Important Carefully Ask PPMD about the Tiara Guy

[Dr Peepee]

been thinking about the puff mu lately, and I think I need some things clarified

do you think that using sh into mid/late fair from puff's sh bair range is a good thing to threaten in that position? I feel like it does a good job of discouraging drifts into me, which opens up my approaches, but I was wondering if just using dd is a better alternative, since puff can choose to force mixups after I land by getting close to me with wd/sh.

This same question can be extended to when puff gets onto side platforms, since I have found myself getting hit by pound at times for not spacing far away enough.

when getting out of close range against puff, and she drifts over me dashing away, is it plausible to punish her for this, or should I just be retreating with a fair instead?
https://youtu.be/vg0h00wHmEQ?t=81

could I have pivot grabbed puff for bairing here or did I have to go for dashgrab since she was falling with it?
https://youtu.be/vg0h00wHmEQ?t=84

Which Bair? Immediate or late? If she is gonna rising Bair into you with your mid/late timings, that is not always reliable. It's also true she could just back up or would be backing up anyway as you come in and then can play a great mixup on you. I generally prefer DD, but aerial plays like this are fine provided you understand the position well and are mixing options intelligently. After all, you can't just DD forever either.

Puff goes very far through platforms, so sometimes it can be better to put your Fair on her shield so she knows you're spaced and ready to swing if she comes through. However, the alternative/supplement is to just space farther or intercept yeah. Always moving far away if Puff is ever on a platform is not reliable, so it should not be your only option, but learning to play and fake that is good. Mid Fair would be more unsafe on hit of course.

You can Fair that, just stall your dash a bit perhaps. Maybe not always I suppose if it's AC Bair. Looks like you could maybe even pivot tipper this Bair?

Pivot grab I think lands there, and I think you can JC grab the landing before crouch on this particular drift in. All very worth testing.

What does Marth do that makes an opponent respect his defensive DD, and is it generally a good thing for him? (On one hand, Marth gets to decide when to move in and interact, but on the other, Marth is significantly better at counterattacking and zoning approaches than making them himself.)

Part of it is countering them well so they take their time, and another part may be that he sometimes attacks or intercepts them so they want to see if they can bait that out or wait that type of play out(or just wait for an approach instead).

 

[Kotastic]

How did you keep your motivation for Melee continue when you know for sure you can't compete for months, maybe even years, to come? How can I tell that I'm even improving?

 

[Zorcey]

How did you keep your motivation for Melee continue when you know for sure you can't compete for months, maybe even years, to come? How can I tell that I'm even improving?

Not to act like I can "answer" your question, but I've thought about this problem a lot since I've only been able to compete occasionally for... basically my entire Melee career. And I figure if I can maybe say anything helpful, I should at least try?

What helps to keep my motivation high, even with no tournaments to attend most of the time, is constantly reinforcing and sometimes even rediscovering the reason that I play Melee in the first place. For me it isn't about winning tournaments for its own sake (and I don't think it is for you either?), but because trying to learn the game deeply and become a strong competitor forces me to constantly push myself and grow ridiculous amounts. Melee always has a new problem to challenge the person I am at the moment, and it never takes long to find something that I don't understand or I'm not very good at. While tournaments are one of these challenges, they usually aren't "necessary" for me to find new things to do or study. Because of this, I've found it helpful to not look at tournaments as the reason that I practice, but as an opportunity to look at my training objectively and see how far I've actually come. For me at least, remembering that I'm trying to improve for reasons that don't have to do with tournaments helps me put them into perspective, meaning I can set all kinds of goals for myself that may or may not be related to tournaments. This helps me to stay motivated, even if I know I won't be competing for awhile.

That's not to say I think it's an easy mentality to maintain, and I've definitely thought "what's the point" a lot over the few years I've played, but I really do think that finding my motivation for growth in something other than Melee itself and tournaments themselves has been essential in staying in the game for this long. At the very least, maybe it would help to reignite your fire if you ask yourself what you want to accomplish through playing Melee, and how you could possibly satisfy that more fundamental goal or desire even without tournaments?

 

[Dr Peepee]

How did you keep your motivation for Melee continue when you know for sure you can't compete for months, maybe even years, to come? How can I tell that I'm even improving?

First, I learned to love practice and analysis. Second, I channeled that motivation for Melee into things that would help me with Melee when I needed to. Health is obvious, but reading or exercise or meditation or whatever else can indirectly help Melee and is its own reward, which helped. Third, if I could still improve, then that would be its own driving force. Getting better at Melee is very satisfying.

Which leads to your other question. You can see if you FEEL more connected to the game post-practice. You can understand more from analysis. You can play some people sometimes and notice how you do over time against them. These are all reasonable ways to test your progress. This is a new time which requires new ways of evaluation. As competitors we must adapt.

 

[Kotastic]

How would you advise punishing puff's drift away, particularly at higher percents? Would you always go for pokes with dtilt/ftilt or go for fsmash reads?

 

[Dr Peepee]

What is her option specifically? You mean like Bair drift away, drifting away from higher to land.....???

 

[Kotastic]

Srry I thought I typed this earlier but must've deleted it lol

From a juggle situation where she's used 3+ of her jumps and is drifting away from a high descent, are those your primary options I listed?

 

[Dr Peepee]

Fair/Bair should be your primary consideration, perhaps along with Utilt if she comes back in.

Fsmash is not great in that situation iirc. Fair is most reliable.

 

[Zorcey]

What spacing should Marth take in order to cover Fox FH from the corner on reaction? How much does it change if Fox does FH in place versus trying to FH over Marth?

What do you do to account for high side platforms on BF/DL when cornering Fox?

If Marth intercepts Fox FH from the corner a few times, it is reasonable to expect Fox to begin attacking from the corner instead? My logic is that Fox doesn’t really have anywhere else to retreat to, and Marth will probably have been waiting in that spot if he wasn’t reading the FH.

 

[Dr Peepee]

Arc was doing some move in and retreating Fair relatively close to Fox to catch FH over and any approach, you could mess with that. You will need to be fairly close to outright hit the FH over or even the FH in place, but if you back up a little more you can intercept landing/force DJs more. So it's hard to say exactly what you want to do, or if you should even do one over the other always. I will just say you probably need to be closer than you think.

Fair more when he's cornered on those levels since he's more likely to go up to them.

Fox may do a different FH or differently timed one, or may attack, or may shield. But attacking is certainly much more likely there then. Some nerd Foxes will start going to edge and edgedashing.

 

[Kotastic]

When juggling marth/sheik on FD that's pretty high up and used their DJ drifting away from you at high percent (100%+), is dash fair your goto? Would you consider ftilt/fsmash?

If they drift in, would you uptilt? Also when you set up an uptilt, do you do it out of standstill or WD?

Same scenario for Peach as well where she drifts away where she has no DJ/float, but airdodge is more prominent thus dash fair is kinda less reliable. What's your goto for juggling peach?

 

[Dr Peepee]

Fair is generally what you should do there, but it can depend on how far away they are. Fsmash isn't great because Marth's hand often gets hit, and Ftilt isn't great because it swings from low to high and his hand can be hit there too. Sometimes, if you don't think you can get the Fair, it's often better to not go for a straight hit out of the air and instead go for positioning.

If they DJ and drift into me on FD, then I like to position them on one side of me for easier Utilt/Fair effectiveness which opens other mixups if I really want it. Stand still or walk is much better. WD you CAN do but it often not be timed or spaced in a helpful way so I wouldn't always recommend it.

Unsure why you couldn't just run in and SH and then Fair if she keeps falling away and otherwise Fair/Uair if she goes into you. Maybe I just need to see the situation.

 

[Kotastic]

hmm for the last point i forgot that peach drifts a lot slower so I get more leeway out of SH drifts as opposed to juggling marth/sheik, so that makes sense actually.

 

[maxono1]

https://youtu.be/XIErXHdqmdA?t=353
did you do that wd fsmash on reaction to his sh far away, knowing that he would want to empty land and move in because he saw that you both were so far away and you were just dash dancing in place?
also would you say that wd fsmash is itself unreactable or that you were helped by the fact that a wd harder to see out of a DD, or that it worked because m2k anticipated you to stay waiting in place there?

i want to understand more of the way reactions and reads work together, and i have a theory that there is some sort of 'reaction shadow' after a reaction point of the opponent where they confirm what you are doing and sort of go by their best guess e.g. 'marth is dashing toward me, he will probably go for a rc dtilt'(this is all intuitive and not with words) and then you can do whatever you want in the time after that, the other player being set on their counter to dtilt until they realize u didnt do it.
i also think that the time it takes them to realize that you didn't do what they expected is longer than a regular reaction time, im not sure why though.
what do think about this? does something like this exist?
i would also appreciate other ppls opinions on this

 

[Zorcey]

i want to understand more of the way reactions and reads work together, and i have a theory that there is some sort of 'reaction shadow' after a reaction point of the opponent where they confirm what you are doing and sort of go by their best guess e.g. 'marth is dashing toward me, he will probably go for a rc dtilt'(this is all intuitive and not with words) and then you can do whatever you want in the time after that, the other player being set on their counter to dtilt until they realize u didnt do it.
i also think that the time it takes them to realize that you didn't do what they expected is longer than a regular reaction time, im not sure why though.
what do think about this? does something like this exist?
i would also appreciate other ppls opinions on this

I think the (most likely) reason they'd expect RC Dtilt would be because they've associated that threat with you running in, right? In which case the best way to trip up their reactions (which would be because their expectations were subverted) would be to go through the same or at least a very similar movement pattern (you could also add similar movement tempos or timings at which you move in), and as they position to beat the Dtilt, you do something else (which compliments Dtilt by beating the common responses to it). I think this is one of the reasons why simple movement sequences are very powerful, because they clearly threaten certain things and you can use those threats to manipulate the opponent into covering certain options when your intention is actually quite different. That's my current understanding, anyway.

Dr Peepee what do you think of Zain's shield laser > Nair OoS against Falco? It's just as fast as take laser Jab and knocks Falco down rather than putting him next to you for a mixup, but it also seems significantly more telegraphed because you only have so many options from shield laser versus take laser (also no dash back), and apart from that it's far more committal than Jab as well. But if you do think it's okay, when do you think it's appropriate?

Under what circumstances do you think Marth can cover Fox defensive FH on reaction from Marth's dash in at TR? I can cover an aggressive FH by repositioning outside the range with something like SH back mid-late Fair, but if Fox just wants to get away I feel like I have to super hard read it (which never feels worth it, except kinda at high percents because I get an edgeguard position). Is it actually a matter of abusing him running away to take a better position?

https://youtu.be/JNwfcwNDrMY?t=362 in this situation where Fox just FHs at you over and over again (but you're well within FH aerial range), what do you think Marth should do? This looks really ugly, but I'm actually not sure what to against it myself because to me it feels like Fox has a lot of time to react to what Marth does during the arc of his FH?

 

[Another Player]

I do well using Marth as my secondary. He requires a high level of technical play to beat good players. I rely on Shiek more. Since I don't do high level play it doesn't matter as much imo.

 

[Dr Peepee]

https://youtu.be/XIErXHdqmdA?t=353
did you do that wd fsmash on reaction to his sh far away, knowing that he would want to empty land and move in because he saw that you both were so far away and you were just dash dancing in place?
also would you say that wd fsmash is itself unreactable or that you were helped by the fact that a wd harder to see out of a DD, or that it worked because m2k anticipated you to stay waiting in place there?

i want to understand more of the way reactions and reads work together, and i have a theory that there is some sort of 'reaction shadow' after a reaction point of the opponent where they confirm what you are doing and sort of go by their best guess e.g. 'marth is dashing toward me, he will probably go for a rc dtilt'(this is all intuitive and not with words) and then you can do whatever you want in the time after that, the other player being set on their counter to dtilt until they realize u didnt do it.
i also think that the time it takes them to realize that you didn't do what they expected is longer than a regular reaction time, im not sure why though.
what do think about this? does something like this exist?
i would also appreciate other ppls opinions on this

Yes I reacted to the SH. And WD itself is reactable, but it's a weird option because people often associate it with Dtilt so the Fsmash is often surprising. Moving suddenly after staying locked more with DD is also part of it as you said.

That is correct on all fronts in my view, though that shadow changes based on the person's mental state and what happened in game just beforehand among other things.

I think the (most likely) reason they'd expect RC Dtilt would be because they've associated that threat with you running in, right? In which case the best way to trip up their reactions (which would be because their expectations were subverted) would be to go through the same or at least a very similar movement pattern (you could also add similar movement tempos or timings at which you move in), and as they position to beat the Dtilt, you do something else (which compliments Dtilt by beating the common responses to it). I think this is one of the reasons why simple movement sequences are very powerful, because they clearly threaten certain things and you can use those threats to manipulate the opponent into covering certain options when your intention is actually quite different. That's my current understanding, anyway.

Dr Peepee what do you think of Zain's shield laser > Nair OoS against Falco? It's just as fast as take laser Jab and knocks Falco down rather than putting him next to you for a mixup, but it also seems significantly more telegraphed because you only have so many options from shield laser versus take laser (also no dash back), and apart from that it's far more committal than Jab as well. But if you do think it's okay, when do you think it's appropriate?

Under what circumstances do you think Marth can cover Fox defensive FH on reaction from Marth's dash in at TR? I can cover an aggressive FH by repositioning outside the range with something like SH back mid-late Fair, but if Fox just wants to get away I feel like I have to super hard read it (which never feels worth it, except kinda at high percents because I get an edgeguard position). Is it actually a matter of abusing him running away to take a better position?

https://youtu.be/JNwfcwNDrMY?t=362 in this situation where Fox just FHs at you over and over again (but you're well within FH aerial range), what do you think Marth should do? This looks really ugly, but I'm actually not sure what to against it myself because to me it feels like Fox has a lot of time to react to what Marth does during the arc of his FH?

I'd only do something like shield laser Nair(though Fair may be better in some cases) if I missed a run up PS or I was cornered. It's mainly better if you're pretty sure they'd attack after laser, but then why not just CC(same stun) dash back grab the aerial then? If you thought they wouldn't attack, then why not just tank the laser and retain mobility? Feel free to explore it if you want to though.

If he comes in, he goes forward very far. If he stays in place he does not go far and in fact can drift back(not to mention DJ). If you stood closer you could maybe Utilt/Uair if he aggro FHs and sometimes have pressure on his defensive FH, but it's pretty tough to directly beat FH even there and Fox gets some mixups on you with aggressive FH. So firstly I'd learn what spacing you can react and hit him with Fair or whatever you want to at, and then I'd mess with getting into that position while discouraging aggro FH. However, I'd say that taking position vs defensive/in place FH is fine because it's a hard option to outright beat.

He should Fair, or set up to Fair so Fox doesn't get on the platform like that.

 

[maxono1]

I think the (most likely) reason they'd expect RC Dtilt would be because they've associated that threat with you running in, right? In which case the best way to trip up their reactions (which would be because their expectations were subverted) would be to go through the same or at least a very similar movement pattern (you could also add similar movement tempos or timings at which you move in), and as they position to beat the Dtilt, you do something else (which compliments Dtilt by beating the common responses to it). I think this is one of the reasons why simple movement sequences are very powerful, because they clearly threaten certain things and you can use those threats to manipulate the opponent into covering certain options when your intention is actually quite different. That's my current understanding, anyway.

that's not quite what i meant, yes i understand that they would expect rc dtilt and start reacting during the dash once i established it by doing it a couple of times in a certain situation like being far away and them waiting in dash dance under side plat for example.
what i was thinking of with better understanding was more of the mechanical side with how long they would stay "tripped up" after you subvert their expectations and if it could allow you to use slower moves and still make them unreactable or if you could train yourself to have multiple reaction points like in the situation with m2k if during the dash he could have put another reaction point to look out for a wd and then shield for example.
or another example would be as a fox to confirm the opponent dashing toward you and then doing a fh for example with the intention to dair them on the way down and then having another reaction point where you see whether the opponent has dashed back or not and if he has you drift back and empty land, and if he went in further you actually commit to the dair.
lol that's what i wanted to ask but i didn't put any of it in the first post.

I think this is one of the reasons why simple movement sequences are very powerful, because they clearly threaten certain things and you can use those threats to manipulate the opponent into covering certain options when your intention is actually quite different. That's my current understanding, anyway.

this summary allowed me to put some important pieces together. i knew now for a long time that you are supposed to make threats and whatnot and that it's supposed to be good, but i never quite understood the reason behind why it was good.
"when your intention is actually quite different" so when you want to land fair for example, you threaten a dtilt (assuming they like to beat dtilt with something that involves jumping or any option that gets beat by fair i guess).
until now i was kinda stuck on the threatening part, where i threatened dtilt or something and if they did something really punishable then i punished it after reacting to what they did, but i never got around to thinking that when i want to land x, i need to threaten the option that makes them want to do something that is vulnerable to x.
i really like your practical or more applicable thinking, it seems like you have a good sense of direction
thanks a bunch dude!!!

Yes I reacted to the SH. And WD itself is reactable, but it's a weird option because people often associate it with Dtilt so the Fsmash is often surprising. Moving suddenly after staying locked more with DD is also part of it as you said.

That is correct on all fronts in my view, though that shadow changes based on the person's mental state and what happened in game just beforehand among other things.

alright makes sense, thank you!
i will keep thinking about it.

 

[Ladder]

Hi PP,

What do you focus on when dealing with invincibilty in between stocks?
I noticed you tend to like to play a mixup in where the opponent has to guess whether you will dash through him or not. What are some ways to build off of this and how much does conditioning play a role here?
Lastly I was wondering if your gameplan depends on the matchup, some examples i could think of are that going to top plat could be better against peach or luigi and staying on a side platform against falco

 

[Dr Peepee]

You should focus on exploiting the character and also timing what you do so that you can either hit them or dodge them well by the time their invincibility ends. Dashing through is better vs not spacies because spacies Utilt a lot, but it's also not the best vs Sheik because Sheik often will do Fair in place or Ftilt. If you successfully "punish" these options by not engaging enough, then they are less likely to do them This is when you can run through and force mixups.

 

[Zorcey]

Do you make conscious note of opponent timings in various situations (e.g. how many refreshes before they get off the ledge, how many DD reps before they move in, how many lasers before they move or attack, stuff like that) or is it mostly intuitive for you now?
Timings are something I’ve been trying to pay attention to and mess around with influencing lately, but in some ways that makes it more complicated, because of course people will generally act more quickly if you move towards them versus keeping your distance. But would you say those timings are fairly consistent in their own context (like, do you think most people will make their play at a similar timing regardless of how you move in, and it’s the fact that you’re moving in that’s more important for timing)?

 

[Dr Peepee]

It's not that simple as you note, but there are some consistencies. People will do less reps if you make them act for example. When I think of timing, I do think of how many actions like dashes, but I may also think of how long they generally wait. I also know that my own timing and tempo can influence theirs. You may benefit from moving at their timing or tempo some if you wish to understand it better.

 

[Zorcey]

Yeah part of the complexity that confuses me now is the isolation of variables — it's hard to tell if they're primarily responding to my tempo, proximity, option threat, maybe all of these, etc. You've talked before about focusing on one variable at a time and messing with it, but it's not like I can actually remove the influences of other variables (even waiting is doing something, after all), so it takes a long time to figure out what I need to change (or keep doing) to make the opponent move when I want. But I'm not sure if I'm overcomplicating it for myself or not.

When you say "how long they generally wait" are you referring to something specific or are you saying you can generalize wait time (i.e. if they wait longer than most people in one position they're more likely to wait longer than most in another)?

I'm not sure I understand the benefit of moving at their timing or tempo. What should I be looking for when doing this?

 

[Dr Peepee]

Timing is a really complicated variable. I'd honestly recommending messing with other things first so you can then bring that influence in to inform you better.
It becomes kind of internalized knowledge, but people often have patterns you can pick up on. Spending more time waiting may give you that information, or you may find it through analysis, or it may be something better left to minute situations for now.

When you move as them, you think as them. Getting into their mindset can help identify what they're looking for, when they may want to move, and so on. The goal with this type of timing work is to play off of how they are, but you may first need to know how they are. Kind of like learning a new matchup, you can play the other character to learn them.

 

[Kotastic]

When juggling or sniping puff in the air that requires at least a FH length, do you predict where she would drift or is it possible to react? I feel like a decent amount of times I try to hit puff in the air I slightly whiff.

 

[Dr Peepee]

Yeah if you're FH'ing you need at least to somewhat predict her. Beyond FH spacing you will need greater prediction/conditioning.

 

[Zorcey]

I know you generally don't recommend grabbing most mid and low tiers, but are there any exceptional situations under which you would recommend grabbing the ICs? When I do it tends to play out really wonky and I either toss them into each other (which does get them really off balance I find) or I miss and one hits me while I'm in lag after throwing the other. I find Uthrowing Popo and Fthrowing Nana can both be quite helpful, but the situation is so unpredictable I wonder if it's worth it. Do you have any rules or recommendations for how to make the situation more consistent, or do you think I should mostly stop grabbing?

 

[Dr Peepee]

I don't know the percents, but throwing them into each other is okay. If they're more separate you can go for more throw through attacks or throws for separation. Because the throws still take a bit and Marth's moves are slow, it's often not worth it overall. Sparingly you can make that work.

 

[Kotastic]

Got some questions in the ditto

https://youtu.be/8JuXlsbhi04?t=193
These situations I'm not really sure what to do when my dtilt gets CC'd like that. When they are somewhat close to me where I can't reliably tipper dtilt, what are my best bets?

 

[Dr Peepee]

Grab, retreating Fair, dash/WD back, maybe do the Dtilt anyway and just CC Dtilt hits back there. The Fsmash and roll beforehand looked like the main culprits here.

 

[ItsJusOwl]

Hi PP

I want to begin overhauling my neutral game against sheik and my friend told me that dtilt is a good starting point. From thinking to myself, i believe the best mixups after dtilt if the sheik doesnt come in are dash back, wd back, dtilt again and short hop in place (or slightly drifting in or out) in order to beat the various mixups sheik can do.

I think dtilt and wd back beat sheik aggro/overshoots.

Dash back can hard punish a boost grab or dash attack that isnt overshot, while allowing for better spacing for the next neutral interaction afterward, should the sheik not commit.

Jump in place might beat a sheik's approaching fair because you can stuff her approach.

My plan is to learn the ratios by netplaying a wide variety of sheiks. I hope i can solidify the neutral game over time but i want to make sure these concepts are correct. However, i want to make sure the effort im going to do isn't misguided. Are these tools okay to focus on? Are there other tools im missing that i should include as a base for my sheik neutral? Do you think some tools are better than others? Thank you!

 

[Dr Peepee]

You wrote you wanted to punish her if she did not come in, and then proceeded to list ways to punish her coming in. Your thinking is a good starting point otherwise. I would add dash in so she feels pressured from the loss of space(and to make those common counters work more), or at least waits of varying lengths to confirm how she plays it.

 

[Zorcey]

What do you think about doing WD in SH Fair rather than dash in Fair in matchups where you use a lot of WD Dtilt like Fox/Peach/Sheik? I've been messing with it a bit and my early results are that because the threat of Dtilt is much more clearly communicated by WD than dash, the opponent is significantly more responsive to WD. What is the logic behind using entirely dash SH Fair anyway (which is what I always see)? Is it "only" the speed difference?

This also shades into how I notice that if I'm not overshooting much, people don't really care much when I dash in, but WD in gets a response relatively easily. Is there a way I can make people more responsive to my dash in without taking the risk of an overshoot all the time? What I do currently is mix dash in late Fair to give them something to punish if they run in hard with dash in rising Fair, but not everyone will run me down even when I give them the chance.

Could you explain the logic behind why Marth can't edgeguard Puff consistently? Is it because Marth has to hard commit to covering a particular height or option, or is it that there are some situations where Puff just gets back no matter what you do? The reason I ask is because I've developed a few edgeguards that are working well, but I still feel as though I often have to read what Puff does and strike preemptively because her aerial drift is so fast and Fair/Pound are massive.
However, when she's recovering very high I still don't know what to do, because hitting her with Uair/Fair just knocks her further up most of the time and while it's not a great position for her, she is still getting back. That's where that second possibility comes from, but I'm probably just bad.

 

[Dr Peepee]

I agree with WD in Fair being useful. People do respond to the sound cue as well as knowing you're clearly committing to sliding forward with WD, plus the likely associated Dtilt threat. The reason you would dash/run instead is because out of dash you can always cancel the dash with WD back or dash back or jump back/in place should the opponent try to intercept you or just approach before you began moving in. Dash becoming run can be its own mixup point.

If people aren't challenging your dash in, then just take your stage. You don't have to attack at all. Just set up again from that new position and let them hang themselves in the corner. On a stage like Yoshis, if they do this even when you're cornered now they're cornered. You can also just aim to hit where they are instead of where they might be, so you can run to the spot they are when you start moving and take more stage than otherwise and let them move back more. It's up to you.

Puff has many jumps, Marth doesn't have constant hitboxes(arc swings remember), and her aerial mobility is still great. She's also floaty and won't die just from getting a single hit since she still has good resources, which is unusual among good characters. Also if she does get over your head, especially on DL or longer stages, she has plenty of mixup space to grind you out on even if your setups are good. Many people can get the first hit, but shortly after that they can often be out of their bag of tricks/positional awareness.

When she is high, hit her out whenever possible. This is because she has to burn more resources to try and get over you again which makes things harder for you. If you do hit her up don't worry about it. That's good percent for killing and she probably also burned at least one jump in the process which helps you.

 

[Kotastic]

I know I should ideally go for tipper dtilts if I want to call them out on the ground, but sometiems it can't be helped to get the non-tipper hitbox.

If you knew that you were going to land the non-tipper hitbox spacing, would you choose to execute it and play around various CC timings opponents will certainly try to exploit, or would you favor other options like grab/fsmash or jump

 

[Dr Peepee]

It really depends. If they're prepared for the Dtilt but you have frame advantage, you may be able to grab. Fsmash if you have a bit more spacing or they appear to be tunneling on holding down or something. Grab and jump are likely better, with dash/WD back being some other options if they're kind of option selecting. It can really depend on character and percent and conditioning etc.

 

[Kotastic]

"If they're prepared for the Dtilt but you have frame advantage, you may be able to grab."

Do you mean grab after or before the dtilt?

 

[Dr Peepee]

Instead of Dtilt'ing.

 

[maxono1]

i came to the conclusion that i need to shelve the reaction shadow stuff for now, while it is fun to think about and cool sounding, i need to focus on the simple and embarrasing stuff if i actually want to improve.

when "weaving" or dash dancing in neutral, is only the front end of the dash dance supposed to be in the opponents TR? i feel so stupid for only realizing it now.

i also have some questions for the falco mu:
what is the preferred spacing for marth? is it like peach where you want to be able to wd forward and jab(instead of dtilt) to interrupt the laser(instead of turnip pull) but still stay out of the range of dash sh aerials?

when falco is cornered you said he gets bodied by marth because marth can position himself to cover laser on reaction with jab and he can dash away on reaction if they sh aerial in. i tested this out with 20xx and it seems possible to do this on reaction. i have one concern though, what if they just straight up fsmash me? i dont think i can react to that. i mean its still a strong position if they can only fsmash or start a dash dance in hope to make their attack out of the corner unreactable but it still kinda bothers me to leave myself open to fsmash.

 

[Dr Peepee]

Good, the simple stuff will take you farther.

You can have the second half be in TR, but then that obviously means you push in much closer with the front part. Only do that if you accept that risk.

The win position is different than vs Peach because Falco is not as bad of a character. Get close to Falco(maybe just out of his jab range) with no laser out. But if you just mean neutral spacing to commonly play, then around Falco's FF or non-FF SHFFL area range where he hits with around the tip of the move is good.

What you can do vs cornered Falco is just Fair him or Nair him and then you beat all of that stuff. You may only struggle with FH then but that is a separate topic.