Gentleman

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The Gentleman refers to the third hit of Captain Falcon's standing neutral attack combo, when it is not followed by rapid punches. It involves C. Falcon kneeing his opponent, with low to moderate knockback at higher percents. It deals 10% damage in Smash 64, 8% in Melee, and 5% in Brawl and Smash 4.

Methods

There are several methods to perform the Gentleman. The player can perform the third punch by pressing any button in conjunction with the A (Isai finds this easiest to achieve with Z). S2J discovered that one can hold down on the control stick after the initial jab and continue the rest of the combo to get the Gentleman. The safest and most guaranteed (but not necessarily the easiest) method is to simply allow each jab to complete its animation. However, the first two methods do not work if the jab combo whiffs (even the last method has a chance of failing if the first or second jabs whiff), leaving Captain Falcon wide open if the opponent can escape it in time.

In the PAL version of Melee, the rapid jab doesn't follow the Gentleman by default; three A button presses will default to the Gentleman without continuing with the rapid punches, making the combo much safer on whiff and on hit. This also applies in Smash 4, where one can even simply hold the A button to get the Gentleman out of the jab combo; in fact, the rapid jabs and Gentleman act as different, completely separate enders to Captain Falcon's jab combo, as mashing the A button through the combo simply skips the Gentleman altogether (this is also the only way to get the rapid jabs, since they do not activate on whiff unlike the Gentleman).

Application

The Gentleman is often considered to be the superior ending to Captain Falcon's neutral attack combo, as it has little ending lag and usually knocks opponents away far enough for it to be safer than the rapid jabs that normally follow it. This also allows for much better followups at higher percents, potentially setting up an edgeguard situation or even for the Knee Smash where the rapid jabs would render Captain Falcon unable to do so otherwise.

In Brawl, the Gentleman has severely nerfed knockback for the purpose of reliably linking to the jabs. Because the knockback has been lowered to the point where it cannot knock opponents back a significant distance until 200% or kill even at sudden death percentages, cancelling the jabs for the Gentleman is nearly pointless.

In Smash 4, the Gentleman has reverted almost entirely to its Melee iteration, having increased knockback to set up combos. As mentioned above, it is much easier to perform, as one only needs to hit the A button three times or even simply hold down the A button to execute it. If one mashes the A button, however, Captain Falcon will skip the knee entirely and enter his rapid jab combo, which now has a knockback finisher of its own that makes it almost just as safe regardless.