Technique Discussion: DJC + Neutral B (how to chaingrab sheik included)

[heynivek]

One of Yoshi's most frustrating properties include having poor priority on its quicker tools, making it a challenging task to effectively approach the opponent, as well as keeping the opponent from constantly pressuring you.

Ordinarily, grabbing would be a great way to maintain control in this close "in-fighting" range, but another one of Yoshi's weakness is that his grab is slow and awkward. It tends to leave Yoshi vulnerable too long, and the hitbox's minimum range is what mostly prevents this attack from effectively keeping enemies away.

Now here comes the entrance of a new technique that will address all of these issues: Double Jump Cancelling (DCJ) the neutral B Egg Lay.

Benefits of This Technique

For future discussion when a neutral b has connected they will be "egglaid" to disambiguate from being "grabbed". The process of performing a neutral b will also be called "egg lay" or "egg laying".

This technique combines the aerial mobility and quickness, with Yoshi's ability to perform a unblockable attack in the air to create a powerful and versatile tool. Some sample situations:

1. Jump away, and double jump forwards for a quick counter attack on an approaching enemy
2. Double jump forwards for a quick and unexpected egg lay on a sheilding opponent
3. Double jumping in the air after being moderately knockbacked against an opponent who has too much lag to recover

Benefits of DJC+ Neutral B:

1. Mixing up grabs and quick leads like neutral air and back air makes it difficult to defend against on attack
2. Mixing DJC and aerial neutral b's will frustrate opponents who like to constantly short hop/shffl
3. When executed in the air, cannot be blocked unless the opponent air dodges, which should give you opportunities either way
4. Strategically, when implemented should frustrate an opponent who likes to constantly stay in close-range, thus keeping him off your nuts and giving you room to breathe, which is what all Yoshi players love to have.

How to Not DJC Like a Noob

Ever wonder why DJC leads never work? It's because whenever you double jump and fast fall out of it, you kill all of your horizontal momentum, and your low priority, low reach aerial lands right in front of your opponents sheild grab.

But wait! we now have a new tool don't we? by DJCing your neutral b, you can surprise your shielding opponent when landing short. You actually have plenty of time and distance.

When DJCing the nuetral b, make sure you input the b within the first few frames of Yoshis falling animation if you want to get the falling momentum,

Also get comfortable with all sorts of aerial movements and neutral b combinations, and not just djc, its really versatile.

He's in my Mouth, What's Next?

Some players complain that its impossible to do anything after successfully laying someone in an egg. I heard a pretty good player used to just taunt afterwards cause he couldn't think of anything.

Well, I think thats nonsense, I think theres actually more possibilities with neutral b than down throw because theres less control and DI that can be done when trying to escape an egg.

First, you must observe how your opponent reacts when caught in an egg. Most players will be surprised the first few times, and then start mashing quickly afterwards. Then observe if they are mashing attacks, or air dodging or whatever. And also observe the characters weight/fastfall, because it determines how they shoot out of the egg, if you want a chance at comboing.

Get under/overlap the egg

This is actually the safest spot to be because the character has to shoot up from the egg when escaping. Some options are:

1. charge up smash- quite possibly the sexiest option if your opponent is a mid range fall speed because you can charge up smash for a while, and your head is invincible
2. down b- flashy, unexpected, works on mid-float characters, and good KO, combo option
3. djc up air- here you have the freedom to control tempo and adjust height and reach. and lots of combo options
4. down/forward smash- wait for the mid/heavy to perform a laggy attack to get a good hit for KO/edgegaurd

Egg lay to Egg toss

The thing I do the most out of egg lay is actually toss an egg. The key here is to read how long it takes your opponent to mash out, and lob your egg high, so the invincibility frames will be gone before the egg connects.

This option is much better if your opponent DI's far away from you, or mashes out too fast to get close. It also is the safest option if you screw up because you have plenty of distance if you mess up. Eggs are beastly for combos and just damage in itself is nice.

Chaingrabbing with neutral B

The theory behind this is that the opponent has no control of when he escapes the egg, and the assumption is that there are a few frames after escape invincibility in which the player will always have no control. Thus whenever you egg lay someone, you have an intellectual frame advantage.

So with good timing and control, you should be able to re egg lay any character the first few moments after their invincibility frames disappear. Obviously easier said than done, but if successful, will frustrate and tire the opponent from having to mash out all the time.

 

[Velox]

I've done this for a while (combining the double jump cancel with the neutral 'B' that is), it's the only way to get use out of the neutral 'B', which anyone who has played my Yoshi knows, I use it a lot. It's actually quite and effective move for 3 reasons.

1.) Almost no lag. The lag is very deceptive on this one.

2.) You can grab in the air.

3.) Very low start up time in comparison to standard grab (non jump canceled).


I agree with you though that it's nonscense that people can't do anything after the egg lay someone.

Good topic though, maybe it will bring life to a subject rarely talked about.

 

[YOSHIDO]

Thanks for the tips about what to do when there inside of the egg. My spacing is still sketchy with it though. Sometimes when i try i get punished for it. But then again i have been smashing like i should.

 

[Beeble]

Don't forget the RDJC option, which is very useful in chaining.

2:10 - 2:35

 

[Shiri]

Some parts of this are making me think you're confusing neutral B with a regular grab.

At any rate, this seems to be getting good marks, so I'll try to read it before work tomorrow. Good stuff on new discussion, guys. Keep it up.

Edit: Whoops, I was the one getting confused, hahahaha. At any rate, this is classic, but it's good to have the information all in one place and well presented, hahaha. Good stuff on the read. **thumbs up**

P.S. - Do not use this technique on Bowser or Marth. Ever.

 

[heynivek]

Yeah I posted this thread as "discussion", in no way am I claiming credit for inventing this technique, it would not surprise me if a couple of players have been doing this already. However, I believe that it is still not known to the general public, and through discussion, hope to raise awareness of how useful this tool can be.

I consider reverse djc and djc to be the same thing, because if you know how to do one you can do the other, but to clear up a good point made, yes, this technique is definitely not limited to djc forwards.

Shiri, what I am arguing is somewhat daring, which is essentially replacing the majority of your yoshi grab game with this double jump canceled neutral b. The grab is too slow, laggy, and the hitbox is too late, small, and short lived to be effective most of the time.

By choosing the neutral B, you have a more generous hitbox to work with, its a larger hit box vertically, and reaches closer in and farther out than his dash grab. There is also much less lag if you wiff. Since the disadvantage is that yoshi must be completely still when performing this move, and its slightly slower on startup, you more than compensate for this by inputing the neutral b in the air. The end result is a very mobile unblockable with surprising long reach and speed.

Imagine that you are at the peak of your shorthop, you immediately double jump and input B to get the auto fast fall. your opponent, seeing your decent quickly dashes to challenge you at landing. But where you are normally vulnerable to attack on landing, your neutral b becomes active as soon as you land to consume the rewards of your hard work. =P

Edit: You are right, I noticed I am calling the neutral b a "grab" once in a while, though makes sense to me, its probably really confusing to some readers. I am in the process of revising my language.

For future discussion when a neutral b has connected they will be "egglaid" to disambiguate from being "grabbed". The process of performing a neutral b will also be called "egg lay" or "egg laying".

P.S. - Do not use this technique on Bowser or Marth. Ever.

Nonsense! I challenge you to give me 3 good reasons why not to.

 

[rmusgrave]

Marth's attacks, particularly his aerials outrange your neutral B. In particular, try landing an aerial egg lay on a Marth that SHFFLs n-air a lot. A fairly noobish strategy, yet it completely shuts down DJC egg lay for competing aerially.

But I won't say some of your things don't have uses against Marth (e.g. the fast falling egg lag from a DJC into a grab).


At any rate, you are right in that neutral B is awesome for many applications and it's not used enough. However, the problem in it comes in to the invincibility frames that the opponent gets coming out of the egg. Try standing under the egg when you use it on lvl 9 Fox. He can n-air easily before the invincibility is over, which means that it is possible to jump/mid-air dodge in those frames. As far as reliability goes, I would say using egg toss is the most reliable follow up, but the other ones you mentioned work well if the opponent falls for it.

I didn't say it explicitly in the previous paragraph, but as the invincibility is inconvenient on the egg lay you simply can't rely on a chain grab with this move.

One of my favourite punishers for opponents is a f-air on their exit of the egg. As long as you space it correctly they won't be able to punish you for it. Full jump f-air is a nice way to punish those slow fallers for getting egg layed.

Of course if they don't fight out quickly, don't forget your b-air. 4 hits = 20% non reduced damage, then crouch and punish the egg layed opponent with the above or a CC attack if they attack out of the egg.


And lastly, don't focus on this too much in your game. It should be a technique you can use, and well, but you don't see the good Yoshi players edge egging when the opponent is dangerously close, so you don't use this when the opponent is making this difficult for you. I'm gonna go check my guide to see how much actual lag this move has, if it's there.

 

[-PM-]

finally some discussion on the yoshi boards lol nice find but one problem some people break out of eggz in a second not giving you any chance to do anything IMO

 

[park5150]

Yeah I posted this thread as "discussion", in no way am I claiming credit for inventing this technique, it would not surprise me if a couple of players have been doing this already. However, I believe that it is still not known to the general public, and through discussion, hope to raise awareness of how useful this tool can be.

Yeah, Kool.

I consider reverse djc and djc to be the same thing, because if you know how to do one you can do the other, but to clear up a good point made, yes, this technique is definitely not limited to djc forwards.

No, its different. You actually space with the R-DJC, and the R-DJC is hard at first to master.

Shiri, what I am arguing is somewhat daring, which is essentially replacing the majority of your yoshi grab game with this double jump canceled neutral b. The grab is too slow, laggy, and the hitbox is too late, small, and short lived to be effective most of the time.

Yes, but the grab is the grab, the dash grab is a lot better then the normal grab and you can still combo with the grabs, so this shouldn't replaced the grab at all, but this should still be used. Grabbing with yoshi isn't the worst thing in the world.

By choosing the neutral B, you have a more generous hitbox to work with, its a larger hit box vertically, and reaches closer in and farther out than his dash grab. There is also much less lag if you wiff. Since the disadvantage is that yoshi must be completely still when performing this move, and its slightly slower on startup, you more than compensate for this by inputing the neutral b in the air. The end result is a very mobile unblockable with surprising long reach and speed.

Imagine that you are at the peak of your shorthop, you immediately double jump and input B to get the auto fast fall. your opponent, seeing your decent quickly dashes to challenge you at landing. But where you are normally vulnerable to attack on landing, your neutral b becomes active as soon as you land to consume the rewards of your hard work. =P

Edit: You are right, I noticed I am calling the neutral b a "grab" once in a while, though makes sense to me, its probably really confusing to some readers. I am in the process of revising my language.

For future discussion when a neutral b has connected they will be "egglaid" to disambiguate from being "grabbed". The process of performing a neutral b will also be called "egg lay" or "egg laying".



Nonsense! I challenge you to give me 3 good reasons why not to.

This is a very good technique, but it shouldn't replace the grab at all. And the invincibility frames does hurt a lot.

"At any rate, you are right in that neutral B is awesome for many applications and it's not used enough. However, the problem in it comes in to the invincibility frames that the opponent gets coming out of the egg... "
"And lastly, don't focus on this too much in your game. ."

I completely aggree with bringer.

 

[Beeble]

Shiri, what I am arguing is somewhat daring, which is essentially replacing the majority of your yoshi grab game with this double jump canceled neutral b. The grab is too slow, laggy, and the hitbox is too late, small, and short lived to be effective most of the time.

While yoshi's grab is finnicky and can leave you open to attack as mentioned above, it has considerably more combo options then neutral B. The egg lay does not create guaranteed combos so much as it creates an opportunity for follow up (like a reset for those of you that play mvc2). Throws on the other hand can be used in a far more precise manner. Vs space animals, for instance, a down throw when they are below 100% will combo into an fsmash, and an upthrow from 40% up will lead to a utilt, nair, djc uair and so on. What I'm saying is that yes, the neutral B is good as a mixup (it's an air throw ffs! who does that in smash?), it cannot replace the majority of throws in your game.

 

[park5150]

While yoshi's grab is finnicky and can leave you open to attack as mentioned above, it has considerably more combo options then neutral B. The egg lay does not create guaranteed combos so much as it creates an opportunity for follow up (like a reset for those of you that play mvc2). Throws on the other hand can be used in a far more precise manner. Vs space animals, for instance, a down throw when they are below 100% will combo into an fsmash, and an upthrow from 40% up will lead to a utilt, nair, djc uair and so on. What I'm saying is that yes, the neutral B is good as a mixup (it's an air throw ffs! who does that in smash?), it cannot replace the majority of throws in your game.

yeah, thas so true!!!!!!

 

[Shiri]

Oh, I am by no means berating this technique. I'm actually glad someone's putting forth some chatter.

And the main reason I say not to use this on Marth or Bowser is that because, while players of both characters are typically a 3 on the 1-10 intelligence scale, they have incredible and utterly abusable forward reach on a lot of their quicker moves (Marth jab, neutral air, up tilt, GRAB and Bowser forward air, forward tilt). Bowser even has that terrible invulnerability on his Up+B out of shield so even if he was shield camping you, if he were to react in time, he'd have a number of ways to get away, one of them being a retaliatory Up+B, whether he meant it or not.

But I like the fact that you've put thought into this, are spreading the good word on Yoshi, and that you're defending your thoughts. Keep it up. Contrary to whatever you all may believe I like reading more than I like making long pos--

YES!

YESSSSSSSSSS!

I TRADED AND GOT A LATIOS FOR MY TERRIBLE RAIKOU!!

TAKE THAT!!

...

Uh...? Yeah, don't mind me. >_>;

 

[heynivek]

I like everyone's support, very positive criticisms going on here.

vs. Marth and Bowser:
As bringer also said, i still think this technique is universal enough that it can apply and work against all characters, but also will be less opportunities to score against some.

vs. regular/dash grab:
your absolutely right, this will not replace the grab in any way, in terms of comboing after or opportunities you would use it in the first place. But what this does do is give you a very good tool to use in a range yoshi would not be able to catch otherwise.

chaingrab:
i had originally posted it as a theory. i'm not that surprised to see that most players agree that the invincibility frames are too long to work. This also is the main deterrent for not being able to combo well out of egg lay also.

back-air into the egg: is it really un-reduced full 20% damage? is this always true even if you are not in an egg?

Refined strategic method for optimizing egg lay: keeping distance
Why does falco down throw? so the player will tech away and falco can blaster again. If you think about it that way, I still think this move has a very important strategic role. It seems like you can keep fairly good distance, whether he DI's away from you or you decide to move yourself. You have plenty of freedom to choose how much distance, or whether you want to jump in the air.

Now, yes, it will be more of a "reset" than you might like, but at least your starting at a distance that is designed to help you the most. At a comfortable space you have a wider range of options, whether its f-air, dash grab, dash attack, and what seems to be the most popular option right now, egg tossing.

 

[rmusgrave]

back-air into the egg: is it really un-reduced full 20% damage? is this always true even if you are not in an egg?

Back air does 20% damage. That's if it hasn't been reduced by you using it already. That's what I meant.

Smashboards swallowed up my intelligent post for this one, but that's basically what it boils down to.


Neutral B is awesome if you mix it up and use mindgames. Keep in mind that the spacing it uses is unique to Yoshi and can be seen coming.

 

[park5150]

I just tried this out. It hardly works for me, I am unaccurate. But its good, its useful. Its more of a move, so use both: the grabs and nuetral-B.

 

[Shiri]

After further experimentation, all I have to say is WOW @ this move's range. No, seriously, WTF.

 

[heynivek]

getting the timing/execution down:

basics-
I think the first thing to do is to get used to executing the egg lay in the air in general, without double jump cancelling. it is a fairly simple concept, but it is awkward because the startup is long and you loose more control over yoshi's horizontal and vertical momentum than if you were starting up a normal aerial attack.

try aiming for three heights, while jumping straight up, time your egglay so its active around the peak of your short hop, the peak of your full jump, and then at decent just before you land. after these three basic heights are achieved, you can make small adjustments to these timing "landmarks" to obtain a wider range of heights.

then, practice getting these heights when jumping forwards and backwards. be careful of the positioning of your control stick during the execution or else you might perform a side be egg roll or egg lay in the reverse direction.

advanced-
when you get comfortable egg laying in the air, you can start experimenting with egglaying during your double jump, or double jump cancelling (djc)

stage1 of the double jump: auto fast fall
during the first few frames (between 5-10 frames?) of yoshi's double jump, yoshi has falling (fast falling i believe) properties. so whenever you input an attack during this stage yoshi will automatically be fast falling, regardless of the position of the control stick.

around the peak of your short hop, try double jumping and immediately pressing b. this should send yoshi falling while starting up the egg lay. conveniently, the egg lay will be active just as you land. when you are comfortable, try inching yourself forwards a little with the double jump, and then try reversing yourself with the double jump, still trying to get the auto fast fall from the stage1 double jump cancel.

stage2 djc: stall
after the stage1 of yoshi's double jump, there is a transitional stage where yoshi is correcting his vertical momentum from falling to rising. The effect of djcing at this stage can make yoshi freeze somewhat still vertically in midair while egg lay is active, which will look very deceiving to the opponent.

watch closely as yoshi performs his double jump. notice how he dips down from the height he was initially, and then begins to rise. To perform a stage2 stall djc, wait until yoshi rises back to the vertical position/altitude he was at just before you begin double jumping to input the egg lay. Then practice pushing yourself forward/reverse in the same manner as you did the stage1 djc.

stage3 djc: rising
the final stage of yoshi's jump is rising. anytime you input egg lay after stage2(when yoshi finally gets above his original height) will send you rising a little bit after input, making it active at an altitude higher than you input it.

 

[Seanson]

After an egg lay, I can hit most of my b-airs (except on fast fallers), then I charge an up smash.

On fast fallers I usually do a dtilt or two (depending on their % of course), then I wavedash to the side and prepare to f-smash. I don't charge because if they see it coming then they'll avoid it. Also, the f-smash pullback can be a surprise, as always.

 

[YOSHIDO]

Ive been able to capitalize on the egg lay and turn it into traps. After I egg lay. Then throw the egg like uve suggested i think. They have to get hit or. use their di to avoid it. This is where you can grab again. Depending on the weight of the character and how their thrown. Some characters like shiek cant di so its easy to punish. Other charters like marth its save just to do an extended egglay egg egg combo. But yeah. This a great addition to traps and mind games.

 

[The |Egg| Sniper]

I dont know if this has been covered, but what about egg lay-> sidedodge at hatch-> egg lay/grab? Generally, an opponent will find you camping an egg as an opportunity to land a dair (Marth, Falco, Ganon, I'm calling you out!). Throwing in the side dodge immediately after hatching prevents the hit of instant Dairs. Ganon's will require timing to dodge, as will Falcon's.

Another possibility:
Egg lay-> side dodge ->Utilt -> Uair -> ????
Capitalize on their landing with the side dodge, and those who don't immediately shield will be caught up in this combo.