Marth (SSBM)/Down aerial

Overview

The hitbox of Marth's dair.

Marth's down air is considered to be the second best spike in the game behind Falco's. Feared for its deadly consistent ability to take stocks, the move is a staple move in Marth's metagame and is the go-to finisher for many of Marth's aerial combos. The simplest and most well known of these combos is sending an opponent upward with a forward air and then doing the dair afterward from a jump; this is known as the Ken Combo.

Despite having many setups, the move is still just as deadly on its own. Its wide range and disjoint allows it to cover most low recovery options; indeed with good timing many Marths can use a ledge hop down air to catch opponents recklessly jumping or recovering back to the stage for a rather efficient KO. The move also has many uses that don't involve edgeguarding. The move is very fast and with its reach can be used to setup combos or tech chase in a similar manner to Falco's down aerial or Captain Falcon's down aerial. The move can even be used to out of shield to punish cross-ups to great effect.

Still the move has drawbacks. While Marth's dair is nearly as fast as Falco's, is more powerful and has more reach, its duration isn't nearly as long and has a much larger sourspot. This means there aren't nearly as many situations where it can be landed on its own without proper timing. Additionally the move has much more endlag, making it much more punishable on whiff. The move also has a slight flaw in the PAL version of Melee where it is a meteor smash instead of a true spike. This means because of its rather low hitlag compared to other meteor smashes, it is relatively easier to meteor cancel on reaction. However, as a trade off, the more vertical angle in PAL allows the move to combo and setup better on stage. Regardless of its drawbacks though, the move plays arguably the most important role in Marth's game as his go-to offstage finisher and edgeguarding move and is very much needed in matchups where stocks must be taken as efficiently as possible, most notably the space animal matchups.