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Q&A Doc General Discussion: Ask and ye shall receive ft. otg and Shroomed!

Mr.Lemon

Smash Journeyman
Joined
Mar 29, 2010
Messages
283
Location
Stoneham MA
Sooooooooo I think Doc's Up+B Cancel can beat FC b.air > d.smash on shield :O I tested this out and it's worked consistently. Someone should definitely check me on this, but I'm pretty sure it beats any FC aerial > anything that isn't jab or grab. I've been using it successfully against Peaches. If this is true then Peach won't get anything out of a FC if she is facing away from Doc (because her fastest option is d.smash in that situation).

Here's an example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1khPDRXzUYE&index=13&list=PLZV7WzjApoS1YdptxtBNF2XCjDJitZFJp#t=7m22s
 
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Zonak

Smash Cadet
Joined
Feb 9, 2014
Messages
65
Location
Slayerville, NJ
According to http://smashboards.com/threads/complete-peach-hitboxes-and-frame-data.287033/ her bair is +1 normally and +4 FC'd (assuming lowest possible bairs) and her dsmash comes out on frame 5 (and hits both in front and behind). So at a theory level, that leaves 1 frame til a dsmash could hit when you become actionable and up-b [cancel] is a 4 frame OoS option, you would get hit before you started the up-b.

However, I still think that this is definitely practical since people aren't likely to hit a move immediately upon becoming actionable. Definitely worth looking into more.
 

Spaghetti Sammy

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All I'm seeing recently is:
"Oh, Doc's recovery sucks"
"Mario has better combos than Doc"
"Doc basically can't defend a platform"

So whats so good about Doc then :L

Idunno

If I had to answer my own question, I'd say Doc is just all around a good and solid character.
No crippling weaknesses
But, nothing broken, or "OP" (such as Fox's Down-B hitsun of totally cool spiking bull****)
He has good combos.
While proving difficult to be combo'd.
His projectile game is pretty good,
And he has loads of untapped potential.
Now that I think about it, he's one of the only "Top 10" that doesn't have some kind of... mmhmm... gimmick.
Such as Falco's shine, ICs grab shenanigans, Peach's RNG will-I-finally-get-a-stitch-face turnips, and even Captain Falcon's overhyped memes (seriously guys,stomp into knee isn't that hard, I did it and I don't even have Falcon unlocked)
Doc just seems to be good purely because he's just... good. Without the help of... gimmicks.
Idunno, maybe I'm right. What do you guys think?

I really hope I won't be torn limb from limb because I referred to the S tier's niches as gimmicks and the part where I said Falcon was overhyped sometimes.
 

DeepDish

Smash Apprentice
Joined
Aug 12, 2014
Messages
84
Location
Southern Ontario, Canada
All I'm seeing recently is:
"Oh, Doc's recovery sucks"
"Mario has better combos than Doc"
"Doc basically can't defend a platform"

So whats so good about Doc then :L

Idunno

If I had to answer my own question, I'd say Doc is just all around a good and solid character.
No crippling weaknesses
But, nothing broken, or "OP" (such as Fox's Down-B hitsun of totally cool spiking bull****)
He has good combos.
While proving difficult to be combo'd.
His projectile game is pretty good,
And he has loads of untapped potential.
Now that I think about it, he's one of the only "Top 10" that doesn't have some kind of... mmhmm... gimmick.
Such as Falco's shine, ICs grab shenanigans, Peach's RNG will-I-finally-get-a-stitch-face turnips, and even Captain Falcon's overhyped memes (seriously guys,stomp into knee isn't that hard, I did it and I don't even have Falcon unlocked)
Doc just seems to be good purely because he's just... good. Without the help of... gimmicks.
Idunno, maybe I'm right. What do you guys think?

I really hope I won't be torn limb from limb because I referred to the S tier's niches as gimmicks and the part where I said Falcon was overhyped sometimes.
D-tilt to edgeguard. Cape edgeguard. Gimmicks.
 

1MachGO

Smash Ace
Joined
Mar 18, 2013
Messages
807
All I'm seeing recently is:
"Oh, Doc's recovery sucks"
"Mario has better combos than Doc"
"Doc basically can't defend a platform"

So whats so good about Doc then :L

Idunno

If I had to answer my own question, I'd say Doc is just all around a good and solid character.
No crippling weaknesses
But, nothing broken, or "OP" (such as Fox's Down-B hitsun of totally cool spiking bull****)
He has good combos.
While proving difficult to be combo'd.
His projectile game is pretty good,
And he has loads of untapped potential.
Now that I think about it, he's one of the only "Top 10" that doesn't have some kind of... mmhmm... gimmick.
Such as Falco's shine, ICs grab shenanigans, Peach's RNG will-I-finally-get-a-stitch-face turnips, and even Captain Falcon's overhyped memes (seriously guys,stomp into knee isn't that hard, I did it and I don't even have Falcon unlocked)
Doc just seems to be good purely because he's just... good. Without the help of... gimmicks.
Idunno, maybe I'm right. What do you guys think?

I really hope I won't be torn limb from limb because I referred to the S tier's niches as gimmicks and the part where I said Falcon was overhyped sometimes.
I think you were right in assuming you misused the term "gimmicks".

IMO, Doc's tools are amazing in a vacuum but they are severely limited by Doc's crappy range. He has solid defense, some of the best throws in the game, great edge guards, etc, etc. They just all suffer a lot because they are stuck on a character who, relatively speaking, is easy to position against. Doc's ability to attack a platform is far more concerning than his ability to defend one.
 

cruised

Smash Rookie
Joined
Dec 30, 2014
Messages
22
Location
NY
This seems too simple to not be known already but I found that a really fast double jump backwards under a battlefield platform warps Doc to the platform. Could it be faster than wavelanding onto battlefield platforms?
 

DeepDish

Smash Apprentice
Joined
Aug 12, 2014
Messages
84
Location
Southern Ontario, Canada
This seems too simple to not be known already but I found that a really fast double jump backwards under a battlefield platform warps Doc to the platform. Could it be faster than wavelanding onto battlefield platforms?
Yes, platform warps are faster. I think there's a hanfdul of GFYs floating around showing platform warps on the lower platforms of BF and Yoshi's with Doc. It's a fairly unexplored concept in the metagame. That being said, that doesn't mean they're better in every situation. Sometimes you need to waveland to be on a different part of the platform to get a follow up.

Another situation where someone would prefer a waveland is if you're trying to mix up your movement in a certain way. With a waveland onto, then off of a platform, you can get away/closer to your opponent on the ground without actually moving on the same level as them. This is useful for characters that can't reach the platforms with a grounded attack, or if you're just trying to mixup your movement in general to throw your opponent off.

Sorry if this is obvious to you, but it seems like you're asking if platform warps would be better in EVERY situation. They're good in other situations. I could see platform warp to tech chase an up throw with another grab, or up smash or something. Platform warp to shield drop up air, or even platform cancel bair!? That would be cool.

There's just so many other parts of your game that you should probably improve before getting consistent with platform warps that we aren't really seeing it used by everyone in tournaments. I'm sure in the near future though, it will start to develop in the highest levels of the meta.
 
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CPU?

Smash Apprentice
Joined
Jul 6, 2008
Messages
146
Location
Indianapolis
Marzipan I've been working on putting his up-b cancel in my game as well. It feels really rewarding getting it off in a bracket setting, but it is pretty difficult to consistently land at least for me.
Mr.Lemon is right about when to use it. Avoid using it when your not in your shield. Just think of it as a bowser up-b, just really hard to pull off.
 

Marzipan

Smash Rookie
Joined
Feb 20, 2015
Messages
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Jacksonville, NC
Yeah I felt as if it had a similar function as Bowser Up-B OoS, so I've been thinking of it in the same way (although not as spammable due to how to pull it off).

I've managed to do it a few times in friendlies. Once I get it more consistently, then I'll try it out in bracket as well.

Hope we master the tech soon!
 

#HBC | Mac

Nobody loves me
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@ VGmasta VGmasta i got hit faired by a sheik out of my ledgehop pill regrab in tournament the other day. All i could think of was if only i had vgs fadeback technology idve been safe
 

VGmasta

Smash Lord
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West Palm Beach, FL + the Doc Boards!!
It took a little practice to get use to doing it consistently. It's a very useful gimmick. Though the move in not entirely invincible, it's a great way to get opponents away from the ledge while trying to get back onto the stage.
 

cepp1028

Smash Rookie
Joined
Nov 4, 2014
Messages
7
Can you clarify for me how to do a pill from the ledge? I think I'm just not doing it fast enough but I could be doing something else wrong.
 

VGmasta

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Can you clarify for me how to do a pill from the ledge? I think I'm just not doing it fast enough but I could be doing something else wrong.
If you want to simply pill from the ledge and regrab the ledge all in the same jump, just simply let go of the ledge and use your airjump immediately after releasing the ledge.Then, throw a pill immediately after you hit the jump button. If done coorectly, Doc should be able to regrab the ledge without falling pass the ledge.

The diagonal "fadeback" ledge pill into ledgegrab is a bit more advanced because it involves using reverse pilling immediately after pulling away from the ledge after jumping and then pulling forward at the apex of the jump to regrab. I'll go into detail with that on a different post if you'd like.

As for the vertical ledgehop pill into ledgegrab, I let go of the ledge by hitting down on the movestick and then immediately hitting 'Y' to jump. Then I hit 'B' right after that to throw the pill , almost pressing 'Y' and 'B' simultaneously.
 

DeepDish

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Southern Ontario, Canada
How does everyone here feel about down throw to up tilt to start combos? Obviously varies from matchup to matchup regarding usefulness and at certain percents.

I especially find it useful against fast fallers when they're barely out of the range for a guaranteed up throw to dunk. Really catches them off guard.
 

cepp1028

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Joined
Nov 4, 2014
Messages
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How does everyone here feel about down throw to up tilt to start combos? Obviously varies from matchup to matchup regarding usefulness and at certain percents.

I especially find it useful against fast fallers when they're barely out of the range for a guaranteed up throw to dunk. Really catches them off guard.
I love using up-tilit, I should probably use it more, in fact. D-Throw on Marth at low percents I love using it, it also can work on puff at certain low percents if I'm quick enough. Usually I then go for up air strings or a platform tech chase.
 

DeepDish

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Messages
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I love using up-tilit, I should probably use it more, in fact. D-Throw on Marth at low percents I love using it, it also can work on puff at certain low percents if I'm quick enough. Usually I then go for up air strings or a platform tech chase.
Man, I've given up on the Puff matchup with the doctor. Not worth the effort IMO.
 

Marzipan

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Feb 20, 2015
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@ DeepDish DeepDish interesting you say that, since I consider Puff one of my favorite MUs as Doc. Pills limits her approach and ledge recovery, and she loses some rest setups (namely uthrow). Although she can WoP and gimp your recovery easy, it's not completely uphill like other MUs Doc has.

Then again, I speak from low level experience, but most Puffs I've fought in tournament make the MU seem pretty even to me.
 
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DeepDish

Smash Apprentice
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Messages
84
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@ DeepDish DeepDish interesting you say that, since I consider Puff one of my favorite MUs as Doc. Pills limits her approach and ledge recovery, and she loses some rest setups (namely uthrow). Although she can WoP and gimp your recovery easy, it's not completely uphill like other MUs Doc has.

Then again, I speak from low level experience, but most Puffs I've fought in tournament make the MU seem pretty even to me.
Try playing Prince Abu. It's brutal. Did much more work with my Marth, which is WAY less developed than my Doc.
 

JipC

Smash Journeyman
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Sep 25, 2014
Messages
367
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SoCal
Try playing Prince Abu. It's brutal. Did much more work with my Marth, which is WAY less developed than my Doc.
Funny, same thing happened to me and another local player, except he uses Sheik not Puff.
I dunno man, I feel like I hit a really bad mental block with Dr. Mario lately. Been thinking of switching to either Fox, Falco, Marth, or Puff. I'm gonna try a bit more with him though.
 

X WaNtEd X

Smash Lord
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Lowell, MA
So I believe Ganon can be edgeguarded on reaction by Doc when he goes low when Doc is holding the ledge by simply ledgedropping bair. Another Ganon is telling me that he shouldn't be landing it:

What do you mean before you have a chance to tech it? Either he drops and hits you in a position where you can up-b early to avoid it or he waits for you to go low in which case you can tech it. It's like the eikeldrop, you can definitely up-b early to avoid it if he's doing it at untechable range. You gotta bait it out.
What do you guys think?
 

VGmasta

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West Palm Beach, FL + the Doc Boards!!
@ DeepDish DeepDish interesting you say that, since I consider Puff one of my favorite MUs as Doc. Pills limits her approach and ledge recovery, and she loses some rest setups (namely uthrow).
The pills have lots of lag time gives JigglyPuff ample time to jump over/run under the pill to close space and put Doc in dangerous situations. Puff can use aerials to nullify the pills as well.

So though Puff has a relatively difficult time Resting on Doc, Puff doesn't really need to rely on Rests vs Doc.
 

DeepDish

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The matchup is pretty much Puff doing the wall of pain, Doc trying to sneak under it and getting a single hit.

The best position for Doc to be in is directly under Puff as often as possible.
 

Sir Bubbles

Smash Journeyman
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Jul 11, 2014
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East Brunswick, NJ
The matchup is pretty much Puff doing the wall of pain, Doc trying to sneak under it and getting a single hit.

The best position for Doc to be in is directly under Puff as often as possible.
Pretty much. Seeing as how Jigglypuff camps Doc out so hard, pills being ineffective and Jiggly's range, I can't see how people think this MU is good/even for Doc.

I warmed up to the MU though, it may be slow but it's tons of fun to actually get a hit on Puff, lol.
 

Jaur

Smash Rookie
Joined
Jul 13, 2014
Messages
8
Does anyone know the BKB and KBG for Doc's throws? Not on the frame data thread and I can't find it anywhere. Thanks!

Edit:
Figured it out myself! :)

Uthrow
BKB: 70
KBG: 80

Dthrow
BKB: 75
KBG: 40

Fthrow:
BKB: 60
KBG: 72

Bthrow:
BKB: 80
KBG: 72
 
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Puphmaster

Smash Rookie
Joined
Oct 12, 2015
Messages
11
Location
Midwest
Why is this guy even reading the Doc boards?
As a puff main I would have to say doc is a super easy win for puff i can't lie about it at all puff can zone him out hard with bairs and then if they do happen to get a hit doc cant combo puff that well so puff doesn't have to worry much. And at low percents where a charged upsmash from doc wont kill puff, puff can just throw out rest because shes such a hard character to combo. All in all i give it like a 75-25 puff wins, sorry doc.
 

Judge_

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Aug 15, 2014
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Provo Utah
As a puff main I would have to say doc is a super easy win for puff i can't lie about it at all puff can zone him out hard with bairs and then if they do happen to get a hit doc cant combo puff that well so puff doesn't have to worry much. And at low percents where a charged upsmash from doc wont kill puff, puff can just throw out rest because shes such a hard character to combo. All in all i give it like a 75-25 puff wins, sorry doc.
I don't know how often you play docs, but he has the best rest punish in the game with cape. If you're over 20% it should be a guaranteed kill every time. And doc has some pretty significant grab followups on puff from dthrow, and can kill off dthrow at around 60-ish with dthrow -> fair. 75-25 is a little out there, haha, not even marth is that bad!
 

Puphmaster

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I don't know how often you play docs, but he has the best rest punish in the game with cape. If you're over 20% it should be a guaranteed kill every time. And doc has some pretty significant grab followups on puff from dthrow, and can kill off dthrow at around 60-ish with dthrow -> fair. 75-25 is a little out there, haha, not even marth is that bad!
I totally forgot about the cape, I play with my friend whos a doc player and hes never uses cape because he thinks its cheap so i completely forgot about it sorry.
 

Superw0rri0

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Apr 16, 2013
Messages
849
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SoCal
So I have a question (i'll tl;dr) but I need a little bit of explanation first:

Basically i play a "defensive" neutral. I do two different things. The first is zoning out my opponent with a good pill game while trying to find opportunities to get in. The second is by moving around my opponent in a smart way that opens up opportunities and allows me to play mind games (i'm still fleshing out the best way to do this).

I find that I manage to get in a lot of hits during a match but they are always one or two hits that don't lead to anything. Normally the way I get kills is by taking them off stage and edge guard but usually I drop my edge guard. If I don't get a kill at this point I tend to fall off and play from behind for the rest of the match. The other way I get a kill is I punish a bad movement or I crouch cancel an attack to land a d-smash when they are at 80-90+ percent.

I don't like this... basically... I have a weak punish game, little to no combos, and I struggle to end stocks.

So here's what I'm working on:
DOC COMBOS!

These past couple of days I've been hitting up the lab figuring out combos.

What I want to do is have a mega thread with detailed combos for each character/type of character, for all moves, at many different percents, and with different DIs.

For example:
Against Marth while he is around 55-90ish percent you can combo up-airs. You can also combo a f-air from 60-80ish. (numbers aren't exact I found this out yesterday without writing it down)
Against Marth while he is 40-50 percent you can combo an up-smash into another up-smash. At 60 percent you can combo an up-smash into another up-smash only if you hit on the back part of the up-smash. If you hit on the top or the front of the up-smash you can combo into an aerial.

Against Fox at 60ish percent (don't remember the exact number right now) you can combo a fair into another fair if they DI it a certain way and if they DI it another way you can get a tech chase.

You know stuff like that.

tl;dr: I want to make a possible combo list

So what I want to know is has anyone done this yet to some extent?
Would you guys like to see something like this?
Is the consecutive hits counter a good indicator of true combos?
 
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ECTO

Smash Rookie
Joined
Aug 17, 2014
Messages
23
I've been playing around a lot with Doc lately and I guess because my other characters are Peach and Samus I picked up a few habits from them and they've sneak into my Doc. Still I'm not fully used to this character and movement/timing is all things I need to work on.

First off, wavedash f-tilt is really good. Of course it does not have the same range as Samus but it works the same. Not sure about shield pressure with Doc's first jab like you can with Samus. His initial jab seems faster but I'll need to test it out a bit more. Another thing I liked to do with Samus was falling drills into f-smash or whatever. With Doc I pulled off a cool combos with auto-cancel down-airs into up-tilt into another auto-cancel drill into another tilt. You could probably get a F-Smash if they DI into you.

As for edgeguarding I've been trying to get firefox to trade with Doc's nair, much like you do with Peach. You have a bit more maneuverability than with back-air. Works especially well when they recover low, not sure what's more effective going out there with the nair or simply get my cape timing better.
 

Superw0rri0

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Apr 16, 2013
Messages
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SoCal
I've been playing around a lot with Doc lately and I guess because my other characters are Peach and Samus I picked up a few habits from them and they've sneak into my Doc. Still I'm not fully used to this character and movement/timing is all things I need to work on.

First off, wavedash f-tilt is really good. Of course it does not have the same range as Samus but it works the same. Not sure about shield pressure with Doc's first jab like you can with Samus. His initial jab seems faster but I'll need to test it out a bit more. Another thing I liked to do with Samus was falling drills into f-smash or whatever. With Doc I pulled off a cool combos with auto-cancel down-airs into up-tilt into another auto-cancel drill into another tilt. You could probably get a F-Smash if they DI into you.

As for edgeguarding I've been trying to get firefox to trade with Doc's nair, much like you do with Peach. You have a bit more maneuverability than with back-air. Works especially well when they recover low, not sure what's more effective going out there with the nair or simply get my cape timing better.
Down-air can combo into jab and grab I believe... I've messed around with it but i'm not sure if it's perfect. I'm doing combo study right now so I'll get back to you eventually.
I don't think f-smash is fast enough to combo.

going out their vs cape timing? Going out there. Why? waiting by the edge gives them the option to choose their recovery which means you either guess, read, or react. Going out there doesn't give them an option. Here's my rule of thumb.. if I know I can get out there before the firefox goes off... I go out. If not then I stand by the edge.

Now there's two factors that you need to take into account. High or low recovery and high or low percent.
Lets break it down:
- Low percent + low recovery: cape if you have time if not f-tilt or d-smash
- Low percent + high recovery: read it with a cape, down-smash when they land, or grab when they land and throw off stage. If they land on platform it gets tricky. I would try to get a grab but if you don't have time then back air off stage and try again.
- High percent + low recovery: cape, f-tilt, down-smash
- High percent + high recovery: read it with cape, down-smash when they land, f-air when they land, f-smash when they land.

Now there is a way to cover all if not most of these options options regardless of percent or height: go out in front of them and time your cape right after the firefox goes off.
To help you visualize it... think of spacies up-b as a circle. The further away from the circle the large it is... but the closer you get in the smaller the circle becomes. So the closer you are to a spacey the more space you cover.
This theory is applied in soccer... when a player breaks through the defense and it's just him and the goalie, the goalie gets closer to the player to make it harder for the player to score.

I hope this helps :)


Also... to all the players who struggle in the puff match up... just pill
Seriously... jiggs struggles against well placed pills.
Since Jiggs is so floaty and struggles to maneuver around them in the air, she has to b/f/n/d-air to defend against them and since she has some lag after those moves she has to back up. If she keeps going forward after hitting a pill then punish with an aerial that is not d-air and try to get as much as you can out of it.
Use pills to make openings to dish out damage and get kills.
Only downside with this is that it leads to long matches.
Kill her with a well placed smash or if you get her to a high percent trade with a n-air since her attacks have little to no disjoint.
Up-smash works better in the Jiggs match up compared to the others. If up-smash hits a grounded opponent it will meteor. If in the air, it's a regular smash so they will go higher. This is great because Jiggs is almost always in the air.
If you're struggling to kill, just trade with n-air.

This doesn't make Doc better than Jiggs but it debatably makes them even and it comes down to who spaces better and plays smarter.
 
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cruised

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Dec 30, 2014
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NY
I've been working on consistent ledgedashes and while trying to look for a consistent ledgehop setup, I found that Doc's double jump backwards shrinks Doc's hurtbox, since Doc curls up, while keeping his crazy ledgegrab box. I personally crack easily to pressure while on the ledge so I was wondering if using ledgedrop -> double jump backwards(then hold forwards) could be used as a safe ledgestall technique.
 
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