The other day
Stryker95
PM'd me with a dilemma. He had found a specific scenario where Link's soft hit Nair was hitting a Samus at 105%, which in the given scenario was launching her in a strange way, and if Samus DI'd it down, she would seemingly be unable to tech. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4C-8UsA2_CQ
How strange!
After recreating it myself and confirming that it wasn't just a matter of trying to tech multiple times or too early, I had to conclude that yes, in this specific scenario, Samus is definitely unable to tech. I then ran a bunch of tests to re-confirm everything I thought I knew about teching, and I eventually concluded that it must have something to do with the strange knockback reeling animation itself.
This particular animation is induced by hitting the opponent anywhere on their hurtbox such that the move you use leaves them on at least 100%, where the specific move/hitbox being used will also put them into a reeling animation (which may result in the the character being launched headlong while spinning as seen in the video), and where the specific move/hitbox used does not send the opponent upwards at an angle greater than 70 (an angle of 70 is fine).
If a character gets put into this special reeling animation (regardless of whether they were on the ground or in the air at the time), and they land on a surface while still in hitstun, they will be unable to tech.
And yes, this applies to spiking people too (just be aware that spiking someone who is on the ground can sometimes not actually hit them down at all if the move works differently for grounded and aerial opponents), such that they enter the critical hit reeling animation traveling towards the ground head-first, and then they are unable to tech (assuming they are still in hitstun, which if spiked at that percent is pretty much guaranteed).
And to clarify, it also applies to throws.
In the video against the Samus it was necessary to DI down in order to land before hitstun wore off, but this is not the case with all characters (e.g. replace Samus with Captain Falcon in that video scenario, and even without DI, Falcon will be unable to tech).
Now before you go freaking out and trying to find scenarios where your characters can deliberately induce this 'critical hit reel' thing then convert it into a lock or a kill-confirm, just hear me out.
The next step for the purposes of further testing was to find a specific set-up using frame skips that I could use to more reliably and quickly induce this specific reeling animation. I soon found this to be strangely more difficult than expected.
On a hunch I set up a scenario where I could rule out all other factors. I took Mega Man and Link to a custom stage, had Mega Man hold a buzz-saw so that he wouldn't move, set Link up on a slightly elevated platform, made Mega Man walk to the edge of his platform till he teetered then I rolled back, set Mega Man's percent to 142% (it just had to be 'high'), then made Link fully charge an arrow and shoot it at Mega Man's face. I repeated this exact same scenario multiple times and found that Mega Man would only go into the special reeling animation some of the time.
This means that whether or not critical hit reeling will be induced is essentially random.
Even if all other factors are accounted for, you still need to get lucky.
We now know through data-mining that there is a 30% chance of the reeling animation being induced, all other factors being present.
Edit: I originally didn't make this a thread, but seeing as it was turned into one I decided to keep the OP up to date with new information as it comes in; with this in mind, a big thanks goes out to Lavani and everyone else who contributed information (which can be found below).
Stryker95
PM'd me with a dilemma. He had found a specific scenario where Link's soft hit Nair was hitting a Samus at 105%, which in the given scenario was launching her in a strange way, and if Samus DI'd it down, she would seemingly be unable to tech. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4C-8UsA2_CQHow strange!
After recreating it myself and confirming that it wasn't just a matter of trying to tech multiple times or too early, I had to conclude that yes, in this specific scenario, Samus is definitely unable to tech. I then ran a bunch of tests to re-confirm everything I thought I knew about teching, and I eventually concluded that it must have something to do with the strange knockback reeling animation itself.
This particular animation is induced by hitting the opponent anywhere on their hurtbox such that the move you use leaves them on at least 100%, where the specific move/hitbox being used will also put them into a reeling animation (which may result in the the character being launched headlong while spinning as seen in the video), and where the specific move/hitbox used does not send the opponent upwards at an angle greater than 70 (an angle of 70 is fine).
If a character gets put into this special reeling animation (regardless of whether they were on the ground or in the air at the time), and they land on a surface while still in hitstun, they will be unable to tech.
And yes, this applies to spiking people too (just be aware that spiking someone who is on the ground can sometimes not actually hit them down at all if the move works differently for grounded and aerial opponents), such that they enter the critical hit reeling animation traveling towards the ground head-first, and then they are unable to tech (assuming they are still in hitstun, which if spiked at that percent is pretty much guaranteed).
And to clarify, it also applies to throws.
In the video against the Samus it was necessary to DI down in order to land before hitstun wore off, but this is not the case with all characters (e.g. replace Samus with Captain Falcon in that video scenario, and even without DI, Falcon will be unable to tech).
Now before you go freaking out and trying to find scenarios where your characters can deliberately induce this 'critical hit reel' thing then convert it into a lock or a kill-confirm, just hear me out.
The next step for the purposes of further testing was to find a specific set-up using frame skips that I could use to more reliably and quickly induce this specific reeling animation. I soon found this to be strangely more difficult than expected.
On a hunch I set up a scenario where I could rule out all other factors. I took Mega Man and Link to a custom stage, had Mega Man hold a buzz-saw so that he wouldn't move, set Link up on a slightly elevated platform, made Mega Man walk to the edge of his platform till he teetered then I rolled back, set Mega Man's percent to 142% (it just had to be 'high'), then made Link fully charge an arrow and shoot it at Mega Man's face. I repeated this exact same scenario multiple times and found that Mega Man would only go into the special reeling animation some of the time.
This means that whether or not critical hit reeling will be induced is essentially random.
Even if all other factors are accounted for, you still need to get lucky.
We now know through data-mining that there is a 30% chance of the reeling animation being induced, all other factors being present.
Edit: I originally didn't make this a thread, but seeing as it was turned into one I decided to keep the OP up to date with new information as it comes in; with this in mind, a big thanks goes out to Lavani and everyone else who contributed information (which can be found below).
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