Essentially whenever you land in smash4 you have 4 frames where you can't do anything. The only exception to this rule are reflectors, counters and a few special moves like shield breaker. These 4 frames are the "base" landing lag, and it's very small but a good player (with say charge shot) can exploit that window of vulnerability. Don't land into projectiles, doesn't work well (for you). If all you do is hit the "jump" button and land, you get these 4 frames.

All aerials have landing lag, here's the list: http://smashboards.com/threads/all-character-landing-lag-frame-data.371503/

Many aerial attacks have auto-cancel frames. Some have them at the start, some have them at the end. When you land in the attack within those frames, you "auto-cancel", and rather than receiving the landing lag in that big long list, you get... 4 frames.
Many aerials out of short hop (flick the jump button instead of holding down hard) land within their auto-cancel frames.
Some moves additionally have IASA frames - which is to say the move will continue through its full animation if you do nothing, but if you hit a button right within those frames, you can act, cancelling it and getting another move.
So if you perform an aerial with long landing lag and it has IASA frames, then as you land you cancel that aerial into another aerial with auto-cancel frames, it will look like you should have landed with a ton of lag, but you don't. You get the 4 frames.

Hope this helps.

DM

Thank you for your explanation. I guess it's just part of the game I have to deal with but I don't like how it seems certain arbitrary moves can be auto cancelled by landing while others can't.

 

[DungeonMaster]

Thank you for your explanation. I guess it's just part of the game I have to deal with but I don't like how it seems certain arbitrary moves can be auto cancelled by landing while others can't.

No problem. I agree, I would love Samus' f-air to land without lag out of a short hop.
However, it's not arbitrary in the sense of random - it's arbitrary in the sense of an arbitrary decision of clear design intent. Sheik is designed, specifically designed, to jump at you repeatedly in small short arcs with her f-air. Those frames were chosen to allow a good player to use them to maximum effect and leave them with only a tiny window of vulnerability - IF they don't screw up. Otherwise Sheik gets pasted because she weighs like 2 lbs vs. say Samus' metric ton.
From a game design perspective as well, you want those openings, because you want the game to end. If there are no openings in defence, then good players will never take damage and the game will not end (and by corollary not be any fun). So in spite of my commiseration with you about landing lag, it's very important for the game because it provides openings.
Now some people distinctly want the game to have nothing but the rock-paper-scissors of shield/grab/attack openings. That's fine, but I personally prefer more depth in gameplay and landing lag, auto-cancel frames, IASA frames adds depth.

 

[Yong Dekonk]

No problem. I agree, I would love Samus' f-air to land without lag out of a short hop.
However, it's not arbitrary in the sense of random - it's arbitrary in the sense of an arbitrary decision of clear design intent. Sheik is designed, specifically designed, to jump at you repeatedly in small short arcs with her f-air. Those frames were chosen to allow a good player to use them to maximum effect and leave them with only a tiny window of vulnerability - IF they don't screw up. Otherwise Sheik gets pasted because she weighs like 2 lbs vs. say Samus' metric ton.
From a game design perspective as well, you want those openings, because you want the game to end. If there are no openings in defence, then good players will never take damage and the game will not end (and by corollary not be any fun). So in spite of my commiseration with you about landing lag, it's very important for the game because it provides openings.
Now some people distinctly want the game to have nothing but the rock-paper-scissors of shield/grab/attack openings. That's fine, but I personally prefer more depth in gameplay and landing lag, auto-cancel frames, IASA frames adds depth.

But shouldn't an attack carry more risk than an empty jump? If you are able to shield someone's attack shouldn't they receive some lag so that you can punish?(4 phrases is very difficult to punish) It's a huge advantage for certain characters to be able to attack on shield from an aerial and almost immediately follow it up with a grounded attack.

The whole concept of Smash is that each character theoretically has moves that carry a balance of risk and reward. The riskier a move is, the bigger the reward is for successfully executing it. Powerful moves are compensated for by having greater startup and ending frames. However, when you can attack without risk you have essentially broken the system. If a move has reward but no risk then it is essentially broken. I realize there are other moves in the game that have reward with very minimal risk. Marth's fair can be used to approach and poke shield while staying out of range of a counter attack. (I'm not saying Marth is OP in general though) I guess this really brings up balance issues in general because higher tiered characters are better because they carry a high degree of reward with less risk. There are all kinds of issues that need to be balanced in Sm4sh and hopefully Sakurai isn't done tweaking the game and listening to the fans input...

 

[DungeonMaster]

You're absolutely right, it is a huge advantage to be able to attack a shield from an aerial and almost immediately follow up with a grounded attack. There's no denying it.
Keep in mind however the following: the way the smash4 system works is that there are many moves that burst immediately out of shield, the most common being grab, and hitting a shield is actually quite a bad idea.
To drop a shield, that is to say you are standing around and simply let go of the shield button, takes 7 frames, 7 frames before you can do anything. If your opponent hits your shield, you don't get those 7 frames of shield drop, you can act immediately. Hitting your shield opens the attacker up to more moves, not less. Which is why you will sometimes see full on empty jumps.
Many characters have moves that work immediately out of shield, take for example Samus' up-B. It comes out at any point out of a shield, within 6 frames, has invincibility. This basically means that unless you space your 4-frame Shiek f-air aerial perfectly, or land it very deep into the jump, Samus gets to hit you out of shield. Sheik risked 5 damage and got 13 in the trade, and launched, bad deal.
There are only a handful of moves in the game - properly spaced - that are truly completely safe on shield (Samus f-tilt and b-air for instance, at the tip). Whenever someone abuses these moves, you should endeavour to screw up their spacing (a dash into shield for instance). The pro players (I'm not a pro) are constantly worried about how safe shield are, not how safe approaching is. Well, they're worried about how un-safe approaching is.

 

[David Viran]

You're absolutely right, it is a huge advantage to be able to attack a shield from an aerial and almost immediately follow up with a grounded attack. There's no denying it.
Keep in mind however the following: the way the smash4 system works is that there are many moves that burst immediately out of shield, the most common being grab, and hitting a shield is actually quite a bad idea.
To drop a shield, that is to say you are standing around and simply let go of the shield button, takes 7 frames, 7 frames before you can do anything. If your opponent hits your shield, you don't get those 7 frames of shield drop, you can act immediately. Hitting your shield opens the attacker up to more moves, not less. Which is why you will sometimes see full on empty jumps.
Many characters have moves that work immediately out of shield, take for example Samus' up-B. It comes out at any point out of a shield, within 6 frames, has invincibility. This basically means that unless you space your 4-frame Shiek f-air aerial perfectly, or land it very deep into the jump, Samus gets to hit you out of shield. Sheik risked 5 damage and got 13 in the trade, and launched, bad deal.
There are only a handful of moves in the game - properly spaced - that are truly completely safe on shield (Samus f-tilt and b-air for instance, at the tip). Whenever someone abuses these moves, you should endeavour to screw up their spacing (a dash into shield for instance). The pro players (I'm not a pro) are constantly worried about how safe shield are, not how safe approaching is. Well, they're worried about how un-safe approaching is.

I thought that you still had sheild drop frames if they hit your sheild but weren't locked into sheild the initial 12 frames.

 

[Darklink401]

I noticed the more powerful the move, the more landing lag you'll get.

- Lucario's netural A, it's kinda hard to hit them with but he gets almost no landing lag with it. and it's kinda weak depending on the damage and rage

- Mario's netural A, it's weak. but you can't punish it, even on shielding it.

- Link's netural A, weak. but no landing lag

- Ganon's netural A even has less landing lag than his other moves.

Alot of netural A's have little to no landing lag, while brawl nearly had every move with no landing lag. I think in sm4sh they did this so you can have a quick plus frame move to use no matter who you are, to get some damage up. Every fighting game should have a weak poke plus frame move, to make the punishes less likely to happen on you, it's fundamental to play it safe and to respect frame data, instead of just throwing out the most powerful move every single time and getting punished for it.

Not necessarily.

Some moves like Sheik's nair, are weak, but have a lot of landing lag, and Villager's 3-turniops is really powerful, but has very low landing lag.

 

[DungeonMaster]

I thought that you still had sheild drop frames if they hit your sheild but weren't locked into sheild the initial 12 frames.

I'm pretty sure I'm right in what I said. http://smashboards.com/threads/shields-in-smash-4.381183/
If they hit your shield, you get shield stun, but the shield drop of 7 frames is gone.

 

[HeroMystic]

To be specific, the shield drop frames can be cancelled if you buffer an input during shield stun. This is not possible if there is no shield stun unless you jump or grab.

 

[David Viran]

What does this mean then?

Let's say you hit someone on frame 4 of their shield, so it isn't a power shield.
You hit them with a 10 damage move which is about 6 frames of shield stun.

Person who blocks that hit will start shield dropping on frame 10 (pretend hit lag isn't applicable) acting out on frame 17, oh and you're in a lot lag because you chose to commit to attacking that shield.

Now instead of attacking that shield, what if you use the fact that a shield is locking yourself up to 18 frames if nothing hits it to your advantage?
That's 18 frames you can reposition yourself so you can choose an attack that will be safe, or just over time shield damage. While shield pokes seem less likely than Brawl, they still exist on a weakened shield.

The difference between Brawl and Smash4 may be small (only 4 extra frames locked), but when you consider human reaction speed, something which averages around 10-15 frames for competitive players, that's a massive impact on the usability of shielding.

 

[DungeonMaster]

What does this mean then?

I think that's exactly what I posted above. If you don't hit the shield, they are stuck longer without all available actions than if you do.
Likewise what HeroMystic specified.

 

[David Viran]

I think that's exactly what I posted above. If you don't hit the shield, they are stuck longer without all available actions than if you do.
Likewise what HeroMystic specified.

It says that he can drop his sheild on frame 10 and act at frame 17 after someone hitting his sheild. Never mind though this a thread about landing lag.

 

[Sausage Zeldas]

What Shaya is saying in that thread is that the shield lock frames are removed, not the 7 shield drop frames. It's just that you can begin the shield drop before frame 11. Using an OoS option besides just dropping it, however, will always circumvent those 7 frames.
If I understand correctly.