Underused Uair

[FE_Hector]

Honestly, I just made this because I think a lot of Falco mains (from what I've seen) are discounting Falco's uair as "bad" just because it's not as good as Fox's uair. I'm just going to list a few different uses for Falco's uair that I've seen used a few times before and some stuff that I've done before.

• First hit only uair for extending pillars past 50%-- the Zhu.
• Killing Puff when she's too high to get hit by a shine (starts around 80% in my experience)
• Uthrow uair on Sheik around 120%. (Sometimes they live that long. 2nd hit only is also amazing.)
• 2nd hit only uair into dair on fast fallers (IDK if I discovered this or not, but it works on no DI and DI away in my experience, especially around 70-110 for a really nice spike setup.)
• Falling uair off of plats (nice mixup from dair, also confuses them and makes it easier to link. If the 2nd hit has time to come out, make sure it's the one with very little KB so you can still combo off of it.)
• Pressuring people to come down from platforms on most stages. (Safer than trying to jump up and shine because it's WAY harder to punish.)

I'm sure there are other uses that I'm not thinking of right now, but I honestly feel like this move has a lot more uses than people want to say. You've got to be careful with the 2nd hit of it so that it actually hits them upwards properly instead of being stupid, but it's still a really amazing move overall. Also, timing 2nd hit only uair is easier than you think. After you use it in other ways for a while, you kind of get a "one-two" feeling to it between the two hits so you can feel when the 2nd hit is coming out.

Take from it what you will, experiment, prove me wrong, whatever. I'm just saying that these are some pretty nice uses for uair, some of which I've only started using/experimenting with recently, one of which I feel that I've never seen used before.

 

[SavantGardener]

It's extremely situational. I think people need to start understanding the distinction between usefulness and usability. It's only useful for killing off the top when you can't reach with shine. It's definitely usable elsewhere, but it is pretty much always less reliable than other options when it comes to kill and combo potential tbh (you can replace up air in many of the situations you've listed with back air).

I'll pretty much only start using up airs when I'm playing against characters I can easily kill off the top (but I'll usually opt for shine) or when the skill gap between my opponent and I is big enough such that I can get away with doing whatever janky/unorthodox combos I want.

 

[FE_Hector]

I see what you're saying, and it definitely is situational, but it's honestly what I generally prefer in the listed situations. Sometimes you can get the Falco Ken Combo with weak bair in the situations I listed, but the ways I was thinking of them, then landing the weak bair and still having the positioning and everything you need to properly get the kill is pretty hard. I was just listing off ways that I use uair. Not saying that my stuff is the best or anything, just ideas.

 

[NotAnAdmin]

I agree u-air has it's uses. I've been messing around with it in my practice sessions and I think that low percent first hit upair can possibly link into a shine. Almost in the same fashion Chillindude has been seen to use the upair to approach. Imagine popping the opponent up a little and shine >waveland onto a side platform and then some sort of aerial for a simple combo on Battlefield or the other stages.
I don't know if that can really be that useful but I wanted to put that out there.

 

[J⩓мє]

the 20XX 4.05 Falco CPU uses upair in ways which totally caught me off guard until I adapted to it, since it (either by sheer chance or by design) was using upairs to defend against certain approaches and to extend certain positional advantages. So if you want some inspiration of good situational or unconventional applications it'd be a good idea to watch that cpu. Also, Falco's uair shieldpokes spacies/falcon/other people with weak foot coverage if the first hit strikes shield, and the second hit touches feet, as the shieldstun shifts the shield angle to neutral, same as Fox's; just that the setup is slightly different due to the differences in the two character's jump heights.

People also expect Bair/nair/dair so their DI against an unforseen upair (which is a little hard to justify since it has wind up, but I've done this in bracket) so you tend to get good DI-based setups as a result (in my experience this sometimes has set up for edgeguards where the opponent ends up high offstage, which gives Falco a lot of options based on his high Y-mobility). This application has been especially visible for me in matches against Marths, Luigis, Sheiks, Samuses, and other semi-floaties or floaties who don't have significant stalling advantages or aerial mobility advantages. In the case of Samus I generally fulljump shine to bait out a down B/dair/nair and double jump upair while they're attack/special-unactionable, though they can still move around. In Marth's specific case it gives me options (shine, bair, nair, dair, uair) when comitting to the double jump chase to deal with marth doing anything like side-b stalling, double jump, counter, or aerial, vs them just doing nothing. However, in general I feel like this DI-based-trick might be more of a trap against newer players (similar to downthrow jab reset depending on poor teching ability) towards opponents who are less capable or prepared to deal with the up-air on reaction.

It's extremely situational. I think people need to start understanding the distinction between usefulness and usability. It's only useful for killing off the top when you can't reach with shine. It's definitely usable elsewhere, but it is pretty much always less reliable than other options when it comes to kill and combo potential tbh (you can replace up air in many of the situations you've listed with back air).

I'll pretty much only start using up airs when I'm playing against characters I can easily kill off the top (but I'll usually opt for shine) or when the skill gap between my opponent and I is big enough such that I can get away with doing whatever janky/unorthodox combos I want.

It's really worth noting that dj shine to get a kill off the top, while being faster to execute (frame 1), lasts 40 frames (a full 2/3rd of a second) until the first possible action by the player (interrupttable by action on frame 39)-- if you don't burn your double jump shine is jump-interruptable from the first frame of the reflect animation, which, without hitlag, starts on frame 4 (so any jump input read on frame 3 will interrupt it), but for the sake of this we're picturing that the dj has been used. Up-air on the other hand, is IASA by attack/jump (but not special or airdodge) on frame 36 (so first actionable input for this IASA is on frame 35), though for air-dodge and special the whole animation (which, like shine, is also 40 frames) has to go by, meaning the first possible input of either airdodge or any special move would be frame 39. As a result of the IASA into other aerials like dair, and the added control of not losing momentum while also being able to fast fall, and that the hitboxes are out for 6 frames total, and 3 frames for the strong kick, over 1 for shine, I feel like upair is a better option when chasing an opponent who can punish you since the only two characters who can fast fall as fast as Falco (if you were to fast fall to nope out of the situation) are Falco and Falcon. Or when chasing while unsure.

 

[Klemes]

My uses for uair :
- pressuring opponent shielding on plats. Good launcher at low/mid %, and you're kinda safe staying under him. I also like to fake an agression by doing an empty short hop, then mixing in uairs. So it's either uair, shine-waveland, or FH nair/bair to catch them at kill% (not worth risking getting punished at lower %). But the better option is often AC bair spam, it reaches all side platforms but DL and FoD, pokes super well and makes them antsy with their OoS options, which can open them for a better hit like shine or FH bair. So I think uair is interesting, thanks to the 2 hit move and being a good launcher, but it's weaker than AC bairs, they hit faster and let you act out of them far earlier. BUT uair is interesting again on DL and on top platforms.

-I thought of doing platform techchase uairs like those sneaky foxes, but I think shine is far superior overall, except vs floaties at high% when shine doesn't get you anything : uair may kill off the side on DI away (lol you got janked !) or stand a better chance at netting you a wonky follow-up anyway.

-Extending combos, brings a jank factor into play, which can be either good or bad : there's the uair>dair spike on fast fallers, uair>bair to juggle marth/shiek even higher, or sometimes you get nothing, since DI influences this move's KB trajectory so drastically you can't really react to it (I mostly guess they're holding away). The good part is that freestyling your Falco combos like that keeps them always guessing, which opens opportunities for catastrophic DI traps imo.

-The obligatory Zhu uair>shine. It's actually so very good, I don't get why the top Falcos didn't steal it for good. So it's best to extend pillars after 45% (when dair knocks you down and allows a tech away), but I admit I forget it too often, and sometimes I opt (to try) for the westballz AC bair>turnaround utilt. Sometime I nair for a techchase when near the ledge, like I've seen PP do. I still think the Zhu is the easiest and most reliable of the three. Oh and you can also swag with 1st hit uair>utilt, but I guess it's more optimal at higher% / on floatier characters.

-To kill off the top, duh. Falco uair kills are no joke, and all my friends constantly get surprised when they die from it (that ain't fox... but you're still dead). I get a lot of them, maybe because I'm still not too confident about shines off the top, but there always will be situations when uair is best. There are plenty of good setups, shine on the ground, on platforms, uthrow, utilt can all give you a "balltrap" uair, the bird's insane jumps allow to fish for the kill even out of the camera's view, espescially on YS PS and BF.

I don't know how to feel about your falling uair from platforms though. I select between nair/dair (when falling right on top of them, ready to either convert a hit or cover myself with safe shield pressure), bair (walling them out, they eat a foot if they run/jump in), laser/turnaround laser (this one laser is soooo good, I just follow with a pressure string braindead right now), or a fakeout like wave land, DJ, shinestall>DJ (the mindgames !).

 

[FE_Hector]

I don't know how to feel about your falling uair from platforms though. I select between nair/dair (when falling right on top of them, ready to either convert a hit or cover myself with safe shield pressure), bair (walling them out, they eat a foot if they run/jump in), laser/turnaround laser (this one laser is soooo good, I just follow with a pressure string braindead right now), or a fakeout like wave land, DJ, shinestall>DJ (the mindgames !).

The purpose of the falling uair is to not get the second hit. Basically if they're still in hitstun this basically leads to the Zhu shine if you're in the right position. It's weird and definitely a mixup, but definitely fun to get off.