Chiroz
Tier Lists? Foolish...
This will be copied directly from my twitter thread that also has videos attached. If you want to go view that thread and the videos:
https://twitter.com/ChirozDR/status/1070513169221718016
First off there are 6 stale levels. Staleness is shared across the board between all defensive options.
If you Spot Dodge 5 times, your Air Dodge will be max staled and vice versa. For all of the grounded options each stale level basically either removes 1 frame of invincibility at the beginning or one at the end. Each level also adds anywhere in between 1-5 frames of endlag.
As an example here’s Wolf’s back roll:
Fresh: Int: 5-16 FAF: 34
1 Stale: Int: 5-14 FAF: 38
2 Stale: Int: 6-14 FAF: 41
3 Stale: Int: 7-14 FAF: 45
4 Stale: Int: 8-14 FAF: 48
5 Stale: Int: 9-14 FAF: 51
From the chars that I tested it is the most common for the 1st and 2nd stale levels to remove intangibility from the end and the 3rd, 4th and 5th to remove it from the start.
For the aerial options, staleness level barely matters. Even when on the 5th staleness level, an air dodge might lose maybe 2 intangibility frames at the beginning and another 2 at the end. End lag and landing lag are, as far as I can tell, unaffected.
All of this said, honestly staleness doesn’t even matter at all. Staleness is removed 1 level at a time, but it seems like one level is removed around every second and a half you don’t use any of the options. This means that in order to stale them in the first place you would need to be doing one of the options every 2 seconds and that if you spend around 8-9 seconds you could unstale your defensive options from max staleness to fully fresh. I will add a disclaimer that this was all tested in training mode and could potentially differ in VS.
Here is the range of values of the properties of the defensive options for the characters I tested (disclaimer: for grounded options I only tested about 5 chars):
Back Roll:
Int start: Frame 5
Int end: Frame 16-20 (most commong 16)
FAF: 34-40 (most common 35)
Forward Roll:
Int Start Up: 4
Int End: 15-18 (MC: 15)
FAF: 29-34 (MC: 30)
Spot Dodge:
Int Start Up: 3
Int End: 16-17
FAF: 25-26
For the aerial options, this gets a bit weirder so for starters let’s just do intangibility for now (for these ones I tested around 15 chars):
Air Dodge:
Int Start Up: 2-4
Int End: 26-32
Directional Air Dodge:
Int Start Up: 2-4
Int End: 19-23
Here’s where things get interesting: Regular Air Dodge always has 10 frames of landing lag, no matter the level of the staleness level of your dodges. Directional Air Dodge seems to have in between 11-19 frames of landing lag dependent on distance you’ve fallen before landing.
The more distance you’ve fallen, the less landing lag there is. Performing a wavedash for example, gives the user 19 frames of landing lag. Where as directionally air dodging close to the magnifying glass can yield only 11 frames (this is as lowest as I could get it).
This isn’t even the weirdest thing. The actual aerial end lag of air dodges is also seemingly distance based, or at least tries to be. When getting the FAFs of the characters I noticed something curious.
Fox: 76
Wolf: 88
Roy: 88
Mario: 116
Rosalina: 147
Puff: 175
Puff has very nearly 3 times the amount of endlag Fox has. (Like 55 to 145 or something to that extent) But what these FAF values result in is that all characters seem to fall almost identical distances when air dodging.
This happens for both regular air dodges and directional air dodges. Where “floaty” characters have a substantially increased amount of endlag to ensure that they fall very close to the same distance as a fast faller will.
Here are some Regular Air Dodge FAF values:
Fox: 38
Falco: 43
Wolf: 44
Roy: 44
Bowser: 52
Mario: 52
Rosa: 62
Puff: 74
Even more interesting is that the direction you Directional Air Dodge does in fact change your FAF, and it does so in a way specifically so that you still fall the same distance from the “starting position” of the AD. So whether you air dodge up, down, sideways, diagonal upwards or diagonal downwards you will end up very close to the same height once the lag is over.
Some values (which might be slightly off):
Puff Up: 175
Puff Diagonal Up: 140ish (I am guessing it might depend on angle)
Puff Side: 130
Puff Diagonal Down: 115ish
Puff Down: 103
Fox Up: 76
Fox Diagonal Up: 70ish
Fox Side: 65
Fox Diagonal Down: 60ish
Fox Down: 54
The amount of distance fallen after performing a regular air dodge seems to be about 1 full hop of height. You can see it yourself on the video. The amount of distance fallen after performing a directional air dodge is a little bit less than from the top of the screen to the main platform on BF. By top of the screen I do not mean blast zone, I mean the edge of the magnifying glass.
Good to note though that performing a Regular Air Dodge during fast falling does NOT change your FAF and you will in fact fall a greater distance before being able to act. Performing a Directional Air Dodge cancels fast falling and you're unable to fast fall during Regular or Directional Air Dodge endlag so that it is impossible to fast fall with a Directional Air Dodge.
For those of you curious, this game retains the “you cannot air drift while air dodging” mechanics from Smash 4 but only for the first 20 or so frames of the air dodge. Mewtwo, Ness, etc are still extent from this rule and can start to air drift immediately.
Also, directional air dodges can be used to survive for longer %s. They DO NOT stop your momentum, they add new momentum, allowing you to slow down quicker but before a directional air dodge adds momentum in one direction it first pushes your character in the opposite direction! So directionally air dodging towards the stage will actually kill you around the same %. In order to actually survive you must measure an angle that will give you the most momentum in the direction you want to go in but also not push your character completely into the blastzone.
I want to write as a disclaimer that I might be off by 1 or 2 frames in the values that I give since I am actually counting them all myself and prone to human mistake. Don’t take the numbers I write as gospel, just understand the concept I am trying to inform you guys of.
https://twitter.com/ChirozDR/status/1070513169221718016
First off there are 6 stale levels. Staleness is shared across the board between all defensive options.
If you Spot Dodge 5 times, your Air Dodge will be max staled and vice versa. For all of the grounded options each stale level basically either removes 1 frame of invincibility at the beginning or one at the end. Each level also adds anywhere in between 1-5 frames of endlag.
As an example here’s Wolf’s back roll:
Fresh: Int: 5-16 FAF: 34
1 Stale: Int: 5-14 FAF: 38
2 Stale: Int: 6-14 FAF: 41
3 Stale: Int: 7-14 FAF: 45
4 Stale: Int: 8-14 FAF: 48
5 Stale: Int: 9-14 FAF: 51
From the chars that I tested it is the most common for the 1st and 2nd stale levels to remove intangibility from the end and the 3rd, 4th and 5th to remove it from the start.
For the aerial options, staleness level barely matters. Even when on the 5th staleness level, an air dodge might lose maybe 2 intangibility frames at the beginning and another 2 at the end. End lag and landing lag are, as far as I can tell, unaffected.
All of this said, honestly staleness doesn’t even matter at all. Staleness is removed 1 level at a time, but it seems like one level is removed around every second and a half you don’t use any of the options. This means that in order to stale them in the first place you would need to be doing one of the options every 2 seconds and that if you spend around 8-9 seconds you could unstale your defensive options from max staleness to fully fresh. I will add a disclaimer that this was all tested in training mode and could potentially differ in VS.
Here is the range of values of the properties of the defensive options for the characters I tested (disclaimer: for grounded options I only tested about 5 chars):
Back Roll:
Int start: Frame 5
Int end: Frame 16-20 (most commong 16)
FAF: 34-40 (most common 35)
Forward Roll:
Int Start Up: 4
Int End: 15-18 (MC: 15)
FAF: 29-34 (MC: 30)
Spot Dodge:
Int Start Up: 3
Int End: 16-17
FAF: 25-26
For the aerial options, this gets a bit weirder so for starters let’s just do intangibility for now (for these ones I tested around 15 chars):
Air Dodge:
Int Start Up: 2-4
Int End: 26-32
Directional Air Dodge:
Int Start Up: 2-4
Int End: 19-23
Here’s where things get interesting: Regular Air Dodge always has 10 frames of landing lag, no matter the level of the staleness level of your dodges. Directional Air Dodge seems to have in between 11-19 frames of landing lag dependent on distance you’ve fallen before landing.
The more distance you’ve fallen, the less landing lag there is. Performing a wavedash for example, gives the user 19 frames of landing lag. Where as directionally air dodging close to the magnifying glass can yield only 11 frames (this is as lowest as I could get it).
This isn’t even the weirdest thing. The actual aerial end lag of air dodges is also seemingly distance based, or at least tries to be. When getting the FAFs of the characters I noticed something curious.
Fox: 76
Wolf: 88
Roy: 88
Mario: 116
Rosalina: 147
Puff: 175
Puff has very nearly 3 times the amount of endlag Fox has. (Like 55 to 145 or something to that extent) But what these FAF values result in is that all characters seem to fall almost identical distances when air dodging.
This happens for both regular air dodges and directional air dodges. Where “floaty” characters have a substantially increased amount of endlag to ensure that they fall very close to the same distance as a fast faller will.
Here are some Regular Air Dodge FAF values:
Fox: 38
Falco: 43
Wolf: 44
Roy: 44
Bowser: 52
Mario: 52
Rosa: 62
Puff: 74
Even more interesting is that the direction you Directional Air Dodge does in fact change your FAF, and it does so in a way specifically so that you still fall the same distance from the “starting position” of the AD. So whether you air dodge up, down, sideways, diagonal upwards or diagonal downwards you will end up very close to the same height once the lag is over.
Some values (which might be slightly off):
Puff Up: 175
Puff Diagonal Up: 140ish (I am guessing it might depend on angle)
Puff Side: 130
Puff Diagonal Down: 115ish
Puff Down: 103
Fox Up: 76
Fox Diagonal Up: 70ish
Fox Side: 65
Fox Diagonal Down: 60ish
Fox Down: 54
The amount of distance fallen after performing a regular air dodge seems to be about 1 full hop of height. You can see it yourself on the video. The amount of distance fallen after performing a directional air dodge is a little bit less than from the top of the screen to the main platform on BF. By top of the screen I do not mean blast zone, I mean the edge of the magnifying glass.
Good to note though that performing a Regular Air Dodge during fast falling does NOT change your FAF and you will in fact fall a greater distance before being able to act. Performing a Directional Air Dodge cancels fast falling and you're unable to fast fall during Regular or Directional Air Dodge endlag so that it is impossible to fast fall with a Directional Air Dodge.
For those of you curious, this game retains the “you cannot air drift while air dodging” mechanics from Smash 4 but only for the first 20 or so frames of the air dodge. Mewtwo, Ness, etc are still extent from this rule and can start to air drift immediately.
Also, directional air dodges can be used to survive for longer %s. They DO NOT stop your momentum, they add new momentum, allowing you to slow down quicker but before a directional air dodge adds momentum in one direction it first pushes your character in the opposite direction! So directionally air dodging towards the stage will actually kill you around the same %. In order to actually survive you must measure an angle that will give you the most momentum in the direction you want to go in but also not push your character completely into the blastzone.
I want to write as a disclaimer that I might be off by 1 or 2 frames in the values that I give since I am actually counting them all myself and prone to human mistake. Don’t take the numbers I write as gospel, just understand the concept I am trying to inform you guys of.
