Dealing with Guerilla Warfare

[Deadmoo53]

So I was playing with a friend of mine a few weeks back and he pointed out that a lot of our friends will employ what we have now dubbed to be guerilla warfare tactics when they play pm. For the most part they will employ a sort of kiting tactic where they'll get as far away from their opponent as possible and then wait for the right moment to counter-attack or simply poke every once in a while and hope their opponent will mess up so they can get a good combo going.

I find it to be an incredibly aggravating strategy which I ( a Ganon main) have immense trouble dealing with. I'm the kind of guy that always wants to initiate, so I can't just sit there and wait for them to make a move. Sure I can wait a moment of two, but longer than that and I just get too impatient and go in. Sometimes that strategy will work out but more often than not it won't when I'm playing these "guerilla warfare" type players.

I was just wondering if anybody had any tips for dealing with this type of play style with Ganondorf or with any character in general, really. How to engage them more safely, ways to maybe draw them out, etc.

 

[Electric Tuba]

This is indeed super annoying, especially for Ganon to deal with.

Your best bet in these situations (especially against characters who have a projectile to throw from far away) is to just move toward them slowly and eventually get them cornered on one side of the stage. Running in and dash attacking is not such a good idea (is a terrible idea), but moving toward them with autocanceled nairs or just walking toward them is not a bad idea. You could also consider approaching with float, since you can always jump back out if they come at you harder than you expect. As long as it's not predictable, you should be fine.
It's really hard to be patient and just move toward them slowly, but always keep in mind that a random attack to make them do something will usually end up with you being hurt pretty badly or a lost stock.

If you know they're looking for an opportunity to punish you, you can try whiffing an attack (say, fair) just out of their punish range to bait them into running at you to attack. Then you can punish somehow or at least land a hit on them since you know they're coming at you. The most important part of this is the right spacing, too close and you get killed by fox's up smash or something, too far you can't punish their (attempted) punish.

Keep in mind that as Ganon, three or four stray whiff punishes will put almost every character into kill percent, so you don't need very many.


tl;dr: it sucks, but just be patient and don't do unsafe stuff. Inevitability is the name of the game, since four hits can kill from G-man.

Autocanceled nair>jab or whatever else is your best friend here. Sorry for the block of text, but I hope some of it's helpful. We've all got to deal with this kind of character/player.

 

[HiroProtagonist]

Ganon is a punish-oriented character with weak approach options, but as Electric said you can gain stage control if your opponents are just content to sit there and do nothing. Another great baiting option is dash forward -> wavedash back. With Ganon's improved collision detection this'll be even better.

 

[CORY]

get used to good spacing and baiting. like tuba said, try to push them back towards the side, and then mix in surprise wavelands into them (either with or without a sh-bair/uair first) with just basic spacing baits (the ac-nairs into followups he was talking about).

 

[Yanoss1313]

So I was playing with a friend of mine a few weeks back and he pointed out that a lot of our friends will employ what we have now dubbed to be guerilla warfare tactics when they play pm. For the most part they will employ a sort of kiting tactic where they'll get as far away from their opponent as possible and then wait for the right moment to counter-attack or simply poke every once in a while and hope their opponent will mess up so they can get a good combo going.

I find it to be an incredibly aggravating strategy which I ( a Ganon main) have immense trouble dealing with. I'm the kind of guy that always wants to initiate, so I can't just sit there and wait for them to make a move. Sure I can wait a moment of two, but longer than that and I just get too impatient and go in. Sometimes that strategy will work out but more often than not it won't when I'm playing these "guerilla warfare" type players.

I was just wondering if anybody had any tips for dealing with this type of play style with Ganondorf or with any character in general, really. How to engage them more safely, ways to maybe draw them out, etc.

you can try to bait a bad punish out of them by going in for a fake initiation.

Like empty jump into shield>grab or jump in at them but then double jump with a retreating fast fall Fair.
Try to get in their heads.

 

[teluoborg]

What you call guerilla warfare is called "zoning" or "positioning". It's a concept that is common to all fighting games and is crucial to know about if you want to be good at the game. It's especially important in smash compared to regular fighters because positioning is the only way to kill (you won't die if you don't touch the blastzones).

I won't cover it completely but here's the gist of it :
-Every character has options. Mobility, poking, punishing, recovering, etc etc.
-Comparing your options to your opponent's in a matchup gives you zones. There are zones where you have the upper hand on your opponent (comfort zones), zones where he has the advantage (danger zones) and zones that are neither bad or good (neutral zones).
-So in the end you want to position yourself in places where you can limit your opponent's options without being limited yourself.

In the current situation (Ganon vs camper) you can broadly assume that your opponent wants to be far away from you so that he can spam without being punched.
Now YOU want to position yourself close enough to be able to punish projectile abuse while still being far enough to be able to react to your opponent's actions. If you get to close you won't be able to react and you'll just east whatever they throw out.

TL;DR : don't rush in, just stay in a position close enough where their options are limited and try to bait them out of their camping state. If you want more precise advice then specify which characters you are fighting.

 

[Yanoss1313]

What you call guerilla warfare is called "zoning" or "positioning". It's a concept that is common to all fighting games and is crucial to know about if you want to be good at the game. It's especially important in smash compared to regular fighters because positioning is the only way to kill (you won't die if you don't touch the blastzones).

I won't cover it completely but here's the gist of it :
-Every character has options. Mobility, poking, punishing, recovering, etc etc.
-Comparing your options to your opponent's in a matchup gives you zones. There are zones where you have the upper hand on your opponent (comfort zones), zones where he has the advantage (danger zones) and zones that are neither bad or good (neutral zones).
-So in the end you want to position yourself in places where you can limit your opponent's options without being limited yourself.

In the current situation (Ganon vs camper) you can broadly assume that your opponent wants to be far away from you so that he can spam without being punched.
Now YOU want to position yourself close enough to be able to punish projectile abuse while still being far enough to be able to react to your opponent's actions. If you get to close you won't be able to react and you'll just east whatever they throw out.

TL;DR : don't rush in, just stay in a position close enough where their options are limited and try to bait them out of their camping state. If you want more precise advice then specify which characters you are fighting.

That's sort of what I was trying to say, though i'm not quite so eloquent. lol

 

[teluoborg]

Yeah zoning is the most important thing people never talk about, mainly because it's very theoretic and mostly done out of instinct and experience.

 

[Chief Hotsuin]

Ah, reading past threads. History's a beautiful thing. l should take note of a thing or two.