not approaching is the biggest short-term improvement you can make to your game. this strategy is THE REASON most top placers at nationals are where they are; it's that good. i firmly believe that theoretical top level melee is a game of first hit wins, just because whoever lands the first hit never has to approach their opponent.
as time passes and people become better at the game, their reaction times improve, they become smarter, and plenty of techniques and styles become obsolete, while others prove their worth. in 2011, this notion rings true more than ever; it seems almost as if one specific play style has risen above the rest. this style involves never approaching, never jumping, and crouch-cancelling often. it is responsible for the 8-minute Melee matches we saw at Genesis 2, and it seems to be the direction the game is heading in. pros such as Armada, Hungrybox, Taj, Jman, Shroomed and plenty of others have made it fairly clear to me that defense is superior to offense in Melee. these players prey on players who jump towards them or approach them in general to the point where the best option becomes to use their own medicine against them. what i'm proposing is that Melee has been pushed to the point where, with a few exceptions***, approaching and jumping towards your opponent have become bad.
***to prevent any confusion, i'm going to elaborate on the exceptions to this rule. the exceptions are Fox, Falco, and Peach (and perfect Yoshi, i suppose). what do these 3 characters have in common? godlike, unparalleled shield pressure that is unorthodox for a Melee character. Fox/Falco/Peach's abnormally good shield pressure stems from their abilities to pump out frame advantage attacks on shield twice as fast as other characters (hence, people lol at attempts to shieldgrab these 3 characters). Fox/Falco have aerial -> shine, while Peach has float-cancelled aerials. take a minute to compare this to other characters' shield pressure. most characters aerial the opponent's shield, then either jab or dashdance around their opponent in an attempt to mindgame them. Fox, Falco and Peach hardly have to mindgame their opponents while they shield pressure them. their shield pressure is, for the most part, autopilot. as a result, playing offense is certainly a viable option with Fox/Falco/Peach. defense is still just as deadly with these characters, though.
~
Melee is, by nature, a defensive game. let's analyze some of Melee's characteristics. since i'm making the claim that approaching in Melee is bad, and "bad" is a comparative description, i'm going to compare these characteristics to their counterparts in MvC3, a game i'm familiar with that is much more similar to other fighting games. the remainder of this post will be much easier to comprehend if you already understand the basic characteristics of a traditional fighting game (also, please, nobody interpret this as me saying MvC3 > Melee LOL. i consider MvC3 a joke compared to Melee).
Landing While in an Aerial
MvC3
upon landing with an aerial in any traditional fighter, including MvC3, there is zero landing lag. aerials can immediately be followed by blocking or dashing back, making it much safer to utilize them offensively.
Melee:
even if you L-cancel an aerial in Melee, only half of its lag frames are trimmed. during the remaining landing lag, a character cannot take any actions and is entirely punishable. as a result, it is deadly to miss an aerial while DI'ing forward (approaching) in Melee. doing so puts you in lag and extremely close to your opponent, who isn't in hitstun/is free to punish you. if you whiff an aerial while DI'ing backwards (defending), however, you are almost always too far for them to punish you.
Getting Punished for Whiffing an Aerial While Moving Forward
MvC3
MvC3 utilizes the high/low block system which makes it so that normal attacks either hit high or low, and they will pierce the opponent's shield if they are not blocking the same direction you're attacking from. the key thing to note here is that while on the ground, characters can only use low moves. this means that upon landing with an aerial, a simple low block makes you safe. there are exceptions to this rule, such as overheads, cross-ups, etc., however, the person who whiffed the aerial is given a chance to block all of them.
Melee
you get grabbed. THIS is Melee's flaw. for whiffing an attack while moving forward, you are put in the opponent's grab; among the strongest punishes in the game. THIS is what skews the risk to reward ratio so much; the punishment for making such a minor mistake is far too great.
Other Defensive Mechanisms / Risk vs Reward for Hitting the Opponent
MvC3
upon successfully mixing the opponent up and piercing their block, you are guaranteed a combo that does at least half the enemy character's health (each player has 3 characters); some characters can kill the opposing character in 1 hit. the reward for landing a hit is massive, giving plenty of incentive to approach.
Melee
due to increasingly popular defensive mechanisms such as crouch-cancelling and smash DI, getting a hit on the opponent often doesn't matter. if it was crouch-cancelled, the opponent doesn't have any hitstun and it doesn't lead into a combo. if it was smash DI'd, it doesn't lead into a combo. stronger attacks pierce crouch-cancelling, but they are slower. nowadays, pros have inhuman reaction times; these stronger, slower attacks are virtually impossible to land on any of today's top players while they're crouch-cancelling, since they'll be on the lookout for them.
in order to truly start a combo on a low-% opponent in today's Melee metagame, you must either get a grab (since they can't CC a grab), hit them while they're in the air (see why jumping is bad?), or land a hit that they forgot to crouch-cancel. getting a grab is much more likely to happen vs someone who is approaching you, hitting them while they're in the air is only possible if they're jumping, and hitting them when they aren't CC'd is far more likely if they aren't playing extremely defensively. whereas the risk for approaching is huge, the reward often isn't there.
Getting Pushed to the End of a Stage
MvC3
in traditional fighters, excessively defensive play results in the camper cornering himself. the corner is an absolutely horrible place to be; it gives you no room to mindgame your opponent, weakening your offensive options and strengthening theirs. it is also extremely difficult to escape. if you corner yourself vs a good Magneto, Dante, or Wolverine, ya done son. the existence of a corner encourages a balance between offense and defense.
Melee
you push your opponent to the edge, which, appallingly, can be a GREAT thing for them if they play any of the top tier characters except Fox or Falco. Sheik has a broken ledgestall, broken grab range to bthrow you offstage, and broken edgeguarding to ensure you die once you're off. Marth has everything Sheik has minus the ledgestall. Peach and Jigglypuff both take ZERO risk by being cornered due to their broken recoveries, while simultaneously having broken gimping options (and ledgestalling options in Jigglypuff's case). if you don't play one of these 4 characters, it is generally a BAD idea to fight one of them by the ledge.
Jumping
MvC3
you can block while you jump, so you don't really commit to anything specific. anti-air options are rarely overpowered and can all be countered.
Melee
your two retreat mechanisms (should you see the need to fall back) while approaching in the air are your airdodge, and your second jump. both of these options are absolutely awful so once you jump you're essentially committed. airdodging any direction other than towards the ground leaves you unconscious in the air, while airdodging towards the ground gives you lag frames/doesn't cover much distance/won't protect you from whatever you were trying to dodge with it. using your 2nd jump is the equivalent of giving the opponent your stock since you'll be above them, within their attack range (even if you jump backwards, since you were initially moving towards them), and unable to break out of any combos if they start one.
~
in short, Melee's risk : reward ratio is skewed when it comes to approaching. for the record, i think Melee is a masterpiece that does plenty of things perfectly; approaching just isn't one of them. cornering the opponent should never be bad, jumping shouldn't be as bad, CC'ing/smash DI'ing shouldn't exist (regular DI, on the other hand, is genius), etc.
at full potential, 23/26 (or 22, idk about Yoshi. regardless, the overwhelming majority) of Melee characters should exclusively play defense. 3 (or 4) characters play a mixture of offense and defense due to their broken offensive options still being able to survive in such a defensive game.
this full potential i speak of is finally being reached by the Melee community. people are TOO good at this game now. today's inhuman reactions + smarter players = people utilizing Melee's plethora of defensive options to its full potential and wiping out players that don't camp them just as hard. our game's flawed design is responsible for the homosexuality that has taken it over as of late; Hungrybox has no shame in poking his opponents to death and only approaching when they're clearly aggravated, 5 years later Jman STILL plays like a b*tch (<3), Taj's matches at Genesis 2 must have all gone down to 1 minute or less left on the timer due to his crouch-cancelling/campy style, Shroomed and Armada utilize crouch-cancelling -> dsmash/grab better than anyone i've ever seen, etc. to anyone still in doubt of how OP defense is in Melee, Mango, the best player in the world (until he loses to Armada again he still holds that title IMO), lost 2 tournament sets at Genesis 2 i firmly believe he could have won if he wanted to. noticeable errors are prevalent in his sets vs Taj and Armada; most of them stem from him deciding to have fun with the game and approach. like Mango, i try my hardest to be awesome and approach whenever i can (because captain falcon would never approve of such homosexuality), but sometimes when it just doesn't work i'll feel the need to play to win and camp.
i've referred to this characteristic of Melee as a flaw throughout this post because it impedes on the fun in Melee. a game in which offense is, at full potential, superior to defense, is far more exciting to play and watch than a defensive one. take a blatantly offensive game, MvC2, and compare it to a blatantly defensive one, Brawl, for example. whereas the offensive game is nothing but hype, the defensive one can be hard to watch. i am disappointed that Melee is taking the latter route. yet at the same time, i have to accept that this is its natural progression and that people will always play to win. luckily, i know that no matter how campy Melee gets, ridiculous combos that no other game can match will always exist.
this post was meant to be nothing more than a good read/something to think about, which i hope it was. if you're a casual player who has a blast throwing out smash attacks, disregard this entirely. if you're looking to step up your game and win, consider some of the things i said. making the realizations that Melee is a defensive game at its peak, and that top-level play isn't all fun and games, rather, playing to win, can be huge milestones towards success.
as time passes and people become better at the game, their reaction times improve, they become smarter, and plenty of techniques and styles become obsolete, while others prove their worth. in 2011, this notion rings true more than ever; it seems almost as if one specific play style has risen above the rest. this style involves never approaching, never jumping, and crouch-cancelling often. it is responsible for the 8-minute Melee matches we saw at Genesis 2, and it seems to be the direction the game is heading in. pros such as Armada, Hungrybox, Taj, Jman, Shroomed and plenty of others have made it fairly clear to me that defense is superior to offense in Melee. these players prey on players who jump towards them or approach them in general to the point where the best option becomes to use their own medicine against them. what i'm proposing is that Melee has been pushed to the point where, with a few exceptions***, approaching and jumping towards your opponent have become bad.
***to prevent any confusion, i'm going to elaborate on the exceptions to this rule. the exceptions are Fox, Falco, and Peach (and perfect Yoshi, i suppose). what do these 3 characters have in common? godlike, unparalleled shield pressure that is unorthodox for a Melee character. Fox/Falco/Peach's abnormally good shield pressure stems from their abilities to pump out frame advantage attacks on shield twice as fast as other characters (hence, people lol at attempts to shieldgrab these 3 characters). Fox/Falco have aerial -> shine, while Peach has float-cancelled aerials. take a minute to compare this to other characters' shield pressure. most characters aerial the opponent's shield, then either jab or dashdance around their opponent in an attempt to mindgame them. Fox, Falco and Peach hardly have to mindgame their opponents while they shield pressure them. their shield pressure is, for the most part, autopilot. as a result, playing offense is certainly a viable option with Fox/Falco/Peach. defense is still just as deadly with these characters, though.
~
Melee is, by nature, a defensive game. let's analyze some of Melee's characteristics. since i'm making the claim that approaching in Melee is bad, and "bad" is a comparative description, i'm going to compare these characteristics to their counterparts in MvC3, a game i'm familiar with that is much more similar to other fighting games. the remainder of this post will be much easier to comprehend if you already understand the basic characteristics of a traditional fighting game (also, please, nobody interpret this as me saying MvC3 > Melee LOL. i consider MvC3 a joke compared to Melee).
Landing While in an Aerial
MvC3
upon landing with an aerial in any traditional fighter, including MvC3, there is zero landing lag. aerials can immediately be followed by blocking or dashing back, making it much safer to utilize them offensively.
Melee:
even if you L-cancel an aerial in Melee, only half of its lag frames are trimmed. during the remaining landing lag, a character cannot take any actions and is entirely punishable. as a result, it is deadly to miss an aerial while DI'ing forward (approaching) in Melee. doing so puts you in lag and extremely close to your opponent, who isn't in hitstun/is free to punish you. if you whiff an aerial while DI'ing backwards (defending), however, you are almost always too far for them to punish you.
Getting Punished for Whiffing an Aerial While Moving Forward
MvC3
MvC3 utilizes the high/low block system which makes it so that normal attacks either hit high or low, and they will pierce the opponent's shield if they are not blocking the same direction you're attacking from. the key thing to note here is that while on the ground, characters can only use low moves. this means that upon landing with an aerial, a simple low block makes you safe. there are exceptions to this rule, such as overheads, cross-ups, etc., however, the person who whiffed the aerial is given a chance to block all of them.
Melee
you get grabbed. THIS is Melee's flaw. for whiffing an attack while moving forward, you are put in the opponent's grab; among the strongest punishes in the game. THIS is what skews the risk to reward ratio so much; the punishment for making such a minor mistake is far too great.
Other Defensive Mechanisms / Risk vs Reward for Hitting the Opponent
MvC3
upon successfully mixing the opponent up and piercing their block, you are guaranteed a combo that does at least half the enemy character's health (each player has 3 characters); some characters can kill the opposing character in 1 hit. the reward for landing a hit is massive, giving plenty of incentive to approach.
Melee
due to increasingly popular defensive mechanisms such as crouch-cancelling and smash DI, getting a hit on the opponent often doesn't matter. if it was crouch-cancelled, the opponent doesn't have any hitstun and it doesn't lead into a combo. if it was smash DI'd, it doesn't lead into a combo. stronger attacks pierce crouch-cancelling, but they are slower. nowadays, pros have inhuman reaction times; these stronger, slower attacks are virtually impossible to land on any of today's top players while they're crouch-cancelling, since they'll be on the lookout for them.
in order to truly start a combo on a low-% opponent in today's Melee metagame, you must either get a grab (since they can't CC a grab), hit them while they're in the air (see why jumping is bad?), or land a hit that they forgot to crouch-cancel. getting a grab is much more likely to happen vs someone who is approaching you, hitting them while they're in the air is only possible if they're jumping, and hitting them when they aren't CC'd is far more likely if they aren't playing extremely defensively. whereas the risk for approaching is huge, the reward often isn't there.
Getting Pushed to the End of a Stage
MvC3
in traditional fighters, excessively defensive play results in the camper cornering himself. the corner is an absolutely horrible place to be; it gives you no room to mindgame your opponent, weakening your offensive options and strengthening theirs. it is also extremely difficult to escape. if you corner yourself vs a good Magneto, Dante, or Wolverine, ya done son. the existence of a corner encourages a balance between offense and defense.
Melee
you push your opponent to the edge, which, appallingly, can be a GREAT thing for them if they play any of the top tier characters except Fox or Falco. Sheik has a broken ledgestall, broken grab range to bthrow you offstage, and broken edgeguarding to ensure you die once you're off. Marth has everything Sheik has minus the ledgestall. Peach and Jigglypuff both take ZERO risk by being cornered due to their broken recoveries, while simultaneously having broken gimping options (and ledgestalling options in Jigglypuff's case). if you don't play one of these 4 characters, it is generally a BAD idea to fight one of them by the ledge.
Jumping
MvC3
you can block while you jump, so you don't really commit to anything specific. anti-air options are rarely overpowered and can all be countered.
Melee
your two retreat mechanisms (should you see the need to fall back) while approaching in the air are your airdodge, and your second jump. both of these options are absolutely awful so once you jump you're essentially committed. airdodging any direction other than towards the ground leaves you unconscious in the air, while airdodging towards the ground gives you lag frames/doesn't cover much distance/won't protect you from whatever you were trying to dodge with it. using your 2nd jump is the equivalent of giving the opponent your stock since you'll be above them, within their attack range (even if you jump backwards, since you were initially moving towards them), and unable to break out of any combos if they start one.
~
in short, Melee's risk : reward ratio is skewed when it comes to approaching. for the record, i think Melee is a masterpiece that does plenty of things perfectly; approaching just isn't one of them. cornering the opponent should never be bad, jumping shouldn't be as bad, CC'ing/smash DI'ing shouldn't exist (regular DI, on the other hand, is genius), etc.
at full potential, 23/26 (or 22, idk about Yoshi. regardless, the overwhelming majority) of Melee characters should exclusively play defense. 3 (or 4) characters play a mixture of offense and defense due to their broken offensive options still being able to survive in such a defensive game.
this full potential i speak of is finally being reached by the Melee community. people are TOO good at this game now. today's inhuman reactions + smarter players = people utilizing Melee's plethora of defensive options to its full potential and wiping out players that don't camp them just as hard. our game's flawed design is responsible for the homosexuality that has taken it over as of late; Hungrybox has no shame in poking his opponents to death and only approaching when they're clearly aggravated, 5 years later Jman STILL plays like a b*tch (<3), Taj's matches at Genesis 2 must have all gone down to 1 minute or less left on the timer due to his crouch-cancelling/campy style, Shroomed and Armada utilize crouch-cancelling -> dsmash/grab better than anyone i've ever seen, etc. to anyone still in doubt of how OP defense is in Melee, Mango, the best player in the world (until he loses to Armada again he still holds that title IMO), lost 2 tournament sets at Genesis 2 i firmly believe he could have won if he wanted to. noticeable errors are prevalent in his sets vs Taj and Armada; most of them stem from him deciding to have fun with the game and approach. like Mango, i try my hardest to be awesome and approach whenever i can (because captain falcon would never approve of such homosexuality), but sometimes when it just doesn't work i'll feel the need to play to win and camp.
i've referred to this characteristic of Melee as a flaw throughout this post because it impedes on the fun in Melee. a game in which offense is, at full potential, superior to defense, is far more exciting to play and watch than a defensive one. take a blatantly offensive game, MvC2, and compare it to a blatantly defensive one, Brawl, for example. whereas the offensive game is nothing but hype, the defensive one can be hard to watch. i am disappointed that Melee is taking the latter route. yet at the same time, i have to accept that this is its natural progression and that people will always play to win. luckily, i know that no matter how campy Melee gets, ridiculous combos that no other game can match will always exist.
this post was meant to be nothing more than a good read/something to think about, which i hope it was. if you're a casual player who has a blast throwing out smash attacks, disregard this entirely. if you're looking to step up your game and win, consider some of the things i said. making the realizations that Melee is a defensive game at its peak, and that top-level play isn't all fun and games, rather, playing to win, can be huge milestones towards success.
