Ask VMan about Yoshi Thread (A General Yoshi Discussion)

[Kimimaru]

Does DJC nair to regrab actually work? I was trying to grab more yesterday, but I had trouble converting (vs. Marth/Falco). Specifically vs. Falco, it didn't seem like I had time to uair after dthrow, but if I can nair and regrab instead, then that would be great. I'd rather not rely on it if they can buffer a spotdodge or roll though.


Leffen (or anyone else that can PS well), any advice on PSing with Yoshi? I have really good consistency on my Marth PSs, and I am pretty good at PSing with Falco, but Yoshi's shield is so weird that it's hard to tell what's going on. Does dashing away help him like it does with Marth (I'm sure crouching does)?

Also, I think I read this somewhere, but what does Yoshi's shield avoid? He has hitlag, but not shield stun. right?

I'm still not even sure how PSing works with Yoshi. DJC N-air to regrab does work but you have to be quick and it has to be at a % where there first N-air won't knock him down. The bolded part is what I meant when I previously said that it doesn't seem like you can get stuff off at first but once you do it correctly you'll get better at it. I always buffer D-throw by holding down on the C-stick after I perform a grab, but if the opponent catches on you can throw their timing off by waiting and crunching on them for a few % then D-throw.

 

[EthereaL]

Idk why you would brag about M2K sandbagging against you in tournament.



Does it suffer less hitstun, or none at all?

'Cause emo-M2K Sheik is still better than 95% of the smash community, and I would also like to know the answer to this question.

 

[leffen]

If you're talking Powershielding=Reflector shield, then you're best bet is usually to dash back or crouch.


Oh, and uthrow is the perfect mixup tool against spacies. People should use it much more.

 

[Anand]

I've taken games off of m2k in-tournament before

Do you have a different tag for tournaments? I've never heard of you outside of your Smashboards posts, so I'm just curious.

 

[Kimimaru]

Yoshi's normal shield suffers no shield stun. His lightshield suffers from a little bit.

 

[Purpletuce]

I know you're trying to help, but please don't link me to a beginner guide written and last updated nearly 8 years ago.




I can play at a reasonable level (I've taken games off of m2k in-tournament before). I was asking more for any specific mechanics that are fundamental to Yoshi's play.

From what I understand, Yoshi's DJC mechanics allow him to control momentum in midair at any time, he has a good combo game, a fully invincible ledgestall, a 1-frame-vincible ledgestall which throws eggs onstage, he doesn't suffer shield stun, and he has a fairly high weight. Oh, and he has the ability to gain multiple invincible frames at any time while on the ground.

So, I'd appreciate knowing things like how those are done, new tactics that have been discovered, etc.

What? How good you are with other characters isn't even relevant to your understanding of Yoshi's basic mechanics. That guide will cover everything you need to know to get started, really. If it doesn't satisfy your need to learn about parries, look at sheer's guide to it. If you want to show us how good you are, link a video or cite some results. One match is anecdotal.

So I'm guessing Bones is playing Yoshi because it actually allows him to put his shield dropping skills to good use.

Yoshi's lack of shield stun makes his shield drop really good. . .

If you're talking Powershielding=Reflector shield, then you're best bet is usually to dash back or crouch.


Oh, and uthrow is the perfect mixup tool against spacies. People should use it much more.

I only use U-throw at high %s to combo into D-smash. At low %s they just land before I can follow up, how would you follow that up? Just read their reaction to landing? (Grab shields/delay attack on spot dodge etc)?

 

[leffen]

uthrow to ftilt on spaces combos for example

at higher percents uthrow to upangled fsmash or nair

 

[Purpletuce]

Awesome, thanks. You can probably get F-tilt -> F-tilt since they won't expect it, then maybe follow it with U-airs. . . I will have to play with that. . .

 

[Kimimaru]

Today I performed U-throw -> U-tilt -> D-smash. It might be worth looking into more.

Also, I've been using F-smash more and it helped a whole lot. It has ridiculous pullback AND reach, and it is even safe on shields. And it was even buffed in PAL...how much better can you get than that?

 

[EthereaL]

Regarding Falco,

You can safely parry > nair any of his aerials.

You can safely parry > Uair any of his aerials if they hit the top half of Yoshi (not the bottom half, late aerials / low aerials are neutral in terms of frame advantage).



The only safe option out of a parry on his Shine is wavedashing backward.

If you parry Shine on frame 4 of your invincibility, you can't jump-cancel your parry. The only semi-safe option out of this is rolling backward.

(tested with Shine>jump, Shine>grab, and Shine>shine)

 

[Bones0]

If you parry Shine on frame 4 of your invincibility, you can't jump-cancel your parry.

Why ?

 

[EthereaL]

Why?

It may have to do with the hitstun taking you past the 5-frame jump window, but I don't have a clue why that would happen on the 4th frame and not the 5th frame / 3rd frame. Yoshi's shield is weird.

Edit: By the way, it would do well to note that the above timings were done on a 1-frame-imperfect Falco and a frame-perfect one. So Falcos with looser timings will be easier to punish via parry.

Edit2: By the way, if you're playing a Falco who delays his Shine>grab as a punish on reaction, then you have time to parry>uair or parry>bair. So you shoul Wavedash backward initially to get a lock on what type of player they are, and then choose your option accordingly from there. That said, nobody expects parries, so you can probably get away with some unsafe stuff anyway.

 

[Tekk]

Jigglypuff is also really good... its very similar to Samus/Jiggs (and that is a pretty damn good team). Jiggs has the ability to deal damage without taking much herself, something that yoshi lacks, and yoshi has some really good rest setups ( bthrow/fthrow sets ups for rests really well, fair/ftilt too)

I'd like to team with you sometime in the future
Anyway, Yoshi's a lot of fun, but I'm having trouble with parrying. I parry using tap jump + R then using Y to DJ cancel into something, but I pull it off only like 40% of the time and that's obviously not enough. Any tips ?

 

[Kimimaru]

Are you having trouble jumping out of the parry or parrying? To parry all you have to do is shield an attack during Yoshi's startup shield animation.

 

[Purpletuce]

Ethereal: Yoshi shouldn't have any shield stun. Are you testing with ar?

Tekk: make sure you are delaying your jump after you start shielding. Think of a parry as a your shield, but you can't be grabbed and can jump out within the first tenth of a second. Jumping cancels the parry. Maximize the length of the parry by delaying the jump as much as possible. Practice this without getting hit, simply shield then jump as late as possible. Longer window makes easier parries.

 

[Bones0]

It may have to do with the hitstun taking you past the 5-frame jump window, but I don't have a clue why that would happen on the 4th frame and not the 5th frame / 3rd frame. Yoshi's shield is weird.

Edit: By the way, it would do well to note that the above timings were done on a 1-frame-imperfect Falco and a frame-perfect one. So Falcos with looser timings will be easier to punish via parry.

Edit2: By the way, if you're playing a Falco who delays his Shine>grab as a punish on reaction, then you have time to parry>uair or parry>bair. So you shoul Wavedash backward initially to get a lock on what type of player they are, and then choose your option accordingly from there. That said, nobody expects parries, so you can probably get away with some unsafe stuff anyway.

Like Purp said, why do you have shieldstun? You must be referring to hitlag. Falco's unstaled shine has 4 frames of hitlag, so if it isn't, that's a crazy coincidence. Even if that's the case, it's still important because you can't JC during hitlag, and I think that's actually what was happening to me when I was trying to parry Falco's dair for the first few times. I wasn't used to the hitlag so my JC input didn't count.

I'm also kinda curious about lightshielding. I feel like you have more hitlag when you lightshield, and that would explain why someone earlier thought lightshielding had extra shield stun as well.

I'd like to team with you sometime in the future
Anyway, Yoshi's a lot of fun, but I'm having trouble with parrying. I parry using tap jump + R then using Y to DJ cancel into something, but I pull it off only like 40% of the time and that's obviously not enough. Any tips ?

Did you trigger trick your controller?

 

[Purpletuce]

^good point."trigger trick" is probably meaning holding shield partially when you plug in your controller to disable light shield. You can parry if you lightshield so either remove the spring, hold it down when you plug in, or hit shield faster.

 

[leffen]

I'd like to team with you sometime in the future
Anyway, Yoshi's a lot of fun, but I'm having trouble with parrying. I parry using tap jump + R then using Y to DJ cancel into something, but I pull it off only like 40% of the time and that's obviously not enough. Any tips ?

Sign me up! As long as I'm allowed at french tournaments, and Ice is not attending, why not hehe


I myself use the Trigger trick on my L button, while using R to lightshield.
I often crouch before parrying, since this enables hitboxes to get closer to yoshi before he parries, and if you get hit, you suffer less punishment.

 

[EthereaL]

Ethereal: Yoshi shouldn't have any shield stun. Are you testing with ar?

Yes. On frame 4 of his invincibility, he is locked inside of his invincible frame, and can't jump out of it.

I did not say that it was shield stun, just that it seemed the most likely explanation since you can't move or input commands during that frame until Falco's hitlag is over.

 

[Nintendude]

Have you guys heard of Lil Fumi? That dude's a beast and the best player in San Diego apparently.

 

[leffen]

Lil fumi is solid, but he should use more grab / parries imo =/

 

[Bones0]

Yes. On frame 4 of his invincibility, he is locked inside of his invincible frame, and can't jump out of it.

I did not say that it was shield stun, just that it seemed the most likely explanation since you can't move or input commands during that frame until Falco's hitlag is over.

It has to be hitlag. I have no problem JCing parries on frame 4 when no one is hitting me. Obviously I am not 100% sure of when I am JCing on frame 4, but if I am WDing out of parries constantly, I'm bound to be JCing on frame 4 out of sheer probability. If you are testing with AR, I think it should tell you at the top if he is in hitlag or shield stun. There's just no way frame 4 is weird because that would cause Yoshi players to randomly miss parries all the time.

 

[EthereaL]

It has to be hitlag. I have no problem JCing parries on frame 4 when no one is hitting me. Obviously I am not 100% sure of when I am JCing on frame 4, but if I am WDing out of parries constantly, I'm bound to be JCing on frame 4 out of sheer probability. If you are testing with AR, I think it should tell you at the top if he is in hitlag or shield stun. There's just no way frame 4 is weird because that would cause Yoshi players to randomly miss parries all the time.

It works for every attack I tested, just not Shine.

 

[Purpletuce]

Whoa, I thought lil Fumi was a nickname for Fumi, the old player... Does he have videos? Also, doesn't grab or parry enough? Sounds like my diagnosis

 

[Bones0]

So you can't JC on the fourth frame of invincibility when an attack hits you? That doesn't make any sense... But you can JC on frames 1, 2, 3, 5, and 6? :/

Idk why you guys don't parry. It's not even hard. No wonder Leffen insults you guys all the time.

 

[leffen]

Sounds weird. I don't think it matters all too much though, parrying shines is a very rare thing.


I think it's important to underline how difficult it is to lcancel properly when your attack get parried. With no hitlag you hit the ground much faster than you'd do if you hit a normal shield/yoshi.

Even if people Lcancel, they will adjust their shine timing to hitting the opponent (so it comes out ~7frames late), which makes some attacks like fox/falcos bair shield grabable.


edit: I'm in the mood for some critique, anyone have vids they need help with?

 

[V3ctorMan]

I like the direction this thread is heading the last few days... keep it up guys...

GJ Leffen..

GJ everyone keep up the amazing work.. n n;

Perhaps I can move on, and start working on my bird again... Yoshi's seem to be in good hands.. ^^

I will actually further update the Analysis channel... I got more Leffen videos up, now i'm working on adding everyone else...

I'll give some insight, but it seems everyone else has got it covered, and I don't exactly have objections/major disagreements with anything... (not to mention last time I did, it didn't really do anything) xD

Random things I remembered...

Hi angel!? Wheere have you been? do you still play?

@Purpletuce - I don't know where you said it, but I read in last post, that you train with that Falco player right? We played a few games at Apex... was fun, he didn't seem to happy with his losses, but I think he was either "really nervous" or didn't play his best" It almost looked like he didn't even know the MU, the games were a lil distant..>> Just keep up the good work, and you'll be able to (if you don't already) become more confident vs Falco.. ^^; I've been reading/watching your videos, and you're becoming solid... I HONESTLY think you just need more confidence in yourself... this may sound right coming from me.. but I think you need to become a bit more "daring/risk taking even".. just my opinion.. but you're on your way..

@Kimi, I had something written here for you, and now I don't even remember everything I was gonna say...

@someone? I recall seeing why Yoshi can't jump after a parry or something? iirc, you're only able to on the first 2 frames.. (yes the parry is 6 frames) but I believe the first two are the only ones you can actually initiate a jump on) I don' have the data in front of me.. Leffen can likely better elaborate then I can..

@Leffen - good job man, I'm glad you're starting to enjoy contributing.. Hope to see more of that Dino of yours..
I do know one thing... If you have any tips/advice.. you can give me for fighting IC's.. BOY would I LOVE that... I'm starting to believe Wobbles is impossible to beat with Yoshi.. >>; I'm finally starting to get Peach/Sheik down... I honestly don't think I'll lose to a Marth again, just cuz Yoshi vs Marth is sooo good for me..but yeah man IC"s >>

Lastly, if anyone has any suggestions/questions for this thread or the analysis channel.. lemme know... reason I don't really reply, is because I lurk alot, and usually only reply when someone doesn't know an answer.. or ask me directly. Now things are getting good, so that will change quickly.. Lets develop this character everyone..

 

[Tekk]

Alright, thanks for the advice guys, I'll work on that. And yes I do use the trigger trick.
Leffen I don't think you'll be banned from tournaments here, you haven't done anything really bad to us, what is happening in sweden is none of our business imo.

 

[Bones0]

Sounds weird. I don't think it matters all too much though, parrying shines is a very rare thing.


I think it's important to underline how difficult it is to lcancel properly when your attack get parried. With no hitlag you hit the ground much faster than you'd do if you hit a normal shield/yoshi.

Even if people Lcancel, they will adjust their shine timing to hitting the opponent (so it comes out ~7frames late), which makes some attacks like fox/falcos bair shield grabable.


edit: I'm in the mood for some critique, anyone have vids they need help with?

So parries don't have hitlag OR shield stun?

 

[leffen]

Thats right. What's even funnier is that parrying stops luigis misfire, but he goes right through normal shields. Its the same type of invincibility you get when you spawn from the platform, they get hitlag but you don't.

The best part is when a falco doublejumps and bairs/dairs you, and you parry->nair and it'll hit him before he lands. broken.
It's also funny to watch Ganon's fail the lcancel on their stomp every single time lmao.

My favorite move->parry is currently parrying-> retreating fair. vs Fox/Falco, their shine will miss since he pulls back, and so will most jabs/utilts. It does a lot of damage (17%) and is perhaps your best combo starter, especially at low percents. If they shield, you are barely -, and you can set up spaced jab pressure or smth. If they don't lcancel properly, its a true punishment. If they don't go in when you thought they were, you're still doing a retreating nair, which beats out most of their approach timings.

@Tekk: Thats good to hear

 

[EthereaL]

So you can't JC on the fourth frame of invincibility when an attack hits you? That doesn't make any sense... But you can JC on frames 1, 2, 3, 5, and 6? :/

Idk why you guys don't parry. It's not even hard. No wonder Leffen insults you guys all the time.

Aerials, yes. Just not Shine.

Leffen brings up good points.

 

[V3ctorMan]

Thats right. What's even funnier is that parrying stops luigis misfire, but he goes right through normal shields. Its the same type of invincibility you get when you spawn from the platform, they get hitlag but you don't.

The best part is when a falco doublejumps and bairs/dairs you, and you parry->nair and it'll hit him before he lands. broken.
It's also funny to watch Ganon's fail the lcancel on their stomp every single time lmao.

My favorite move->parry is currently parrying-> retreating fair. vs Fox/Falco, their shine will miss since he pulls back, and so will most jabs/utilts. It does a lot of damage (17%) and is perhaps your best combo starter, especially at low percents. If they shield, you are barely -, and you can set up spaced jab pressure or smth. If they don't lcancel properly, its a true punishment. If they don't go in when you thought they were, you're still doing a retreating nair, which beats out most of their approach timings.

@Tekk: Thats good to hear

^150% AGREE with these statements above...

I actually had a large, writeup/discussion I wanted to do on this exact MU... fox/falcos since I play many of them, and this was a MAJOR thing I was going to include/wanted to discuss.. I diidn't cuz I'm a loser

 

[Kimimaru]

I think my biggest problem with parrying is jumping too early. I'll have to invest more time into practicing it then.

Good discussion, everyone! I should hopefully have a capture card and everything within a couple of weeks so I can get some critiques.

EDIT: I took a look at some of Lil' Fumi's recent matches, specifically against Eddy Mexico and a Falco player. Leffen is correct: while he definitely has solid fundamentals, his lack of a grab game, especially against fast fallers, hurts his ability to combo or follow up on some kills. He makes plenty of solid choices, but I feel he needs to mix up his recovery options a bit more (Yoshi Bomb to the edge is unpunishable unless the opponent is already there or really close) and play a bit more defensively in several situations. He doesn't utilize parrying either, but I feel that's something Yoshi players should focus on after they're in tip top shape to further put them ahead of the game.

 

[leffen]

I'm also considering writing a guide on how to properly play Yoshi in certain matchups, and since there is so little Yoshi footage, what other characters you can learn from.

I've taken a lot of cues from Armadas peach. Chasing Spacies DJ with FJ nair (yoshi fj bair) and FJ uair (fj uair with yoshi as well) is one thing I've learned from him, but there's much more.

Yoshi can't really do a ->dash away grab type punish like marth does, and I've been looking at inspiration on how to handle the dash dance game against characters where that dash away grab is very useful.

Peach/Samus is two characters that come to mind when considering characters who do well yet can't dash grab. Peach mostly because of slow dash speed, and samus mostly because of her bad grab. Instead, both characters use a lot of dash forward->wavedash back type of movement.

This is great, since it abuses both of the characters great Crouch cancel, (this holds true for yoshi )
It also alllows them to punish with their standing moveset, such as Peach's downtilt/downsmash and Samus Utilt, Ftilt, and downsmash.

I've found that Yoshi shares many of samus' traits more recently. Both of them have an insanely fast and useful dash attack, although Yoshis is a bit weak. Both samus and peach use their strong dash attack to threaten people that don't respect their space.
I've started to realize how important it is to know when this move becomes really useful. Against Fox, I think it knocks him over at around ~50%, and falco around 57%. Against floaties, its usually a bit higher, but on the other hand you can usually follow up pretty nicely even when it doesn't knock over (similarly to Fox/falcos use against floaties).

On the characters where it just knocks people over, its INSANELY useful. It has insane speed and priority, and it can beat or get between a lot of attacks. When it just knocks them over, they hit the ground really really fast. It's not only almost impossible to react and tech in time, if you hit them after they land with an lcancel, or after they wavedash or spotdodge. THEY CAN'T TECH, because of the 40frame limit on teching after pressing L/R.
This makes it very easy to follow up with a fsmash/dsmash or even another dash attack (since its likely that they'll press L/R in vain after missing the tech).

Other traits that Samus shares with Yoshi are their pokes. Samus's uses ftilt for it long range and quick speed, but Yoshi can use his dtilt even better. Yoshis downtilt is fixed (making it uncrouchcanceable) and its lowers his hitbox, is safe spaced on shield, sets up very well for edgeguards and followups (again a very hard move to tech).

I've started to use a lot of wavedash back wavedash forward, mixed in with dashes and then often poking with dtilt. Especially against characters like Marth, Jigglypuff, Peach, Luigi, Samus and Captain Falcon, where jumping or wavelanding around platforms, isn't really that effective.
Against many characters its really useful at some, often lower, percents, and then fades in comparison to useing other types of moves/pokes as they reach combo or kill percent (or when they aren't close to the ledge anymore).

As a general rule I you can check what characters Peach uses her float against. If she uses it a lot, then in general you won't be using down tilt as your main poke/approach. If she almosts never floats, like against marth, you'll probably using it a lot.

Edit: forgot sheik. this is really useful against sheik!

I'll write more soon, but I'm gonna take a break and let you guys reply to this first. Any particular matchup you guys want help on?

 

[Purpletuce]

@Purpletuce - I don't know where you said it, but I read in last post, that you train with that Falco player right? We played a few games at Apex... was fun, he didn't seem to happy with his losses, but I think he was either "really nervous" or didn't play his best" It almost looked like he didn't even know the MU, the games were a lil distant..>> Just keep up the good work, and you'll be able to (if you don't already) become more confident vs Falco.. ^^; I've been reading/watching your videos, and you're becoming solid... I HONESTLY think you just need more confidence in yourself... this may sound right coming from me.. but I think you need to become a bit more "daring/risk taking even".. just my opinion.. but you're on your way..

I haven't played with any Falcos that went to Apex. . . Did you mean a Falcon? If so I played Vish some, and he went to apex. I've also played Eggz often. . .

I actually do feel like I need more aggression, especially with my combos. I might try forcing combos to find some ways I can implement them, then trimming down the ways that are too risky.

I hope you don't quit Yoshi, but that is up to you. Putting in work on the bird will probably get you further quicker, but I know everyone knows you as a Yoshi. Good to see you're still around, though :D

I'm also considering writing a guide on how to properly play Yoshi in certain matchups, and since there is so little Yoshi footage, what other characters you can learn from.

Peach/Samus is two characters that come to mind when considering characters who do well yet can't dash grab. Peach mostly because of slow dash speed, and samus mostly because of her bad grab. Instead, both characters use a lot of dash forward->wavedash back type of movement.

This is great, since it abuses both of the characters great Crouch cancel, (this holds true for yoshi )
It also alllows them to punish with their standing moveset, such as Peach's downtilt/downsmash and Samus Utilt, Ftilt, and downsmash.

I've started to use a lot of wavedash back wavedash forward, mixed in with dashes and then often poking with dtilt. Especially against characters like Marth, Jigglypuff, Peach, Luigi, Samus and Captain Falcon, where jumping or wavelanding around platforms, isn't really that effective.

I'll write more soon, but I'm gonna take a break and let you guys reply to this first. Any particular matchup you guys want help on?

Hey, I also like to WD around quite a bit. Some of those characters in particular I like dashing and WDing, and spacing with F-smash. I think WD back F-smash is supppper useful in that MU.

If you make character MU guides, that would be great!

If you're still in the mood for critique, I'd love some, but I've gotten quite a bit of critique lately and there are more deserving ones. http://youtu.be/_dqJC8ke7tk?t=35m52s semi-recent set vs a local Fox (who is changing mains from Puff)

Awesome posts, Leffen.

Yoshi boards re so exciting lately. . .

 

[V3ctorMan]

^No the Falco that you train with alot.. (I think the 5th best player or something you said where you're from)... I wish i knew his name.. (he recorded our set on a tablet, and said he'd show you our games) in the past, you said it was a Falco you had trouble with.. I don't recall ><; sorry

and No i'm going to STILL play Yoshi, just going to alter my focus on Falco/Fox alot more... I feel my Yoshi is ALOT more developed than my spacies are.. (and it should be the other way around) I still have like this "pride" issue with not going all Yoshi in a tournament...My loss at apex was the SAME guy I played in pools, and beat... He simply changed from Marth, to a harder MU char for Yoshi, (Peach) and I lost.. so rather than me also try to CP, I was like "nah" I'm a play Yoshi... and I need to train myself to get out of that mindset... Other low tier players do this, so I need to also...I guess for me, it's rather like a "no I can do this, i can do this.. I don't need to switch kinda feeling... and I still feel i can do it with all Yoshi) but I want my Falco/Fox back to form like they were before I even played Yoshi...

 

[Ripple]

I've been playing yoshi a lot too recently. ECE stall/defense is nuts. and its so simple, why don't you guys do it more often?

 

[V3ctorMan]

I'm pretty sure we all do Ripple.. I prolly do the LEAST... I should do more...

but i'm too obsessed with being entertaining (mango) rather than do whats effective (smarter players)...

Not saying Mango isn't smart either.. so don't even...Mango's awesome...

Bluntly, i'd rather look cool/fun to watch... rather than look.. "meh" you know?

which is what my problem is.. ><

 

[Ripple]

spamming an egg a second, while on the ledge and the crowd knowing if you mess up by like a frame you either get hit or die, is pretty entertaining to me

 

[V3ctorMan]

well again, that's to you... to us (the yoshi players) the ECE, is 2nd nature or becomes 2nd nature... it gets to a point where we feel we'll never mess it up... (or at least I'll never feel like i'll mess it up) so it becomes.. ok, do I run over here and shoot lasers/throw eggs... or do I go in and look flashy and do cool ****.. lol

<3

lol trust me.. it's a BIG problem I have... and a Big one, Axe is dealing with also... If Axe wasn't so aggro heavy, i'd be scared to know how good he'd become... but like me.. Axe doesn't wanna go that route, and the way we see it, will just eventually find a way that our way will work...