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Daily Practice Routines

Gutei

Smash Cadet
Joined
Mar 22, 2015
Messages
62
Location
Western PA, USA
Hi all, total (at least I think so) scrub here.

Been away for some time, getting back into Melee so I can start attending things this summer. I have two months to practice until I'm done with my internship/college, then I can do things. Let's assume (unfortunately correctly) that I can't go to anything until then or play with another person.

What should I be practicing with the Hero King daily? This week, I've been focusing on getting my wavedashes/lands down to reflex, options out of wavedashing, l-cancels, grab combos - pretty simple stuff since it can be easily repeated. What should I do next? This is assuming I spend 30-60 mins daily (although last night I ended up with 2 hours on Marth and then 30 mins on Falco).

If you just posted what you do for practice, I'd be just happy, too. Thanks!
 

Icyo

Smash Ace
Joined
Jun 6, 2008
Messages
661
Location
Seattle
Other than tech skill and chain grabs...there's really not much else you can do. Playing against other people is irreplaceable. What makes it impossible to go to tournaments? Or even play people? Even if you can only play for 1 or 2 hours a week with someone, it will be well worth it. You have to make time for it or else, no matter how much you practice, you really won't play against a human any better.
 
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King Koala

Smash Rookie
Joined
Mar 24, 2015
Messages
6
Location
Florida
I see you have lots of mains put down on your profile among different games. I don't know if you play all of the games regularly and if not this doesn't really matter but if you're serious about getting better with Marth it would probably be a good idea not to use anyone else or play other smash games. If you're not that serious about it then this advice doesn't apply but then why else would you be on smashboards.

Marth is a difficult character to learn and it's important to understand that his movement is arguably more important than the tech skill based things you're learning such as l cancelling and comboing. Learning to dashdance effectively, WD OOS, WD d-tilt, shield drop, and other movement based options or approaches are way more important than say, l cancelled fairs because Marth is a spacing character, and if you're unable to make the space, you'll basically be playing marth like he's a spacie. Of course that stuff is still important but you need to undertsnad where your priorities should lie. Hope this helped!
 
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Gutei

Smash Cadet
Joined
Mar 22, 2015
Messages
62
Location
Western PA, USA
What makes it impossible to go to tournaments?
I live about 1.5 hours away from the closest anything (farm way outside of Pittsburgh), and I am currently at an internship that requires me to be 100% occupied from 5 AM until 5 PM (including driving time), with a heck of a lot of work on the side. That's why I was surprised I got the 2.5 hours in last night.

And yeah, I know it's irreplaceable, unfortunately. I can only do so much.

see you have lots of mains put down on your profile among different games.
I mean, just because I have them there doesn't mean I play them. I probably haven't even started up my N64 for a year and a half other than to play Ocarina of Time. I played Brawl probably once in the past year. I play Sm4sh to relax occasionally, but I stopped playing it about a month ago.

If you're not that serious about it then this advice doesn't apply but then why else would you be on smashboards.
I mean... Yeah, I was looking for advice on how to get better, but I certainly have no ideas of being an actual competitive player lol. I came here for the community and to actually learn, since r/smashbros wasn't very educational... At least, not in the right way I was looking for. Plus I can connect better with the "locals" here. Just letting you know that that bit came off a bit harsh.

Thank you for the advice, though. I've been seeing a lot of "movement is king" on him, so that's my biggest focus rn.
 

Nicholas1024

Smash Lord
Joined
Mar 14, 2009
Messages
1,075
While playing against other people is difficult to replace, there are some things you can practice solo.

Start with movement. Simply spend time dashdancing around the stage, making sure that you can adjust the length on the fly as necessary. When you can dashdance from one side of the stage to the other without screwing up, you're probably good.

The next thing you want to do is practice wavedashes. In order to check that your wavedash is frame perfect, roll to the ledge and try to wavedash onto it. If you make it to the ledge, that was a good wavedash, a jump means you're airdodging too early, and a SD means you're airdodging too late. And if you fall off the stage but NOT in freefall, that means you were holding down longer than you need to. (As a side note, don't bother trying to practice this particular trick on Yoshi's, the stage slant means it's impossible with a normal angle.)

It's also good to practice the dashdance and wavedash in combination. Practice getting onto the ledge as fast as possible from various points on stage. Practice using your wavedash to reset the dashdance, or alternating dashes and wavedashes to move across the stage as quickly as possible. Make sure that your wavelands are good, and take care to practice it on different stages (The timing on Yoshi's, battlefield, FoD, and Dreamland are all different.)

Also, make sure you know the spacings where you can down tilt out of your dash and the timing on jump canceling grabs if that's not mastered already. While we're talking about basic stuff, make sure your L-cancels are clean.

If you're looking for more technical things, you can also practice shield dropping and pivoting. They're difficult and rather situational, but also extremely useful when they do come up. (For instance, having a 50-50 kill setup on Puff out of a throw is amazing.) And as long as I'm talking about PewPewUniversity stuff, there's also shield stops and no impact landings you can work on. (Look up his videos on youtube if you don't know what I'm talking about, he explains it better than I can.)

There's also edgeplay you can work on. Practice the hax dash ledge stall; even if you can't get it frame perfect (which makes it invincible), it's still an important mixup. Make sure you can fair at the ledge and regrab, fair/nair as far onstage as possible, waveland right on the edge, or wavedash as far forwards as possible to run past the opponent.

After that, I'd consider practicing combos on a level 1 or level 4 CPU, as they have different DI's. Do NOT practice against level 9's, they just give you bad habits. You can use this to get a feel for some of Marth's kill setups, like how at various percents up tilt can lead into dair, tipper forwards smash or a ken combo if they DI behind you. I'd also recommend you practice platform chasing with up tilt and up airs, though keep in mind that the AI doesn't tech, so you want to hit them when they bounce on the platform, not when they do their getup after missing the tech. On that note, make sure you know the spacing to tipper forwards smash through platforms on yoshi's, battlefield, and stadium.

As I think someone mentioned above, you can practice the chaingrab on CPU's. In particular, you want to get used to doing the dashdance regrab at 21% on no-DI, as that's the hardest part to perform consistently.

Don't bother trying to edgeguard CPU's, they don't recover at all like a human player would, so it's not useful practice.

A couple other things you can do are learning how to short hop double fair, and how to waveland (on the main stage, not platforms) out of an empty jump. There's also run off fastfall forwards air, which is a pretty useful edgeguarding trick in some matchups (though if you miss it, they grab the ledge and you die.)

Finally, if you have the 20XX hackpack, you can use that to practice tech chasing out of forwards throw and down throw.

That's just about everything I can think of for solo practicing. Most of it really comes down to making your movement as smooth as possible in all situations, though I do recommend practicing combos on occasion as well.
 

Gutei

Smash Cadet
Joined
Mar 22, 2015
Messages
62
Location
Western PA, USA
Thanks for the info. I know PPU was recommended before, so I'll definitely take a look while I'm at this conference this weekend.

Yeah... Wavedashing from the ledge is probably the thing I have the most trouble with right now, since I never did it before. Lots of practice on that one.
 

Blackavar

Smash Cadet
Joined
Dec 12, 2014
Messages
36
You can practice lots of stuff, unless you're already really good you probably don't have all of your execution down pat.

1. Movement including wave dash out of shield, Hax dash, shield stops, wavelands onto platforms and the stage at varying lengths, dash dance and consistent wave dash in every direction, cactuar dashes and probably even more. Unless you have been playing for years competitively your movement probably needs work.

2. Sweet spotting your up b recovery every time on every legal stage.

3. Fast, consistent shield drops and acting out of shield drops.

4. Chain grabs on fast fallers.

5. Incrementally spaced wave dash downtilts and running downtilts

6. Pivots in general

7. Perfect shffl's every time.
 
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