Below is a list of major updates so that those who have already read this guide can find new or revised information quickly
UPDATE 11/18/14: I have expanded upon Section 14 on catch canceling to include information on catch canceling in place. There is a good deal more content now starting after the original material from the section. The section notes have been revised. Due to the additional study of catch canceling, I have found I slightly misunderstood the first type of downward dodge cancel and thus, have made minor edits to section 13 accordingly. Minor edits have been done throughout the guide for spelling and grammar.

This guide will assume basic familiarity with Towerfall but will, I hope, be easily readable for those who at least know the buttons and their general functions. In this guide I will talk almost exclusively about dodge canceling. First, I will begin with describing what it does and how to perform it in general terms (Section 2). Second, I will also include a brief explanation of what a frame is and how it affects dodge canceling (Section 3-4). Third, I will then move on to discussing the different types of basic dodge cancels (Section 5-7). Fourth, I will discuss how these dodge cancels can be combined with other inputs to create even more maneuvers not otherwise possible (Sections 8-14). Lastly, there will be a brief conclusion (Section 15). Throughout the guides entirety timed tests of various discussed topics will be presented along with a number of videos of discussed techniques being performed. Notes at the end of a section are just as useful as other information provided and are only written at the end because they had no seemingly natural place to write them despite being relevant to their section. Times stated are always tested numerous times before being included here but, due to the close time results, 100% accuracy cannot be guaranteed. In the case of an inaccuracy, a video showing results contradictory to mine would be greatly appreciated.

I was motivated to study dodge canceling and write this guide due to my love of competitive gaming and, of course, Towerfall. When I first started playing after buying Ascension for PC, I found the game fun, but felt it lacked some competitive edge. After studying dodge canceling for.... uh.... awhile, I now feel that dodge canceling is a crucial element of Towerfall that can make it competitive for those who wish to do so. I hope you all enjoy the guide and thanks Matt for making such an awesome game.

I always appreciate feedback so if you have anything to say please pass it on in the comments below =)

Dodge Canceling is a technique in Towerfall. It is performed by dodging in any direction and then pressing a dodge button once more at any point during the dodge. After the second press of a dodge button the character enters the walk/run animation and loses all aspects of dodging. Two of the largest implications of this are that you can start a new dodge sooner and that you keep whatever momentum you had from the dodge at the point you cancel.

The cooldown reduction for using a dodge cancel as opposed to a normal dodge is worth more discussion. Despite that in versus, when using the show dodge cooldown option, the stars indicating your dodge is on cooldown appears overhead as soon as one dodges, the cooldown appears to begin as soon as the dodge animation has ended. In tests, performing a dodge cancel at the soonest opportunity allows for a second dodge to begin 0.567 seconds after the first dodge is started. In contrast, after a normal dodge was begun it took until 0.734 seconds for a second to be initiated. The principle of canceling later resulting in more time between dodges holding true always appeared to hold after testing canceling dodges at various intervals but, it is one of the hardest principles in the guide to confirm for sure.

The keeping of momentum is a more simple advantage. As dodges begin fast and and slow, the sooner you cancel a dodge the faster you will go after the dodge cancel. This can be utilized to traverse the map significantly faster and dodge arrows (or even outrun them if done correctly).

Note 1: For those using a controller, this second dodge input need not be performed using the same button and will often be easier to utilize in a desirable manner when two separate buttons are used.

Note 2: The second press of a dodge button can be done at any point after the first dodge button is pressed, but pressing both simultaneously will be read by the game as a single input. This means that two simultaneous inputs will not result in a dodge cancel but a third input after the initial two can still allow for a dodge cancel.

Note 3: The show dodge cooldown option is mostly rendered useless as it starts at the beginning of a dodge and the time it is visible does not adjust according to when one dodge cancels. This means that a player who has just dodge canceled can dodge again while the stars indicating your dodge is on cooldown is still visible. Super jumps and triangle jumps (a term I use for a later discussed technique) also create this problem.

A frame is a single image of a picture that, when strung together correctly, create the illusion of a moving picture. A video game will have something called FPS, which stands for frames per second, that says the number of frames shown in one second. Towerfall runs at 60 FPS and so, when playing Towerfall, a player will see a new image updating them on the state of the game 60 times per second. This boils down to a new image approximately every 0.016 seconds. As dodge canceling is heavily affected by the time the player presses dodge the second time, I will at many points refer to the frame at which a player must press a button for a specific effect. When I make a statement about time in relation to seconds or frames, remember that for Towerfall you can always convert frames to seconds, or vice versa, at a rate of roughly one frame to 0.016 seconds. Later in the guide when I say that something must be done on frame X for some result Y to occur later in the guide, I mean it must occur at the time of or after the previous frame but before frame X for result Y to occur.

A dodge lasts 0.367 seconds and a dodge cancel can be performed at any point before that time. This may sound like you are given a lot of time to press the dodge button a second time but, there is a catch. Dodge canceling is a technique that will have a different result based on the exact frame. The most useful way to use dodge canceling is to gain speed not otherwise possible. Though there is little noticeable difference in a single frame difference in execution once the dodge is nearing its end, there is a very large difference early on. To show off the huge difference just a few frames can make the video examples just below should give you a good sense of it. Both of these dodge cancels are performed in left or right directions with the player never leaving the ground.

This dodge cancel was performed on frame 3

This dodge cancel was performed on frame 1

When one compares the times at which these frame take place the time difference may seem trivial, but hopefully it is now clear that when attempting to use a dodge cancel to get as much momentum as possible, every 0.016 seconds counts.

Dodge canceling can be performed in one of 6 basic ways, a left or right dodge from a standing position, from a left or right dodge from a crouching position, an upwards dodge, a downwards dodge, an upwards diagonal dodge, or a downward diagonal dodge. Dodge cancels are most effective in terms of speed when performed on the first frame. Thus, when I refer to a type of dodge cancel in relation to another, I am comparing them as if both where being performed on the first frame. I will now discuss each basic type of dodge cancel separately. Keep in mind that for all dodge cancels, unless stated otherwise, the momentum generated is in the direction of the dodge but, unlike a dodge , gravity effects the player as if they were not dodging after the cancel takes place (because they aren't dodging anymore). This section is split in two three parts. In the order they appear they are: this introduction, “Part 1: Standing and Crouching” and “Part 2: Up, down, and the Diagonals”.

Note 1: As dodge canceling on the first frame generates the most momentum players will want to master doing this consistently. The simplest way to tell if you are doing a dodge cancel correctly is to count the number of small particles generated by your dodge. A full dodge will leave many small particles in the player's wake. As a dodge cancel ends the dodge animation early, the particles also cease to be generated. Up until frame 12, 2 particles are generated per frame. This means that a player who dodge cancels on frame 1 will leave behind 2 particles indicating the fastest possible dodge cancel.

Note 2: After the 24 particle result of a frame 12 dodge cancel the formula of generating as many particles as the frame you canceled on times 2 appears to breaks down. I have no idea what exact frame this concept starts to fail, but I have tested it up through the frame 12. A full dodge generates around 33 particles and as a full dodge lasts over 20 frames it obviously stops working at some point. The difficulty of testing the exact number of particles at any given moment though becomes very difficulty in performing the exact right dodge cancel and even counting the particles due to large numbers having frequent overlap. As telling the difference between a frame 16 and frame 17 dodge cancel is almost entirely pointless the effort required to flesh out the exact workings here seems far from worthwhile.

A left or right dodge from a standing position
This dodge cancel can be used from the ground or in the air. Turning or firing will cause a massive loss of momentum but if the player moves in the direction of the dodge they will be able to travel quite far. The last way one can lose the speed generated is by touching the ground after being in the air. This happens when this technique is applied in the air and the player touches their first surface or when it is used on the ground but propels the player off of the surface. In the latter case, the momentum is lost upon touching any surface after leaving the initial one.

A left or right dodge from a crouching position
This dodge cancel is much like the previous one but can only be performed on the ground as there is no way to crouch in the air and jumping while crouching will force the player to stand. Being forced off of a ledge by an explosion or other effect will also force the player to stand, and holding down would become a fast fall instead of a crouch. There is two very important difference between this and its standing variant. First, this dodge cancel is significantly faster. Crouched dodge last the same amount of time as standing dodges, but the player moves faster during them thus, the high speed of crouched dodge cancels makes sense. An example of the full can be seen in this video.

The full speed of a crouching dodge cancel

Second, the momentum from this dodge cancel that is lost upon turning around or shooting is far less than the standing version. This second phenomenon is below and show in comparison to the standing version. Some would also say that it allows for hyper jumps but this in many ways false and I will discuss why in later sections.

A standing player dodge canceling left, turning around and shooting in the air

A crouching player dodge canceling left, turning around and shooting in the air

Note 1: In the above video comparison keep in mind that the the second surface is touched relatively soon after the dodge cancel and the difference in distance traveled is greater for larger drops.

Note 2: You may have noticed that in the last video of this section the player is not actually crouching. The dodge cancel executed is exactly the same as a crouching dodge cancel just with a different initial input that will be explain in a later section.

Note 3: The crouching dodge cancel will make you move faster than a normal arrow can fly. If you fire an arrow left or right and dodge cancel in that direction soon after or if you fire an arrow on frame 1 of your dodge cancel it is possible to overtake the arrow in flight and kill yourself with it.

An upwards dodge
This dodge cancel can be used in the air or from the ground and differs from a jump in several ways. First, player who dodge cancels upwards will go higher and reach maximum height before the jump has reached its shorter maximum height. Second, the jump will allow for far greater horizontal movement. Third, unlike a jump, an upwards dodge cancel will put your dodge on cooldown. Fourth, an upwards dodge cancel can be performed in the air where as a jump may only be performed in the air under two specific circumstances (how to jump in the air will be discussed in a later section).

A downwards dodge
This dodge cancel can only be used in the air and results in a slight downwards speed boost. Unfortunately, that momentum is anything but permanent and is quickly lost. In comparison with other methods of reaching the ground quickly from a short height it is the fastest by a decent margin. If a player jumps to full height there are many methods of reaching the ground again quickly. These included dodging downwards, doing nothing, fast falling, and dodge canceling downwards. The times to execute a full jump and reach the ground again using these methods were 0.801, 0.701, 0.665, and 0.568 seconds respectively. This speed makes downwards dodge canceling a reasonable method to avoid arrows in certain situations.

An upwards diagonal dodge
This dodge cancel can be performed in the air or from the ground. It goes in an arch pattern as the momentum from the dodge propels you up and to the side and gravity pulls the player down. It is similar to a technique called a triangle jump and the two are discussed and compared in a later section.

A downward diagonal dodge
This dodge cancel can be used in the air but, it also has two odd ground based variants that will be discussed later. When performed in the air this dodge cancel has a very predictable trajectory with the only other more obvious ones being the upwards and downwards dodge cancels. When used, the player is launched at a perfect 45 degree angle in relation to the ground at a decent speed making this a useful tool the effects of which can't really be replicated well by other techniques.

Note 1: An upwards dodge cancel is the only type of dodge that does not follow the rules about particle generation discussed in notes 1 and 2 from section 5 and appears to generate its numbers of particles semi randomly. A upwards dodge cancel on frame 1 may have the number of particles as one on frame 2 and two upwards dodge cancels on frame one may have different numbers of particles then each other. There are also particles that appear to be about four times the size mixed in with the normal particles further confusing matters. The best way to tell if you successfully upwards dodge canceled on a particular height is through height comparisons to previous results.

Note 2: It is not exactly true that there is no downwards dodge cancel. It is an oddity among dodge cancels and, due to its differences in execution and purpose, is reserved for a later section.

Being able to reliably dodge cancel frame 1 is a great start, but there are few less intuitive capabilities afforded by dodge canceling. While I covered all of the different directions one can dodge cancel and the different effects of them, there are some less intuitive capabilities that dodge canceling enables. I avoid calling them advanced techniques as they are not particularly hard to perform. However, in some sense they are advanced as adding all of the different directional dodge cancels can be difficult in its own right. Moving on and integrating those and all of the techniques below such that you can use them all at a moments notice when they would be most effective is a truly impressive feat. Even if you haven't mastered the previous material, I suggest reading the remaining sections as they offer insight into the possibilities for the future and can always be ignored for now and gradually adopted as you get more comfortable with the basics. This section is split into five parts. In the order they appear they are: this introduction, “Part 1: Stored Jump”, “Part 2: The Elevator”, “Part 3: Odd Down Cancels” and “Part 4: Catch Canceling”.

Part 1: Stored Jump
In one of the in-game tips the player is taught how to perform a technique called a super jump. A super jump is done by crouching, dodging and then jumping during the dodge. A player can always jump to stop a dodge if they are capable of jumping, but a seemingly special trait that some have probably noticed about a super jump is that one can jump from the dodge even if the player is no longer on the ground. This is much less odd than a player might initially imagine. It turns out that dodging or dodge canceling in any direction starting on the ground will store a jump. What I mean by this is that when the player leaves the ground after storing a jump, as long as they did not jump to leave the ground, they will be able to jump once in midair as if they were still on the ground. The big caveat in this is that the stored jump is lost after approximately 0.166 seconds in the air. This means that if a player dodges into the air they will only be able to use their stored jump within 0.166 seconds of the dodge . On the other hand, a player who is on a platform and dodges without leaving the platform could then stand idle for as long as they wanted and then, when they walked off of the platform, they would have the stored jump available for the next 0.166 seconds.

As I have just explained a super jump I might as well address the technique that people call a hyper jump. A hyper jump is performed by crouching, dodge canceling to the left or right and then jumping. Really, neither a super jump nor a hyperjump has any special properties. The odd momentum one has when jumping while executing a dodge, like during a super jump, is different depending on what direction one is dodging. All of these are simply different and none are superior in every way to another. A hyper jump is the easiest way to travel at the maximum speed across a large space and can be quite useful, but any player should remember that the tricks behind this and the super jump are just the ability to jump out of a dodge and, more importantly, the ability to store a jump.

Note 1: If you leave the ground and the last thing you were standing on was a jump pad, your stored jump will take the form of a jump from a jump pad.

Note 2: There are 2 videos that have examples of using a stored jump. They are the first video in Part 2 of “Further Techniques” and the last video in Sub-part 2 of “Part 2: Odd Down Cancels”.

An example of one of the many ways a stored jump can be utilized is through a technique I call the elevator. A common annoyance in Towerfall is traveling completely vertically. A typical way of sidestepping this issue is to use pits to reach the top of the map and get to the location from above. This is not always possible though and, even when it is, it may be slower or simply make your movements more predictable. The elevator is performed by dodge canceling upwards from the ground, jumping as late in the jump as possible, and the dodge canceling upwards a second time. The video below gives an example of the technique.

A use of the elevator that allows the player to ascend to an otherwise impossible height rapidly

The idea of dodge canceling from the ground, jumping and then dodge canceling again is a concept that should permeate into a player's entire game. Consider the other options one would be presented with as opposed to the elevator. They come down to, jump, dodge cancel, jump then dodge cancel, dodge cancel then jump, and the elevator. Dodge cancel and dodge cancel the jump are part of the elevator so if you do not need the extra height you simply can stop it early. A normal jump will get a player less height than an upwards dodge cancel and reach its maximum height slower, with the advantage being you still have your dodge available. While the jump in to the upwards dodge cancel may seem like the better option for intermediate distances, the elevator still prevails speed wise. The full elevator will reach it significantly higher maximum height at almost exactly the same speed as a jump in to upwards dodge cancel and in both cases your dodge will be on cooldown. While in a straight contest of speed and maneuverability using the elevator and methods like it would be a no brainier, anything can happen in a real game so do not rule out any options.

Here is a video of a jump in to an upwards dodge cancel for comparison to the elevator

There are two reasons I did not include the idea of using jump to dodge cancel to dodge cancel in my comparison and they are worth thinking about. The first and most important reason is it is missing the key element that gives the elevator its unparalleled maximum height. The elevator can go high because a players dodge goes on cool down 1 frame after leaving the ground as the player first cancels their dodge . The player then bides their time by using their stored jump to ascend further. By the time the jump has reached its apex the players dodge is off of cooldown and can be used for an additional dodge cancel. The jump to dodge cancel to dodge cancel option would have its dodge cancel on cooldown as it attempted to dodge cancel again and would drop quite far before being able to dodge . The other reason is that even if the two dodge cancels could be done back to back it would still be slower than the elevator. This is because when a player jumps from a dodge or dodge cancel they keep the momentum. When a player begins with a jump the jump is sluggish. When a player begins with a dodge cancel a stored jump from their will keep much of the dodge cancels speed. These points on why the elevator are good are the main reason this section was included. Even when the elevator is not the right tool for a job, one should remember that a dodge cancel into a stored jump is significantly faster than a jump in to a dodge cancel, and that the former approach brings a players dodge off cooldown sooner which can even allow another dodge cancel in any direction.

Note 1: The Note 1 of the previous section holds for the elevators and will likely be its most common application. As the elevator exists to gain height, an upwards dodge cancel off of a jump pad will store a jump pad jump, using the stored jump will send the player rocketing upwards and can, as always, be followed by another dodge cancel.

Though I claimed earlier that downwards and downwards diagonal dodge cancels could only be done in the air, this is only true in the sense they do not perform as one might imagine they would based on their more intuitive aerial variants. Both downwards and downwards diagonal dodge cancels on the ground actually have two variants. One version is accomplished by performing the dodge cancel off of the edge of a solid surface. The other version is accomplished by using the dodge cancel in any other way on the ground. I will explain all 4 in the order of, from first to last, downwards diagonal dodge cancel on the ground, downwards diagonal dodge cancel off of an edge, downwards dodge cancel on the ground, and downwards dodge cancel off of an edge. These will be split among 2 sections where one section deals with the 2 downwards diagonal dodge cancels and the other deals with the 2 downwards dodge cancels.

Downwards diagonal dodge cancel on the ground
If you noticed that dodging diagonally on the ground results in a dodge where the player is crouched, then the workings of this dodge cancel should come as no surprise. Dodge canceling downwards diagonally when on the ground will perform exactly as a crouching left or right dodge cancel. This may sound redundant but it is actually awesome. As a crouching dodge cancel is the fastest dodge cancel that can even outrun an arrow, being able to perform it without crouching first is very useful. If a player need to crouch first that would take a frame. Bypassing the need to crouch first allows a player to gain their speed on frame 1 rather than on frame 1 after crouching which would be a frame later. Thus, this method of performing crouching dodge cancels is superior in all situations other than when the player is on an edge and attempting to do the dodge cancel off of the edge in which case this method cannot be used at all. If a player is already crouching then the original method and this one will take the same amount of time to execute. This dodge cancel was used in the last video of Part 1 of “The Basic Types of Dodge Cancels” and can be used as an example.

Downwards diagonal dodge cancel off of an edge
This dodge cancel behaves more strangely than any other. While most of its behavior makes sense, the angle at which it projects the player is strange and unlike any other maneuver in the game. If a player is on an edge facing either direction and executes a downwards diagonal dodge cancel in the direction of the edge they will move in a way similar to that of the downwards diagonal dodge cancel in the air. The angle is different though and is between that of a downwards diagonal dodge cancel and being parallel to the ground. Working heavily in this techniques favor is that it moves at the speed of a crouching dodge cancel. If one looks carefully this speed is due to the fact that after a downwards diagonal dodge off of an edge, though the player is standing due to being in the air, their speed and distance traveled are equivalent to that of a crouching dodge cancel. If a player performs a standard downwards diagonal dodge cancel off of an edge, they will travel at the typical angle for a downwards diagonal dodge, but will have the speed and distance of a crouched dodge. Thus, this dodge cancels speed makes sense while the justification for its trajectory is a mystery. The below video will help you see if you are performing this technique correctly. It also shows off the odd angle it has that allows it accomplish otherwise impossible feats.

A downwards diagonal dodge cancel used to get an otherwise very difficulty head stomp with a single dodge cancel

Downwards dodge cancel on the ground
This dodge cancel is the hardest to perform making it rather fortunate that it is the most useless. As holding down makes a player crouch and continuing to hold down when a player dodges will result in a crouching dodge in the direction their character is facing a player cannot hold dodge to use this technique. The player must instead press the down and the dodge buttons at the same time. This would not be particularly hard if not for the fact that pressing down and dodge at the same time simply results in a crouch. Thus, to perform a downwards dodge cancel on the ground, a player must press down, dodge and then, before the frame 1 but after the first dodge, dodge again. If a player attempts to cancel the dodge on frame 1 the players first dodge will have been ignored and the player will not be crouching. The result of this is just a simple crouching dodge cancel. It is virtually impossible to discern the exact time frame one has to cancel the dodge but it is easy to tell that it must be done more then 0.000 seconds after dodge and down are pressed, but less than 0.016 seconds after dodge and down are pressed. The result will appear as if the player is dodging in place, as seen in the following video.

A downwards dodge cancel on the ground

The player does not move and, as the window is so small, the dodge cancel is the same every time it is performed. Though the player appear incredibly small during a portion of this dodge cancel, the characters size is just that of a crouching character and offers no additional protection. While this appears to be possible perform reliably, as I have gotten better at it with time, it is still immensely difficult. Though as of this point in the guide, dodge canceling in place may sound useless, the technique discussed in the next section can utilize it in many situations and even allows for these in-place dodge cancels to be performed in a reliable manner.

Downwards dodge cancel off of an edge
This dodge cancel must be performed on an edge and facing the edge it will be performed off of. Unlike the downwards diagonal dodge cancel off of an edge, a player must have their character much farther off of the edge before they can perform this dodge cancel. If taking the smallest step a player can possibly take, their character would need to be at most 2 steps from falling off of the edge before they could perform this dodge cancel. As discussed before, to achieve a downwards dodge on the ground a player must press down and dodge at the same time. If a player is standing in one of the 2 spots for which this maneuver is possible and facing the edge they will be dodging off of, then they will dodge straight down with the speed and distance of a crouching dodge . This dodge can then be canceled as any other dodge. While very incredibly difficult to pull off reliably in a match, it can prove very useful due to the fact that the dodge cancel is tied with several others as the fastest way to travel. It is significantly quicker than fast falling and a player utilizing it would reach the bottom of a map from the top long before a player who simply fast falls or even one that uses downwards dodge cancels but only from the air. As it can be hard to tell sometimes if you have walked off of a platform and dodge canceled downwards or done so just before falling off of the edge, a way to know for sure without timing ones descent is to look at the particle effects generated by the player. A player dodging or dodge canceling in the air will generate tiny particles but never smoke clouds made by other moves such as jumps. A player who performs a downwards dodge cancel off of an edge will always leave behind the aforementioned puffs of smoke. To see how it actually looks there is a video below.

A downwards dodge cancel off of an edge

There have been a lot of videos so far, all of which give an example of a specific technique being performed. Now that you know everything other then catch canceling, I will provide a video that will show an example of what can be accomplished when a player combines many different techniques they have learned here. I hope this video shows the vast potential of the concepts here and provides inspiration for those who wish to combine this concepts in new and interesting ways.

The character in this video performs a downwards diagonal dodge cancel off of an edge, uses his stored jump, and then uses an upwards diagonal dodge cancel to kill the other character

Note 1: A player not facing the edge who attempts to downwards dodge cancel off of an edge is really just trying to perform a downwards dodge cancel on the ground even if they are as far as one can possibly go before falling off.

Note 2: If a player is far enough out on an edge such that a downward dodge cancel off of an edge could be performed but they are facing the wrong direction, a player can still perform a downwards dodge cancel on the ground. If they do this then even if the player turns around all further attempts to perform a downwards dodge cancel off of an edge become attempts to perform a downwards dodge cancel on the ground. This odd phenomenon lasts until the player moves.

Note 3: The head stomp in the last video could not have been accomplished with any other string of moves without touching a second surface. A hyper jump would be an obvious option to try, but the character would hit the ceiling and no longer be able to reach the opponent, never mind stomp on their head.

The last, but certainly not the least, of the techniques taught here is catch canceling. The idea is very simple, when catching an arrow the player appears to be in sub-mode of dodging. They qualify as dodging, but take on a few additional traits. Any arrow that hits them is caught, the area that they can get hit by an arrow and thus, catch it, is larger, the catch state lasts for the remainder of the dodge , the time the dodge takes overall is unchanged, at the end of the catch the player enters the walk/run state, and the player loses almost all momentum very quickly. One thing that is not different is that a player may still cancel there dodge which ends the dodge and thus, the catch, prematurely. A dodge cancel made while a player is catching is no different from a normal dodge cancel and can be performed starting with any dodge. However, there are 3 important principles to keep in mind when attempting to catch cancel effectively. The first is that a player must stay dodging until they connect with the arrow they are attempting to catch. If a player does not do this, then if they still connect with the arrow they will be in the walk/run state when they do so and will die. This means that catch canceling into a dodge cancel on frame 1 can be challenging. To accomplish this, a player must dodge such that they are struck by the arrow between the frame they dodge and the following frame. Between these frames the player must also cancel the dodge. The player will be struck by the arrow between the frames which is after the player dodged, but, upon the next frame appearing, the player will find themselves in a dodge cancel. The second is that a player will be losing momentum rapidly after catching. This makes having the dodge canceled immediately after the arrow is caught important to maintaining momentum. Any frames spent in the catch animation will severely lower the player's momentum after the catch. The third is that if a catch is made early in a dodge, not canceling the dodge will leave the character able to catch for a fairly long period and they can easily catch multiple arrows. If a player cancels a catch they will immediately be vulnerable to being hit by arrows again. To show what a catch cancel on frame 1 looks like, a video is provided below.

A downwards diagonal dodge on the ground that leads to a catch before frame 1 converted, by applying another dodge input before frame 1, in to a frame 1 downwards diagonal catch cancel on the ground

Two types of dodge cancels will keep the player in the same location. One example has already been mentioned above, the downwards dodge cancel on the ground. The other method is what I call a koala cancel. This is when the player is hanging on to a ledge and dodge cancels towards the ledge. A dodge cancel from a ledge is the same as one done in the air, so in this case the player simply re-grabs the ledge as soon as the cancel is performed. These would be useless for maneuvering around the map, but if a player takes a shot from a position where they will not get another shot at you soon (such as through a gap while falling), one may want to keep their position and want to act immediately on the frame following the catch, and can do so using these dodge cancels to catch cancel. Both are exemplified in the videos below.

An in-place catch cancel

A koala catch

Note 1: I wrote above that performing a perfect catch cancel can be difficult, but that is not for the usual reason that a dodge cancel would be challenging. The reason is due to the fact that the player must dodge less than 0.016 seconds before being hit by an arrow, otherwise they will already be on frame 2 or higher by the time they can safely cancel. If the player can dodge at the last opportunity, the rest is actually made easier, as the catch appears to offer an additional frame of opportunity to cancel without losing momentum. This means that after the dodge the player can cancel during the first frame, or the frame after the catch, effectively doubling the window of opportunity to catch an arrow. The extended window makes in-place dodge canceling reliable and a useful way to catch cancel

Note 2: Catch canceling could have been added to the last video of Sub-part 2 of Part 3 of “Further Techniques” to combine even more principles and place it in this section, but it could not be done without three characters and the execution would have been exponentially harder for me as I am managing the controls for all of the characters. If I find a friend who will do assist me I may remake the video with this inclusion and move the video here as I believe it works better the closer it is to the end of the guide.

Congratulations! If you actually managed to read through this entire guide you have read through the equivalent of over 20 pages of typing. When I discovered dodge canceling and realized how little information was out there about it I was determined to write guide about it. I wanted to do it justice though and thus, set forth to learn as much as possible first. That and all of this writing took.... well lets just say it took longer than I expected. If you found this guide useful I hope you will spread the word about it and share it with others. If you did not find it useful or had certain issues with it I hope you will get in touch with me so I can make sure this guide is the best it can be. Thanks for reading everyone!