Transitioning from traditional 2d fighters to Smash can be rough. The movement is much more free, the general point of the game is completely different (ring outs rather than depleting health), and the defense is completely different.
In the first part of this guide, I will try to point out the most important things to focus on when diving in Smash.
The second part will involve some more Smash(4)-Specific mechanics that will sharpen the decision making you have to do in this game.
Quick terminology:
Using the default controller scheme for a GameCube controller to explain.
The advice I can give is this: Learn the difference between walking and dashing. That will generally give you the idea of the difference between doing a Tilt and a Smash.
The difference will involve the speed at which you change the position of the control stick as well as how far you press the control stick. For a tilt or a walk, you will want to press the direction slowly, or a small amount.
Another issue is controlling which direction your character is facing. The game has a large buffer window (around 10 frames), so in the recovery frames of certain grounded moves, you might turn around in ways you didn't want.
The "Movement" section below will go more in depth about potential movement options in Smash 4 that will let you maneuver in a variety of ways while minimizing vulnerable recovery frames.
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I'll split up the basics into 4 parts:
Shield, Movement, Recovery(In Smash, this means getting back to the stage, rather than the recovery frames on an attack), and Advantageous Situations.
Note: Smash terminology replaces "recovery frames" with "lag" due to the whole "Recovery being getting back to the stage thing". Out of habit, I used "recovery frames" instead of "lag" in this guide. This might be confusing.
1. Shield
"Blockstun" is a vague concept in Smash 4 because of how the Shield works. Even though attacks on shield will make the shielder have to wait for a bit before being able to do an action, there is very little shield stun, and even LESS shield stun if you "perfect shield" which is basically Just Defend.
An additional factor to Shielding is pushback. Certain moves will have a lot of pushback on a shielding opponent, like Little Mac's forward smash.
A major part of Smash 4 is going to involve how to defend against opponent attacks, and what you do after defending.
It is very character and spacing specific what moves are "safe" on shield. Generally, you're going to have to account for all of your own "out of shield" (OOS) options for defense, and your opponent's OOS options for offense.
Finally, while you are in shield, there is always the threat of the shield getting smaller.
When the shield does not cover your entire character model, you can be "shield poked" and hit even while holding shield. Yoshi is the only character with a different shield that cannot be shield poked.
You can "shield shift" or "angle your shield" by slightly holding a direction to move the shield in that direction to fully block an attack if your shield is getting small.
When the shield shrinks all the way, you get shield broken. Basically you get dizzied.
Special notes: Jigglypuff gets sent upwards to die if her shield is broken, Rosalina's Luma can attack while she is shield broken, and certain characters have moves that do a lot of "shield damage". Some of these are: Marth/Lucina's Neutral B, Yoshi's Down B, Bowser's Down B, Ganondorf's UTilt.
Out of shield options:
These are all useful, but can be punished if baited. Learn how to use all of them. But the most important one to really get used to in Smash 4 particularly is Shield Drop. Shield Dropping in Smash4 is much faster than Smash64 and Melee.
Note: Rolls and Spotdodges are not invincible on startup. Multi hit attacks will hit you if you try to roll or spotdodge during them.
Shield Drop and Jump are the ones you will want to use a lot in neutral because they take the least time and are hard to react to to punish. When pressured, they are a bit riskier if your opponent hasn't committed to anything.
Note: Since Jump is an OOS option, and the beginning frames of Jump can be canceled into Up Smash and certain other moves like Up B, it is possible to do Up Smash and Up B out of shield.
Since you can Shield while in the later part of your Dash, this is the fastest way to approach an opponent and block. Sometimes they will try to counter poke your dash in, giving you an opportunity to shield it, drop the shield, and punish, if their move has enough recovery.
Similarly, if you are close enough and have a fast enough grab, you can shield grab a lot of attacks.
Shield Grabbing is one of the primary way to deal with jump ins, which usually have enough landing recovery to get a clean punish with a shield grab.
However, since you can move during most air normals, jumping attacks can be placed in a way that the shield grab would whiff. That is why shield dropping and doing another move is important.
Another concept is crossups. You don't have to block in a relative direction, but an opponent attacking behind you while you are in your shield will not get shield grabbed. You will have to shield drop, turn around, and do a fast move to punish or even threaten them, or jump out of shield and do a move that can hit them. For example, some characters can short hop and back air (though a lot of back airs are slow or will whiff if done too early).
Some moves will make the opponent end up above you after you shield them. That is when you want to jump out of shield to attack them with a fast enough aerial attack.
If you don't actually shield an attack, Shield Dropping is still pretty fast. It can be used to change directions on the ground during a dash, without having to jump. Some characters will find this faster to turn around than other methods.
2. Movement
The movement in this game is really free-form, as you're not moving in relation to the opponent. You can really fake out people with movement by going towards and away, as well as jumping up and down, and distance can make it all low-risk so you can look for their movement habits.
I'll list the main movement options, and some applications.
Walking - you have all your ground moves, shield, and jump. Not to be underestimated. Walking is super important if you want to use your tilts, and you can shield immediately while walking unlike dashing.
Jumping - you can normal jump or short hop (press jump for a short amount of time), and control your air motion. Air attacks have the unique property of allowing you to control movement while having an active hitbox. While a lot of air attacks are pretty minus on block in this game, the movement you can do during them can make them safe due to distance.
Jumping is important to learn if you want to create a faster paced style. It can be done out of shield and any part of a dash.
Dashing - faster than walking, but you have limited options out of it. The options you have are based on what frames of the dash you are in. There are basically 2 parts of a dash; I'll just label them Dash1 and Dash2. 1 is dash startup for a few frames, and 2 is "running" afterwards.
During Dash1:
After a few frames of holding forward during Dash1, you go into Dash2.
During Dash2:
Note: If you do the above input, and press A immediately, you can get a roll canceled grab. Character specific on how much it helps. More info: http://smashboards.com/threads/roll-cancel-grabs.371874/
- Applications
Spacing on the ground is going to involve walking, dashing, shielding, short hops and normal jumps.
Similar to Street Fighter, you can keep them out with pre emptive pokes, or try to get up close for mixups and pressure.
Mixups generally involve reading their defensive option and going for a counter. If they shield, you can grab, or do a retreating air attack to bait a shield grab and try to punish (safer option). Or they might roll or dodge, so you read/react and punish based on your ranged moves or movement.
This is the real challenge of smash. Use all your options, get a read on your opponent and counter their options or decisions.
3. Recovery
(Getting back to the stage, rather than end frames on an attack)
In this game a lot of moves hit diagonally upwards, so you have a real choice of trying to recover high (land on the stage) or low (go the the edge from below the stage). This is character specific and opponent specific on which to do, and mixing them up can be really effective.
Things to think about when recovering:
* To go into ledge snapping in more detail, some characters have Up B's and Side B's that do not immediately grab the edge and can thus be hit right before they "snap" to the ledge. Some examples are Little Mac and Pit.
One option is to space the Up B so that it ends right at the maximum range from the ledge where the character will grab the ledge. This makes it harder for your opponent to hit you, but you will still recover. However, due to Pit's distance on his Up B, gauging that one may be difficult.
Note; there is a 1 frame vulnerability when grabbing the ledge. You will still get back your second jump, but be wary.
See the Edge Pressure portion of the next section for more ways to take advantage of the ledge.
4. Advantageous Situations
If you are a traditional 2d fighter, you value the hard knockdown. Your opponent has few options on wakeup, and you get all of your own options.
In Smash, there are 3 situations similar to this.
a) when they are knocked to the ground
b) when they are above you in the air and you are on the ground - Unofficially, I call this the "Air trap"
c) when the opponent is trying to make it back to the stage, edgeguarding and edge pressure.
These all present opportunities to deal more damage or even land a KO move based on how you react to their decision amongst limited options.
a) Knockdown
Generally this is going to happen at lower percents, from certain throws or low-trajectory hits, or if they get pushed off a platform by an attack. Some examples include Sonic Dthrow and Ganondorf Side B. They have 2 options to begin with, which go into more options.
1. Tech. Done by pressing Shield while a character hits the ground while in hitstun or tumbling. They can choose to tech left, right, or in place. All of them have startup invincibility, but run out of invincibility before the character can act, so they are all punishable if reacted to or read correctly.
Note: You can be out of hitstun and still be tumbling. While tumbling, you can attack or jump, which would take you out of tumble. You can also airdodge.
If you are tumbling and not in hitstun, and try to tech too early, you will get an airdodge and suffer the ~22 frames of extra landing recovery.
2. No tech. As soon as they hit the ground, they can be hit for a few frames. After these frames, they can choose from a number of options to wakeup:
b) Air trap - Being below someone- VERY IMPORTANT, this will happen a lot. Consider it an anti air situation.
Basically you force someone into the air with a launcher, then go for anti air situations.
Again, character specific because of what attacks they can do in the air to land or manipulate their motion, but generally the options are straightforward once you learn them.
Platforms enhance the complexity of the situation for both players.
While an opponent is above you they can, while trying to land:
You can always defeat their landing option with something.
Attacks can be anti aired or shielded, and punished.
Airdodges can be baited, and punished on their recovery. Some characters have fast enough attacks that, if airdodged, can still recover in time to punish an airdodge!
Movement options make it trickier, but generally they are a limited resource until they land again.
If they make it to the ground successfully, you are back to a normal mixup situation. Grab if they shield, chase defensive dodges, etc.
Platforms can aid the trapper, since attacks will usually not go through them and the trapper can attack through the platform upwards.
However, they also let the landing character land earlier and get their options like shield back, and it is hard to go through shields from below.
c) Edgeguarding, and edge pressure
If you read the Recovery section, you know that there are two ways to recover.
Recovering from high generally can be dealt with in the same manner as Air Trapping.
Dealing with someone recovering from low is a bit trickier. There are two parts to this situation - the character getting to the ledge, and then when the character is actually on the ledge.
Getting to the ledge: Very character dependent, and can be very risky.
A lot of recovery moves will automatically snap to the ledge where they have some invincibility frames, and have good hitboxes to make edgeguarding difficult.
Generally you will want to know when and where your opponent wants to use their recovery moves. That way, you can try to intercept them with an attack before they can grab the edge.
You can have a few goals when edge guarding:
Edge Pressure
Once your opponent grabs the ledge, they have a handful of options. All are punishable to various degrees. They are similar to getting up from being knocked down, with a few additions.
Note: you cannot grab the edge immediately after letting go of it.
Note: If someone tries to regrab the edge without invincibility, a run off bair will likely stage spike and force them to attempt a wall tech or get KO'd.
Trumping
When one character grabs an edge that is already being held by another character, the previous holder of the ledge gets sent up+back away from the ledge.
This can be taken advantage of if the Trump happens immediately with an edge Drop + double jump Bair.
To avoid getting Trumped, you can choose a getup option while the other character grabs the edge before getting Trumped.
Trumping is a way to force a character off the edge without hitting them. This means if they do not land on the ground or get hit, the next time they grab the edge they will have no invincibility...
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PART 2
The previous section involved a general guide to how the game can flow. I went over movement, how to make the most out of defense, and how to take advantage of situations where your opponent has limited options. This section will be a little more specific and involve some unique Smash mechanics, but will also use some of the basics from the previous section.
Offensive Choices-
Smash has a damage system. It is pretty intuitive after learning what it does: lower percents mean you get sent less far, higher percents mean you get sent further and potentially can get KO'd.
Another way to look at this is that at lower percents, Air Traps can happen much more easily and quickly because they will not be launched as far. In a situation where you Shield a punishable attack, you might want to choose a launcher with relatively quick recovery frames so you can follow up with an Air Trap faster, at lower percent. At higher percent, you'll want to try to KO them, so a stronger attack to send them offstage or upwards could be more ideal.
But one more thing to consider is Stale Moves.
Think of Stale Moves as a list of 9 (I believe it is either 9 or 10) moves.
These are the last 9 moves that have hit the opponent; the more times a move shows up on the list and the closest it is to the most recent, the weaker it will be.
This means that certain potential KO moves like Diddy Kong's Uair can be a much less effective KO move if it is used often as an Air Trap or combo after DThrow. This is just one example; realize that you don't want to use potential KO moves as you near KO percents. Earlier in your opponent's stock is a good chance to use these moves, so that in the middle percents you can use other moves to get your potential KO moves out of the Stale queue.
Another big help to "unstale" your moves is to pummel when you grab (press A while grabbing). Certain characters have quick pummels. These rack on a bit of damage while the opponent tries to get out of your grab, but they also count towards the stale move list, which helps other recently used moves become stronger.
Defensive Choices-
DI (Directional Influence) is simple: when you get hit, you input a direction, and you control a bit of the direction where you get sent. Smash4 introduced "vectoring", which had the same effect but the direction you would want to input is different. However, "vectoring" has been patched to be extremely non-influential.
Basically, when you know you are about to get hit by a potential KO move, you want to hold diagonally away from where you are getting sent.
If you are about to get hit to the right, hold up and left.
If you are going to be hit upwards, hold down and a side.
This is called Survival DI.
But wait, there is more: Combo DI!
This just means instead of trying to stay closer to the opponent, you want to get away. Certain throws can be followed up with a combo or air trap; they send you upwards. You want to DI away from the opponent, so Up and Away.
Also pretty simple, but yet another thing to think about!
You also want to know what to do after getting hit. Don't mash something without thinking about it - experienced players will pick up that you are mashing jump after getting launched to the side every time, and they will get some followups that should not happen!
Similar to the concept of taking advantage of an air trap situation, you should try your best to defend when you are the one being air trapped. Airdodging, attacking back, moving away, are all viable options and reading on both sides is going to happen here.
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For now, I think/hope this is a suitable introduction to Smash 4 and hopefully can bring new players to an intermediate level.
In the first part of this guide, I will try to point out the most important things to focus on when diving in Smash.
The second part will involve some more Smash(4)-Specific mechanics that will sharpen the decision making you have to do in this game.
PART 1Quick terminology:
Using the default controller scheme for a GameCube controller to explain.
- Jab: aaa or hold a
- Directional attacks usually have a letter followed by a word. F = forward, b = back, u = up, d = down, and n = neutral. E.G.: Fsmash = forward smash.
- "tilt" means a "strong a attack" that is not a smash: it is holding the direction and pressing A. Utilt (Up non smash + A) can be tricky without double jumping; you need to essentially lightly press up, OR buffer holding up while doing something else, OR just turn off tap jump
- "smash" means a move that you do with A while pressing a direction quickly. Or use the C stick.
- "air" with a letter in front (nair, fair, bair, dair, uair) means an aerial attack in the direction of the letter (neutral, forward, back, down, up, respectively)
- "throw" - Similar name format to the other moves, you have Fthrow, Bthrow, Uthrow, and Dthrow, as followups to a Grab. (Note, Grabs can hit airborne opponents in this game! More on Grabbing in the Shield section)
- Other things you can do during a grab are "Pummel" (A) and "Grab Release" (the opponent gets released from the grab, either grounded or aerial, based on how much they mash)
- down b, neutral b, forward b, up b, are special moves in that direction
- dash attack, press A while dashing.
- "B reverse" - while this has some other names, basically it is doing Neutral B in the opposite direction that you are facing, often in the air. Two ways to do this: press the opposite direction, go to neutral and press B. OR press neutral B, then quickly press the opposite direction. The second method actually can change your aerial momentum.
- "Teching" - This always means an "ukemi" style tech when you land while in a tumble state while pressing Shield. You can tech roll by holding left or right, or tech in place. It NEVER means "teching a throw" - you cannot tech a throw, and the only ways to get out of a throw is if the throw trades with an attack you did right before getting thrown, or by mashing during their pummel. (Competitive Brawl players are extremely proficient at breaking out of throws, sometimes getting out after 2 pummels).
- "Rage" - Specific to Smash 4. The more damage you have, the stronger your attacks are. Be careful when you are facing someone who has survived to a high percent! Note that since it changes knockback, it can also change how combos work. For example, some throws might send too far for a followup if you have too much rage.
The advice I can give is this: Learn the difference between walking and dashing. That will generally give you the idea of the difference between doing a Tilt and a Smash.
The difference will involve the speed at which you change the position of the control stick as well as how far you press the control stick. For a tilt or a walk, you will want to press the direction slowly, or a small amount.
Another issue is controlling which direction your character is facing. The game has a large buffer window (around 10 frames), so in the recovery frames of certain grounded moves, you might turn around in ways you didn't want.
The "Movement" section below will go more in depth about potential movement options in Smash 4 that will let you maneuver in a variety of ways while minimizing vulnerable recovery frames.
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I'll split up the basics into 4 parts:
Shield, Movement, Recovery(In Smash, this means getting back to the stage, rather than the recovery frames on an attack), and Advantageous Situations.
Note: Smash terminology replaces "recovery frames" with "lag" due to the whole "Recovery being getting back to the stage thing". Out of habit, I used "recovery frames" instead of "lag" in this guide. This might be confusing.
1. Shield
"Blockstun" is a vague concept in Smash 4 because of how the Shield works. Even though attacks on shield will make the shielder have to wait for a bit before being able to do an action, there is very little shield stun, and even LESS shield stun if you "perfect shield" which is basically Just Defend.
An additional factor to Shielding is pushback. Certain moves will have a lot of pushback on a shielding opponent, like Little Mac's forward smash.
A major part of Smash 4 is going to involve how to defend against opponent attacks, and what you do after defending.
It is very character and spacing specific what moves are "safe" on shield. Generally, you're going to have to account for all of your own "out of shield" (OOS) options for defense, and your opponent's OOS options for offense.
Finally, while you are in shield, there is always the threat of the shield getting smaller.
When the shield does not cover your entire character model, you can be "shield poked" and hit even while holding shield. Yoshi is the only character with a different shield that cannot be shield poked.
You can "shield shift" or "angle your shield" by slightly holding a direction to move the shield in that direction to fully block an attack if your shield is getting small.
When the shield shrinks all the way, you get shield broken. Basically you get dizzied.
Special notes: Jigglypuff gets sent upwards to die if her shield is broken, Rosalina's Luma can attack while she is shield broken, and certain characters have moves that do a lot of "shield damage". Some of these are: Marth/Lucina's Neutral B, Yoshi's Down B, Bowser's Down B, Ganondorf's UTilt.
Out of shield options:
- Roll (left or right)
- Spotdodge (down)
- Jump
- Grab
- Shield Drop (simply letting go of Shield)
These are all useful, but can be punished if baited. Learn how to use all of them. But the most important one to really get used to in Smash 4 particularly is Shield Drop. Shield Dropping in Smash4 is much faster than Smash64 and Melee.
Note: Rolls and Spotdodges are not invincible on startup. Multi hit attacks will hit you if you try to roll or spotdodge during them.
Shield Drop and Jump are the ones you will want to use a lot in neutral because they take the least time and are hard to react to to punish. When pressured, they are a bit riskier if your opponent hasn't committed to anything.
Note: Since Jump is an OOS option, and the beginning frames of Jump can be canceled into Up Smash and certain other moves like Up B, it is possible to do Up Smash and Up B out of shield.
Since you can Shield while in the later part of your Dash, this is the fastest way to approach an opponent and block. Sometimes they will try to counter poke your dash in, giving you an opportunity to shield it, drop the shield, and punish, if their move has enough recovery.
Similarly, if you are close enough and have a fast enough grab, you can shield grab a lot of attacks.
Shield Grabbing is one of the primary way to deal with jump ins, which usually have enough landing recovery to get a clean punish with a shield grab.
However, since you can move during most air normals, jumping attacks can be placed in a way that the shield grab would whiff. That is why shield dropping and doing another move is important.
Another concept is crossups. You don't have to block in a relative direction, but an opponent attacking behind you while you are in your shield will not get shield grabbed. You will have to shield drop, turn around, and do a fast move to punish or even threaten them, or jump out of shield and do a move that can hit them. For example, some characters can short hop and back air (though a lot of back airs are slow or will whiff if done too early).
Some moves will make the opponent end up above you after you shield them. That is when you want to jump out of shield to attack them with a fast enough aerial attack.
If you don't actually shield an attack, Shield Dropping is still pretty fast. It can be used to change directions on the ground during a dash, without having to jump. Some characters will find this faster to turn around than other methods.
2. Movement
and Applications
The movement in this game is really free-form, as you're not moving in relation to the opponent. You can really fake out people with movement by going towards and away, as well as jumping up and down, and distance can make it all low-risk so you can look for their movement habits.
I'll list the main movement options, and some applications.
Walking - you have all your ground moves, shield, and jump. Not to be underestimated. Walking is super important if you want to use your tilts, and you can shield immediately while walking unlike dashing.
Jumping - you can normal jump or short hop (press jump for a short amount of time), and control your air motion. Air attacks have the unique property of allowing you to control movement while having an active hitbox. While a lot of air attacks are pretty minus on block in this game, the movement you can do during them can make them safe due to distance.
Jumping is important to learn if you want to create a faster paced style. It can be done out of shield and any part of a dash.
Dashing - faster than walking, but you have limited options out of it. The options you have are based on what frames of the dash you are in. There are basically 2 parts of a dash; I'll just label them Dash1 and Dash2. 1 is dash startup for a few frames, and 2 is "running" afterwards.
During Dash1:
- Tap forward again to do another Dash1.
- You can also tap backwards to do a Dash1 in the opposite direction.
- You can also tap backwards for 1 frame to do a perfect pivot, in which your character slides a bit while turning around with minimal recovery. Read here for more: http://smashboards.com/threads/perfect-pivot-foxtrotting-dashdancing.371139/ or watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vaR4RM-qr0 - Generally, I would not worry about doing this.
- You can jump during Dash1.
- You CANNOT shield during Dash1.
- You can fsmash by holding forward and quickly pressing A. If you want to dash attack, you must let go of forward then press A, or press down on the C stick.
- You can also usmash/prejump upsmash/prejump up b.
- You can side B (either direction).
- You can grab.
After a few frames of holding forward during Dash1, you go into Dash2.
During Dash2:
- You can jump, shield, usmash, grab, Side B(either direction), dash attack during Dash2.
- In addition, you can Neutral B, Down B, and Forward Tilt in the opposite direction
- You cannot turn around without some recovery; during the turn around animatoin, you CAN jump during this turn around recovery and will be facing the other way. This technique has a really dumb name. I just call it turnaround jump. Good for running at people and doing bair if your bair is good, or running away from someone and turning around and doing fair is your fair is good.
- You can also grab during the beginning of the turnaround animation.
- Another thing you can do during the turnaround animation is Side B.
Note: If you do the above input, and press A immediately, you can get a roll canceled grab. Character specific on how much it helps. More info: http://smashboards.com/threads/roll-cancel-grabs.371874/
- Applications
Spacing on the ground is going to involve walking, dashing, shielding, short hops and normal jumps.
Similar to Street Fighter, you can keep them out with pre emptive pokes, or try to get up close for mixups and pressure.
Mixups generally involve reading their defensive option and going for a counter. If they shield, you can grab, or do a retreating air attack to bait a shield grab and try to punish (safer option). Or they might roll or dodge, so you read/react and punish based on your ranged moves or movement.
This is the real challenge of smash. Use all your options, get a read on your opponent and counter their options or decisions.
3. Recovery
(Getting back to the stage, rather than end frames on an attack)
In this game a lot of moves hit diagonally upwards, so you have a real choice of trying to recover high (land on the stage) or low (go the the edge from below the stage). This is character specific and opponent specific on which to do, and mixing them up can be really effective.
Things to think about when recovering:
- where your up b can take you
- if your up b can be hit if you go towards the ledge*
- where your double jump can take you
- other additional moves to help recovery
- not getting hit after double jumping
- if you can attack them while they try to attack you
- if you should dodge while they try to attack you
* To go into ledge snapping in more detail, some characters have Up B's and Side B's that do not immediately grab the edge and can thus be hit right before they "snap" to the ledge. Some examples are Little Mac and Pit.
One option is to space the Up B so that it ends right at the maximum range from the ledge where the character will grab the ledge. This makes it harder for your opponent to hit you, but you will still recover. However, due to Pit's distance on his Up B, gauging that one may be difficult.
Note; there is a 1 frame vulnerability when grabbing the ledge. You will still get back your second jump, but be wary.
See the Edge Pressure portion of the next section for more ways to take advantage of the ledge.
4. Advantageous Situations
If you are a traditional 2d fighter, you value the hard knockdown. Your opponent has few options on wakeup, and you get all of your own options.
In Smash, there are 3 situations similar to this.
a) when they are knocked to the ground
b) when they are above you in the air and you are on the ground - Unofficially, I call this the "Air trap"
c) when the opponent is trying to make it back to the stage, edgeguarding and edge pressure.
These all present opportunities to deal more damage or even land a KO move based on how you react to their decision amongst limited options.
a) Knockdown
Generally this is going to happen at lower percents, from certain throws or low-trajectory hits, or if they get pushed off a platform by an attack. Some examples include Sonic Dthrow and Ganondorf Side B. They have 2 options to begin with, which go into more options.
1. Tech. Done by pressing Shield while a character hits the ground while in hitstun or tumbling. They can choose to tech left, right, or in place. All of them have startup invincibility, but run out of invincibility before the character can act, so they are all punishable if reacted to or read correctly.
Note: You can be out of hitstun and still be tumbling. While tumbling, you can attack or jump, which would take you out of tumble. You can also airdodge.
If you are tumbling and not in hitstun, and try to tech too early, you will get an airdodge and suffer the ~22 frames of extra landing recovery.
2. No tech. As soon as they hit the ground, they can be hit for a few frames. After these frames, they can choose from a number of options to wakeup:
- Get up normally (press up): Similar to a tech. A little invincibility, then punishable at the end.
- Get up roll (press left or right): Similar to a tech roll.
- Get up attack: An interesting move. Invincible, but has more vulnerable frames afterwards so if read correctly is very punishable. Does a lot of Shield damage if both hits connect with the shield.
- Wait: Stay vulnerable on the ground for a bit longer (there is a limit to how long you can wait before your character automatically gets up). This can throw off people's timings, and if they read you going for a certain roll you can react to their dash and go the other way. Or if they try to attack you on the ground, you can get up attack.
b) Air trap - Being below someone- VERY IMPORTANT, this will happen a lot. Consider it an anti air situation.
Basically you force someone into the air with a launcher, then go for anti air situations.
Again, character specific because of what attacks they can do in the air to land or manipulate their motion, but generally the options are straightforward once you learn them.
Platforms enhance the complexity of the situation for both players.
While an opponent is above you they can, while trying to land:
- Drift left or right: As always, you can control movement while airborne.
- Fast Fall (press Down): This will change the timing at which they will be within your range to threaten them.
- Double jump : limited resource, although some characters have multiple jumps. Can be used to feel out the opponent's air trap.
- Airdodge: You move downwards while invincible. However, it has vulnerable frames afterwards, and landing during the airdodge has around 22 frames of vulnerable recovery.
- Attack: These range from dive kicks (dairs and down Bs), to just big hitboxes on air attacks on most characters. Also, some characters have downwards projectiles like Pacman down B, Robin Up B, or Link's bomb/Megaman's Metal Blade thrown downwards.
- Other mobility options: Examples include Zero Suit Samus' Down B to reposition horizontally, and Mario's Cape to change the timing of when he will land. Many other examples.
You can always defeat their landing option with something.
Attacks can be anti aired or shielded, and punished.
Airdodges can be baited, and punished on their recovery. Some characters have fast enough attacks that, if airdodged, can still recover in time to punish an airdodge!
Movement options make it trickier, but generally they are a limited resource until they land again.
If they make it to the ground successfully, you are back to a normal mixup situation. Grab if they shield, chase defensive dodges, etc.
Platforms can aid the trapper, since attacks will usually not go through them and the trapper can attack through the platform upwards.
However, they also let the landing character land earlier and get their options like shield back, and it is hard to go through shields from below.
c) Edgeguarding, and edge pressure
If you read the Recovery section, you know that there are two ways to recover.
Recovering from high generally can be dealt with in the same manner as Air Trapping.
Dealing with someone recovering from low is a bit trickier. There are two parts to this situation - the character getting to the ledge, and then when the character is actually on the ledge.
Getting to the ledge: Very character dependent, and can be very risky.
A lot of recovery moves will automatically snap to the ledge where they have some invincibility frames, and have good hitboxes to make edgeguarding difficult.
Generally you will want to know when and where your opponent wants to use their recovery moves. That way, you can try to intercept them with an attack before they can grab the edge.
You can have a few goals when edge guarding:
- Spiking: pretty difficult, sometimes risky, as spikes often have long startup and long recovery
- Stage spiking: hitting your opponent against the stage, usually with a bair, however they can tech this by pressing Shield as soon as they hit a wall. That lets them not fly off the wall and recover again; they can hold up during the tech to get a wall jump.
- Just hitting them away again: you can rack up percent this way, or you can even "gimp" certain characters like Little Mac by just getting them far enough away from the stage without their double jump.
Edge Pressure
Once your opponent grabs the ledge, they have a handful of options. All are punishable to various degrees. They are similar to getting up from being knocked down, with a few additions.
- Get up normally (press forward while grabbing the ledge): This one recovers really fast, but is punishable for a very small window. If you have a very active attack it might be a good idea to use that, but if you have good timing and a read, you can also land a KO move.
- Roll (press Shield while grabbing the ledge): Similar to a tech roll. Invincible during the roll, Vulnerable at the end.
- Get up attack (press A): Similar to a get up attack from a grounded situation, but does less shield stun since it is only 1 hit.
- Jump: really strong option. You can act quickly out of this, but it can be punished with a meaty upsmash or air attack.
- Drop (press down or back): Can immediately follow up with an attack, e.g. double jump and an air attack. Kind of risky. Can also double jump and airdodge (also risky) or try to grab the edge again (really risky since it has no ledge invincibility after the first ledge grab if you haven't been hit or landed on the ground).
- Wait: Sometimes you just want to wait a bit before choosing an option.
Note: you cannot grab the edge immediately after letting go of it.
Note: If someone tries to regrab the edge without invincibility, a run off bair will likely stage spike and force them to attempt a wall tech or get KO'd.
Trumping
When one character grabs an edge that is already being held by another character, the previous holder of the ledge gets sent up+back away from the ledge.
This can be taken advantage of if the Trump happens immediately with an edge Drop + double jump Bair.
To avoid getting Trumped, you can choose a getup option while the other character grabs the edge before getting Trumped.
Trumping is a way to force a character off the edge without hitting them. This means if they do not land on the ground or get hit, the next time they grab the edge they will have no invincibility...
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PART 2
The previous section involved a general guide to how the game can flow. I went over movement, how to make the most out of defense, and how to take advantage of situations where your opponent has limited options. This section will be a little more specific and involve some unique Smash mechanics, but will also use some of the basics from the previous section.
Offensive Choices-
Racking up Damage vs KOing: Taking into account percentage
Smash has a damage system. It is pretty intuitive after learning what it does: lower percents mean you get sent less far, higher percents mean you get sent further and potentially can get KO'd.
Another way to look at this is that at lower percents, Air Traps can happen much more easily and quickly because they will not be launched as far. In a situation where you Shield a punishable attack, you might want to choose a launcher with relatively quick recovery frames so you can follow up with an Air Trap faster, at lower percent. At higher percent, you'll want to try to KO them, so a stronger attack to send them offstage or upwards could be more ideal.
But one more thing to consider is Stale Moves.
Think of Stale Moves as a list of 9 (I believe it is either 9 or 10) moves.
These are the last 9 moves that have hit the opponent; the more times a move shows up on the list and the closest it is to the most recent, the weaker it will be.
This means that certain potential KO moves like Diddy Kong's Uair can be a much less effective KO move if it is used often as an Air Trap or combo after DThrow. This is just one example; realize that you don't want to use potential KO moves as you near KO percents. Earlier in your opponent's stock is a good chance to use these moves, so that in the middle percents you can use other moves to get your potential KO moves out of the Stale queue.
Another big help to "unstale" your moves is to pummel when you grab (press A while grabbing). Certain characters have quick pummels. These rack on a bit of damage while the opponent tries to get out of your grab, but they also count towards the stale move list, which helps other recently used moves become stronger.
Defensive Choices-
Focusing on DI
DI (Directional Influence) is simple: when you get hit, you input a direction, and you control a bit of the direction where you get sent. Smash4 introduced "vectoring", which had the same effect but the direction you would want to input is different. However, "vectoring" has been patched to be extremely non-influential.
Basically, when you know you are about to get hit by a potential KO move, you want to hold diagonally away from where you are getting sent.
If you are about to get hit to the right, hold up and left.
If you are going to be hit upwards, hold down and a side.
This is called Survival DI.
But wait, there is more: Combo DI!
This just means instead of trying to stay closer to the opponent, you want to get away. Certain throws can be followed up with a combo or air trap; they send you upwards. You want to DI away from the opponent, so Up and Away.
Also pretty simple, but yet another thing to think about!
You also want to know what to do after getting hit. Don't mash something without thinking about it - experienced players will pick up that you are mashing jump after getting launched to the side every time, and they will get some followups that should not happen!
Similar to the concept of taking advantage of an air trap situation, you should try your best to defend when you are the one being air trapped. Airdodging, attacking back, moving away, are all viable options and reading on both sides is going to happen here.
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For now, I think/hope this is a suitable introduction to Smash 4 and hopefully can bring new players to an intermediate level.
- Applicable Games
- Smash Wii U
