Thoughts on pivot to approaching back air?

[Andrew Wiggin]

The idea is that you dash forward, do a pivot then immediatly short hop back air while drifting forward. There are lots of times that opponents are walling me out and I can't challenge with an up air or a nair, but I could with a back air because of its better priority. After practicing it for about half an hour I could actually get it fairly consistently, and you see 64 players doing the same thing with a lot of different characters so it is definitely human viable. I don't play Falcon that often so this is more of a theoretical thing for me than something that I would actually apply to tournament play, but when I play Falcon in friendlies it seems like it would be really great to have an approach that comes out fairly quickly, and has good priority, which Falcon lacks otherwise. Thoughts?

 

[clarify]

This is much harder to do and takes longer in Melee compared to any other game in the series, but it can be done. I just more or less throw out bairs in irregular patterns while approaching with my back turned instead. Or just try to time baiting them to run into a SH bair.
It is a good mix up from Falcon's usual options in neutral, but I wouldn't do it too often. Definitely keep doing normal Falcon approaches along with this idea.

 

[Klemes]

It's really good if
1. the opponent is airborne (it can work if he's chilling on a platform)
2. you have center stage

It's likely to trade, which is fine if you have stage behind you and they don't.
And you don't want it to get crouched/shielded. Spaced nair and knee are the thing to chalenge their defensive option, not bair.

It's also sweet to confirm a hit offstage in some scenarios : pivot bair is way faster and has better reach than knee, and has a bigly stronger knockback than uair. Kind of a DI trap too : if you catch them holding away to escape the Falcon wheel, a strong bair will toast them at ridiculously low%

 

[iAmMatt]

If your opponent is at a high %, yeah its good. At low %'s they can cc>grab or even nair because of how little hitstun there is on falcon's weak upair

 

[ChivalRuse]

Falcon's bair is monstrous, so yes - this can be good. Falcon's bair late on shield is safe. It has enough range and low enough lag that it is hard to whiff punish. And you cannot really crouch cancel it effectively because of the high base knockback.

 

[magicsixball]

It can be better in very niche situations, but for the most part a shield stop nair or upair accomplishes the same thing but better. Nair and upair come out 4 frames faster, nair has a longer hitbox and is a good retreating hitbox. Upair can be used instantly or late depending on the situation.

While the bair hitbox is good, the problem with bair is it comes out slow and doesn't last that long. Instant bair is hard to connect, and mostly doesn't lead to anything. Late bair can be good, but at that point upair accomplishes the same thing but is faster.

Where i think falcon's pivot bair can actually be really good is for edgeguards. You could dash towards the edge, pivot backjump bair. Puts out a hitbox offstage very quickly out of nowhere.