Gadiel_VaStar

When I was younger, I wanted to be an author and applied myself in school and all that stuff, but now I have no ambitions and just generally don't care about anything. There are only a few people still important to me, and Smash is just an escape. Since I'm not really going anywhere in life, I decided to join the military so that I could do something useful while earning money and not having to worry about how I was going to live, going to school, or anything like that. It will also teach me valuable life skills.

I originally wasn't going to do ROTC, but my parents pushed me to do it. My mother is terrified of the idea of me going off to war, even though I really don't give a **** about her, but my father is also pushing me to do it, so that's how I'm going.

I really don't care what field I'm specializing in, or where the government decides to throw me. For now, I just care about passing English so I can graduate, and I guess Pound 4.

I'm 'popular' in school in the sense that I'm well known and well liked, but very, very few people REALLY KNOW me. Most of my friends are in college. I haven't been a relationship in years, because I was deeply in love with my ex-girlfriend. I didn't get over her for two years, then my standards were just stupidly unrealistic. Now, I'm just too mature for everyone, and don't really have any strong feelings for anyone. One of my two best friends not in college is obsessed with his girlfriend, and I was obsessed with Smash over the summer, so we haven't hung out really. The other one decided to join a gang and drop out of school.

So, basically, I'm popular yet lonely, don't really care about anything, and I'm just going to the army to find something to do with my life, because I can't just play Smash for a living, and after I graduate high-school, I refuse to be a further burden on my parents.

For the time being, I just play Smash. 'Pierce' is just a happier, more successful person than 'Daniel', so I'm living that life until it runs out.

Not really the "story of my life" but I guess that tells you a bit about me, since you seem so curious.

I'm probably going to community college for ROTC, and then going into the Army. I hate school, lmao

Wow at message below me. Pierce is too good.

*How does one figure out what is going on in the mind of their opponent?

You recognize patterns. Everyone has patterns, ESPECIALLY the top players. Obviously, better plays have amazing mix-ups, but they still have patterns.

Also, the average character doesn't have a lot of options to begin with. Even as Marth, it's reasonable to think that I'm going to use Fair, Dtilt, or Dancing Blade. These are my generally good options.

Experience and understanding of the game help you to recognize patterns, and help you get in the mind of your opponents. Just think about what decision making process you use to play the game. As you get better and your mindset improves., your ability to figure out how your opponent thinks should also improve.

*What are the different types of play styles?

Different playstyles basically come from different mentalities of what option you pick. For example, my playstyle is offensive pressure, with the objective of pushing my opponent to the ledge, reducing their options, making it easier to K.O., and keeping myself safe with my opponent weakened. This allows you to anticipate how I may try and cut you off, and what types of options I may choose. I often laugh and compare my Marth to a sheppard, because the whole match I try to use my sword to "herd" my opponent to the ledge and eventually into the blast zone.

Other playstyles include sheer aggro, camp, safe pressure, crippling option choices, etc. The list is quite long, but the ones I listed are generally the most popular. Often, a style is generally a subset of one of these styles.

*What qualities make a top player?

Understanding. If you don't realize why you're getting hit, or why your connect hits, it limits your ability to improve what you're doing, and get hit less, while landing hits more.

------Why are M2K and Ally different from "average" players?

Their understanding of this game, and understanding of why people choose the options they choose, and how to combat it, is amazing. They also have a superior understanding of how the options themselves work.

*How does one take control of a match and predict everything their opponent is going to do next?

No one ever predicts everything their opponent is going to do next. We can merely make good guesses based off the patterns. If I'm standing mid distance away from you as Marth, it doesn't take a genius to guess that I'm going to Fair. If I hit your shield, it doesn't take a genius to guess that you're going to shieldgrab.

Pressure allows one to take control of the match. You use your hitboxes to limit the options your opponent has, and it results in hitting them. Once your opponent is off the ground, or away from the center of the stage, they lose options, and it makes it easier to pressure and predict them.

*How does one get better at observing their opponents and making quick decisions?

Understanding and experience. Know WHY hits connect. Know WHY your opponent was able to dodge your attack. Understand WHY your opponent chose the option that they did. Instead of just watching a match as a whole, analyze the little details, and understand all aspects of each action. it's all about understanding the available options, and then understand why the chosen one was selected.

To make quick desicions, just practice. Speed comes with practice. Spacing requires practice. Pressure and even camping, require practice.

Also, having a good pattern set is useful. Generally, players don't enter a match with no idea what to do. It's called knowing the match-up. Know what you should do against different characters, why it works, and how to do it. My Fairs and dtilt patterns seem obvious, but they're still good, because they're soundly built, well spaced, and safe.

If I didn't want to write essays, I wouldn't write them. You never made me do anything, and it's silly of you to presume to think you could, lol.

Anyway, ask away, and if the concept is abstract enough that I feel the general public needs an explination, I'll write a guide. A lot of concepts in this game actually need more guides, so I may write a guide, but chances are, I'll just answer you straight.

Uh, I dunno. My last favorite author was Tamora Pierce though. No relation to my name whatsoever.

Greetings. I wrote this thread for you. Hope this helps!

http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?p=9041071#post9041071

I might.
I'm still undecided though.

can attend? id hazard a guess that money might be an issue, unless you guys are paying

ill ask anyway

Thanks for the support!, we'll try our best to do better at pound 4 and now we have almost full representation from PR 20 people are going for both melee and brawl so watch for Lord HDL (best melee player here), DSL and Excel for melee too :D, btw about the link, I discovered that trick like 10 months ago it's just that PR has it's own online site (smashpr.com) and I don't come here very often but thanks anyway, I'll try to do my best with D3 because it seems that D3 players here thinks he isn't top anymore XD

It won't really work if DDD grabs you near the edge. Remember that the dthrow has set knockback, and DI really doesn't work as well as it would with other grabs. Even so, thanks for telling me. ^^

I see. Well thanks for the complement. And yea, Isorta gave up with all this. Not worth fighting and going through crap about. I'm getting tired of it.

Huh? Well that was random. Where is all this coming from?

Hi

I can try... but you're probably better off posting in the Wolf Q&A thread, that way you can get multiple opinions And, of course, I'll do my best to answer the questions you post over there as well.

For starters, you might be able to think of retreating SH fair as a "walling" technique, it definitely stops most aerial approaches wonderfully. Predicting and baiting... there's a guide for that in the Wolf Directory, did you read that? SelfPosessed (the guy who wrote the threads) is pretty good with presenting topics like that.

Amsah is going yea. And many other dutches too.

Armada's going to pound 4 yes. =) He doesn't have any more neat tricks per se that he didn't have pre-genesis... but he's gotten better yea and ***** his competition as per usual.

Well even though I'm backroomer, it doesn't mean I'm the top player but just rather knowledgeable bout stuff. Personally I too have a tendency to play on autopilot. But I do think you can tone this down if you record some vids and then look at your habits, take notice of them and work on them. Then if you slow down your game a bit in casuals and start to observe more consciously. Eventually you'll learn to discern other people's habits and taking advantage of them, as well as toning down yours. It'll help a lot if you can play against high caliber players that have mindgames and all to build up your own. Nothing works better than getting mauled by high end player lol, they will destroy you if you don't quell your habitual instincts and start thinking fast on your feet keke, so you're basically forced to improve unless you quit. And if you don't quit, your competitiveness will strive you to try harder. Experience is also a key element in playing smart, because you cannot make smart responses untill you learn the inside out of this game, another reason why playing against experienced opponents is very good (nothing better than learning from example). For technical aspect, you don't need to be awesomly fast and techy and flashy (liek silent wolf for example), but what you need to have is very, very good timing and being able to consistently do your stuff and when you need to do something a bit harder, you then can do it without a hitch if that is what's needed to punish someone's actions. Armada at first wasn't that technical per se... but technicality is not simply about being able to press many buttons per second, but armada had such a good timing his technicality is at beast level, even in the very beginning.

yeah man, the nc smash scene is actually really great. we have melee and brawl biweeklies so you can really always find somewhere to play if you want, and we host big tournaments (HERB series) that attract people from all over the country (HERB3 will have Ally and M2K if you play brawl, and hbox always shows up if you play melee...words still out on mango ). And we have an active scene, real tournaments that aren't biweeklies will average about 40 for Brawl and a bit less for melee (lower those #s for biweeklies, you cant expect everyone to go out to every tournament ), and it's actually really fun...NC is famous for how chill we are lol

Just making sure this works.