Understanding Landing Lag

Any time you land onto a grounded surface from the air you will be forced into a state called landing lag, unable to act for a short period of time. All characters have both default landing lag values and specific landing lag values should you land during an aerial. The standard default landing lag value is 4 frames, with the six heavy characters (Kragg, Etalus, Sylvanos, Elliana, Hodan, and Olympia) having an increased default value of 6 frames. While the landing lag mechanic is designed to slow you down to some degree, you’ll find that there are several ways that you can avoid the full extent of your landing lag. Here are some of things that you need to know if you want to speed up your play.

Hit vs. Whiff Copied to clipboard

Similar to how the endlag of most of your normal attacks works, landing lag has interactions with the hit cancelling (or whiff lag) mechanic. On hitting your opponent your landing lag is reduced by one third, allowing you to more effectively combo your hits without any extra input required. If this reduced value on hit is lower than your default landing lag it will increase to the default value instead.

Using Jumpsquat Copied to clipboard

If your aerial successfully connects with another character or object before you interrupt it by landing you will be able to cancel the last 5 frames of your aerial’s landing lag into jumpsquat, allowing you to become airborne on the same frame you would normally be actionable on the ground. Although this mechanic also works with your default landing lag, the ability to perform multiple aerials in quick succession or cancel your landing into a faster wavedash approach is invaluable in any character’s kit. Learning to hitfall your aerials and cancel your landing lag into jumpsquat is arguably one of the most important skills to learn if you want to improve.

It’s worth noting that heavy characters (Kragg, Etalus, Sylvanos, Elliana, Hodan, Olympia) arguably benefit more from being able to cancel their landing lag into jumpsquat. Since heavy characters’ default landing lag value is 6, they will be unable to cancel the entirety of the landing lag into jumpsquat, only the last 5 frames. Despite this, if an aerial’s on hit landing lag value for a heavy character is 6 frames or less it will be possible to cancel the full amount into jumpsquat, effectively allowing you to act 1 frame sooner than what should be possible. The below example of Kragg’s neutral air, a move with 6 frames of landing on hit, when cancelled into jumpsquat on the first frame of landing lag is fully actionable in the air on frame 6.

Cancelling Jumpsquat Copied to clipboard

As you can cancel your landing lag into jumpsquat, you are also effectively able to cancel it into other actions as well. There are obvious movement benefits of being able to wavedash out of your landing lag, which can then subsequently be cancelled into another attack of your choosing with the increased momentum. It is also possible to cancel your jumpsquat frames into either Up Strong (or Up Tilt as Wrastor) and Up Special. As a demonstration, the below clip presents an Orcane cancelling Nair’s landing lag directly into an up special to prevent their opponent from being able to tech before the attack begins.

Although this was only a 4 frame difference in the previous clip, this technique opens up a wide variety of combo options that would not be otherwise available, or at a minimum strengthens existing options by allowing you to begin them 4-6 frames earlier. There are not many Up Specials which have increased combo potential from this technique, but there are many notable examples of aerials that can link into Up Strong when cancelling the landing lag. The below clip shows a handful of aerials from across the cast (in alphabetical order) that can lead to a kill if you hitfall and cancel your landing lag directly into your Up Strong or Up Special.

Not all of these will connect reliably on all DIs, but some are extremely strong options (or even true combos in some cases) that make the threat of any of your aerials increase tenfold.

Special Override Copied to clipboard

As mentioned, the default landing lag value of 4 or 6 frames is incurred any time you land onto a grounded surface. However, it does not occur if you land during a special move, even if landing during the last frames of its endlag.

In the above clip, the Orcane on the left landed during the last frame of Neutral Special’s endlag, and so effectively incurred only 1 frame of landing lag. If the Orcane had landed during the last two frames of Neutral Special then there would be a 2 frame wait, etc. For Orcane Neutral Special in particular, timing this is pretty trivial as simply buffering the move during the jumpsquat of a shorthop works out perfectly.

Sylvanos can use Neutral Special about halfway into a fullhop and cut off some landing lag.

Kragg’s Rock Shine works particularly nicely because it can serve a similar combo purpose to Nair 1, and missing the timing is less punishing due to the move’s low endlag (4 frames) and FAF (13 frames).

This is far from a comprehensive list of moves that can override landing lag in this way, so experiment with your main and see what you can come up with.

Head into practice mode and start refining your options out of landing lag, and you’re guaranteed to see some results.