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townes

Smash Apprentice
Joined
Oct 7, 2011
Messages
84
Location
Memphis, TN
I'm exceptionally good at PSing falco's lasers. What should I be doing after I PS. I can WD fsmash, WD dash grab, and jump fair, but has any one perfected OOS options after PSing? What is the best thing to do? I am aware that spacing depends.
 

Bl00dyBizkitz

Smash Cadet
Joined
May 22, 2012
Messages
72
Location
you know, around
I was interested what the optimal follow-up would be if you get someone on a platform directly above you, via u-throw, f-air, whatever the case. utilt and sh upair both seem like good options, but it would be nice to know when you should utilt and when you should sh upair. I think I'm correct when I say if you utilt in the wrong direction (the other person teched in the other direction), you can just tipper fsmash them the other way, not sure though. I guess there's also tipper fair if you want to setup a Ken combo or fair->fair->fsmash. Just interested in things to look for, such as percents, certain situations to use X move, and stuff like that.
 

net1234

Smash Ace
Joined
May 15, 2013
Messages
738
Location
SLC Utah
People love the top platform against marth, especially on dream land. my opponents have been getting campier over time and if i cant sh-uair the platform than its hard to pressure safely. Is the platform always an option against marth or is there a good way to limit it? Keeping them in a corner works well but is that the only way? i guess reading the retreat might work but falco's ability to get up there so fast is tricky to deal with. any advice?
 

Bones0

Smash Legend
Joined
Aug 31, 2005
Messages
11,153
Location
Jarrettsville, MD
People love the top platform against marth, especially on dream land. my opponents have been getting campier over time and if i cant sh-uair the platform than its hard to pressure safely. Is the platform always an option against marth or is there a good way to limit it? Keeping them in a corner works well but is that the only way? i guess reading the retreat might work but falco's ability to get up there so fast is tricky to deal with. any advice?
Be more patient. Always stay under them whether you are jumping or not, and try to threaten them more than actually swing. Figure out their patterns on the platform and start punishing once you have a good idea of what options they use. For instance, some players almost always jump to one of the side plats from the top plat. If you know this is the case, all you have to do is SH under the top plat (threatening to DJ uair if they don't move). If you can DJ fair to catch them jumping or running off, you can do that, or if not, simply FF back to the ground and under them on the side plat. Most people use plats in a campy fashion because they know their opponent will overcommit to something and give them a chance to regain stage control for 0 risk. Whatever their goal is, you need to figure it out and make sure you don't play right into their hand when you have all the control in the match.
 

Bones0

Smash Legend
Joined
Aug 31, 2005
Messages
11,153
Location
Jarrettsville, MD
Bones do you play marth at all? I know you play falco and I've gotten beat by it a few times.
Yeah, Marth is my secondary after Falco. I may use him for certain matchups/players in the future, but without consistent practice vs. people, I spend most of my time using Falco at tournaments so my Marth is missing a lot of mu specific stuff. Here is my last video of him, which sort of showcases my lack of experience with me dropping a ton of grab combos and getting shine spiked in really dumb ways. lol

 

Mr. Bean

Smash Apprentice
Joined
Jan 5, 2014
Messages
79
Location
Newark, Delaware
yeah idk how I feel about the way you played marth there. I can't really say because I have a while to go before i'm able to fight Chillindude. XD (someday!) I want to marth ditto you some day. You didn't come wreck us in DE on saturday! i wanted to get some friendlies in with you.
 

Bones0

Smash Legend
Joined
Aug 31, 2005
Messages
11,153
Location
Jarrettsville, MD
yeah idk how I feel about the way you played marth there. I can't really say because I have a while to go before i'm able to fight Chillindude. XD (someday!) I want to marth ditto you some day. You didn't come wreck us in DE on saturday! i wanted to get some friendlies in with you.
Here's a better match. lol Hopefully I will be able to come to DE soon.
 

Mr. Bean

Smash Apprentice
Joined
Jan 5, 2014
Messages
79
Location
Newark, Delaware
ooo that was crispy. I like the confidence in your play. half the time you don't even turn around, you just wait for the tech roll and grab XD
 

Beat!

Smash Master
Joined
Jan 8, 2010
Messages
3,214
Location
Uppsala, Sweden
I think it's actually pretty good vs. certain chars like Puff because she's too slow to jump and hit you on reaction. Marth goes really high, and even if you get hit, you retain your DJ and can usually recover just fine whereas getting hit out of a LH can spell disaster.
Dropping in to say that I tried this vs a Puff at a tournament last weekend and it worked wonders. Granted, he had issues in general when dealing with me on the ledge so I suspect it's ultimately not quite as good as it was in that particular set, but it still seems very promising.

Cheers.
 

Bones0

Smash Legend
Joined
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Messages
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Location
Jarrettsville, MD
Dropping in to say that I tried this vs a Puff at a tournament last weekend and it worked wonders. Granted, he had issues in general when dealing with me on the ledge so I suspect it's ultimately not quite as good as it was in that particular set, but it still seems very promising.

Cheers.
Awesome. And yeah, it's not going to be as good vs. opponents who are really in the zone and positioned to punish anything, but I mainly use it because no one is ready for it, some people play shallow at the ledge because of Marth's gimping and LH aerial range, and it's low risk because worst case scenario tends to be you get knocked back off from a super high position with a DJ.

can we please just do video critiques here since the actual forum is dead?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lE_Vht5oUFs&list=UU5WNBHwgluAwWJE5QV-5_TA&index=48
i choked but still any input is good input.
edit: ideally just neutral cuz i was dropping combos like a mf
editedit: actually i was playing okayish i just suck in general.
I could pick your set apart second by second, but I think you will benefit most from trying out these couple of rules the next few times you play. These suggestions aren't meant to be permanent, but rather a sort of field study where you can learn more about your character, style, and hopefully make you more aware of decisions you seem to be taking for granted (that was true in my case at least).

1. Always uthrow.
2. Always regrab the ledge at least once before jumping on stage (you can LH back fair regrab, FF up-B regrab, or just do the regular DJ sweetspot).
3. Never full hop, except to continue combos.
4. Always save your DJ and side-B when recovering until the last possible moment.

It's important to force yourself to do these options EVERY time, and not just when it seems convenient or like it is a good idea because by doing it 100% of the time, you will learn for sure which situations they are good in. You'll learn when they are appropriate much faster and help counteract the effect of having a "default" response to certain situations. Defaulting to certain things can be good, but lately I've found my defaults get me punished much more often than anything else so I've been trying to conscientiously make decisions in every situation (which is pretty much impossible in Melee, but the less defaulting during matches, the better).

One specific thing is you seem to swing a lot when waiting would be better or at least safer. You like to nair shields on platforms, but they just end up moving OoS while you are still rising up in nair lag. Better players will WD OoS and punish you for this. The same goes for the other aerials, but to a lesser extent because you tend to FF after using them at least. Try just waiting until you think they will move OoS, then doing a spaced tipped aerial so that you can get back to the ground before they do anything.

9:30 - Another utilt here after the first would just leave him in a great DI trap where DIing towards center stage sets up for more utilts or eventually uair plat combos. DIing off stage gets him daired.

10:15 - Try to always be ready to CC grab (down + L/R + A) in these situations. Basically any time you get hit at all at low %s you should be ready to do it because it's really powerful as Marth.

Overall, your neutral game looks really solid and you don't have a bad habit of shielding from fear. Keep it up.
 
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Clebus

Smash Journeyman
Joined
Jul 29, 2013
Messages
203
Location
Tennessee
You loved tech in place, especially on platforms it seemed.

also, Bones, isn't dthrow on falcon a decent tech chase below about 30?
 

Bones0

Smash Legend
Joined
Aug 31, 2005
Messages
11,153
Location
Jarrettsville, MD
You loved tech in place, especially on platforms it seemed.

also, Bones, isn't dthrow on falcon a decent tech chase below about 30?
I think fthrow and dthrow techchasing are overrated in most situations, but it can be sometimes, sure.
 
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net1234

Smash Ace
Joined
May 15, 2013
Messages
738
Location
SLC Utah
Awesome. And yeah, it's not going to be as good vs. opponents who are really in the zone and positioned to punish anything, but I mainly use it because no one is ready for it, some people play shallow at the ledge because of Marth's gimping and LH aerial range, and it's low risk because worst case scenario tends to be you get knocked back off from a super high position with a DJ.


I could pick your set apart second by second, but I think you will benefit most from trying out these couple of rules the next few times you play. These suggestions aren't meant to be permanent, but rather a sort of field study where you can learn more about your character, style, and hopefully make you more aware of decisions you seem to be taking for granted (that was true in my case at least).

1. Always uthrow.
2. Always regrab the ledge at least once before jumping on stage (you can LH back fair regrab, FF up-B regrab, or just do the regular DJ sweetspot).
3. Never full hop, except to continue combos.
4. Always save your DJ and side-B when recovering until the last possible moment.

It's important to force yourself to do these options EVERY time, and not just when it seems convenient or like it is a good idea because by doing it 100% of the time, you will learn for sure which situations they are good in. You'll learn when they are appropriate much faster and help counteract the effect of having a "default" response to certain situations. Defaulting to certain things can be good, but lately I've found my defaults get me punished much more often than anything else so I've been trying to conscientiously make decisions in every situation (which is pretty much impossible in Melee, but the less defaulting during matches, the better).

One specific thing is you seem to swing a lot when waiting would be better or at least safer. You like to nair shields on platforms, but they just end up moving OoS while you are still rising up in nair lag. Better players will WD OoS and punish you for this. The same goes for the other aerials, but to a lesser extent because you tend to FF after using them at least. Try just waiting until you think they will move OoS, then doing a spaced tipped aerial so that you can get back to the ground before they do anything.

9:30 - Another utilt here after the first would just leave him in a great DI trap where DIing towards center stage sets up for more utilts or eventually uair plat combos. DIing off stage gets him daired.

10:15 - Try to always be ready to CC grab (down + L/R + A) in these situations. Basically any time you get hit at all at low %s you should be ready to do it because it's really powerful as Marth.

Overall, your neutral game looks really solid and you don't have a bad habit of shielding from fear. Keep it up.
thanks man ur showin me stuff i could never pick apart especially the 2nd and 3rd one. will post again in a few months or so
 
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Mahie

Smash Lord
Joined
Aug 18, 2007
Messages
1,067
Location
Lille, France
Hi fellow Marths.

I'm in desperate need for advice in the Marth ditto match-up.


Here are videos from Smashdown#1, a tournament that took place last Sunday @meltdown Paris.

The more you can extract out of those the better, honestly. There's also a Marth v Falco in there, if you care about watching it.

Thanks in advance.
 
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townes

Smash Apprentice
Joined
Oct 7, 2011
Messages
84
Location
Memphis, TN
I am a pure marth main. I am being urged to pick up sheik as a secondary, but I fee like the time being spent to get sheik at the same level as my marth could be better used to keep improving my marth and jump up a level or two. I don't know whether to switch or not.

Pros:
-sheik will cover more matchups
-better in teams
-basic character, so easy to learn?

Cons:
-sheik is the devil, I hate her/him, I was supposed to destroy the sheikah not join them!
-time spent learning sheik could be used to improve my marth game
-i don't like how she she feels when I play her

Right now, I want to stick to my guns and stay marth until I reach deviant levels of marth ability. Buuuuut, everyone says I woud be great with sheik. What should I do?
 

Kadano

Magical Express
Joined
Feb 26, 2009
Messages
2,160
Location
Vienna, Austria
@ Mahie Mahie
1. Don’t jump in his face when recovering

2. Learn to PWJ → AAB perfectly (see my newest video for button inputs)

3. When you edgehog and force him to up-B to the stage, you need to roll sooner to still get the fsmash. If you realize that it’s too late for that, do a ledgedash fsmash instead. Or, if you have even less time, a ledgehop nair through him (hitting reverse).

4. Use wd-dtilt (both approaching and retreating) to threaten his ground mobility and scare him into the air.

It’s hard to play against experienced Marths. In the first two matches, it seemed to me that you choked because you felt threatened. That’s how I felt when I played my pools set against reaper in Germany. He fourstocked me in the first match. The second one was a close high-% one stock. I think it’s really important to have a specific game plan for every match up which you can stick to so you don’t get nervous and make stupid decisions.

Edit: regarding the Falco set:
When techchasing, never try to land on a platform from above to punish him. Always stay below and chase with uairs, utilts and fsmashes.

@ townes townes
Don’t listen to them. Never play Sheik. Even if you end up winning with her, you lost your dignity.
 
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townes

Smash Apprentice
Joined
Oct 7, 2011
Messages
84
Location
Memphis, TN
@ Mahie Mahie


@ townes townes
Don’t listen to them. Never play Sheik. Even if you end up winning with her, you lost your dignity.
Thanks Kadano. And while you're here. Frame data question. Is it worth my time and potential suicides to learn how to invincible WD on stage with marth. I can do it, but it's risky and often doesn't pan out. I like to just wait on the edge with fairs and come up with fair L-cancel jab, WD on grab (gets punished a lot), or mind game counter. Is invincible WD on stage with marth good?

Edit* I've seen you're frame data stuff and the ledge invincibility chart. I just don't know if it's really a vital skill with marth or not.
 
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Kadano

Magical Express
Joined
Feb 26, 2009
Messages
2,160
Location
Vienna, Austria
Thanks Kadano. And while you're here. Frame data question. Is it worth my time and potential suicides to learn how to invincible WD on stage with marth. I can do it, but it's risky and often doesn't pan out. I like to just wait on the edge with fairs and come up with fair L-cancel jab, WD on grab (gets punished a lot), or mind game counter. Is invincible WD on stage with marth good?
You definitely want to be able to ledgedash near-perfectly with Marth. No, his ledgedash (that’s what wd from ledge to stage is usually called) is not particularly good. It’s still one of his best options for getting up.

These are the options you should mix up wisely:
1. Ledgedash to dash, shield or roll
2. Ledgehop fair
3. Ledgehop nair
4. Ledgehop counter
5. Ledgedashstall (to obscure ledgedash attempts)
6. Roll from ledge
7. Ledgedash in place (use if your opponent expects a long ledgedash and doesn’t cover the very edge of the stage
 
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townes

Smash Apprentice
Joined
Oct 7, 2011
Messages
84
Location
Memphis, TN
I'm just gunna keep hitting you with question since they're being answered. Thanks man. My edgeguarding and punish games far outshine my neutral game. Against characters like falcon and fox who are fast and can jump in the air and peach who can fly, I have trouble in neutral. I can do tricky TAJ like movement and dtilt all over the place, but then they jump and nair me. Againts peach, I just camp. To stop nair in neutral, I'll use auto cancel nair or fair wall, but then falcon just activates super mega speed and runs in and grabs me. How do I cover the ground like with dtilt and the air like with fair or nair at the same time. I'm an honest swordsman, so I only use one sword.
 

Mahie

Smash Lord
Joined
Aug 18, 2007
Messages
1,067
Location
Lille, France
@ Mahie Mahie
1. Don’t jump in his face when recovering

2. Learn to PWJ → AAB perfectly (see my newest video for button inputs)

3. When you edgehog and force him to up-B to the stage, you need to roll sooner to still get the fsmash. If you realize that it’s too late for that, do a ledgedash fsmash instead. Or, if you have even less time, a ledgehop nair through him (hitting reverse).

4. Use wd-dtilt (both approaching and retreating) to threaten his ground mobility and scare him into the air.

It’s hard to play against experienced Marths. In the first two matches, it seemed to me that you choked because you felt threatened. That’s how I felt when I played my pools set against reaper in Germany. He fourstocked me in the first match. The second one was a close high-% one stock. I think it’s really important to have a specific game plan for every match up which you can stick to so you don’t get nervous and make stupid decisions.

Edit: regarding the Falco set:
When techchasing, never try to land on a platform from above to punish him. Always stay below and chase with uairs, utilts and fsmashes.
Thanks for imput, @ Kadano Kadano .

I'm not sure what AAB is, but I was actually watching your video just now so I can deduce PWJ is PassiveWallJump. AAB has got to be related to using Bair?

I've never thought you could just upB and press tech+jump pretty much right afterwards and still get the tech. I'll work on that and using Y to make the PWJ work.
 

Bones0

Smash Legend
Joined
Aug 31, 2005
Messages
11,153
Location
Jarrettsville, MD
Hi fellow Marths.

I'm in desperate need for advice in the Marth ditto match-up.


Here are videos from Smashdown#1, a tournament that took place last Sunday @meltdown Paris.

The more you can extract out of those the better, honestly. There's also a Marth v Falco in there, if you care about watching it.

Thanks in advance.
1:50
2:05
3:00
3:20
4:24
4:52
5:19
5:53
6:05
6:27

What do all of those timestamps have in common? You grab the opponent. In fact, these are all of your grabs over the course of the first two games. Another thing they all have in common is each and every followup does LESS THAN 20%. Clearly that is not a sufficient punish for any single throw during a match. Top players have lost sets for having just one grab punish that weak, but for it to happen to EVERY SINGLE throw 2 games in a row is a MAJOR problem. Game 3 you open up with a solid 50% combo from uthrow and have another good sequence at 8:59., but once again, the vast majority of your grabs are nearly worthless. See 7:16, 7:54, 8:00, 9:35, 9:40. It happens often enough that the timestamps aren't even necessary, but it helps to drive home the point of how many lost opportunities you have. Even Mew2King would struggle to beat average Marth players if he wasn't allowed to punish with anything more than a single aerial after grabs. There are other areas of your game that can be improved, but this aspect is severely limiting you and in many matchups will be what makes or breaks you.

Even basic combo practice on a CPU should be able to improve your combos far beyond single aerial followups, so just sit down and practice comboing with all of Marth's moves with all sorts of spacings and ending with different moves (dair, neutral B, up-B, fsmash, uair). The next few times you play, grab punishes should be all you're focused on. If you get some monster punishes going on, you will easily wreck that player next time because it's clear you have no shortage of grab openings.
 

BTmoney

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PP or anyone really (but really, you specifically if you see this. I think this is a good question):

How did you learn to threaten people with movement? This is a much bigger question than dashing at a fox player until they spot dodge and grabbing them. I started REALLY understanding how to use spacing and attacks to my advantage and doing them safely and got rid of my super aggro technical style over the course of the last 6 months. But I am noticing that I don't feel like a threat in neutral and "good" players make me feel really constrained. My dash dancing only beats the obviously stupid or impulsive options.


Really with marth or falco. I think you approach the characters similarly. I guess I want to know how you can dash dance and wavedash so confidently and seemingly aggressively. I'm thinking about you vs Armada @ SKTAR especially game 1 Falco. vs Peach, you vs Mango @ Apex and you vs Mew2king in general.

Sometimes I can get into these pockets of focusing and realizing I'm in a very powerful position while dash dancing and knowing I'm baiting my opponent hard but you seem to say in these "zones" for a really long time and get into them often. Where I am threatening for 20 seconds/only in a certain situation you are threatening the entire game in every situation.

One thing I'd do with Falco is apply a lot of shield pressure then hold up on it and start doing more empty approaches or waits but that only seems to work vs intermediate players.

to the spacing & waiting thing it's like how when you watch falcos run at people in your novice days then you go play a match and run at people with dairs and lasers and realize that something you're doing is bad and off even though other people make it look so simple and are seemingly doing the same thing. you eventually figure out the way people are using their aerials and lasers and how they are doing them safely or in a constraining way. since I changed that about my game I literally got 20x better in a really short span of time but when I'm playing vs. a peach (Hanky Panky specifically, as any char) who's mixing up FC fair, dash attack, turnips, FH retreating nair I feel like I can hit the peach out of neutral but I can't ever get the hit I want and they are free to do whatever they want vs me. I may not run into but they can still exert their will and I can't ever get the upper hand in that tug of war of position and comfort even though I can place my actual attacks in decent places.
 

Dr Peepee

Thanks for Everything <3
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BRoomer
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Messages
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PP or anyone really (but really, you specifically if you see this. I think this is a good question):

How did you learn to threaten people with movement? This is a much bigger question than dashing at a fox player until they spot dodge and grabbing them. I started REALLY understanding how to use spacing and attacks to my advantage and doing them safely and got rid of my super aggro technical style over the course of the last 6 months. But I am noticing that I don't feel like a threat in neutral and "good" players make me feel really constrained. My dash dancing only beats the obviously stupid or impulsive options.


Really with marth or falco. I think you approach the characters similarly. I guess I want to know how you can dash dance and wavedash so confidently and seemingly aggressively. I'm thinking about you vs Armada @ SKTAR especially game 1 Falco. vs Peach, you vs Mango @ Apex and you vs Mew2king in general.

Sometimes I can get into these pockets of focusing and realizing I'm in a very powerful position while dash dancing and knowing I'm baiting my opponent hard but you seem to say in these "zones" for a really long time and get into them often. Where I am threatening for 20 seconds/only in a certain situation you are threatening the entire game in every situation.

One thing I'd do with Falco is apply a lot of shield pressure then hold up on it and start doing more empty approaches or waits but that only seems to work vs intermediate players.

to the spacing & waiting thing it's like how when you watch falcos run at people in your novice days then you go play a match and run at people with dairs and lasers and realize that something you're doing is bad and off even though other people make it look so simple and are seemingly doing the same thing. you eventually figure out the way people are using their aerials and lasers and how they are doing them safely or in a constraining way. since I changed that about my game I literally got 20x better in a really short span of time but when I'm playing vs. a peach (Hanky Panky specifically, as any char) who's mixing up FC fair, dash attack, turnips, FH retreating nair I feel like I can hit the peach out of neutral but I can't ever get the hit I want and they are free to do whatever they want vs me. I may not run into but they can still exert their will and I can't ever get the upper hand in that tug of war of position and comfort even though I can place my actual attacks in decent places.

I'll be honest, I don't really know how to teach someone this or begin to within the confines of one smashboards post. I'll tell you some things that can get you pointed in the right direction and you can chew on it and come back for more discussion later.

The very first thing I'll try to explain isn't necessarily related to movement. If you want to really understand what makes a movement tool effective, you need to truly understand what makes the attacks/options attached to the movement tool effective. If I don't know WHY Marth's Dtilt is good, I'm just kind of doing it(perhaps WD Dtilt) because I know it's the "right" thing to do and won't really be using threatening movement to its fullest potential. If you want to know why a move is good for a character that's fine, but that knowledge will also be suited to a matchup and likely more relevant than others at certain percents, on certain stages, at certain spacings.....
My point is if you do not have a very strong grasp on the fundamental aspects of the game and how they work with/against your character and how these factors all interact in matchups between characters then you cannot apply movement well. Additionally, it is partly through this work that you come to understand movement's role better. That's why you can get into the zone sometimes. You are putting together some concepts you are learning and creating strong threats using those fundamentals.
Continue as you're doing or begin providing special attention to fundamentals in order to get a better idea of how this can play out.

Then for the part more related to movement specifically. Man I have a really hard time writing this part....

I'll go over two parts of it. I can't really decide if this is the best introduction, but it's a place to start.

The first part is your tempo. Long dashes are slower, short dashes are faster. Doing more of them speeds you up or slows you down. If you adjust pace abruptly your opponent will be following your old pace and then you can hit them as they try to adjust speed. I would practice this myself by getting into optimal spacing range and then learning how to manipulate that space with longer or shorter dashes.

The second part is...let's call it simplicity. People waste far too much movement, especially in America. It is much stronger to have an intention behind every single action so you can manipulate your opponent and then hit them quickly to keep momentum going. That isn't to say you can't just do things without necessarily trying to manipulate the opponent with every action(like really fast DDs generally forces an action but every dash doesn't necessarily manipulate the opponent) but this is a pretty good rule in general. Compartmentalizing your actions into groups instead of just trying to hit them with the next move you REALLY want to hit them with and tunnel visioning is a good way not only to avoid short-sightedness but also to see how people respond to your actions at every step of the way. Consider, as Falco a simple two step: WD back, laser forward. The WD back could be used to dodge and attack or create space to throw off the opponent's sense of your approach and the laser could then be used to create an offensive opportunity. However, if your WD back gets hit often or your laser forward gets punished upon seeing so many WDs back you can adjust your "string"(as I call it) of the WD or dash forward laser accordingly. Perhaps a dash back is needed since it's faster, or maybe you need to laser in place to regain control. This is a more effective way of using your options than simply looking for the next one you want to hit with, at any rate.

I have no idea how to explain this simply but like I said I hope this is helpful.
 

BTmoney

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I'll be honest, I don't really know how to teach someone this or begin to within the confines of one smashboards post. I'll tell you some things that can get you pointed in the right direction and you can chew on it and come back for more discussion later.

The very first thing I'll try to explain isn't necessarily related to movement. If you want to really understand what makes a movement tool effective, you need to truly understand what makes the attacks/options attached to the movement tool effective. If I don't know WHY Marth's Dtilt is good, I'm just kind of doing it(perhaps WD Dtilt) because I know it's the "right" thing to do and won't really be using threatening movement to its fullest potential. If you want to know why a move is good for a character that's fine, but that knowledge will also be suited to a matchup and likely more relevant than others at certain percents, on certain stages, at certain spacings.....
My point is if you do not have a very strong grasp on the fundamental aspects of the game and how they work with/against your character and how these factors all interact in matchups between characters then you cannot apply movement well. Additionally, it is partly through this work that you come to understand movement's role better. That's why you can get into the zone sometimes. You are putting together some concepts you are learning and creating strong threats using those fundamentals.
Continue as you're doing or begin providing special attention to fundamentals in order to get a better idea of how this can play out.

Then for the part more related to movement specifically. Man I have a really hard time writing this part....

I'll go over two parts of it. I can't really decide if this is the best introduction, but it's a place to start.

The first part is your tempo. Long dashes are slower, short dashes are faster. Doing more of them speeds you up or slows you down. If you adjust pace abruptly your opponent will be following your old pace and then you can hit them as they try to adjust speed. I would practice this myself by getting into optimal spacing range and then learning how to manipulate that space with longer or shorter dashes.

The second part is...let's call it simplicity. People waste far too much movement, especially in America. It is much stronger to have an intention behind every single action so you can manipulate your opponent and then hit them quickly to keep momentum going. That isn't to say you can't just do things without necessarily trying to manipulate the opponent with every action(like really fast DDs generally forces an action but every dash doesn't necessarily manipulate the opponent) but this is a pretty good rule in general. Compartmentalizing your actions into groups instead of just trying to hit them with the next move you REALLY want to hit them with and tunnel visioning is a good way not only to avoid short-sightedness but also to see how people respond to your actions at every step of the way. Consider, as Falco a simple two step: WD back, laser forward. The WD back could be used to dodge and attack or create space to throw off the opponent's sense of your approach and the laser could then be used to create an offensive opportunity. However, if your WD back gets hit often or your laser forward gets punished upon seeing so many WDs back you can adjust your "string"(as I call it) of the WD or dash forward laser accordingly. Perhaps a dash back is needed since it's faster, or maybe you need to laser in place to regain control. This is a more effective way of using your options than simply looking for the next one you want to hit with, at any rate.

I have no idea how to explain this simply but like I said I hope this is helpful.
Thanks a lot, this is all something to mull over for a while. For me it's not a matter of a lack of good spacing and I can combo, and edge guard just fine (basically everything I get to decide). When I play a MU then watch a video of you playing the same MU I'm amazed at how much pressure you exert without really doing "anything". It's like you're a brick wall that's eventual going to start moving forward. You don't overtly try to crush anything but you keep inching forward and it eventually happens.

After sleeping on this idea I'm thinking my DD with Marth lacks solidarity and gets hit way too often like it's not safe on my part which is kind of backwards and that's something I always struggled with--dash dancing safely in neutral.

I need to think and play some more so I can figure out what to be asking/improving on and what the exact problem is.
 
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