L-canceling
- This article is about the technique known as L-canceling. For the smasher of the same name, seeSmasher:L Cancel.
L-canceling (an abbreviation oflag canceling orL button canceling, also calledsmooth landing on the officialSuper Smash Bros. website[1]) is a technique inSuper Smash Bros. andSuper Smash Bros. Melee that allows characters to act faster than usual when landing in the middle of anaerial attack. L-canceling is done by pressing a shield button 11frames or fewer before landing during an aerial attack inSmash 64, or by pressing the shield button 7 frames or fewer before landing inMelee. The grab button also works because of its unique properties.
Only regular aerial attacks can be L-canceled;special moves that have landing lag cannot. If an attack isauto-canceled then L-canceling does not apply.
InSuper Smash Bros.[edit]
Better known asZ-canceling as theZ button is the shield button, L-canceling inSmash 64 is performed by pressing the Z button 11 or fewer frames before landing. Doing so causes the character's regular landing animation to play instead of the air attack's landing animation, reducing their lag to 4 frames. Compared to lag intervals in the 20-30 range, this can allow incredible attack speed when combined with techniques such asdouble jump canceling withYoshi andNess, resulting inshield break combos.
InSuper Smash Bros. Melee[edit]
L-canceling inMelee is performed by pressing L, R, or Z up to 7 frames before landing. Doing so causes the aerial attack's landing animation to play at double speed, cutting the lag time in half (rounded down). The L-cancel window can be considerably increased by pressing L, R or Z duringhitlag, which also results in an L-cancel when the character lands up to 6 frames after the hitlag. While the L and R inputs can be either analog or digital, digital inputs also trigger atech input.
L-canceling is a less effective technique than in the previous game because of the larger landing lag, which is further hindered by higher fall speeds and auto-cancel windows being less lenient across the board. While every character exceptLink could auto-cancel all of their aerials in a short hop in the previous game, onlyNess,Luigi andSamus maintain the ability to auto-cancel all their aerials in a short hop andPeach andZelda are the only newcomers who can auto-cancel all their aerials. Despite this, the decrease in lag is still significant enough to make L-canceled aerial attacks better than comparable ground attacks and it remains a vital technique in competitive play. This is especially true for characters with heavier aerial landing lag, most notablyBowser andGanondorf.
In later games[edit]
L-canceling is not present in later games. Starting fromBrawl, likewavedashing,Masahiro Sakurai felt that it made the gap between beginner players and advanced players too large[2]. The lack of L-canceling acts as an indirectnerf to characters that have aerial attacks with heavier landing lag and/or low jumps (most notablyGanondorf). 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 includingPeach,Kirby andSamus.
InSuper 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 inMelee. While some characters have had their aerials' landing lag reduced in the transition fromBrawl (most notablyGanondorf), 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.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.
InUltimate, the landing lag of many aerial attacks has been further reduced fromSSB4, lasting almost half as long overall and even rivaling or in some cases (such as withYoung Link) surpassing their L-canceled variants fromMelee, and many aerials (such asFalco's down aerial) have more leninent autocancel windows and decreased ending lag, enabling them to autocancel in a short hop unlike inSSB4. Despite this, some aerials still have more landing lag than theirMelee L-canceled counterparts or even theirBrawl counterparts (withSamus being a prominent example of this). The Landing Lag effect on someSupport Spirits can also be used to reduce the landing lag of aerial attacks, similarly to the Smooth Lander equipment effect inSSB4.
Notes[edit]
- It is impossible to L-cancelMr. Game & Watch's neutral, back, and up aerials due to using a nonstandard landing lag state (as they function asspecial moves, which cannot be L-canceled), similarly to howNess' up and down smashes act unusually.
