Spiking?

[Captain Justice]

I know that Captain Falcon has an amazing spike with his dair, but I'm terrible at pulling it off. Does anyone have any advice on setting up a situation for using the spike?

 

[KeketheBasedCat]

there aren't many good ones, just since the move has pretty bad startup (hits on frame 16). short-hopping a dair to approach isn't a good option on paper, but it can definitely serve as punish on some particularly laggy smashes due to how fast falcon is. grounded dair is nice when it does hit because it's more or less guaranteed to follow up into fair (or whatever other aerial of your choice, but fair is flashiest/deadliest) around the 50-80% range.
The following 'set up' is also pretty janky, but such is the nature of falcon's dair setups: you can also punish an airdodge with it, which is best off stage, obviously. I find dthrow off the stage around 50-60% is best for this.

 

[Semopo]

Run from the ledge and do a synchronized jump with your opponent, followed by dair

Read their offstage jump/up special and wait with your boots

If they try it vertically do a short hop dair right before they grab the ledge

I hit most of the time with these options

 

[BigLord]

What @ Semopo said is basically what I do. Landing Falcon's dair is always so much fun, and most of the time, deadly.

I also tend to turn around first, so I can use bair if the occasion arises.

 

[KACHOW!!!]

Your best bet to land the Dair is to guess out your opponent. Just remember what they do in a given situation, and try to read what they're going to do. Honestly the best way to read someone is experience in the game, so just play a lot with falcon. Your best times to land a boot are just as they grip the ledge, or if they leave themselves open on the ledge. Sometimes your opponent has higher percent and they're recovering, you can rush in and boot them as they make their way back to the ledge. Most characters can recover from really far off the stage in smash 4, but this gives captain falcon a deceptive advantage, because that recovery takes time, time your opponents don't have if captain falcon can rush in and deliver the down air just in time. Or you can use the falcon dive to grab your opponent from the outside, then bounce them into the stage, which will shoot them off the stage and down into the blast zone. Take for example villager. Villager is the best example of this because if he's using his balloon recovery, what are his options? He can either grip the ledge, or float directly onto the stage, and in between him pulling out the balloons and getting back to the stage, there's a whole lot of time for you to sneak in and use the Up B to grab him, then bounce him into the stage, killing the villager.

 

[Eriol-kun]

U-Tilt is great for spiking as well if you can read a recovery on the ledge, or score a read punish on a normal ledge climb by SH D-Air into U-Tilt. Especially good against recoveries that don't automatically magnet in.

 

[YellowSnowDemon]

Dtilt off the stage puts them at an angle for easy dairs. Depending on the character you can short hop off or just run off and dair.

 

[Maître Luigi]

Just aim to hit with Captain Falcon's boots and use to counter predictable recoveries.


Also, U-Air -> D-Air combos around 50%.

 

[Mikkelmann]

If you keep on having trouble landing dair but you still want to spike you can practice just using up tilt. It will spike if you hit then in the air with it but that's just an option just like Eriol-kun said

U-Tilt is great for spiking as well if you can read a recovery on the ledge, or score a read punish on a normal ledge climb by SH D-Air into U-Tilt. Especially good against recoveries that don't automatically magnet in.

. But if you want to land dair better what i do is when they're recovering so on fd go deep and try to spike them then that's what i do hopefully it helps you .

 

[Trifroze]

Aside from reading airdodges and spiking predictable recoveries or ledge-happy opponents, as far as setting up a situation for a dair spike goes, steal the ledge from the opponent when they recover and when they're about to snap to the ledge again, do a shorthop dair to the ground right beside the ledge.

With decent timing it's pretty much guaranteed as long as you pull the ledgetrump off and as long as they're forced to snap to the ledge after that, because they will have no invincibility frames after the first snap. You can condition them into staying on the ledge longer, thus enabling you to steal it from them, by continuously reading and punishing their ledge getup habits. On the other hand, once they get conditioned to the ledgetrump/dair spike you can start punishing hasty ledge getups again.