Absa on Hideout and Gates

Many newer Absa mains tend to dislike two main stages when starting out: Aethereal Gates and Blazing Hideout. The first main turn-off is that her up tilt can’t hit the top platform, which hinders her sharking abilities on both stages. These platform heights can also hinder her movement, since the platforms on both of these stages are very different from the “normal” platform heights on stages like Tower of Heaven, Frozen Fortress, Fire Capitol, Forest Floor, and many more. As a result, most Absa mains tend to strike these two stages immediately.

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Absa has a movement trick that turns Blazing Hideout from a instant ban to a more neutral stage for her. By using a 45° angle with the second zip of her Up Special, she’s at the perfect height to waveland on the top platform. This movement trick enhances her platform movement on this stage drastically, and makes Blazing Hideout into yet another stage that Absa can move seamlessly on.

By using this technique, you can safely pressure the top platform and move across the stage at lightning speed!

You can also start in the air, hit the ground with your Up Special, and then bounce off the ground at a diagonal angle and still waveland on the top platform. This allows Absa to be able to transition from the air to the top platform quickly.

This technique also works with a 135° angle moving backwards, in case you don’t feel like overcommitting with your Up Special movement.

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Despite Absa’s up special having two different heights for each zip (the second one is slightly longer), you can still use one diagonal Up Special to get a waveland on Hideout, though it’s a bit less smooth and consistent than using Up Special 2. By using her single teleport, you can sneak up to the top platform and enhance her movement even more. If your opponent catches onto you using the horizontal and diagonal approach mentioned earlier, mix them up with just a single teleport to catch them off guard!

Unlike Blazing Hideout’s platform height, the platform height on Aethereal Gates is the perfect height for a single teleport out of a waveland! While regular platforms are a bit too low, and Blazing’s is a tiny bit too high to make the one-zip method perfectly smooth, Gates’s unique platform heights are perfect for Absa to use a single diagonal teleport to her advantage as a movement option.

Utilizing these tricks, your movement can be refined on stages that were before considered awkward for Absa, and you can continue to pressure the platforms in more creative ways than ever! Pair this with cloud hops, aggressive wavedashes, and smart cloud usage and you can bend the entire stage to your will.

Have fun, young goats!