Nairbounce
An intro to playing basketball as Orcane #beginner Orcane
We’ve talked about Fair, now we’re going to talk about the mechanic that makes Orcane’s second most unique aerial, Nair.
How It Works Copied to clipboard
If Orcane falls into the ground during Neutral Air’s active frames, and the attack button is held, Nair will “bounce,” continuing the active frames into a new hit travelling upwards. The frame data of Nairbounce is exactly the same as if it had not bounced, meaning that the hitbox is out for the same number of frames, ends on the same frame, and has the same amount of endlag.
You can bounce low by hitting the ground without fastfalling, or bounce high by fastfalling at any point before hitting the ground. Doing multiple low bounces in a row causes subsequent bounces to get shorter and shorter until it’s too short to bounce again. Bouncing high lacks this decay and always has the same height as Orcane’s fullhop.
Application Copied to clipboard
The fun part of this technique is that you can hit both the initial Nair and the upward part of the bounce! If you have a little bit of forward momentum when you hit a Neutral Air, and fastfall it, you can hit twice with the same Nair. Of course, you can hitfall the second hit, too.
Nair’s decaying knockback over the course of its active frames carries over through the bounce, so the second hit is always weaker than the first, allowing for more combo potential.
Another combo route many players opt for nowadays is to instead not hitfall Nairbounce, rising up with the opponent to then drag them down with a Dair or waveland onto a nearby platform.
Nairbounce isn’t just used for combos though! Though it doesn’t refresh your resources, the bounce itself is instant, meaning you are moving down on one frame, then moving up on the next. Skipping the usual landing lag that comes with landing with an aerial in this way makes it a fantastic movement and approach tool, and sometimes even a clutch recovery mixup.
That wraps up everything you need to know about the technique to get started. Good luck on the court, and go Lakers!