Marth (SSBB)/Down aerial
Overview
Marth does a forward to backward downward sword slash. When tipped, it is a meteor smash with high base knockback. However, the sweetspot is significantly smaller than the sweetspot in Melee. The end of the swing is slightly easier to tip with, so a RAR may help sweetspot it. With very low start-up of 6 frames, it is the second fastest meteor smash in the game (both Falco's and Fox's down aerials have a 5 frame startup). It is a risky and highly situational edgeguarding move, however, as it has very high ending and landing lag and the sweetspot cannot be consistently landed, especially on more competent players. Potential setups exist, but most are highly unreliable, like stringing a Forward aerial into his Down Aerial meteor smash on Snake. True set ups which exist are some true combos at 0% with one or two Forward throws. It's true on Fox and Falco and almost if not completely guarteed on Wolf, Snake and King Dedede as well (in King Dedede's case, he can do three Forward Throws in a row to his Down aerial meteor smash). Those set ups can lead to potential 0-deaths unless the opponent successfully Smash DIes to get sent onstage. Other set ups are landing the sweetspot out of a grab release, is notable for being more reliable and feasible in competitive play. However this setup is only works on a few characters - working on Meta Knight, Lucas, Squirtle, Wario, a solo Ice Climbers and Ness only. In Squirtle's case, Marth can grab release Chain grab across the stage and the plataform in Smashville cannot save him from this because of Squirtle's low grab release animation. Furthermore, other than Squirtle the setup is only fatal if Marth grabs those characters at a very specifc distance from the ledge. Another good, arguably less situational use of Down aerial, is for hitting opponents trying to juggle him when Marth is above them. It hits lower than his Forward aerial but it's still not the most reliable down aerial to intercept juggle attempts with because it has low hitbox duration and while its range below is decent, many Up aerials still outrange his Down aerial vertically.
Hitboxes
Timing
Attack
Initial autocancel | 1-5 |
---|---|
Hitboxes 0, 1, 2 | 6-9 |
Hitbox 3 | 7 |
Ending autocancel | 48- |
Interruptible | 60 |
Animation length | 64 |
Landing lag
Animation length | 32 |
---|
Lag time |
Hitbox |
Hitbox change |
Autocancel |
Interruptible |
Footstool spike
Marth's footstool spike (using a footstool to setup the move) is also a method of sweetspotting the attack, though this is unreliable, because of the difficult read needed to land the footstool.
Some characters are difficult or impossible to vertical space, as their falling speeds are too great. It is impossible to vertical space on Donkey Kong, Diddy Kong, Captain Falcon, Ike, Marth, Ivysaur, Ganondorf, Pikachu, Peach, Zelda, Sheik, Sonic, and Wario. However, it still works by footstool jump 2 times or more for a tipped down aerial to hit. It works best on small, light characters, such as Kirby, Meta Knight, and Jigglypuff, but even Bowser can be vertical spaced with little difficulty.
After testing, it has been confirmed that the combo can be used on certain characters, such as Link or Toon Link during their up special move.
Toon Link is able to meteor smash with this technique, although his does not blend fluently like Marth's. It is about stunning the opponent to set up for the spike frames at the beginning of Toon Link's down aerial.
Meta Knight is also able to perform a footstool jump to down aerial combo, but instead of spiking, the opponent is semi-spiked away. This can be used to gimp and stage spike, but a down aerial on its own is usually preferred.
Vertical spacing tutorial video
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