First of all, I don't think anybody has even perfectly mastered those techniques you've mentioned. What do I mean by that? Surely, the pros can execute those techniques 100% of the time without failure, but even they can't incorporate them into their game to their fullest potential (except Mang0 on a good day
). The thing is, Melee is so fast that part of your gameplay will always go off muscle memory. As a result, the things you have practiced more are going to come more naturally to you in a match. You might be theoretically able to dashdance into empty shorthop waveland into a dash and JC grab, but you are never going to do it unless you've practiced it. Certainly, this isn't the most useful example, but I hope you get my point. Chaining basic techniques together in creative ways is a thing that needs to be practised by itself. Especially with Fox. And to get good at that takes a huge amount of dedication.
Here are other techniques I could think of. It's hard to order by importance. Depends on how good you want to get and which opponents you are trying to beat. Cheap tricks don't work against pros, but they might make your life incredibly easy against your average player. Also, as a disclaimer, me listing this doesn't mean I can do all of this myself. Anyway:
● Smash DI, better DI overall (practice with a partner)
● Chaingrabs if they are possible and follow them up with combos (practice with a partner or level 3 CPU). Link U-throw into U-tilt (into more U-tilts if you are Silent Wolf) and/or U-smash at low%, U-air or bair at higher%.
● Waveshine the full distance. Listing this because some people miss this for some reason. To get the full distance, you move the control stick to straight forward after hitting L/R.
● In the same vein, make sure you can really SHFFL his U-air. The timing is tighter than for other attacks. There are people that convince themselves in training that they can do it, but they never make sure that their second hit connects 100% of the time.
● More of the same. Make sure you can actually dash dance. Just dancing back and forth pointlessly is not dash dancing. Dash dancing is when you can control the length of every single dash, when you are ready to act out of it at all times, and when you know your spacings.
● All sorts of stuff out of a shine, including stuff that would help you if it gets blocked and they're ready to shield grab you. F.e. JC grab out of shine, U-Smash out of shine (same input as U-smash out of shield)
● Cheap shine spikes (practice with a friend. f.e. your job is to shine spike them, theirs is to get back onto the stage or even kill you). These will work even against better players, if you can spot a bad habit and know how to abuse it.
● Get a feeling for when D-tilt starts penetrating a badly angled shield. Oh, by the way, learn to angle your shield. You gain nothing by keeping it in neutral position.
● Sweet spotting ledges with your Up-B. The benefits are immense. If you are confident about it, you will not only sweet spot them, but be able to immediately follow up while invincible and you'll be safely back on stage.
● Tech-chasing (practice with a partner)
● All sorts of blaster spamming, so they don't get even a second to catch their breaths
● Thunder's combo
● Drillshine into maybe more drillshines, but definitely into grab or U-smash, and definitely not into letting the opponent get away (Meaning if you're not sure if you're going to get another drill, just grab them instead. If you practice chaining it into grabs, it'll come naturally)
● C-Stick SHFFLed bairs (you retain free horizontal movement if you C-Stick them). If you naturally SHFFL with C-Stick, though most people don't because of ANA, this is a freebie.
● Shorten Fox Illusion (survival tool. might also lure out stupid attacks against nervous opponents)
● Waveland from the ledge onto the stage. Beware that the timing is very difficult and even pros will mess it up sometimes and SD. I think that's due to their heightened pulse under pressure, so time seems to be passing slower to them and as a result they'll be a tad early. M2K vs Armada Match1 at Evo2013, never forget.
● Waveland off platforms into an aerial
● Ledge Stalling (setting up with run off stage turnaround shine or wavedash backwards off stage. then up-b stall, learn to act quickly out of it with invincible shine spikes and more. if you're insane, learn to waveland onto stage into u-smash out of it and you're going to be one scary dude. more basic and most importantly safer is just jumping onto the stage with an u-air)
● Shine out of shield is also a thing Fox can do. And they thought they were safe approaching your shield from behind.
● Learn timings for Randall. Yes, this is going to safe your life.
● Up-Air so only the second hitbox hits. This is already strictly tournament level stuff.
● Moonwalk - and not just moonwalk. Link it into something useful
● Shield dropping, lol.
● C-stick DI along with Smash-DI. Yea, right. I wonder who actually does this.
● Multiple shines (JC shine) without leaving the ground and without changing your finger positions. It's a really difficult to execute shield pressuring tool
More match-up specific stuff:
● Projectile users: Learn to powershield. Practice against a SHB spamming Falco. Your Falco playing friend can practice SHB while you practice powershielding. It changes the Falco matchup a lot.
● Falco: Intercepting his forward-B is a useful thing to practice.
● Marth: Soft shield on ledge angling downwards against him. The thing where you steal his ledge if he Up-Bs. Also, shine spiking him is maybe the most challenging out of all characters and might take extra practice. He can counter U-throw U-air if you are slow. Practice DI against chain grabs.
● Sheik: Beware of her neutral air. Can stop some would-be-combos and a slow U-throw U-air. Learn to abuse her Up-B landing lag. Practice DI against chain grabs.
● Peach: This is a test on how clean your execution is. With the slightest mistake in a nair or drill into shine, she might CC down smash you, while you are holding down trying to do your shine. Learning to get around that is essential.
● Fox: SDI his U-throw U-air and his drill
● Puff: I can't say much, good ones **** me. Don't miss your techs. Don't roll. SDI her off stage combos upwards.
● C Falcon: It seems to be mostly about spacing, so a good dash dance maybe? Also, don't be predictable with your techs. At all. Randomizing them is a real possibility.
● Ice Climbers: Practice getting Nana. Easy to practice, as her AI will be the same if you set Climbers to CPU.
Whoops, this post got probably too long.
