Zelda's Guaranteed Footstools

[Mentor]

The following link lead to a spreadsheet that details % ranges in which you are guaranteed a footstool following the proposed move. I tested it on 5 characters of varying weight & fall speed.

https://mega.nz/#!bFA2iJoD!Uh3rursfX5LFrg_wbw7AM8ZR_h71oNI5gq_8mMf8898

Some additional info:

• Once footstooled, the opponent cannot do anything except tech for 43 frames. Yes, you can tech after getting footstooled- http://gfycat.com/HollowWebbedBaleenwhale - if you can cancel it with anything else before 43 frames, please let me know so I may edit this post.
• When footstooling someone into the ground, their only options are missed tech, tech in place, or tech in a direction.
• The good news is that the footstool animation lengthens the time with which they fall to the ground, which in turn increases the chance of them missing the 20 frame buffer window.
• If they miss the tech, you can sourspot dair/sourspot LK to get a jab reset, or sweetspot a dair.
• If you anticipate a tech in general, you can fast fall to LCNL to cover the tech in place, or simply fast fall to the ground.
• For a lot of these % ranges you need to be near frame perfect to have the footstool be a "combo".
• N/A on the sheet indicates it's never guaranteed/ not studied.
• There are other moves that can lead into a guaranteed footstool, but they require frame perfect inputs with the worst chosen DI (eg LC-NL where they DI towards you)

 

[G13_Flux]

the window from which you can act after a footstool varies by character. its not strictly 43 frames. some characters are above 50 frames if i remember correctly. will test later

 

[Mentor]

Ok. Let me know what the frame count range is and what it's based on & I'll update the post. I presume it's primarily weight based. It really shouldn't change the core aspects of this post regardless.

 

[luxingo]

Looks good.

When do you recommend going for the footstool rather than another option? For example, with a dtilt at those percents that lead to footstools, an utilt for the KO would often be a better decision.

Also, any suggestions for accurately spacing footstools? It almost seems like they require the precision of Jiggs' rests.

 

[Mentor]

Honestly, I made this list for the sake of style options. Having said that, I can make the argument why you could use this in tourney (although maybe not against top 50 players).

The primary reason to use this is for mixups. I'm a firm believer in throwing out a "That makes no sense" option about 2-5% of the time, so long as you can follow up from it. As I stated before, you can follow up from these with guaranteed options, assuming they don't tech/tech in place. If they're expecting it/reacting fast enough, they'll tech left or right & your best hope then is to bair/fair/fast fall waveland towards them/away from them.

D-tilt->footstool specifically has no "tourney" purpose as, yes, u-tilt will kill at those %s on most stages w/ most characters. However, at the lower %s on say dreamland, footstool (& they miss the tech) -> sourspot dair -> charged f-smash/d-smash/grab sounds like a mighty interesting way to go. Not necessarily the best/easiest option, but my wouldn't that look glorious? Not saying that there's better options or you're wrong, just trying to conjure a counterargument.

Sorry, I have no suggestions for spacing footstools, your character model has to pretty much intersect with the other character model. I think it's the orange collision boxes in debug mode need to intersect with each other, but it might be the hurtboxes instead? I can tell you that not nearly the same precision as jiggs rest/luigi shoryuken is required. I got a footstool testing w/ falco and all I intersected with was his leg. A way around this is to learn to hit the footstool button and your chosen attack button simultaneously, and react to whichever comes through as you do have a footstool animation that cannot be interrupted.

 

[luxingo]

Styling is good! I think a lot of Zelda players play for style as well as playing to win. The suggestion to input attack just in case the footstool is missed is good; jump works well offstage too.

And footstooling is legitimate for tournament play. I use it for edgeguarding sometimes, since it's like a frame-one meteor.