Becoming a Pro - The Steps (updated with Step 6)

[Sinji]

THanks to your teachings Mytek, I will win Apex 2012.

 

[00000001]

great post, I think these can all be summed up in one word. "Dedication", it's not gonna happen instantly, might take years and years.

 

[Nihonjin]

Step 1 - Tech Skill
This is what you need to acquire first

I don't think it's possible for me to disagree with this more..

 

[Kal]

To a degree, it's necessarily true. Especially when you regard fluidity with a character as part of tech skill. You hardly see good, high level players who aren't proficient in every aspect of their character's movement. The debate comes up when you start arguing about how much tech skill is necessary. But you can't deny that L-Canceling, Wavedashing and Spacing are all absolutely necessary to become good.

However, I dislike the idea of creating a "list" of things it takes to excel. Excellence certainly has necessities, but claiming the existence of a procedure to become excellent at Smash would be like explaining how to write a masterful composition or how to write powerful poetry; there are (arguably) requirements (e.g. studies show that "masters" of various art forms have all acquired at least 10,000 hours of practice), but I wouldn't say fulfilling these requirements will necessarily turn you into an expert.

 

[Incronaut]

great post!

One thing i would like to add, not so much on topic, but sticking to one character really helps improving that game knowledge and tech skill, because you learn matchups more specifically that way

 

[Myztek]

I recommend reading Zoning/Spacing and Other Fundamentals and the Focus & Concentration I wrote instead of this. I wrote this a long time ago, and while some of it is definitely still applicable, I think my other threads explain more about what's really important.

Tech skill is highly necessary. Whether or not it's the first thing you should work on is dependent upon the person, but you can't expect to compete against people with nearly-flawless tech skill on top of their excellent ability to outsmart their opponents if you can't control your character well enough to do what you need to do.

There are so many things that truly go in to becoming good at something. Dedication, practice, and creativity are all very important.

In fact, I think creativity deserves its own section. The metagame evolves and develops due to people's creativity. If it weren't for people coming up with new, better and/or different tactics, then the game would never change. I believe a lot of people try too hard to mimic ONLY the things they watch others do and the things that pros say they should do. This is very limiting to a person's ability to come up with new strategies and tricks that could give the upper-hand. If you play the game and constantly look for opportunities, you WILL develop new tactics and strategies. However, a lot of people will think "Oh, well I should only do short hop fairs and up tilts because that's how I'm supposed to play this matchup." If you get away from this mindset and consider all of your options rather than the options that you've limited yourself to, then you will probably come up with some pretty awesome new things.

 

[NeutralDamage]

Step 5,5: Don't care what other players think about your playstyle