Nair vs. Dair Selection/Decision-Making?

[L33thal]

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?

 

[FE_Hector]

First off, IIRC Nair is +/-0 on shield, but dair is -2.

Secondly, I agree in general with your assessment of dair vs nair. In my view, dair is for more sure solid hits that more easily combo into shine, whereas nair is better for covering a range of options and quickly threatening a good amount of space.

In the situation you laid out, the Fox doesn't wanna take much more damage. What I would do is laser to pester him and get what stage control I could. Lasers are gonna make him not wanna run straight in, so he'll likely full jump. If he full jump nairs, utilt is easy. If he full jump drills, I jump into the drill and get a free shine by holding down and spamming B, and then that becomes a pseudo-combo and scares him.

 

[Barry BlaZe]

if u lunge at an opponent and u think they're going to sheild nair is better. If u dont think theyre going to sheild dair is generally better. Also at low percents, characters like peach can cc ur nair and down smash u. You must do a low dair instead if u caught jumping in the air lunging at her.

 

[1000g2g3g4g800999]

Nair is also better if they're jumping, generally, while dair is better if they remain grounded and don't shield.

 

[Hedgehog_]

i prefer dair at lower percents just to counter cc. my nair usage has dropped though since its only good if you get the strong hitbox