Pillar Spiking (AT / Combo)

[Cazcom]

So I was working on my PK Fire magic, and all the b-sticking, Firebounding things that go along with it.

I was trying out at a tourney last weekend, and I managed to trap someone in my pk fire over the air, which lead to a spike so easy it brought me back to smash 64.

In short, the technique consists of jumping off the edge and timing your pk fire to your opponents second jump, thereby trapping them in the pk fire. You then use your second jump to pass up through the fire, and spike them through the bottom.

It is important to note that the pk fire needs to hit them on the top, stage-side part of them. For example, if you've knocked them off the left side of the stage, the fire needs to hit the top, right of them. This prevents them from DI'ing through the flame to the stage, and makes it difficult to perform their upB because the fire is above them.

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(A video of me doing it against a level 9 cpu can be seen at the following link)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5Wcyi-Bjow
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I've come to find that it works best against people who have a slow up-B move, because they are unable to execute it while in the fire. It might be possible to DI out of it, but I haven't had anyone do that yet, since I am doing the spike right after the fire hits.


Now I come to you, fewllow ness mainers. What is this technique I "found"? Does it have any potential? Can you pull it off? Is it at the very least another edge-guarding technique to add to our list?

Discuss.

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I decided to add the list of characters this is easy to execute on (for me at least). Easy means I can execute it 90% of the time, hard is about 50%, and nearly impossible means I'm lucky if I get it.
____________
Easy
____________
Snake
Mario
Luigi**
Bowswer
Olimar
Ness
Lucas
Donkey Kong
Zelda
Gannondorf
Fox
Falco
Wolf
DeDeDe*
Pikachu**
Link***
Toon Link***
Samus***
Kirby*
Pokemon Trainer
Lucario
Jigglypuff*
Pit*
Captain Falcon
Ice Climbers
Ike
_____________
Hard
_____________
Sheik***
Marth
R.O.B.*
MetaKnight*
diddy kong
_____________
Near Impossible
_____________
Mr. Game & Watch
Sonic
Yoshi
Zero Suit Samus
Peach****


* = May be more difficult to execute because of the opponents additional jumps
** = May be harder to execute because of the opponents ForwardB
*** = May be more difficult because of the opponents ability to grab the edge with a whip/chain/etc
**** = peach is a floating *****

 

[Sans Glutin]

Definitely cool and flashy. As for how effective it would be on an actual DI-ing human opponent, i'm not sure.

 

[litlwing]

thats pretty bad-A but im no ness player. It looks tight tho.

 

[Proverbs]

I'm not sure if that's escapable. If not, congratulations on finding something amazing! That must take some intense timing, though.

 

[Cazcom]

I've pulled it off against human players too, but you have to hit square-on with the pk fire. That should give you enough time to spike before they DI out of it. But then again, maybe not. That's why I brought it here. Hopefully a few people can try to use this and report how effective it was

EDIT : And yes. You have to know how the opposing characters second jump works to time it right

 

[Earthbound360]

I think this has been known, but underused. It's in Aeivns guide. I do it on sandbag in training mode, but I never knew it was as effective as you say. This is usually because I use Ness nair to edgeguard instead of PKF.

But man, that vid made me wanna use it, and after some playing around with it, I think it could really be put to use well. Im going to try it more often.

If you think about it, it could be really good on some characters like Fox, Ike, and Link. Ones that, like you said, have to take time to use their recovery move, or people with bad DI and recovery (Link and Ike). Even f they could DI out, where will they go? Backwards? That's just asking for the nair right?

Good job.

 

[Tyr_03]

You can definetly DI out of it. Smash DI gets you out of pretty much everything in Brawl. But even then they're probably still pretty open for attack. I can definetly see it working. Just a matter of getting the opponent to be where you can use it against them. And then of course assuming they don't meteor cancel. But it's still cool.

 

[Earthbound360]

Meteor cancel is in Brawl? You sure?

 

[Cazcom]

Maybe I'm just not playing against the pros, idk. If you hit square with pk fire, it's hard to DI out of. But even if they do DI out of it, like EB360 said, it's easy to follow up with a Nair.

and I wouldn't know anything about meteor cancel or wtvr. Didn't play melee.

 

[eHerbieInReverse]

Yeah, I've been doing this for a while, just, not as often as a rising dair. What usually worked for me was PK Jumping or a standing PK Fire, then SH Dairing. It's more tricky on that 2nd step (the spike), than this Pillar Spiking which seems to be much more dependent on the first step (perfect landing the PK Fire). Good stuff.

 

[Rigor Mortis]

Yeah its nice but I just cant help to say its a combination of 2 attacks, I meen not everything is an AT. Id like to say you can escape it with DI but i dont wanna prove it now because im lazy >.>

 

[Ref]

Meteor cancel is in Brawl? You sure?

Yes meteor smash cancel is in brawl people have done it many times. Works the same as melee pretty much. Anyone who was the person who said it wasn't in...?


This tactic has been known but very under used.

 

[Mr. Escalator]

I remember something like this, but I guess it escaped my memory up until now. You made it look so flashy that I must use it in a real battle!

So yeah, it's pretty sick.

 

[Cazcom]

Thanks I'll try to take video of this working in a tourney match to show what it would look like in live action, not against a dumb lvl-9 cpu.

And Rigor,

I know not everything is an AT. I never played melee, and I don't know what counts as a technique, AT, combo, or wtvr. Thanks for your input

 

[Emperor Time]

That's great.

 

[Tyr_03]

To DI out of it, smash DI away quickly. Every hit of PK Fire means a little teleport. So easy in Brawl. Then meteor cancel by jump or up B after a spike.

 

[Earthbound360]

^^^
Gonna be pretty hard.

 

[eHerbieInReverse]

Was doing it a lot more today, thanks for bringing it up to my ... closer attention. [: If anything, it's helped me realize more of this technique's potential. And thanks for coming here to contribute, nonetheless, it's always nice to have newer people jump into the fray, or brawl for that matter, ready to be an active member [:

 

[Cazcom]

Thanks. I'm just trying to do my part. We're all here to prove ness's awesomeness. Hopefully this technique will help. If you get videos of yourself pulling the combo off on opponents, feel free to link it. I want to see how usefull this is against these DI'ing gods that Tyr speaks of ^_^.

 

[eHerbieInReverse]

EDIT and clip. Wrong thread. Man I must've been tired.

 

[Cazcom]

Herbie,

What? Where did all that come from?

I'm not worried about my practicing. I still get a lot of practice, since I've got friends to practice on and I'm starting to go to tourneys regularly.

But I'd be glad to do some online matches in the future.

 

[eHerbieInReverse]

Online matches sound great. mmmmm, just send me your FC some time.

 

[Tyr_03]

It really isn't that hard to DI out of. Smash DI is way too good in Brawl. Seriously all it takes is hitting the c-stick away from the stage a few times to escape this. You can even alternate between analog and c-stick since both give you smash DI. You'd be amazed what a difference it can make. Almost any multihit move in the game you can escape if you know which way to smash DI. The thing is that not that many people use smash DI and not that many people are going to be expecting a PK Fire in the face while trying to recover.

The bigger issue with this technique is getting PK Fire to hit them while they're recovering. PK Fire is really very limited because of it's slow speed and sharp angle. The times I can see you getting people with it is during maybe Fox or Falco's up B. But most Fox and Falco players use Forward B to recover far more often. Characters like Snake and Wario are going to be recovering from way too far away and you'll never get the opportunity. Characters like G and W and Marth will be able to use their recoveries fast enough and close enough to the stage that you won't get a chance to pull it off either. I'm not saying it's impossible but you're pretty much depending on your opponent to walk right into it. It's a very cool and flashy KO but it's not going to work on high level players unless you get lucky.

 

[Earthbound360]

Yes, but look at the list he made. Those are the characters he thinks it's easiest to use on. Also, even if you DI out, you pretty much have to DI backwards to avoid aerials from Ness.

No matter where you DI, you are pretty vulnerable to the nair. It leaves you open and Ness is safe from the PK while the opponent is not.

 

[Tyr_03]

Yeah I know you can get a Nair atleast usually. Just saying it's gonna be really easy for most players to avoid this. Even Fox and Falco and then can get around it with using forward B unpredictably. Doesn't mean it's useless by any means. Just means it's not something you're going to get away with all that often.

 

[ViceGrip]

very, VERY nice technique. i consider this part of my standard edgeguard game, it's very effective. I've done it to yoshi before online, dunno if that means he just sucked or if yoshi really is that hard to pull this off on. As a side note, if you manage to this it's followed by lot's of OOOO's and is very satisfying.

 

[JSTN!]

its hard for me to pull it off on a human player... ehhh..

 

[Cazcom]

This can be DI'd out of, but like EB said, that leaves them very vulnerable to Nair.

I do want to point out that I was at a tourney today, and I pulled this off 4-5 times.


I'm starting to realize that this is most effective against characters who drop down low before they recover (ie. Marth). I also pulled this off against a MK with 0%. F-throw, s-hop pkf, pillar spike.

When people start realizing that you can do this, they either try to jump higher if they can do that, or they air dodge when they expect it to be coming. So I started jumping like I was going to do the pillar spike, but just do a second jump instead when they jump-dodge. Set up a spike pretty easily. (I hope that made sense )

At the very least, today was a spike filled day.

 

[eHerbieInReverse]

Kudos to you Cazcom!!!
That sounds great! Especially at a tourney. Never thought it would be so viable, with the angle of PK Fire and whatnot. Love learning about it though. I used to stick to grounded PK Fires to do this technique but this way has always been on my mind as more efficient, just never got off my *** to try it more haha. Thanks to you, I'll definitely put this to better use.

 

[Gindler]

Even if you did smash DI out of the PK Fire (takes a bit), by the time you're doing your I DIed out of the PK fire dance you'll be getting a rising Dair to the face (as long as the ness moves ever so slightly left or right). So I'd say it's still pretty useful even with smash DIing.

I like the difficulty list too. real extensive research for a "smash n00b" (just a smash world title, I'm sure you're total pwnage if you thought of this on your own)

 

[LaserBust]

Looks pretty sweet. Ive seen this alot but in diffrent ways, mostly staying on stage.

I perfer not 2 have 2 use my UpB using this techinque cuz if I phail (Like they meteor cancel) I think ness would be pretty vulnerbale. Besides that, lookz smexy.

 

[Cazcom]

The "smash noob" title still fits. I haven't placed at singles in a tourney yet. But I've taken 9th & 7th in two doubles tourneys

and I think you should be okay, as long as you know how to use pk thunder well. I'll try to do some more research on this.

EDIT : I'm going to start working on a tutorial for this. Hopefully I'll have it out in a week or two.

 

[Neb]

Phew, thank god this doesn't pwn G&W.
Sick move though!

 

[GildedPunch]

Okay peeps, EB360 is right Meteor Cancel is NOT in brawl.

If you think you meteor canceled, think again.

The hit stun from being hit by a spike just simply ends, allowing you ur DJ or upB.

Try Meteor Canceling at a high percent, you go down so fast that your hit stun is there by the time you die.

 

[eHerbieInReverse]

I actually pulled this off yesterday on one of my online matches with someone on SWF, but I don't remember who it was. I had warm feelings though. [:

But yeah, it's a great thing, sometimes (for the Mother boys) that Meteor cancelling is out hehe.

 

[Earthbound360]

Great for spikes on characters with tightly verticalrecoveriessince PKF goes below the sweetspot of the level. I used this on a Link recently and it was aweseome.

 

[LavisFiend]

Holy frickin cow are you kidding me? I have done this since square one! XD

I wasn't aware it was so....underappreciated.

But yeah, I am a beast with Ness' spike. Another great combo is to PKT2 into them, fling them off the edge, dash dance, crouch the opposite direction and SH a spike. It looks epic.

But this inspired me to post a few of my own sexy replays. They may be against level 9's, but the point here is to just show off combo stuff amirite?

But it's a great find, no matter how classic it is. XD

 

[JSTN!]

This is officially my favorite comno!

 

[LaserBust]

Ive been owning wit this crap like, all day yesterday.

I was Fsmashed from Marth, and he tryed 2 edgeguard me with Bairs.. Wow waz he doomed.
I Pk Fire while recovering, then spiked on meh way back 2 the stage.. It was so epic..

Anyway, the PkFire > PkT2 iz a lil more epic. Lets all do this on our last lives. =D

 

[Kros]

I'm just used to people Up+B into the edge. I wanna see this on video to see if i'm doin it right.