So what moves can we use it on?
Once again, I'm doing math on the assumption that your air-dodge will invincibly move for 10 frames at most. On top of that, this assumes the opponent and you are moving as fast as possible, so in a real match with mistakes and imperfection there would be variation as well. This is strictly theoretical to let you know what is technically *possible.* Finally, unless I indicate otherwise, I'm assuming that you're using SoPo against these.
And I'll restate the draw-backs so people don't feel the need to point them out later. 1) Triangle jumping and getting guaranteed punishment is gonna be REALLY HARD. I'm always hunting for new ways to gain an edge, but I fully recognize how difficult and risky this is against certain moves. 2) You often already have an option for dealing with the move anyhow, so this often isn't the best option.
I think it's most useful if you don't have much room on the stage to maneuver. It's also the best way, IMO, to avoid certain grabs--if I was deep against a shield, for instance, I'd rather dodge through and force them to whiff a shield grab. But yes, upon close examination it's definitely limited. Right now it's more of a fun side project that I'm messing around with.
So here we go. Here are a couple moves I want to try and deal with.
Marth's jab: Ordinarily, the biggest wall you face against Marth is f-air d-tilt. D-tilt is amazingly hard to punish even when he whiffs it, and the best option for conquering it is short-hopped f-air; you go right over the tip and with Nana present you get 20+ damage and a positional advantage (a grounded crouch cancel, the opportunity to up-air him a bit, or at 0 percent a combo'd grab. That's a stock right there!) Marth *could* f-smash instead of d-tilt, but that's punishable out of shield with a grab, and many Marth players will be wary of smashing against ICs who can grab-combo--the odds of getting f-smashed are low, especially if your movements aren't predictable.
But then there's the jab; like d-tilt, it comes out fast and has good range. Unlike d-tilt, it reaches up kind of high. Short-hop in with an f-air and you'll just get swatted away. Not many Marths do this, but against me (personally) when I SHFFL f-air over d-tilt and kill off the grab, they start trying new options :D So it's something to be wary of and have a plan for defeating. It's not particularly devastating, but if he can shut you out then he has no reason not to do it. Also, bear in mind that it's *possible* to wavedash in and punish the first jab if it whiffs, but it requires excellent timing and spacing, and you have to input the wavedash well in advance.
For the record, perfect wavedashes have about 13 to 14 frames of lag; 3 as you jump, 10 from the landing, and I'm not sure if there are some frames in there where you aren't moving and can't input commands... so let's just call it 14, to be conservative. To wavedash in against a jab, you'd need to be able to act as the jab ends, but you'd also need to be sliding in... on top of that, your strongest options, grabbing and d-smashing, have 7 frames of startup. That adds up to mean that it's really effing difficult. Of course, we've already established that triangle jumping is really hard to do as well, so... whatever. We're off topic and that's inconveniently deflating my post.
His jab acts on frames 4-7, and the second swing can come out between 20-27, depending on when Marth hits A. If he doesn't use the second jab, the move ends on frame 27. So 4 active frames and somewhere between 13-20 frames left to punish; in a perfect world, you'd land with 3 frames to spare. That's enough time to throw up a shield and shield grab the second jab. If he decided NOT to swing twice and you landed deep enough, you'd get a few extra. That's a grab opportunity.
Something that's nice about this is you also have a chance at punishing u-tilt with it. U-tilt is active for 7 frames, but half of those are above and behind him; if you aren't dodging in REALLY deep you shouldn't get hit; you'll have at least 10 frames to punish.
Marth's f-air: This is the move that really sucks to fight against, and it's Marth's bread and butter. Typically you don't want to challenge it at all, but there is an opportunity for you to break in and get guaranteed punishment. It has low l-canceled lag, so you have to get in when he CAN'T L-cancel but you can still reach the ground. The only time that happens is right when he jumps off the ground.
It's out for 4 frames, starting on frame 4, so it's way too fast to react to; on the bright side, Marths almost always throw it out as soon as they short hop or full jump, then go for the second one while they adjust their spacing.
Speaking of spacing, one of the nice things about characters who rely on it is it makes them a little predictable. Admittedly they can shut you out really hard if they're spacing well, but it also means you generally know when they're going to try and attack. They'll attack at the moment when you're at the furthest limit of their range.
So in a weird way, you can almost control when the f-air comes out. When that f-air comes out you can be invincible, moving towards him. Here are the frames.
Again, it's out for 4 frames and can be interrupted on frame 30; from 8-30, it's vulnerable. With a good air-dodge that leaves you 12 frames to get in there and hit him. Since you've just invaded his space, it also means you don't have to spend that time moving much--you have enough time to short hop and n-air, u-air, or b-air him before he can even throw out another attack, and that doesn't even account for the startup time on his aerials.
F-air comes out on frame 4, b-air on frame 7, d-air on 6, n-air on 6, and u-air on 7; even his forward+b takes 6 frames to come out, and if he jumps that's 1 extra frame he's not able to attack you.
Can he fast fall and escape? Well, he can start fast-falling on frame 20, and at best (for him) that means he's in the air for 26 frames; then again, there are four frames of ordinary landing lag, so we're back up to 30! In fact, if he lands on frame 26 then he has to L-cancel his f-air, and that means 7 frames of lag on landing instead; so if he SHFFLs as fast as he can, you'll have 15 frames to get him. If he delays it at all (which is more likely, since he'll have a tough time reacting) the f-air will autocancel on landing but he'll be in the air longer and he won't have time to throw another aerial out. And if he starts fast falling and you throw out a d-smash, you'll catch him with it DI'ing down. That thought makes me smile.
Ganon's f-air: This is a rough move to get around. He's going to tip it when he can and he'll jab afterwards, but if you're charging in you can force the move to go deep. Unlike the other moves that I've talked about, this one's an aerial (durr) and that means you're contending with L-canceled lag. Fortunately, his f-air has a lot of landing lag; its shield stun normally compensates for that, but we're not going to shield it.
Comes out on frame 14, lasts for 6, and has L-canceled lag of 12. This move is going to be REALLY hard to deal with using a triangle jump. If you assume that the Ganon is attempting to hit with the tip of his fist as he lands, then the move will only be out one or two frames; that means he's got 12 frames of lag, and a triangle jump won't deal with that. If he lands at the last hitbox frame, the hitbox will be more inside his body and a deep triangle jump might get you hit. We don't want that either.
In both cases, if you timed everything absolutely perfectly, you would still be at a disadvantage; you'd get hit or he'd have time to shield, roll or jab you. It may be possible to get in deep enough to shield grab his landing jab (you'd have enough frames to pull it off) but nothing would be guaranteed. If you managed to get behind him and you d-smashed, it would only work if he tried to turn and f-tilt you. If he shields that, he could probably SH b-air out of shield on reaction and punch your skull off.
So there's really only one way to get this to work, and that's if you're triangle jumping with Nana. You need to get in kind of deep and let Nana get hit by the f-air while you made it inside Ganon's range. Ganon and Nana would stall in hit lag and you'd be able to punish in the meantime. You don't even need to do any math to see you'd get a grab; even if Nana flies away, you can d-throw chaingrab Ganon until she returns; that's when you could work your grabbing magic.
Triangle jumping, then, is pretty bad against this move. It MIGHT work at lower percents if you know the Ganon will short-hop into it, and even then you might as well sneak under him with wavedash into up-tilt. If he's full jumping, you'll either retreat, snare him with blizzard, or try to get under him with u-air... you might even pester him with double squall, if you wanted. But let's say you really wanted to get a grab (and there's a good reason for that against Ganon) then this has the potential to yield good results.
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That was fun for me; if anybody found that information helpful at all and wants me to keep researching, I'll do it. If I posted things that are factually incorrect and flat-out stupid, you're also free to call me on it. Lastly, you can also research on your own if you like and please post your findings if you do!
