Landing lag? Juggling?

[Wishes And Sunshine]

I've been reading a lot about how Pikachu can take advantage of "landing lag". Could someone elaborate on that? Is there a significant amount of lag a character experiences on reaching the ground? Is Pikachu fast enough to capitalise on it?

Also, could someone give an example of juggling? How should I use my aerials to keep foes in the air?

 

[SafCar]

Landing lag is when a character performs an action in midair (aerial attack, air dodge, special moves) and reaches the ground during it, which keeps them from acting immediately. Pika's Usmash can capitalize hard on Landing Lag, much like Fox's, due to its low startup and low kill percents.

Juggling is all about hitting the opponent and keeping them tumbling. Utilt and Uair do a great job, but juggling is more or less a series of stringed attacks, as the opponent can seldom dodge through them. You can also juggle into other moves that don't juggle, such as Fair or Nair, to move the enemy away for a chance to ledge guard or reset to neutral.

 

[Wishes And Sunshine]

So you hit the foe while he/she/it/Yoshi is in hitlag? That requires some reflexes... I'll learn.

Can the down-throw set up a juggle? I find that I am unable to jump up quickly enough, and the opponent recovers from hitlag and dodges away.

 

[M15t3R E]

So you hit the foe while he/she/it/Yoshi is in hitlag? That requires some reflexes... I'll learn.

Can the down-throw set up a juggle? I find that I am unable to jump up quickly enough, and the opponent recovers from hitlag and dodges away.

What you mean is hitstun and juggling isn't as hard as you make it seem. Some characters can juggle just by inputting u-tilt over and over again. Others juggle only with aerials which may require a read on their DI. This may be why the opponent dodges away from your juggles. Yes, down throw can set up juggles at very low percents like Mario's down throw -> u-tilt string.

 

[Wishes And Sunshine]

Sorry, I'm obviously not very good at Smash. I'll try.

Thanks!

 

[Uncle Honey]

Landing lag is when a character performs an action in midair (aerial attack, air dodge, special moves) and reaches the ground during it, which keeps them from acting immediately. Pika's Usmash can capitalize hard on Landing Lag, much like Fox's, due to its low startup and low kill percents.

Even further, characters have landing lag even when no action is performed. No input landing lag is roughly 8 frames or less depending on the character, so if you have fast reflexes and are capable of reading the opponent's landing option well, you can keep your opponent airborne for quite awhile. Take for instance Bowser who notably has poor offensive and defensive landing options. Even if he chooses to do nothing to produce as little landing lag as possible, he will still have 2/6 frames of lag when he can be punished and juggled again. Rather than landing on stage, his only option is to go for the ledge, in which case he opens himself up to be gimped.