L33thal
Smash Apprentice
I was wondering how other Falco mains use their nairs and dairs in neutral, mainly in regards to approaching. Here's my thought process:
Nair:
Advantages:
-Nair has a longer hitbox than dair, taking up more space
-Nair is +2 on shield I believe, making it harder for opponents to punish you OoS
-Nair has stronger horizontal knockback
I usually use nair generally to either call out defensive movement (especially backwards movement i.e. WD back, dash back) or as a finisher. I use the fact that nair has more shieldstun and a larger hitbox to do my nairs a little bit early. I feel like this gives me an advantage towards trading because I'm throwing a strong and fast hitbox at my opponent and I'm entering their space--where they are currently standing and where they could go--with "authority", so my opponent has to respect my hitbox. This also means my opponent would have a hard time trying to clip me before I can do my nair, so I can condition them to give me a lot of space.
That said, dair is also really useful:
Advantages:
-Dair doesn't have as much of a "weak hit" as nair, as far as I know
-Dair takes up less space, but the knockback, etc. is more "focused"
While nair takes up more space, I feel like you have to be really meticulous in neutral to make the most out of it in neutral. To get followups with nair, you have to account for: hitting your opponent's shield and landing in front of them, cross up nairs, having the right amount of knockback/spacing to uptilt or shine. I feel like dair is more consistent with leading to followups, especially against floaties. Also, I feel like dair is better for situations like these:
You're playing against Fox on FD and he's at 60% and mainly dash dancing in neutral to try to get a clean stock off you without putting himself in a lot of risk. So, you usually are able to space close to him with movement/lasers but you want to do a fast sorta immediate aerial to call out his movement. If you do a fast nair, you might knock him away but he'll DI away and reset his position in neutral. But if you do a fast dair, he doesn't get sent as far horizontally and you can use that to either get followups or put yourself in a better position to pressure him in neutral.
Any thoughts?
Nair:
Advantages:
-Nair has a longer hitbox than dair, taking up more space
-Nair is +2 on shield I believe, making it harder for opponents to punish you OoS
-Nair has stronger horizontal knockback
I usually use nair generally to either call out defensive movement (especially backwards movement i.e. WD back, dash back) or as a finisher. I use the fact that nair has more shieldstun and a larger hitbox to do my nairs a little bit early. I feel like this gives me an advantage towards trading because I'm throwing a strong and fast hitbox at my opponent and I'm entering their space--where they are currently standing and where they could go--with "authority", so my opponent has to respect my hitbox. This also means my opponent would have a hard time trying to clip me before I can do my nair, so I can condition them to give me a lot of space.
That said, dair is also really useful:
Advantages:
-Dair doesn't have as much of a "weak hit" as nair, as far as I know
-Dair takes up less space, but the knockback, etc. is more "focused"
While nair takes up more space, I feel like you have to be really meticulous in neutral to make the most out of it in neutral. To get followups with nair, you have to account for: hitting your opponent's shield and landing in front of them, cross up nairs, having the right amount of knockback/spacing to uptilt or shine. I feel like dair is more consistent with leading to followups, especially against floaties. Also, I feel like dair is better for situations like these:
You're playing against Fox on FD and he's at 60% and mainly dash dancing in neutral to try to get a clean stock off you without putting himself in a lot of risk. So, you usually are able to space close to him with movement/lasers but you want to do a fast sorta immediate aerial to call out his movement. If you do a fast nair, you might knock him away but he'll DI away and reset his position in neutral. But if you do a fast dair, he doesn't get sent as far horizontally and you can use that to either get followups or put yourself in a better position to pressure him in neutral.
Any thoughts?