L-canceling: Difference between revisions

'''L-canceling''' (an abbreviation of '''lag canceling''' or '''[[L button]] canceling''', also called '''smooth landing''' on the official ''[[Super Smash Bros.]]'' website) is a technique in ''[[Super Smash Bros.]]'' and ''[[Super Smash Bros. Melee]]'' that allows characters to act faster than usual when landing in the middle of an [[aerial attack]]. L-canceling is done by pressing a shield button 11 [[frame]]s or fewer before landing during an aerial attack in ''[[Smash 64]]'', or by pressing the shield button 7 frames or fewer before landing in ''[[Melee]]''; the grab button also works because of its unique properties.

L-canceling is not present in ''Brawl''. It was removed because, like [[wavedash]]ing, [[Masahiro Sakurai]] felt that it made the gap between beginner players and advanced players too large. The lack of L-canceling acts as an indirect [[nerf]] to characters that have aerial attacks with heavier landing lag and/or low jumps (most notably {{SSBB|Ganondorf}}). To compensate for the removal of L-cancelling, many more aerials can be autocanceled in a short hop due to a combination of universally decreased falling speeds and more leninent autocancel windows. Every character in the game can autocancel at least one aerial in a short hop. Multiple characters benefit from having reduced landing lag on their aerials to partially compensate for the removal of L-canceling, with some examples including {{SSBB|Peach}}, {{SSBB|Kirby}} and {{SSBB|Samus}}.

L-canceling continues to be absent from ''[[Super Smash Bros. 4]]''. However, [[equipment]] may have the Smooth Lander effect, which automatically provides a similar result. Depending on the number of times the effect is stacked, landing lag from aerials can be cut to 0.7x, 0.6x, or even 0.5x as in ''Melee''. While some characters have had their aerials' landing lag reduced in the transition from ''Brawl'' (most notably {{SSB4|Ganondorf}}), most other characters suffer from increased landing lag on their aerials. In addition to this, the autocancel windows of many aerials were also increased, making it harder to autocancel aerials in a short hop, and very few aerials have gained the ability to autocancel. {{SSB4|Meta Knight}} is an example of a character adversely affected by both universal nerfs; he went from being able to autocancel all of his aerials in a short hop to only his up and down aerials, further exacerbated by the increased landing lag on all of his aerials. However, Meta Knight is not the only character affected by this.

L-canceling is once again absent in ''Ultimate''. However, the landing lag of many aerial attacks has been further reduced from ''SSB4'', lasting almost half as long overall and even rivaling or in some cases (such as with {{SSBU|Young Link}}) surpassing their L-canceled variants from ''Melee'', and many aerials (such as {{SSBU|Falco}}'s down aerial) have more leninent autocancel windows and decreased ending lag, enabling them to autocancel in a short hop unlike in ''SSB4''. Despite this, some aerials still have more landing lag than their ''Melee'' L-canceled counterparts or even their ''Brawl'' counterparts (with {{SSBU|Samus}} being a prominent example of this). The Landing Lag effect on some [[Spirit#Support Spirits|Support Spirits]] can also be used to reduce the landing lag of aerial attacks, similarly to the Smooth Lander equipment effect in ''SSB4''.