Editing Directional influence

[[File:DI-Melee.gif|thumb|The character [[name]]s show Ganondorf's [[Warlock Punch]] DI'd in different directions.]]

'''Directional influence''' (usually abbreviated '''DI''', and known officially as '''launch shuffling''') is the control the receiver of an attack has over their trajectory. Each attack sends its target in a particular direction; DI can be used to alter, but not completely change, this original trajectory. DI is executed by holding the control stick in any direction during [[freeze frames]] from an attack, before the character is launched.  

Directional influence is used for different purposes depending on a player's situation when hit by an attack. There are two main applications for DI: '''combo DI''' and '''survival DI''', both based on the same game mechanics. Combo DI refers to a player altering their knockback trajectory at low percentages while getting comboed. This makes it more difficult for the opponent to follow up or extend their combo, and can allow the player to escape some setups, such as the [[space animal slayer]] in ''Melee''.

 

Survival DI refers to a player altering their knockback trajectory at high percents in order to increase their travel distance towards the [[blast line]]. Good survival DI produces a trajectory that creates the greatest distance between the character and the blast line, or one that will help the character recover back on stage. In most situations, angling towards the upper-left or upper-right corners will grant the greatest chance of surviving a high knockback attack. This means DI'ing to the side when hit by a vertical attack, or DI'ing upwards when hit by a horizontal attack. Good DI allows a player to survive high-knockback attacks to higher percents than they would with no DI inputs.

 

Conversely, "poor DI" (often informally referred to with some form of mockery towards a certain region/player, such as "West Coast DI", or "{{Sm|PatG}} DI" in ''Brawl'') occurs when the shortest distance between the character and the blast line is created, or the angle sends the player into a position they cannot recover from when they normally easily would, such as [[Semi-spike|down and away from the stage]]. All control stick inputs will result in a DI input when a player is hit by an attack, so a player inputting another action (such as [[dashdancing]]) while getting hit can result in poor DI. Bad DI that results in a KO commonly occurs near the sides of the stage, when a character is hit diagonally while holding the [[control stick]] downward (commonly as a result of intentional [[fast falling]]), which sends them on a more horizontal trajectory, towards the closest blast line.

 

The technique should not be confused with [[smash directional influence]] (also known as smash DI or SDI). Although both techniques are used for escaping combos and surviving high knockback attacks, smash DI refers to altering a character's position during freeze frames, and the two are completely separate mechanics.

To determine the effective trajectory, the position of the control stick is read on the last frame of [[hitlag]]. [[ASDI]] is usually triggered by this as well. The highest deviation of trajectory is produced by directions perpendicular to the original knockback angle of the hitbox and amounts to approximately 18°, while also depending on how much the control stick is tilted in said direction; tilting it by a lesser amount will cause a weaker deviation. Holding directions that are parallel to the original angle will produce no survival DI at all. Because the possible DI angles are [[Media:Angles.png|not distributed equally]] (see diagram to the right), knockback angles within 17° of vertical or horizontal can be trajectory DI'd to a lesser degree, as no true correspondent perpendicular angle is available.

 

What DI is optimal depends on the circumstance. When players DI to survive moves that might otherwise KO, it is called '''survival DI'''. When players DI to escape follow-up moves that would otherwise combo, it is called '''combo DI'''.

Because survival DI generally involves DIing upwards, and combo DI generally involves DIing outwards and away, the combo game in ''Melee'' often comes down to a series of DI mixups. Using survival DI on a weak hit can lead to easy followups by the opponent, while using combo DI on a strong move can result in getting KOed at extremely low percents. Many players will preemptively DI outward while getting comboed. As a result, the attacking player will often throw out an unexpected move which punishes the player for their DI. Powerful horizontal moves are most frequently used as DI mixups, because a poorly DI'ed horizontal move can KO extremely early off the side blast zones, or send the opponent too far from the stage to recover. {{Mvsub|Falco|SSBM|forward smash|poss=y}} and {{Mvsub|Marth|SSBM|forward smash|poss=y}} are two of the most commonly used DI mixups.  

During the initial release of {{for3ds}}, LSI affected any angle with no restriction, giving it a significant effect on moves with largely vertical angles, while not incurring any significant compromise in DI due to the control stick already having to be held entirely vertically to achieve the full effect of LSI. More specifically, vertical finishers (like most [[up smash]]es) and [[meteor smash]]es could be survived for longer by holding down, while vertical combo moves (like most [[down throw]]s) would stop working earlier if the victim held up to be launched farther away from the attacker via LSI. Starting in patch [[1.0.4]], LSI has no effect if the launch angle is between 65° and 115°, or between 245° and 295°, preventing such moves from having their knockback altered by it and leaving DI as the only other, much less significant option against them.<ref>[https://twitter.com/Ruben_dal/status/820897784496852992 Ruben on Twitter: "In the meantime visuals to understand LSI: how it works, its conditions and multiplier formula"]</ref> However, this restriction takes DI into account rather than reading the base angle, which allows moves with angles differing from any of these thresholds by less than ≈9.74° (the highest angle difference caused by DI), such as 73°, to still fall out of range and be affected by LSI, disproportionately so compared to moves with other launch angles. The most notable example of this fault is {{SSB4|Charizard}}'s {{mvsub|Charizard|SSB4|up throw}}, which can normally KO at around 125%, but due to its angle of 70°, DIing it at roughly 295° deviates it enough to get it out of the LSI-disabled range and therefore creates both optimal DI and LSI, rendering the move unable to KO until around 155%; this is in stark contrast to {{SSB4|Mewtwo}}'s {{mvsub|Mewtwo|SSB4|up throw}}, which due to its angle of 90°, is immune to LSI and barely affected by DI, only KOing 4% later with the latter in effect.