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Tomahawk with airdodge down or fast fall?

zhutwo

Smash Rookie
Joined
May 17, 2017
Messages
2
Hi, Falco main who recently discovered the joys of Puff here.

I'd like some input from Puff mains about how you do your tomahawks. I find airdodging down feels nice and is more flexible since you don't have to wait for the apex of your jump, but I'm not sure how significant the waveland frames are for giving the opponent an opportunity to react. Opinions?
 

NIFOFD

Smash Apprentice
Joined
Aug 20, 2014
Messages
86
Location
NC
You'll reach the ground faster this way, but still have 10 frames of landing lag so its pretty pointless to air-dodge in this situation. They'll definitely just punish you when you land. The reason that fast falling works is because they hold their shield while you are in the air to avoid getting hit by your aerial. By the time you hit the ground and they realize that you didn't aerial, you'll already be in the process of throwing out the grab. It works best when mixed up with other options.
 

zhutwo

Smash Rookie
Joined
May 17, 2017
Messages
2
If you land toward the end of the airdodge animation, do you spend less frames in waveland animation?

I feel like there's some merit to doing a short hop forward, followed by an almost immediate diagonal airdodge down as a mixup. My theory is that the airdodge down occurs during the processing lag while your opponent's brain is still reacting to your short hop stimulus, which will impair their ability to react in time to the airdodge down, especially if you sense they're under pressure.
 

NIFOFD

Smash Apprentice
Joined
Aug 20, 2014
Messages
86
Location
NC
As it is, many players are able to react to the lack of aerial and escape the grab if they're looking out for it. I think doing an air dodge would just make it even easier to react. I feel confident that if someone tried to do this against me I'd just grab them during the landing lag of the air dodge.

What you're describing is a mix between an empty hop grab and a wavedash grab, but I feel that it lacks the merits of either. I suppose you could use the invincibility of the airdodge, but you become vulnerable as soon as you hit the ground so unless you air dodge through a laggy move you won't get much off of it. Even then, the risk reward seems pretty bad imo.
 

reverie2

Smash Apprentice
Joined
May 3, 2015
Messages
158
Waveland down is too slow and gives you opponent a clear animation to react to. You want to just land.
By that logic, wouldn't people just not wavedash, and always just short hop-> fastfall land for general movement? I feel like wavelanding is more or less the same speed, because you get to the ground faster, even though it's 10 frames vs 4 frames for regular impact land.
 
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Stride

Smash Ace
Joined
Feb 22, 2014
Messages
680
Location
North-west England (near Manchester/Liverpool)
By that logic, wouldn't people just not wavedash, and always just short hop-> fastfall land for general movement? I feel like wavelanding is more or less the same speed, because you get to the ground faster, even though it's 10 frames vs 4 frames for regular impact land.
I'm assuming you meant "waveland" and not "wavedash" there.

You waveland down onto platforms because it interrupts your upwards motion and can be done before the peak of your jump (unlike a fastfall), so when your jump would normally take you above it you can land before that, thereby minimising the time you're in the air before landing. Airdodging down then landing in this situation rather than just landing is slower, easier to react to, and doesn't maintain the threat of an aerial on the way down (which is why empty jumps work). There's no benefit to it.

It's also important to note when the reaction window for being sure the opponent is doing an empty jump really starts. Even if the overall length of each option is approximately the same, you have less time to recognise what's actually going on when they just land than when they airdodge down, since with the former it's ambiguous whether the opponent is going to do an aerial or not the entire time they're in the air until right before they land, and then once they do they have less lag than a waveland too, whereas with an airdodge you can tell immediately and they have more lag after landing.
 
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