Let's talk about Star Bits.

[AceStarThe3rd]

"When this move is used, Rosalina's Luma will quickly fire out a small number of Star Bits, which serves as a long-range attack. Despite is appearance, it is not a projectile, and so cannot be reflected, absorbed, or pocketed. If Rosalina has no Luma in play, Rosalina will only wave her wand to no effect."


I'm a passionate, avid Rosalina main, and I have used this character ever since she was released.

But for the life of me, I cannot conscientiously remember to use these dang Star Bits.

So can we discuss some situations, applications, and follow ups for this move? Its like the only move I completely under-utilize and its annoying because I know how good it can be.


**I'm talking about normal Star Bits, not Floaty Star Bitor Shooting Star Bit**

 

[Parcheesy]

About the only time I use it is as a follow up to landing a Luma neutral air on a grounded opponent. Being able to snap Luma out of that otherwise lengthy animation often combos, and otherwise will fool an opponent who thinks Luma is too preoccupied to hit them. I'm experimenting with using it to desync Luma as Rosalina is falling in the air, but I'm not sure how useful that will ultimately be ( Worth trying if you're the experimenting type ).

 

[Zonderion]

"When this move is used, Rosalina's Luma will quickly fire out a small number of Star Bits, which serves as a long-range attack. Despite is appearance, it is not a projectile, and so cannot be reflected, absorbed, or pocketed. If Rosalina has no Luma in play, Rosalina will only wave her wand to no effect."


I'm a passionate, avid Rosalina main, and I have used this character ever since she was released.

But for the life of me, I cannot conscientiously remember to use these dang Star Bits.

So can we discuss some situations, applications, and follow ups for this move? Its like the only move I completely under-utilize and its annoying because I know how good it can be.


**I'm talking about normal Star Bits, not Floaty Star Bitor Shooting Star Bit**

This is me too! Its a great move, but I rarely use it. It is possible to be punished, if the opponent anticipates it, jumping over Luma and aerial Rosalina in the face. I have found that when I need to re-gain control of the match, I start to rely heavily on star bits. It slows the pace of the match and allows me to focus my attention on what I should be doing.

As far as follow ups, I find that after players are hit the first time, they either shield or retreat to not get hit again. A quick dash grab almost always works. They are usually in a defensive mind set at that point.

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

I forget about this move a bit. But it's pretty decent. I use it after ffnair or while trying to slow down some aggressive characters. I just dislike how little range it covers.

 

[Marie Antoinette]

Rarely use it but it's a good tool. Pivoting into a sideb catches people offguard when they're chasing you.

 

[KarToon]

In the same boat as everyone else here. I mainly use the bits to stuff dash approaches or special moves that try to close the distance from afar like Falcon's Side B/Down B. You have to read your opponent though or else they will just hop over Luma and be right in your face.

Also, it is pretty punishable if you use up close or on shield.

Anyone try using it for edgeguarding? Or does it help your opponent recover more than gimp them.

 

[Lavani]

I rarely throw it out, especially since you're standing there doing nothing if Luma gets poked during the startup. But it's a nice surprise move, since it has much more range than the rest of Luma's kit and people tend to forget about it.

Don't know if it's common knowledge or not (I actually posted about it in the complete coverage thread forever ago but w/e), but the default star bits are a disjoint, not a projectile. Essentially it's like a triple sword stab, and thus can't be reflected or absorbed.

 

[MezzoMe]

I mainly use this to poke the enemy out of every other attack's reach, or to edgeguard in the same manner.

 

[Ingoro]

Use it for characters who rush you down, because it frightens and slows their approach. You can use it to punish landings if they fall to far from you to hit it with an usmash. You can combo it out of luma's jabs, you can also use a full rotation of luma's jabs to get him further and then starbits, you're still linked but it reaches quite far.

 

[ChikoLad]

I don't know why, but every time I use this move, I'm ALWAYS able to follow up, assuming Luma is by my side anyway. I use it for a lot of things, but sometimes I just used to to start combos.

 

[Smasher89]

Ive found 2 uses for this, one is like a followupmixup after landing a luma nair, and one as a landdesynched backair(so its cancelable) on the opponents shield. The effect it had was that it mostly shieldpoked,should watch the situation in a replay though since it might be better to just grab after lumabackair.

 

[truecrisis]

I use it all the time to slow the enemy.

For them, it feels like a bunch of annoying needles, and is super disruptive to their mental state.

It's also great for when they are near the edge because it pushes them off the edge and they have to worry about getting back up.

 

[icraq]

I use this very sparingly.

Sometimes when Rosalina gets knocked away Luma will just stand there chillin on the stage next to my opponent. If I know they're going to go and try to kill Luma the best option is using Star Bits, it's probably the best defensive Luma move if you get separated somehow.

If Luma is connected to Rosalina I'm not sure this move is any good at all. It has the longest range of any of her moves but it loses to rolls and it's punishable on shield or if your opponent just jumps over it. I don't like it much at all.

One other scenario is if both me and my opponent are in the air next to each other. Rosalina doesn't have any great horizontal moves in the air, Fair is kind of slow startup and it doesn't hit exactly horizontal. So if I uair and my opponent air dodges and gets in front of me I can either nair and hope to hit with Luma or maybe I can use Star Bits. But I think I've only used Star Bits like this a few times.

Also I feel like this is the best move to gimp Villager's UpB but I've never practiced it. I suspect there's other recoveries that it might be good against. It's also decent at forcing your opponent to get up off the ledge but I never use it that way.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

This is a move best used sparingly as a disjointed poke for Luma. It's pretty slow and unsafe; being a disjointed Luma attack is really the only thing this move has going for it. I use it 1-2 times per three stock game maybe if I happen to have it set; it's not worth using more often and is probably default Rosalina's worst move. If customs are on, you should pick one of the custom variations 100% of the time; Floaty Star Bit is just a better version of this, and Shooting Star Bit is not analogous but is also a distinctly way better move.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

This is a move best used sparingly as a disjointed poke for Luma. It's pretty slow and unsafe; being a disjointed Luma attack is really the only thing this move has going for it. I use it 1-2 times per three stock game maybe if I happen to have it set; it's not worth using more often and is probably default Rosalina's worst move. If customs are on, you should pick one of the custom variations 100% of the time; Floaty Star Bit is just a better version of this, and Shooting Star Bit is not analogous but is also a distinctly way better move.

Floaty Star Bit feels like it has slower startup than default, so maybe it has that going for itself. Otherwise agree the custom versions are better.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

Floaty Star Bit feels like it has slower startup than default, so maybe it has that going for itself. Otherwise agree the custom versions are better.

Oh, it's considerably slower. Floaty Star Bit hits on f21 while default Star Bits hits on f13 (Shooting Star Bit hits on f12 if anyone is curious). This is accounting for Luma's 1f of input delay. F13 is still pretty slow for a Luma move though; Luma's only slower attack than Star Bits on default Rosalina is fsmash. If I'm going to use a slow Luma move anyway, I'd rather use the one that's way more rewarding and also safer (Floaty Star Bit) than the crummy default. Even as just a poke from Luma, it's mostly better to ftilt than to Star Bits; Star Bits is only worth it if the little bit of extra range is worth a way slower and more committed move or if you for some reason very specifically need Luma to use a disjoint. The crummy default is really only a thing we have to think about at all because of tournaments that forbid us from picking better options.

That being said, if you're being forced to use Rosalina's bad side special option, hey, it's still a disjointed poke. A character's only disjoint is never going to be useless, even if that character is Luma and it's a really unimpressive move otherwise which Star Bits certainly is.

If you want to see the full frame data of Rosalina and Luma side by side, I have both characters fully charted out in my spreadsheet on frame data:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1mxwukoqnQf8bjEHtZL4lcEPG77QmgnD3ZI_LKcLIvyA/edit?usp=sharing

I was kinda bad about filling out most specials on most characters, but I may have been biased and made sure to get everything on both Rosalina and Luma...

 

[Lavani]

If you want to see the full frame data of Rosalina and Luma side by side, I have both characters fully charted out in my spreadsheet on frame data:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1mxwukoqnQf8bjEHtZL4lcEPG77QmgnD3ZI_LKcLIvyA/edit?usp=sharing

You have Luma's aerials all jumbled around. It should be 3/11/10/3/8 for nair/fair/bair/uair/dair.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

You have Luma's aerials all jumbled around. It should be 3/11/10/3/8 for nair/fair/bair/uair/dair.

I think I got Luma's aerials off someone's chart (whereas I extracted the frame data for specials from in-game testing personally). Luma's file is basically a jumbled mess so that's possible; I'll have to look into it for sure.

 

[Sparklysparkles]

I find star bits useful in slowing people down. If somebody is going to charge straight at you, you can use star bits to break their flow and perform a counter-attack. (Well at least that's how I use them.)

 

[Smasher89]

Forgot the best use of it ive got once, dtilt the opponent of the edge (was done against shiek, if the replayupdate is soon i might be able to share it), send out luma to be in the stron position just above the ledge, the one where itll fall down if not getting an action emidiatly. Starbit towards the stage to cover any rolls, jump and nair, luma should fall down, meaning you will hit them with a stagespike if they still hang on the ledge which seems to be the only option if they recovered low.

 

[Mario & Sonic Guy]

Star Bits do lack range, but since they're not treated as projectiles, you can at least use them against those who have reflecting/absorbing moves.

As for Floaty Star Bit and Shooting Star Bit, since they are true projectiles, you can't really spam them on anyone who can reflect those moves right back at Rosalina, making fighters like Mario, Fox, Pit, and Palutena more difficult to deal with. Likewise, Ness and Mr. G&W can absorb the Star Bit projectiles with PSI Magnet and Oil Panic respectively.

 

[ChikoLad]

Not sure if it was mentioned here but Star Bits also excels at stopping rolls or air dodges, since it hangs for a moment. It does this better than the other two versions - Floaty Star Bit is too slow, and Shooting Star Bit is too fast for it.

 

[icraq]

oh yeah one more thing which is cool about star bits but i dont see a lot of use for:

they can travel through opponents and hit behind them, which i guess makes sense since it's just a disjoint and not a projectile but it's not exactly intuitive. pretty cool though!

 

[Saltix]

I use them to catch anybody who likes to approach via running at me (Bowser/Ganon/Falcon players), or SHing towards me (Marth/Lucina players). I also like to mix up my pivot grabs with this move.

 

[MarioMeteor]

I find Star Bits to be a very good tool. Not essential, but why wouldn't you take it? They **** with approaches, so they're good to have around against people who have to rush in like Sonic and Mac. They tack on decent percent, and they're even better if you use them when Luma is wondering. They can even mess up recoveries, too. I just wish Rosalina could shoot them and not just Luma.
Either way, Shooting Star Bit is better.

 

[Mondrae205]

I use star bits in time with a short hop as a mix-up approach option. If they get hit a free follow up, if they shield I land next to them and can grab or jab for some serious shield pressure. However if they dodge it It can still be pretty punishable.

 

[deepseadiva]

This is like Rosalina's spray bottle.

It doesn't really do a lot, but it tells your cat opponent to stop doing that thing they're doing.

 

[Karinole]

So this is one of my favorite moves and I probably use it way more than I should. Star bits, I think, is an under utilized tool in her arsenal. It's pretty good at stuffing aggressive approaches from characters like falcon and Lmac and it also is a good spacing tool against people trying to approach slowly from a distance. I also like to use it as free shield pressure as you can't use any move out of shield to punish it because the move comes out to fast and from an awkward distance for the opponent so it keeps them in shield and sometimes shield stabs them. Also useful in midair to catch some people by surprise.

 

[AceStarThe3rd]

UPDATE
I've began to realize that double jab > Star Bits is now a B&B to me. I use it often and its so incredibly safe.

Star Bits is an excellent spacing tool, and usually it leads to a grab. People always shield for some reason XD

 

[Xaltis]

Customs are where the starbits shine for sure~

 

[Wiley]

Not to mention the star bits full jump de-sync you mentioned in one of your videos. I thought that was a fun tool for it, even though I don't play Rosa much yet.

 

[GHOST4700]

@ AceStarThe3rd I'm a noob with Rosalina and I need a bit of help with the Full hop star bits desynch I always do short hop star bits, which I don't think is very good because the best I can get out of it is a tilt or a grab if I'm lucky. Do I need to jump with Y? Any advice?

 

[Peacanator]

I don't main Rosaluma but I've tried edge-guarding with starbits and I think it's great. If you send them off stage and don't want to go too far out for a gimp, star shot so that Luma is further out and use the starbits to gimp. I've also noticed that if they're not recovering low, possibly simply trying to jump on stage, you can starbits towards the stage and you get a free smash attack off of it (with Rosalina).