I don't understand Dash Dancing and other things

[Tarv]

Hi everyone.

I was wondering if anyone could give me an extensive explanation on dash dancing. My knowledge of the technique is relatively minimal and the only thing I "know" about it is that you're to "dash in and out of your opponent range." Beyond that you might as well just be running back and forth for no reason. As a Marth main and a falco secondary user dash dancing seems really important but I just don't have any comprehensive knowledge on the subject. How do you know when to go for it? How do you know at what tempo to DD? What is a character's "range". I guess I'm just looking for a comprehensive overview of the subject; give me as much information as you can about DDing.


Also, this very well could be a separate thread but I'm also confused regarding crouch dash canceling and JCing. Can you JC out of a DD and then attack immediately with anything? Can you crouch to cancel a DD and then follow up with say an Fsmash? Also, JC DD grabs are difficult for me... any advice on that?

Anyways, any and all advice would be greatly appreciated and I look forward to reading your insightful answers. Thanks to everyone in advance.

Oh, and for those of you who have been "waiting" (probably no one at this point). I'm going to try my absolute hardest to get a video of me playing up on the video critique threads for at least Marth and Falco.

 

[Jockmaster]

It is meant to give you the advantage in a situation by preparing your dash for the ability to go either way. Also, it helps to hide your true movement from the opponent AND eats up stage space.

one good example is when you are trying to tech chase

Basically assume your opponent has missed a tech and is laying there. They can either: roll towards you, roll away from you, get up, or get up attack. By dash dancing near and then away from them, you are able to cover every option; if they roll towards, you can dash back and follow up...if they roll away you simply dash and follow...if they get up attack you dash out of attack range then dash back in...and if they stand up your dash towards them should put you right there.

Basically, it allows for you to have both a strategic and physical advantage in many situations by keeping your dash fresh in both directions.

This is especially important with Marth because his dashdance is covers so much space

 

[Renth]

Tarv, I always see you posting so many things about improvement, I live in the Johnstown/Altoona area (twoish hours from pittsburgh) if you find yourself in my neighborhood hit me up. I'll show you anything you want to know.

 

[Tarv]

@Jockmaster: Thanks for the information! The missed tech example was really helpful in explaining the purpose of DDing. The more I read about melee and the more advice I get; the more I realize that it's all about "covering options" It seems to be a universal term and an infinitely important technique to higher level play.

@Renth: That'd be awesome! If I'm ever in your neck of the woods I'll definitely look you up. Thanks!

 

[Captain Smuckers]

To the best of my knowledge, you can't immediately crouch out of a dash dance. If you're in a full dash already, you can crouch and then do something like a forward smash, but you can't crouch that quickly in the initial frames of a dash (while dash dancing) you would need to wavedash first in order to forward smash after a dash dance. Also, as far as JC grabs go, every character has a different timing. You need need to get used to each character's timing as far as jumping before hitting Z. Basically, it just takes practice and you'll get the hang of it as long as you keep at it.

 

[Twinkles]

When you smash the control stick forward, two things will happen if you hold the control stick out.

You start an initial "dash", which is like a small quick boost of speed. Try tapping the control stick really fast then letting go, you'll see your character propel forward very quickly for a short distance before coming to a halt. Here, you can quickly change direction to dashdance or JC, and you can JC an upsmash, up-B, grab, or item throw out of the dash.

Then you have a running animation. Hold the control stick for longer than the initial dash and your character will actually start moving his or her feet. This is actually different from dashing and has slightly different mechanics. You can JC here too, but you can also crouch-cancel out of this running animation into whatever move you choose.

 

[ph00tbag]

Jockmaster gave a pretty good description. Basically, take every point on the line you are dash dancing on, then take the maximum possible range you can reach to with your longest ranged attack from the endpoints of that line, and add that together. While dash dancing, you control all of that space. You control that space even when running away from your opponent because at any point during that initial dash animation, you can turn right back around and cover that distance. This means that the opponent has to commit further to any advance, which gives you more opportunities to force an over-or-undercommitment.

This can be done over a long period or a short period. These days, it's much more common to see people simply dash away and dash in to punish a bad approach, but you will still see people dash dance for an extended period just to establish that zone control.

Also, this very well could be a separate thread but I'm also confused regarding crouch dash canceling and JCing. Can you JC out of a DD and then attack immediately with anything? Can you crouch to cancel a DD and then follow up with say an Fsmash? Also, JC DD grabs are difficult for me... any advice on that?

You're misunderstanding the meaning of jump cancel. Jump cancel does not refer, in this case, to canceling the dash animation with a jump, but rather to canceling the jumpsquat with a move. You can only do this with three options: grab, usmash and upb. This means that any animation you can jump out of allows you to cancel the jump with any of those three options.

Secondly, you cannot cancel an initial dash animation with a crouch. You can only cc once the dash has transitioned into a full-on run. What you can cancel the initial dash with, however, is a pivot, which is an exploitation of the fact that for one frame between dash dancing, you are standing perfectly still. During this frame, you can perform any attack, in any direction. I'd recommend learning to use this option, despite its difficulty, if you want to improve.

As far as getting better at these techniques, the only real advice I can give you is to keep practicing them. Spend about five to ten minutes practicing the stuff you want to learn, then stop for a while and practice something else you want to learn, and keep doing this for a couple hours or so every day. Don't burn yourself out, though. Make sure you take breaks, and do stuff to decompress. If you're doing this seriously, the first couple months, your practices will not be fun--they will be necessary, so don't expect to come out of them feeling refreshed. It's like any other sport; Practice will be hard.

I don't mean to discourage you from getting better with this post. I'm just trying to impart to you that getting better at this game will require no small amount of dedication. But the rewards for that dedication can be pretty cool, so it's often worth it.

 

[Tarv]

Thanks for all the information on the ins and outs regarding the differences between the dash animation and the full-run animation as well as the information regarding JCing and CCing it's all been very helpful and simple to understand. Now to put all of this into practice. I've heard of pivoting before but honestly gave up trying to learn it because I just couldn't get the hang of it, haha. Anyways, going to give this whole thing another try.

And don't worry ph00tbag I understand how difficult it is to get really good at this game. For now though, I'm just kind of playing for personal challenge. I don't have enough opportunity to play other people (I seem to be the most busy when everyone else is playing), and I guess I lack the motivation. It's like I don't care if I'm not the best in the world but I want to be better than myself from a week ago.

 

[Lovage]

ur dash dance is only as good at how good you are at getting out of it and reacting to things/stuff/events

 

[Mahie]

Thanks for all the information on the ins and outs regarding the differences between the dash animation and the full-run animation as well as the information regarding JCing and CCing it's all been very helpful and simple to understand. Now to put all of this into practice. I've heard of pivoting before but honestly gave up trying to learn it because I just couldn't get the hang of it, haha. Anyways, going to give this whole thing another try.

And don't worry ph00tbag I understand how difficult it is to get really good at this game. For now though, I'm just kind of playing for personal challenge. I don't have enough opportunity to play other people (I seem to be the most busy when everyone else is playing), and I guess I lack the motivation. It's like I don't care if I'm not the best in the world but I want to be better than myself from a week ago.

Pivot grabbing is one of the most important options out of DDing as Marth, you shouldn't sleep on it.

Basically it's just imputting Backdash --> JC Grab really fast at any point during a DD.

Regular pivot is a bit tricky, but is explained well in the Advanced how to play if I remember correctly.

 

[ph00tbag]

I don't think Wak's guide really does much to illustrate how powerful pivoting is, by my recollection. Truth be told, all of the applications are still not really given much credit these days, because a lot of players just don't want to take the time to learn pivot turnaround stuff, since wavedashing is easier.

Even though pivot turnarounds are strictly better for some characters.

 

[Gea]

Pivots are strictly better for almost all characters in the sense of frame data. The only pivots that are even that challenging to learn are pivot jabs imo, grabs and smashes are literally just turnaround + input during a dashdance. Some options are grossly underused despite often being better punish options (Ganon/Falcon's pivot fsmashes, falco fsmash) just because they don't really "fit" into those characters normal move selections.

It's way more natural for any of those characters I just listed to aerial or grab out of a DD. Marth is probably one of the few characters that you still see lots of pivots in his game. I think Foxes really underestimate the usefulness of pivot grabbing someone who is shielding. Basically do anything to pressure them into a shield and then dash behind them, turnaround immediate grab. Or even usmash without having to JC it, so you don't slide. Looks really slick too.

However most pivots do require pretty hard reads to be successful, so their situational nature makes them a tougher thing to teach players since there may be other, easier options that can be successful as well. Kinda like how low to mid level players will go for an aerial almost always if their opponent is popped onto the platform above them, but higher level players will often waveland asap onto the platform for a true techchase.

 

[Deleted member]

this could be explained better but it's hard to do so directly so i'll just copy a conversation and hope that the context is passed to you readers:

mycatgoesmow: what is dashdancing
mycatgoesmow: define it
mycatgoesmow: ggo
dranzermsx0: strictly it's the movement of your character through alternating directions of dashing
mycatgoesmow: ok
mycatgoesmow: what doest that mean
mycatgoesmow: why do people use it
dranzermsx0: it's one method of quickly transitioning between spaces
mycatgoesmow: you can move quickly with other forms of movement
mycatgoesmow: it must do something that regular movement cannot
dranzermsx0: you can change its rhythm
dranzermsx0: and you can change its launch point
dranzermsx0: freely
mycatgoesmow: oh now we're cooking with gas
mycatgoesmow: cool
mycatgoesmow: can we do anything cool with it?
dranzermsx0: that's the thing
dranzermsx0: it's incredibly versatile
dranzermsx0: that's why dash dancing is cool
dranzermsx0: you can use it in both an offensive and defensive sense
mycatgoesmow: i don't think it's as versatily as say jumping
mycatgoesmow: or WD
mycatgoesmow: or walking
mycatgoesmow: but sure
mycatgoesmow: how is it offensive or defensive?
dranzermsx0: that part i haven't figured out yet
dranzermsx0: i know there is a distinction
dranzermsx0: but i am not entirely clear on what the distinction is
dranzermsx0: though david spent a long time explaining it to me
dranzermsx0: i haven't gotten the chance to internalize it by watching footage + testing
mycatgoesmow: let's compare it to a regular dash
mycatgoesmow: when you dash, you gain stage coverage, or you forfeit stage coverage
mycatgoesmow: both are risky
dranzermsx0: yeah if we view stage as a resource
mycatgoesmow: covering stage means you are likely to run into an attack, losing stage is forfeiting positional advantage
mycatgoesmow: stage is a resource
mycatgoesmow: as is positional advantage
mycatgoesmow: but thats a derived resource
mycatgoesmow: which basically just makes it complicated
mycatgoesmow: dashdance solves both of those problems
mycatgoesmow: it means that if you're forfeiting stage advantage, the opponent can still run into your moves
mycatgoesmow: (pivot grab)
mycatgoesmow: or if you're covering stage, the opponent is less liekly to be able to make you run into one of his
mycatgoesmow: it helps to mitigate the direct impacts of each in a positive way
mycatgoesmow: this means that dashdancing camping when done correctly is actually really aggressive
mycatgoesmow: it lets you close in and trap an opponent with minimal risk to yourself
mycatgoesmow: mostly on the basis that you're not really committing to anything, but you can still encourage your opponent to react to it
dranzermsx0: is this why most marths are bad
dranzermsx0: because they keep getting hit out of their DD
mycatgoesmow: at any point, the DD lets you react
mycatgoesmow: most marths are bad because they camp
mycatgoesmow: marth sucks defensively
mycatgoesmow: marth MUST be used in a lethal manner to be effective
mycatgoesmow: how could a character with no fast moves, horrible combo weight, and a weakness to crouching be good defensively?
mycatgoesmow: like, are you kidding?
dranzermsx0: yeah i noticed that weakness to crouch hard when ken played aussyboo lmao
mycatgoesmow: dashdancing is a good crutch against an opposing character that literally cannot ever beat it
mycatgoesmow: think something awful like falcon vs bowser
mycatgoesmow: even then, it's still arguably offensive and not defensive
mycatgoesmow: it creates openings without the downsides of using an actual attack

 

[clowsui]

shoutouts to that scrub dranzermsx0

 

[Tarv]

It still amazes that these boards are so helpful. Thanks everyone!

 

[Tee ay eye]

i made this write-up on spacing (understanding spacing will help you understand how to give purpose to your movement) for the melee n00bs at my school that i want to get into this game, but i'll share it with you too

Spoiler

to understand spacing, you have to understand that the positioning of both characters determines what options are more viable/less viable to each player.

having good spacing essentially means that you know enough about the game to make decisions based on positioning. although this next thing is an oversimplification that can encourage you to space mindlessly and not think about anything else, it sometimes helps to break it down into good ranges and bad ranges for each character.

for example, let's look at marth vs fox. whenever fox is INSIDE marth's sword range, it's definitely good for fox. he can shine and do a bunch of other silly nonsense </hate fox> and marth is able to.... block, grab, swing pathetically (since all of marth's ground moves are weak as **** at close range), or get the **** away (or some combination of these). whenever marth is at full sword range, he has his entire array available to him, pretty much, and it's all (relatively) safe to use..... and since nobody else in the game has marth's range (except ganondorf, to an extent), this would be a good range for marth. fox, on the other hand, has a good range right outside of marth's sword because at that range, he has his running shffl nair (and dash attack, among other things) available to him, and there's not much that marth can do except take risky swings hoping fox is going to run into it. if you are in a bad range, you still have options, but they're limited in one way or another. for example, if fox is right outside marth's range, there's nothing in the game's code STOPPING marth from moving up and trying to hit fox....

well, now that we've gone over looking at ranges themselves, we can talk about how they come into play. smash is a ridiculously dynamic game with really quick movement and tons of possibilities, so movement, prediction, tricking your opponent, covering multiple options with prediction/reaction, understanding minute details about a situation, knowing obscure situational options for each range, and a bunch of other things are how you play around these ranges being the be-all, end-all of the game.

movement in smash accomplishes a lot of things. one of the first things that separates a competitive noob from a COMPLETE noob is understanding how dashdancing can be used as bait. put very simply, when you dash at your opponent at a certain range, it makes it look like you're going to run at them. this gets them scared and makes them want to swing. if they swing and miss (or if they swing and hit your shield at a certain spacing), then they will be in punishable lag. if they are in punishable lag.... well, punish them. if they DON'T SWING and keep moving around instead, then you're able to advance on them by committing to attacking them or by simply continuing to move aggressively until you push them to the edge (literally and figuratively). you can either keep pushing until they're trapped by the stage's edge, or you can push them to sanity's edge until they do something stupid that you can punish.

everyone that plays this game with the smallest iota of seriousness understands this previous paragraph to some degree, whether they realize it or not. a lot of smash skill is/can be subconscious and intuitive.

as i said, this is what separates a competitive noob from a COMPLETE noob.... so how do you get better than other people who also understand this? there are so many ways to gain advantages over other players that i don't even want to explain it, really. you just have to play the game a lot and learn more about it. for example, understanding minute details in the neutral game, having a good understanding of player/character tedencies, being experienced enough to make decisions naturally and react quickly, having better mechanics than your opponent, and tons upon tons upon tons upon tons more.

this may sound like waaaayyyy too much work to be putting into a video game.

my rebuttal? it is. the price and reward of learning to play smash at a competitive level is definitely not worth it on paper, but i still don't regret it one bit.

why? it's not all about the game itself. it's about the experiences i've encountered from playing this game. these past five and a half years have been a hell of a ride, and it doesn't look like it's stopping anytime soon. i've had so many unforgettable experiences, met a metric ****ton of amazing people, been a part of a fun and lively community that spans across multiple continents, traveled to other states, learned a lot about myself and about life, and grew SOOOOOOOO MUCH as a person. keep in mind, MOST OF THIS was while being a high school student who still lived with his parents.... and i was able to do ALL OF THIS while being able to have fun with my favorite game in the world.

thanks for reading. and if you're interested in taking this game more seriously (whether you want to legitimately become a top dog or if you just want to pick up a few video game skillz for fun), may the odds be ever in your favor.

 

[KirbyKaze]

Oh cool I got referenced in a strategy discussion

Dash dancing has numerous layers to it

You can use it to

Oh **** it if you want to know ask me on AIM I hate SWF

 

[Tarv]

Man, so much awesome information. Thanks Tai, and of course thanks KK.

 

[Seartu]

So this encouraged me to post a little video I've been working on but it kind of stalled because I got tired of poring over matches for instances of epic dash dancing. Take a look and read the description.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0vunEZn-fc&feature=youtu.be

 

[Tarv]

That was a really cool trailer Seartu! Can't wait to see the final product. I have to admit I was laughing pretty hard at some of those.

Also, I've taken into account all of this great advice and friendlies went pretty well against a friend of mine today. I mean I still lost every time, but my losses looked cooler.

 

[Gea]

I forgot to correct another post, if you truly do a pivot grab you do NOT need to JC it as someone else stated.

 

[standardtoaster]

That was a really cool video, Seartu! Good luck with the rest of it. :D

 

[KrIsP!]

So this encouraged me to post a little video I've been working on but it kind of stalled because I got tired of poring over matches for instances of epic dash dancing. Take a look and read the description.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0vunEZn-fc&feature=youtu.be

I really liked that vid.

 

[Hax]

aside from what everyone's said about spacing and mindgames, it makes you not a stationary target, the worst thing you can be in melee

 

[Tee ay eye]

delete this post

 

[Jockmaster]

aside from what everyone's said about spacing and mindgames, it makes you not a stationary target, the worst thing you can be in melee

Unless you mindgame them by being stationary

 

[Tee ay eye]

Unless you mindgame them by being stationary

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkdOHh3D5sY#t=13m30s

 

[R2_GP]

every time someone is just standing there i'm like: oh s*** he's gonna f*** me up if i approach lolol