A Guide to Reading?/Video Advice

[Citizen Snips]

Hey guys, I've been digging through the boards looking for guides on how to improve my reading, but I can't seem to find any. Considering that if anyone can read, it's a Falcon player, I figured I'd ask you guys for some advice or a link to a guide on it.

Hell, even suggestions would work, if you're willing to watch some videos with commentary from a loud, tired guy who can't form coherent thoughts.

My channel is here: http://www.youtube.com/user/FerretOverlord?feature=mhum
(Pretty much only matches of me or two people I play with)

EDIT: Sorry for posting videos out of the Vid Critique thread. I hadn't originally intended to post them in here, but I threw them in at the end

 

[0Room]

Are you talking about reading, as far as guessing where they're going?
Because Wobbles wrote a huge thing about reactions in general.
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=94597

 

[Windrose]

Okay, before I give you some basic advice that I can offer on reading(which isn't much but it's better than nothing xD) first I'd like to comment on your videos.

I only watched 2 but I noticed some general things.

First:
YOU ARE VERY GOOD AT WAVEDASHING/WAVELANDING AROUND THE STAGE... wtf?? Well not like SUPER DUPER good... well at least compared to everything else...you are very good at that for some reason..seems like you must've practiced that a lot?

But you can't like..L-cancel at all...o_o and everything else is weird....thats something you should like fix..but..at least you can waveland around the stage and move really cool? XD

So yeah..just work on getting your basic tech skills going first and you'll find your aerials will have like much less and you can do more stuff out of them...

Now...as for reading...You are trying to react with aerials (stomp usually) on where your opponent techs... which is not possible if not really hard to do. The only thing you can do on reaction to your opponent's tech is REgrabbing which is guaranteed if you practice it enough.

Usually when reading you are trying to PREDICT which way your opponent is going to tech (or not tech) and use a stomp or knee (or raptor boost) to catch them. You are doing it too late, it's not something you do out of reaction but out of prediction when you are reading a tech.

If you read/predicted correctly, you will hit them with the move you chose to use.

HOW to predict? (there's a few different schools of thought on this)
The most common thing most people suggest is to tech chase regrab first(learn 2 do this if you don't know how, it's important).

Try to get a sense of your opponent's teching patterns during tech chase regrab and then once you feel confident on where your opponent will most likely tech next, use a stomp, knee or raptor boost to "read" them.

If you have no idea, most people will suggest to just punish the tech in place. This is because alot of people have bad habits of trying to tech in place as it is the quickest and will try to spot dodge/shine or w/e out of the quick tech in place. You can also punish the no tech if you go for the tech in place. So you cover 2/4 options when you go for that. 50/50 almost but not really. It'll get you by against most lower to mid level players...
If your opponent always tech rolls then you only have two options to worry about.

I dunno what else to add, there's probably some other stuff.

Better falcons can perhaps come in and give you better advice.

The main thing i think you should work on is getting your L-cancel right and be able to get basic combos like stomp-->knee which will help you get most of your kills :S


TL;DR

practice your L-canceling and tech-chase regrab.
Predict where your opponent will tech to and attack that place with stomp/knee/raptor boost

 

[Citizen Snips]

Room: Thank you, I have no clue how I missed that, but it looks like it will help a lot.

Windrose: Yeah, all I usually get to practice against are bots and my friend who mains Samus, so when I'm fighting Samus I have a ton of time to move around while she's recovering, so I just do cool stuff

And when I'm playing bots, I guess I don't mix up my aerial timings, which really screws me up in matches. Looking at it now, I miss a TON of L-cancels, which probably explains why I can combo CPUs but not players. Any tips on how to work on different aerial timings (And l-cancelling on shield, because I miss that a lot too)?

 

[Windrose]

First. Get your short hop fast fall aerial l cancels down. Aka shuffling. Then full hop and etc. you can practice l cancel on shield in training mode. Use a star man on computer.

 

[Wenbobular]

Magus made a post somewhere about pressing L after your hitbox comes out because that buffers it somehow if you hit something

Or something like that
Just press L after the hitbox comes out and before you hit the floor and you should be good
Hopefully

 

[0Room]

Yeah, you can both buffer the L cancel AND press L multiple times
Both work.

As far as reading, watching DIs from throws is super helpful
If they mix up their rolls, [di right, roll left] you can usually pick up after 2 or 3 times.
The only things you have to predict is tech in place.

 

[Wenbobular]

I highly suggest you learn how to time the L button press though
Spamming the button takes energy...and tournaments go for a long *** time

 

[0Room]

Definitely. But in a pinch that'll work for you.

 

[Mokumo]

for techchasing, look at your opponents DI AND their tech. A lot of people that aren't as good will DI in the same direction as their tech. a lot of people that think they're good will DI one way and tech the other way.

 

[Windrose]

Magus made a post somewhere about pressing L after your hitbox comes out because that buffers it somehow if you hit something

Or something like that
Just press L after the hitbox comes out and before you hit the floor and you should be good
Hopefully

Yeah, you can both buffer the L cancel AND press L multiple times
Both work.

As far as reading, watching DIs from throws is super helpful
If they mix up their rolls, [di right, roll left] you can usually pick up after 2 or 3 times.
The only things you have to predict is tech in place.

I highly suggest you learn how to time the L button press though
Spamming the button takes energy...and tournaments go for a long *** time

Wait what?? can you link me to this? Do the pros ever buffer Lcancel/spam L to L cancel? I thought that wouldn't work cuz you'd miss the timing.

I'm actually having some difficulty with L-canceling and teching lately due to my L shoulder button being kinda busted and messed up so it screws up alot My other controller died...

 

[Citizen Snips]

So from talking to some guys I play fairly often and watching these videos, I realize now that reading isn't really my problem. I have a horrendous inability to l-cancel, and that screws all my follow-ups over.

I can do it on any aerial where I'm already in fast fall, but if I'm in hit lag when I try to fast fall, I screw up the fast fall AND the l-cancel. Apparently I've been using my old main Peach as a crutch, and now that I'm maining Falcon it's showing.

Any suggestions on how to learn to l-cancel? I've been using the CC handicapped Bowser technique, but I don't feel like I'm getting any lasting results.

 

[Windrose]

I don't think I ever learned the proper way to practice L-canceling. I just went on youtube and watched some videos. Then I just tried to apply it like.. for FF: you press down when you're like at the peak of your jump and for L-canceling, you press it before you land (like slightly before)...

I can't really explain it as it's kind of second nature now but I did practice it alot against lvl 1 computers....

As falcon, the most important aerials you need to cancel are...okay **** all of them >_> I was going to say nair and stomp but yeah.......probably all of them, but if you need two to figure out first ...

Get the nair and stomp ones correct they are the most important. you want nair cuz it's like you're bread and butter and (arguably) the most important aerial falcon has?(imo). and you want to get the stomp down correctly because it leads to the most important combo falcon has: stomp --> knee.

Just go to fd vs lvl 1 fox or something and just keep practicing your shffl aerials on hitting an opponent AND not hitting an opponent. The timings are different. You'll also want to get around to practicing L-canceling on hitting shield which is also important. There are different timings for L-canceling for these.

 

[Citizen Snips]

Just to clarify, I understand how L-canceling works (I've been playing for about a year ), it's just that I never really worked on it heavily since I played Peach (Lol, FC nair all daaay). All my non-hit l-cancel timings are fine. My only issue is when I hit someone as I reach the peak of my jump, since I can't fast fall in hit lag. I then miss the timing because I'm anticipating hitting the ground at FF speed, but I'm not FFing

 

[ryankam10]

Would not suggest trying to read rolls with stomps/knees.. the chance of it hitting is very low unless your playing a really ****ty opponent who is 100% predictable... newer falcons including myself when i was ****tier used to do alot of trying to read rolls with aerials but in reality its basically a lottery, 1/10 times you'll get lucky and hit them. learning to techchase regrab is much more useful.

also when you throw them you (generally) want to follow their DI with either a dash or a wavedash (if they DI away but not all the way away. a wavedash puts you in the perfect position to regrab a tech in place but a dash would put you too far).

also some things you'll realize for example if you throw them and they DI away, and if you stand still, they have a guaranteed option to get away that you won't be able to punish (if they DI away and roll away, they will be too far away from you for you to do anything if you just stand still while they're in hitstun from the throw. thus following their DI after the grab helps to eliminate options

 

[Wenbobular]

Ryan, it's a 1/3 chance that you'll hit them if you guess randomly with knee or stomp ... if you actually need me to explain it to you I will but just like ... think about it a little more

In the middle of the stage from a Dthrow it's almost always a 50/50 guess between covering their techrolls and covering their in place options ... this changes if you have time to set up for a raptor boost, late Uair, the edge limits their tech options, etc.

As for learning how to fastfall and Lcancel properly ... you should more or less know that you hit something before the hitboxes connect and be ready to adjust accordingly. Knee and stomp have slow startups so if you're throwing them out you can usually confirm visually whether or not you're going to hit them or if they're moving out the of way.

Also, most of Falcon's moves are slow enough that you can do the move and start the fastfall before the hitbox comes out (knee, Dair, Nair has two hitboxes so it's basically the same thing, just fastfall in between the hits)
Uair is actually fast enough that you can do the fastfall before you do the aerial and it doesn't really have enough hitlag to make you mess up anyways
Bair is the only one that occasionally gives me trouble still because it starts fast (but slower than Uair) and still has a decent amount of hitlag

@Windrose - the buffer thing I was talking about was if you hit L during hitlag, it'll count through the hitlag basically ... is my understanding of how that worked

 

[Da Shuffla]

Knee will cover the tech in place, if you time it correctly, and the no tech, but not the get up attack.

I apologize if someone said this already.

Unless it is possible to hit the Knee after they hit the ground, but before the get up attacks invincibility frames start. Not sure about the frame data on this one.

 

[Juggleguy]

Only advice I have is to draw some of your focus away from pure reads and start looking at what your opponent does AFTER the tech chase ends (after you've guessed wrong). It sounds like you want to improve your "hit rate" on tech chases, but it's a lot more important to react to the opponent's escape so you can stay in control of the stage rather than rely on a series of hit-or-miss guesses.

 

[Wenbobular]

Knee will cover the tech in place, if you time it correctly, and the no tech, but not the get up attack.

I apologize if someone said this already.

Unless it is possible to hit the Knee after they hit the ground, but before the get up attacks invincibility frames start. Not sure about the frame data on this one.

Pretty sure you're wrong

 

[0Room]

He means that it'll cover 1 option or the other but not both.
In that he's right.

Tech in place you can't FF it
Missed tech you get it if you FF it.

Obviously you gotta choose.

As far as practicing L Canceling, it comes with a lot of practice, just playing level 1's all day. You do have to change the timing for when you hit them, I had that problem with uairs. You just have to wait a second before FFing.
One thing I did was set Fox to 50% in training, stomp->knee. If it worked I had L canceled it, if it didn't I didn't L cancel it.
Just one of those things.

 

[Wenbobular]

Pretty sure it's easy enough to react to if you've already guessed they're not techrolling though