theONEjanitor
Smash Champion
I did a thread like this before, but this one will go more in depth.
I've noticed that there is a lot of, for lack of a better term, noobs in Melee Discussion. I'm by no means an elite player at this game in any way, shape, or form. But one thing is clear, I'm not a noob. So this thread is intended to help people who are struggling to get beyond 'noob' status. It took me like two years to do it, and that's only because no one really told me exactly what I needed to do. Most of the tutorials and tips on this forum are intended for either a. COMPLETE NEWBIES (people who have no idea what a wavedash is for example) or b. people who have already graduated beyond noob status. This guide is for the people in between. If you have good tech skill and win a good bit of the time, this guide isn't for you. This is for the people who are aware of most of the advanced techs, but can't seem to put it all together to get wins over their friends. Note: this guide will NOT help you do well in major tournaments. I can barely escape pools myself lol. I think that only comes with lots of experience. But I think this guide WILL help you become BETTER than ANY casual player. Which is the first step to not being considered a "noob" anymore. The things which I consider the MOST important tips at this level are in RED.
The very first thing that must be present in order to be great is LOVE FOR THE GAME. You must LOVE this game. You must be addicted to it. If you want to be good at it, you will be playing it ALOT.
That said, here are my steps. (Note that, although these steps are numbered, I do NOT necessarily suggest that you do them in the order they are presented)
Step 1: Acknowledge that you SUCK. That you are a NOOB. And WANT to be the BEST you can possibly can.
If you don't win against casual players on a regular basis, you SUCK at Melee in the grand scheme of things. If you and your casual buddies go back and forth, YOU SUCK. You should be beating them 90% of the time. If you fail to realize this, you will never be able to progress. I had this same problem, ESPECIALLY after I learned about wavedashing and L-canceling. I thought that just be KNOWING these moves, I would start winning all the time; I thought I DIDN'T SUCK ANYMORE. But that's not the case, as many of you know.
Also, you must WANT to get better, obviously. But I don't think you'd be reading this thread if you didn't.
Step 2: Destroy any notion of 'cheapness' or 'honor'.
There is no such thing as "honorable" play, or "cheap" play. If you think there is, you will NEVER be as good as you could be. Even high level players are guilty of this attitude at times, and I think this hinders them from unlocking their full potential. You should be willing to do ANY legal move or use ANY legal strategy that results in your winning. Even if that strategy consists of "camping" or using the same move OVER AND OVER. If it makes you win, YOU SHOULD BE WILLING TO DO IT.
Step3: If you haven't already, READ and MEMORIZE everything in the Officiall Everything Thread AND watch all three parts of Wak's "Advanced How to Play Video" SEVERAL TIMES.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4n4s5yB7ZkE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiZLs2doK8E&mode=related&search=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFmGIOcWdsM&mode=related&search=
Step 4: Pick ONE main to focus on and FORGET TIERS
Definitely be trying out other characters in friendly casual matches, but focus the overwhelming majority of your time into one character for now. IT'S OKAY TO CHANGE MAIN'S LATER. But for now, stick with one until you start winning. You can win with ANY character. IGNORE THE TIER LIST. Alot of people are going to tell you, "pick a high tier character", but **** THAT. Pick a character that SUITS YOU. One that feels comfortable in your hands.
Step 5.: Practice the advanced tech's that you've learned at home until you fingers fall off
Everytime you get some free time, turn on the game and practice your tech skill against a level 1 CPU. For movement techniques like wavedashing, edge hopping, or dash-dancing, you can just go to training mode or play a stagnant Human opponent. For SHFFLing though, I suggest playing a no-time-limit match (or 99 stock match) against a Level 1 CPU (that isn't Luigi, because he SD's way to often.) A good trick that I read on here is to make your opponent a level 1 (or Human) Bowser, make the damage ratio as low as possible, and give yourself a huge handicap. This will cause you attacks to virtually not budge him. Then, just practice SHFFLING until you literally can not take it anymore. Your practice sessions should be HARDCORE if you want to get good quick. Practice for HOURS. Don't get discouraged or frustrated if you mess up a lot, just keep practicing. Do this WHENEVER you get a chance. The goal is for these techs to be second-nature, so that you don't even have to THINK to do them. Because you'll need your brain power for other things during matches.
Step 6: Pick a controller and ALWAYS play with that one.
Trust me, it helps. Every controller LOOKS the same, but no two controllers are COMPLETELY alike, they have slightly different contours and after repeated use the sensitivity of the buttons and other things like that vary. If you use the same the controller everytime, you will essentially BREAK IT IN, and it will fit you much like a hat that you've worn for years.
Step 7: Find people to play against, and play them OFTEN
You need to actively find people in your area to play against. Unless you live in the middle of the Sahara Desert or something, there IS someone within an hour of you that is good at this game. Luckily for us, Smash Bros is the most active gaming community in the entire world. If you don't have a car, find someone who does and tell them to drop you off. If you literally can not get anywhere to play, then tough luck. YOU WON'T BE GOOD AT THIS GAME. It is NECESSARY to be playing against human players CONSTANTLY in order to get good at this game.
Step 8: Play a VARIETY of different people
You should play LOTS of people, if at all possible. Not just that one guy down the street. Everyone has a different style of play, and if you get used to that one guys flashy Fox, you'll get to a tournament and fight a campy non-technical Fox and get destroyed.
Step 9: GO TO TOURNAMENTS and play lots and lots and lots of FRIENDLYS
YOU'RE GOING TO LOSE YOUR MONEY. It's okay! You're there for the experience. Just think of your 10 or 15 dollars as an entry fee to a huge super fun smash fest with lots of cool people and good players. If you are too worried about losing your money, YOU'RE NOT IN THE RIGHT MINDSET. Your first like DOZEN tournaments you should expect to lose, if you're being practical. Yet, YOU SHOULD STILL GO. Tournament experience is UNRIVALED in terms of getting better. After every tournament I go to, I feel like I've gotten a little bit better.
Step 10: RECORD YOURSELF PLAYING and watch yourself
Watching yourself play on a video is an AMAZING way to fix mistakes. When you're in the heat of a battle, you may not notice all the things you did wrong. But you'll be surprised at how much you notice when you record yourself.
If you do all of the above steps and if you are HARDCORE about it, then it nigh impossible for you not to get better. Here are some GAMEPLAY specific tips that will help along the way.
TECH ROLL
Most noobs miss most of their techs. That's bad. You should tech or tech roll pretty much EVERY TIME you hit any surface. Missed techs lead to death. You don't want death.
Stop Rolling all the time
As we all know, noobs have a problem with Rolling. They like to roll to get out of every situation. Good players simply wait for you to finish your roll and grab you or punish you in some other way. Many players roll out of shield because there are seeming so few options out of the shield. So playing against a noob is easy, just wait till they shield then roll chase. But generally there's something better to do out of shield than roll. I don't mean just completely STOP rolling (although that would be ALOT better than rolling all the time), but just stop relying on it as your primary escape manuever. It doesn't work anymore.
Actively learn and practice Character Specific Strategies and Matchup Strategies
There are many ways to do this, but the best two ways in my opinion are A. WATCH VIDEOS OF GOOD PLAYERS and B. ASK GOOD PLAYERS. Sure, smashboards has the Character Specific Forums, but to be completely honest, almost no information from any of those forums has REALLY helped me get any better. Althought I do suggested reading the stickied "guides" at the top of each forum for a general idea of character strategie and move lists. Videos and pure advice helps much more though.
For example, if you play Marth, go to youtube and search "ken marth ssbm" or "mew2king marth ssbm". And to quote Alpha Zealot, STUDY the videos, don't just watch them. Personally I REWIND a lot. I try to figure out WHY m2k uses each move he does, and HOW he does it. I try to figure out their APPROACH. Approach is basically what they do to get things rolling; how they move around the stage to try and gain position.
Studying Videos: An Example of How to Do it
For example, I just did a search for m2k's marth, and found this vid from Evo against PC's Chris's Fox
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WowKCUQX4v4
The first thing I try to figure out is what his APPROACH is, and whether or not it is working. (It's Mew2King so generally its safe to assume that he makes good choices).
In this video (and most good Marth vs Fox Videos), you'll see the marth is approaching mainly with Fairs, and trying to land grabs. He's also doing a lot of dash dancing, which Marth has a great one. A few seconds in M2K does a few Nairs. At this point, I REWIND to figure out why he does Nairs INSTEAD of Fairs. I dont know for sure, myself, m2k is a very strategic guy he could have many reasons. I think it has to do with Fox's positioning. The Nair, unlike the Fair, attacks both Marth's front and Back, and Fox was falling towards Marth, so the first nair he did; m2k probably was trying to jump just a bit past Fox as he was falling in an attempt to get Fox to fall into the back part of the Nair. (PC Chris noticed it however and dodged it
) I noted before that M2K was going for grabs often. We keep watching to figure just why. He finally lands a grab at around :30 and immediately upthrows. This leads to a chain grab. However, M2K doesn't upthrow the second time? Why. You mght have to rewind a couple to times. But its most likely because PC Chris could have DI'd to the nearby platform and ended the chain throw. So M2K opted insted to downthrow and follow PC Chris's tech. And it works out decently enough.
These are the kind of things you look for when studying a video.
So from a few Marth vs. Fox videos you learn a good starting point for a good approaching strategy: Approach with Fairs, dash dance to try to make way for a grab to chain grab.
Obviously theres more to a match than just the approach, but its the starting point. So just watch lots of videos against lots of characters. Realize every character match up is different, and you should approach each match up differently. Just watch M2k fight someone other than Fox, he plays a lot differently, and you should too. I'm not suggesting you copy someone's play style, and to be honest its pretty impossible to do that anyway. You'll naturally play your own way. But most of the strategies good players use have been PROVEN to be effective, so you'd be a fool NOT to use them.
That's one thing the Character Specific forums are good for, videos. I think every forum has a thread solely dedicated to listing videos of good players. USE THEM. STUDY THEM.
Don't Get Hit
From the first day I joined smashboards I've been hearing this legendary advice from that guy Isai, yeah he's pretty good lol. A lot of people just shrug it off as a good player being cocky. But whether or not Isai intended it, there is a lot of simple wisdom in that quote. At first it seems ridiculous to say, "don't get hit". But honestly, its not that hard to avoid getting hit. Saying "Don't Get Hit" is the same as saying "Play Smart". What Isai meant was, don't do stupid moves that leave you open. Don't spam smash attacks. Just don't do it. That's playing stupid. Smash attacks are easy to see coming and easy to dodge, and easy to counter attack. LEARN YOUR "SAFE" MOVES. What I call a "safe" move is a move that you can "approach" with, while avoiding being punished heavily for it--a "spammable" move basically. As we saw in the above video, Marth's Fair is an example. With good spacing and good decisions, its hard to punish Marth's Fair (when it's L-canceled). It provides lots of space between marth and the opponent and its a quick, non-laggy move. To learn these moves, it really just involves either playing the game a lot, watching videos, or just asking people. Just ask a good player "what's a good move to approach with". Using your "safe moves" effectively will lead into your less safe, yet more powerful moves. Examples of "safe moves":
Marth's Fair, C. Falcon's Nair, Fox and Falco's SHL, Peach's float-cancelled aerials, most character's Jabs, Almost all projectiles, Most of Sheik's tilts, Marth and Roys side-b, Many L-canceled aeriels into other moves (e.g ganon's retreating shffled fair to jab or Fox/Falco's shffled Dair to Shine)
Wavedashing, Shffling, and Dash Dancing, can add to the safeness of a move as well, depending on the character. For example, while it generally is not a good idea to walk up to someone with the ice climbers and downsmash, it's ALOT of safer to wavedashdance into it. Again, ASK PEOPLE or watch videos.
Learn how to take advantage of people who don't follow Isai's advice
That's basically what The entire competitive game of smash brothers is. Taking advantage of people who make mistakes. Some people excel at TRICKING you into making mistakes, while others simply make no mistakes themselves and know how to capitalize when their opponent does. When you're opponent is open, you can forsake your SAFE move and pull out the heavy artillery. For example...if you're opponent has thrown out a silly F-smash with Marth and missed. You should ALREADY BE AWARE of the best way to maximize the situation. Sometimes that involves high damage, sometimes high knockback. It depends on the situation. For example, say you are Falco and that marth has thrown out a missed F-smash. Falco's safest move is his SHL, but now marth is wide open. It's time to try something more powerful or go for the killer. You could do something as simple as a forward smash, or as complicated as a shffled dair, waveshine, bair, depending on what you need. Some of the more complicated moves take practice. Like you may know that you can take advantage of a missed smash with Fox if you Dair, waveshine, upsmash...but you may not be able to pull that off. In that case, go back to Step 5 and practice practice practice until your fingers are mangled.
Learn how to edgeguard and do it fearlessly and aggressively
If you don't edgeguard you won't win. Period. Unless you're playing against someone like Jigglypuff or Peach, you should almost NEVER just sit and WAIT for the person to come back to the ledge. Whenever someone gets knocked off the side, you should be thinking of ways to get that KO. No matter what the damage is. Obviously some characters are better at edgeguarding, and some characters are easier to edgeguard, but every character has at least a few options. Learn them. Again, the best way is to just ASK someone who is good, or watch videos. Also note that in order to learn how to edgeguard, you must also be aware of how people tend to recover. This is why you can't really practice edgeguarding against the computer. Humans recover VERY differently than the computer. For example, Human players use Fox's Side-B to recover often. The computer NEVER does. Using Marth's D-tilt is a great way to break up that side b. But if you only played against the CPU, you'd never get to practice it. That's why you need to play humans.
Another thing to keep in mind about edgeguarding is STOP BEING A WUSS. One thing I've noticed about noobs is that they are so scared of jumping out for the edgeguard because they're afraid they won't be able to recovey. JUST TRY IT OUT. You'll find that a lot of times you CAN recover. Obviously some characters can't jump out and edgeguard that well, but that's up to you to FIND OUT. Many of them can. Learn to edge hop. If you can't go back to Step 5.
GRAB
A lot of noobs don't grab enough. Grab grab grab. Shield grab, regular grab. Do it. Grabs are free damage, they are generally safe if spaced well, they are almost ALWAYS combo starters or set-up for strong moves, PLUS they out-prioritize regular attacks, PLUS they counter shields. You should be grabbing, A LOT. The only character you need to limit your grabbing with is arguably Samus. Also, you should almost ALWAYS jump-cancel your dash grabs. If you don't know what a JC grab is, you haven't completed Step 3. If you dont know how to jump cancel effectively, then go back to Step 5 and practice it until your fingers bleed.
Tech Chase
Learn to tech chase. Its an easy way to get free damage. It's not really hard to do. It just requires good reaction time. Whenever your opponent hits the ground, either predict where they are going to roll, if anywhere at all...or simply wait for them to do it and just follow them and f-smash or grab them. Simple as that. Free damage.
Pay attention to your and your opponent's percentages
A lot of smashers just keep fighting without regard to how high each other's damage is. You should constantly glance down and look at the percentages. Your strategy should be different depending on the percentage.
Learn to DI
This is one thing you can ONLY learn by actually playing against humans. You can't learn how to do this from videos and its hard to learn by asking people. You've actually got to play. DI can mean the difference between you getting away or getting sucked into a huge chain grab or combo...and even between surviving or losing a stock. Ask people to get ideas, but you must practice it yourself, against humans. YOU MUST LEARN TO DI IF YOU WANT TO BE GOOD AT THIS GAME. A good general rule is at low damages DI down after getting it (unless you're fighting Peach)...and at mid and high damage, DI up when you're getting hit.
Don't play by instinct. Have a plan
A lot of people claim to be able to "adapt" on the fly, but that's not true. Granted, if you're subject to a particular strategy during a match, it is possible to learn how to counter it. But it takes PREVIOUS knowledge of other matchups and techniques to do so. The thing about smash is you're able to have somewhat of a plan even if you're playing a character you're not familiar with. Ideally you should have a plan against each and every character, but you know, most people don't play Ness, so you may not really know how to fight him. But you know a couple of things about Ness just from casual play. A. he's semi-floaty. B. he can double jump cancel, C. he's extremely vulnerable during his up B.
Using this with everything you know should help you keep up with even a really good ness.
at any rate, you should always have a plan. And your plan should change depending on who you're playing with and who you're playing against. Sometimes the plans are similar, e.g Marth's fair is almost always a good approach strategy, no matter who you're playing against (sorry for all the Marth examples, that's who I main), but no two plans are alike. And if your plan causes you to lose, find out WHY and FIX it. It's always a work in progress. You'll NEVER get PERFECT at this game. There's always something new to learn. And luckily for noobs, the new things you're learning right now will cause the most DRAMATIC improvement of your entire smash career. From then on out, things will be more gradual.
If you do everything is this thread, and are HARDCORE about it. I can almost guarantee that you'll be able to beat any casual player quite easily. And you're well on the road to learning how to become and truly great player. People will no longer call you a noob.
If any one would like any general tips I would be glad to assist. Please note I can really only help NOOBS, as I am only so good myself. If you constantly come in 9th place at tourneys and want to know how you can make top 5, I can't help you there. But if you want to know how to be the best out of all your friends or how to making it out of pools in general or just want general critique on your gameplay, I'll be glad to help. Check my profile for my AIM or PM me. Or post in this thread. Maybe others will help as well.
Thoughts about Brawl
Alot of people think that it isn't worth it to get good at melee now since Brawl is on the horizon. But I disagree. I think most of the general strats will carry over. Like "don't get hit" will always apply, so getting used to that style of play will definitely help. Although its very possible and probable that wavedashing, L-cancelling, short hopping, shield grab, edge hopping, chain grabbing, and tons of other things will return...so I think its worth it to familiarize yourself with these things so you'll have an leg up on the comp when Brawl arrives.
I hope this helps someone. I know most of you don't need this guide, but there are a lot of struggling guys that I've noticed who needed something more suited for their level, so I hope this helps them.
I've noticed that there is a lot of, for lack of a better term, noobs in Melee Discussion. I'm by no means an elite player at this game in any way, shape, or form. But one thing is clear, I'm not a noob. So this thread is intended to help people who are struggling to get beyond 'noob' status. It took me like two years to do it, and that's only because no one really told me exactly what I needed to do. Most of the tutorials and tips on this forum are intended for either a. COMPLETE NEWBIES (people who have no idea what a wavedash is for example) or b. people who have already graduated beyond noob status. This guide is for the people in between. If you have good tech skill and win a good bit of the time, this guide isn't for you. This is for the people who are aware of most of the advanced techs, but can't seem to put it all together to get wins over their friends. Note: this guide will NOT help you do well in major tournaments. I can barely escape pools myself lol. I think that only comes with lots of experience. But I think this guide WILL help you become BETTER than ANY casual player. Which is the first step to not being considered a "noob" anymore. The things which I consider the MOST important tips at this level are in RED.
The very first thing that must be present in order to be great is LOVE FOR THE GAME. You must LOVE this game. You must be addicted to it. If you want to be good at it, you will be playing it ALOT.
That said, here are my steps. (Note that, although these steps are numbered, I do NOT necessarily suggest that you do them in the order they are presented)
Step 1: Acknowledge that you SUCK. That you are a NOOB. And WANT to be the BEST you can possibly can.
If you don't win against casual players on a regular basis, you SUCK at Melee in the grand scheme of things. If you and your casual buddies go back and forth, YOU SUCK. You should be beating them 90% of the time. If you fail to realize this, you will never be able to progress. I had this same problem, ESPECIALLY after I learned about wavedashing and L-canceling. I thought that just be KNOWING these moves, I would start winning all the time; I thought I DIDN'T SUCK ANYMORE. But that's not the case, as many of you know.
Also, you must WANT to get better, obviously. But I don't think you'd be reading this thread if you didn't.
Step 2: Destroy any notion of 'cheapness' or 'honor'.
There is no such thing as "honorable" play, or "cheap" play. If you think there is, you will NEVER be as good as you could be. Even high level players are guilty of this attitude at times, and I think this hinders them from unlocking their full potential. You should be willing to do ANY legal move or use ANY legal strategy that results in your winning. Even if that strategy consists of "camping" or using the same move OVER AND OVER. If it makes you win, YOU SHOULD BE WILLING TO DO IT.
Step3: If you haven't already, READ and MEMORIZE everything in the Officiall Everything Thread AND watch all three parts of Wak's "Advanced How to Play Video" SEVERAL TIMES.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4n4s5yB7ZkE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiZLs2doK8E&mode=related&search=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFmGIOcWdsM&mode=related&search=
Step 4: Pick ONE main to focus on and FORGET TIERS
Definitely be trying out other characters in friendly casual matches, but focus the overwhelming majority of your time into one character for now. IT'S OKAY TO CHANGE MAIN'S LATER. But for now, stick with one until you start winning. You can win with ANY character. IGNORE THE TIER LIST. Alot of people are going to tell you, "pick a high tier character", but **** THAT. Pick a character that SUITS YOU. One that feels comfortable in your hands.
Step 5.: Practice the advanced tech's that you've learned at home until you fingers fall off
Everytime you get some free time, turn on the game and practice your tech skill against a level 1 CPU. For movement techniques like wavedashing, edge hopping, or dash-dancing, you can just go to training mode or play a stagnant Human opponent. For SHFFLing though, I suggest playing a no-time-limit match (or 99 stock match) against a Level 1 CPU (that isn't Luigi, because he SD's way to often.) A good trick that I read on here is to make your opponent a level 1 (or Human) Bowser, make the damage ratio as low as possible, and give yourself a huge handicap. This will cause you attacks to virtually not budge him. Then, just practice SHFFLING until you literally can not take it anymore. Your practice sessions should be HARDCORE if you want to get good quick. Practice for HOURS. Don't get discouraged or frustrated if you mess up a lot, just keep practicing. Do this WHENEVER you get a chance. The goal is for these techs to be second-nature, so that you don't even have to THINK to do them. Because you'll need your brain power for other things during matches.
Step 6: Pick a controller and ALWAYS play with that one.
Trust me, it helps. Every controller LOOKS the same, but no two controllers are COMPLETELY alike, they have slightly different contours and after repeated use the sensitivity of the buttons and other things like that vary. If you use the same the controller everytime, you will essentially BREAK IT IN, and it will fit you much like a hat that you've worn for years.
Step 7: Find people to play against, and play them OFTEN
You need to actively find people in your area to play against. Unless you live in the middle of the Sahara Desert or something, there IS someone within an hour of you that is good at this game. Luckily for us, Smash Bros is the most active gaming community in the entire world. If you don't have a car, find someone who does and tell them to drop you off. If you literally can not get anywhere to play, then tough luck. YOU WON'T BE GOOD AT THIS GAME. It is NECESSARY to be playing against human players CONSTANTLY in order to get good at this game.
Step 8: Play a VARIETY of different people
You should play LOTS of people, if at all possible. Not just that one guy down the street. Everyone has a different style of play, and if you get used to that one guys flashy Fox, you'll get to a tournament and fight a campy non-technical Fox and get destroyed.
Step 9: GO TO TOURNAMENTS and play lots and lots and lots of FRIENDLYS
YOU'RE GOING TO LOSE YOUR MONEY. It's okay! You're there for the experience. Just think of your 10 or 15 dollars as an entry fee to a huge super fun smash fest with lots of cool people and good players. If you are too worried about losing your money, YOU'RE NOT IN THE RIGHT MINDSET. Your first like DOZEN tournaments you should expect to lose, if you're being practical. Yet, YOU SHOULD STILL GO. Tournament experience is UNRIVALED in terms of getting better. After every tournament I go to, I feel like I've gotten a little bit better.
Step 10: RECORD YOURSELF PLAYING and watch yourself
Watching yourself play on a video is an AMAZING way to fix mistakes. When you're in the heat of a battle, you may not notice all the things you did wrong. But you'll be surprised at how much you notice when you record yourself.
If you do all of the above steps and if you are HARDCORE about it, then it nigh impossible for you not to get better. Here are some GAMEPLAY specific tips that will help along the way.
TECH ROLL
Most noobs miss most of their techs. That's bad. You should tech or tech roll pretty much EVERY TIME you hit any surface. Missed techs lead to death. You don't want death.
Stop Rolling all the time
As we all know, noobs have a problem with Rolling. They like to roll to get out of every situation. Good players simply wait for you to finish your roll and grab you or punish you in some other way. Many players roll out of shield because there are seeming so few options out of the shield. So playing against a noob is easy, just wait till they shield then roll chase. But generally there's something better to do out of shield than roll. I don't mean just completely STOP rolling (although that would be ALOT better than rolling all the time), but just stop relying on it as your primary escape manuever. It doesn't work anymore.
Actively learn and practice Character Specific Strategies and Matchup Strategies
There are many ways to do this, but the best two ways in my opinion are A. WATCH VIDEOS OF GOOD PLAYERS and B. ASK GOOD PLAYERS. Sure, smashboards has the Character Specific Forums, but to be completely honest, almost no information from any of those forums has REALLY helped me get any better. Althought I do suggested reading the stickied "guides" at the top of each forum for a general idea of character strategie and move lists. Videos and pure advice helps much more though.
For example, if you play Marth, go to youtube and search "ken marth ssbm" or "mew2king marth ssbm". And to quote Alpha Zealot, STUDY the videos, don't just watch them. Personally I REWIND a lot. I try to figure out WHY m2k uses each move he does, and HOW he does it. I try to figure out their APPROACH. Approach is basically what they do to get things rolling; how they move around the stage to try and gain position.
Studying Videos: An Example of How to Do it
For example, I just did a search for m2k's marth, and found this vid from Evo against PC's Chris's Fox
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WowKCUQX4v4
The first thing I try to figure out is what his APPROACH is, and whether or not it is working. (It's Mew2King so generally its safe to assume that he makes good choices).
In this video (and most good Marth vs Fox Videos), you'll see the marth is approaching mainly with Fairs, and trying to land grabs. He's also doing a lot of dash dancing, which Marth has a great one. A few seconds in M2K does a few Nairs. At this point, I REWIND to figure out why he does Nairs INSTEAD of Fairs. I dont know for sure, myself, m2k is a very strategic guy he could have many reasons. I think it has to do with Fox's positioning. The Nair, unlike the Fair, attacks both Marth's front and Back, and Fox was falling towards Marth, so the first nair he did; m2k probably was trying to jump just a bit past Fox as he was falling in an attempt to get Fox to fall into the back part of the Nair. (PC Chris noticed it however and dodged it
) I noted before that M2K was going for grabs often. We keep watching to figure just why. He finally lands a grab at around :30 and immediately upthrows. This leads to a chain grab. However, M2K doesn't upthrow the second time? Why. You mght have to rewind a couple to times. But its most likely because PC Chris could have DI'd to the nearby platform and ended the chain throw. So M2K opted insted to downthrow and follow PC Chris's tech. And it works out decently enough.These are the kind of things you look for when studying a video.
So from a few Marth vs. Fox videos you learn a good starting point for a good approaching strategy: Approach with Fairs, dash dance to try to make way for a grab to chain grab.
Obviously theres more to a match than just the approach, but its the starting point. So just watch lots of videos against lots of characters. Realize every character match up is different, and you should approach each match up differently. Just watch M2k fight someone other than Fox, he plays a lot differently, and you should too. I'm not suggesting you copy someone's play style, and to be honest its pretty impossible to do that anyway. You'll naturally play your own way. But most of the strategies good players use have been PROVEN to be effective, so you'd be a fool NOT to use them.
That's one thing the Character Specific forums are good for, videos. I think every forum has a thread solely dedicated to listing videos of good players. USE THEM. STUDY THEM.
Don't Get Hit
From the first day I joined smashboards I've been hearing this legendary advice from that guy Isai, yeah he's pretty good lol. A lot of people just shrug it off as a good player being cocky. But whether or not Isai intended it, there is a lot of simple wisdom in that quote. At first it seems ridiculous to say, "don't get hit". But honestly, its not that hard to avoid getting hit. Saying "Don't Get Hit" is the same as saying "Play Smart". What Isai meant was, don't do stupid moves that leave you open. Don't spam smash attacks. Just don't do it. That's playing stupid. Smash attacks are easy to see coming and easy to dodge, and easy to counter attack. LEARN YOUR "SAFE" MOVES. What I call a "safe" move is a move that you can "approach" with, while avoiding being punished heavily for it--a "spammable" move basically. As we saw in the above video, Marth's Fair is an example. With good spacing and good decisions, its hard to punish Marth's Fair (when it's L-canceled). It provides lots of space between marth and the opponent and its a quick, non-laggy move. To learn these moves, it really just involves either playing the game a lot, watching videos, or just asking people. Just ask a good player "what's a good move to approach with". Using your "safe moves" effectively will lead into your less safe, yet more powerful moves. Examples of "safe moves":
Marth's Fair, C. Falcon's Nair, Fox and Falco's SHL, Peach's float-cancelled aerials, most character's Jabs, Almost all projectiles, Most of Sheik's tilts, Marth and Roys side-b, Many L-canceled aeriels into other moves (e.g ganon's retreating shffled fair to jab or Fox/Falco's shffled Dair to Shine)
Wavedashing, Shffling, and Dash Dancing, can add to the safeness of a move as well, depending on the character. For example, while it generally is not a good idea to walk up to someone with the ice climbers and downsmash, it's ALOT of safer to wavedashdance into it. Again, ASK PEOPLE or watch videos.
Learn how to take advantage of people who don't follow Isai's advice
That's basically what The entire competitive game of smash brothers is. Taking advantage of people who make mistakes. Some people excel at TRICKING you into making mistakes, while others simply make no mistakes themselves and know how to capitalize when their opponent does. When you're opponent is open, you can forsake your SAFE move and pull out the heavy artillery. For example...if you're opponent has thrown out a silly F-smash with Marth and missed. You should ALREADY BE AWARE of the best way to maximize the situation. Sometimes that involves high damage, sometimes high knockback. It depends on the situation. For example, say you are Falco and that marth has thrown out a missed F-smash. Falco's safest move is his SHL, but now marth is wide open. It's time to try something more powerful or go for the killer. You could do something as simple as a forward smash, or as complicated as a shffled dair, waveshine, bair, depending on what you need. Some of the more complicated moves take practice. Like you may know that you can take advantage of a missed smash with Fox if you Dair, waveshine, upsmash...but you may not be able to pull that off. In that case, go back to Step 5 and practice practice practice until your fingers are mangled.
Learn how to edgeguard and do it fearlessly and aggressively
If you don't edgeguard you won't win. Period. Unless you're playing against someone like Jigglypuff or Peach, you should almost NEVER just sit and WAIT for the person to come back to the ledge. Whenever someone gets knocked off the side, you should be thinking of ways to get that KO. No matter what the damage is. Obviously some characters are better at edgeguarding, and some characters are easier to edgeguard, but every character has at least a few options. Learn them. Again, the best way is to just ASK someone who is good, or watch videos. Also note that in order to learn how to edgeguard, you must also be aware of how people tend to recover. This is why you can't really practice edgeguarding against the computer. Humans recover VERY differently than the computer. For example, Human players use Fox's Side-B to recover often. The computer NEVER does. Using Marth's D-tilt is a great way to break up that side b. But if you only played against the CPU, you'd never get to practice it. That's why you need to play humans.
Another thing to keep in mind about edgeguarding is STOP BEING A WUSS. One thing I've noticed about noobs is that they are so scared of jumping out for the edgeguard because they're afraid they won't be able to recovey. JUST TRY IT OUT. You'll find that a lot of times you CAN recover. Obviously some characters can't jump out and edgeguard that well, but that's up to you to FIND OUT. Many of them can. Learn to edge hop. If you can't go back to Step 5.
GRAB
A lot of noobs don't grab enough. Grab grab grab. Shield grab, regular grab. Do it. Grabs are free damage, they are generally safe if spaced well, they are almost ALWAYS combo starters or set-up for strong moves, PLUS they out-prioritize regular attacks, PLUS they counter shields. You should be grabbing, A LOT. The only character you need to limit your grabbing with is arguably Samus. Also, you should almost ALWAYS jump-cancel your dash grabs. If you don't know what a JC grab is, you haven't completed Step 3. If you dont know how to jump cancel effectively, then go back to Step 5 and practice it until your fingers bleed.
Tech Chase
Learn to tech chase. Its an easy way to get free damage. It's not really hard to do. It just requires good reaction time. Whenever your opponent hits the ground, either predict where they are going to roll, if anywhere at all...or simply wait for them to do it and just follow them and f-smash or grab them. Simple as that. Free damage.
Pay attention to your and your opponent's percentages
A lot of smashers just keep fighting without regard to how high each other's damage is. You should constantly glance down and look at the percentages. Your strategy should be different depending on the percentage.
Learn to DI
This is one thing you can ONLY learn by actually playing against humans. You can't learn how to do this from videos and its hard to learn by asking people. You've actually got to play. DI can mean the difference between you getting away or getting sucked into a huge chain grab or combo...and even between surviving or losing a stock. Ask people to get ideas, but you must practice it yourself, against humans. YOU MUST LEARN TO DI IF YOU WANT TO BE GOOD AT THIS GAME. A good general rule is at low damages DI down after getting it (unless you're fighting Peach)...and at mid and high damage, DI up when you're getting hit.
Don't play by instinct. Have a plan
A lot of people claim to be able to "adapt" on the fly, but that's not true. Granted, if you're subject to a particular strategy during a match, it is possible to learn how to counter it. But it takes PREVIOUS knowledge of other matchups and techniques to do so. The thing about smash is you're able to have somewhat of a plan even if you're playing a character you're not familiar with. Ideally you should have a plan against each and every character, but you know, most people don't play Ness, so you may not really know how to fight him. But you know a couple of things about Ness just from casual play. A. he's semi-floaty. B. he can double jump cancel, C. he's extremely vulnerable during his up B.
Using this with everything you know should help you keep up with even a really good ness.
at any rate, you should always have a plan. And your plan should change depending on who you're playing with and who you're playing against. Sometimes the plans are similar, e.g Marth's fair is almost always a good approach strategy, no matter who you're playing against (sorry for all the Marth examples, that's who I main
), but no two plans are alike. And if your plan causes you to lose, find out WHY and FIX it. It's always a work in progress. You'll NEVER get PERFECT at this game. There's always something new to learn. And luckily for noobs, the new things you're learning right now will cause the most DRAMATIC improvement of your entire smash career. From then on out, things will be more gradual.If you do everything is this thread, and are HARDCORE about it. I can almost guarantee that you'll be able to beat any casual player quite easily. And you're well on the road to learning how to become and truly great player. People will no longer call you a noob.
If any one would like any general tips I would be glad to assist. Please note I can really only help NOOBS, as I am only so good myself. If you constantly come in 9th place at tourneys and want to know how you can make top 5, I can't help you there. But if you want to know how to be the best out of all your friends or how to making it out of pools in general or just want general critique on your gameplay, I'll be glad to help. Check my profile for my AIM or PM me. Or post in this thread. Maybe others will help as well.
Thoughts about Brawl
Alot of people think that it isn't worth it to get good at melee now since Brawl is on the horizon. But I disagree. I think most of the general strats will carry over. Like "don't get hit" will always apply, so getting used to that style of play will definitely help. Although its very possible and probable that wavedashing, L-cancelling, short hopping, shield grab, edge hopping, chain grabbing, and tons of other things will return...so I think its worth it to familiarize yourself with these things so you'll have an leg up on the comp when Brawl arrives.
I hope this helps someone. I know most of you don't need this guide, but there are a lot of struggling guys that I've noticed who needed something more suited for their level, so I hope this helps them.
