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Dealing with Link

AndrewAnderson423

Smash Rookie
Joined
Jan 20, 2017
Messages
5
New to the forums,

I recently picked up PM about a month ago. I played alot of melee years ago. Trying to get back into the swing of things, working on my tech skill etc. I mainly play Falcon, Ganon and Shiek/Zelda
It may sound completely stupid to some but how do you deal with Links Up-B out of shield? I play with my co-worker during breaks and cannot seem to find a good way to deal with Up-B out of shield when im pressuring it. I usually beat him because of how much he abuses it but its just frustrating having to constantly wait for it.

I would appreciate any tips on falcon movement as well. Im working on being unpredictable but that kind of goes hand in hand with being able to waveland/dash consistently and I havent nailed that home yet.

thank you,
Andrew
 

Thor

Smash Champion
Joined
Sep 26, 2013
Messages
2,009
Location
UIUC [school year]. MN [summer]
New to the forums,

I recently picked up PM about a month ago. I played alot of melee years ago. Trying to get back into the swing of things, working on my tech skill etc. I mainly play Falcon, Ganon and Shiek/Zelda
It may sound completely stupid to some but how do you deal with Links Up-B out of shield? I play with my co-worker during breaks and cannot seem to find a good way to deal with Up-B out of shield when im pressuring it. I usually beat him because of how much he abuses it but its just frustrating having to constantly wait for it.

I would appreciate any tips on falcon movement as well. Im working on being unpredictable but that kind of goes hand in hand with being able to waveland/dash consistently and I havent nailed that home yet.

thank you,
Andrew
First, Link's up+b out of shield is frame 9 or worse [it's frame 8 grounded, and needs to be jump-cancelled to be done out of shield, so it is frame 9 or worse, depending on how quick they are with the jump cancel].

Second, Link's spin attack hits once. If it his your shield or you, the move has no hitbox for the remainder of the move [it can hit other players in FFA/teams, but never the same person twice].

If you are trying to space around it, that might be theoretically possible with low-to-the-ground L-cancelled aerials and quick dashes (Falcon is super fast), but it's far better to simply cross up his shield and hit the aerial low to the ground [and L-cancel] so that you can shield and he will be unable to punish with up+b.

A low enough sweetspot knee on block, combined with Captain Falcon's frame 7 grab, means you can also just knee -> grab on Link's shield before up+B comes out.

If you can bait the up+b and block it, you can do jump Falcon Punch OoS to punish up+b on block [yes it's that laggy, although dropping shield and Falcon Punching is too slow] (you will do Falcon Punch, and seemingly land on the sword while it's spinning, but again, the hitbox has already been deactivated). I can assure you this will either land you a plethora of Falcon Punches or dissuade him from liberal up+b usage (or maybe both). You could also of course just knee, stomp, or grab [even drop shield dash grab is plenty fast], but that means you're not Falcon Punching him.

Lastly, you can also [at low to mid percents] deliberately get hit by an up+b and hold down and press shield. This will cause you to amsah tech the spin attack, and you can then go knee or stomp him while he's still spinning around. I've been punished I think at 80% for landing a spin attack against someone who does this, so rest assured it will work at 30 or 40% (and it may work well past 80%, but again, I rarely if ever see it). You can also sometimes just directly CC the up+b and punish that way as well (with a true CC and not ASDI down this should work until at least 40%).
 

AndrewAnderson423

Smash Rookie
Joined
Jan 20, 2017
Messages
5
First, Link's up+b out of shield is frame 9 or worse [it's frame 8 grounded, and needs to be jump-cancelled to be done out of shield, so it is frame 9 or worse, depending on how quick they are with the jump cancel].

Second, Link's spin attack hits once. If it his your shield or you, the move has no hitbox for the remainder of the move [it can hit other players in FFA/teams, but never the same person twice].

If you are trying to space around it, that might be theoretically possible with low-to-the-ground L-cancelled aerials and quick dashes (Falcon is super fast), but it's far better to simply cross up his shield and hit the aerial low to the ground [and L-cancel] so that you can shield and he will be unable to punish with up+b.

A low enough sweetspot knee on block, combined with Captain Falcon's frame 7 grab, means you can also just knee -> grab on Link's shield before up+B comes out.

If you can bait the up+b and block it, you can do jump Falcon Punch OoS to punish up+b on block [yes it's that laggy, although dropping shield and Falcon Punching is too slow] (you will do Falcon Punch, and seemingly land on the sword while it's spinning, but again, the hitbox has already been deactivated). I can assure you this will either land you a plethora of Falcon Punches or dissuade him from liberal up+b usage (or maybe both). You could also of course just knee, stomp, or grab [even drop shield dash grab is plenty fast], but that means you're not Falcon Punching him.

Lastly, you can also [at low to mid percents] deliberately get hit by an up+b and hold down and press shield. This will cause you to amsah tech the spin attack, and you can then go knee or stomp him while he's still spinning around. I've been punished I think at 80% for landing a spin attack against someone who does this, so rest assured it will work at 30 or 40% (and it may work well past 80%, but again, I rarely if ever see it). You can also sometimes just directly CC the up+b and punish that way as well (with a true CC and not ASDI down this should work until at least 40%).

thanks for the thorough explanation, ive pretty much got the person im playing against handled now because of his over abuse and predictability but your points will greatly help me when I play other links i havent learned yet.
I could probably be more efficient but ive mostly started shield grabbing the spin or short hop knee. I realized it only had the one hitbox a few days ago.

thanks again.
 

bboss

Smash Journeyman
Joined
Aug 29, 2016
Messages
478
Location
New Brunswick, Canada
New to the forums,

I recently picked up PM about a month ago. I played alot of melee years ago. Trying to get back into the swing of things, working on my tech skill etc. I mainly play Falcon, Ganon and Shiek/Zelda
It may sound completely stupid to some but how do you deal with Links Up-B out of shield? I play with my co-worker during breaks and cannot seem to find a good way to deal with Up-B out of shield when im pressuring it. I usually beat him because of how much he abuses it but its just frustrating having to constantly wait for it.

I would appreciate any tips on falcon movement as well. Im working on being unpredictable but that kind of goes hand in hand with being able to waveland/dash consistently and I havent nailed that home yet.

thank you,
Andrew
It seems like you have this figured out, but I have some advice, also:

1. Shields so that there's onehitbox, then raptor boost and up air.
2. Wait for the animation to end so you can land a jump canceled grab on him.

As for falcon's movement, his dash dance is amazing. Use this a lot. Wave land is useful, and also try to learn to moonwalk to add another element of unpredictability to your game. It took me a while, but once I got it down, it was a priceless technique that I still use to this day.
 
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