Important Carefully Ask PPMD about the Tiara Guy

[Aksorz1336]

Opinions on using Nair to cover tech options on platforms? I like doing it but it doesn't feel optimal because I can't recall Marth's doing this regularily.

 

[RaptorJesus]

Not pp but if you hit with the first hit they can cc and shield the second. So if you catch them off guard it can work but don't overuse it

 

[Dr Peepee]

I apologize if you've answered this in the past but do you have a general flowchart on throw followups in the ditto? I've been using Fthrow regrab/cheese at 0, uthrow til like 30-45, f/dthrow techchase/mixup past that? I feel like I should be hitting harder in the ditto.

Check Kadano thread for throw followups in the ditto. Pretty sure he has the chart for it.

Opinions on using Nair to cover tech options on platforms? I like doing it but it doesn't feel optimal because I can't recall Marth's doing this regularily.

I like doing it at lower percents because I can punish out of them holding down into Fsmash or Fair if they know about Fsmash and try to jump. I always want to push them toward edge and usually only do this in the middle or edge side of big platforms OR anywhere on YS/FoD/sorta PS platforms. It works best on FoD platforms and worst on DL platforms in my experience.

 

[Kotastic]

Hey, got some tips on the puff mu? In my experience, I'm generally decent with my zoning and scuffle situations. I tend to not fall for puff shenanigans like her crouching and my punish game is pretty good, and I know the optimal pivot throw kill punish.

However, in terms of macro gameplan, I got little idea. That bair is sooo intimidating which I swear is more disjointed than Marth's sword. I find myself often getting hit first before I swat puff with my sword before she hits, but I'm pretty sure I'm missing something here. It's incredibly hard to juggle puff of any character for me and while my sharking is alright, most of the time puff makes it back safely. My thoughts is to move around revolving puff's bair, weaving in her out of range which is the essence of DD, as I think I'm stationary a lot.

Also, what would you think would be the best CP stages? Obviously Yoshis is good but most puffs ban that in Bo3. I'm think PS, FD, or simply Battlefield (my comfort pick).

 

[Dr Peepee]

Probably best to start here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYCoA6cgwTw

For juggling, you want to keep in mind she has 5 jumps and each loses height. She's not likely to come straight into you or use all 5 jumps and even just using one before coming down is pretty unlikely. That makes things off the bat a lot easier. I get at angle closer to the middle of the level and try not to let her cross me up with Uair threats. Forcing her to the side means she will have to go to the edge, do a platform mixup, or Nair into me(or land by the edge of the stage I guess). One more thing I see Marths do really wrongly in this matchup in edgeguard and juggle: don't run away from her. You have the winning position. If you're going to dash back, make sure you come back in to keep control of your space and threaten her. If you get scared then you need to learn the position better and how to beat falling Nair or spaced Bair or whatever.

As for stages it could depend on your strengths and weaknesses as well as those of the Puff, but there isn't really anywhere bad besides Dreamland. I'd probably CP PS or FD in most matchups. FD if they were good on platforms and PS if they weren't/I needed help killing more.

 

[ElectricBlade]

I've been trying to figure out how to figure out what a character's "win condition" is? So I have a few questions on it.

-How do you find out the win condition?
-Can you have multiple win conditions?
-Can you provide an example or two of it?

Btw congrats on your recent performance, it's great to see my favorite player working his way back in.

 

[Dr Peepee]

You find win conditions by looking at what moves deal the most damage and also the neutral positions that give you greatest odds for winning. So for Marth, either getting a grab or just completely outspacing the other character are the obvious win conditions. Vs ICs and lower on the tier list we don't even really need to grab anymore since reward can get more wonky and we get so much reward with low risk for outranging those characters we should just stick to that win condition. I guess that answers most or all of the questions =p

To give a clear example of what I mean vs ICs, pretty much every character wants to get close enough to hit ICs with a spaced move while being outside of dsmash range and abusing them. Marth is the same with his Dtilt/Fair in that position. ICs can pretty much only WD back/roll either direction or try to completely outplay you by predicting your Dtilt/Fair timing entirely and sometimes it won't even matter if they perfectly know because the position is just that bad for them.

Thank you! I'll get there =)

 

[Kotastic]

Hey PP, this is a simple, yet very applicable question that can vary from mu's.

What constitutes as a good/bad time to shield? I get that Marth's shield is bad and that his movement should primarily be his answer, but surely there must be principles when shielding is wise. Apologies if this seems too broad.

 

[Dr Peepee]

I like shield primarily when I don't have another option(or to PS Falco lasers obv). You can also use it the way Mango does in some matchups where you dash into shield to make an attack hit high on your shield or hit earlier than the opponent expects which can mess up their tech. A bad time to shield for newer players is whenever they finish an aerial that didn't hit the opponent. I've even heard of Mango and some others using shield as a way to provoke others to approach since you have limited shield options so that's a way to turn its negatives into positives. There are probably some rules to get into about that, but it's likely just better to tell Marths to shield as little as possible to avoid the very bad parts about shielding.

 

[Kotastic]

What do you think are some of your best Falcon matches as Marth vs. $mike (or any other Falcon)? I feel like I always get knee'd/stomped in the face a lot when we're in neutral ground, and I think watching others play the mu properly would help.

 

[Dr Peepee]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrRtAg3QOn8& if that link works, otherwise its dr peepee vs $mike from feb 2014. I rewatched this the other day actually and it wasn't as good as I remembered, but it should still be helpful if you're trying to learn the matchup.
A good suggestion is to fight farther away than you think you have to. Both Marth and Falcon can threaten very long distances so if you can't react to knee/stomp in with Fair then you're likely too close(though you may just need to practice the reaction).

 

[Blatant J]

I know you're not an EU player, but since I switched to PAL I've felt like the fox MU is much harder despite loads of people saying it's better for marth. Mainly since fox gets easy tech chases off shine and you can't FF to ledge if you get shined near it, what do you think of the MU relative to NTSC?

 

[Dr Peepee]

Fox's up-B being shorter can actually help him since you can't cover everything as easily if he's closer(he stops traveling and will land sooner if you try to cover everything like what happens with Falco). Also not having a Dair vs Fsmash/Up-B mixup in combos really hurts Marth's punish game. Also popping up Fox with Dair to tipper Fsmash doesn't work for a loooong time because you can hold down vs Dair forever(you can also tech up-B for a long time too, so it's not like that's a mixup). Fox killing later doesn't really make up for those things to me, although I'll admit him having smaller flames on his up-B does make him a little easier to edgeguard in some situations(not sure how it affects overall with earlier point).

[Also I really hate Marth's aerial drift in PAL despite Kadano posting that gif showing it didn't affect it much...feels like a lot to me....would affect his juggling and recovery a decent amount if it's like I feel it is]

All of that said, if you just get really friggin good at edgeguarding and still work some Fair vs Fsmash mixups you can play it pretty well. Being able to tech shine can be good as well during recovery or when you're pretty sure you'll get hit by shine but Fox isn't sure. While I haven't massively labbed it out, in my head it feels worse than NTSC to me. Edit: In NTSC I probably think it's evenish overall so being slightly less even means it's still very playable.

 

[-=Untamed-Beast=-]

I just want to mention that the NCSU #1 Grand Finals set singlehandedly made me a true believer in the Kreygasm hype train surrounding your Marth. Bringing it up 3 years later warms my sword guy heart.

Kreygasm btw

What aspects of the set are not quite as good as you remembered them to be?

 

[lokt]

Dr. Peepee, could you explain the dair vs fsmash/upb mixup? I'm not sure what situation you're referring to.

 

[Dr Peepee]

I just want to mention that the NCSU #1 Grand Finals set singlehandedly made me a true believer in the Kreygasm hype train surrounding your Marth. Bringing it up 3 years later warms my sword guy heart.

Kreygasm btw

What aspects of the set are not quite as good as you remembered them to be?

Really it's all of it for the most part. I'll pick a neutral and punish thing.

0:26, why in the world did I try a Dtilt from that distance? After WD'ing most people get reset mentally so to come back in in a slow way from far away was a dumb idea and lets $mike get out of the corner for free.

0:39, either his percent was too low for me to move in time, or I just hoped he'd not tech left so I wouldn't cover it. However, right after it I had a chance for another punish and I just hopelessly flail with DJ Uair when I had plenty of time to react with Fair vs Uair AND if I wait I can land sooner which means I can get easier punishes, so it's pretty silly to DJ early like that unless I'm positive I know what they'll do and don't go anywhere else.

Dr. Peepee, could you explain the dair vs fsmash/upb mixup? I'm not sure what situation you're referring to.

Okay, so let's suppose you Uthrow Fox at mid percent on FD closer to the edge and he DIs toward edge. In NTSC he has to worry about Ken Combo as well as tipper Fsmash, meaning he cannot hold out/up/in/down reliably to beat either option and instead has to guess. This is a 50/50 whether they die. In PAL, you just always hold in here because you can't Ken Combo and Fairs into up-B really doesn't send you that far unless you're well above 100%(but then you're not worried about Fsmash out of Uthrow anyway). Up-B is similar out of the air, where if you hit with a Fair once or just did a Uthrow, they might want to DI out to avoid Ken Combo, so you jump and up-B them instead of jumping to Fair(you can see M2K doing the Uthrow up-B sometimes for this reason). Again, in PAL you just hold in.

 

[Taytertot]

Dr Peepee so ive just started listening to the inner game of tennis and a question that im curious about (hopefully the book doesnt go over this later) is in regards to the relationship between self 1 and self 2. the book mentions that self 1 often over analyses things happening and that distracts self 2 from simply doing the motions needed to achieve the different goals within the game.

Is there ever value in having self 1 step in more? the reason for the question is because while self 2 may be completely capable of any technical or mental strategies it is already aware of, im unsure on whether or not self 2 needs self 1 to point out situations where self 2 isnt doing something because it is not aware of said strategy. an example of this being that self 2 may be completely able to play around a puff's normals but if self 2 isnt aware of specific strategies or nuances that exist in the mu then, can self 1 expect self 2 to pick up on and adjust to those strategies without intervention? this is likely something that one would want to tackle in practice rather then mid-set but im still curious on your thoughts.

im probably wording this poorly so please let me know if i need to clarify my question.

 

[Dr Peepee]

Yeah so Inner Game primarily talks about practicing and not at all about strategy. For strategy it looks a little different. You need to put in the time dissecting, analyzing, thinking, coming up with ideas you're aware of. If you study positions and fundamentals long enough, eventually the knowledge will condense into a deeper form and you'll understand it more simply, which means the control turns over to self 2. You may need to prime yourself on the knowledge still so it helps to write down a sentence or two about what you learned to recall, but you'll pretty much have it after that. This means not only do you understand more, as well as having even deeper knowledge that's put together by self 2 that you can access, but also you have the opportunity to build on that new solidified knowledge with more self 1 work.

A resource I also recommend that goes over this process fairly well is a book called "The Art of Learning" if you want to learn more about it.

 

[Kotastic]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrRtAg3QOn8& if that link works, otherwise its dr peepee vs $mike from feb 2014. I rewatched this the other day actually and it wasn't as good as I remembered, but it should still be helpful if you're trying to learn the matchup.
A good suggestion is to fight farther away than you think you have to. Both Marth and Falcon can threaten very long distances so if you can't react to knee/stomp in with Fair then you're likely too close(though you may just need to practice the reaction).

Thank you for suggesting this video. Overall, I really saw the importance of center stage and how much control both characters exert when cornering the other. I realize that many of my downfalls in the matchup is that I'm somehow often in the corner, resulting me in unfavorable positions. How I ended up there is what I need to answer myself.

However, I feel like a lot of the matchup is knowing what to do in the scramble situations when both characters are directly next to each other, which I feel like is my weak point. From what I notice, I think Falcon would most likely do one of two things: aerial or side-b. From what I notice, you seem to effortlessly weave around Falcon's aerials, either going being slightly outside of its TR or dashing past them as a mixup. As for raptor boost, I think I would have to read it. Tbh I don't think I could react to it bc my reaction time is bad lol. I could also use side-B to catch potentially both of those options. What I do which is bad is that I tend to roll away from Falcon when he gets close to me, which I clearly need to stop and exert my zoning with aerials.

What do you also think about d-tilt? I think of it more as a bait move rather than a poke move to further encourage Falcon to jump as every Falcon and their grandmother jumps anyways. I would think d-tilt --> aerial is super good in this matchup.

Thoughts?

 

[Zorcey]

Dr Peepee I recently did some work on the Falcon matchup, learning things like the low percent fthrow techchases, and labbing/internalizing uthrow followups and edgeguards, as well as some set analysis and theorycrafting in light of your rules for the matchup like, "never jump first," and "extreme less is more." What's happened is Falcon has become arguably my best matchup recently with relatively little time put into it, which kind of surprised me because I struggled with it earlier.

The catch here is I don't really feel I "understand" many neutral game interactions, even though I can still win them with repeating these rules to myself and some muscle memory. I contrast this with the Fox matchup, which I've put tons of hours into parsing and studying, but because of that I actually find myself paralyzed when I encounter situations I don't know how to handle (especially when it repeats itself over and over again during a session, and I'm trying to understand it without actually even knowing what happened). I've wondered if this is in part because I don't really have rules for that matchup - apart from what I want to work on at that moment - and try to analyze every situation case-by-case. But then this is what I figure leads to true understanding of a matchup?

Sorry if this question is a little confusing, tbh it confuses me a little too. To summarize, I'm wondering if working "backwards" from a set of rules from a top player like you is actually a more efficient way to study than trying to build my own rules by first analyzing as many individual situations as possible, and looking for an overlap in solutions. Part of me feels like the former sounds like a short-term copout, but I'm not sure. Maybe it's because honestly if you think working backwards from your rules is a good idea a list of them for at least the top 8-9 characters is really enticing and gets me all excited to study lol.

 

[Dr Peepee]

Thank you for suggesting this video. Overall, I really saw the importance of center stage and how much control both characters exert when cornering the other. I realize that many of my downfalls in the matchup is that I'm somehow often in the corner, resulting me in unfavorable positions. How I ended up there is what I need to answer myself.

However, I feel like a lot of the matchup is knowing what to do in the scramble situations when both characters are directly next to each other, which I feel like is my weak point. From what I notice, I think Falcon would most likely do one of two things: aerial or side-b. From what I notice, you seem to effortlessly weave around Falcon's aerials, either going being slightly outside of its TR or dashing past them as a mixup. As for raptor boost, I think I would have to read it. Tbh I don't think I could react to it bc my reaction time is bad lol. I could also use side-B to catch potentially both of those options. What I do which is bad is that I tend to roll away from Falcon when he gets close to me, which I clearly need to stop and exert my zoning with aerials.

What do you also think about d-tilt? I think of it more as a bait move rather than a poke move to further encourage Falcon to jump as every Falcon and their grandmother jumps anyways. I would think d-tilt --> aerial is super good in this matchup.

Thoughts?

How close is right next to each other? Can Falcon aerial in place and hit you or does he have to move forward a little to do that? It's a big difference. If he can aerial you then you want to WD/Fair away, but if you're close enough to hit him but he can't hit you that's a great position for you(unless he has advantage going into it then it's not as good). Your Fair will hit any of his aerials guaranteed since your disjoint is way better than his. You can also just shield grab side B and can even wd away or dash away shield or FH away and come back down and punish the huge lag on the move lol. I think you just need to practice the position and not be afraid tbh. Falcon has reason to fear you closer up too. Oh also you want to be closer to Falcon if he's cornered since he can no longer dash back vs your moves and has to deal with(lose to) them.

That Dtilt idea is cool as long as you're not very close to him.

Dr Peepee I recently did some work on the Falcon matchup, learning things like the low percent fthrow techchases, and labbing/internalizing uthrow followups and edgeguards, as well as some set analysis and theorycrafting in light of your rules for the matchup like, "never jump first," and "extreme less is more." What's happened is Falcon has become arguably my best matchup recently with relatively little time put into it, which kind of surprised me because I struggled with it earlier.

The catch here is I don't really feel I "understand" many neutral game interactions, even though I can still win them with repeating these rules to myself and some muscle memory. I contrast this with the Fox matchup, which I've put tons of hours into parsing and studying, but because of that I actually find myself paralyzed when I encounter situations I don't know how to handle (especially when it repeats itself over and over again during a session, and I'm trying to understand it without actually even knowing what happened). I've wondered if this is in part because I don't really have rules for that matchup - apart from what I want to work on at that moment - and try to analyze every situation case-by-case. But then this is what I figure leads to true understanding of a matchup?

Sorry if this question is a little confusing, tbh it confuses me a little too. To summarize, I'm wondering if working "backwards" from a set of rules from a top player like you is actually a more efficient way to study than trying to build my own rules by first analyzing as many individual situations as possible, and looking for an overlap in solutions. Part of me feels like the former sounds like a short-term copout, but I'm not sure. Maybe it's because honestly if you think working backwards from your rules is a good idea a list of them for at least the top 8-9 characters is really enticing and gets me all excited to study lol.

This is a pretty interesting problem. Here are my ideas of what it could be:

1. You have a weakness of applying rules and knowledge to new situations because of fear. You can, instead of being afraid of those new situations, see them as exciting because they give you a chance to grow on the spot and push your knowledge further.

2. You may only have learned individual situations but not really understood the deeper connections that bring about the rules. In this case you would need to change how you study, or simply put more time into it.

3. Kind of like #2, you might just be going through learning pains and you should keep your approach flexible until you feel your understanding has truly deepened. It may help to ask yourself "if I wanted to completely understand this matchup, what would I do?" You could also do sentence completions where you write the first things that come to mind without thinking. "If I want to really understand this matchup, I will-" and so on.

Hope some of this helps, and good job on your progress =)

 

[V]

Dr Peepee how useful are shield stops? The only Marth I really see do them is PPU but they seem unnecessary. Also, do you think the infatuation with shield dropping will diminish over time when people get more accustomed to it and are prepared to deal with it as a mix up?

 

[RedmanSSBM]

You could also do sentence completions where you write the first things that come to mind without thinking. "If I want to really understand this matchup, I will-" and so on.

Shoutouts to The Six Pillars of Self Esteem.

 

[HolidayMaker]

This isn't really so much a normal question, but every once in a while you post a set/clip that isn't easily found on vods.co or Youtube searches that's really cool/.helpful. The recent one of your Marth vs Zanguzen being a good example. Do have a collection of links you could drop? Or advice on finding them?

 

[Zorcey]

This is a pretty interesting problem. Here are my ideas of what it could be:

1. You have a weakness of applying rules and knowledge to new situations because of fear. You can, instead of being afraid of those new situations, see them as exciting because they give you a chance to grow on the spot and push your knowledge further.

2. You may only have learned individual situations but not really understood the deeper connections that bring about the rules. In this case you would need to change how you study, or simply put more time into it.

3. Kind of like #2, you might just be going through learning pains and you should keep your approach flexible until you feel your understanding has truly deepened. It may help to ask yourself "if I wanted to completely understand this matchup, what would I do?" You could also do sentence completions where you write the first things that come to mind without thinking. "If I want to really understand this matchup, I will-" and so on.

Hope some of this helps, and good job on your progress =)

Have taken some time to think about this, and it should help a lot, thanks so much PP. I actually think all three of these possible explanations apply to me, and feed into each other in a couple ways (like, not allowing my knowledge of individual situations to synthesize properly, because I'm afraid of letting them flow together and losing knowledge somewhere - if that makes sense?). This will definitely be challenging to overcome, but your advice from point 3 should address at least a lot of it. It's still kind of a struggle for me to get over my fear of not always maximizing my learning opportunities, but I'm trying hard, and I feel like working from a perspective where I'm trying to achieve total understanding would help with that.

I think I want to experiment some with this alternative approach to learning matchups to figure out what works best for me, so could I have a list of your rules for like, the viable characters? If you don't mind sharing them with me, of course - I feel kind of presumptuous asking tbh.

 

[Aksorz1336]

Hi PP. Having played this game for about half a year now I'm more in love with it than I ever thought I'd be.
I "overheard" a reply on twitter (which I can't find now) that it would take a beginner that goes "all in" (I think you said 100%) about 2 years to see any notable wins or results. Could you expand on this a little? What constitutes going 100% "tryhard mode" as far as practice goes, and what would count as a notable result?

Being a european player with not a lot of local players, especially not great ones, I'm worried my ratio of time spent:improvement seen is not as good as it could be. I do have access to a netplay community of some of EU's best players, where competition is plentyful, though I feel I don't use it as much as I maybe should. I'm quite intimidated by the players there, many who have played the game for a decade and are top players in their countries. I have a hard time learning what went wrong when I'm just completely run over by some of these players. How would I know if my improvement "per day" is up to par to become good in a relatively short amount of time?

 

[Dr Peepee]

Dr Peepee how useful are shield stops? The only Marth I really see do them is PPU but they seem unnecessary. Also, do you think the infatuation with shield dropping will diminish over time when people get more accustomed to it and are prepared to deal with it as a mix up?

I don't think they're that necessary, but I've seen an application of them for the CG that looks pretty good.

Shield dropping isn't used in a very complex way right now. It's primarily used to counterattack or just attack when people get close. Once it starts getting used more as movement tool it'll be much more dangerous, but yeah in its current form it should get bodied a lot.

This isn't really so much a normal question, but every once in a while you post a set/clip that isn't easily found on vods.co or Youtube searches that's really cool/.helpful. The recent one of your Marth vs Zanguzen being a good example. Do have a collection of links you could drop? Or advice on finding them?

I don't know what's on that site and what isn't, but most of what I'd recommend is on it I'm pretty sure. If people managed to find some MLG stuff that got reuploaded that would also be cool lol but I don't know if all that made it back online or not.

Have taken some time to think about this, and it should help a lot, thanks so much PP. I actually think all three of these possible explanations apply to me, and feed into each other in a couple ways (like, not allowing my knowledge of individual situations to synthesize properly, because I'm afraid of letting them flow together and losing knowledge somewhere - if that makes sense?). This will definitely be challenging to overcome, but your advice from point 3 should address at least a lot of it. It's still kind of a struggle for me to get over my fear of not always maximizing my learning opportunities, but I'm trying hard, and I feel like working from a perspective where I'm trying to achieve total understanding would help with that.

I think I want to experiment some with this alternative approach to learning matchups to figure out what works best for me, so could I have a list of your rules for like, the viable characters? If you don't mind sharing them with me, of course - I feel kind of presumptuous asking tbh.

I'll try but I'm not always in my best position to do it for every matchup

Fox: switch between punishing his landing and outranging him. do whatever it takes to win whether it's zoning or moving or something else.

Falco: Jumping defensively is pointless, dash once occasionally twice, take laser jab stuffs his approach(from decent ranges)

I've done the ditto a lot so I'm skipping it.

Sheik: You can move or zone vs her, but zoning doesn't really work unless you're closeish. Her dash attack and boost grab is a big risk she doesn't want to take too often. Tech chase then uthrow her, and don't do noob DI when she grabs you.

Falcon: Extreme "less is more." Fight farther away than you think you need to. Dtilt very sparingly and focus on jumping if he jumps. When he's cornered you can swing first and jump a lot.

Peach: Stay out of (run) dash attack but within WD Dtilt range and you win.

Puff: Center is extremely important. Count her jumps and watch her landing. Dash grab, and hit the reactions on throws.

ICs: Like any other matchup, get to where you can Fair/Dtilt them but they can't hit you. ICs just make this a lot easier, don't forget they only stay grounded. Watch the gimmicks.

That works well enough I guess.

Hi PP. Having played this game for about half a year now I'm more in love with it than I ever thought I'd be.
I "overheard" a reply on twitter (which I can't find now) that it would take a beginner that goes "all in" (I think you said 100%) about 2 years to see any notable wins or results. Could you expand on this a little? What constitutes going 100% "tryhard mode" as far as practice goes, and what would count as a notable result?

Being a european player with not a lot of local players, especially not great ones, I'm worried my ratio of time spent:improvement seen is not as good as it could be. I do have access to a netplay community of some of EU's best players, where competition is plentyful, though I feel I don't use it as much as I maybe should. I'm quite intimidated by the players there, many who have played the game for a decade and are top players in their countries. I have a hard time learning what went wrong when I'm just completely run over by some of these players. How would I know if my improvement "per day" is up to par to become good in a relatively short amount of time?

You're asking the right questions. 100% tryhard is basically you doing everything you possibly can and making the most of every opportunity to improve. For practice, this means training as many different important parts of the game as possible like edgeguarding comboing or various neutral positions, and training daily and for several hours a day. Notable result was usually something like a top 100 player, but you could probably do that in a year and a half, maybe even one year. 2 years just feels like it should be pretty guaranteed if you're really trying all you can.

Can you ask questions of those people on netplay? Can you record the matches? Can you play people decently better than you but not loads better? Find stuff that works well for you, and remember your love for the game should be stronger than your fear of those players so make the most of your opportunities. Keep trying until you break through I'm sure you can figure it out =)

 

[Uma]

"I begin a set, and I use the first stock or maybe two to slowly feel out my opponent and use it to settle in to the pressure of the set. Then, once I have determined how my opponent would respond to all of my setups, I then switch them up and use an emotional, highly reactive state of mind and take control of the tempo of the match. Not only will this throw my opponent completely off guard, but it could give me the momentum I need to turn around the game if I am losing or break the opponent for the set if I am winning. "

Do you still follow this? If so, always with no exceptions?

 

[Dr Peepee]

I don't think I'd do that now. Sounds more like my depressed way of handling things. Now I'd prefer to hit them hard early and throw them off for the set, which I know works very well from my time spent analyzing.

 

[RedmanSSBM]

What are your thoughts on using F-smash in neutral against Fox? I've seen a lot of instances that Marths tend to use F-smash in neutral at really low percents or at really high percents while there usually is a better move to use that is less committal.

For instance, grabbing is highly prioritized at low percents, and ftilt would be a better substitute at higher percents (120+).

I can understand using the move early on to get a good read on your opponent and send them off stage, or even to simply knock them down, but is it really worth it to use F-smash in such a fashion? Would it be better to use F-smash in a more reserved fashion, like for combo finishers or covering options for edgeguards? I would really like to hear more on what you think the best applications for the move are.

 

[Uma]

I don't think I'd do that now. Sounds more like my depressed way of handling things. Now I'd prefer to hit them hard early and throw them off for the set, which I know works very well from my time spent analyzing.

So imagine you're not yet a top 5 player and just an average player, maybe going up against someone no one would expect you to beat. Would that still be your approach? I feel you would be less confident in your ability to just start bodying them and maybe the quoted strategy would be more useful. I realize it might be hard/impossible to actually answer this question LOL

 

[Dr Peepee]

What are your thoughts on using F-smash in neutral against Fox? I've seen a lot of instances that Marths tend to use F-smash in neutral at really low percents or at really high percents while there usually is a better move to use that is less committal.

For instance, grabbing is highly prioritized at low percents, and ftilt would be a better substitute at higher percents (120+).

I can understand using the move early on to get a good read on your opponent and send them off stage, or even to simply knock them down, but is it really worth it to use F-smash in such a fashion? Would it be better to use F-smash in a more reserved fashion, like for combo finishers or covering options for edgeguards? I would really like to hear more on what you think the best applications for the move are.

Fsmash is actually pretty useful at low percents because it covers lower and higher ranges and is big and beats holding down plus does lots of damage, as well as usually getting poor DIs. Also like you said you could get early kills out of it which is awesome.

The downside is obviously the lag and people don't know how to threaten it right they just kind of do it or get baited into it easily. It's pretty good mixed with Fair/Dtilt/grab because of it's distance and how far people have to be from Marth/want to fight against him anyway. I'm not sure I should encourage Fsmash on here because I think most Marths would struggle with using it well and it's been a long time since I messed with it so I could botch the explanation.

So imagine you're not yet a top 5 player and just an average player, maybe going up against someone no one would expect you to beat. Would that still be your approach? I feel you would be less confident in your ability to just start bodying them and maybe the quoted strategy would be more useful. I realize it might be hard/impossible to actually answer this question LOL

Yeah if I had my current mentality my approach would still be to come out as hard as possible then maintain my edge. When you look at upsets the lower ranked player usually has to win game 1 and keep the higher rank off balance as much as possible in order to win. But yeah its generally not something I always explicitly consider, and it's also something I was starting to think about varying when I was heavily training. Might be better to ask me this 6 months or so after I return lol.

 

[RedmanSSBM]

Hm, good to hear that it has a lot more uses at lower percents, but I agree that it's probably not used very well at those lower percents to be more of a threat than a "desperation" move. I imagine using F-smash in the way that you mentioned at low percents involves knowing your opponent's habits and calling them out on it.

Now, how about at higher percents? I've seen so many occasions where a Marth will try to F-smash a Fox that is at like 130+%, they whiff, and then they get hit for it and potentially lose a stock. Wouldn't it be better to just ftilt/fair/dtilt/ heck even jab when the opponent is that high? I feel like the F-smash is overkill and whiffing it just leaves you so open.

 

[Dr Peepee]

I think it's a pretty solid mixup at lower percents tbh. Probably not staple worthy but it is very good. It just requires a type of work and thinking people don't seem to do so much.

Yeah at higher percent it's usually not worth it since you should just learn to edgeguard and use anything to get them offstage lol. However if you can work Fsmash well it's easier edgeguards/quick kills if they DI poorly.

 

[Chesstiger2612]

RedmanSSBM
The worst about commital moves in neutral is if the opponent is able to dash away and avoid it.
Therefore it is more useful when you "overshoot" with it and cover the dash back that way.
Note that it is less bad if the f-smash is intercepted because you will just get hit by a "normal" move in neutral compared to a whiffpunish where they can choose and know it will hit.
Also, if you are in a good spot (frame advantage or cornered opponent) and you know that they can't challenge the f-smash, the opponent is in a bad enough spot to justify using shield so f-smash isn't always the best.

Video example (just opened a random Mew2King video and searched for the f-smashs lol):
0:22: f-smash is overshot and a dash back read
1:19: this one is riskier but he had a read and it worked, wouldn't recommend it against an opponent you know nothing about
9:08: there he f-smashed out of a good position which increased the likelihood of shield, so it is a mixup but less commital options should be prefered in the majority of cases imo
18:29: moving forward and then f-smashing; full jump can be a counter to f-smash too but it can also go horribly wrong;
19:39: same idea, this time it works out; dashing all the way to the corner would be a risk so that makes the option safer;

The other motivation for f-smash is that they will sometimes move just outside of certain ranges and f-smash, having more range, can then hit them. So you can use it as a callout on their dash pattern.

 

[Zorcey]

Dr Peepee is this list of Dtilt conversions correct and (mostly) comprehensive?

If they jump: jump
If they shield: grab; or space an aerial; or Dtilt
If they spotdodge: dash back > grab; or space an aerial
If they attack: dash back > grab
If they dash in: Dtilt; or Jab; or grab
If they dash away: dash/WD after them

It occurred to me Marth can do pretty much the same stuff out of Dtilt on-hit in every matchup. I wanted to fact-check this observation with you though? It looks legit but I want to be sure lol. It also leads me into some additional questions:

1. Do you try to read what your opponent will do after taking a Dtilt, based on previous exchanges? It doesn't seem to me that at such a close proximity you'd have time to react, but predicting their option and committing to say, a jump, is really risky. Just wondering what goes through your head after landing one.

2. When you talk about "gathering information" with Dtilt, are you referring to what they tend to do when HIT with Dtilt, or how they respond to the THREAT of Dtilt? Or both? (Or both and more?) If my chart is more or less what you're looking for when hit, what are you looking for with regards to the threat?

3. It was only recently I realized how much I was underutilizing Dtilt in my neutral game, because one or two pokes was enough to get most opponents jumping, so it never occurred to me to look much deeper into the move. Generally I would hit my opponent with the move and then run away so next exchange they would jump, instead of pressing my advantage. But given question 1, I'm uncertain how I feel about the risk/reward of approaching out of Dtilt, because while it is risky, satisfying myself with damage and then giving up a possibly high payoff punish just sounds... bad lol - especially with Marth. But I don't want to write off the option entirely, so I thought I'd bring it up? Do you think there are merits to retreating after hitting a Dtilt?

 

[Kopaka]

Good-luck to those here who will be attending Evo this year

(Posted from my hotel room lol)

 

[V]

Dr Peepee I have some observations and questions about how to learn positions. It seems like Marth has an easier time with this because his sword is disjointed and he rarely has to consider whether a move wins or loses is any given situation. Contrast this to a character that doesn't have a disjointed moveset and has to consider both move choice and position. Because of this, do you think the key to dissecting neutral positions with Marth is as simple as knowing where to place yourself in relation to your opponent based on the options they have? If not, what other factors do you take into consideration when breaking down a position? How do you decide which options a character has should be considered or dismissed when figuring out a position? I'd like to develop a style that's simple and fundamentals based and less flashy/abstract/unnecessary and my impression is that really knowing positions is at least a starting point, not taking player skill/experience into consideration.

 

[Dr Peepee]

Dr Peepee is this list of Dtilt conversions correct and (mostly) comprehensive?

If they jump: jump
If they shield: grab; or space an aerial; or Dtilt
If they spotdodge: dash back > grab; or space an aerial
If they attack: dash back > grab
If they dash in: Dtilt; or Jab; or grab
If they dash away: dash/WD after them

It occurred to me Marth can do pretty much the same stuff out of Dtilt on-hit in every matchup. I wanted to fact-check this observation with you though? It looks legit but I want to be sure lol. It also leads me into some additional questions:

1. Do you try to read what your opponent will do after taking a Dtilt, based on previous exchanges? It doesn't seem to me that at such a close proximity you'd have time to react, but predicting their option and committing to say, a jump, is really risky. Just wondering what goes through your head after landing one.

2. When you talk about "gathering information" with Dtilt, are you referring to what they tend to do when HIT with Dtilt, or how they respond to the THREAT of Dtilt? Or both? (Or both and more?) If my chart is more or less what you're looking for when hit, what are you looking for with regards to the threat?

3. It was only recently I realized how much I was underutilizing Dtilt in my neutral game, because one or two pokes was enough to get most opponents jumping, so it never occurred to me to look much deeper into the move. Generally I would hit my opponent with the move and then run away so next exchange they would jump, instead of pressing my advantage. But given question 1, I'm uncertain how I feel about the risk/reward of approaching out of Dtilt, because while it is risky, satisfying myself with damage and then giving up a possibly high payoff punish just sounds... bad lol - especially with Marth. But I don't want to write off the option entirely, so I thought I'd bring it up? Do you think there are merits to retreating after hitting a Dtilt?

For your first part, I think it might be better to suggest checking out situations in matches online and offline to see if that's actually the case. Varying your testing by percent and tipper or non tipper is also going to be pretty helpful.

Let's answer #2 first. You can gain information with either using the move move, or by seeing if your opponent is paying attention to that threat in the first place by dash/run/wd'ing in. Sometimes they come in pre-conditioned for Dtilt, sometimes you have to make them respect it, sometimes they know how to avoid it but want to play to see if you'll make them respect it, and so on. You'll need to figure these things out. Don't worry about the complexity so much just look to see if they fear Dtilt and if not then work it.

3. You're probably moving away in case you miss or in case they retaliate or they shield and you need to dash away to avoid grab. And those are fine enough reasons to move away. However since Marths ALWAYS do it, then people get some pressure put on and immediately relieved as a result every time. You took this committal action only to not gain anything from it. Once people know you're going to dash back you can stay in place or even move forward, but it doesn't mean it's a true punish or anything. Dtilt to observe is the only true combo.

1. Yeah you need a combination of things. The easiest thing to say though is that it depends on what they did last time(build up ideas about players and characters in the meantime to get faster ways to predict and sort what you see). Also, if you practice the situation enough, you can react to stuff that seems to be too fast for most people. Jumps become possible to react to with your own jump, especially if they're spaced at a range that's favorable.

I like standing still a lot and dashing forward after Dtilt tbh, especially once my Dtilt threat is established.

Dr Peepee I have some observations and questions about how to learn positions. It seems like Marth has an easier time with this because his sword is disjointed and he rarely has to consider whether a move wins or loses is any given situation. Contrast this to a character that doesn't have a disjointed moveset and has to consider both move choice and position. Because of this, do you think the key to dissecting neutral positions with Marth is as simple as knowing where to place yourself in relation to your opponent based on the options they have? If not, what other factors do you take into consideration when breaking down a position? How do you decide which options a character has should be considered or dismissed when figuring out a position? I'd like to develop a style that's simple and fundamentals based and less flashy/abstract/unnecessary and my impression is that really knowing positions is at least a starting point, not taking player skill/experience into consideration.

It's not that simple because Marth could technically win if he knew what they'd do or predicted it, but if he reacted his move would be too slow and he'd lose. The human elements are what matter.

Start by breaking down options at threatening range when neither character can hit each other. How do they approach or defend? What options beat what options when you can react? What about when you can't?

Then consider all the options at varying positions on a stage. What can you do when cornered vs when they're cornered?

Punish situations are important too. They're tied to neutral situations and also have decisions made in all of them. Did Fox break my combo last time on BF by holding down and teching in place? Should I prime myself for Fsmash this time then? If they recovered going up with firefox and I beat it last time, what will they do this time from a similar position?

Essentially, you want to take one factor of the game and apply it as much as possible to learn it and then connect it with every other factor. Also you always want to consider what happened last time a position occurred. Conditioning is extremely important and is why you need to establish trends in matches, sets, and across sets and players.

Your question is extremely broad so this is the best I can do, but I'm sure if you read enough of this thread and begin getting more specific with your questions I can help better.

 

[ElectricBlade]

I've been having this fundamental flaw for a while now but I'm not entirely sure what to do about it. I'll try to explain it

I have a problem when my opponent constantly dashes towards me and forces me to make a decision over and over. I do try my bes to position myself to react to them moving forward, and I am positioning correct because I am reacting. I just freeze up a bit and either make an auto pilot choice or no choice at all. I freeze up most of the time.

I think its because I'm afraid of not knowing what they're going to do, even though it can be obvious sometimes (Such as in Smash 4 when somebody constantly runs towards you and shields in front of you they're hoping you will not space your attacks correctly) and even with the knowledge I'll do what they want.

Is it a confidence issue? Probably..

But I do want your guidance on it.