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Dr Peepee
it actually helps quite a lot. Sorry for it being such a broad question but I was actually looking for more of a blueprint answer so it was great. I'm very analytical and detail oriented so this method of figuring matchups out is much better for me than relying heavily on in game experience. I think for me what I'm really trying to learn is how to identify when somebody does something easily punishable. I'm so used to watching top level sets because they're much more fun to watch but going from those to mid level matches it's easier to spot when players did something unsafe or didn't choose the best option available to them. My goal is to be able to separate these skills from player vs player skills to test how good my natural instincts for the game are. There are plenty of people with a wealth of knowledge of the game who aren't the greatest players, so I'd like to figure out if I have the potential to be good or not before investing more time than necessary into the game.
Uma
Thanks dude 
I had never been hit with those shines before at least in the matter that chillin dude to me but at least now I'm aware of it lol. I'll keep grinding and attending! I know I can do it :D
Dr Peepee
- " and remember your love for the game should be stronger than your fear of those players so make the most of your opportunities. "
I just wanted to take the time to say this: your psychological advice is honestly amazing, even if it's not directly towards me. All things considered, I tend to keep my mentality in check, but this is just another level. I always felt some form of inferiority when I fight someone better than me, which has held me back to some capacity in many occasions, but I'll definitely attempt to re-label my nervousness/anxiety to excitement with the raw love of competition. Two-factor theory heh. With such an ignored aspect of competition, I'm extremely grateful you're around to give us these kinds of advice as well as meticulous game advice.
Thank you =) Sure, I think I'm down to talk shop about it, so just message me on facebook
I'm also thinking about writing a blog post about what the experience itself (So less about how Chillin and I played/no real melee talk at all) meant to me personally if that sounds interesting to anyone since it's been kind of wild to go from being very nooby, to having people I've never met before and friends from highschool I had not seen in person in years give me support after the set finished. It's been absolutely surreal and I never would have thought that my work would get me to this point in a million years. It's only been a small taste, but it feels like so much to me. I think it's important though to understand that anything can happen if you care enough and just stuck with it. (Which believe me, is paradoxically difficult for me to understand right now even after the set has finished! It's always a work in progress it seems haha)
Netplay is one way. Asking your friends to pick up a spacie might be another. You can also use the 20XX playback feature to at least work on countering typical spacie plays so you're prepared for common actions.
It can have the same effect, but sometimes moving forward a bit can be the difference between winning and losing an interaction. I think it's not unreasonable to get consistent at the pivot Fair, but all the same if you find results are fine regardless then just use either I suppose.
I always stay diagonally down between them and the center. I'm close enough to FH/DJ and hit them but definitely going to make it hard for them to pass over me. Then I'll threaten some SHs sometimes because you can DJ out of it and hit them, occasionally do a dash or two so I can reposition. I'll also just stand sometimes and move with them or drift with them so I can land and hit Utilt or let them exhaust more jumps before I swing since they will be less able to avoid me/more likely to go into me to get me to stop threatening them. Works similarly with Peach, and some parts work with juggling in general.
Dr Peepee
I'm reading The Art of Learning atm, and while I could (and probably will lol) ask a lot of questions about the philosophies Waitzkin posits, this evening I finished the chapter where he goes into some details about the way movement works in Tai Chi Chuan. Thinking about how these principles of "non-resistence" and "creating a powerful force with almost no effort" could be applied to Melee (particularly Marth's movement) is really fascinating to me.
In the situation you presented, there are a lot of possible options. First and foremost, you want to have answers to the opponent's options, so knowing what beats the dash attack is key. Dash away, dash sh rising fair, true CC, anti-approach d-tilt, and dashing towards and past them would all have worked.
Not PP but if they mixup their options well enough the risk/reward is just not worth, especially against Jigglypuff who will rest you (d-smash takes soooooo long) and can provoke the d-smash by pretending to land and then using an air jump almost without risk.
Nair also leads to a knockdown from 13% on, so the knockdown isn't the problem. It is a case of the move with the higher knockback angle (tipper fair: 67°, nair:sakurai angle=45°) being superior because you can't escape as easily with down+away DI.
Yeah you usually want to Nair or tipper Fair, both are good. If you can ever confidently get Nair over Fair at low percent I'd usually take that unless Peach is pretty close to the edge. I don't think you can regrab at low percent.
Martial arts have heavily influenced my movement. This was the case as I developed my Marth to a co-main and reinvented my Falco. Aside from how it fueled my pvp understanding, the main thing I took away from it(besides getting better understanding of simplicity, etc) is shadowboxing. The idea that I can be doing things and know partly or entirely how my opponent will respond, and then immediately readjusting for the next categorical/specific action and continuing to push my boundaries and ideas as far as they can go quickly is just so potent to me. I also had my training improved by thinking about how practicing basic actions actually had very deep consequences, and I needed to think seriously about those actions as I did them. This is why I start all of my sessions with WD'ing across the stage, as some may recall from my streams. Hopefully this helps a little.
Idk if it's because I picked up this book per your recommendation, but reading Waitzkin's descriptions on how the martial art feels, and how it feels to move one's body when practicing, brought my mind to your Marth; so I wanted to ask if martial arts have played a role in you developing your movement? And if so, how? Is there any way you've structured your training to apply principles like these? Sorry if it's kind of a vague question, but this framework for thinking about movement in Melee is new to me, and I'm hyped to learn/theorize some applications, given you have experience to draw from.
For one, many Marths are DD'ing a lot so they'd have to pivot Dsmash which is quite a risk. For another, the lag is obviously horrendous and against Puff you don't really want to give rest invitations lol. But it's pretty interesting to say you can see where they will land and walk forward and Dsmash(I'm thinking of Puff with Nair already out who cannot airdodge as an example). That could be pretty reliable, and if so would mean it's very much worth doing. If you can show examples of what you're doing that would be pretty helpful too I think.
In your first example, it looks to me as if you are both swinging quite a bit and there was no Dtilt threat as you only turned around as you Fsmashed. The lag of Fsmash and inability to move around much afterward likely invited your opponent to move in. Had you not done the Fsmash in the first place you likely would have been able to control the position better, but even so you could have still reacted to what your opponent did.
Yes it's all of those things. It's about learning positions, learning your threats, examining your tools and how they work together with your character traits, as well as understanding stages and threats of your opponents. The main idea is to just learn the game first, because if you want to manipulate people it has to come through the game.Hey PP, I feel like you may have already answered this question so I apologize if you have. You recently responded to a question on Twitter asking about taking your movement to the next level and you mentioned having a solid foundation. Would this foundation be along the lines of understanding positions and threatening ranges of both players and learning about how your moves influence your opponent? Is there more to this that hasn't been discussed recently on the board? I've been trying hard to understand the game more deeply and on a more fundamental level and the marth boards have been AMAZING so thanks to everyone that contributes on here
Oh yeah, I don't mean as a read. I think it's garbage as a read. I'm referring to positions where they are trying to poke you with the expectation of your punishes being grab, downtilt or maybe fair. I'll list examples.
Puffs nair is a great example of what I'm talking about, since it has great AC frames but godawful IASA frames. Puff can't jump out a full hop nair, ever. So if she moves forward with a nair, you're pretty much guaranteed a dsmash. I also mean in general, for aerials that are done at certain heights where they can no longer jump out.
I think a reason why Pikachu can be a confusing matchup for Marth is because you don't often have as clear of an idea of what you'll be doing after landing a hit. Hitting Fox at a certain point with tipper F-air/D-tilt will almost always lead to a tech chase scenario. Against a floaty, landing a square hit will much more often lead to a juggling situation. Characters like Pikachu are mixed in that some of your hits will open up juggles while others will make them tech, so you have to be prepared to do both so that you don't drop a punish.
Dr Peepee
Even as a top player you would do this? It really has that much of a consequence? That's very powerful...Do you think you could expand or maybe confirm why I think that's important? Is it because like you have said before along the lines of "Practice like how you would play". So dash dancing at lightning speed may actually cause you to dash dance at lightning speed when in tournament?
Most Marths don't talk about it. TAI lurks around here some so hopefully he will clarify stuff I can say, especially about throws.
The number one thing to do when not playing your best is to figure out exactly why and get those factors under control. Also, it can really be helpful to create backup plans that rely much more on big reward reads then normal plans. For example, you can try to Nair/tipper more out of tech chases instead of forcing regrabs, and you can do similar things with neutral(moving less watching more for a few things makes it easier).
I didn't start doing it until I was a top player, and I got enormous reward from it. In this case, it's building a foundation for "practice like you play." In a match you won't WD across the stage 500 times, but when you do WD you want to feel very connected to the tool. If you do this correctly then it is and isn't directly applicable to a match. The problem with people spazzing out and going all over the stage in training is they aren't practicing anything that works on actual people. They have to play and figure out positions and the opponents' rhythm. Basically it's not applicable at all and just causes people to look awkward in matches. When I say "practice like you play" it doesn't mean go slow, it means practice in a way you can actually use, through building tools you understand well."I also had my training improved by thinking about how practicing basic actions actually had very deep consequences, and I needed to think seriously about those actions as I did them.
Is this something I have to really focus on in solo-practice, making sure I deeply understand the point of my inputs instead of just gliding across the stage? That gives such a new meaning to practice. That actually makes it seem like real practice of an art or something, instead of just some stimulus to give my hands. And I really want to differentiate actual practice and just pressing buttons on a controller just because it feels good. It's like I want to practice practicing itself. Does that make any sense? I want to get my practice better. I actually want to understand why I would do anything in practice...so I want to practice practicing so I can better practice for tournaments of all sizes, or something lol
Kopaka
Dr Peepee
what are your thoughts on this? If you agree, then do you feel there are strategies we can use to help self 2 without getting self 1 massively involved in the process?Goodness, I'm very flattered you did that.
Saw your set with Chillin. 3 main things I'd suggest working on are:
1. Cut drastically down on unnecessary movement(and improve corner pressure, they're related)
2. Punish way harder
3. Don't Nair on Battlefield
Hope this helps.
Dr Peepee
I'm currently trying to lab out threatening ranges for the relevant characters, but I can't seem to come up with a system that's... good lol. The idea I was working with up to now was to create a broad unit of measurement and see how much ground each move covers, but it feels very clunky, and I'm uncertain about it. But I'm not sure what to do instead? So I wanted to ask what you did to teach yourself threat ranges? How did you lab the information, and organize it and internalize it? What was your system?
Just dash all the way out, stall a little, then dash in with grab usually. There's a lot you can do with DA lag.
I agree that it is definitely less intuitive since we're not making our actual bodies move, but we do move our hands to move our characters and the connection becomes good enough with work that the difference is not necessarily important imo. The testing I've done for myself in which I was messing something up, then visualized the input done correctly and letting my hands do the work has been relatively successful for me still. So even if the medium is different it still seems to work fine for me. I don't see why it would be different for anyone else.So i finally finished The Inner Game of Tennis and i think right now the one thing that stands out to me in comparison to the thoughts and ideas Tim had when teaching/playing tennis is that tennis is a game that you play with your body, we are already so aware of how are body moves and can move and we are inherently born to know this. This causes people to be able to optimize and learn with self 2 so much more naturally. With smash its not that we are learning how to move our hands properly (though this is a factor) its that we are learning how our hands make our characters body move. Not getting the inherent input output distinction with our muscles means that when we do something wrong in smash there are many factors that could contribute to why and idea or action didnt work correctly or as intended and self 2 may not inherently know which was the cause.
Why were you more anxious/scared than normal? Did you carry outside stress with you? Have you been taking worse care of your body with you? Have you been talking to others who get really anxious when they play? If you don't know why then you can't start to fix it.
Oh you don't need measurements(though I do measure everything I can in Bowser rolls lmao). You just need to look at the approach tool that is fastest and longest, and add in some extra distance for them running forward a little before initiating(since they can fake with DD you'd need extra space). So for Marth his threatening range is dash a little WD Dtilt(in most matchups). Sheik's is run dash attack/boost grab. You get the idea. Fox's is really complicated so just keep playing with the base idea and use analysis/your own matches to see where the range(s) really is.
