Marth (SSBM)/Down aerial

Overview

The hitbox of Marth's dair.

Marth does a forward to backward downward sword slash. When sweetspotted, it sends opponents downwards. In the NTSC versions of Melee, the attack is a spike as its diagonal angle of 290 is outside the range of detectable meteor smashes. The angle was changed in the PAL version to be an orthogonal 270, making it a meteor smash. It has very low startup lag, but also very high ending lag, which combined with Marth's lackluster recovery, makes it a rather risky move to use too far offstage. However, its long horizontal reach makes it a great tech chase option (for reading rolls), as well as a useful OoS option. The move can also be used to intercept predictable and/or linear recoveries. The most notorious use of the move is as the finisher to the Ken Combo - a ground jump, forward aerial, double jump, then down aerial. The combo can easily be started with a move such as an up tilt or up throw. Due to its very high effectiveness in the NTSC versions, it can put a winning game out of reach or allow a losing player to make a comeback, but it is rather difficult to perform. The ability to meteor cancel the move in PAL regions makes this combo substantially less effective.

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Hitboxes

NTSC

ID	Part	Damage	SD	Angle	BK	KS	FKV	Radius	Bone	Offset			Clang	Rebound	Effect	G	A	Sound
0	0	13%	0		40	70	0	0.0140616	76	0.0140616	0.0	0.0						Burn
1	0	10%	0		40	70	0	0.0140616	76	0.0	0.0	0.0						Slash
2	0	9%	0		30	70	0	0.0140616	71	0.0	0.0	0.0						Slash
3	0	9%	0		30	70	0	0.0140616	25	0.0	0.0	0.0						Slash

PAL

ID	Part	Damage	SD	Angle	BK	KS	FKV	Radius	Bone	Offset			Clang	Rebound	Effect	G	A	Sound
0	0	13%	0		40	70	0	0.0140616	76	0.0140616	0.0	0.0						Burn
1	0	10%	0		40	70	0	0.0140616	76	0.0	0.0	0.0						Slash
2	0	9%	0		30	70	0	0.0140616	71	0.0	0.0	0.0						Slash
3	0	9%	0		30	70	0	0.0140616	25	0.0	0.0	0.0						Slash

Summary:

• Tip is now a meteor smash, not a spike.

Timing

Attack

Initial autocancel	1-5
Hitboxes	6-9
Ending autocancel	48-
Animation length	59
Interruptible	80

Landing lag

Animation length	32
L-cancelled animation length	16

Normal

L-cancelled

Legend (1 square = 1 frame)

Lag time

Hitbox

Autocancel

Similar moves

• Roy (SSBM)/Down aerial

Marth's moveset

Neutral attack (1 · 2) · 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
Floor attack (front) · Floor attack (back) · Edge attack (fast) · Edge attack (slow)
Neutral special · Side special · Up special · Down special