Ask VMan about Yoshi Thread (A General Yoshi Discussion)

[Kimimaru]

Congrats to aMSa for taking 3rd at RoF! I saw your matches and you amaze me every time. I'm glad I got to see how you play the Samus MU!

I forgot to mention this earlier, but I participated in my first crew battle a couple of weeks ago and took 6 stocks. We also had a late tournament that lasted until around 3 AM and I just wanted to leave so I went on autopilot for some of my later matches: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLeg5Gv3fI72W_fcfXy3ZEu1JGdgW9Uz5A

 

[Sashimi]

@ Kimimaru

Very nice!

Vs Marth, you had very good movement, and I really liked your dashdancing. The SD was unfortunate, of course, but at least you were at high %. I noticed that your edge-cancelled eggs were slower after the SD. Was this intentional? It may have actually caused you to miss the edgeguard at 51:25. When I have a bad "egg day," I prefer to go for edge-cancelled eggs less and focus on other options rather than do them slowly and put myself at risk of getting hit (or if they're offstage, risk of missing the edgeguard). The dashdance to pivot Fsmash was very cool at the end!

Your punish game vs Falco is solid, and when you dropped combos you still held the advantage. I really liked where you went for Nair > Dsmash for the early KO instead of going for a long combo. Again, unfortunate SD but otherwise your platform movement is really nice. Bair didn't seem to be accomplishing much for you. I find it's tricky to use when the Falco player is using a lot of lasers against me, so I tend to go for more parries/powershields, then I save Bair for situations where the Falco player has either started using late aerials or started using fewer lasers. (Just a thought )

Also, I'm going to go learn to Randall waveland because that was amazing!

 

[knightpraetor]

so i'm finally starting to get parrying down, so i was curious whether most yoshi's use the disable lightshield trick or not.


am I correct in thinking that if you are 1 frame too slow pushing the trigger down all the way, then you get lightshield animation start up for yoshi, which can't powershield?

if i then press the trigger fully on frame 2, can the shield animation still parry?

basically is it

Frame 1 lightshield, parry not possible
frame 2 hard shield parry possible
frame 3 parry possible
frame 4 parry possible
frame 5 parry not possible

or is it

Frame 1 lightshield, parry not possible
frame 2 hard shield parry not possible
frame 3 parry not possible
frame 4 parry not possible
frame 5 parry not possible

if it's the latter case, then i would think it would be very risky for a yoshi main to leave his lightshield enabled. However, I'm hesitant to use the lightshield disable trick because i keep thinking that I might want to lightshield to get pushed away (and i claw, so pushing the other trigger(R) is a pain)

 

[Sashimi]

Pressing full shield on frame 2 actually results in something different from full shielding and light shielding the whole 6 frames. If you light press on frame 1 and full on frame 2 (no later!), you regain the ability to jump cancel, but you lose your invincibility. Why this happens is beyond me.

I use the trigger trick, but I'm not sure how many other players do.

 

[tauKhan]

Are you invincible if you only light shield?

 

[Sashimi]

Yes, but you can't jump.

 

[Purpletuce]

I have had trouble with parrying grabs, and have moved away from it against most characters. I think I know why, too. (I'm pretty sure.) The way parrying works is when you're invincible from the parry and the opponent uses the move, you collide with the hitbox, and since you can only get hit once by any given hitbox, when you jump out, even if the enemy's hitbox is still out, you won't get hit by it. Grabs shouldn't 'hit' the invincibility, so when you jump out, you can actually cancel your parry then get hit by the grab you parried.

So I'll compare 2 moves, and how I believe they work with your parry: sheik f-tilt (hitboxes out from frame 5-10) and sheik grab (7-8).

Scenario:Sheik grabs/f-tilts, and you parry so that your parry starts 1 frame before they hit, then you jump out on either frame 2 or 4.

Frame -5: Sheik starts grab
...
Frame -3: Sheik starts f-tilt
...
Frame 0: you start the parry (invincible)
Frame 1: Sheik grab misses because you're invincible/f-tilt hits Yoshi(invincible), and puts sheik in hitlag giving you a frame advantage.
Frame 2: Sheik grab hitbox still out(if you try to jump out here you'll be grabbed)/f-tilt hitbox is still out but can't hit you because you collided with it already
Frame 3: Shiek grab hitbox is gone, safe to jump, still safe to jump against f-tilt
Frame 4-6: Same as 3.
...
Frame 8: Earliest Yoshi can be out of jumpsquat(F-tilt)
Frame 9: Earliest Yoshi can be out of jumpsquat (grab)
...
Frame 12: Latest Yoshi can be out of jumpsquat
...
Frame 23: Sheik out of grab animation
...
Frame 27: Sheik IASA frames for F-tilt (after hitlag, with most stale f-tilt)*
Frame 28: Sheik IASA frames for F-tilt (after hitlag, with least stale f-tilt)*
Frame 29: Sheik F-tilt animation ends (after hitlag, with most stale f-tilt)*
Frame 30: Sheik F-tilt animation ends (after hitlag, with least stale f-tilt)*

*(hitlag calculations based on masterhand data + SB's excel spreadsheet)

After all that information, and the fact that Sheik will get a bigger punish if she gets a grab, I don't think you should really try to parry grabs unless you can afford to risk the stock/it is a sure thing.

 

[Kimimaru]

Congratulations to aMSa for getting invited to the Smash 4 Invitational! Unfortunately, Yoshi isn't one of the playable characters that you can choose, but I still think he has a good shot at winning!

 

[knightpraetor]

i have to admit i'm a little sad that no yoshi has updated the video thread. I would like to just have a list of amsa's games, but i guess i will have to stick to youtube searches

 

[V3ctorMan]

Don't blame them...blame me....every time I think I'm back and can help or contribute life comes in....I work two jobs full time... It's very exhausting.... I try to post or help anything but most times..I get home from work to go t my other job or ssleep because. Exhaustion...I'll eventually be back...I promise

 

[shmeargle]

I know this is a noobie question because i'm kind of new to Yoshi or recently getting interested in going more competitive, but what buttons do you use for your DJC? I want to find a set of inputs that are really to execute when I do up-airs or just aerials. I know there's the advice of doing whatever you're comfortable with, but I really want to know what's effective or something that's a good habit to do. Also, since I'm starting to main Yoshi, what should I work on in terms of having a solid and intelligent gameplay? Anyone also know good ways to practicing parry's or should I just see if I could do them in friendlies? Thank you very much!

Vectorman, I'm sorry to hear about having you having a rough time with your other priorities. Two full-time jobs is tough. Despite that, are you still going to MLG Anaheim? I heard from Axe during Pat's House 2 that you are.

 

[knightpraetor]

my opinion is that if you have two full time jobs, you should spend little to none of your time on the internet. you will feel much more fulfilled spending time with friends, reading books, and watching movies than you would just browsing the internet (facebook op, but at the end of the day it doesn't leave you that fulfilled). just pass on the video maintenance responsibilities to someone else. if you love smash, you should just spend your limited free time playing or watching...making internet posts is for people with too much free time (or people that are bored at work)

 

[MrHazuki]

You will always be my hero, Vman.

I really had no idea of the problems with light shield parries. I'll start practicing with trigger trick from now on.

We had a 7-man tournament at my house about a week ago. Dalfen is the one I started playing smash with, which is why he knows me inside out. I had to focus less on parrying and more on actually beating him to get anywhere. ^_^

Spoiler: Matches

Glitchy (Fox) WSF [Game 1 (FD), Game 2 (YS)]

Dalfen (Marth) WF [Game 1 (YS), Game 2(FoD), Game 3(PS)]

Kikki (CF) LF [Game 1 (BF), Game 2 (YS), Game 3 (FD)] <- Nail-biter

Dalfen (Marth) GF [Game 1.1 (BF), Game 1.2 (YS), Game 2.1 (FoD), Game 2.2 (YS)]

This weekend I went to a tournament in Gothenburg, and felt that I played really well everywhere but the bracket. I spontaneously started to DJnair-parry and I parried attacks I never had tried before. Nothing was recorded. I lost to Android's Sheik in pools very convincingly, but beat MikeHaggar's CF. In bracket I lost against Kikki's and MikeHaggar's Falcons. I couldn't waveland on the platforms and I had lots and lots of failed ECE-SDs. I think I got 13/32. No johns, I'm excited to get even better now!

 

[Sashimi]

Hello all.

How do you guys punish rest? Right now I do Egg Toss > Usmash at low % and Grounded Yoshi Bomb if it will KO, but I'm wondering if there's a better way to build damage at low %.

@ S shmeargle

There are different ways to do DJC, so try different ones and decide what's best for you. I double tap Y for the DJ and then use A for the aerial. Some other players jump with X or Y, then tap up for DJ and C-stick the aerial. This makes retreating DJC Fairs much easier. I find that it also makes it easier to accidentally Double Jump Land, so that's why I don't use it.

In terms of general gameplay, there are some things you should avoid when starting out with Yoshi:
- Standing grab is bad in most situations, including shield grabbing anything that isn't extremely laggy
- Approaching with a dashgrab will get you punish more often than not. At first it may be best to only use dashgrab while techchasing until you get a better feel for when Dashgrab is safe to use
- Shielding risky unless you're on a platform and you can shield drop (learn to do this!). Focus on having good movement so you can avoid getting into situations where you feel the need to shield.
- Crouch cancelling is a strong tool for Yoshi, but doing it at unsafe times can get you wrecked by a lot of moves. Yoshi is easy for many characters to combo.

 

[ACDC]

Hey Guys, I currently use yoshi as my new main, and have a very successful secondary that I can use to counter Peach, Sheik and Jigglypuff. If I were to learn a third character to counter the rest of Yoshi's weaknesses, what characters should I focus on countering? In other words, besides Sheik, Jiggs and Peach, who should I watch out for the most as Yoshi?

 

[Sashimi]

This is all my opinion:

Puff doesn't warrant a secondary nearly as much as Sheik/Peach, but if your secondary works, I won't try to change your mind. After Peach, spacies (Fox more than Falco) are the ones to watch out for, but there's a significant drop in difficulty facing anything other than Sheik/Peach.

 

[ACDC]

This is all my opinion:

Puff doesn't warrant a secondary nearly as much as Sheik/Peach, but if your secondary works, I won't try to change your mind. After Peach, spacies (Fox more than Falco) are the ones to watch out for, but there's a significant drop in difficulty facing anything other than Sheik/Peach.

All right thanks. If that's the case I will not pick a third character and will be able to spend more time on the two I currently use

 

[Kimimaru]

Hello all.

How do you guys punish rest? Right now I do Egg Toss > Usmash at low % and Grounded Yoshi Bomb if it will KO, but I'm wondering if there's a better way to build damage at low %.

I usually just go for a fully charged U-smash so I get Jigglypuff in the air and get in a good 19%. You can also opt for an F-air -> U-air (more than 1 depending on % and stage position), which is generally easier to do and may net a kill if you're on the right stage and Jigglypuff is at the right %. At higher percents, like 60 and up, I would use Yoshi Bomb if you're on a stage like Battlefield or Pokemon Stadium and Puff is on one of the platforms.

 

[MrHazuki]

Fair -> Uair (-> maybe egg) must be the most damage dealing strat at lower %.

 

[Purpletuce]

Regarding MUs, I'd say the fastfallers(most notably the campy players) are your biggest threat, but if you think your Yoshi can cover them, I'd say the 2 characters are fine.

Regarding rest punishes, here are a few I go for (listed for lowest % first, then ending at highest %)

Fair -> Dsmash
Fair -> DJC Uair -> utilt -> (chase) Uair
Fair -> Uair -> (chase) Uair
(Rare option if I think they won't DI @ certain %) Fair -> DownB
Fair -> Uair
Usmash/DownB

Sometimes if I'm feeling like going for a big punish I'll try egg -> Fair -> techchase(smash attack or fair -> Uair)

 

[knightpraetor]

does yoshi have an instaland on platform using his 2nd jump or does he have to waveland down?

 

[V3ctorMan]

Indeed he has a dj land

 

[knightpraetor]

yeah didn't know what i was seeing in vids, then it suddenly occurred to me. Anyway something new to practice. not sure why i'm playing yoshi so much. I guess he's just fun. his vs jiggs matchup seems like it would be decent, but judging off amsa's matches he struggles to kill more than marth does. though maybe amsa was just fishing too hard. is it really harder for yoshi's fair to kill jiggs off the top than marth's tipper fair?

 

[tauKhan]

I'll add that yoshi's dj land is easier to do than with most chars, since yoshi moves down during the early frames of dj. So he can even jump -> instant dj land on ground. Yoshi also has easy dj aerial interrupts. So when you move through a platform with dj you can hard land on a plat by doing an aerial which then autocancels (before hitbox ofc).

 

[MrHazuki]

Preferably bair and dair. I'd guess that dair requires a little bit more height because his body extends downwards.

Yoshi's fair is harder to use as a Jiggz-killer than Marth's because she almost never stays on the ground, and in the air it will only send her downwards. It has more knockback though.

 

[Kimimaru]

his vs jiggs matchup seems like it would be decent, but judging off amsa's matches he struggles to kill more than marth does. though maybe amsa was just fishing too hard. is it really harder for yoshi's fair to kill jiggs off the top than marth's tipper fair?

As a Meteor Smash, Yoshi's F-air will not kill off the top unless you hit Jigglypuff with it when she's on the ground. U-air and U-smash are the best moves to use to kill Jigglypuff off the top. The former kills at around 100 or less on most stages and the latter kills even earlier. Yoshi Bomb (Down + B) is another great finisher, but it's very laggy and highly susceptible to a rest punish, so use it wisely.

What Yoshi has that Marth doesn't is a hard-hitting projectile, so use it to rack up damage.

 

[MrHazuki]

To address what I wrote a few days ago,

I'll start practicing with trigger trick from now on.

I am mightily impressed. I have parried like a FREAK. Every parry-capable Yoshi must at least try this out. I will have to learn how to lightsheild with the other trigger now, but it really feels like it's worth it.

 

[Kimimaru]

I won a low tier tournament at a fun side-event only tournament yesterday, not dropping a set. If you want to see a lot of Yoshi-Link/YL matches then here's where you'll want to look!

http://www.twitch.tv/norcalsmash/b/536365613

There's no sound for some reason.

WF starts at 3:11:49 and GF starts at around 5:38:20 (we waited to finish draft crews before doing it; the labels weren't updated, so GF is me vs. SFAT). There are also matches of me vs. some Zelda players before WF. The dark blue Yoshi isn't me; it's another player who entered as Yoshi. I always use green Yoshi in tournaments.

EDIT: Never mind, there is sound. My computer's speakers were just acting up and I didn't realize it until I tried listening to music.

 

[MrHazuki]

Yoshi isn't low tier. >_< Congratz!

 

[Kimimaru]

That's why Yoshi players will always have the advantage in low tier tournaments!

 

[itsbme]

Yoshi's not easy to be good with. Congrats on winning!

Speaking of aMSa, he actually made his own play list called "the list of my loses", which you all can find here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhI3_g6Gyxg&list=PLssBmYCAcRdn4x0YtpGxfUdKrEeVltKvz. I guess this is his motivation to get better and learn from his mistakes. I hope he becomes top 10 in the world.

 

[knightpraetor]

played a lot of yoshi last weekend. can parry on command now for the most part. the exception is fox's upsmash. i feel like running JC upsmash is difficult to parry because it takes so many frames to come out that if you predict that the fox is going to tip the upsmash you will try to shield too early to deal with a late upsmash. However, I am guessing it is kind of pointless to parry it unless the fox is at low percent because I think you can just shield it, let the cancel animation take place and dsmash him right?

I'm kind of curious how DJ super armor works, so i'm probably going to go browse threads for that information. I played around a lot with trying to DJ through attacks but i found that often i would be in the rising animation of my 2nd jump if i powered through and not be able to counter quickly.

was wishing i knew how the frames matched up, but i'm guessing DJ gives super armor immediately and the armor wears off either after a certain amount of time or if i attack? I'm also not sure how many frames it takes before my double jump starts carrying me up.

by djc an attack i will start falling immediately, but in order for that attack to be in range, I need to not already be above my opponent. So I should aim to hit the DJ as close to when they hit me as possible. but i'm not sure what a realistic range is. It's probably not as hard as parrying, but who knows.

This char is god tier. have faith

well my real opinion is that melee is really balanced outside of the typical 1 bad matchup per character, but most people unfortunately believe in 20xx.

anyway i will be playing more and more of this char it seems. right now i have the most fun playing peach, yoshi, and pikachu (but pikachu isn't useful for any matchups that i would need help with, so I stopped playing him. But damn is pikachu vs fox a fun matchup).

I think what makes yoshi so fun is his platform movement is godlike and his DJ game creates tons of mixups due to being able to stop your fall with a hover (from the DJ) and then come in after the timing the opponent expected.

so many options. I still think high priority characters that can zone you out can be difficult, but wow yoshi is good

 

[Sashimi]

played a lot of yoshi last weekend. can parry on command now for the most part. the exception is fox's upsmash. i feel like running JC upsmash is difficult to parry because it takes so many frames to come out that if you predict that the fox is going to tip the upsmash you will try to shield too early to deal with a late upsmash. However, I am guessing it is kind of pointless to parry it unless the fox is at low percent because I think you can just shield it, let the cancel animation take place and dsmash him right?

The prediction is what's making it difficult for you to parry. Aerials are easy to parry because they're telegraphed by the jump (same goes for Falco lasers). Usmash hits in 7 frames, so you can't parry it on reaction, which means you have to get a read. For Fox's Usmash, if you know they're going to use that move, but you're not sure when, you can just full shield and grab them, since Dthrow leads to combos at low % and KO moves at high % anyway.

I'm kind of curious how DJ super armor works, so i'm probably going to go browse threads for that information. I played around a lot with trying to DJ through attacks but i found that often i would be in the rising animation of my 2nd jump if i powered through and not be able to counter quickly.

was wishing i knew how the frames matched up, but i'm guessing DJ gives super armor immediately and the armor wears off either after a certain amount of time or if i attack? I'm also not sure how many frames it takes before my double jump starts carrying me up.

by djc an attack i will start falling immediately, but in order for that attack to be in range, I need to not already be above my opponent. So I should aim to hit the DJ as close to when they hit me as possible. but i'm not sure what a realistic range is. It's probably not as hard as parrying, but who knows.

Yoshi's double jump works as follows:
- 70 frames total, armor the whole time
- Cancelling it with anything cancels the armor as well
- Armor is subtractive knockback armor (you get hit, game calculates knockback, then subtracts 120; what's left is either less than 0 and you get no knockback, or it's more than 0 and you get that amount).
-First frame of your DJ does not move up or down. You can't cancel this frame
- Frames 2-8 move downward. Frames 9-55 (approximately 55, I forget exactly) move upward. In order to fastfall immediately after a DJC, you must time the aerial so that it starts on frame 2-9 of your DJ.

This char is god tier. have faith

well my real opinion is that melee is really balanced outside of the typical 1 bad matchup per character, but most people unfortunately believe in 20xx.

In my opinion the bottom 15 or so characters are not even close to viable, and I don't think performing well with one low tier character is an argument for the rest of them. That being said, Yoshi definitely does not belong in that group.

I think what makes yoshi so fun is his platform movement is godlike and his DJ game creates tons of mixups due to being able to stop your fall with a hover (from the DJ) and then come in after the timing the opponent expected.

so many options. I still think high priority characters that can zone you out can be difficult, but wow yoshi is good

IMO Yoshi's only true flaw is his lack of high priority pokes. Out of shield options aren't a problem since parrying is better than shielding anyway, and Yoshi's recovery is much better than most people think. Otherwise he has amazing movement, solid edgeguarding, absurd combos and he lives forever. I think a combination of Parry/DJCC and just general development in the neutral game will help fix the priority issue.

Glad to hear you're going to be playing more Yoshi!

 

[knightpraetor]

yeah, thanks for the advice. And I didn't mean to imply that all characters are viable, just that it's a lot more than two like the 20xx crowd would have us believe.

 

[Purpletuce]

Yoshi is a lot worse against people who know how to beat him though. Especially players willing to take advantage of your weakness to defensive play.

 

[kofinater]

So I was messing with the 20xx pack working on shield pressure with parry on shine oos and noticed I got an disproportionate amount of power-shield to attribute them to the random ones yoshi does. Has anyone figured how exactly power shielding works with yoshi ?and how to avoid it in favor of parry? It's not very useful in the general case since you can't jump out of it, and it still has the long shield animation.

 

[Sashimi]

Yes, powershielding works as follows:

- Frames 1-2 of the pre-shielding animation only reflect projectiles.
- Frames 3-4 can block projectiles, but not reflect them, will powershield everything like normal.

To avoid powershielding things, you have to block with the first 2 frames of the pre-shielding animation, unless the attack hits only the top of your head and does not hit the powershield at all (this is very rare and is based on the specific attack - it is not reliable). If you're powershielding a lot, it means you're 1-2 frames early on the parry.

(following information is somewhat unnecessary since you already know it, but just in case someone else reads this and is wondering)
- Upon powershielding, every character except Yoshi can cancel their unshielding animation with a grounded attack.
- Yoshi also can't jump out of it, meaning powershielding is basically useless unless you're blocking an attack that is slow enough to lose to a grab.

---

The random powershield is something I've been looking into lately. It is more likely to happen (by an extreme amount!) if you perform an action, then hold the shield button before that action is over. One very strange thing about this is that spotdodging seems to not always do this. Non-TAS (I was just sitting there doing spot dodges) spot dodge > shield would powershield very often (10/10 tests), but TAS frame perfect spot dodges would not (2/10).

---

Glad to see you're interested in the Nair > Parry > Nair > etc shield pressure. I've been thinking about that myself, too.

 

[kofinater]

Glad to see you're interested in the Nair > Parry > Nair > etc shield pressure. I've been thinking about that myself, too.

,
not even just nair, sffl fair(-1) and sffl/djc uair(-2) are good options with parry and they are both combo starters. But thank you so much for the info I'll try and delay myself by 2 frames, but that sounds tricky since this would be a read on an oos option.

 

[Sashimi]

That's a good point. I suppose being -1 or -2 on shield wouldn't be much of a problem when Shine OoS takes 4 frames to hit.

 

[Purpletuce]

Kind of last second, but I think I'm going to mlg. Hopefully I'll get to play some people.