Social 7th Heaven - Cloud Social Thread

[Smooth Criminal]

Welcome to the winning team

Kappa

Smooth Criminal

 

[Shaya]

I just imagine I'm using a Marth not limited.
There's almost nothing different to playing him at all. Except all the shortcomings of Marth (throughout all games, but particularly Brawl/S4) just don't exist for him.

I still am using an assortment of characters and want to get my ZSS back up to scratch (it's so easy to lose your precision with her and it matters significantly more for her than basically every char in the cast). But as long as one of our former top brawl players aren't attending again (they come back out of no where, shocked that they were able to do very well with Cloud, well, duh) it's probably worthwhile to carry the torch so I make it harder for him~

 

[GHNeko]

Join us Shaya.

SWITCH TO CLOUD.

EMBRACE THE UAIR.

ー仁二二二ア
ヽ༼ ͠ ͠° ͜ʖ ͠ ͠° ༽ﾉ

 

[Shaya]

I've always been there.
Just at the Marth boards. Generally a good place to discuss Cloud imo.

To put it facetiously, I'm a swordsman fetishist, so I play them all. I find they all share similarities (duh) but also contrast in unique ways that advance my skills in that particular area and apply universally.
Cloud is the best swordsman by far, but I main swords, so using him is a matter of that fact; I'd rather be pushing Roy's meta but I need to get back to being super good before placing handicaps on myself again.
[At the same time I'm hoping Roy gets buffed as he's likely the worst swordie and also the most underdeveloped]

 

[GHNeko]

Idk man. Mii Swordfighter is pretty bad. At least when locked @ guest weight and 1111.

 

[Shaya]

Oh yeah.
Miis don't exist~
I leave such responsibilities to AEM .

I did give him a good shot though (at 1111). But he's pretty dysfunctional. As are all the Miis IMO, even with freedom of sets (we've had free miis in Aussieland all this time though).

 

[GHNeko]

Oh yeah.
Miis don't exist~
I leave such responsibilities to AEM .

I did give him a good shot though (at 1111). But he's pretty dysfunctional.

Chakram is too good man. Also I'm fairly fond of Shuriken of Light.

Also Shaya you're good at smash.

how do you suggest someone gitgud at Smash? Like how do you build on fundamentals and increasing your ability to adapt and read?

 

[Shaya]

Always impose challenges on yourself, understand what you're doing as much as possible. For everything that ever works for you, wonder if you could've done something better, or what could have the opponent done instead that would've worked and how you would've dealt with that instead (eventually/hopefully finding options that cover everything or most of everything). If your opponent is out playing you while you're only thinking 1 step ahead, you probably should try thinking 2, 3, 4 or maybe even 5 steps ahead. Never ever let yourself get into a play style that relies on the opponent making mistakes, instead you should be trying to have reactive (or anticipated) punishes for everything.

Practice, study.
It's like getting good at anything really?
Just in things like Smash/fighting games, the steps of learning to crawl and then to walk are often ambiguous and are most definitely not commonly defined.
However, you'll never be able to walk without crawling and it needn't be said about your chances of running (but I am, anyway).

To me I think mostly about spacing, reacting better (I've recently brought down smash use back to my ZSS but I go for lazy punishes, it annoys me; that's not going to fix itself without practice although I'm happy I've got a such a large chunk of the 'hard part' out of the way [outspacing things and positioning properly - also not doing it when the enemy can forward air~] out of the way) and trying to understand the dynamics of what's going on as many steps ahead as possible, because from that knowledge you make more informed decisions.

Simple ideas have generally been what have pushed me forward the most, ironically. But as simple as a single sentence like "you need to react better" is, it takes a lot of time and focus of such ideas until you 'get them'.
The brain is a magical thing and you can make it do anything. Never be disappointed or dwell on negative things because the brain is designed to store and learn these better than everything else.

iono if this is helpful, but I tend to not have the best answers to the very generalized questions like 'how to get better'; adapting and reading to me is just a reflection of how much I know about and can visualize the game. Adapting in the moment tends to be thinking about all the steps that come between the things you're having issues with rather than the single most pronounced 'thing' that comes from it.
If you want to look at some more technical things, you should read up on neuroplasticity; visualization is generally the most effective means of advancing.
A general rule of thumb I have is, if you can't do it against a lifeless CPU, how do you expect to be able to do it against a thinking human being/

something something
"ask more specific questions"~

 

[GHNeko]

Always impose challenges on yourself, understand what you're doing as much as possible. For everything that ever works for you, wonder if you could've done something better, or what could have the opponent done instead that would've worked and how you would've dealt with that instead (eventually/hopefully finding options that cover everything or most of everything). If your opponent is out playing you while you're only thinking 1 step ahead, you probably should try thinking 2, 3, 4 or maybe even 5 steps ahead. Never ever let yourself get into a play style that relies on the opponent making mistakes, instead you should be trying to have reactive (or anticipated) punishes for everything.

Practice, study.
It's like getting good at anything really?
Just in things like Smash/fighting games, the steps of learning to crawl and then to walk are often ambiguous and are most definitely not commonly defined.
However, you'll never be able to walk without crawling and it needn't be said about your chances of running (but I am, anyway).

To me I think mostly about spacing, reacting better (I've recently brought down smash use back to my ZSS but I go for lazy punishes, it annoys me; that's not going to fix itself without practice although I'm happy I've got a such a large chunk of the 'hard part' out of the way [outspacing things and positioning properly - also not doing it when the enemy can forward air~] out of the way) and trying to understand the dynamics of what's going on as many steps ahead as possible, because from that knowledge you make more informed decisions.

Simple ideas have generally been what have pushed me forward the most, ironically. But as simple as a single sentence like "you need to react better" is, it takes a lot of time and focus of such ideas until you 'get them'.
The brain is a magical thing and you can make it do anything. Never be disappointed or dwell on negative things because the brain is designed to store and learn these better than everything else.

iono if this is helpful, but I tend to not have the best answers to the very generalized questions like 'how to get better'; adapting and reading to me is just a reflection of how much I know about and can visualize the game. Adapting in the moment tends to be thinking about all the steps that come between the things you're having issues with rather than the single most pronounced 'thing' that comes from it.
If you want to look at some more technical things, you should read up on neuroplasticity; visualization is generally the most effective means of advancing.
A general rule of thumb I have is, if you can't do it against a lifeless CPU, how do you expect to be able to do it against a thinking human being/

something something
"ask more specific questions"~

Nah it's fine. I just mostly wanted to get a wall of text from you to feed players. :3c

It's also nice general details that some players can use.

I typically like reading the things you and Thinkaman post lel.

EDIT: though i wish i knew how to get into the mindset of thinking more steps ahead _(:3c

though I guess I've been getting better at that, but my playstyle is still very much "force errors out of your opponents and punish accordingly" but I dont have the neutral or fundamentals to do that well enough for me to get by.

 

[~Skelly~]

What's that? We're going to have Shaya sticking around more? He accepted 1st Class into his life? All right!

Always impose challenges on yourself, understand what you're doing as much as possible. For everything that ever works for you, wonder if you could've done something better, or what could have the opponent done instead that would've worked and how you would've dealt with that instead (eventually/hopefully finding options that cover everything or most of everything). If your opponent is out playing you while you're only thinking 1 step ahead, you probably should try thinking 2, 3, 4 or maybe even 5 steps ahead. Never ever let yourself get into a play style that relies on the opponent making mistakes, instead you should be trying to have reactive (or anticipated) punishes for everything.

Practice, study.
It's like getting good at anything really?
Just in things like Smash/fighting games, the steps of learning to crawl and then to walk are often ambiguous and are most definitely not commonly defined.
However, you'll never be able to walk without crawling and it needn't be said about your chances of running (but I am, anyway).

To me I think mostly about spacing, reacting better (I've recently brought down smash use back to my ZSS but I go for lazy punishes, it annoys me; that's not going to fix itself without practice although I'm happy I've got a such a large chunk of the 'hard part' out of the way [outspacing things and positioning properly - also not doing it when the enemy can forward air~] out of the way) and trying to understand the dynamics of what's going on as many steps ahead as possible, because from that knowledge you make more informed decisions.

Simple ideas have generally been what have pushed me forward the most, ironically. But as simple as a single sentence like "you need to react better" is, it takes a lot of time and focus of such ideas until you 'get them'.
The brain is a magical thing and you can make it do anything. Never be disappointed or dwell on negative things because the brain is designed to store and learn these better than everything else.

iono if this is helpful, but I tend to not have the best answers to the very generalized questions like 'how to get better'; adapting and reading to me is just a reflection of how much I know about and can visualize the game. Adapting in the moment tends to be thinking about all the steps that come between the things you're having issues with rather than the single most pronounced 'thing' that comes from it.
If you want to look at some more technical things, you should read up on neuroplasticity; visualization is generally the most effective means of advancing.
A general rule of thumb I have is, if you can't do it against a lifeless CPU, how do you expect to be able to do it against a thinking human being/

something something
"ask more specific questions"~

I wanted to add on to this post, but I've got nothing. You pretty much covered it.

 

[GHNeko]

Yeah it's really general, basic, and solid "gitgud" advice.

So now I have a wall of text to throw in the face of players who are looking to gitgud lmfao.

 

[~Skelly~]

Yeah it's really general, basic, and solid "gitgud" advice.

So now I have a wall of text to throw in the face of players who are looking to gitgud lmfao.

Sounds like a plan. I'm probably going to be using it as well to inform new players, though I might add on that visual learners may have a slight advantage in the learning experience.

 

[GHNeko]

I'm one of those "gotta experience it first hand" learners.

which suuuuucks

my lack of tourney experience shows up so often lmfao

 

[CrimsonRick117]

I feel the same way, but I am a visual learner I see it once practice a bit and for the most part i'll get things down relatively quick

 

[-m0]

Like Shaya said, imposing challenges on yourself is helpful. I saw someone on the Sheik boards say that to learn punishing, etc. quickly you should SD for every missed punish/whatever you're trying to learn.

That's Jecht from Final Fantasy X.

Are you sure? I'm talking about the music right at 3:19 to 3:26 in your video
EDIT: Nevermind, I should be able to figure it out on my own with some research

 

[Tino]

I just learn things whenever I feel like it. I don't have tournament level experience but that's not even a priority for me.

 

[-m0]

nyuk nyuk...

somebody say nyum nyum back to me

 

[RebelXII]

Bartz from FF V

Terra from FF VI

Squall from FF VIII

nyuk nyuk...

somebody say nyum nyum back to me

Gar! Gar! Garchomp.

BTW that character was Prishe from Final Fantasy XI

 

[Shaya]

I'm one of those "gotta experience it first hand" learners.

which suuuuucks

my lack of tourney experience shows up so often lmfao

Sounds like you need to learn to walk.

I don't know of a single top level player that doesn't practice and study.
Experience is important.
But relying solely on it is a sign of laziness or lack of vision.

There must be something you can look to. If you're going to look at good players and think there is some sort of obfuscated wall defined by ability to adapt and read that's impossible to peep over without experience you're probably going to stall indefinitely.

I would assume, that with lack of tournament experience, that you should focus on not relying on your opponent making mistakes / "run into things I'm throwing out there".
This steeps into reacting, anticipating (thinking multiple steps ahead; doesn't matter if you're "slow" and lose a lot while focusing on this), better positioning and optimizing your movement and punishes.

 

[TTTTTsd]

Oh, hello Shaya. I see you are prepared to embark on a journey with us all.

Welcome aboard and continue to spread awesome knowledge. Also nice to see you playing the best Swordsman, even if only a little. ; )

 

[GHNeko]

Sounds like you need to learn to walk.

I don't know of a single top level player that doesn't practice and study.
Experience is important.
But relying solely on it is a sign of laziness or lack of vision.

There must be something you can look to. If you're going to look at good players and think there is some sort of obfuscated wall defined by ability to adapt and read that's impossible to peep over without experience you're probably going to stall indefinitely.

I would assume, that with lack of tournament experience, that you should focus on not relying on your opponent making mistakes / "run into things I'm throwing out there".
This steeps into reacting, anticipating (thinking multiple steps ahead; doesn't matter if you're "slow" and lose a lot while focusing on this), better positioning and optimizing your movement and punishes.

Nono. I study all the time.

I'm a lab monster.

And I do play regularly. Just not in tournament because my car is jacked up lmao.

I've been to tourneys plenty of times before but they're mostly just larger tourneys that I can managed to figure out how to get to. Locals,weeklies,biweeklies; I cant travel to enough because my wife works at night so having to leave a tourney to pick her up means a DQ and that means a waste of money.

Really, the only reason why I don't go 0-2 at tourneys is simply because I have more knowledge than the lower tiered regulars. I can also better apply theory and my lab work to my game in a short amount of time.

I have a vague idea of what to work on personally, but idk if i'm going in the right direction. Online ladder and occasional smashfests arent enough to validate if im doing the right things.

Every time I go somewhere people tell me I've improved, but it's never quantified.

 

[Stylo Ren]

So I think I have some advice for players trying to get good.

Before you start seriously competing, go to events and play friendlies, watch matches, and if you're okay with losing, enter with low goals set. Don't expect so much out of yourself when you start out, and keep a calm mindabout it. Focus not on winning, but on learning and getting better. By doing this, you remove a huge tilt barrier that will disable you from learning from your mistakes, and you'll be able to get more mileage out of both your wins and losses.

At my first tournament about a month ago, I aimed to get into bracket, and that was a mistake. I should have aimed to play with all the good players there (and we had a really stacked tournament. Nicole, like the Brawl Peach Nicole was there, and she was my pool captain.) The determining match of my pools run was with this awful kid who got really lucky (I powershielded Falcon's nair but the game decided I'd just stop shielding for some reason and I died, game 3 after he got 2 lucky downairs on me. Same kid took a match off of Nicole by getting 2 9's in a row with G&W)

After I lost to that kid, I was on tilt for the rest of the tournament. I played friendlies when I could, but I didnt learn as much as I could have and honestly the event was a failure in that regard for me, and it was very sucessful for my training partner because he was able to learn a lot from it.

After that tournament, I was on tilt for like a week and let myself be done in by my failure.

Like Shaya said, learn to crawl before you walk. Learn to walk before you run. You can't skip steps. Honestly, you can't do everything by yourself either. Zer0 got to where he is now thanks to M2k's guidance. Everybody needs to hear some critique and advice to advance.

I can walk now, and I'm learning how to walk faster. Its gonna be a long time before I can run. But I have people in my corner giving me advice, a few mentors, and skilled people to play against weekly, and a dedicated training partner to offer support and advice as well.

That being said, if you feel like you're getting good but you hit a wall, I can offer you a huge piece of advice that a lot of people miss. Tiny adjustments to your play make huge differences. At the point I'm at, I'm no longer making huge, awful mistakes. I'm making small, often minuscule mistakes, like choosing good options and then instead of mixing up, trying the same option again, even though im aware that better options are available, or when I chose a good option and miss space it, I'll repeat it trying to get it right.

That being said, I came on with the intent to report good news!

I went to my second ever tournament and placed 25th out of 66 smash 4 entrants. It was supposed to be bigger but the main organizer is a melee *** and doesnt care about smash 4, so it was hosted on the same day as a bigger tournament in (I think) IN.

http://challonge.com/stiffkneessmash4bracket

I also entered doubles for the first time with my training partner and we did okay

I took a stock off of the best player in St. Louis, Fye, and if I didnt SD twice, I coulda taken the match, and I almost took a game off of the 10th best player in St. Louis, Emerl (who also happens to be one of my good friends). He eliminated me, but it was the first time I ever gave him a serious run for his money. I made one bad mistake that took my tournament stock, but it was a great set, and a great event.

I also commentated, https://www.twitch.tv/645gaming/v/56864759 and I come in about an hour in, a lil after the hour mark, I beleive. Theres a bit of dead air where I and my training partner just chat it up while we wait for a set to end, but if you wanna see some of the better players of the midwest going at it, check it out. Great matches between Flowyo and Fye are on here, and a lot of awesome, crazy **** happens

 

[-m0]

GHNeko You want edgy? Jesus listen to Squall lol

snip

Yeah that's pretty much what I'm doing right now, just trying to git gud. I can theorycraft and tell you what you or anyone else should do in say, a matchup or something. But when it comes to actually playing?

And I know what you're saying about being on tilt. I lost a couple friendlies against a Sonic using a SIDEWAYS WIIMOTE. I've never seen why people call Sonic annoying until now. The worst part was that I knew a lot of what he was going to do. He kind of just kept doing autocancel dair and neutral b with some spindashes in between. I know that you're supposed to spotdodge neutral b and usmash AC dair and OOS uair if he uses his followups after a blocked side b (and he was) but I was only able to actually execute the last one. The other thing that really got to me is sometimes he would just roll in front of me, then immediately roll back again and repeat that like ten times in like 3 seconds. That really flustered me for some reason and he got a lot of free dsmashes on me for that. I also have a really bad case of "running into random ****" syndrome - people like this guy who just randomly throw out charged fsmashes hit me more than they should, and even if I shielded it that ****ing fsmash is safe and he could just run away.


EDIT: RebelXII don't forget this

And I notice that Squall says "This guys like a bad dream" to Laguna, but aren't they homies or something?

 

[~Skelly~]

"Running into random ****" syndrome - people like this guy who just randomly throw out charged fsmashes hit me more than they should, and even if I shielded it that ****ing fsmash is safe and he could just run away.

This pretty much decribes how my matches with cpus and players go. No matter how well I play, I always end up taking more hits than I should.

 

[GHNeko]

Sounds like ya'll need to stop approaching so damn much lmfao.

 

[Shaya]

With all that in mind then, I think you need to figure out more practical short term goals.
You could try putting money on the line at your local shindigs/meets.
You could also get a divorce (lol). Or not fret too much over giving up your tournament entry fee and play in them anyway (depending on convenience or finances) - my health is often as such that I probably shouldn't be going to tournaments anyway but I'm still happy to play through pools/early bracket, say hi to people and leave early.

I rely on CPUs a lot; they're good for a lot of things really. Just trying to get faster and always having good spacing is something I find relatively easy to observe, power shielding more, reacting more (broken record here I'm sure), but I feel confident measuring improvements in these things, again, through visualization and then enacting them.

Every small piece of the puzzle. If you find that there's no perceivable gaps without getting mangled, then you need to go out of your way to get your ass handed to you so you have a refreshed palette and spawn new ideas for self-improvement grinding.

My general theme here is that if your spacing, positioning and general reactions are so on point, that reading and adapting becomes second nature to you as if something isn't working, there's alternative positions and timings to take that would've been developed along the way. Through 'learning' how to be perfect you also know the shortfalls and alternatives; if your alternatives aren't as perfect as what isn't working for you in the moment, that's already a lot to work on and usually in hindsight (unfortunately) you realise what adjustments need to be made to your general style to accommodate the opponent's will/execution.

 

[~Skelly~]

Sounds like ya'll need to stop approaching so damn much lmfao.

Apparently. Not always the case, but apparently.

 

[GHNeko]

With all that in mind then, I think you need to figure out more practical short term goals.
You could try putting money on the line at your local shindigs/meets.
You could also get a divorce (lol). Or not fret too much over giving up your tournament entry fee and play in them anyway (depending on convenience or finances) - my health is often as such that I probably shouldn't be going to tournaments anyway but I'm still happy to play through pools/early bracket, say hi to people and leave early.

I rely on CPUs a lot; they're good for a lot of things really. Just trying to get faster and always having good spacing is something I find relatively easy to observe, power shielding more, reacting more (broken record here I'm sure), but I feel confident measuring improvements in these things, again, through visualization and then enacting them.

Every small piece of the puzzle. If you find that there's no perceivable gaps without getting mangled, then you need to go out of your way to get your *** handed to you so you have a refreshed palette and spawn new ideas for self-improvement grinding.

My general theme here is that if your spacing, positioning and general reactions are so on point, that reading and adapting becomes second nature to you as if something isn't working, there's alternative positions and timings to take that would've been developed along the way. Through 'learning' how to be perfect you also know the shortfalls and alternatives; if your alternatives aren't as perfect as what isn't working for you in the moment, that's already a lot to work on and usually in hindsight (unfortunately) you realise what adjustments need to be made to your general style to accommodate the opponent's will/execution.

mm. Duly noted.
I'd be more willing to give up the money i spend if tourneys in Texas had more dedicated friendlies set ups.

 

[Stylo Ren]

mm. Duly noted.
I'd be more willing to give up the money i spend if tourneys in Texas had more dedicated friendlies set ups.

Do what I do: we never have enough setups and very few are able to be used for friendlies. As bracket dwindles down, start discreetly taking over setups, and post tourney, try to get some good work in

 

[RebelXII]

You could join me and play Pokken.

 

[GHNeko]

The pokken virus is still spreading it seems.

 

[RebelXII]

Not Jokken. I've been playing so much my classic controller is brokken.

 

[Chalice]

So I finally grew a pair and ordered a PC Gamecube Controller Adapter

Cuz I'm planning on getting into Melee competitively and main Marth

When I first saw and played Cloud I immediately thought he was like Melee Marth. Plus I only played Marth back when I was a kid

 

[GHNeko]

That's the reason why I play Cloud too.

Reminds me a lot of Melee Marth lol

 

[Mario & Sonic Guy]

I don't see how Cloud would remind someone of Melee Marth, because the two of them operate differently. Maybe it's because they both speak Japanese, regardless of region?

 

[GHNeko]

I don't see how Cloud would remind someone of Melee Marth, because the two of them operate differently. Maybe it's because they both speak Japanese, regardless of region?

Because they both have similar feeling and flow in a competitive environment.

The similarities arent superficial and are rooted strictly in competitive play, starting from mid-level play and up.

The coverage and juggling capabilities in air. Large flowing hitboxes with really good reach, coverage, and frame data. Marthitis. Strong spikes. Decent, but very exploitable recoveries. Very strong movement options. A high requirement for fundamentals.

The list goes on.

 

[-m0]

I don't see how Cloud would remind someone of Melee Marth, because the two of them operate differently. Maybe it's because they both speak Japanese, regardless of region?

Well, as multiple people have stated through this thread, Cloud is like Melee Marth because their range is about the same, and having a Limit Cross Slash is like looking for that tipper fsmash. While we're never getting Melee Marth or anything close to him in Smash 4 Cloud is probavly the closest to him.

Do what I do: we never have enough setups and very few are able to be used for friendlies. As bracket dwindles down, start discreetly taking over setups, and post tourney, try to get some good work in

Exactly.

Sounds like ya'll need to stop approaching so damn much lmfao.

I do feel like I'm too aggressive. I played this Falcon in bracket with Shulk and he literally just stood there and waited for me to do something and the he punished because Shulk's moves are all such high-commitment. I've also been told that I spotdodge too much and I need to mix up my ledge getups.
I've also changed my secondary to Shulk. He's not the best secondary cause his matchups are similar to Cloud's but he's better than pretending I can play Tink anymore lol.

 

[GHNeko]

i dont spotdodge enough

melee beat that habit out of me really ****ing hard.

i really dont know how to get it back.

 

[-m0]

i dont spotdodge enough

melee beat that habit out of me really ****ing hard.

i really dont know how to get it back.

Tbh I think it's better to not spotdodge enough than spotdodge too much. But if you don't spotdodge at all then you're in trouble. I'm trying to only spotdodge when I know they're going for a grab, but it's hard, I keep spotdodging instead of shielding when I should be

 

[Mario & Sonic Guy]

Because they both have similar feeling and flow in a competitive environment.

The similarities arent superficial and are rooted strictly in competitive play, starting from mid-level play and up.

The coverage and juggling capabilities in air. Large flowing hitboxes with really good reach, coverage, and frame data. Marthitis. Strong spikes. Decent, but very exploitable recoveries. Very strong movement options. A high requirement for fundamentals.

The list goes on.

Still, I just don't get it. Cloud actually has a projectile move, while Marth does not, and they don't exactly share their attack sweetspot locations either.