Advice to give to friend

[SquizzleMaster]

I have a friend just starting out in Melee as a Doc/Y.Link main. Any advice for a Y.Link main just starting out? I know pretty much nothing about playing the links outside Smash 64.

 

[gomeaux]

the only thing i know about young link is his projectile game is really good, so abuse that as much as possible. I cant play Doc (I'm a Mario main.) but his cape hitbox is ridiculous and covers his head and both side of his body, so its great for stopping recoveries.

 

[Benny P]

YL's projectile game is slow and varied. He's not very viable but he does have some underrated strengths that give him an advantage. with correct set ups, he can edgeguard spacies pretty well once they are offstage. He's good against floaties being able to also harass them and kill them earlier than usual. That being said there are many bad aspects of this character, mainly some of his moves being kind of laggy, and not being able to kill easy without edgeguards. he becomes great when opponents are offstage, but getting them there can be a real chore and will require some patience.

To begin with, get used to moving around and knowing when to use your projectiles and etc. From there, start learning all the various amounts of bomb tech, catching bombs in the air or off an opponents shield, and placing them on the ground and platforms. When you know you have time to put a few bombs down, this can be really handy on floaties (double bomb dair) etc. bomb>aerial is very strong so also get used to doing that and up air chains. Sometimes you dont need to hit with projectiles-you just need them to cover a space so you can narrow your opponents options. There's more but that's off of the top of my head. Hope you enjoy playing the Young Link.

 

[SquizzleMaster]

litty. thanks for the advice to pass on.
Also, is dair a consistently usable move? Cause the friend im talking about i feel overuses dair, but idk enough about ylink to tell him this with any certainty.

 

[Benny P]

litty. thanks for the advice to pass on.
Also, is dair a consistently usable move? Cause the friend im talking about i feel overuses dair, but idk enough about ylink to tell him this with any certainty.

dair (especially high dairs) are very baitable once you see this habit. They are great at coming down from high up GRANTED your opponent is trying to kill you off the top, or is trying to be in that space. DAIR has a considerable amount of landing lag (50F, so 25f when L cancelled.) Dair and Grab are probably the worst moves to whiff ever for YL.

While Raw dair is not great, it can be "consistently usable" by landing a bomb first, and hitting the dair while theyre still in the bombs explosion. Basically, try to hit a dair once you hit a bomb first, AKA Bomb>Dair.

I might also suggest that your friend play one character or the other, instead of both simulataneously. If this YL is only really to CP, just stick to Doc, or play YL if his heart is in it. YL covers no MU's better than Doc already does. Shroomed says Peach wins the doc mu by fullhop floating, but at low levels of play this shouldnt be a problem.

So yeah, in brief you'll want to learn these things to get started with YL:

1.Basic Movement: wavelands, wavedashing, dash>wavedash (falcos do this too) Up B recovery (has a bit of momentum you can change while moving) Hookshot recovery, wall jumps, etc

(more advanced/flashy: Spin attack to ledge, moonwalking, Recovering from the bottom of FoD)

2. Concept of Zoning and Area of Denial:

Learning the angles of all your projectiles, and how they interact with each other and other parts of the game. Smash Boomerangs, Tilt Boomerangs and their angles, Arrow Angles, Bomb throw arcs and heights (an easy start to this is just always being in line with your opponent.) Timing on when bombs fall (throwing a bomb up to recieve it later, or knowing when it will fall and trap the opponent setting up for an aerial.)



4. Bomb Tech: Throwing, Catching, Catching off an opponents shield, Bomb Drop (also known as z-drop) on Platforms, the ground, and Out of Shield. Bomb>aerial (Bomb>dair was such an example)

5. your other attacks: Up air chains, Hard boomerang>Aerial, Up air>down air (percent and char specific) etc.

Theres a lot of other situational and weird tech as well, but i didn't list them. If you go though YL smashboards you should be able to find a lot of other guides and other stuff. For you, or your friend, consider joining the YL discord, where resources, and information are talked about almost every other day. check it out: https://discord.gg/EdrsjYY

 

[SquizzleMaster]

dair (especially high dairs) are very baitable once you see this habit. They are great at coming down from high up GRANTED your opponent is trying to kill you off the top, or is trying to be in that space. DAIR has a considerable amount of landing lag (50F, so 25f when L cancelled.) Dair and Grab are probably the worst moves to whiff ever for YL.

While Raw dair is not great, it can be "consistently usable" by landing a bomb first, and hitting the dair while theyre still in the bombs explosion. Basically, try to hit a dair once you hit a bomb first, AKA Bomb>Dair.

I might also suggest that your friend play one character or the other, instead of both simulataneously. If this YL is only really to CP, just stick to Doc, or play YL if his heart is in it. YL covers no MU's better than Doc already does. Shroomed says Peach wins the doc mu by fullhop floating, but at low levels of play this shouldnt be a problem.

So yeah, in brief you'll want to learn these things to get started with YL:

1.Basic Movement: wavelands, wavedashing, dash>wavedash (falcos do this too) Up B recovery (has a bit of momentum you can change while moving) Hookshot recovery, wall jumps, etc

(more advanced/flashy: Spin attack to ledge, moonwalking, Recovering from the bottom of FoD)

2. Concept of Zoning and Area of Denial:

Learning the angles of all your projectiles, and how they interact with each other and other parts of the game. Smash Boomerangs, Tilt Boomerangs and their angles, Arrow Angles, Bomb throw arcs and heights (an easy start to this is just always being in line with your opponent.) Timing on when bombs fall (throwing a bomb up to recieve it later, or knowing when it will fall and trap the opponent setting up for an aerial.)



4. Bomb Tech: Throwing, Catching, Catching off an opponents shield, Bomb Drop (also known as z-drop) on Platforms, the ground, and Out of Shield. Bomb>aerial (Bomb>dair was such an example)

5. your other attacks: Up air chains, Hard boomerang>Aerial, Up air>down air (percent and char specific) etc.

Theres a lot of other situational and weird tech as well, but i didn't list them. If you go though YL smashboards you should be able to find a lot of other guides and other stuff. For you, or your friend, consider joining the YL discord, where resources, and information are talked about almost every other day. check it out: https://discord.gg/EdrsjYY

thanks a lot dude. I think he wants to stay YL/Doc, but I'll pass that along. Do you have any advice on how to work on understanding of zoning/area of denial? He's a really new player, and I'm too new at this to really help with the metagame stuff

 

[Benny P]

thanks a lot dude. I think he wants to stay YL/Doc, but I'll pass that along. Do you have any advice on how to work on understanding of zoning/area of denial? He's a really new player, and I'm too new at this to really help with the metagame stuff

The short version would be cutting off paths that your opponent likes to use, or be in. You can put projectiles in places they like to be in to deter them from coming in this way.