Waveshine
A waveshine is a wavedash done immediately out of a shine in Super Smash Bros. Melee. It can be done by Fox and Falco.
How to waveshine
A wavedash can be performed anytime a character is on the ground and can jump. The shine can be canceled by jumping shortly after it is initiated. Therefore, it is possible to jump out of the shine into a wavedash.
To waveshine, use the shine, then jump cancel into a wavedash out of it.
It is often easier to use the X/Y buttons instead of the control stick because it is considered harder to wavedash with only the control stick. The logic is that to jump with the control stick requires the stick to go up. To wavedash, the succeeding angle is angled towards the ground. This makes for more complicated manual motions, and should be avoided in order to achieve a speedy waveshine.
Users of the waveshine
Fox
The waveshine is generally used for combos with Fox. However, some characters fall over when shined. This presents a problem, and generally these characters are immune to waveshine combos. Note that if these characters crouch-cancel the shine, they will not fall over and can be treated as normal waveshine. Also, using an attack after the wavedash can cause a character who has fallen over to be "forced" to stand up (most noticeably a neutral attack). This is referred to as "Thunder's Combo."
A waveshine can be followed up by many attacks. The choice of attacks depends on how far the opponent is pushed away. For example, Peach is not pushed away very far at all, but Luigi is pushed very far away. As such, Fox's choice of move following a waveshine against Luigi is more limited.
Some of the most useful attacks used in conjunction are the up smash, grab, down aerial, or even another shine. Waveshining plays a vital part in Fox's infinite combo.
Falco
The waveshine is generally used to aid in Falco's vertical down aerial and shine combos. It gives Falco the added horizontal distance such that he can jump up and catch up with his opponent. This is especially useful against a DIing Fox. A waveshine followed by another wavedash makes Falco a combo machine.
Similar techniques
Waveshined Laser
The waveshined Laser is a very useful technique because it's a good defense and a good offense. To do this, use Reflector, Wavedash backwards without facing behind the player, and shoot as many Lasers that they want to shoot.
Waveshining is also a popular mixup when pillaring an opponent's shield. The waveshine allows the Falco player to move behind an opponent's shield to not get shieldgrabbed.
For both Fox and Falco, the waveshine can be used as a method of spacing and avoiding the lag after a Shine.
Dash shining
Dash shining is an advanced Brawl technique by Fox that greatly resembles waveshine. It is hard to pull off but is essential for advanced Fox play. To start off, the player must first have mastered the jump shine and foxtrot. To do a dash shine, the player first starts with a foxtrot. Out of foxtrot, the player must jump cancel their dash and immediately shine. If jump shined correctly, the player will instantly be able to dash again to start the whole attack over. Repeat if desired.
Waveshine infinite
A Waveshine infinite is an infinite in Super Smash Bros. Melee which uses the waveshine. The Waveshine Infinite can not be done with Falco, as his Shine has vertical knockback. Performing the technique and its variations requires knowledge of L-canceling, the Waveshine, and the short hop.
There are two general types of the Waveshine infinite. One can infinite an opponent either against a wall, which is generally easier, or on a flat surface, without a wall. Both types of infinites have multiple ways to perform them.
Another infinite is the Drillshine infinite. In order to Drillshine infinite combo, the player uses Fox's down aerial and must L-cancel it into his Reflector and wavedash out of it. This can be repeated multiple times. This combo is extremely hard to pull off and takes a considerable amount of practice and technical skill.
Another infinite combo can be used when the player gets on the edge. To perform it, the performer must triple jump (so they just hit the edge again, when they just move into it without actually finishing it and firing), fall, shine, jump cancel the shine, and repeat.
Limitations
The damage sustained from the infinite combo can go up to 999%, hence the name "infinite combo." Characters like Link, Peach, Captain Falcon, Ganondorf, Marth (only in the NTSC version), Bowser, and Samus cannot escape this if the Fox player is skilled enough. On the down side, the rest of the characters cannot be infinite combo'd. Most characters are knocked down from the Shine, and the player is unable to infinite combo a character if he/she is on the ground.
Land infinite
The player must waveshine into another shine and repeat, hitting the opponent each time. Even if the opponent uses DI or SDI, the Fox player can catch him by reflex, but this requires considerable technical skill.
IJC Shine
This is very similar to the other infinites, except that it doesn't include Fox's SH(FF)L'd down aerials. It is performed by shining, jump-canceling the shine, and before leaving the ground, shining again (ad infinitum). The IJC Shine is widely recognized as the most difficult non-glitch technique to perform, as it requires frame perfect precision.
It also is possible to SDI during the 4 frames before Fox leaves the ground, as seen in many of SuperDoodleMan's works. Considering that it is possible to double and triple shine on flat land, this may allow Fox to IJC Shine anyone, regardless of stage layout.
Wall infinite
This combo works on characters that don't fall over from Fox's shine. Against most walls, Fox can string together L-canceled down aerials into the shine. At this point, Fox can either jump cancel the shine and start another down aerial, or Waveshine out of it and start another down aerial. Both of these variations will work. The repetition of this drill-shine-drill-shine input results in an infinite combo. The down aerial may be short-hopped or full jumped.
The wavedash is used only to cancel the lag of the shine, and should be done so that Fox does not move forward. It is also possible to infinite against a wall by waveshining, then using the down aerial on an opponent, followed by another shine to repeat the process. This can also be done by jumping out of the shine instead of waveshining. As the down aerial is easily SDI'd, this is not as popular of a method, as it is much easier to escape. Another much harder method is to jump cancel the shine and SHFFL an up aerial so that only the first hit connects, then immediately shining. This is not a practical method, as it is very difficult to perform multiple times, and can also be escaped with good DI. However, it is possible to infinite someone using this method on Corneria, where normal wall infinites are not possible. The last possible way to wall infinite someone is to repeatedly multishine someone against a wall.
Against characters that fall down upon being hit by the shine, the only possible way to infinite them against a wall is to multishine. When a character that is lying on the floor is hit by the shine, he/she is pushed along the floor, and stands up when he/she stops sliding. If the character does not tech the first shine, that character can be kept in the animation of sliding on the floor by repeatedly shining them again before he/she has a chance to get up. This requires consistent multishining, and is thus very difficult to perform.
Wavedashing was removed in Brawl, therefore removing most of the waveshine infinites. However, Fox can still perform a simple wall infinite since the player must hold B in order to keep Fox's reflector in use. Therfore, the player can simply corner the opponent into a wall and keep repeating the Shine as many times as he or she wants until the momentum that the opponent recieves from the shine sends the opponent flying behind Fox. This works well in Shadow Moses Island and can also be done with Wolf.
Wall infinites are possible on: Princess Peach's Castle, Pokémon Stadium, Onett, Icicle Mountain, Brinstar Depths, Hyrule Temple, Green Greens, Venom, and Fourside.
Wall-less infinite
The wall-less infinite is performed by shining an opponent, chasing them with a wavedash, and following up with either a down aerial or another shine. Using the down aerial, however, is very unsafe, as the opponent can easily escape using Smash DI, which is easy to perform on the down aerial. Against characters that slide too far to be caught after only a wavedash, a dash is required before the down aerial. If the Fox player wants to infinite without a down aerial against characters with low traction, he has to Waveshine, run, and perform a run-canceled or jump canceled shine. This is considered difficult. Characters that fall to the shine cannot be infinited without a wall.
It can be performed on any level with a flat surface.
List of characters that cannot be waveshined
The following list refers to the characters that fall over when shined on the ground (lighter than 87 units):
- Falco
- Fox
- Jigglypuff
- Kirby
- Marth (PAL only)
- Mewtwo
- Mr. Game & Watch
- Pichu
- Pikachu
- Roy
- Young Link
