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StoicPhantom

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  • Oz o:
    duuude I had these badass matches with some Chilean guy who played a pretty damn good Chrom/Roy/Corrin. We've been going at it for like 40 minutes straight, no one even bothered to come into our Arena. There was 0 lag as well. It was NUTS. Like, he started kicking my ass pressing every button and **** (Chrom is broke as ****), and I went, liek, super sayain or something and I started 2-stocking him.

    This is why we can't have good things.
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    Oz o:
    Oz o:
    Good players really make use of their offensive responses and leave little defensive openings. Makes it really hard for someone like me to just barge in and exploit like a spotdodge or a jump when they can just attack after any cooldown (again, because Chrom/Roy can do anything after landing Uair). He just started barrel rolling me, but then I started killing Chrom with Phantom most of the time he went of stage.

    I'm really feeling the Phantom buff, in particular.
    Oz o:
    Oz o:
    There was a point I was basically playing 50% of the time hanging by the edge (literally)...and Zelda doesn't mind, with that new trick I showed you before. The only counterplay I find it actually going over and hitting her, but she can just do an early Phantom Slash and it should block most things.
    S
    StoicPhantom
    Yeah Chrom can be pretty annoying if you let him control the pace, but he's fodder in disadvantage. But yeah, finding those few good players is what keeps us bound to this hellhole of an online.

    I'm finding the Phantom buffs to be the most useful in neutral strangely enough. Being able to knock even a heavy character from center to stage to the ledge is pretty powerful stuff. Actually comboed a Yoshi from offstage near the ledge to the blast zone with two Phantom's and a Din's Fire.
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    Oz o:
    Well I did what I say I was going to do, and I kind of tried just using Phantom every chance I got. I went well, to say the least...like, 2-stocking everyone without rematches good. But then I ****ing good Ganondorf, and I somewhat had to tone it down and bring my usual game. I don't know if it's just Zelda, but it feels like he can get away with a lot of aggression. He has some of the safest aerials among super heavies, and he has stuff like a -4 Bair and doing defensive habits only puts him at a disadvantage, if you ask me. It's like he had little reasons to press buttons.

    I still won pretty pretty damn handily.
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    S
    StoicPhantom
    I find staying at mid range can cut down on a lot of that aggression. It forces him to use dash attack or his specials which are reactable to approach. Dash attack is just barely within OoS territory too, so it isn't really that safe. He can try approaching with aerials, but while they are good on shield, they aren't amazing with the landing lag. Well spaced Fsmash or F-tilt or even Up-Tilt and Phantom can put a stop to that.

    Then you just crush him in advantage. He can't do anything about edgeguarding, so yeah.
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    Oz o:
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    StoicPhantom
    Don't some places make you forfeit the game or a stock when that happens? And how does that even happen lol? I also love how you just look over at him like "What are you doing?".
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    Oz o:
    Oz o:
    I could've easily done it...because I've actually done it before, but maybe not in tournament. I definitely misinput taunt a couple of times. Joycons stuff, you wouldn't get it.

    I think there's no problem if either of the players don't mind.
    Oz o:
    If Samus is currently considered a good character, what the hell is stopping Zelda.
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    StoicPhantom
    I used to feel like it was ego and people's refusal to admit they were wrong, and while it is still that to an extent, I think it is also that people just don't know how to play the game.
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    Oz o:
    Can someone remind me to use Ftilt, or is it going to be like Phantom where I took months to even consciously use it.
    Like, even when I remind myself, I just never land that move.
    S
    StoicPhantom
    It feels pretty situational to me. It's somewhat safe on shield now, I think, so you can use it to pressure from a distance. But mostly I feel like it's just when your opponent puts themselves in the correct spacing.
    Oz o:
    The whole initial dash animation management thing is a very new concept to me. I kept wondering for years, since Brawl, why some players just seemed to be able to run in an shield so quickly. I never knew what was wrong, but it's not like you ever hear about this concept. I learned it better through Byleth, actually. He has the same initial dash duration as Zelda, but I find it a lot more noticeable with Zelda, probably because she lacks a tool to just retreat and from a distant (like Byleth's Fair or Bair).

    I don't think people really understand where Zelda is bad, and it never had to do with her frame data...at least, not in her moveset. It goes deeper than that, and something as subtle as this. On the other hand, she has fairly decent buttons she can press, such as Dtilt & Jab, whereas Byleth just has a mediocre Jab.
    Oz o:
    Byleth has a D-Throw > Bair, and it's pretty stupid. I killed Wario at 56 at the ledge, yesterday. I even almost killed Falco under 40...
    https://streamable.com/3gn1e
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    StoicPhantom
    Is that actually true? A confirm at mid percents is really good.
    Oz o:
    Oz o:
    I never had it confirmed in Training Mode, but I've also been doing it enough I don't think it's a coincidence, even against the same people multiple times. Most people just mash airdodge or jump, and that would've happened if it weren't the case. Fair definitely confirms, and it's only a frame slower.
    S
    StoicPhantom
    I don't think the counter is completely accurate in training anyways. It seems to be much harder to get certain confirms like D-Tilt > Kick to register true after the patch that changed it, but I'm pretty sure they are still true in those cases.
    Oz o:
    Why does Zelda seem tall in her game model. She doesn't look much taller than like 5'3", and especially considering Japanese characters being shorter to begin with (let alone BoTW, who's shorter than literally everyone).
    View previous comments…
    Oz o:
    Oz o:
    A friend told me Mario is canonically 165cm, or about 5'6. I don't think Zelda is any taller than that, which is kind of funny. Mario looks like he's 3 feet tall, or something. And the spacies are apparently a lot taller than they are in Smash. Fox is the shortest, and he's still 5'9".
    Oz o:
    Oz o:
    Characters like Pichu and Kirby are also like half of Zelda's size, which is funny.
    S
    StoicPhantom
    I remember seeing an image of an anime cast against a measurement backdrop a long time ago and even though they were all supposed to somewhat within each other height wise, some were clearly much taller or shorter than their listed height. I'm pretty sure they just tack on height and weight as an afterthought lol.
    Oz o:
    Funny enough, I pulled another upset today...well, "half" an upset, apparently. I beat one of the Top 10 players, but he was using Diddy Kong, instead of his main Joker. I think it was a good set, and there were a lot of footsies and neutral involved. I feel like I even handled the banana better than he did, in most ocassions. First match was 2 stock on his part, then I 2-stocked him Game 2.

    My last set was against our Top 4-5. I JV 3'd his G&W, but then he switched to Ness and I felt like I lost a ton of sharpness. Game 1 looked so commanding, it almost looked like I could've taken the set.
    • Like
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    Oz o:
    Oz o:
    This fellow, Cyrano (the Joker main), he puts Byleth, Zelda & Corrin as a -3 disadvantage against Joker. I sincerely doubt all of that, and I feel I could easily prove all of those aren't nearly the case. It's almost laughable, to be honest.
    S
    StoicPhantom
    There is absolutely now way Joker is -3 against any of those characters lmao.
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    Oz o:
    stixie is so funny. Why does he overreact to everything.
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    StoicPhantom
    He's very excited about Zelda and not jaded like the rest of us. I'd aspire to be like him, if I wasn't so tired and lazy all the time.
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    Oz o:
    Being committed to matches in Quickplay is like arguing with a stupid person. You think you're excercising your brain, but in reality, you're just losing neurons by the second.
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    StoicPhantom
    It's pretty much gotten unplayable now. It's all the same few mashers, with the same few characters, with increasingly worse connections, to the point where you might as well be playing those meme games that are intentionally impossible to be good at and are super hard and frustrating for the sake of it. The lag makes it impossible to react or punish or even combo true combos, so every game seems to devolve into trading hits for five minutes until someone gets a lucky kill.

    After dealing with several hours of laggy heavys and mashers today, I just kind of sat in stunned belief at my utter helplessness at dealing with literally the exact same strategies. Every successful hit had them hold buffering a retaliation hit and it just become a long war of attrition every game. Had a DK that would literally just mash everything he could, as fast as he could, wherever he could, and the complete randomness made it incredibly difficult to get through his hitboxs as Inkling.

    Forget learning anything, you're not even playing the same game. These dudes have WiFi abuse down to a tee, to the point that lots of games can be straight up unwinnable from the get go, depending on MU and connection.
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    Oz o:
    Oz o:
    Just do Arenas.
    S
    StoicPhantom
    That's what I was planning on doing, but I'm currently playing late/early enough for them to be deserted. Guess I'll have to shift that soon.

    Well for what it's worth, Quickplay was much better tonight compared to last night and I actually did some decent stuff and got a lot of rare MUs. The online giveth and the online taketh away.
    Oz o:
    Today was the first ranked tournament of the year. I got 17th, which was underwhelming. Could’ve at least pushed into 13, maybe even 9th.

    I played pretty well in a couple of those, though. I upset our 6th seed (vs. my 27th). Literally everybody on the venue became aware and kept congratulating me.

    I was also heavily dominating over my friend with Byleth. It looked a lot like it used to. I even 3-stocked him in one of those.
    Oz o:
    I played this C.Falcon that was surprisingly good. He really wasn't mindless rushdown, and even slightly defensive. That's what made it so much harder for me. The dude's neutral was basically a mix of dash dance whiff punish and never really straight off approaching and sitting in shield a lot, but not enough that you can just grab him for free. It's a lot harder than it sounds, at least for Byleth. Zelda can probably just Phantom and he'd have to approach no matter what.
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    Oz o:
    Oz o:
    He made the matches super long.
    S
    StoicPhantom
    It's rare to find one that isn't aggressively mashing in lag, but when you do, it really gives you more appreciation for what the character can do.

    It's harder than it looks to use Phantom on him. Been finding characters with really high jumps annoying to deal with lately, but Falcon has the ability to mix up his speed, making it even more annoying to pin him down. It's not like you can't outspace him with Phantom, but it's definitely not free, and Falcon Kick is surprisingly good at quickly destroying the earlier charges and punishing Zelda in one swoop.
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    Oz o:
    I don't know what's more humourous, the fact that I was 2-stocking the Pikachu I lost to in bracket (and last week), or the fact that I was doing so well in spite of how hard the matchup can be for Byleth.

    And I still need to tech his Bair stagespike better.
    Oz o:
    All this talk about Byleth, I'm not really ever dropping Zelda. I should get back to her soon enough. I have this bad habit of using like 90% of a new character for at least a whole month, but then it just takes a toll on my Zelda's progress (even going as far as to rust). Happened with my Joker phase, Banjo, and so on...

    I'll try and go half and half next time.
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    Oz o:
    Oz o:
    Never thought she needed them, aside from maybe one of giving her a real grab (faster frame data) or just shortening the frames in her dash so she can shield and approach more safely while also being able to use her 1.958 speed.

    The buffs are very reasonable, on the sense that it amplifies strengths she already had, but it’s not like this thing that suddenly makes her jump a few tiers.
    S
    StoicPhantom
    An hour of Zelda a day, keeps the rust away. Or something like that.

    100% agree on the buffs. People are acting like she's going to jump substantially, but I don't see anything that suggests that. Up-air is pretty nice though.
    • Like
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    S
    StoicPhantom
    @Madame Lesley Keep at it, it takes a while before she clicks and you start to do well with her.
    Oz o:
    As much as I bash online, I've been kicking some royal ass crack in these last 2-3 days. Yes, this means Byleth. My spacing has gotten somewhat noticeably better (a little tip I'll explain later), and I'm doing significantly better in campy matchups (which are especially worse online). There was a pretty decent Isabelle player I faced the first week, and I basically couldn't do anything. He was like 80+% Side B, and that's all it took to win... but yesterday, I faced the same matchup against another solid Isabelle. He won the first match handily, about 2-0. Then I adapated far better and it's mostly due to spacing and namely FH fastfall Fair. It covers a lot space, and can be really good against a lot of things, and even a couple of projectiles since the tip just goes through them.

    I'm also far, far better at the Byleth ditto than I was during the first week or so. I used to lose to the absolute worst people, but now I rarely lose the ditto. I even 3-stocked a fairly decent player earlier.
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    Oz o:
    Oz o:
    I said this with Zelda, but your character is only as slow as you, the player, are. Byleth might not be too different, in that regard. Just stick to the fast, non-comittal and safe/consistent moves, and you'll be a lot faster. A lot people waste too much time with the "big" moves, like Side B, Fsmash and even Down B. Even going offstage to try and spike in the ditto (and other tethers) is far too inconsistent. I just run off and Fair, and kills ridiculously early and far more consistently. Hell, even Nair is better.
    S
    StoicPhantom
    The online giveth and the online taketh away, I find. Played amazing earlier this week, but the last couple days have been absolute **** as far as online bull**** goes. But then I got some okay and some actually good connections earlier and started doing well again. Actually spiked a G&W recovery with Zelda Dair and he immediately disconnected lol.
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    Oz o:
    I've managed to stick around up until almost 12 a.m in the venue, which was all the way until Grand Finals ended. I was doing far better than I was after taking that hit in WR1. My last set was perfectly doable (even considering Pikachu-Byleth), but I'm dumb and still dropped it. It was pretty disappointing, but I realise that at least having instant access to friendly setups makes it go away quick...especially when you're kicking ass.

    I also got to play three of our better plays (Top 2 & 4, respectively), and it was pretty fun. I usually never get to play them, and I've been recommended to play different people. It also felt nice somewhat putting myself back on the map a bit. I can tell I wasn't a pushover when they stuck around a couple of matches.
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    StoicPhantom
    Good stuff. Did you feel like you were getting better playing those top players? And did you feel less pressure playing friendlies? If nothing else, you might have fun playing friendlies instead of competing, so it might not be a bad idea to stick around more often, if you have the time. It could end up being a good balance between the pressures of competing and getting good and simply just enjoying the game.
    Oz o:
    Oz o:
    There’s a guy from the u.S over here. He’s already won the last two weeklies. He goes by the tag C.Kaleb. He’s told me he’s beaten people like Sinji, ZeroTwoNone and AceAttorney (another Zelda player).

    I invited him over to my place, and we’ve had a hangout. He’s going to be staying in Argentina for the next 4 months, so it’ll likely be more common.

    He tells me he finds my “peak” to be better than he is, which is flattering. I went mostly Byleth because my Zelda is kind of rusty.
    S
    StoicPhantom
    I see he's a Pacman player. That's pretty interesting overall, maybe he can provide some interesting practice. At least you have third party confirmation that you are still good at the game.
    Oz o:
    I literally haven't tried Zelda since Byleth came out, at least until now. *Jesus*, that Uair buff is definitely noticeable. I sent Dr.Mario really damn high up at only 75, like he could just die at 80 (and not even super high up). And F-Tilt? Got a kill(cam) at about 120 center stage.
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    StoicPhantom
    Up-air legit kills light to middleweights at or under 100. I grounded a Game & Watch player solely because he would lose his stock every time he hung around in the air lol. I haven't gotten to testing it, but I think the sourspot can confirm into the sweetspot. Not that I regularly miss the sweetspot with how huge the hitbox is lol.

    Had a Pikachu with godlike DI live to a sweetspot F-Tilt at 120 on a Battlefield stage, but he was like a couple percent away from certain doom. Not to mention how easy it is to land Din's and that the Phantom shield break combos are back.
    S
    StoicPhantom
    This is definitely an amazing patch, and not because of Nair buffs either. Every issue I had with those kill moves was resolved, and even though I'm not seeing anything game changing, I'm killing people a lot quicker and that makes matches less uncertain and less prone to narrow losses.
    Oz o:
    My hands ****ing hurt and I'm tired of all these Byleth dittos...at least I'll be ready for them, so it's something. Looks like I'm getting the hang of it.
    He's definitely slow as hell, but it looks like I can manuever with a couple of traps.
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    S
    StoicPhantom
    I did play Byleth a bit and the speed seems fine. Even if you can't chase, you'll still trap your opponent at the ledge all the same. Side-B is kind of nuts and is a really good anti-air and anti-platform tool strangely enough. Dair seems really good at spiking bad recoveries and covers like the entire ledge. My first fight against Byleth was with Falcon and even though I bodied him, he got two spikes on my recovery lol.

    It took me a bit to figure out neutral, but I'm starting to get the hang of it. It's kind of amusing how people trying to avoid Byleth's range, tend to put themselves in the perfect spot for tippers. Not to mention how scary it is to edgeguard, knowing Up-B can instantly spike you. I pulled off some sick Dair spikes on Byleth regardless, but I have been Up-B spiked a couple times.
    S
    StoicPhantom
    I'll need some more practice, but I like this character overall.
    Oz o:
    Oz o:
    I find it really to hard to FF Bair at the lowest, but it'll be really useful. I basically couldn't do it the first day, but I'm getting the hang of it. I try practicing by hitting Pichu consistently. A basic ledge setup is fully spaced Bair and then you can cover roll with either grab or U-Smash and jump with Uair or retreating FH Bair.
    Oz o:
    Who would win,

    A compilation of badass Zelda plays literally no one else is doing.

    Or another G&W #9 clip you've seen since Brawl.
    View previous comments…
    D
    Deleted member
    For what it's worth, I'd be more interested in Zelda compilation.
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    StoicPhantom
    It's likely both. These are the same people that would lose their minds over the 5069th Nairo ZSS ladder combo in Smash 4. It seems they get hyped over things solely because everyone else does sometimes.
    Oz o:
    Oz o:
    @psb123 thank you, you have actual tastes.
    Oz o:
    The Rashōmon has never failed me. I failed it.
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    D
    Deleted member
    Is that a Bungou Stray Dogs reference?
    Oz o:
    Oz o:
    Of course. <3
    Oz o:
    I think tonight was one of the first weeklies in a long time where I don't feel like giving up, and thereby not horrible. Underwhelming result? Yeah, but I don't care. I've learned not to give up. I realise that the "bad times" are just an illusion from The Universe thrown at you, as a way of testing you. That's all it is, an illusion- albeit, a persistent one.

    At least I beat one of my bracket demons......going Corrin. Funny, how the only two times I beat him was going Corrin (against Cloud). I also switched off of Zelda to Corrin against another Cloud I faced in Losers.
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    Oz o:
    Oz o:
    thanks lesley
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    StoicPhantom
    Maybe you can keep Corrin as a pocket. Regardless, I think improving your mindset is a sign of good improvement, so you can be proud of that. It would be nice to have a good run, but that isn't always going to happen, so being able to shake it off is going to be essential, regardless of how good a player you are.
    Oz o:
    Oz o:
    My Corrin is no mere pocket.
    Oz o:
    I'm sorry, I really wanted to get back to our PM a while ago, but it seems I've put it off for so long, that I'd end up forgetting. We have a tendency to keep things long and detailed, which is why we tend to take our time and not just go with a simple 5 minute response (generally).

    There's still some things I'd go about my combos, and you're more than welcome to borrow from it. There's a reason why I don't show it to absolutely everyone.
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