Fox (SSBM)/Forward aerial

Hitboxes of Fox's forward aerial, Tornado Kick.

Overview

Fox does five consecutive kicks in front of himself, with each kick having 3 active frames (for a total of 15) and an average of 7 frames between each kick. Officially known as Tornado Kick, the move is somewhat of a black sheep among Fox's collection of aerials; while not being awful or cursed with the status of avoid-at-all-cost, it still sees significantly less use than any other aerial due to its clunky nature and having niche applications. This subpar nature is not because of any one negative trait, but a collection of worse-than-average traits. These traits include:

• A higher landing lag than any of his other aerials 22 (11 L-cancelled), as opposed to 15/7, 9/18, & 10/20 for Fox's Nair, Dair/Uair, & Bair respectively
• An abnormally-high duration of ⅚ seconds, being unable to autocancel from a short hop and often leading to SDs when used offstage, unless the move is performed from the top platform.
• Extremely low knockback, with all hits being weaker than a late neutral air.

Adding to these negative stats, the move has a nasty habit of the victim falling out before the final hit, leading to them not being struck by all hits and potentially earning a free punish on Fox. This is an especially bad issue with the fast fallers (Captain Falcon, Fox, and Falco), who almost always fall out below 80%. The general rule is, the lighter the character and the higher their percentage (until the move starts knocking fighters too far away), the less likely they are to fall out. For this reason, the move sees much more use against the floaties, especially Jigglypuff, who is difficult to combo ordinarily.

Aside from its use in floaty matchups, there are, as mentioned previously, niche applications of the move. It hits slightly higher than neutral aerial, allowing some potential followups where no other move would hit. It can also be used as a rare DI mixup, as well as an occasional combo extender, turning the move's weakness of low knockback into a strength, especially when even the late hits of nair or bair would knock the opponent too far away; notable followups include up-tilt and up smash. Against fastfallers, the move's tendency to have its victim fall out can be used to set up reaction tech chases.

Hitboxes

ID	Part	Damage	SD	Angle	BK	KS	FKV	Radius	Bone	Offset			Clang	Rebound	Effect	G	A	Sound
Hit 1
0	0	7%	0		10	100	0	5.15592	13	0.0	0.0	0.0						Kick
1	0	7%	0		10	100	0	5.15592	13	4.6872	0.0	0.0						Kick
Hit 2
0	0	5%	0		10	100	0	4.655952	7	0.0	0.0	0.0						Kick
1	0	5%	0		10	100	0	4.655952	7	4.6872	0.0	0.0						Kick
Hit 3
0	0	6%	0		10	100	0	4.655952	13	0.0	0.0	0.0						Kick
1	0	6%	0		10	100	0	4.655952	13	4.6872	0.0	0.0						Kick
Hit 4
0	0	4%	0		10	100	0	4.655952	7	0.0	0.0	0.0						Kick
1	0	4%	0		10	100	0	4.655952	7	4.6872	0.0	0.0						Kick
Hit 5
0	0	3%	0		50	100	0	4.655952	13	0.0	0.0	0.0						Kick
1	0	3%	0		50	100	0	4.655952	13	3.906	0.0	0.0						Kick

Timing

Attack

Initial autocancel	1-5
Hitboxes	6-8, 16-18, 24-26, 33-35, 43-45
Ending autocancel	49-
Interruptible	53
Animation length	59

Landing lag

Animation length	22
L-cancelled animation length	11

Normal

L-cancelled

Legend (1 square = 1 frame)

Lag time

Hitbox

Autocancel

Interruptible

Similar moves

• Falco's forward aerial

References

Fox's moveset

Neutral attack (1 · 2 · inf) · Forward tilt · Up tilt · Down tilt · Dash attack · Forward smash · Up smash · Down smash
Neutral aerial · Forward aerial · Back aerial · Up aerial · Down aerial
Grab · Pummel · Forward throw · Back throw · Up throw · Down throw
Forward roll · Back roll · Spot dodge · Air dodge · Techs
Floor attack (front) · Floor getups (front) · Floor attack (back) · Floor getups (back)
Edge attack (fast) · Edge getups (fast) · Edge attack (slow) · Edge getups (slow)
Neutral special · Side special · Up special · Down special