Drop cancel
Drop canceling is essentially the fastest way to use an aerial attack, leaving only one frame before the aerial attack's hitbox appears. In comparison, DJCFFL has 5 or 6 frames (the jumping animation) before the attack initiates.
The Concept
While dropping down from a platform -one frame after the initial crouch animation- characters are considered to be in the air. Because of this, they are obviously allowed to use aerial attacks. Drop canceling takes its name from the fact that using an aerial attack during that one frame causes the character to re-land on the platform, thus canceling the drop.
It's important to note that it is easier than usual to drop cancel an aerial attack that shifts your body upwards (like Falco's bair or Captain Falcon's uair), and conversely, it is harder (and possibly impossible) to drop cancel aerial attacks that generally shift you downwards (like Marth's dair).
How to do it
- Drop through a platform that you are standing on.
- Exactly one frame afterwards, use any aerial attack and l-cancel.
- If done correctly, you should be in the landing animation of the aerial attack on the platform that you dropped from.
Application
When used with aerial attacks that have little lag, a drop-canceled aerial attack can lead into lethal combos due to the incredibly small amount of lag. In comparison to SHFFL, the character's jump animation and falling animation are both eliminated, removing somewhere from 20-30 frames from an aerial attack. However, drop canceling could easily be considered the most difficult to use advanced technique in the game, requiring literally frame-perfect technical skill to be used consistently and effectively.
Advantages
- Erases the jumping and falling animations, replacing them with a 1-frame crouching animation.
- Slow-starting aerial attack are auto-canceled, creating a mindgame option.
- The quickness of the technique allows for fast combos.
Disadvantages
- Basically inhumanly possible to do consistently.
- Requires a platform which can be passed through.
- Only quick aerial attack will actually hit; all others are canceled.
