Data Royal Academy Finishing School -- Peach Frame Data Application Thread

[Sycorax]

Purpose:
To apply frame data for precise situational analysis with Peach. This thread serves as a dumping ground for whatever things I discover, but you are also welcome and encouraged to ask questions about situations.

The basics:
I am going to try not to simplify things so if you do not understand what is being said, I recommend you study up. Kadano's video series on Melee mechanics covers most of what you will need to know. For the rest, you can check out the Frame Data and Technical Knowledge section of my Melee Library.

Table of Contents:
Chaingrab on fastfallers
Escaping dthrow knee
When nair causes more knockback than fair
Turnip interaction with Fox/Falco up-b
Peach's shield pressure
Reaction tech chasing off uthrow
How staleness affects the end of Peach's chaingrabs
You can buffer jump out of the hitstun of Falco's lasers
Escaping Marth's fthrow regrab at low percents
Uair Aerial Interrupt Combo
Sweetspot Up-B
Dthrow and Uthrow followups against Marth, Peach, and Sheik
Phantom Hits
Dash attack
Dash Jump Nair to End Chaingrabs
Air to Ground Turnip Throw Mechanics
Countering Samus Jab "Pressure"
Glide Tossing in Melee
Move Staling
Parasol Fall Rates
Up-B Out of Shield
Parasol Flick Combo
How to Escape Fox's Uthrow Uair
Advanced Turnip Probabilities
Fox's Fthrow Usmash and Uthrow Uair
Shielding Peach's Dsmash
Shield Advantage of Peach's Dsmash
Turnip Interaction with Missiles and Turnip Staling
Frame Advantage on Crouch Cancel and Fox's Nair
Weak Aerial into Dsmash
Dthrow Reaction Tech Chase
Uthrow Combos on Sheik
The Effective Range of Dash Attack

 

[Sycorax]

Chaingrab on Fastfallers

The basics:

Use dash grab, it has more range, the only down side is it has 10 frames more end lag which won't matter if you are chain grabbing perfectly.

Follow these steps to chain grab:

1. Grab
2. Pummel
3. Up throw
4. Watch enemy movement
5. At this point there are basically 4 options to cover, No DI, Soft DI behind you, Hard right DI, Hard left DI

No DI - Don't move, regrab
Soft DI behind - Turn around on the spot, regrab
Hard DI Left/Right - Immediately dash grab in the direction they DI

Repeat steps 1-5 until they start to get close to the 90%+ mark.

6. Finish with Nair if you see bad DI and they remain close. Otherwise Fthrow is the safe option.

I don't know the percents off the top of my head but I tend to keep it around 40%-90% as the opportunity for error increases outside this range.

I know the following tables do not agree with Magus's old tables. I do not know what to say about that :/

Remember, hitstun on throws is port dependent.

Against Fox
When your port is closer to port 1

%           Away          No             Behind
----------- ------------- -------------- -----------
0%          dsmash        regrab         dsmash
1%-2%       RTC           regrab         dsmash
3%-5%       dsmash        regrab         dsmash
6%-12%      walk dsmash   regrab         dsmash
13%         walk dsmash   regrab         RTC, dash attack*
14%-17%     walk dsmash   regrab         dash attack
18%-19%     regrab        regrab         dash attack
20%-98%     regrab        regrab         regrab
99%-105%    regrab        pivot regrab   regrab
106%-117%   regrab        finisher       regrab
118%-122%   regrab        finisher       finisher
>122%       finisher      finisher       finisher

Notes:
RTC=reaction tech chase. Wavedash to their landing position and dash attack tech away, regrab tech in place, regrab or dash attack tech through you.
Uthrow dsmash works from 0% to 56% on no DI. Useful if you find it difficult to get regrabs at low percents, or you know, you could like, git gud.
Turn->regrab on slight DI behind doesn't start working until about 8%, possibly more depending on the magnitude of DI.
*You can get dash attack on DI behind at 13% if they don't get the perfect (1,0) DI, which is humanly impossible to do consistently.

When your port is closer to port 4

%           Away             No             Behind
----------- ---------------- -------------- ------------------
0%-9%       RTC              regrab         dsmash
10%-13%     walk 2f dsmash   regrab         dsmash
14%         RTC              regrab         dsmash, dash attack
15%-16%     RTC              regrab         dash attack
17%         regrab           regrab         dash attack
18%-106%    regrab           regrab         regrab
107%        regrab           pivot regrab   regrab
108%-126%   regrab           finisher       regrab
125-130%    regrab           finisher       finisher
>130%       finisher         finisher       finisher

Notes:
Uthrow dsmash works from 0% to 66% on no DI. Useful if you find it difficult to get regrabs at low percents, or you know, you could like, git gud.
Turn->regrab on slight DI behind doesn't start working until about 8%, possibly more depending on the magnitude of DI.

Against Falco
When your port is closer to port 1

%           Away                  No             Behind
----------- --------------------- -------------- ---------------------
0%-5%       dsmash                regrab         dsmash
6%-7%       dsmash                regrab         jab, ftilt, RTC, nothing good :(
8%-10%      dsmash                regrab         dash attack
11%         walk dsmash           regrab         dash attack
12%-15%     regrab, walk dsmash   regrab         dash attack
16%-106%    regrab                regrab         regrab
107%-109%   regrab                pivot regrab   regrab
110%-130%   regrab                finisher       regrab
131%-133%   finisher              finisher       regrab
>133%       finisher              finisher       finisher

Notes:
Walk dsmash works higher than 15%, but why not regrab?
Uthrow dsmash works from 0% to 49% on no DI. Useful if you find it difficult to get regrabs at low percents, or you know, you could like, git gud.
Turn->regrab on slight DI behind doesn't start working until about 2%, possibly more depending on the magnitude of DI.

When your port is closer to port 4

%           Away                  No             Behind
----------- --------------------- -------------- ---------------------
0%-4%       dsmash                regrab         dsmash
5%-6%       walk dsmash           regrab         dsmash
7%          walk dsmash           regrab         dsmash, dash attack
8%-10%      walk dsmash           regrab         dash attack
11%-14%     regrab, walk dsmash   regrab         dash attack
15%-116%    regrab                regrab         regrab
117%-124%   regrab                pivot regrab   regrab
125%-138%   regrab                finisher       regrab
139%-143%   finisher              finisher       regrab
>143%       finisher              finisher       finisher

Notes:
Walk dsmash works higher than 15%, but why not regrab?
Uthrow dsmash works from 0% to 60% on no DI. Useful if you find it difficult to get regrabs at low percents, or you know, you could like, git gud.
Turn->regrab on slight DI behind doesn't start working until about 2%, possibly more depending on the magnitude of DI.

Against Captain Falcon
When your port is closer to port 1

%          Away       No             Behind
---------- ---------- -------------- -------------
0-1%       RTC        regrab         dash attack
2-3%       regrab     regrab         dash attack
4%-72%     regrab     regrab         regrab
73%-75%    regrab     pivot regrab   regrab
76%-90%    regrab     finisher       regrab
91%-98%    regrab     finisher       finisher
>98%       finisher   finisher       finisher

Notes:
Uthrow dsmash works from 0% to 49% on no DI. Useful if you find it difficult to get regrabs at low percents, or you know, you could like, git gud.

When your port is closer to port 4

%           Away       No             Behind
----------- ---------- -------------- -------------
0-1%        RTC        regrab         dash attack
2-4%        regrab     regrab         dash attack
5%-82%      regrab     regrab         regrab
83%-85%     regrab     pivot regrab   regrab
86%-99%     regrab     finisher       regrab
100%-108%   regrab     finisher       finisher
>108%       finisher   finisher       finisher

Notes:
Uthrow dsmash works from 0% to 58% on no DI. Useful if you find it difficult to get regrabs at low percents, or you know, you could like, git gud.

Uthrow Usmash
Falco: Uthrow usmash will kill at 117% after uthrow with no DI (This means 109% before the uthrow if the uthrow is not stale). Usmash kills at 124% after uthrow with good DI.

Fox: Usmash kills after uthrow at 114% with no DI. 123% with good DI.

Uthrow usmash may true combo on Falcon at certain percents, but it wont' any percent where the usmash will kill.

Final Notes:

• Away and behind DI were done using values of (-1,0) and (1,0).
• Pivot regrab starts working pretty early on no DI.
• The dash attacks done against DI behind will likely cause them to miss techs because tech traps. A lot of times you can even land dsmash or grab before they land.
• Walk dsmash does not specify how many frames you need to walk. At low percents, 1 frame of walk is enough. Sometimes you need two. Sometimes you can have more but at least 3 is enough.
• Slight DI affects the chaingrab in various ways. At low percents, it can allow a regrab where full DI away/behind would not. At high percents (where regrab does not work on no DI), it can masquerade as full DI away/behind tricking Peach into going for regrab when it's not guaranteed. Slight DI keeps the thrown character closer to the ground than no DI, and a bit higher than full DI away/behind.
• When chaingrabbing on full DI away, it is important to grab rather early and let the opponent fall into your grab. The timing is strict. If you wait too late -- for instance, trying to grab them as they are in front of you -- it will often be too late and they will have a window to jump out.
• JC grab on DI away at high percents can sometimes help extend the chaingrab by a few percentage points.

 

[Sycorax]

Escaping dthrow knee

The dreaded dthrow into fair combo done by Captain Falcon actually does not work on Peach, at any percent. If you DI the dthrow well enough, Peach will fly too far. Captain Falcon will not have enough time to chase you down and fair you before you can air dodge to away. Here is my suggested method for escaping dthrow fair:

[tl;dr: DI dthrow down and away. Tap jump up and away to exit tumble and press L/R to air dodge away.]

Captain Falcon's dthrow launches at a base 65⁰. This means that DI'ing at -25⁰ will yield the lowest launch trajectory. We want a low launch trajectory so that we can fly as far horizontally as possible. This picture will help you get a good idea of where -25⁰ is in relation to the octagonal notches on the controller gate. A -25⁰ angle translates to a controller input of (0.9000,0.42500).

An exact -25⁰ angle is not always required though. Simply DI'ing down and away (in the SE or SW notch) is enough to earn you at least a one frame window to escape dthrow knee. I do not recommend DI away. In the case of Captain Falcon's dthrow, DI away is marginally worse than down and away (since |0⁰-25⁰|<|45⁰-25⁰|). I recommend trying for the -25⁰ angle because in most cases it will give you a frame or two more of leniency for the following inputs.

After you DI correctly, you want to air dodge as soon as possible. However, one cannot air dodge directly out of hitstun (in this case DamageFlyTop) because after hitstun, Peach transitions to tumble. It is not possible to air dodge out of tumble. It is first necessary to enter another state that allows Peach to air dodge. As early as the last frame of hitstun, one can input a sideways smash input with the control stick to transfer into Fall which you can air dodge out of. This is the same mechanic as wiggling out of tumble. However, this is not a very reliable method. It is often necessary to air dodge on the first possible frame. The smash input only counts for one frame meaning you would have to perfectly judge the length of histun in order to get early air dodges. In addition, the input could be entirely eaten and not count if you input it too early. Instead, use a tap jump input. Tap jump buffers for 4 frames. This effectively gives you a 4 frame window to input tap jump and never enter the tumble state upon exiting hitstun. It is also possible to air dodge out of double jump.

One more detail. It is best to input the tap jump with up and away, in one of the diagonal notches. Any input with y-coordinate greater than 0.65000 will trigger a jump. For reference, the diagonal notches yield y-coordinates around 0.70000 so even the most uncalibrated of controllers should be able to do this jump. This up and away input will allow you do the jump and also air dodge without moving your control stick. Getting as much horizontal movement away from Falcon is best. If you are brave enough, you can try rotating your control stick after the jump input into an away or down and away direction for the air dodge. Do not try to air dodge toward Captain Falcon. Air dodges are vulnerable for the first 3 frames and you are very likely to air dodge into his fair and get hit.

I also have a trick for inputting the air dodge. Press L then R or R then L in quick succession as soon as you can after inputting the jump. Do this to avoid the situation where you pressed L/R too early and the input is eaten in hitstun or on the first frame of jump. The goal is to only jump for 1 frame.

Even if Falcon throws you off stage, this air dodge trick can still work. Peach falls so slowly and has so much aerial mobility that she can make it to the ledge in many situations, especially if you have upward movement on your air dodge.

A few notes:

• This trick is not a complete panacea. There is a lot of lag associated with air dodging and Falcon will likely have enough time to find some hit after you air dodge. It beats getting killed by his fair though.
• Having a port closer to 4 than Captain Falcon's port will give you an extra frame to get out.
• The hardest percents to escape are between about 48% and 80%. Once you start getting into 100%+, the escape is much easier.

A demonstration video to give y'all some idea what is going on.

 

[Sycorax]

Peach's nair causes more knockback than her fair starting at these percents:

Character        Percent
---------------- ---------
Jigglypuff        86%
Fox               95%
Falco/Pikachu     98%
Marth            102%
Ice Climbers     103%
Peach/Sheik      104%
Mario bros       110%
Captain Falcon   112%
Yoshi            115%
Ganondorf        115%
Samus            116%

This does not account for staleness, which would not shift the numbers by that much.

 

[Sycorax]

Turnip interaction with Fox/Falco up-b

A lot of times Peach's turnips will bounce off Fox and Falco's up-b's. Sometimes it does not however. This is why:

Tl;dr: Aim for the legs and you might hit them instead having the turnip bounce off them.

(It may be useful for you to watch Kadano's video on priority and clanging before reading this) Fox's and Falco's up-b hitboxes will clang with Peach's turnip. Peach's turnips are a projectile (duh) and have the article interaction bit equal to 1 making them a non-transcendent projectile (unlike Falco's lasers). You can hit them. Both Fox's and Falco's hitboxes on their launch in up-b will clang with Peach's turnips. The charge up hitboxes on Fox's up-b will not because those hitboxes have their hitbox interaction bit set to 0 and thus do not interact with other hitboxes. Further, Fox's and Falco's up-b's do 14 and 16 damage respectively making them clang with any turnip except a stitch face. A stitch face is the only turnip with enough damage to out-prioritize Fox's and Falco's up-b's. Fox's and Falco's up-b will also go through a throw Mr. Saturn or Beamsword. Bob-omb will explode upon hitting Fox or Falco and interrupt their up-b.

What allows turnips to hit Fox or Falco out of their up-b's is careful/random spacing. The hitboxes of the spacie up-b's does not cover their whole body. Their legs, arms, and top of their head are exposed, and sometimes their chest. If you can time and space your turnip throw perfectly, you might be able to hit them out of their up-b launch. Below are some pictures with approximate hitbox highlights to give you a better idea of where to aim. Some information is important in understanding these images. Fox and Falco move faster in the beginning of their up-b's than at the end causing the hitbox to drag more at the beginning of the up-b. This means that more of their body is covered by a hitbox at the beginning of their up-b's. Also, Fox rotates in his up-b animation which makes hitting his head or arms more or less random (unless you're a god ~_~). Falco does not rotate which makes hitting his arms next to impossible. These images are taken when Fox or Falco is moving straight up. For hitboxes on an angled up-b, just imaging rotating the image clockwise or counterclockwise.

It is also worth noting that these hitboxes cover Fox and Falco until the frame that they can grab the ledge.

Edit: Additional info courtesy of @PracticalTAS: "Fox rotates really fast during firefox. Roughly 3 rotations every 8 frames (24ish rotations per second). During the animation, Fox's head is off-centre (because he's looking in the direction that the firefox is heading), but the hitbox stays centred. Thus, the hitbox protects Fox's neck but not the top of his head."

 

[Dr. Cannon]

Super useful info!

When you say:

If you want to finish with dash jump nair on DI's away or behind, that stops working at 130%, before uthrow, on DI away, and % on DI behind.

Did you forget to put a number in front of that percent sign?
Also, you don't say when upthrow upsmash kills falcon. Is it not used as a finisher?

 

[Blook]

Peach's nair causes more knockback than her fair starting at these percents:

Character|Percent
Fox|94.39%
Falco/Pikachu|97.40%
Marth|101.62%
Ice Climbers|102.23%
Peach/Sheik|103.43%
Mario bros|109.46%
Captain Falcon|111.87%
Yoshi|114.28%
Ganondorf|114.89%
Samus|115.49%

This doesn't account for staleness, which would only shift the numbers by about 3 or 4 percentage points.

Does nair not do more knockback on other characters, or is that data not figured out yet?

 

[Sycorax]

Super useful info!

When you say:

If you want to finish with dash jump nair on DI's away or behind, that stops working at 130%, before uthrow, on DI away, and % on DI behind.

Did you forget to put a number in front of that percent sign?
Also, you don't say when upthrow upsmash kills falcon. Is it not used as a finisher?

Whoops. I meant to delete that line. I was investigating how long dash jump nair works, went about it wrong, and found some wrong numbers. Disregard that and I'll delete it. It can be noted that dash jump nair is still rather difficult/frame tight at higher percents if they DI away. If you think they will DI away, you can try going for fthrow. Although, from the spacie's perspective, it would be very possible to automatically select DI for fthrow and then change to whatever DI they want for uthrow on reaction.

Uthrow usmash works on Falcon at certain percents but it will never true combo at a percent where it will kill him. He is too heavy and falls too fast.

Does nair not do more knockback on other characters, or is that data not figured out yet?

I don't know what you're talking about. Super Smash Brothers Melee for the Nintendo GameCube is a 14 character party game. In fact, some people say it is an eight character party game. Some others even say it is a four character game.

The truth may actually be that I was too lazy to calculate it for the rest of the cast because I think they're irrelevant. If you really care though, I'll calculate the rest.

 

[Sycorax]

How staleness affects the end of Peach's chaingrabs

I found out that the new 20XX Hack Pack 4.05 has a feature to turn on staleness in debug mode allowing me to test this more rigorously than with Schmooblidon's knockback calculator. Unfortunately, the 20XX HP lacks one feature, which Magus's Mod has, that allows me to easily increment a character's damag. Without it, it is too tedious to figure out exact percent ranges. Nevertheless, I was able to find out some things in an empirical way.

It all boils down to this: keeping the uthrow unstale by pummeling more makes little difference in the chaingrab. At best, full staleness extends the percent ranges by about 3%. It is my personal opinion that it is better to pummel as much as possible for two reasons: 1) it racks up damage faster requiring fewer throws and thus, fewer chances to mess up, and 2) it keeps the percent ranges as close to my tables as possible.

 

[Sycorax]

Not particularly important, but I felt it was worth documenting: You can buffer jump out of the hitstun of Falco's lasers. If you press jump during any of the hitstun frames, you will jump on the first actionable frame. Here's why: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03qCJ_Ikbho

 

[Sycorax]

Escaping Marth's fthrow regrab at low percents

Unlike other more gravitationally privileged characters, Peach has very few frames to escape Marth's fthrow regrab. Fortunately the inputs can be entirely buffered. It is necessary to DI fully down and away (about -45 degrees). It is "optimal" to DI at -40 degrees, but it is not necessary. At some point in the plethora of frames in which you are flying through the air, press and hold your preferred shield button, and press and hold down on the c-stick. You will spot dodge as soon as possible after your 4 landing lag frames. This is the only guaranteed way to escape the regrab. However, if Marth fails to be frame perfect on 3 accounts (dash ASAP after fthrow, JC grab on frame 6 or 7 of Dash, only spend 1 frame in KneeBend before grabbing), then you can jab him before he can grab you. If the Marth is REALLY bad, you can dsmash. After the buffered spot dodge, Marth is going to be actionable about 3 frames before you are. The exact number of frames depends on how frame perfect he is.

This only works below 7%. At and above 7%, Peach is knocked down by the throw and Marth can reaction tech chase you. But no one does that, except maybe DruggedFox, PPMD, and SleepyK, that I know of, so you do not have to be too scared of that.

 

[Blook]

I don't know what you're talking about. Super Smash Brothers Melee for the Nintendo GameCube is a 14 character party game. In fact, some people say it is an eight character party game. Some others even say it is a four character game.

The truth may actually be that I was too lazy to calculate it for the rest of the cast because I think they're irrelevant. If you really care though, I'll calculate the rest.

Mostly curious about puff.

 

[Sycorax]

Mostly curious about puff.

Whoops! Fixed it.

 

[Sycorax]

Aerial Interrupt Uair

Peach can perform an aerial interrupt using her uair to land on Battlefield, Dreamland, and Pokemon Stadium platforms. On frame 16 of her uair, the bottom of her ECB shifts down considerably. Compared to how most aerial interrupts are used, this could be considered next to useless since it requires lcanceling and does not occur early in the move animation. However, it has strong combo utility. You can do an instant uair from your full jump to read a tech on a platform, land quickly, and continue the combo. In most cases, you can read the tech in place with the uair and if they tech roll, you can dash attack or dash grab them after you land.

The technique is simple to perform, but maybe not so easy. On Battlefield, simply full jump and uair at the first possible frame (i.e. input uair on the last frame of KneeBend). On Dreamland, you need to uair at the third airborne frame (i.e. input uair on the second airborne frame). This technique can also be performed on certain Pokemon Stadium platforms. On the grass transformation, you can land on the center lower platform. If you are on the grass, you need to uair at airborne frame 2. If you are standing in the stream, you need to uair at airborne frame 3. On the rock transformation, the middle platform of the right tower can be landed on from the ground on the right side by uairing at the first airborne frame, just like Battlefield. The top platform attached to the rock can also be landed on from the platform below it by uairing at the 4th airborne frame. I suppose this technique could also be used to land on the windmill, but that would require some very precise timing and spacing. It is probably humanly possible to do consistently. This technique can also be used to land on the right-most platform of the water transformation, a platform that Peach cannot regularly reach with one full jump. This requires standing on the white, permanent portion of the stage, full hopping, and uairing at the 4th airborne frame. You will land on frame 27 instead of 16 of the uair.

These are all the ways I know how to set up the aerial interrupt.

This is what it looks like. The Fox is at 22% before the uthrow for reference on how early this can start comboing. Fox could have ASDI'd down to avoid the grab, but Peach still gets a tech chase in that case.

 

[KwonTaco]

Is there a good way to consistently do this without the risk of jump cancelled up smash?

 

[Sycorax]

Besides practicing, no My preferred ways of doing it are tap jump + A or claw. I think performing it with X/Y+up on the cstick or up A is strictly harder.

 

[Sycorax]

Peach's Shield Pressure

The point of this post is to explain the interactions between Peach at her opponent based on various frame advantaged shield pressure options. When Peach lands from an aerial performed out of float, she has considerably reduced landing lag compared to other characters. This allows her to achieve high frame advantage when she hits an opponent's shield, up to a 4 frame head start. For comparison, Falco's shorthop nair at your shield tends to be between -3 and -5 on shield. This massive frame advantage gives her lots of time to start her moves before the opponent can act. There are lots of good options for Peach to choose, and there is counter-play to each of Peach's choices. In this tight window of interaction, there is no time to spend on reaction. The options of each player need to be pre-calculated and precisely timed. You have entered an intense battle arena of Rock-Paper-Scissors and Yomi Layers.

The following table is meant to help you visualize timings and count frames to figure out what options work. The h represents shieldhitlag. The s means the opponent is in shieldstun. P is the first frame Peach is actionable. A is the first frame the opponent is actionable. Here is an example of how to use this. Say I want to dsmash Samus's shield after a +3 nair on shield. Will this work if Samus up-b's out of shield? I know Samus's up-b OoS becomes intangible on frame 2. Looking at the +3 row, I see my dsmash would start on frame 6 and come out on frame 10. Samus is actionable frame 9. If she up-b's OoS perfectly, she would become intangible on frame 10 which would avoid my dsmash. I cry.

Frame | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | ...
------+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+----+----+----
+4 .. | h | s | s | s | s | P | s | s | s | A | .. | .. | ...
+3 .. | h | s | s | s | s | s | P | s | s | A | .. | .. | ...
+2 .. | h | s | s | s | s | s | s | P | s | A | .. | .. | ...
+1 .. | h | s | s | s | s | s | s | s | P | A | .. | .. | ...

Here is another way to visualize the frames:
Frame | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 |
------+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
+4 .. | P | s | s | s | A | ......
+3 .. | P | s | s | A | ...........
+2 .. | P | s | A | ..............
+1 .. | P | A | ...................

For each level of frame advantage, I created a matrix outlining which options "beat" what. One must always be careful when using the word "beat" since there are always numerous nuances and defensive options that could nullify an option under certain circumstances. There are also spacing requirements implicit in these charts. In the context of these matrices, "beat" should be interpreted solely in terms of timing. It is left up to you, the player, to understand the other unenumerable factors that go into these interactions.

A explanation should also be made for the last row of the charts labeled "non-commitment". This row is included to cover the option by Peach to either wait and delay an option or do something else like dash dance in front of the opponent's shield. Whoever wins in this scenario depends highly on the specific, variable time at which each player decides to commit to an option.

+4 Matrix

Peach\Opponent | Roll | Wait | ASDI Grab | Attack | Spot dodge | Jump
Jab | P | O | O | P | P | P
Grab | P | P | P | P ~ | O | P
Dsmash | P | O* | P | P | P | P
Non-commitment| P |O/P|O/P|O/P| P |O

~To beat grab, the attack must be active by frame 2 or intangible by frame 3.
*Opponent will win with proper shield DI and angling.
~_~ Stare into each other's souls

At this level of frame advantage, there is hardly a reason to do anything besides grab or dsmash. I cannot remember the last time I saw someone spot dodge against Peach's shield pressure, but some day that may start to happen. Because of that, I would bias my decisions toward always grabbing at this level of advantage until the opponent shows that they can beat that option.

In all honesty though, this matrix is unrealistic. It is hard for Peach to find a situation where she can set up a +4 FC aerial on shield. Her nair can theoretically be +4 on shield, but practically cannot because of weird ECB quirks. Bair can be +4, but jab and grab require turning around first effectively turning a +4 bair into a +3 (or worse) kind of FC aerial. Peach's fair is very easy to make +4 from many different float heights, but it is hard to make the opponent shield it instead of avoid it. Further, Peach prefers to use the lower hitboxes of fair to protect herself as she descends which will cause her FC fair to not be as frame advantaged. You can go for a +4 style fair though if you believe they would counter hit you.

Captain Falcon's spot dodge is actually very good against Peach's shield pressure. Even against a +4 aerial, his spot dodge will avoid grab and dsmash because of how he contorts his body into the z-axis. Further, his spot dodge intangibility lasts long enough to avoid all hits of dsmash. A buffered spot dodge will ASDI down a Jab attempt allowing him to escape that option too.

+3 Matrix

Peach\Opp|Roll|Wait|ASDI Grab|Attack|Spot dodge|Jump
Jab| P | O|O| P | P | P
Grab|O| P | P | P ~|O| P
Dsmash| P |O*| P | P ~| P | P
Non-commitment| P |O/P|O/P|O/P| P |O

~To beat grab, the attack must be active by frame 3 or intangible by frame 4. To beat dsmash, the attack must be active by frame 1 or intangible by frame 2 (e.g. Samus or Bowser up-b's OoS).
*Opponent will win with proper shield DI and angling.

This matrix is very relevant since it applies to proper FC nair and bair turn around. Not much changes from the previous matrix except roll now beats grab and some attacks OoS now beat grab and dsmash. Many character's spot dodges are fast enough to avoid dsmash's first active frame but are too short to avoid the last active frames.

+2 Matrix

Peach\Opp|Roll|Wait|ASDI Grab|Attack|Spot dodge|Jump
Jab| P |O|O| P | P | P
Grab|O| P | P | P ~|O| P
Dsmash| P |O*| P | P ~| P | P
Non-commitment| P |O/P|O/P|O/P| P |O

~To beat grab, the attack must be active by frame 4 or intangible by frame 5. To beat dsmash, the attack must be active by frame 2 or intangible by frame 3 (e.g. Samus or Bowser up-b's OoS).
*Opponent will win with proper shield DI and angling.

This matrix is relevant for standard Peach shield pressure with nair and bair where Peach fastfalls after shieldhitlag.

+1 Matrix

Peach\Opp|Roll|Wait|ASDI Grab|Attack|Spot dodge|Jump
Jab| P |O|O| P | P | P
Grab|O| P | P | P ~|O| P
Dsmash|O|O*| P | P ~| P | P ^
Non-commitment| P |O/P|O/P|O/P| P |O

~To beat grab, the attack must be active by frame 5 or intangible by frame 6. To beat dsmash, the attack must be active by frame 3 or intangible by frame 4.
*Opponent will win with proper shield DI and angling.
^Characters with 3 frame jumpsquats can avoid dsmash except at very close spacings.

+0 Matrix

Peach\Opp|Roll|Wait|ASDI Grab|Attack|Spot dodge|Jump
Jab| P |O|O| P |O| P
Grab|O| P | P /O| P ~|O|O**
Dsmash|O|O*| P | P ~| P | P ^
Non-commitment| P |O/P|O/P|O/P| P |O

~To beat grab, the attack must be active by frame 6 or intangible by frame 7. To beat dsmash, the attack must be active by frame 4 or intangible by frame 5.
*Opponent will win with proper shield DI and angling.
^Characters with 4 frame jumpsquats can avoid dsmash except at very close spacings.
Whoever wins the grab depends on port priority.
**Some jumps can avoid grab depending on how fast the character's jumpsquat is, how small they are, and spacing (*cough cough* Fox).

When doing ground height float FC nairs or bairs and fastfalling after hitlag, sometimes you get this frame advantage instead of +2. I think this happens because Peach oscillates up and down slightly in float changing her landing time. At this frame advantage, moves OoS like Marth's up-b, and Falco's shine will beat grab. The biggest benefit of aiming for +3 or +4 aerials is getting leniency on your options or preventing certain options from certain characters. This brings me to another point...


Proper FC aerials/Critique of Armada's Shield Pressure:
Top Peach players, not only Armada, do not do perfect shield pressure with their FC aerials. They always float to the opponent's shield, aerial, and then fast fall after hitlag. This method effectively loses them 1 to 3 frames of frame advantage. Their aerials are at best +2 on shield. The worst effect of this is that roll becomes a much better option for opponents to use.

To achieve maximally advantaged FC aerials, it is necessary to fast fall before the aerial connects. You need to let go of float as you are doing the aerial. You can let go of float and input the aerial on the same frame and still FC it, or let go right after the aerial. Soon after doing the aerial (ideally 1 frame after), input fast fall. Doing this with bair is fairly easy. In fact, it is possible to fall too quickly and land before the hitbox comes out. Doing this with nair is a bit harder. I recommend rolling your thumb from the X/Y button to the A button. Then, you have a 2 frame window input fast fall, either input it on the first frame of nair or the second. If you stay in float too long, it will eat you fast fall input.

There is a trade-off associated with trying to achieve maximally frame advantaged aerials on shield. It means forfeiting active frames on the aerial. When you are floating at someone with a bair and fast falling after hitlag, the hitbox stays out longer and higher up so it is more likely to beat or trade with something the opponent tries to do. If you do a bair that will be +4 on shield, it will only be active for 1 frame and only active very close to the ground. A +3 nair is similar. In the case of fair, achieving a +4 advantage means falling early with the fair in a way that it does not protect you as you are coming down. If the opponent chooses to attack you as you are falling, they will most likely stuff your fair. Situational awareness and paying attention to your opponent's habits are paramount for deciding what kind of aerials to use.


Practicing Proper FC aerials on shield:
The 20XX Training Hack Pack provides an easy way to tell how frame positive your FC aerials are using the Frame Counter. Set the frame counter to count frames of floating aerials. Note that the game considers a regular jump aerial different from an aerial done from float. When you are setting up the frame counter, make sure you count float aerials, and it does not matter if you fall from float while you are setting it up.

Once you have the aerials set up to be counted, try doing them on an opponent's shield. For nair, you want the frame counter to read as close to 4 as possible. A readout of 4 means you did a +3 nair which is the best you can get. A readout of 5 means it was +2, 6 means +1, etc. The formula is 7-[readout]=[frame advantage]. For bair, you want it to read as close to 6 as possible. A readout of 6 means you did a +4 bair which is the best you can get. A readout of 7 means it was +3, 8 means +2, etc. The formula is 10-[readout]=[frame advantage].

FC fair is a little more complicated. To get the best frame advantage, you can hit with either frame 16 or frame 17 of fair. It is more or less impossible to hit with later frames of fair and still get good frame advantage. To a trained eye, it is very obvious to distinguish between hitting with frame 16 and hitting with frame 17. If you hit with frame 16, you want the frame count readout to read as close to 16 as possible. The formula is 20-[readout]=[frame advantage]. If you hit with frame 17, you want the readout to read as close to 17 as possible. The formula is 21-[readout]=[frame advantage].

Another important thing to consider when practicing shield pressure is that you are acting as soon as possible after landing. I suggest counting frames for this. The landing animation from an FC aerial is the same as for an empty jump. It has 4 frames of inactionable lag although the animation is 30 frames long (IASA 5). Set up the frame counter to count Landing animation frames. If you are acting as soon as possible out of Landing, the counter should read 3 (since the Landing animations counts from 0).

 

[Sycorax]

FC nair to grab true combos at low percents where it doesn't knock the opponent down. This only works if the opponent doesn't ASDI the nair down and if you fastfall the nair before it hits.

 

[stingers]

this is great info man. thanks for all the work youve done to advance the peach metagame.

 

[Sycorax]

Tech chasing

I have concluded that reaction tech chasing off uthrow is useless since you can only cover tech roll away with a weak hit of clean dash attack which does not even knock the opponent down except in narrow percent ranges. At percents where uthrow will not lead to anything, I would recommend dsmashing instead of grabbing :/

Nevertheless, reaction tech chasing happens in a lot of other scenarios. It is an important skill with any character. To help with my learning of it, I have made some gifs showing the first couple frames of Fox’s, Falco’s, and Captain Falcon’s tech animations. I plan to also include Link’s tech animations for personal reasons. I do not plan on including other characters at this time since I feel these characters (except Link) are the most important ones to know how to tech chase. If you would like me to create gifs for other characters, just ask. If you provide a reason why you want them, then I will work doubly hard.

Spoiler: Fox's Tech Animations

Passive
PassiveStandF
PassiveStandB

DownAttackU
DownStandU
DownForwardU
DownBackU

DownAttackD
DownStandD
DownForwardD
DownBackD

Spoiler: Falco's Tech Animations

Passive
PassiveStandF
PassiveStandB

DownAttackU
DownStandU
DownForwardU
DownBackU

DownAttackD
DownStandD
DownForwardD
DownBackD

Spoiler: Captain Falcon's Tech Animations

Passive
PassiveStandF
PassiveStandB

DownAttackU
DownStandU
DownForwardU
DownBackU

DownAttackD
DownStandD
DownForwardD
DownBackD

Spoiler: Link's Tech Animations

Passive
PassiveStandF
PassiveStandB

 

[blue cheez]

Is there a good way to consistently do this without the risk of jump cancelled up smash?

Yes there is, actually.
If you're interested in doing a aerial interrupt upair immediately after an upthrow, you can hold shield the whole time and buffer a jump by holding up on c-stick. Then you can roll the c-stick to the 45' position to trigger the upair. The nice thing about this technique is that it requires you to be frame perfect with one less input (for the normal input you have to be frameperfect with using jump after grab ends as well as getting the right upair timing).

...it has strong combo utility. You can do an instant uair from your full jump to read a tech on a platform, land quickly, and continue the combo. In most cases, you can read the tech in place with the uair and if they tech roll, you can dash attack or dash grab them after you land.

The technique is simple to perform, but maybe not so easy. On Battlefield, simply full jump and uair at the first possible frame (i.e. input uair on the last frame of KneeBend). On Dreamland, you need to uair at the third airborne frame (i.e. input uair on the second airborne frame). ... This is what it looks like. The Fox is at 22% before the uthrow for reference on how early this can start comboing. Fox could have ASDI'd down to avoid the grab, but Peach still gets a tech chase in that case.

So far I've found that aerial interrupting upair is hard but not impossible (I've been playing around with the technique for about a year). Doing it out of a grab is pretty tricky and I've only ever managed grab->upair->grab in a live game once or twice.
You can also input a run animation before the jump to cover different parts of the platform - which could be used for techrolls on the platform as well (and the timing of jump->upair). I'm curious to know if there is a percent where peach can reaction techchase all platform options with an aerial interrupt.
Additionally, I find aerial interrupts to be helpful for movement in general. It's a fast way peach can move to a platform without being as vulnerable, and I think the movement speed rivals wavelanding onto the platform.

Top Peach players, not only Armada, do not do perfect shield pressure with their FC aerials. They always float to the opponent's shield, aerial, and then fast fall after hitlag. This method effectively loses them 1 to 3 frames of frame advantage. Their aerials are at best +2 on shield. The worst effect of this is that roll becomes a much better option for opponents to use.

I've only roughly looked at this, but it appears as though Armada's mixup (after fair hits opponents shield) is the close to nash for a +2.

Also, IMO the best way to practice FC'd fairs and nairs is to set the 20XX AI to always roll-out-of-sheild. A +3 Nair or Fair into downsmash will beat
Also, FC'd nair -> grab is quite hard to do with frame advantage. Often peach will jab instead of grab, and I'm not quite sure why. I've found that a helpful trick is to jumpcancel the grab. I believe you lose a frame doing this, but at lower levels (when the opponent hasn't been conditioned to not try to sheildgrab peach), it's better to be consistent with a +1 fair->grab than it is to get an inconsistent +3.
I'm fairly convinced that +4 Fair->grab is almost impossible. I tried practicing it for like a week straight and couldn't only do it in a controlled setting with 1/10 consistency. Again the easiest way to practice this is to try to grab a 20XX AI in the vulnerability frames of roll-out-of-sheild

 

[Sycorax]

If an opponent does not break out of your grab before you pummel them once, then you have an 8 frame window after your pummel animation to throw them before they can break out. If the opponent is hit with a pummel, they are put in CaptureDamageLW, a 20 frame animation that prevents them from breaking out of grab no matter how hard they have mashed. Peach's pummel animation ends 8 frames before the end of CaptureDamageLW.

 

[Sycorax]

I'm curious to know if there is a percent where peach can reaction techchase all platform options with an aerial interrupt.

I'm fairly certain that, in any situation where she can cover tech in place with the AI uair, she can reaction tech chase. In the limiting situation shown in my gif, Peach would be able to cover tech roll away very easily on reaction.

Additionally, I find aerial interrupts to be helpful for movement in general. It's a fast way peach can move to a platform without being as vulnerable, and I think the movement speed rivals wavelanding onto the platform.

Double Jump Landing is strictly better except in the case where you want to hit someone on your way up. In that case, I would recommend the AI uair.

Often peach will jab instead of grab, and I'm not quite sure why.

You're holding down from your fastfall so long that you enter Squat after you land. You let go of down soon after causing you to enter the rising animation of squat, SquatRV. You can't grab out of SquatRV; pressing Z causes jab. You don't need to hold down after the fastfall has started. Only press down.

I'm fairly convinced that +4 Fair->grab is almost impossible. I tried practicing it for like a week straight and couldn't only do it in a controlled setting with 1/10 consistency. Again the easiest way to practice this is to try to grab a 20XX AI in the vulnerability frames of roll-out-of-sheild

It's pretty hard. The grab needs to be frame perfect and the fair needs to be +4. I find getting a +4 fair consistently to be pretty hard :/

 

[Sycorax]

I realized I made a mistake when making the chaingrab charts. I would test an option at exactly 12%, for example, and write down that option working at 12%. In reality, the game may show you the opponent is at 12% when really they could be anywhere between 12% and 13%. Being at 12.95% may trick you in to thinking an option will work when really it didn't. Testing a regrab at 15% and 105% proves it to work on the range [15, 105], not [15, 105.99999). Because of this, I subtracted 1 percentage point from most of the percent windows where applicable. I also found some errors in the charts which I fixed as well.

 

[Sycorax]

Peach's Sweetspot Up-B

Peach's vertical sweetspot with her up-b is not that good. Here is what it looks like:

The red box is the left side ledge grab box. Peach will grab the ledge on the next frame. This is not a perfect sweet spot, but it is obvious to see how her hurtbox extends quite high. It is easy to hit her with many on-stage moves such as Marth's dtilt, Captain Falcon's dtilt, Falco dsmash, etc. The horizontal sweetspot could be better to help avoid some moves.

If Peach already has her umbrella deployed, her ability to sweetspot becomes much better:

She will grab the ledge on the next frame if she floats into the ledge. This is a very good sweet spot able to escape almost all on stage options.

 

[Sycorax]

Peach Dthrow and Uthrow Followups on Marth, Peach, and Sheik

Peach gets a few combos on these characters off dthrow. The "optimal" DI against Peach's dthrow is -18⁰. In reality, this may be very hard to achieve since it is only 1⁰ below the deadzone. For my testing, I used DI full DI behind, 0⁰. I didn't bother testing other DIs since reacting to Peach's dthrow is so easy a new smasher could do it on their first day.

Against Marth, dthrow dash attack starts working at 44% and stops at 101% if you have a port closer to 1. If you have a port closer to 4, dthrow dash attack starts working at 0% and stops at 115%. Outside of these ranges in the first case when Peach has the port closer to 1, Marth can escape by jumping out and away frame perfectly. This is easily done with a similar technique to Peach escaping Captain Falcon's dthrow fair. Marth should tap jump with an up and away input. For Marth to escape out of the second case, when peach has the port closer to 4, he needs to do nothing but tech. Jumping out may cause the dash attack to actually connect. If Marth does not DI or DIs in, you can still dash attack him at low percents or jump nair him at high percents. Dthrow regrab is never guaranteed; Marth can always jump out.

Against Peach, dthrow dash attack works starting at 44% and ends at 76% if you have a port closer to 1. If you have a port closer to 4, dthrow dash attack starts working at 18% and stops at 91%. To escape the enemy Peach needs to do a diagonal jump air dodge just like against Captain Falcon's dthrow fair. She needs to be quick with it too, so in practice dthrow dash attack may work to higher percents than listed. Dthrow regrab never works.

Against Sheik, dthrow dash attack never works if the Sheik DIs properly. Sheik falls too fast and call always tech before you can reach her with dash attack. You do not get anything if Sheik DIs away. If Sheik is black-out drunk causing her to miss the DI away, you can regrab her starting at 56% and ending in the late hundreds.

Uthrow does not guaranteed any followups against any of these characters. If Sheik fails to DI the uthrow (again, probably black out drunk) even slightly, Peach can get a uair in from 17% to about 90%. I educatedly guessed the upper bound since this option is honestly not worth thinking about considering how easy it is to DI out of.

 

[Sycorax]

Phantom Hits

Edit: It appears Magus wrote a bit about phantom hits a few years ago.

I have never found any source talking about the mechanics of phantom hits, but I recently found a way to consistently set up a phantom hit in debug mode so I was able to do some experimenting with it. This is what I found.

First of all, I set up the phantom hit by uthrowing Falco at 0% with no DI as Peach on FD in debug mode (no damage staling). Then I dsmash so that I hit him with the first active frame of dsmash on Falco's last frame of hitstun. Then I let Falco get chopped up with no DI, and the third hit of dsmash phantom hits.

We all know phantom hits cause 1/2 of the normal damage. But they also cause hitlag, for the victim only. The amount of hitlag is less than normal. In the case of Peach's dsmash, which normally causes 7 frames of hitlag, the phantom hit caused 5 frames of hitlag. It is possible to SDI during these hitlag frames. After hitlag, Falco continues with his normal hitstun animation. The animation is not restarted as if he were hit by a new move.

One thing that was strange in this case was that Falco continued on his normal trajectory. I have seen in other phantom hit clips that the character who was phantom hit ceased moving in their normal trajectory and fell to the ground. This did not happen here. Using Magus's physics display I can tell that none of the character velocities were altered when phantom hit.

This is what I found. It is hard to make generalizations or rules about what happens during phantom hits because this is only one scenario to test. I'm just happy to have a phantom hit scenario that has enabled me to explore this more

 

[honey]

If an opponent does not break out of your grab before you pummel them once, then you have an 8 frame window after your pummel animation to throw them before they can break out. If the opponent is hit with a pummel, they are put in CaptureDamageLW, a 20 frame animation that prevents them from breaking out of grab no matter how hard they have mashed. Peach's pummel animation ends 8 frames before the end of CaptureDamageLW.

Buffering down c-stick guarantees the first pummel too, pretty hilarious every fox I play mashes so hard and they can't even get out at 0%.

 

[Dot Face]

Hey first off this thread is amazing - thank you for your hard work.

I have a question about weak dash attack --> up smash as a finisher on fast fallers. This is something I have seen Armada and Macd land before. Assuming it is a combo, is there a way to guarantee the weak hit?

 

[Sycorax]

I have a question about weak dash attack --> up smash as a finisher on fast fallers. This is something I have seen Armada and Macd land before. Assuming it is a combo, is there a way to guarantee the weak hit?

"Guarantee" is such a strong word.

To land the weak hit, you need to hit between frames 9 and 20 of dash attack. To land the combo you have in mind, you also need to hit with a very specific hitbox. Kadano made some images a while ago that help explain Peach's unique dash attack.
Here is the strong hit:

Here is the weak hit:

The pink labeled hitbox takes priority over the red. The pink one is the one you want to hit with. What makes it so hard to hit with is that the red one will almost surely connect first if the opponent is in front of you. If you do manage to hit with it, the opponent needs to DI in a special way as well. They need to DI in a range near up and in, i.e. survival DI. No DI, DI in, or DI away will put them too far away for usmash. At high percents above about 125%, you may be able to dash JC usmash on some DIs.

However you accomplish this strict set of conditions is left up to your creativity. The only way I have ever seen a Peach player accomplish this set up is by first uthrowing a space animal at high percent, having them DI away or behind, and then doing an early dash attack so as to have them fall into the weak hit. Further, the space animal is induced to survival DI, up and in, because they fear a nair. In my quick and dirty experimenting with Fox, weak dash attack seems to work off full DI away or behind between about 110% and 130%. The ranges for Falco would be different but close to the same. I do not consider this set up relevant for Falcon since this should never work at a percent where it will take his stock.

 

[blue cheez]

Have you ever looked into "option selects" in melee? It's something that's common in other fighting games, but there is almost no discussion of it in melee. For a while I was looking into seeing what power shield option selects peach has. Here's a simple example that isn't very good but is just for understanding purposes. What if Peach tried to power shield falco's lasers by: power shield -> analog stick forward -> analog stick behind. Maybe if you time the run-forward input correctly: if you mess up the timing of the power shield, you are still stuck in shield during the analog stick forward input, so only the subsequent analog stick behind input registers. But if the power shield works, you're not "stuck" in shield, so you simply roll forward.

I worked on this like 6 months ago, but I think my conclusion was that my understanding of how shielding operates is wrong. That there's an equal amount of shield stun when you're power shielding and when you're shielding - the difference is that power shielding allows you to get out of shield faster. If this is true, then there still might be a way of optionselecting if there's a way to cancel this "letting go of shield animation." Once you start letting go of shield, do you have to wait for that action to be completed or can you interrupt it? If you could interrupt it, you could FIRST use an action that doesn't interrupt the letting go of shield animation (Which would activate in the universe you got the power shield off), and then SECOND use an action that does interrupt the shield animation (which would activate in the universe where you messed up the power shield).

Additionally, I think there are interesting alternative option selects for peach. One thing that I've been playing around with are optionselects for SDI. What if you know your opponent playing Fox is going to hit you with either a nair or a dair. Is it possible to simultaneously smash DI the dair AND crouch cancel the nair without having to guess which option they're picking? Peach can input a crouchcancel, then quickly roll/smash the analog and c-stick sideways, then input a downsmash. If nair hits, the sideways smash di registers while peach is in hitstun (so she doesn't Fsmash), but if dair hits, peach, I think, has time to escape by smash diíng out of the multiple hits of dair (even though she might have missed the SDI window for the first hit or two). I been practicing it IRL for some time now, but haven't had much success. I think it might be that this technique is not particularly robust to different attack timings of the opponent (but I'm not sure at this point).
Anyway, while my suggested ideas might not work, I suspect there are viable defensive option selects at low percents.
Additionally, I wonder if players can get "free" additional option coverage by SDI/ASDIíng during their own attack. So if you're in neutral and you choose to go for an attack, if there's even the slightest possiblity of your opponent doing a mixup that beats your attack that you can't react to, there's no reason not to always input a random SDI/ASDI (as neutral/no SDI is almost always an inferior option in the situation you get hit). Here's an example: imagine any time you go for a nair outside of a guaranteed combo you additionally mash SDI and ASDI during the attack animation. It seems as though most people only SDI as a hard anticipation of an attack, while I think it might be a good idea to always be mashing for SDI whenever there's even a chance of getting hit (and at least asdi'ing).

 

[Sycorax]

Have you ever looked into "option selects" in melee? It's something that's common in other fighting games, but there is almost no discussion of it in melee.

I am familiar with the concept. I think the reason it doesn't get talked about much in Melee is that there are few true option selects. This is a consequence of almost no inputs ever being buffered in the Melee engine. A button counts for the frame you press it and that's it.

What if Peach tried to power shield falco's lasers by: power shield -> analog stick forward -> analog stick behind. Maybe if you time the run-forward input correctly: if you mess up the timing of the power shield, you are still stuck in shield during the analog stick forward input, so only the subsequent analog stick behind input registers. But if the power shield works, you're not "stuck" in shield, so you simply roll forward.

I don't understand the option select you're trying to set up. I don't think it would work regardless. For the reasons addressed below.

I think my conclusion was that my understanding of how shielding operates is wrong. That there's an equal amount of shield stun when you're power shielding and when you're shielding - the difference is that power shielding allows you to get out of shield faster.

You should read up on powershielding. There is a source in my Melee Library under the Magus section about powershielding. There is also an overwhelmingly descriptive SSBWiki page about powershielding written by Kadano.

Once you start letting go of shield, do you have to wait for that action to be completed or can you interrupt it? If you could interrupt it, you could FIRST use an action that doesn't interrupt the letting go of shield animation (Which would activate in the universe you got the power shield off), and then SECOND use an action that does interrupt the shield animation (which would activate in the universe where you messed up the power shield).

When hit by a physical attack , you can interrupt GuardOff with any move that you can interrupt shield with except roll. In other words, you can interrupt it with jump, grab, and spot dodge (in addition to A attacks and B attacks). When hit by a projectile, you cannot interrupt GuardOff.

What if you know your opponent playing Fox is going to hit you with either a nair or a dair. Is it possible to simultaneously smash DI the dair AND crouch cancel the nair without having to guess which option they're picking? Peach can input a crouchcancel, then quickly roll/smash the analog and c-stick sideways, then input a downsmash. If nair hits, the sideways smash di registers while peach is in hitstun (so she doesn't Fsmash), but if dair hits, peach, I think, has time to escape by smash diíng out of the multiple hits of dair

This sort of thing is possible within the limits of the game's engine, but I'm not sure if it is humanly possible. In addition, it wouldn't be a true option select by the strictest definition of the phrase. It would be a series of inputs that cover multiple possibilities afforded by the fact that the covering the different possibilities requires inputs at different points in time.

It should be said first that your understanding of crouch canceling is not quite correct. You can't "input a crouch cancel". Crouch canceling requires two inputs performed on two different frames (to be fair, the "two" inputs are merely holding down, once before being hit and once at the end of being hit). You can read more about it from a resource in the Magus section of the Melee Library.

The crucially important part of crouch canceling is the ASDI down, which requires a downward input on the second to last frame of hitlag. On any of the other frames except the last you can input SDI that will output on the next frame of hitlag. Nair causes 7 frames of hitag so ASDI is read on the 6th frame. You could theoretically be pressing down on the frame before hitlag (to achieve crouch armor knockback reduction) and then SDI on frames 1 through 5, then press down again on frame 6. This could be done in a double quartercircle-like motion. I'm not sure how practical it would be.

To make this easier, you could employ the cstick. The cstick overrides the control stick on ASDI. You could be pressing down on the control stick on the frame before hitlag (to achieve crouch armor knockback reduction) and then SDI on frames 1 through 6 while holding down on the cstick. This would give you one extra frame to get an SDI input, but more importantly it would only require one quartercircle input.

I don't think there is any way to perform this technique in such a way as to SDI a dair but not a nair. Often times, Peach can end up too far away from the Fox to dsmash after a CC'd nair at higher percents. The SDI would aggravate this problem.

Additionally, I wonder if players can get "free" additional option coverage by SDI/ASDIíng during their own attack. So if you're in neutral and you choose to go for an attack, if there's even the slightest possiblity of your opponent doing a mixup that beats your attack that you can't react to, there's no reason not to always input a random SDI/ASDI (as neutral/no SDI is almost always an inferior option in the situation you get hit).

You may be surprised to find out that many top players already do this. I know DruggedFox does. Just hold cstick down while in extreme lag to always ASDI down in case you are hit.

 

[Sycorax]

Dash Jump Nair to End Chaingrabs

Dash jump nair does not work very long against fastfallers on full DI away or behind. Here are the ranges it works for. (All percents before uthrow).

Fox:
Peach Closer to Port 1
DI away: 116%
DI behind: basically forever

Peach Closer to Port 4
DI away: 126%
DI behind: basically forever

Falco:
Peach Closer to Port 1
DI away: 121%
DI behind: basically forever

Peach Closer to Port 4
DI away: 138%
DI behind: basically forever

Captain Falcon:
Peach Closer to Port 1
DI away: low percents around 75% before the regrab ends.
DI behind: basically forever

Peach Closer to Port 4
DI away: 99%
DI behind: basically forever

Towards the end of those ranges, the inputs become rather frame perfect. You need to dash for a specific number of frames and nair on a specific frame. It is also necessary to full hop. Each of those changes depending on the exact percent of the space animal. For DI away, against Fox, you want to dash/run for as long as possible then jump, be airborne for one frame, then nair. Against Falco, you want to dash/run for as long as possible, then jump and nair. In other words, instant nair against Falco, but delay nair one frame against Fox.

Against DI behind, you do not want to dash as long. It is more important to jump earlier to gain enough height to reach the space animal. Horizontal distance is more important against DI away, and vertical distance is more important against DI behind.

All of these were tested with Peach using a full analog jump forward as well as full aerial drift forward on every frame that she is not inputting nair (because that would cause her to fair).

 

[Dr. Cannon]

Against Marth, dthrow dash attack starts working at 44% and stops at 101% if you have a port closer to 1. If you have a port closer to 4, dthrow dash attack starts working at 0% and stops at 115%. Outside of these ranges in the first case when Peach has the port closer to 1, Marth can escape by jumping out and away frame perfectly. This is easily done with a similar technique to Peach escaping Captain Falcon's dthrow fair. Marth should tap jump with an up and away input. For Marth to escape out of the second case, when peach has the port closer to 4, he needs to do nothing but tech. Jumping out may cause the dash attack to actually connect. If Marth does not DI or DIs in, you can still dash attack him at low percents or jump nair him at high percents. Dthrow regrab is never guaranteed; Marth can always jump out.
.

Did you test if Marth does jump -> instant airdodge to get out of it? I remember Leffen going on commentary and saying that this was the best way for Marth to get out of combos, since his jump isn't amazing at escaping combos.

 

[Sycorax]

Did you test if Marth does jump -> instant airdodge to get out of it? I remember Leffen going on commentary and saying that this was the best way for Marth to get out of combos, since his jump isn't amazing at escaping combos.

Yeah I looked out for that. I didn't find anywhere where that would work.

I can't understand Leffen's point of view. For any character that doesn't have a wacky double jump (Ness, Peach, Yoshi, Mewtwo), I would think their double jump is better or sufficient for most scenarios. Peach can get a lot of mileage off of jump air dodge for two reasons. One, her double jump keeps her in basically the same spot for about 12 frames; it doesn't help her to get away. Two, her air doge is so much better than other characters'. She can fastfall drastically sooner out of the air dodge. For a character like Marth, jump air dodge seems really risky since he takes a while to be able to fastfall and his fastfall speed is pretty mediocre.

 

[Sycorax]

Air to Ground Turnip Throw Mechanics

TheDookMaster on reddit found out a little quirk with throwing turnips down in the air and landing during the throw animation. Here is how this works.

When you land during an aerial throw, you transition from the aerial throw animation to the grounded throw animation. For example, you might transition from LightThrowAirF 5 to LightThrowF 6. Normally, this change does not make a difference. When it does matter is when the aerial throw and the grounded throw have different release frames. For Peach, LightThrowAirB releases one frame sooner than LightThrowB, frame 9 compared to frame 10, and LightThrowAirLw releases one frame later than LightThrowLw, frame 10 compared to frame 9. This allows for some silly things to happen.

If Peach is in LightThrowAirLw on frame 8 and then lands on frame 9, she will not throw the turnip. I assume this happens because the game gets confused during the transition between states. Something about checking flags from the previous frame for grounded or aerial states. She's aerial on frame 8 so on frame 9, the normal release frame for grounded throw, she doesn't release.

Something else can happen. If Peach is in LightThrowAirLw on frame 9 and lands on frame 10, she will throw the turnip in a funny and possibly useful way. On frame 9 she is aerial and will release on the next frame, so the game goes ahead and plans to release on the next frame. However, when the animation updates on the next frame, she is in the grounded throw animation on frame 10 which has her hand way behind her. This is where the turnip will release from.

This same quirk cannot be used with bthrow since the release frames are in reverse order relative to each other. However, if you land on frame 9 of LightThrowAirB then Peach will make two throw sounds and two throw sparkles.

(Edit: For the sake of documentation: If you land on frame 6, 7, or 8 of your smash aerial back throw, you'll still throw the turnip backwards without turning around.)

An easy way to set up the useful dthrow trick is to short hop and dthrow on frame 19 of shorthop. This is the frame before the apex of Peach's shorthop. Make sure to hold down for a frame or two after dthrow to buffer the fastfall. However, all that is really required is that you land after frame 9 of LightThrowAirLw.

Another thing I discovered while experimenting with this. When Peach throws a turnip in the air, she decelerates to her regular terminal velocity. If she is fastfalling at her usual -2mm/f, she will decelerate to -1.5mm/f. You can fastfall again afterward.

 

[Sycorax]

Countering Samus Jab "Pressure"

I am tired of people saying Samus's jab pressure is good. It is not good. Here are some data about the situation and some ways for Peach to punish Samus for doing it.

For those of you who do not know, Samus's jab pressure is done by jabbing once, crouching to interrupt the jab animation, then jabbing again. This allows Samus to repeatedly perform her first jab in relatively quick succession. With most well calibrated controllers, a Samus player can hold down forward or down back in a diagonal notch and repeatedly tap A to do a single jab over and over with dtilting, turning, walking, or ftilting. This technique works well with Samus because has a relatively early IASA window on her jab, IASA 18. Something I find a little silly is that Peach's jab is IASA 16, two frames faster than Samus, but you would never see a Peach player do this. Maybe they should, as a a gimmick. Samus's jab has an added bonus over Peach's in that it cannot be ASDI'd down to cancel hitstun (a.k.a. crouch cancelled) at low percents. Peach cannot ASDI down to cancel the hitstun of Samus's jab until 35% (exactly). Heavier characters will have to wait until higher percents. Lighter characters will be able to ASDI down to cancel the hitstun starting at lower percents. (Jigglypuff: 29%, Captain Falcon: 38%).

Samus's jab causes 3 frames of shieldstun. On frame perfect repeated jabs on shield, there are 14 actionable frames between jabs. If Samus does jab ftilt, there are 17 actionable frames between jab and ftilt. That is a lot of time. If you are at 35% or higher and decide to ASDI down the jab, you actually will have 1 frame fewer of actionability than when acting out of shield. On the other hand, you will have more options available to you since you are not in shield.

Here are some counter options I recommend out of shield:

• DJL forward to dsmash. You can even walk a bit if you want to. If the jab is spaced far away, getting some forward movement is important.
• Float nair. Float nair takes 10 frame at fewest to come out. That gives you 4-7 frames to drift forward to reach Samus. At far jab spacings, it may be impossible to reach Samus before her next move comes out, but if you start the nair soon enough it should trade.
• DJL jab.
• Grab if you are close enough.
• Wavedash back.
• Fullhop float and threaten fair.

Here are some counter options I recommend after ASDI down:

• Dash pivot dsmash.
• Dash attack.
• Dash grab.
• Jab.
• Dtilt if you are close enough.
• Dash float nair (this is really frame tight).

 

[honey]

https://www.twitch.tv/lffn/v/62884548?t=42m31s

Leffen glide tossing at time stamp (42:31), not much discussion anywhere about this ever existing in melee.. thoughts?

 

[Sycorax]

https://www.twitch.tv/lffn/v/62884548?t=42m31s

Leffen glide tossing at time stamp (42:31), not much discussion anywhere about this ever existing in melee.. thoughts?

I and others have known about glide tossing being in Melee for a long time. I don't think it's that revolutionary at least for Peach. I'll write something up about it now.

 

[Sycorax]

Glide Tossing in Melee

Glide tossing is a technique performed by rolling or air dodging then canceling the roll/airdodge with an item throw. You can cancel any of frames 2 through 6 of your roll with a throw. You can cancel any of frames 2 through 4 of your air dodge with a throw. The benefits of the technique come from the velocity effects of rolls and air dodges. I will discuss each separately.

Rolling generates velocity for your character. When you cancel your roll with a throw, the game keeps your current velocity and transitions to a throw. If you are moving faster than your run speed, you are slowed down to your run speed and traction is applied twice. Otherwise, you keep your speed and traction is applied normally. The total effect of this is that you move a certain distance in your roll (some characters do not move at all) and then you slide a little farther in the throw animation with your residual velocity. Characters like Marth have very noticeable movement from the glide toss. Some characters, such as Bowser, do not move in the first 6 frames of their roll and so do not benefit from a glide toss. Luigi does not move until the 6th frame of his roll and therefore requires a frame perfect input to glide toss effectively. Peach moves slowly at the beginning of her glide toss window, but picks up some speed toward the end allowing her to move about 12mm or one character width.

Air dodging also generates velocity for your character. However, the physics are different from the grounded glide toss. When you air dodge, you can cancel the second, third, or fourth frame of the animation with a throw. When you you do, your character's velocity returns to what it was before the air dodge began. For example, if Peach is moving at (0.7,1.6) then air dodges straight right, she will begin moving at (2.79,0) for one frame then (2.511,0) then (2.2599,0). If she then cancels the air dodge with a throw, she will return to her velocity before with gravity and air friction applied, and thus be moving at (0.695,1.52). This difference from the grounded glide toss makes the aerial glide toss less useful. A totally horizontal air dodge canceled on the last possible frame would yield additional horizontal movement of 7.5609mm at the most. If you already have horizontal velocity before the glide toss, the difference in horizontal movement would be 7.5609mm minus what you would have normally moved. To give you an idea of just how far 7.5609mm is, it is about one fifth of the width of a Battlefield platform. That is, if you get the latest possible frame perfect air dodge cancel. Just to be clear, aerial glide tossing does not give you additional aerial momentum. It only gives you a small boost in one direction.

Something else should be noted about the aerial glide toss. Say you are moving forward in the air, then air dodge backwards and cancel the air dodge with a throw. After the air dodge backwards you will begin moving forward again because, as said above, you return to your original velocity after the air dodge. This would have a disorienting effect of Peach initially moving forward, then backward, then forward again following a thrown turnip.

Aerial glide tossing does not necessarily need to be done with a straight horizontal air dodge. Air dodges in any direciton can be canceled with a throw. You could air dodge up to gain a little height before you throw then continue on your jump arc.

In my personal opinion, I believe this technique has negligible benefits. It may have some use to trick up opponents who have never seen it before, to confuse them with unique aerial movement. But in the end, it does not afford you any real benefit.