Palutena D-air KO confirm?

[Conn1496]

I think I found a very situational KO confirm off a D-air on a grounded enemy, but I'm unsure if it's an actual confirm or not. It works insanely often for me (and early) when I hit the D-air, but it's not a combo, so it may be just because my opponents are bad. lol

You D-air the opponent backwards offstage with a fullhop, and follow with a (usually fast falled) N-air that stage spikes (You have to fall directly vertical off the stage then pull back so you knock them against the underside of the stage.). You can follow with a footstool, or in the rare case you need to, another D-air for an SD KO, but again, I have no idea how effective this actually is in the first place - or if it's just for style.

It doesn't work on stages with walled ledges like Omega Boxing Ring since there needs to be a stage spike, that should be clarified. I think it may also be possible to tech most of the time, which is another reason I worry if this works well or not.

There's some %s and distances that I kept getting though that looked like they forced a 2-frame unless my opponent did specific get-out options, which makes me wonder if there's a confirmable version at very specific %s.

Can someone maybe back up my labbing a bit to see if this is a legit thing? It can work on Mario and Cloud at ~40% and ZSS and Sheik at ~30% (You might have to D-air Sheik again though at certain %s, or she can recover.).

 

[PHP]

It sounds interesting, but I'm having trouble visualizing how this is going to play out. Can you make a gif or a visual example?

 

[Conn1496]

It sounds interesting, but I'm having trouble visualizing how this is going to play out. Can you make a gif or a visual example?

Sorry, I'm mostly a dirty 3DScrub so it's unfortunately difficult for me to get/show visuals.

I could maybe get a 3DS replay but other than that it would be pretty hard for me.

Again, if I was on Wii U, I could probably lab this a little more thoroughly and maybe give examples if it does work and when, but right now, I'm just stuck with the tools I've got, so I was hoping someone could maybe take deeper looks into it.

I did as much labbing as I can, and it's honestly starting to look like it's mostly a mix-up. But a N-air follow-up from a full-hop D-air will KO if it hits and can stage spike (N-air can drag opponents under the stage and bounce them against it. Full-hop D-air places them really nicely for this.).

There are probably more optimal ways to set up for a N-air Stage Spike, but Full-Hop D-air seems like the most reliable, just because you can do it OoS. D-air to N-air has optimal %s to basically limit the amount of frames the opponent can act between them, and using this as a mix-up might be something that can win you the game because it just KOs so early. I speak from experience.

The only thing is that I worry top players could just see the opening between D-air and N-air and take it to get out 100% of the time. Again, I've had luck with it, but I'm not exactly facing top players.

Sorry again I can't get visuals.

 

[PHP]

So is it something FC dair > nair?

 

[Conn1496]

So is it something FC dair > nair?

I toyed with FC D-air into runoff N-air, but obviously you can't just do that OoS, it's also a decent amount harder technically to pull off. Ultimately if you want to FC something into N-air, F-air or B-air are likely far better for FCing into a N-air set-up anyway.

The way I've been doing it is literally just to fullhop and D-air them towards the ledge as I go up and N-air on the way down. You have to be pretty close to them at the start, but that's about it, there's nothing like FCing involved. It's far from a clean combo - I'm starting to think it's not really a combo at all - but when done right, I think you can actually force a frame trap on some characters because I've had a lot of players just struggle to get out of this for what seems like no good reason. It hits them incredibly close low to the ledge, so I think it has something to do with that, but otherwise I have no certain theories.

The more I look into it though, the more I feel like this is just a style option, or at least a lot more situational than I first thought (Character specific, stage specific, specific %s and positions, etc.) - it's also looking less than practical when I look at and calculate things like frame data, but I don't think frame data is the whole story, as with most of Smash - I was hoping for a seasoned Palu player/labber's own analysis on if this was a thing or not since I was hitting it so often, and still am hitting it (Hence the title being a question and not a blunt "this works" statement.), but I seem to be answering a lot of my own questions.

Regardless, I'll still keep using it as long as it's working for me, I don't think I particularly need a breakdown on why it's working so often as long as it does. lol

 

[PHP]

I think I see what you're saying; Drifting landing dair > nair

 

[Kathuzada]

It is a rising Full Hop DAir > falling NAir. Once the opponent gets to a certain percent (30~50%) they go nearly as far backwards as Palutena can if she holds backwards while in the air. I do not believe a follow up is garuanteed, but given how little this is done you can probably get them with a NAir.

Rising DAir needs more work imo. I like DAir out of shield if the opponent does a cross up and lands behind you

 

[lRasha]

Sorry, I'm mostly a dirty 3DScrub so it's unfortunately difficult for me to get/show visuals.

Thanks for sharing your idea to the community! Do you have a video camera on your phone by the way? I remember I wanted to share something with the Palutena discord, but I only had a 3DS. I put my phone on a table with the camera part sticking out and facing the floor. I held my 3DS under it as I sat down. I labbed the idea repeatedly as my phone recorded. It's not a perfect way to go about it and it will not look professionally-made, but personally that wasn't my intention. I just wanted to give a visual of the idea (which ended up being something already done before) and see what people in the discord thought.

I hope that helps.