Critique my vids!

[Sangoku]

Hello everyone,

Since @ -LzR- expressed the wish to improve, we kindly ask you guys to give him tips based on videos. I think the best thing would be to upload matches regularly with different matchups, but for now only 2 matches are up.

(By the way, if you want to critique my Yoshi as well, I'd be grateful, although I played terribly)

Squall (Yoshi) vs LzR (Fox) 1

Squall (Yoshi) vs LzR (Fox) 2

Thanks!

I'll start with a few comments:

- General advice: you should try to combo more vertically against heavies. Use uairs at low and mid percent and dtilt (and dtilt to short hop uair).

- I told you about your obvious rolls. Although there aren't many instances here, I found 2:00 in the first video and 0:30 in the second one.

- I also told you about your recovery: when you're close, you would always second jump and fair back on stage: 2:29, 2:46 of the first vid and 1:00, 2:08. These are all instances where I punished you for it, but didn't always follow up because I suck.

 

[Sedda]

Can't say anything about Yoshi. I don't know how that evil beast of doom works.

@ -LzR- , two BIG things that I noticed were:

-Lasers. You need more/better lasers. If you're not consistent with shdl yet, don't do it, but get good at shooting low single lasers just to scope a couple of approaches. Some of the lasers you shot were too high at times, but you still decided to go in with fairs and get punished (this is apparent in both videos, so Im not gonna point out any specific ones). Practice lower single lasers, and also don't always laser and go in right away. You can laser a couple of times and see how the other person reacts.

-Mispaced aerial approaches.. this kinda goes back to the lasers thing. Sometimes you commit 100% to fairs as if you were certain they were going to hit, and then get punished. Try different things. You can space fairs and nairs a bit better by placing yourself out of the opponents range with them (second video around 1:38) . You faired but didn't get TOO close (or else you wouldve gotten hit by that bair) and then uptilted a couple of times. Next time, you can do the same, but don't repeat the tilt. Sometimes I do that as a bait and people fall into the up/down tilt or jab and get comboed after, but maybe just fair-->jab/utilt/down tilt once, react to what happens next. Don't give yourself away by constantly going in like that. Approach more conservatively, if that makes any sense. Idk if you've played Melee, but Azen used to say you should camp against your opponent right up on their face =D

general advice:
-If you can't combo fluidly too well, don't sweat it. Practice every once in a while in practice mode, and eventually it'll start happening during matches. You'll be surprised of how many uairs you can squeeze in there against fast fallers. If you can't finish a combo, use an attack that will make them hit the ground to tech-chase

--Fox is fast enough to tech-chase on reaction, so maybe punish techs with grabs first, until you feel comfortable enough to punish with aerials into combos. Also learn how to cover more ground with lasers during tech-chasing. If you can read a tech away, you can laser and run up to them for a grab or an aerial. You're basically extending the range that fox can cover during the techchase

-more pivots. Learn how to pivot out of every aerial thing you do. ff drop from top platform into pivot grab/jab/ x tilts. Use that in combination with well spaced fairs or nairs for basic baits (fair-->pivot-->jab--> upsmash). LEARN HOW TO PIVOT WITHOUT FLICKING THE STICK (while keeping your thumb on the stick). If you can do that, pivot tilts will be EZ

 

[mixa]

In some community somewhere there's a custom of criticizing your own material as you post them and ask for criticism.

I find that interesting because it solves our non-problem of a high influx of lazy disengaged requests, but more importantly, and more pertinent to smashboards, I'd think, it forces the submitter to reflect and expose his ideas of what his conclusions on how to improve, and then have those ideas compared to the ones coming from the wise & elderly and other advice-givers.


I'm posting this because I really wanna contribute to threads like this, but can't think of anything to say regarding the actual footage.

 

[Herbert Von Karajan]

dont approach with dash attack with opponent at low percents

 

[-LzR-]

I wake up and see this. Amazing effort someone gone through for a random scrub from Finland, I appreciate it.

I don't use that much uair because I really suck at doing it without fullhopping or second jumping, but I believe 20 minutes in training mode will fix this. Didn't really even think about this, now you've made me aware.

In this game the ledge is not a nice place to be in so I tend to panic and want to get out of there ASAP and as fair has the longest range of Fox aerials I tend to do this. However I recently read that if let go of the ledge in this game you lose all of your invincibility immediately so jumping with fairs seems like a bad idea now. Tbh I have no clue what else I could do in this situation, could anyone help me out with this one?

Sedda good point about the fairs. I seem to like doing that way too much only to get punished 90% of the time. If I want to use fair and I'm not sure it's going to hits it's basically better to do a Fair in place or just retreat a bit? I'm still having a hard time clearing the every aerial is 100% safe because zcancel mindset.

If Fox can tech chase on reaction I sure can't. Are there some tricks to it for example dairing towards the opponent to cover get up and then running toward their roll on reaction?

I don't know what a pivot is in this game.

 

[Herbert Von Karajan]

Take a look at J-SNAKES edge game, the japanese end up on the ledge more often that peruvians do

 

[Sedda]

@ -LzR-

Yeah. Unlike in Melee, you don't retain invincibility when you jump off the ledge. Learn how to drop from the ledge and jump double laser onto the stage. You don't always have to let go of the ledge and do an aerial. Any of the regular options to get up from the ledge can be super useful at different instances. A lot of the time, people mispace around the edge horribly and you can clip them with a get up attack. Try out different things and you'll eventually see which option is better during different situations.

Fair in place or retreating is good, but you have to use your aerials to bait approaches from your opponent. Just throw a fair towards the other character, but stay out of the range unless you know it's going to hit. Fox falls fast enough and attacks fast enough that you can just put attacks out there and see how the other person reacts.

As far as techchasing goes, I'm not the best at it or anything, but Fox can cover a lot of ground on reaction. Against fast fallers, I like to cover the tech in place with the first hit of upair, but I prepare myself mentally to move left or right if they chose another option. Sometimes I go for dairs too if they're floaties, or revers bairs or whatever is not going to send them too far away (unless they're at high percent). Sometimes dash attack is the best to at least force them off the stage.
If they're by the ledge when theyre forced to tech and I'm like 1/3 of distance into the stage (does that make sense?), I'll just stand there and see what they do. If they get up, fox is fast enough to get in there and grab or do whatever else. Dash attack blah blah

A pivot is when you can turn around during the initial dash animation. That's what allows for dash dancing to exists, but you can dash back and pivot for different attacks. You can use it to bait attacks, to continue combos, general spacing I guess. Essential for the neutral in ssb64
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxmW1KkMDj8 2:47 isai pivot dtilts and starts a tent combo