Important Carefully Ask PPMD about the Tiara Guy

[Dr Peepee]

I like throwing Falcon onto the ground when he can't edgecancel, and throwing him upward whenever he can or he could go too far away from me via throwing him onto the ground.

That's my general rule.

 

[Deleted member]

I guess I'll try to answer you directly.

Also, I'm not sure the exact percents I can uthrow tipper Falcon on FD. Anyone got em off the top of their heads?

No, I'm not sure. And it mostly doesn't matter, it's not what you want to be doing in this match. Instead, I think you should try playing the match differently that doesn't involve mid-percentage combo starters.

 

[AustinRC]

Here are some fun facts that I learnt about Falcon pretty recently. There is a range that Falcon has a lot of trouble with if you dash dance in that range. It's basically his dash attack/ dash in grab range is one way to think about it OR another way to think about it is you want to dash dance in between the ranges of his sh approach with full momentum nair/ knee and also his sh hair/ knee without momentum. Staying right in that range put's pressure on Falcon. Another thing is if Falcon grabs you down throws you and tries to follow up with Nair smash DI the first hit of the nair up and fair asap. However this loses to Uair pretty badly LOL.

 

[Deleted member]

iirc falcon should be going for upair over nair after the downthrow regardless because the combos work on any DI into guaranteed follow-ups (usually regrab). i don't think many players are aware of it though. there's probably some exceptions but idk what they are.

 

[AustinRC]

If you DI the dthrow in at early percents falcons usually go for nair. It's worked against a few falcons however its more or less a gimmick.

 

[SwiftBass]

But I'm trying to go as in depth as possible. Maybe that's as far as we can take it, but if there are better options than throwing him and getting into guessing games, or getting into just advantageous situations, then I want to explore those. Playing against top Falcons I just want something more solid, because you're not always going to be able to follow up your aerials into something solid. And when you have Falcon at a mid percent and fail to kill him, and it's a top Falcon, then they're at like 100% or above and it could take forever to kill him, constantly having to win neutral situations and poking at him until he's potentially even above 150.

this.....

I need to look at this thread more. Perhaps I will learn more.

TY TAI and TAJ for completing the AZ triforce on me. Axe at FC and you two at APEX.

This will NOT happen again.

=)

 

[strawhats]

this.....

I need to look at this thread more. Perhaps I will learn more.

TY TAI and TAJ for completing the AZ triforce on me. Axe at FC and you two at APEX.

This will NOT happen again.

=)

You got this Tim

 

[Tee ay eye]

This will NOT happen again.

=)

do you plan on not playing us again?

p.s. off the top of my head, i think uthrow tipper fair works pretty well on falcon at mid percents

 

[AustinRC]

do you plan on not playing us again?

p.s. off the top of my head, i think uthrow tipper fair works pretty well on falcon at mid percents

uthrow tipper fair/ uair work around 25% to 30% ish. I'll get better numbers here soon.

 

[JesiahTEG]

Austin- Numbers would be amazing man.

Tai- Good stuff.

Swift- You're the man. I was like humbled to watch you play that Sheik...so impressive. I'm gonna shoutout to you in my "Quest" update, which I've been dreading, but need to do soon.

If anyone is down to do percent research on Falcon, PM me. It would be cool if we could get 3 or more people testing up throw --> x at every percent, and DI on Falcon. I would be so down.

 

[SwiftBass]

your story post are always enjoyable. And on the contrary you humble me man. Playing you always puts me in shape. That shiek Was Sung.


AZ is now the enemy. Even though I love you guys lol. ARGH!!...enemy! <3 you guys!
seeya next major lol

 

[AustinRC]

JesiahTEG - Honestly don't focus too much into numbers. Yughio that **** man, you have to just feel it. BELIEVE IN THE HEART OF YOUR CHARACTER!!!!!!!!

 

[Diakonos]

do lots of downthrows and use them to set up timing or positioning traps. when he does things in your traps, wait, react and attack what he does. usually i find timing traps to be better against falcon because it gives you more of a buffer or margin or error in your reactions to abuse him with, and his tech options and start-up time on attacks are both slower than usual. let the flow of the match occur naturally, you may or may not get combos but you'll certainly get a dead opponent.

if you're struggling in the neutral, go back to marth's basic aggressive movement without committing to anything, although use more WD back out of your DD than you normally would, this will let you effectively DD camp while facing him as much as possible, which is stronger for reaction-based play than usual in this match. you don't want to face away from falcon like you would against other characters because his ground speed is so much better than yours so the ability to protect your back is more important than the raw projected amount of stage you can cover with your own ground control. the reason for facing forward is to both protect yourself and that you want to be able to stuff out his nair pokes with your own fair to grab.

the ability to wait for a nair and to attack his attack with superior range and priority is going to shut out one of his main two approaches from neutral in this match, the other being grab. it's pretty important that you wait and react with your fair to grab on his nair because he can grab you when you land in fair if you don't react. there's a point where human error exists and i can understand getting faked out here so when you land in fair, you should l cancel and buffer it directly into a dash to make the grab whiff and then maybe you can DD grab his grab on your fair. layering your defenses from neutral will go a long way to weakening his approaches on you.

if the falcon player is trying to react to you with a grab, it's okay to overextend after him to cover his dash away on the DD for the same reasons he can do it back to you, except falcon's WD back coverage isn't nearly as good. if you go this way, when you run extra far to catch his dash away, do dtilt. the idea isn't to lead into an advantage, but merely to disrupt his movement well enough that you can go back to a reactionary stance. whether your dtilt hits or not, you should still focus on reaction and treat the situation like an extension of the neutral game. you should also absolutely get the IASA off of the dtilt to cover yourself defensively, once again layering defenses in neutral. what you cancel into for the IASA is your choice, but i'd recommend against jumping just to minimize the risk of trades because marth hates trades. if you're not sure what to do, WD back is a pretty-idiot proof bet but you're going to miss a lot of chances to react to falcon if you do that from the space you're forfeiting by moving back. you can try a shortened WD back out of the dtilt for a compromise but the spacing is a finesse thing and you're just going to have to practice and use your best judgment to retain your ability to work with anything the falcon player gives you.

this match is won in the neutral game, and IMO marth has the advantage however slightly because of fair on his moves (usually nair), a better WD back, and the ability to disrupt him better if you're both movement camping. keep in mind that his punishment options are better than yours and that any time he can upair all day you're basically going to lose.

Superb advice on the neutral game. If I keep this in mind I might not suck vs. Falcon anymore.

 

[Divinokage]

Manuel, let's train Marth vs Falcon if you want, I'm really good vs Marth with Falcon too! =)

 

[Tee ay eye]

since mow mentioned being able to react to falcon's nair (and the incredible margin for error accompanying it), i'll expand a bit with my own thoughts:

falcon is ****ing fast and hard to react to.

i was thinking about this last week, and a proposed solution i came up with to help your neutral game vs falcon is crouch canceling (i didn't get to test it, yet, but it checks out in my heartbrains). well OBVIOUSLY crouch canceling is awesome, but i don't think we're quite abusing it as much as we can. people usually use CCing as an "oh ****" button whenever something they wanted to do doesn't work out quite as planned or when they find themselves in a precarious situation, but i think that understanding when falcon wants to hit you and opting to take the hit and CC grab/fsmash him is a pretty sweet alternative to trying to swat him away for a few reasons.

you can be more aggressive with your movement against falcon this way. you can threaten falcon/mixup with dtilt by doing run in -> crouch and seeing what he does after that. basically, it fortifies you while you dance around in falcon's face with hyper aggressive movement. usually whenever you get really aggressive with your movement and get too close to falcon, you're way too close to react him lunging at you, so you have to guess with your swings. if you guess right and land a clean hit, congratulations. if you guess right and trade with him, enjoy your probable demise. if you guess wrong, enjoy missing your attack and even more probable demise.

also, crouch canceling introduces basically no unnecessary movement, e.g. WD back or defensive empty SHs, which both forfeit pressure and stage control in some way or another.

downsides to this strategy are not being able to JV5 people

p.s. you still have to do all that other stuff that mow mentioned

 

[Deleted member]

i'm pretty sure it's bad etiquette to ask for information when both parties know that there will be no reciprocation.

ie some of you ****ers should teach me something for once. by you ****ers i mean jesse basically. shots fired.

and no advice from kevin, his jank already keeps me up at night.

edit: to be clear, i like bad etiquette. just saying.

edit 2: falcon's first hit game is already custom-tailored to negate CC abuse as much as possible, i don't think you're going to get very far by playing into what you expect them to be using against you already.

now if falcon players start dtilting you at 0 yeah you can crouch them. dair/knee/grab/spaced aerials that negate CC abuse anyway probably not so much.

 

[Elyssa Xey Hexen]

I suppose you could attempt to go one further for abusing a string of counters.
You attempt to CC things, Falcon goes for anything other than Grab, you get hit and ASDI into the ground, then tech in place. Punish stuff after tech in place.

But, then that's not really a good strategy in the first place to rely on waiting for your opponent to necessarily pick a particular option.

 

[knightpraetor]

hmm, i think umbreon's post on the matchup was pretty descriptive, but i do think CC works amazingly well against falcon's nair. It's not broken, spammable good. But definitely excellent. Marth's grab range is just too good.

I also think every marth should have some token reactive retreating light AC nairs when falcon hits the proper spacing for his nair approach. by fading out as you go up it's very easy to make it so that you can land and grab/dtilt if he comes in for grab. You lose some stage, but it's only like 1cm and makes him a lot more honest.

PP says dtilt is good, but i find i don't use it that much unless hitting the dtilt would place the falcon off or pinned against the ledge. Otherwise it just doesn't seem worth it

i also agree that style is just an excuse for poor play 99% of the time. If on the other hand that was an actually good option for marth to be mixing in statistically we shouldn't refer to it as the marth player's style, so much as just say he figured out the proper response to situation A, and incorporated it into his game

 

[Elyssa Xey Hexen]

PP says dtilt is good, but i find i don't use it that much unless hitting the dtilt would place the falcon off or pinned against the ledge. Otherwise it just doesn't seem worth it

When is Dtilt being used? My best guess is when Dtilt is being used to hit something, its good because it kills Falcon's momentum. Without the dash, his range is drastically reduced and it makes it easier to corner him. Either into shield, force him to roll/dodge, or attack with limited range, etc.

A brief moment, but still there to take advantage of.

 

[Battlecow]

"Style" is a vague and meaningless concept that is usually seen as a subset of specific actions used to describe an otherwise complex set of behaviors. These behaviors are based on your decision-making mid-match. In a competitive setting, there are only two types of decisions: the optimal decision, and mistakes. Everything that is not an optimal decision is a mistake regardless of the outcome.

Regarding some action as part of a style allows a player to justify some non-optimal decision in an acceptable manner. This is wrong, and you should stop doing it immediately. To perform an action based on sub-optimal judgment is to literally forfeit win percentage for no reason. Not that there is any good reason to forfeit any portion of your win ratio, but it's particularly offensive to do so willingly under poor justification. The sooner you abandon "style" and it's implicit stupidities, the better off you will be.

That's bad theory. Players have different capabilities and reserves of knowledge and have to accomodate this with their style. Furthermore, there's no "perfect" way to play the game--as long as hard reads exist, so will mindgames. This "optimal decision" stuff is bull****.

Anyone who's been watching melee for 5 minutes at any level knows that different players play in different ways and have different styles, whether they're a scrub or a champion. You saying that they "shouldn't"--that they should all somehow play identical styles and vary only based on ability--is meaningless.

If you're saying that players should focus more on developing skill than developing a style, you're probably correct. But that's not what you said.

 

[Deleted member]

if you want to be mediocre and play to your "capabilities", have at it. most people that take improvement seriously subscribe to my AIM handle sooner or later.

 

[BTmoney]

Well, you seem to both be a tad dramatic.
Speaking in ultimatums is never a good thing imo.
There are more or less three types of decisions. The three being "optimal 1", "optimal 2", and other/bad.
Optimal would be dair'ing an illusion or firebird/fox off the stage with Marth
Less optimal but safer would be a jab on by the ledge or dtilt.



Optimal can have about two different interpretations in smash.

Optimal 1 is the most effective option
Optimal 2 is the option that is easiest to space, time, and perform


Let's say you are in falcon dittos and you managed to get the other falcon offstage at low % with no jump.

Optimal 1 would be running off the stage and spiking him or meteoring him to a range he cant recover from ----> leads to enemy death
Optimal 2 would be knee'ing his up b or w/e by the ledge ----> leads to multiple more hits and enemy repeatedly attempting to return to stage. Is that optimal? It's safer for you and easier however you have to execute multiple times
http://youtu.be/yuu6vWJ1SqY?t=8s

1 perfectly timed dair would have finished that and it would have been "optimal"
So him knee'ing 3 times and getting the kill easily was a mistake?
Is DarkRain a mediocre Falcon then playing to his capabilities?


There is not only 1 optimal decision for any open ended situation.
As in I am not telling you the steps to CG a space animal with marth.
In a closed situation like that there are steps and only 1 optimal input.


Here is another example of different types of optimal
In a set (either 2011 or 2012 big tournament)
Unknown522 was facing Hbox's Jiggs

When fox would uthrow - > uair at kill percent and Hbox would get the SDI out of the first hit.
Now Unknown522 has some choices.


Optimal 1: uthrow uair again and time the uair to only get the last hit (no defensive SDI) ---> Done correctly leads to death but it is much harder to time it correctly and you are more likely to miss
Optimal 2: Go for the normal uair ---->chances are your opponent won't get the SDI every time anyway and this is safe and rehearsed
Other/Possibly Bad: Fish for usmash/nair/dair ----> not guaranteed and is very open-ended
(Unknown522 opted for the perfectly timed uair that you can't SDI amazingly enough and hit a couple)

Saying there is only 1 correct way to do things is simply false most of the time.
Btw I respect your work Umbreon, I've been lurking this thread


EDIT:
Don't feel the need to pick apart a scenario given above. They are concepts. But go ahead

 

[Bones0]

I get what you're saying, Tactician, but I don't think that optimal vs. more reliable sub-optimal is really what they are arguing about. Choosing safer options over ideal ones isn't usually what comes to mind when people think about style.

When I think about style, I think about what a person's general gameplan going into a match is. Do they have a tendency to work for grabs most of the game? Do the tend to go for hits? Do they go for harder reads with bigger punishes or more reactions with lesser punishments? Do they try to overwhelm their opponent to force errors, or wait patiently for errors and pounce readily when they leave themselves open? These are all questions that don't really have definite answers. I would take any advice with a grain of salt if it comes from someone who says you should always try to go for a grab in a certain situation or says you should always attack/defend a certain way.

 

[Mahie]

What Umbreon is saying is that "style" is just a set of moves from the character your opponent is using, in the end, and were it to be another guy doing the same exact moves, you'd be able to counter them in the exact same way.
Fox "running away" is a move, just like Marth "DDing" is a move, too. At least that's how I like to see it.



--> Think of the character you're facing, not the guy using it.

 

[Bones0]

No one does the exact same moves though, which is why everyone has a distinct style. KirbyKaze mentioned this during Impulse GFs when he was pointing out the vast differences in PP's and Mango's play styles despite them both being extremely successful with the same character. Ignoring your opponents style is probably the fastest way to lose a Melee set because correctly applying their tendencies to various situations before they even come up can make the difference between winning or losing.

 

[Cactuar]

Thinking of DDing as one move is a huge mistake.

Thinking of the character you are facing instead of the guy playing that character is also a mistake, but the gravity of that mistake varies based on your opponent's level of play. Identifying the opponent's tools (style), becomes more important at higher levels of play because the tools are much more developed. At lower levels of play, the tools most players have are as simple as the move they throw out. A developed tool, such as fj drift back nair from Fox, serves a specific purpose and a counter tool must be developed in response to it. Not having proper responses allows the opponent to use that tool without any fatigue, as the risk/reward for doing so remains high in their favor.

 

[Mahie]

Well, if someone else was to use the same FJ Driftback Nair, would you respond in a different manner?

There's only so much one can do with one character, you can't just create new stuff.

 

[Dr Peepee]

Learning all available tools and their mixups continues somewhat into top level play imo. Once that is learned it is largely the focus on the player and how they are using all of those tools.


Oh and KP, Dtilt is awesome because it's Marth's only real way to poke or engage Falcon without being very susceptible to a counterattack. All other ground moves are too slow, and jumping vs Falcon is a super easy way to get grabbed or Uair/Nair'd. Dtilt also pushes Falcon towards the edge which then allows Marth to jump. Dtilt also forces Falcon to jump or shield pretty much when he sees you start moving towards him since his DD won't work very well against it, allowing you to open up your jumping options since you'll be acting second.


Dtilt is freakin good. Dtilt.

 

[Bones0]

Really good set:
Project M 2.5 @ Apex - Chudat (Pikachu) vs UmbreonMow (Marth, Sheik)

 

[Dr Peepee]

hahahahahahaha

screw you mow

 

[Cactuar]

What pp said lol.

My post was about preparation, not response.

Trying to consider all of the possible options of the opponent based on their character alone will lead to you being overwhelmed with the possible actions, which leads to ineffective attacking or putting too much space between yourself and the opponent due to discomfort.

Matches of players who have no experience vs each other tend to have a lot more space between players and silly things like both players dash dancing under opposite platforms. This is because they have a lot of knowledge about the possible options of the opponent's character, but no knowledge of which options they will actually use.

 

[clowsui]

Really good set:
Project M 2.5 @ Apex - Chudat (Pikachu) vs UmbreonMow (Marth, Sheik)

in which mow blatantly tries to lose but apparently isn't trying hard enough

 

[Deleted member]

Really good set:
Project M 2.5 @ Apex - Chudat (Pikachu) vs UmbreonMow (Marth, Sheik)

that set was awful. not only did i blatantly throw the set by swinging blindly (you can actually see the point where i start to do it intentionally), i had to switch characters to be more ineffective.

and yeah dtilt is pretty damn good against falcon. have any of you ever paused when it's fully extended to see how disjointed that move actually is? because jesus christ.

 

[Deleted member]

Saying there is only 1 correct way to do things is simply false most of the time.

This is a mild misinterpretation of my message, and it's an easy connection to make so I understand how you got to it. There are many options that you have at any given time that can possibly work. Does this make them "correct"? Well, that's probably a bad word to use. Most players will say something to the effect of "well, whatever works". On the surface level there is nothing wrong with this, but when you choose a sub-optimal option, you de facto accept all of the implicit reasoning that would lead it to be sub-optimal. Usually this involves an increased risk in some way or another without having enough justification for a reward and it's almost always some unnecessary loss of stage control.

Let's go back and consider Marth using forward throw against Peach at the edge. To many players, this is the correct line of play. To me, this is also the correct line of play as much as I criticize it, but here's where it gets tricky. Is it correct? Well, you could argue that upthrow is better here. You can also make a case for dtilt or fsmash. These are not situational choices, it's just a possible split of permutations of how you can direct the match flow in this instant. However, if you break down the resulting options that Peach has to react to you with, if you use foresight to determine her options after the throw, you will usually find that forward throw allows Marth to assert stage control over her in the best possible way. Even if forward smash would have killed her, or even if your upthrow would have lead to a death juggle, you have to understand that forward throw is still your best option here, and more importantly why it is your best option.

We can do this for any number of exercises and you will find that one option almost always has some margin over another, however small it is still relevant. The option with the highest margin for benefit becomes a blanket method to deduce your "best" option. Naturally, always picking the option with the highest margin leads to an optimal level of standardized game play. Are there exceptions to this? You could say yes, but you are doing a disservice to yourself to deviate without the proper experience and background to do so to the point where I would not publicly advocate that you do so.

After you repeat this exercise for any number of scenarios, you also start to realize that your options are never equal in return. This leads us to mutually conclude that, at least in a competitive setting, any two given options are never equal in a situation. Turned another way, saying that there is only one truly correct thing you can do is actually true pretty much every time. Even if you used a second-best option, even if your sub-optimal choice worked in your favor, you must understand that choosing those options in the longer term will cost you win ratio, which will affect your play, your results, and ultimately will make you objectively "worse" in the long-term. So is your forward smash instead of forward throw a mistake? Even if the fsmash killed Peach, actually, yes it is a mistake, and it was incorrect to use.

What Umbreon is saying is that "style"

Style is simply a way to rationalize a deviation away from optimal decision-making. It is a crippling limitation on your actual ability. If you play to a "style", the best thing you can do to enable your ability as a player is to discard it immediately. The faster the better.

No one does the exact same moves though, which is why everyone has a distinct style. KirbyKaze mentioned this during Impulse GFs when he was pointing out the vast differences in PP's and Mango's play styles despite them both being extremely successful with the same character. Ignoring your opponents style is probably the fastest way to lose a Melee set because correctly applying their tendencies to various situations before they even come up can make the difference between winning or losing.

You should absolutely play around your opponent. I'm not saying to ignore your opponent. In fact, even if your opponent is doing awful things, they are still threatening to you to some level no matter how terrible. No one does the exact same moves because either 1 player has it right, or no player has it right. Yes, Dr. Peepee and Mango both make mistakes every single match. Dozens of them. To be able to identify and improve upon them is a tangible increase in ability.

 

[Elyssa Xey Hexen]

and yeah dtilt is pretty damn good against falcon. have any of you ever paused when it's fully extended to see how disjointed that move actually is? because jesus christ.

 

[Battlecow]

if you want to be mediocre and play to your "capabilities", have at it. most people that take improvement seriously subscribe to my AIM handle sooner or later.

I like the skill card from the guy who hasn't played since 2003

Once again, you're right not because of your points having any inherent value, but because you claim that some people who are good talk to you outside of smashboards. OK bro.

This reminds me a lot of that thing you said not long ago about mindgames being "absolutely useless" and how one should always "play the character, not the player." That seems to have caught on like a house on fire.

 

[Deleted member]

i saw lots of mindgames used on stage at apex.

oh wait no i didn't.

bring something to the table other than criticism.

 

[Smooth Criminal]

i saw lots of mindgames used on stage at apex.

oh wait no i didn't.

bring something to the table other than criticism.

Your holier-than-thou attitude makes that a little difficult, Umbreon. I mean, sure, act however the hell you wanna act towards people on the forums. Don't be surprised if this is the end result, though.

Smooth Criminal

 

[Battlecow]

There are mindgames in virtually every game of melee that gets played (in the sense of making calls based on your knowledge of someone's style or playing the player rather than some optimal one-size-fits-all character-based mode of play)

If you really need me to point out some from major matches at apex I will but as they're not exactly hard to find, I shouldn't need to.

I'm criticizing because you keep saying stuff that common sense revolts at and people are going to take you seriously because you manage to work the fact that you see yourself as some sort of Mr. Miyagi into every post you make

 

[Deleted member]

you're not leaving me much to refute other than the content of my character, and i really don't care about my image on a video game forum.

i think the application of "common sense" in a competitive setting is either questionable or intentionally misleading. common sense is hardly common, and putting stock into such an assumption as shared knowledge is, at best, a good way to lose faith in your peers. it is much better to question the value and application of as many aspects as possible and to extrapolate conclusions from them. I have concluded over time that:

- mindgames/mix-ups are objectively less valuable than clean and guaranteed play, and you should use them as little as possible.

- one should practice what he/she expects to play against, rather than the ideal.

- a player should seek to understand and play to the ideal regardless of limitations.

I believe that all of these things lead to a tangible improvement in play.

I also believe that playing to win is a horrible philosophy, while we're at it.

edit: Mr. Miyagi was awesome, everyone loves that guy. I'll take the compliment.