Mario's Dair

[Gidy]

Okay, so this may be terrible to not know this late in the meta, but what the heck is Mario's Dair? When I use it on someone grounded sometimes I use it and they get launched but other times I use it and they don't get launched, looking like they can be followed up on, even at high percents. Why is this so? And out of curiousity, what do you use it for?

 

[HeroMystic]

If you land with D-air, it causes a specific hitbox where they simply pop up a bit in the air. We call this a Landing D-air.

I mainly use it for Kill confirms into U-Smash or D-Smash.

 

[popsofctown]

Pikachu's dair, Mario's dair, and short list of other aerials in the game have a hitbox that is actually produced by the landing lag animation of the move. Something that is purely penalty frames for many characters actually produces a useful hitbox for them.

As with all the other moves with this property (except like, maybe swordfighter dair) the hitboox is weak by design so that the move will be unsafe on block, so it's not good to spam landing dair indiscriminately.

 

[Xeze]

I usually use Dair for follow ups or for an out of shield option. Sometimes I manage to use it as a kill move after predicting an air dodge or something.

 

[DtJ XeroXen]

At low/mid percents you can semi-reliably attempt a followup with grab from grounded hitbox of Dair, I use it a lot and it's pretty entertaining.

 

[smasher1001]

Yeah, landing dair to grab is very consistent as long as you manage to hit them, if they shield every hit of it though, you're punishable. Also great when you can get down/up once in a blue moon side smash true combos from it at the right percents.

 

[Nd_KakaKhakis]

Mario's Dair is a great move and way more versatile than what a lot of characters can offer with their Dairs.

Dair is good for pestering an opponent on a platform above you, say on Delfino or Halberd. If you get all the hits you can double jump and combo with another aerial. Plus Dair is very active so you can try to air to air an opponent from below and beat out an air dodge and punish.

I think the primary use of dair however is as a jump in move. If you're falling or jumping in with Dair the amount of hits you'll get depends on your height when you start the move. Last hit of the move will pop the opponent upwards while any earlier hit will cause very little hitstun and knockback and leave them grounded. In my experience, especially at lower percents you can get good follow ups from one of the weak hits (grab, reverse upsmash, yolo f-smash read). You can combo off of the last hit too obviously but I think the ability to combo intro grab is too good to pass up in most matchups.

A little piece of AT to complement your Dair approach is to use a Roll Canceled or DA Canceled Grab after a weak hit that leaves the opponent grounded. Using either of these is great for two reasons.
1- Roll Canceled grabs have more range so you almost definitely don't have to worry about the grab whiffing if you use either of these techniques and hit with your Dair properly
2- You can Roll Cancel grab either direction and they have the same amount of startup time. So you can still get your grab follow up even if your opponent ends up behind you after the Dair hits.

If your jump in dair gets blocked you're probably going to get grabbed. Which is why your aim should always be to cross up your opponents shield. If you see your Dair getting blocked definitely try to DI out of grab range of your opponent (this is something I personally need to work on) and learn when you can get behind your opponent vs when its best to just DI as far away from them as possible.

 

[popsofctown]

I thought roll cancelled grabs were patched out..

 

[Macedonian]

the dair is useful at breaking out of combos and things like rapid jabs(think falcon and fox). the dair is good at applying a lot of shield pressure, and its also great as mentioned before with kill confirms. landing dair into usmash.

Dair can be used to combo with out of upthrow at extremely low percents on heavier charachters.

 

[Xeze]

I never tried to break out of fast jabs using d-air, I usually use up-B for that.