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Sklers guide seems to be more or less lost and even if it will be found it probably can be expanded and mordenized a bit, so maybe it is time to make a new Link guide. The task is huge and I don't think anyone actually have the knowledge nor the time to make it all themselves. Thus I suggest we do it as a collab project, where everyone can help. This means anyone can make a paragraph, a suggestion, spell check, fix the wording so it's easy to understand, the structure, add jokes, pictures and so on. Even if you know nothing you can help by asking questions!
I also added a credits section so once it's done everyone who did their part can get credit. Added a notable Links section too since I feel it's important for players who just picked up Link to learn about players like The Germ, Aniki, Skler, ect.
Thanks. I've never actually done that bomb jump. I didn't know you needed your jump for it. I will keep that in mind for next time I want to try it
I feel like there should be some sort of section for neutral game/overarching strategy/stage control. Otherwise, it will probably be all broken up into bits in other sections. That might be a good idea to do it like that anyway, but maybe have a section header for it so it is more obviously connected.
These 5 seem to be where this would be broken up, so maybe have those as key points for how to control a match (with something nice as a title). Maybe some points could be made above all the sections as well to give a brief description of Link's main goals in the neutral game.
Spacing
Dodging
Projectiles
Counter Attacks
Escapes
I made that table of contents and I can't say I thought day and night to create it. It certainly isn't addressing everything of Link so if something is missing add it. May I assume that your suggestion is a more general paragraph on the strategy of how to play Link?
I made that table of contents and I can't say I thought day and night to create it. It certainly isn't addressing everything of Link so if something is missing add it. May I assume that your suggestion is a more general paragraph on the strategy of how to play Link?
Ya, I didn't think you did. I was just pointing it out and figured I'd see what everyone thinks. I am bad at making titles And yes, I think there should be a paragraph like that, and then all the parts of it could be broken down in the subsections. I will try to add some more at some point today.
Just so it's consistent, we should figure out how we want to refer to characters in the game. What I mean by this are these main interchangeable terms:
'you' vs 'Link' - You can use your boomerang to.... vs Link can use his boomerang to....
'the opponent' vs 'the other character' - For referring to the enemy in the game.
To my taste that is a matter of context. In a context of mindgames I'd prefer "you" and "the opponent"(e.g. "you" can trick "your opponent" to shield grab when you full jump nair and then double jump after it hits their shield(urgh, very long description of a standard mindgame I use(yes a paranthesis inside a paranthesis(I do what I want))), whereas in a context of what the character is capable of I'd prefer "Link" and "other character"(e.g. Link can throw his rang out to cover Falco's Phantasm when he edgeguards him).
Writing a whole ton of stuff. Feedback would be nice. Add/change whatever you want.
EDIT:
I can't do it right now, but I'd like to get lots of pictures in there to break up the text a bit, but also to help depict what I am saying. If anyone has some nice pictures for that, feel free to add them where you see fit. Videos are also great.
Though I agree with that I think that it might be a project of its' own, even bigger than this guide. But it certainly should be done. Start it if you feel like you have a certain matchup you have specific questions about or some nice knowledge.
Ya, maybe brief descriptions of the matchups against top 8 or something with things like general strategy, stage selection, combos, etc. Nothing too in-depth because that would take so much space.
EDIT:
Read some of the comments (I think they are from you Lootic). I am Derek btw. Hopefully my responses make sense. I like being able to discuss Link with people because no one plays him. It's one of the main reasons I wanted to help with this guide :D
A couple of my friends got dolphin installed so I can request pictures from them as well as some frame data. I will try to get some good pictures into the guide with their help :D I want to add them everywhere to liven up the guide. I think it can help explain a lot of things better and possibly save words, and in either case, it will make the guide look more pretty.
I went to a tournament in Montreal, Quebec, Canada called Polybash. M2K was there! I got 1 stock off his Shiek in pools lol. I shall cherish that 1 kill :D I am very sad to say that I got no stream time, so there is still no good, recent footage of me online. I made top 10 in brackets! (tied in 9th to be accurate)
I think it might be time to start control reading the guide. It's not finished but the things lacking are not obvious. Go through it and ask questions with comments, ask about anything, like the structure, the content, why there are so few jokes, what the meaning of life is. I.e. ask about everything!
Anyone else still looking at the guide? I hadn't touched it in a while. I added a little bit, but not much. I still want to add pictures to it, but I haven't gotten around to it.
I added the second hit of f-smash (the weaker one after the first one) and the spike of the d-tilt (actually, is it a spike or a meteor smash?), also mentioned that d-tilt was mostly situational
I added the second hit of f-smash (the weaker one after the first one) and the spike of the d-tilt (actually, is it a spike or a meteor smash?), also mentioned that d-tilt was mostly situational
And I thought the second hit of f-smash was stronger lol.
On another note, I was looking through the frame data thread and found out that Link's up-b is his second fastest move from a standing position (jab being 2 frames faster). I think that also makes it the fastest move possible out of shield, so keep that in mind. If you can kill your opponent with it and want to do something out of shield that you think will hit, you can just up-b them.
I edited the "Bombs" sub-section under the "Strategy" -> "Projectiles" section. Just fixed up some wording, re-arranged sentences, and added some additional info to make what was there more clear.
So after some testing at home, it looks like Link's dair works similar to his nair in that it is stronger at the start of the attack. It does 22 damage at the start and 19 after some point (not sure the exact frame it switched). That's as much damage as Ganon's stomp lol.
Numbered the "Table of Contents" and centred the titles of each section, to make it easier visually to find a specific section.
Added introductory descriptions of what each move does for most moves in the "Move Analysis" section.
Included some comments on frame lag and hitbox placements for some moves to go along with the strategies and usage descriptions that everyone contributed. (It would be great if everyone here could review what I added to double-check the info is right).
Reworded and edited more information to make it easier to read and understand to the best of my ability. I'm studying English in University, but keep in mind that my English is Canadian so it might not make sense or look right to everyone here.
I've been lurking SmashBoards for many years but this is my first time posting on the Melee Link board. Anyways, what brought me here was this collaborative guide you guys got going, and I wanted to contribute. The fact that there's still Link mains active here is pretty awesome. Hopefully I'll stick around...
For now, these are the edits I made:
I made edits to the attack abbreviations to make the document more consistent (ex. "fsmash" -> "F-Smash"). I know that they are used interchangeably but I felt that they should be consistent with the wording on the Table of Contents. Plus, the capital letters help them stick out from the rest of the body text. Also, the word "fair" itself appears in the document so I thought "F-Air" should probably be differentiated.
I also added the official names of Link's moves.
If I come up with any real content, I'll post it here. But it seems like you all got mostly everything covered.
Big Formatting Update: Added an Interactive Table of Contents.
I did some reading of Google Doc's formatting documentation and found out how to auto-generate a nice and neat Table of Contents. All I had to do was go under "Insert" and choose "Table of Contents." It wasn't as easy as it sounds to make the Table of Contents work though. You need to follow some specific formatting rules (f***ing Google) to make everything appear organized and tidy.
I think it's worth having it though. The best thing about the Table of Contents is that it can auto-update itself to show the contents in the order they appear in the guide. This means no more topics, sections and sub-sections are missed. The Table of Contents also provides a direct Link (no pun intended) to every section too, overall improves navigation, viewing, and editing of the guide. Anyways, let me know what you think.
Here are some instructions I wrote and I included some images with the instructions, just toggle with the spoiler tag:
Using the Table of Contents
Under the "View Mode" drop-down menu, select "Viewing" (shown below).
With your cursor, select the section you want to read. For example, I want to read about the Boomerang:
Now just click on it and it will take you there.
If you want to do some editing, make sure you change to "Editing" view first.
Updating the Table of Contents
Every time you add a new section or sub-section, the Table of Contents can be automatically updated when you want.
Make sure you're in "Editing" view, like shown previously
Click the Refresh button, shown below:
The only problem right now that I haven't figured out how to fix is that, after updating, the entire table of contents turns into blue Links (again, no pun intended), so the entire text Table of Contents needs to be re-done again to look nice. Other than the colour of the text though, everything is generated automatically. Even the content is nicely spaced and tabbed so that it's organized and easy to find the sub-sections.
There are a few simple formatting and editing rules you need to follow when editing if you want to keep this Link guide easy to navigate and view. I've provided some instructions with images in this post:
Adding a New Topic
If you're adding a new Topic (major part of the guide), use the following formatting:
Write the title and select the title
Centre the title using the centre button
Under the "text style" dropdown menu, select Heading 1 as shown below:
Adding a Section to a Topic (a "Sub-Topic"):
If you're writing along but you think that you need to go more in depth in one of the topics, then you're adding a sub-topic. To keep the Table of Contents organized, use the following format:
Type the title of the sub-topic, then select the title
Under the "text style" dropdown menu, select Heading 2 as shown below:
If you need to add even more specific information under a sub-topic (a sub-topic within a sub-topic), then just use Heading 3. You can also Tab -> the paragraph like shown below if you want, but it's not necessary.
I used the "Strategies" section as an example. You get the idea with headings.
Google Docs can go as far as 4 Heading levels: personally, I can't really imagine any of the sections in this guide going more in depth than 3 levels, so if you find that you're doing that you probably should think about organizing your information or look at other sections of the guide where you can separate it.
For Every Other Paragraph:
For all other paragraphs with content, use the Normal Text style:
Editing and Adding Percentages and Usage:
This applies to the Moveset Analysis section of the guide, and it's to avoid the "Percentages" and "Usage" information from showing up on the Table of Contents when updated:
Create a new paragraph after the name of the move. Don't hold shift when you do, just hit Enter (Windows) or return (Mac)once only.
Type the Percentage information, then hit shift + enter / return to create a break line and type the Usage information. The break line basically tells Google Docs to put the info on separate lines, but attach the same formatting style to both.
Under the "text style" dropdown menu, select Subtitle as shown below:
Note that I used different font and size for Percentages and Usage just to make it look pretty, but this is isn't necessary. For the sake of consistency, if you want to use the same as me:
For "Percentages," I used Font: Trebuchet MS, Size: 13
For "Usage," I used Font: Arial, Size: 11
You can colour it, organize it, etc. however you like, but just make sure you use the Subtitle style for the percentages/usage and NOT any of the "Headings" styles. If you use a Heading, the Percentages and Usage will appear in the Table of Contents and it will look all messed up when it's updated, a lot of unnecessary and annoying editing needs to be done to make it look nice again.
I hope this makes navigating, editing, and reading this guide a lot easier. Let me know what you think. Cheers!
Added some more content, strategy and move information on D-air and down-B (bombs).
I'm looking into adding some direct links at the end of each move description in the "Move Analysis" sections. These links would go directly to other parts of the guide that mention strategy and other relevant data about the move that the reader should know.
I've also been working on getting some gifs of some of the simple strategies (bomb plant, etc). I haven't uploaded any of them yet to the guide though, as they take up a lot of space and a while to load too. I'm thinking maybe of uploading these images to something like imgur.com, providing a link to a smashboards thread that already exists, or some videos if they exist on these strategies.
I went to my first tournament the other day and this guide really helped me out (well, the parts I was skilled enough to utilise anyway)! Thanks to everyone who contributed.
I'm pretty happy with the way this guide is going.
I made some more edits to the move analysis section (I addressed your comments Lootic) and I once again re-worded more paragraphs and phrases. Again, keep in mind I'm from Canada: I may have an English degree, but that doesn't mean the way I wrote it is the best way to do so. If you have any suggestions, or think something could be described further or better, contribute away!
I think that it should be noted on uAir that there's a nice 'lower' hitbox on Link that's useful for all sorts of situations. You can fall off of platforms and fast-fall/L-cancel it on somebody's shield behind them getting similar pressure to nAir. My favorite use for this particular area of the move is jumping up to a platform such that Link barely passes over the platform, landing and L-cancelling the attack just as it comes out for a quick reset leading into uAir and other tools. Fall-through uAir also has the same capabilities.
And yes, I think there should be a paragraph like that, and then all the parts of it could be broken down in the subsections. I will try to add some more at some point today.
