Ask VMan about Yoshi Thread (A General Yoshi Discussion)

[hamyojo]

Y'all silly. Denti's playing the game how it should be played, that endurance test is a huge mind game. He just plays in a way that isn't fun to watch at all, lol.
How do you feel about the Doc MU? I think it's a bit hard but very doable. Back air is godly vs him but I think Doc's very good at catching Yoshi out of double jumps. Also edge guarding's hella fun.

 

[MrHazuki]

I love playing against Doc. I can't really give any tips in the matchup other than to recover high.

 

[BigglesWorth]

I am want to train myself to supershield-lightshield > parry. Because I am curious. Yoshi has the property once you super shield and continue with lightshield he supershields every hit of a multimove and has no shieldstun still. I am curious if the gap after supersheild-lightsheilding the dair in a shield if its enough parry nair the shine of the drill shine. I want to explore this. Any advice on practice?

 

[Sashimi]

When you say Supershield, do you mean powershield? I don't know what you mean by "Supershield-lightshield," but I am going to assume you mean powershielding.

Yoshi's powershield is identical to his regular shield in every way except that it has the traction of his lightest shield (this is common for all characters). Yoshi cannot jump out of powershield, cannot parry, and unlike any other character, cannot cancel his unshielding animation (16 frames for Yoshi) with a grounded attack. There is no benefit to powershielding anything other than reflecting projectiles.

If you want to learn some new tech to counter Fox's Dair, learn to SDI it so that the Shine misses. However, not even this will save you every time, because Fox can space the Dair close enough that single SDI doesn't make the Shine miss, and he can time the Dair so that only two hits will hit you, countering both crouch cancel and ASDI.

The only true counterplay to Fox's Dair is to not get hit by it.

 

[BigglesWorth]

When you say Supershield, do you mean powershield? I don't know what you mean by "Supershield-lightshield," but I am going to assume you mean powershielding.

Yoshi's powershield is identical to his regular shield in every way except that it has the traction of his lightest shield (this is common for all characters). Yoshi cannot jump out of powershield, cannot parry, and unlike any other character, cannot cancel his unshielding animation (16 frames for Yoshi) with a grounded attack. There is no benefit to powershielding anything other than reflecting projectiles.

If you want to learn some new tech to counter Fox's Dair, learn to SDI it so that the Shine misses. However, not even this will save you every time, because Fox can space the Dair close enough that single SDI doesn't make the Shine miss, and he can time the Dair so that only two hits will hit you, countering both crouch cancel and ASDI.

The only true counterplay to Fox's Dair is to not get hit by it.

Why so salty? I think you rusted my computer.
lol
Seriously thank you for the prompt response. I wasn't thinking about the unshielding animation length being that long for some reason. That is mainly, why I post here, because I get carried away in thought and like the briskness of having a practical perspective challenge my meandering theorycraft. I am sorry if it seemed like I was being obnoxious. I just enjoy solving problems and looking through every remote possibility. I like the complexity and breadth of reactive play this character has. I am just learning it in my own wondering way.

 

[Sashimi]

I was not salty, and I apologize if my post seemed that way. I just meant to say that there really is no way to punish Fox's Dair on hit, unless you can double SDI it.

If you read the Dair you can outspace it and punish Fox during his landing lag (I imagine pivot Ftilt would be really good in this situation, though I'm not in the habit of doing pivot tilts) or hit him from above, but for the most part you just have to respect it and see what Fox does after the Dair.

 

[MrHazuki]

Though lightshield works pretty well against dair in some cases.

 

[HomesliceHobbes]

So I've gone all over the place with Yoshi, and lately I've been playing Doc on the side for Peach and Fox.

But in a tournament this weekend, I finally decided I would go ONLY Yoshi and literally not switch at all. Pools was okay and I won a bit, but I didn't make Pro Bracket (but there were only 12 slots! So I didn't feel too bad. Was still having a good time playing my character for real finally). I also had Bladewise in my pool so... I got wrecked by dat peach.

But something cool happened. The TOs felt they had to do something about having almost 50 players not being in a bracket, and the Pro bracket was already coming to a close. So we had an Amateur bracket. And it actually went great for me! I got tons of compliment on my Yoshi, and I suddenly found myself in Winners Semis! Where I was told I would get to play on Stream.

This was followed by me getting wrecked by Spacies (ESPECIALLY FOX) on the said stream. Loser's Quarters I also faced a pretty technical Fox player and got bopped on stream But overall I'm still quite happy that I ended up tied for 5th place and I didn't feel too bad about my losses being to the two players that ended up in Grand Finals.

Just having a good time and not letting matchups get inside my head ended up helping me do way better

Still have a lot of work to do in that Fox matchup though haha.

EDIT: Oh and I still can't decide on "my" Yoshi color. I rep a different color each tournament. This one I repped V3ctorman Blue

 

[Purpletuce]

Don't believe the lie!

You don't have to stay one color. Why would you? Yoshi has great color choices.

 

[Sashimi]

The only thing better than the variety of Yoshi colours is the variety of Yoshi boot colours.

 

[hamyojo]

pinkyosh5everrrrr

 

[Kimimaru]

Y'all silly. Denti's playing the game how it should be played, that endurance test is a huge mind game. He just plays in a way that isn't fun to watch at all, lol.
How do you feel about the Doc MU? I think it's a bit hard but very doable. Back air is godly vs him but I think Doc's very good at catching Yoshi out of double jumps. Also edge guarding's hella fun.

I played against Shroomed's Dr. Mario a bunch and I think the matchup is about even. Eggs eat through pills, so if he throws a pill when recovering the explosion from the egg might hit him; they're also just solid against him in general. D-tilt and D-smash are great as well since they hit low and far and Doc's recovery isn't the best at covering that distance.

You're going to want to watch out for grab, N-air, and B-air. The latter two aren't very hard to parry so I recommend doing so, but keep in mind that Doc's N-air gets stronger the longer it's out. Doc is one of the few characters that gets grab follow-ups on Yoshi, so try to outspace him with B-air and eggs. Yoshi can juggle Doc a little with U-airs, and keeping him in the air with it and U-smash isn't as hard as it is with other characters. U-smash also kills Doc in the low 100s, and Doc doesn't have an answer to it when coming from above.

 

[kofinater]

Y'all silly. Denti's playing the game how it should be played, that endurance test is a huge mind game. He just plays in a way that isn't fun to watch at all, lol.
How do you feel about the Doc MU? I think it's a bit hard but very doable. Back air is godly vs him but I think Doc's very good at catching Yoshi out of double jumps. Also edge guarding's hella fun.

I'd call it about even as well, I played with Velocity over the summer and I agree with Kimimaru would like to add that doc has an hard time recovering and dash attack ->ledge grab can catch his upb because of how difficult it is to sweet spot and the invincible head, same goes for the other mario bros, Falcon, and Ganon.

 

[MrHazuki]

My matches from the tourney last weekend.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vaxJko5ljMs - Eagle (Doc)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2CqfF3D5IM - Navn (Fox)

 

[BigglesWorth]

How do you guys feel about the Luigi matchup? I feel like its the most fun to play since its two characters that both rely on their trickines and combo breakers to an extent. I always get really interesting exchanges of a Luigi pulling spacing that could mean one or more aerials trying to get me to commit to an aerial and then we end up trading multiple times in the air. (nair out of combo only to be naired out of your combo). It feels like the trades are generally in Luigi's favor though and that its harder for Yoshi to edgeguard him than vice versa. I feel like its slightly in his favor due to the impression I got. Not that I've played top Luigis or even on that level. Just curious what you think about the matchup.

 

[Sashimi]

Luigi's as weird as Yoshi. I don't know too much about the matchup, and I'm not sure who wins it (if anyone) but I have a few hunches about it after playing some Luigi players:

- Luigi's ground game is pretty decent because of his movement. Good use of crouch cancelling and egg lay might be helpful to minimize the impact this has on the neutral game.
- Yoshi has a few good tools for beating Luigi's combo breakers (Usmash will beat Luigi's Nair, DJC Uair is just really fast in general, eggs can cover weird angles, etc)
- I don't have much trouble edgeguarding Luigi unless he misfires. Up B will lose to Dsmash or DJ ledge grab and Side B is a reverse disjoint so it will lose to a lot of things. I don't like using eggs too much because of Luigi's floatiness, but otherwise he's not terrible to edgeguard. Waiting out his Down B seems to be pretty important.
- I agree that trading with Luigi is not great. Maybe sometimes in Yoshi's favour but often not.
- Recovering against Luigi hasn't been much of a challenge for me. He has tools for beating the armor, but his movement in the air is pretty bad so I try to abuse that when recovering.

Would love to hear more thoughts about this.

 

[Kimimaru]

I've played this matchup a lot, and my Doubles partner is a Luigi main. I win a significant portion of the matches I play against him, but I would consider us to be about even in skill level since we perform equally well in tournaments.

What to do:
-Recover high
-D-tilt
-B-air
-F-air (not too often)
-N-air
-U-air
-U-smash

Luigi's ground game is pretty good, but D-tilt keeps him at bay. Fortunately, Yoshi has a much better aerial game, so abuse it as much as you can and use platforms. What you want to do is tack on percent early then keep hitting him offstage. Edgeguard with ECEs if he recovers low since he can't really do anything about them. Sometimes you can mix it up by doing a quick DJ ledgegrab as he uses Up + B to get the ledge before him; there's no need to worry about the weak part of his recovery since it will never break your armor. Throwing eggs at him while he's offstage is good too since his poor aerial mobility makes it harder for him to avoid them.

Your N-air, just like his, is a great combo breaker and that applies to this matchup as well. U-air will beat his aerials handily and can be used to keep him in the air. U-smash is great as well for the same reason but is a safer, stronger move that will kill him off the top at around 100%.

When recovering, always recover high unless he's far away and you want to reach the ledge earlier. His aerials break your superarmor pretty early, but oftentimes he won't be able to follow up with another before you can safely touch the stage. Don't be afraid to ECE him away from the ledge.

What not to do:
-Recover low
-Use Eggs from close range

All of Luigi's aerials, especially N-air, eat through your eggs easily. As a result, you won't want to throw eggs too often or too close to him so he can beat them and still punish you. Make sure to force an approach, preferably into the air, with an egg if he's far away and take it from there.

Luigi's D-air breaks Yoshi's armor at around the early 40 or 50 percents, so don't give him that option to gimp you and recover high. If you have no choice other than to recover low, try throwing an egg to cover you.

I know this matchup very well but have trouble explaining it. I wish the videos I had of it were still up since they would better show how I approach it.

Also MrHazuki, I will get to watching your match with Navn. I actually played him last summer when he was in the states with Tomber and beat him in tournament.

 

[SNEAKY_URKEL]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDnKE5J7ki8
Can anyone analyze this entire set and tell me why aMSa did the things he did etc.? I think it would help me understand Yoshi more if I could see options, reasoning behind decisions, examples of pressure, etc.

 

[MrHazuki]

I won a small local tournament i Malmoe, Sweden yesterday. I barely had to fight for my money (got no money though, but a Worms plushie and some Skylander Giants-cards) since there were few dedicated players there.

Luigi is very entertaining. Learning to parry his moves (mostly nair and dair) when he comes from above has helped me immensely. Upsmash is amazing. If you can read where he will missile, stay away from where the misfire would go, but jump out and dair him.

 

[Kimimaru]

MrHazuki, I got to your set with Navn. Here are my thoughts:

-Solid parries
-Solid shield drops
-Pretty good punish game
-Overall solid tech

I think one of the biggest areas to improve is your punish game:
-6:02 could've been a guaranteed U-air chain
-I don't know if you were nervous or not, but I noticed that you seem to hesitate on punishes (8:43 being the best example)
-This is mostly personal preference, but at the start of Game 4 when you landed the first F-air, I would've U-tilted and tech chased/jab reset
-10:46 could've been 1 or 2 more U-airs
-11:23 he performed the D-air very early after using his DJ. As a result, there was ample time to F-smash and close out the stock

Aside from that, work on movement. I saw a lot of missed wavelands, so I'd suggest practicing wavelands from the ledge and on platforms on each legal stage. I also suggest working more on ECEs and other ledge stuff (Ex. Yoshi Bomb ledgestall). While rarely anyone gets optimal ECEs all the time, I noticed that yours were a little too slow and thus unsafe.

For some unknown reason, a lot of spacie players always Sidestep after recovering from D-throw, usually after they were hit by a N-air. Anticipate this and punish them for their bad habits!

Also, I was not expecting most of the parries that you got; the ending to Game 2 was incredible! I thought you did a great job adapting after seeing how Game 1 went. With more practice and experience I know you can beat him next time! I'm still jealous of how much better PAL Yoshi is.

 

[MrHazuki]

Thanks a lot, Kimimaru!
I have to work a lot with my punish game, especially against spacies. Generally, edgeguarding is my forte, so I almost always try to push my opponent close to the edge rather than to rack up damage. That's a habit I have to break. I don't have DJC-uair as a natural reflex in my style, so I'll start practicing until they are.
Indeed, there were plenty of nerves, among other more influencing johns like sleepiness and feeling ill.

Few of the people I often play with punish me for being slow with ECE because they know I'm a killer by the edge, but I get your point. ECE is something I need to warm up a lot before a set and I'll make sure to always spend some time doing that from now on. Also, I have a terrible habit at the ledge. One ECE to aerial or platform waveland, always. I must change this.

I have played NTSC-Yoshi as well, and it is hell to me. The armor breaks too easily and the smashes never kill. However, I love Yoshi's dair, so I'd say it is an even trade. ^_^

 

[SNEAKY_URKEL]

Can anyone help me with:
1. Marth matchup. I keep getting out spaced, I don't know what to do to shift the advantage into my hands. Tilts and jabs just keep me from getting anywhere close, and if I try to just go in hard, I just end up getting caught up in a combo. What should I be doing in the neutral game? When should I utilize egg stall?
2. What are good ways to start vertical combos? I find utilt and uair hard to land effectively, do I just need to practice landing them more? What are other options that lead into huge juggles?

 

[Kimimaru]

You're welcome! There's no problem with getting them to the edge and going for gimps. After all, the point of the competitive play is to take all 4 of your opponent's stocks, however you do it. By all means, take a gimp when the opportunity arises.

However, going for a gimp won't always work in your favor, especially on stages like FD where racking up damage is easier. Hitting the opponent offstage is also better when you can't follow up on a combo.

SNEAKY_URKEL, do you have any videos?

You'll want to use ECEs whenever you want to back your opponent off the ledge, or if you just want to camp. I find B-air a good tool to get in. Check this video to see how I fight Marth (this one is generally very defensive): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bcl6nGS0tDI&t=49m52s

 

[SNEAKY_URKEL]

Kimimaru I'll try to record something tonight/tomorrow, but it'll probably be netplay against someone with good ping instead of in real life. Haven't been to offline events other than EVO yet.

 

[Sashimi]

Went to monthly #6 today. Got 9th place out of 72 entrants! The whole day I only lost to Cman (Fox, #2 in Ottawa) and DV (Falco, somewhere in top 8). Unfortunately I don't have any recordings this time, but I did unlock the Yoshi trophy on a setup after winning one of my sets.

In both of my sets vs those players, I noticed I was having some trouble dealing with platform camping. My general tool for dealing with this right now is to catch them with the tip of Bair from under the platforms, but I would love to get some advice from everyone about dealing with platform camping!

 

[MrHazuki]

All depends on how they camp. When they are far enough away from you, throw eggs. Poke through the platform with bair or upair (sometimes fair works as well). If you see them going down towards you from above, crouch-parry to nair.

 

[SNEAKY_URKEL]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvFWAJsEgio (sorry about the music, forgot that I should have turned on the melee sounds)
This probably some of my more solid play. Please take into consideration that I switched to Yoshi only about 2 weeks ago, so I really would appreciate ANY knowledge or tips right now. I'd appreciate it if you told me
1. timestamps and told me what I SHOULD have done and what I did wrong/what I did good, but could do better
2. things that you can tell I need to practice, and how to drill/practice them
3. general things I should work into my play

EDIT oh and sometimes with my wavelanding, I know I went a bit too crazy with it, but I usually had something in mind but just couldn't do it/messed up/I knew what I wanted to do but I choked and couldn't input the action etc., wavelanding applications would also help me out although I sorta understand when/how to utilize them

 

[BigglesWorth]

How many people here like to use rising bair > falling uair on floaties to rack up damage? I have used Egg > fair effectively on Peach and a bit on Samus. It feels like bair onto platform dsmash is the more consistent kill setup. I have used uthrow or uair to cause a tech chase on a platform and finished them by punishing their roll with a Yoshi bomber (Dreamland works well for me doing this for whatever reason). How do you like to combo floaties? What are the best ways to get earlier kills on jigs, samus, peach, mario, or luigi?

 

[MrHazuki]

Against Jiggs I try to get bair to uair combos. Ftilt to uair works wonders against Peach and Samus.

 

[Kimimaru]

Any Yoshis want to play on netplay sometime? I got Dolphin up and running but haven't had the chance to test netplay yet. Unfortunately, I'm stuck using an N64 controller since I don't have a GCN adapter yet, but it's actually not too bad for Melee.

 

[SNEAKY_URKEL]

I mainly play on Netplay, but you're in New York, unfortunately. Can someone please critique me based off of my post above, though? Really would appreciate help.

" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvFWAJsEgio (sorry about the music, forgot that I should have turned on the melee sounds)
This probably some of my more solid play. Please take into consideration that I switched to Yoshi only about 2 weeks ago, so I really would appreciate ANY knowledge or tips right now. I'd appreciate it if you told me
1. timestamps and told me what I SHOULD have done and what I did wrong/what I did good, but could do better
2. things that you can tell I need to practice, and how to drill/practice them
3. general things I should work into my play

EDIT oh and sometimes with my wavelanding, I know I went a bit too crazy with it, but I usually had something in mind but just couldn't do it/messed up/I knew what I wanted to do but I choked and couldn't input the action etc., wavelanding applications would also help me out although I sorta understand when/how to utilize them"

 

[MrHazuki]

These songs were a lot better than anything Melee can produce.

I'm going to give you one advice, and one advice only. I watched it all and there was only one SUPER IMPORTANT thing you failed, which is to use shield drop. Yoshi cannot go further without that technique. Learn it and learn to play with it.

 

[SNEAKY_URKEL]

Yeah, trying to practice it. Aside from that, though, what/how should I be practicing?

 

[MrHazuki]

...one advice, and one advice only...

 

[kofinater]

Me vs Beanwolf(Shiek)
Me vs Stro(Link)

Beanwolf is the person i play the most so he's got good at doing a lot off of grab. Any DI tips for sheiks throw? I actually don't know why i didn't ban FD but I suppose most shieks won't actually go there and i hate playing shiek on dreamland. The Stro game was a bunch of fun even tho I lost after watching it and watching Vman in Links vs Stinks there are definitely some things i could do better with, especially edge guarding. Any other tips would be appreciated, placed 7th out of 44 yesterday which is my best so far, want to get a top3 before TBH4, 3 weeks left . . .

 

[Sashimi]

First link you posted doesn't work, so I just watched the set vs Stro. I have a lot of Link experience, but most of my comments will probably be pretty general.

- ledge game could be improved a bit. Your edge-cancelled eggs are not bad, but it might help to learn some new ways of getting off the ledge. I think I saw at least one situation where a waveland would have been very useful. Also, you were sometimes slow with getting to the ledge for an edgeguard. You used DJ ledgegrab a few times, but there were times where you went for something way more fancy (which is always fun I'll admit) and took too long as a result
- Dtilt > Fair is imo too situational to be reliable. It works sometimes as a read, but I would suggest just dashing forward after the Dtilt and seeing what your opponent does. I usually do Dtilt again (or dsmash if they're high %) if they miss tech or tech in place and reverse DJC Nair if they techroll towards/behind me. If they techroll away they're usually at the ledge and have very little space so I just wait for them to commit to something
- edgeguarding Link is pretty complicated, but you seem to have a good idea of how to do it. I think it's very important to keep track of when Link used his tether
- Your shield drop game is good. I loved the shield drop rdjc fair in game 3!

 

[kofinater]

Edited the link, it should work now. Thanks for the advice! I def get to fancy going to ledge lol.

 

[BigglesWorth]

So a question that might help me develop things further. How do you conceptualize yoshi? Yoshi is an unusual character with an unusual playstyle in an unusual game. How do you formalize your goals in match? My current understanding of a "Yoshi Flowchart" would look something like: Crossup, Counter, or Bait > Hard knockdown or Juggle > dmsash, fsmash, or nair > edgeguard. The idea that I should formulate ways to get hardknockdowns (knockdowns with difficult tech timings or just really easy tech chase setups) or uair chains out of my bair/nair crossup, cc's, djcc's, whiff punishes, parries, and trades. The idea that I should always tech chase and juggle ideally into edgeguard that is setup with dsmash ideally (low angle) or just a combo ender with a lot of knockback (nair or fsmash). Just as a general idea for goals in a matchup. To be honest, it feels like there is a lot of followups for both bair and nair so I really am trying to practice getting those goals of each possible hit of nair. Do you have certain ways of thinking about how the flowchart of your punish game that might give me some tricks to getting the most out of each hit with Yoshi?

 

[Sashimi]

If you're talking strictly punish game, I used the following flowchart to figure out my ideal punish game:

vs fastfallers
Poke (usually Fair, Nair, Bair)
Tumble (Utilt or Ftilt)
Techchase (Downthrow or Jab reset)
Uair chain
Finisher (Nair or Bair > Nair)
Edgeguard

vs everyone else
Poke (Fair, Nair, Bair)
Tumble (Utilt)
Juggle (Utilts Uairs and Eggs)
Punish landing attempts with Usmash

There's obviously much more to it with nuances based on DI and combo breaker attempts, but that's what I would say is my general gameplan. I adjust mid-combo if things don't go exactly as planned.

Don't have time to discuss how you get to this point (neutral game) so this is all I can contribute for now.

 

[Purpletuce]

In my opinion, a flowchart never really works for Yoshi. He has to always be mixing things up to keep his opponent on their toes. There are certain situations where the are super obvious options that are best, but most of the time you'll have quite a variety. My goals vary throughout the game. In general, at low %s, I focus on getting a safe opening, or a hard combo to take care of crouch cancel %. Next I'll work on a combo to bring them to edgeguard/kill %. However, if I am at kill % and they just freshly spawned, my goal is usually maximum damage(risky Fair/ECEs). You never just have a general flowchart...