Sora

Use the navigation/TOC on the right for convenience

Intro

The purpose of this guide is to teach players the general combo tree of Sora's combos. Sora's combo structure relies on a few key moves, and he can follow up, extend, or shorten combos in multiple ways. Damage scales with how good your execution is. This page is an attempt of displaying Sora's combos in comprehensive manner regardless if they are simple or advanced. This is to make it easier to not only execute the combos, but also understand where you may fail.

If you are a novice or not confident in learning Sora because of his skill ceiling, don't concern yourself with what you should or shouldn't learn. Take things one step at a time, get comfortable with the character, and slowly develop how much you push your Advantage and combo/punish game. The character is flexible in playstyles, and many players with different playstyles have all seen success playing how they want to push the character.

If you want a general overview of how Sora combos tend to operate in a video format, watch Dusty_Carpets combo video. It is a well made, cohesive piece of information on Sora's combo game that can give you a great idea of where to start. You can find his video in the resource page under "videos".

Lastly, it is recommended to read this page in chronological order. Some explanations are very important to not skip to understand important nuance. The goal of the reader does bypass this recommendation unless if it is to fully understand the depth of Sora's combo game.

Terminology

Here is some common terminology you should familiarize yourself with:

N-Air1: This is referring to the first of three N-Airs
N-Air2: This refers to the second N-Air of the three
N-Air3: Refers to the third and final N-Air.

F-Air1: This is referring to the first of three F-Airs
F-Air2: This refers to the second F-Air of the three
F-Air3: Refers to the third and final F-Air.

N-Air1,2/N-Air12: Refers to hitting both N-Air1 and N-Air2 in quick succession, akin to just holding down the attack button. N-Air1 and N-Air2 will be written separate when there is more timing, or for combo recipes. It is very common to say "Nair12-> UpSmash" when talking about Sora. What they are referring to is that there is a fastfall after N-Air2. It is impossible to gain enough frame advantage from doing N-Air1 and N-Air2 rising from a SH just to normal fall into an U-Smash for a true combo. You need proper timing from N-Air1 too N-Air2 and fast fall within the startup frames.

For clarity sake, "Fastfall" will be mentioned whenever it occurs. Just keep this in mind when discussing this with other Sora players when communicating through other forums, chats or discord. The exact same applies for F-Air.

An example of the aforementioned combo "Nair12->UpSmash" will be written as: N-Air1>N-Air2>FF>U-Smash in this page

Aerial Sweep: Up-B

Sonic Rave: Side-B

IDJ: IDJShorthand for "Instant Double-Jump", a technique used to Double Jump as low to the ground as possible., or Instant Double Jump. Very important to learn if you want to push this character to its limit.

L: Refers to when landing normally without fastfall

FF: FastFall, when using this acronym it is always assumed for this page that Sora will land before he can do anything else.

FS: Footstool. For this page, Phantom footstool will just be referred to as "Phantom-FS"

FH: Full Hop

SH: Short hop

SHR or FHR: Refers to rising short hop or rising full hop.

Note for SHR: Most of the SHR starters can also be interpreted as just landing from a platform, or from doing grounded footstools. The most common timing to use are the SHR starters, and inconsistencies may lie in using the other two.

SHA or FHA: Refers to when doing the move at the apex of a specific jump.

Most combos will have difficulty levels. They range from Beginner, Easy, Moderate, Difficult and Godlike . Some of these combos are very unintuitive to learn at first, but a lot of people have gotten these combos at least once or twice. The sky is the limit.

Combos

Core Moves

Combo Tools to be Aware of

Combo Starters

N-Air

N-Air is Sora's core combo tool. This move enables not only a great punish game, but also a great neutral game. Any part of N-Air can start a combo, what combo you can start depends on a number of factors that will be covered.

F-Air

F-Air Is another important combo tool that helps to complete certain combo routes that would otherwise be impossible. It is less flexible than N-Air for combos, but that doesn't make it less impactful. Mastering this move is just as important as mastering N-Air. This is the move Sora uses to dragdown his opponents for certain combos. Great for ending combos due to how effective it is at unstaling and damage output.

U-Air

U-Air while falling can lead into other aerials such as N-Air, F-Air or into Uair itself. At high percents, this loses its combo potential and becomes a kill/setup option instead. This is Sora's most reliable combo ender as well due to its consistency both in frames and hitbox wise.

D-tilt

D-tilt is Sora's main grounded combo starter or extender. It can also be a kill confirm. Just be wary of how the opponent DI's, as it will change what followups you can go for.

Grab

D-throw at low percentages is useful as it pops the opponent up in place for a rising N-Air or F-Air. At medium it can still consistently combo into Uair.

Firaga

Firaga's first hit leaves the opponent in significant amount of hitstun, enough for a Dash-Grab and Dash-Attack. Sometimes you can even connect this into U-Air or U-Smash. This is only true from the first fireball, since the second in succession will have significant less hitstun, which will give the opponent enough time to shield.

High impact combo enders

U-Smash

Up Smash is one of Sora's most important combo finishers. A lot of extenders sends the opponent upwards, making this a flexible kill option for finishing many of his combos.

F-Smash

Sora's strongest knockback move. F-Smash is the least flexible combo ender due to the routes setting the opponents hurtbox up and away from Sora.

Up-B

The second most flexible kill confirm option after U-Air. Although DI can make this move kill later, Aerial Sweep is a consistent Combo Ender which has a lot of routes that end into it. There are some routes that exclusively can only end with Up-B due to its range and availability.

Combo Theory

As mentioned above, N-Air is one of Sora's core combo tools. One could almost say it is the "key" to his combos. N-Air1 spins his sword all around him with significant hitstun. Because the move has a lot of hitstun, you can both rise and fall with N-Air1 and get a follow up afterwards. There are a lot of combo starters in this game that are not great neutral tools because of their lack of safety or flexibility. Sora's N-Air is able to satisfy both of these conditions. His N-Air1 both has good range, mixups on hit and on shield.

To understand N-Air more deeply, look at this image made by WhyDo (@WDBTHtGP on Twitter) that could make things easier to understand.

For reference, "Nooping" is the act of looping someone with just N-Air1 and N-Air2 over and over again. "Foops" also exist, but are even more niche.

The point of the image is that there is a world of difference between each hitbox. Technically, there are way more hitboxes with different values in angles, hitstun and knockback other from just these. The hitboxes displayed have actually the least amount of hitstun out of any of the other hitboxes in N-Air1, which is 18 remaining hitboxes! The main reason this is highlighted is because it is the first frame which is very common to connect with. WhyDo's image also highlights a "garbage hitbox". This hitbox is typically unfavorable due to its low knockback angle and low hitstun preventing it from confirming into certain moves, like F-Smash. This hitbox stands out from all other of Sora's N-Air1 hitboxes, the "garbage hitbox" gives significantly less hitstun, and puts the opponent in a weird angle, atleast relative to the other hitbox angles. There is a combo where this hitbox becomes important to hit, but it is the exception and not the norm. There is even exceptions to this when it comes to matchups and rage. Check the Ars Arcanum section for more.

In terms of hit advantage, at low percent (i.e having no rage), against an opponent with 0 percent, the hilt hitbox in WhyDo's visual is 18 frames, 17 frames at the tip, and 12 frames in the middle. The remaining hitboxes after the first frame of N-Air1 are between 19-23 frames. These values are hit advantage from landing right after you connect them. Even if you connect with the "garbage hitbox" you can still connect with N-Air2, the question is if you can get the timing and spacing right, both for reacting properly with N-Air2 and connecting it so you can get the desired followup. How you land these hits will determine the followups. A core part of Sora's combo game is to delay the N-Air2 after connecting N-Air1

There is also an important thing to consider regarding execution of the combos. Rage and opponent percent are equally important to consider. Some combos get easier and harder the higher these factors are. WhyDo is correct that you can't DI Sora's N-Air1,2 at frame 1. There are a lot of similarities with F-Air1,2 as well, there are exceptions though, since some parts of the move does send into tumble. The back hit of N-Air1 will always send into tumble, and others like parts of F-Air1,2 will only send into tumble at high percent and rage.

Now that we have learned some intricacies of N-Air, it's time to move to its cousin, F-Air

F-Air, while not as versatile as N-Air, is still very important. It is because of its ability to dragdown the opponent. When mentioning F-Air dragdowns it's also very important to know that not all hitboxes have the same angles. The important hitbox for dragdowns is the tipper hitbox which can be hard to hit. Sometimes it's okay to hit the middle hitbox of F-Air1 for some characters due to their fallspeed and character model.

The reason why dragdowns are important for Sora, is that most of his moves send the opponent up. With a way to bring the opponent back down, the possibilities for extending a combo game is there. The most difficult, and high damaging combos Sora can do; builds on this principle. A simple extender after a dragdown is to do D-tilt or even Dash-Grab. Both of these leads into high damage, however managing to get N-Air1 > N-Air2 > FF after F-Air2 would be a be more beneficial due to N-Air combo potential. The most common way to get F-Air is from first landing N-Air1 > N-Air2 > FF. When Sora hits an opponent with his F-Air1 he does a bounce, and with a shorthop, his "lowest jump" he is still way to high to get any meaningful hit advantage after hitting F-Air2. This would be a dead end if IDJ didn't exist. The irony about Sora's DoubleJump, is that while it is a mobility tool, it makes his combo game exponentially better due to its mechanics.

Employing an IDJ before either N-Air1 or F-Air1 will allow Sora to hit the opponent with barely any vertical gain. IDJ solves the issue of extending Sora's combos due to hitboxes and hurtboxes not connecting in some scenarios. Not only does IDJ help with getting the proper vertical height for F-Air1, but also for hitting N-Air1 afterwards when done with an IDJ. Keep in mind that there are different situations where not doing IDJ is more beneficial due to hurtbox shifting.

Other than for connecting N-Air into F-Air and vice versa, IDJ can also be used with N-Air to loop an opponent for an extension. This also referred as "nooping" an opponent, and isn't exclusive with just IDJ. The only limit for these "Noops" is that at some point the opponent will be too high up for extended noops. Inputting the noops are easy in comparison to getting the spacing. The hurtbox shifting from the opponent makes Noops difficult to get consistently on the entire cast. (There is still research to be had on which characters are optimal to be nooped). Noops are more effective against characters that have poor hurtbox shifting and poor escape options.

Earlier it was mentioned that N-Air1 had 18 other hitboxes not shown in the picture. The general "norm" of these hitboxes is that their knockback angle will usually center the opponent in front of Sora. The exceptions are the final hits of N-Air1 which send backwards with tumble. This is important to note regarding the ladder combo routes, which sometimes gets more mileage from the hitboxes not amongst the earliest N-Air1 frames.

All of Sora's N-Air and F-Air hitboxes with the exception of the third hits have very low hitlag, making it generally very hard to hit confirm. This isn't a issue with practice, but making frame perfect timings is very difficult with low hitlag. Some of the confirms Sora has are very difficult if the Sora player is just going to react on hit. Sora must in some cases, preemptively guess that he is going to hit before getting the actual hit. This isn't an issue usually with landing N-Air1, but for N-Air2 without having connected with N-Air1, makes it difficult to confirm at times. The amount of hitlag Sora has for these moves, are 2frames, which is less than a lot of the multihit moves in the game.

The Resource page has a google spreadsheet for N-Air1,2 and F-Air1,2 hit advantage. The most important observation is that F-Air2 only has 9 frames of hitstun (with optimal vertical spacing) with no additional rage or percent factoring in. This part is what necessitates Sora's need for IDJ's for getting true follow ups beyond this extension for more damaging combos. The spreadsheet can also give other ideas, one of them being the difficulty on the combos.

Short combo theory summary

Sora's N-Air and F-Air does not send into tumble
Certain hitboxes have different purposes

    → N-Air and F-Air function differently in terms of hitstun and knockback angles.
    → F-Air2 is important to consider for practice

IDJ is an important component for optimizing Sora's combo game

    → Some routes become more consistent as a result due to positioning
    → Other routes can use IDJ as an extension for more damage
    → Not all combos are better with IDJ

Certain characters are more prone to certain combos than others.

    → Fallspeed and character models along with their hurtbox shifting decides which followups are true other than percentages and rage.

Sora's core combo moves have low hitlag. To be consistent, Sora players must use buffering to their advantage for consistency

List of combos

BnB's

The easiest comboSimple and Clean

Beginner

SHR N-Air1,2,3

Works at any percent.
Works versus any character
Very simple
Auto combo
F-Air1,2,3 can be used instead, few characters can mess this up though

Can just hold down the C-stick or Attack (big A button usually) to perform the combo. While it is easy to skip this as an actual combo for veteran players, it does help to get adjusted to the timings for how the auto combo works. Some of the more advanced combos can be done by just holding down the inputs instead of tapping them individually, but this is strictly down to player preference.

These combos are relatively easy, and are excellent at teaching the timing of when to FF after using N-Air2. Sora should fall for a while between N-Air1 and N-Air2 for more hit advantage. An animation cue is to watch the keyblade almost turning 450 Degrees (360 + 90) before inputting the N-Air2>FF. Looking at his shoes, or where his head is, are also ways to figure out when to fast fall. These can help to build intuition for the timing.

Reliable and intuitive combo out of a shorthopYou will do this a lot in the beginning

Easy

SHR N-Air1 > N-Air2 > FF > U-tilt > SHR U-Air

Works at low percent.
With good DI, F-Air1,2,3 is more inconsistent to hit than U-Air
Can also be started with Grab>D-throw and then into SHR>N-Air1
D-throw will not be send into tumble at 0 percent, unless Sora has rage. This will make it true to connect into N-Air1

Another reliable and intuitive comboThe wiki editor still does this a lot

Easy

SHR N-Air1 > N-Air2 > FF > SHR F-Air1,2,3

Easy and effective for unstaling
Works at any percent

Very useful to learn for practicing the timings a little vs characters like Fox and Greninja. The timing is different since sometimes Sora's must Fastfall inbetween F-Air2 and F-Air3 on occassion. Platforms can interfere with the combo. Other than that, it is an auto combo, making it easy to connect in stressful situations.

When the player piloting Sora start getting more comfortable with Sora's N-Air, then it's time to add extensions. The entry level combos are still good for consistency sakes, but are not the ideal for optimized Sora play.

Double N-Air chainDouble the N-Airs!

Moderate

SHR N-Air1 > N-Air2 > FF > SHR N-Air1 > N-Air2 > FF > U-tilt > FHR F-Air1,2,3

This combo can fail more than the basic version of it since connecting the second chain of N-Airs can be difficult, or sometimes impossible in certain scenarios. Factors include: Rage, hurtbox shifting and spacing. Matchups will play a big part on Sora's advanced combos. This combo is significantly easier against a big body characters. U-Air can be used instead of F-Air1,2,3 for a consistent ender. While U-tilt can make this combo more consistent in terms of hit advantage, it isn't consistent in terms of hitbox shifting. Going for a third N-Air1 or F-Air1 can be more consistent in terms of favourable hitboxes.

Common Kill confirms

When rising, falling or fastfalling, Sora's N-Air or F-Air make him bounce on the opponent. However, when fast falling within startup, these moves don't bounce. Usually Falling N-Air1 has enough hitstun for either U-Smash or F-Smash, it mostly depends the angle they are being sent at. Establishing familiarity with the different knockback angles are important for optimizing all parts of Sora's combo game. Uncertain hits can be remedied with F-tilt. This move has a lot of coverage, and will still kill at high enough percent. F-tilt1,2,3 is the other option if one wants just damage from landing N-Air1. It has respectable knockback and can setup a good situation for minimal effort. What When landing with N-Air1, it is important to mind the which hitbox one gets, since it is hard to properly react on the angle on hit. Getting the aforementioned: "Garbage hitbox" will not only result in different timings due to hit advantage, but also on the knockback angle. While F-tilt can cover these shortcomings, it is better to focus due to lack of other opportunities provided within a set/game.

There are also confirms for starting with rising N-Air1 > FF > N-Air2, which can also be started by fastfalling N-Air1.

The most consistent kill confirmWho said taking stocks were hard?

Easy

SHR N-Air1 > N-Air2 > FF > SHR U-Air

This Combo is also strong for when it is uncertain in terms of hit advantages due to some of N-Air2s low hitstun hitboxes. It is one of the most reliable kill confirms due to how consistent it is. Will start killing midweights at around 140-150.

Can be done with a fullhop instead of a shorthop.
Can also be done with FHR instead. This will deal extra damage and knockback.
Very consistent due to ease of use and lack of any sourspots for U-Air

The alternative to this confirm is the SHR > N-Air1 > N-Air2 > FF >FHR > Up-B This confirm is harder to pull off due to a different timing, but not too different from doing it fullhop with U-Air. The main reason one needs to do FH instead of SH is because Sora gains considerable height faster with FH than SH. It's preferable to have proper timing because of frame advantage, which transitions into the next confirm on this list

Confirming Rising N-Air1 and falling N-Air2 into smash attacksKill power at the ready

Moderate/Difficult

SHR N-Air1 > N-Air2 > FF > U-Smash

Is the cousin to the previous confirm. The reason why they are quite different is that this one requires the proper delay timing of N-Air1>N-Air2 and proper timing of the fastfall. This confirm will teach the Sora player the proper timing of N-Air comparison to the previous combos. It is possible to get this combo "true" on the combo counter in training mode. This combo gets easier with Rage.

There is also a possibility to use F-Smash instead, but the timing is stricter, spacing is stricter and it is even more matchup dependant.

This confirm scales with Rage and opponent percent in terms of difficulty. The higher those numbers, the easier it becomes.
100% Rage + opponent with 70%-130% (scales with weight) is an ideal way of practicing this in training mode for a true combo.

One example is Wolf at 92%.

Landing N-Air > Kill confirmClassic Competitive Confirm

Easy

L N-Air1 > U-Smash L>N-Air1>F-Smash

L>N-Air1 is also a combo starter for other combos.
Can also use U-Air and Up-B.
Because of low hitlag, player has to guess if it N-Air1 is going to connect on hit or on shield.

Platform extensions

Because Sora N-Airs pops his opponents up, if Sora is under a platform the opponent will sometimes land on the platform in combos. This is not a problem, as Sora can continue the combo by Full Hopping with N-Air1 onto the platform. This allows Sora to threaten kills both on flat stages and on platform stages. Because of the added height, Finishers like U-Smash, Up-B and U-Air will kill earlier. Sometimes even F-Smash is possible. U-tilt has a high successrate for extending or ending platform combos.

What makes some of these combos more difficult than than grounded combos is the adjustment need for timing for FHR > N-Air1 or FHR > F-Air1.

Simple Platform Combo (Nadder version)

Moderate

SHR N-Air1 > N-Air2 > FF > FHR N-Air1 > N-Air2 > FF > U-tilt>

On some characters, its more consistent to get this combo when the opponent is not above the platform, but just slightly below
The bottom part of N-Air1 will make it possible to get a platform extension even if they are not on the platform.
N-Air2 helps with the previous point
Instead of U-tilt, F-Air1,2,3 can be utilized. While U-tilt>F-Air1,2,3 works well at early percent, just F-Air1,2,3 becomes an easy alternative since it is an option at all percent and is free from Di mixups.

Triplat extensionMore elaborate Nadder

Moderate

SHR N-Air1 > N-Air2 > FF > FHR N-Air1 > N-Air2 WIP

Platform Dragdown combo

Moderate

SHR N-Air1 > N-Air2 > FF > FHR F-Air1 > F-Air2 > FF >

Similar to the previous combo, just with dragdown F-Air instead. Works better characters with greater fall speed or big hurtboxes. A common followup option is to use D-tilt, since it leads into more followup.

A common combo is SHR > N-Air1>N-Air2>FF>FHR>F-Air1>F-Air2>FF>D-tilt>U-tilt>SHR>U-Air. This deals significant damage.
A kill option is SHR>N-Air1>N-Air2>FF>FHR>F-Air1>F-Air2>FF>Up-B for a way of killing with with dragdown on platforms.

Alternatively, IDJ U-Air is an option (which will be covered later below) after getting a D-tilt. What Sora can get depends not only on execution, but heavily on the opponents DI. If they DI in so they end up behind Sora, his U-Air will maximize in hit advantage, problem is that it can have a tight window of frames.

U-Air LadderWhen N-Air is lacking

Moderate

FF U-Air > FHR U-Air > FF > Imagination?

Better on stages where the platforms are very high up
Kalos Pokemon League and Smashville are great stages for this combo
Because of U-Air creating tumble, has tighter percent windows as a result

Alternative options for combo starters/Extenders

Firaga

Sora's most versatile spell. It is also fantastic for combos. Firaga can both extend and start combos or confirms. Most important thing to understand is that it mostly true combos with only the first fireball, each fireball in succession has the same, but less hitstun than the first. To get the better hitstun back, Sora needs to rotate back to it through Thundaga and Blizzaga.

Firaga > Dash attack is the fastest confirm Sora has from Firaga, and it is true at all percents. In terms of similar simplistic inputs, Firaga > Side-B also works well and can be used while airborne. It is a true combo, deals more damage when connecting all hits, but is slower and has consistency issues for connecting all hits. U-Air or N-Air are also if Sora is close enough, or if he dashes and jumps in after the Firaga. Sora can even get Firaga>U-Smash. Some of these combos become more or less possible due to being able to drift in the air while using Firaga. When Sora uses Firaga in the air, he can drift slightly back and forth. Some of these, like U-Smash, may require this drift in to work. There is also the case of initial dash, where Sora shouldn't dash in for more than 5 frames (where Sora will be stuck in the dash animation, and only able to jump or Dash attack).

Firaga into dash attack.

Easy

Firaga as a combo/string extender

Moderate

Firaga as a kill confirm

Moderate

Throws

Sora has a pretty good set of Throws. Down Throw can true combo into Nair at 0 and from low to middle percents. F-throwcan set up for offstage play near the ledge. DI matters against throws a lot, for example: Good DI for D-throw is poor DI for F-throw and vice versa. This is mostly specific to grabbing by ledge in particular (since then the option selects are less useful) D-throw will be a kill confirm when the opponent chooses to DI in with FHR>U-Air. B-throw starts taking stocks by ledge at around 130 to 140 percent on Middle weights. U-throw killing most middle weights at around 180 percent.

D-throw combo starter

Easy

D-throw into U-Air

Easy

D-throw > SHR/FHR U-Air

Side B

Side-B can confirm into some interesting setups. All thought niche, it is also a combo starter at high percent at the late hit of Side-B. It can also combo into the other parts of Side-B, but sometimes will fail to connect because of a lack of range due to proper DI or improper spacing.

Side B > SHR N-Air

Difficult

Stage specific combos

IDJ Combos

IDJ Up-Air

As mentioned earlier, Sora's U-Air is both a kill move and a combo tool. No one thought it could be this versatile without the double jump. As you can see on the picture to the right, there are a bunch of combo enders. Some of these does vary from dealing damage, to actually killing depending on stage, characters and percent. N-Air is most consistent way of getting a hit after the IDJ U-Air, but it will whiff in certain scenarios as shown. It is still the safest option since even if you do whiff the first hit because of chance for a followup on airdodges.

The other options are more tight. It is important to remember that U-Air is active for 9 frames, and hitting the later parts will give you more hit advantage. DI also plays a very large role, if the player mess up the drift in the initial stages of the double jump, there will be no true followups. Some of these confirms also become impossible if the opponent has competent DI, and others are impossible in certain matchups due to character attributes.

The simple variation, and a way of getting the kill confirms more consistently, is to hit the top or back hit of U-Air by hitting a tech option after setting up a tech situation on a platform. When done it this way, there is more control on the hit advantage gained since doing SHR>N-Air1>N-Air2>FF>IDJ>U-Air can often make the U-Air hit an unsuspecting hurtbox that can mess up the hit advantage, potentially making the followup whiff.

It is highly recommended to prioritize not whiffing Up-B, especially at kill percent.

Alternatively, D-Air can be used to get back to stage more quickly. Sometimes it can hit the opponent as they are airdodging and set up a strong presence after.

IDJ U-Air / Double jump U-AirA new way of dealing damage ( and killing )

Difficult

SHR N-Air1 > N-Air2 > FF> IDJ U-Air > N-Air1,2,3

placeholder text

IDJ F-Air Dragdown

There are caveats to this combo. The followups doesn't work on everyone, and the extensions and enders are character dependant. There is a chart in the Ars Arcanum section to show the limitations of dragdowns. IDJ>F-Air needs rage or high percent for followups that are frame 11 or faster. Most of the followups depends on a characters hurtbox shifting and fall speed.

IDJ F-Air Dragdown Kill confirmFlashy

Difficult

SHR N-Air1 > N-Air2 > FF > IDJ F-Air1 > F-Air2 > FF > U-Smash

U-Smash only works on a select few characters. Reliant on all relevant factors.
Can use D-tilt instead of U-Smash for an extension
Up-B can be confirmed on any character due to its range and startup frames.

Ars Arcanum

Not discovered, but primarily explored and optimized by Limon (@Limon1211zzz at twitter). Ars Arcanum is Sora's deadliest combo route. There are technically 3 variations of Ars Arcanum:

Version1: No IDJ's
Version2: IDJ on F-Air
Version3: IDJ on both N-Air and F-Air

Mostly, when people refer to "Ars Arcanum, Ars, Ars Arc, Arshu Arcanum, or AA (this one is within Soracord mostly, since AA means Anti-Air otherwise)" they are referring to Version 3. All of the versions have their own place in terms of education, execution and development/discovery history. For the sake of continuiety and clarity, "Ars Arcanum" in this wiki page will be referring to the Version3 variation.

The reason for this is because that while harder, Version 3 has a higher chance of connecting if you are good at doing the combo. If you combine the percent, Rage and hitboxes together, it's sometimes harder to get the Version 2 right than Version 3. Version2 still works on some characters, but it's more encouraged to learn version 3 due to it's consistent nature.

What's more is that IDJ removes the SH multiplier. Meaning that more dealt will be dealt. So it is more rewarding to learn in terms of damage output for the same opportunities.

There are other variations in terms of what extensions or enders that come when you end a chain, and they will just share a common name right next to "Ars Arcanum". This are some examples: Ars Arcanum - Platform extension Ars Arcanum - Smash attack ender

There are also some characters, like Wario that allows you to slingshot>SHR>N-Air1 in order to not run out of space. You can go from one part of the stage to another part with this combo. This is not the same for most characters.

What makes this combo hard is a series of micro movements along with IDJ at every rising aerial. You always need to be moving forward in this combo. Sometimes you need to be precise depending on what extension you want to have and whatever is possible.

As explained before, The IDJ's are the glue that holds this combo together. It makes landing faster possible, and possible to hit certain hurtbox shifting.

Some finishers are:

F-Smash can be used after an IDJ N-Air>FF if the opponent is low enough to the ground
U-Smash can be used either after an IDJ N-Air1,2>FF or IDJ F-Air1,2>FF.
Up-B can be used after both N-Air>FF and will typically start killing at higher percents.
IDJ>U-Air>Up-B. While it is hard to get this true sometimes, and often is escapable with good DI, it is hard to DI properly since good DI vs F-Smash is terrible DI vs IDJ>U-Air>Up-B

Please refer to the chart for possibilities. It is mostly correct. Some possibilities, have yet to be experimented upon. The chart provided here created by Dusty_Carpet and Limon, two of the most prominent and impactful Sora labbers.

To elaborate on the tiers:

"No" refers to Characters that cannot be comboed with Ars Arcanum or IDJ>F-Air properly. You may be able to get other easy enders such as Jab or Up-B.
The one above, are just characters with f1 escape options, and require the Sora player to be very precise. There are excersizes that are for non-trainingmodpack users that allow you to practice Ars Arcanum, even for characters with f1 escape options. There will be a link in the resources tab.

Ars ArcanumThe stuff of legends

Godlike

SHR N-Air1 > N-Air > FF > IDJ F-Air1 > F-Air2 > FF > IDJ N-Air1 > N-Air2 > ... > ender

Sora

Ars Arcanum - Smash attack variation

Godlike

Ars Arcanum... >

Ars Arcanum - Platform extension

Godlike

Ars Arcanum... >

Ars Arcanum - IDJN-Air

Godlike

Ars Arcanum... >

What about strings ?

Refer to the "setplay" page for more information. A lot of these combos does setup good situations for other types of reads and setups, whether they are after, or mid combo.

Escape options charts

These charts are here just to provide a visual in terms of difficulty when it comes to executing combos/strings and

WIP:

Need more video examples Fix chart PNG's Check grammar Make better headers/titles Video examples for all combos More Ars Arcanum Variations Ars Arcanum training mode video with no modpack Put Warios Ars Arcanum with slingshot extension in resources, but with a refrence to it from here Make a new terminology that is called "combo factors" (CF?) And put it in here? Use it to replace wordyness? Troubleshoot Ars Arc

Ken and Kazuya pages contain a lot of structured info on structure. Use those formats? What about others?