Example of how people go out of their way to ruin someone's fun.

[Valken]

I used to play Fox. This was because of the shine spike. I liked the idea of a pseudo-spike. The kind of strategy that didn't necessarily revolve around damaging to a K/O smash or air. Well when I started playing as wolf I discovered that he has a pseudo-spike. Most people LOVE his b/air, and for good reason. AMAZING K/O potential. But I found that it works like a shinespike but better.

For the most part if you b/air an opponent while they are below sea-level (the level that the edge is) and edge hog, it's usually a K/O. I've tested it on most characters (don't mention Pit and Meta, they don't count because they are jerks) and it works so well that it has become a main part of my Wolf strategy.

Basically if you can damage them to roughly 50% and get them off the edge, you can short hop directly down off the edge and give em a back air. Even if it doesn't hit with the sweet spot it is still amazing.

Because of my history of shinespiking, this is very familiar to me.

Even if the b/air isn't K/O potential at the moment, you will usually have time to get to the edge, recover and short hop b/air again.

Basically, treat it like a shine spike and it works better than one. Not to mention that Wolf's moves are better support for this than Fox's are for shinespiking.

I like this alot so if someone has something to add (disclaiming it, ways to avoid it, ways to better it, etc) let me know.

 

[LazyDaisy]

I'll have to give that a go tonight, I'll let you know how it works when I get done class today.

 

[Valken]

If this works as well as I think it does this may be a very important part of Wolf's strategy.
Dropping down on them with a b/air.

I call it...

The Valken Drop! ^_^

We can work on the name I guess. But I like the sound of it.

 

[Whitefire]

Yeah I was using it all weekend and it works fantastic as long as you aim the up+b recovery right, it won't hug edges very well so you need to aim it perfectly.

Wolf has a lot of things he can do to kill an opponent under the stage. The bair works the best if you time it right, otherwise his dair will make nice spikes on certain characters. Wolf is one of the better edgeguarding characters with his smooth and powerful back air. And not like it matters if the fsmash can't make kills very well, you just need to get off the stage with them to finish them(again, not recommended against meta knight!).

Since we've already mentioned the dangers of an air brawl with metaknight, i'd like to share the tips I have for fighting him that i learned by fighting one in the finals of a tournament last weekend.

Tip 1: up+b when he has you off the stage, there's little he can do against it and it not only moves you away from him, but safely to the stage, and it even punches a little damage through.

Tip 2: don't wait for him to reach you! when he knocks you off the edge, watch his return to you and wait for the perfect moment. When he is at proper distance, sweetspot your Illusion, he won't see it coming, and if it hits right it will knock him in the opposite direction over the edge and kill him, I doubt he would be able to DI in the right direction in time, and he might even helping by Diing towards you and effectively killing himself. This worked for me twice in the same game and awarded me with a kill both times.

Tip 3, Don't be afraid to shine if he gets too close, it might set you up for a smash or a chance to get away from him, this works well when he is raising you with his Uair. Don't use this much off the edge but at least it will give you a chance to escape a lethal combo.

 

[Valken]

True true true Meta strategy.
I found that when off the edge with Meta on your butt, the best strategy is to do everything you can to safely get back onto the stage. Do not, I repeat do not every try to turn the fight around off the stage. Know you've been bested and get back to that stage.

And btw bro... The only time Wolf's d/air is usefull is when you are on the stage and can short hop d/air and land back on the stage. It's just to easy to dodge and when dodged put's not only in a place to get punished, but in an awkward spot to recover. I haven't killed myself with Wolf sinced I stopped trying to spike people with it.

Anytime you want to d/air, b/air instead. You will be pleasantly suprised by it.

Remember, don't Spike... Valken Drop them instead.

(Just trying to get name going, testin it out in the field lol)

 

[Whitefire]

Yeah I'll agree that the Valken Drop(lol) works against a large number of recoveries and the spike will not. But some characters with a great upward recovery like Marth, Kirby or DDD will catch on and start heading straight up from under the stage to keep themselves safe.

Now, I don't know if this works on all upward recoveries, but if you hop off and time the d/air correctly you will spike down most upward recoveries, this was working great for me against Marth's up+b over the weekend. And the best part was I was able to up+b straight up to recovery after I did my second jump of course.

And what happens if you time it wrong at they hit you, almost every up+b will knock you straight up and give you a chance to recover while they suffer from lag. I was doing this vs Marth, Fox, and DDD, not sure who else it might have a good effect on, it seems like all 3 characters wanted to stay out of the punishment range of the b/air, so it was a nice second resort.

I'm in full agreement that edgeguarding with the b/air works great on a lot of characters, and should be the first move to cross your mind when you have someone at your mercy off the stage, but some characters in effort to stay clear will recover too far below the stage, that's where you need to think about what else you can do, since Wolf can't smash under the stage and up+bs grab the edge much faster than in Melee, you will need to get under the stage to do anything to stop them. Just try the spike if you have no other choice, it's been working for me occasionally at this point, just please don't go above sea level to make a spike, that's a great way to kill youself, spike them when all they have left is an up+b, they can't counter a failed attempt too well.

Pick your killer wisely, and above all don't get yourself killed in the edgegame, but if you need to get rid of them below 100%, just go for it and use your timing and prediction to your advantage, good luck edgeguarding.

 

[Valken]

I agree and that's the beauty of Wolf. He has so many options.

If you enjoy spiking so much you should try this. It's not guaranteed but it catches people off guard and really has no down side if you miss.

Do a d/throw next to an edge and IMMEDIATELY follow with a d/air.

You will either spike them or miss them and they will grab the edge.

You either win or continue fighting.

Pretty useful.

And yeah you're right, the d/air is more effective against some u/b's than the v/drop.

The greates part about it is that if you do spike without their u/b you will have to recover and possibly kill yourself. However you spike their u/b you will be knocked safely onto the stage. A slap in the face.

 

[Whitefire]

Yeah thanks for the tip, i'll be trying that out, i've been trying so hard to work throws into my Wolf game but none of the throws other than d/throw are particularly useful for followup combos.

And yeah you're right on the last part, spiking against most up+bs is a safe way to make a nice kill, since at that point your only other option is to wait for them to recover(I think). If you feel safe with it I recommend just going for it, gotta dish out the pain when you got them off the edge, no use letting them get safely back to the edge, there's always something you can do to edgeguard.

 

[Bocks]

when they're coming back to the stage, some times i just sh out and they react with an immediate upB (to dodge / punish my edge guards) just use your second jump back on the stage and fsmash them / spike them on decent (more options 4 u)

 

[pockyD]

i didn't read any of the long posts following the initial one, but this was edgeguarding 101 for a ton of characters in melee (sheik, fox, peach to some extent, falcon, doc, jiggs, mario, ganon just to name a few) so it really doesn't need a special name or anything like that, and also for wolf, bair is almost the ONLY way to properly edgeguard (unless your opponent is so predictable that your 10second startup dair can get them) so i'm pretty sure everyone's already been doing this

 

[LatinoPowerHour]

INCREDIBLE.

YOURE INCREDIBLE.

THANK YOU vALKEN FOR TEACHING ME THIS INNOVATIVE TECHNIQUE OF USING YOUR CHARACTER spECIFIC "DROP" to USE YOUR BACK AIR AS A LEDGEGUARD.

CHOKE AND DIE F`AGGOT

^___________________________^

 

[Valken]

Of course it doesn't need a name.

And we don't need to have fun.

But naming things for poops and giggles is fun.

After all, this is a game, and last I checked people like to have fun in games. All aspects of them.

Check back at the posts.

Whitefire and I have had a lot more fun posting than you did.

Unless you really enjoy putting people down for no reason that much.

If so, than more power to ya!

 

[pockyD]

i don't understand - do you actually believe that you made a new discovery or do you just want people who don't know any better to think that you did?

 

[LatinoPowerHour]

sweet i totally just valken'd someone woot

 

[Valken]

Bro, it's a thread about the usefulness of using the b/air to cause a drop-death over the d/air to spike.
Giving it a name is just a fun thing to do to add a little happiness into the lives of people who read.
It's called humor and it's supposed to be light and entertaining.
Which apparently it was for the people who responded to this thread for what it was.
Mission accomplished.

And as for seriously calling it the Valken Drop...

1. It was a silly name for the act of dropping off a stage and b/airing someone. Which as far as I'm concerned, has not been given a name. So referring to it as the v/drop in discussion makes it easier (and funnier) than saying dropping off the edge and b/airing. And no, you can't just say b/air cuz it must be a drop because it involves killing someone at low percents by simpling nudging them a little to far out to return. Hmm, sounds like a shinespike.

2. I hope people seriously start calling it that just to annoy you. It would be what you deserve for having such a negative outlook of silliness. You're playing a game that has a bunch of Nintendo stars fighting each other and turning into action figures. You could act a little silly while talking about it.

^_^

-Valken (founder of the v/drop)

 

[TsarAce]

can somebody

can somebody make a video of this and put it on youtube, i dont really understand it, btw im new to this forum and to the smash bros. series.

 

[LatinoPowerHour]

dbl post ~~~

 

[LatinoPowerHour]

haha yeah, hey EVERYBODY, you know that latinopowerhour poster from smashboards? hes being a douchebag, lets all call this basic edgeguard the vdrop and get him REALLY rilled up xD xD

how about you drop your v-CARD instead hahaha oownedd

 

[Bocks]

valken, all joking aside, go into every single character specific thread for smash 64, melee, and brawl, and post a NEW TECHNIQUE VALKEN DROP which gives a tutorial on bairing someone off the edge

I can see it now "YOSHI'S PSUEDO-SPIKE... AKA ... THE VALKEN DROP!!!"

 

[AlexDL]

I like the Valken Drop. I thought it was funny that you were already abbreviating Valken as v/drop. xD

 

[Valken]

It's really simple.

It's basically when you give your opponent a Back Air when they are off, and below, the stage.
With Wolf (and others) this causes them to be kicked almost directly out, and barely up.

It's really useful considering that most people try to come up on the stage to hit the ledge and grab it, to avoid having to use their Up B recovery to land on the stage. This would leave them open to a easy smash, and put them right back out there. Also, below the stage is harder to defend than above the stage.

This move gives you an almost guaranteed K/O if you land it on them when they are below the stage.

Simply wait till they are below it and do a short hop backwords off the stage and fast fall with a back air.

I like to call it the V/Drop for easy reference. If that's ok with everyone...

 

[pockyD]

i honestly won't care what anyone with a mar 2008 join date says for another 6 months at least

and i'll continue to call it by its accepted name "bair"

 

[angdia]

haha so much debate cause a little kid decided to come in here and caps scream. yea, i like the sound of v/drop, could also mean vertical drop i guess (well there aren't many other kinds of drops).

 

[Deforty]

Well, obviously there are people here who take this game seriously. This is where you come to become competitive if not better at this game. I would say it is the casual player inside me that would except the v/drop as light humor and join in on the fun, but to do that i be will taking a step back from the seemingly apparent mindset a competitive player should have. I guess this is how you must be to be respected here.

With that said, I'm going to go practice this bair spiking.

 

[Valken]

i honestly won't care what anyone with a mar 2008 join date says for another 6 months at least

Uhh... Why not?

 

[Ghost07]

Uhh... Why not?

He's just saying that cause you're new here. just ignore.

 

[Valken]

Gotcha.

But honestly, back on subject.

In almost every Wolf thread I've read people talk about him K/O'ing with his b/air or his d/smash or f/smash. No one ever mentions simply b/airing them below the stage and watching them fall to their death. Not to mention I rarely see this in videos.

I find it so effective that I would suggest that Wolf's metagame be based around it. Mine is.

At low percentages you can do this. After one or two tries, if it doesn't kill them, they can be easily killed with a d/smash. Since I avoid the d/smash like the plague for the match, it will be at full power with amazing K/O potential.

When I play, I kill with Wolf almost Melee fast. Something that most people don't seem to do. I thought I'd share this and add in a little humor, but apparently the humor part was ill-received.

Sry for attempting to have fun while talking about a game where Mario fights Solid Snake. Apparently this game is to serious for humor.

 

[Bazooka Lucca]

*points at pocky* I agree with you. Though generally I tend to only care what people who have a member number under 1000 say, but over the many years here i've had to make many exceptions. This board has gotten too big - but it's a good thing. What's not cool is some new guy coming in here claiming the name for a move - however I thought it was humorous more so than it was a serious attempt at renaming a pre-existing strategy. There isn't one technique that people call it by the person's name who found it. I don't think it'll ever happen, because that's ****ing stupid. Actually, the more I look at the situation, the more funny I think it is that Valken suggested we name it after him.

Back to the bair topic - This strategy works great for wolf - his bair is godly. I find timing it when using it under the stage is difficult (it has gotten me killed on occasion) and character specific - in that you're not going to be doing this with characters who pose a threat with their up-b recovery.

I'd like to ask a question though - do you think at the moment wolf's bair connects- if the opponent is spamming "jump" - do you think, instead, the opponent would jump off wolf's head? My first reaction is to say no, this wouldn't happen, but if the timing was wrong on wolf's party - it's very possible to jump off wolf and get back on the stage (which kind of scares me).

 

[LittleKey]

Why'd you change the thread title? The Valken Drop is an awesome name.

 

[Valken]

Listen.

If you go back and read the posts you will notice that until the argument started I put a "lol" after everytime I said valken drop. So did Whitefire. We understood it was a joke and put smiles on our faces.

Everyone knows how the naming of moves works.

So why did you have to blow this out of proportion and try and put me down?

No one's going to think any less of you if you join the fun and call it a v/drop in this topic.
If your afraid of criticism then you can do what I do. Put a "lol" after it to make sure people know it's a joke.

But apparently some people don't know what it means if you laugh at something you say.

For the reference. It means it's supposed to be funny.





And yeah about that the character specifity (i'm pretty sure i made up that word) that's the beauty of Brawl. It appears that with all the different recoveries you need a different strategy for every character.

 

[Captain Sa10]

Dude dont worry about it. that's all I have to say, and now on the subject of the backair kill below the edge, yes it is useful, and I use it several times in a match when the opponent is below the stage to give myself an easy kill. the V drop sounded pretty cool lol.

 

[Mikezor]

I like the name. But isn't this just edge-guarding with back air?

 

[pockyD]

the only reason i care about join date in this context is because this was a BASIC strategy in melee that you seem to think is new, and anyone who has been around for longer than 2-3 months is easily aware of this

and also there seems to be a correlation between new joiners and idiots but that isn't necessarily your fault at this point (though if you keep following this line of posting...)

i'm aware you think i'm singling you out and pooping on your parade, but threads that discuss the semantics of already commonly-known tactics take away from the discussion of more useful, productive developments

and finally, to melee players, v-drop is short for vidjo drop which is an existing tech for dropping items while floating

 

[Mr.Trite]

Valken drop lawl.

Ok then lets call using smashes to TRITE someone.

Like Fox has a good UP TRITE and Marth's tipper TRITE omg its sooooo good.

Yea I think it sounds waayayyyayyaa better :o

People have been bairing people off stage since the beginning.

@pockyD

Boys becoming men, men becoming wolves :D

 

[Korinza]

Sorry but I did not know this, you cant just say its a commonly-known tactic.

I bet if you asked every member did they know about this prior to this thread being created, a lot would say they didn't

Just leave it lie, your making a arguement over nothing.

 

[The_Woebegone_Jackal]

*points at pocky* I agree with you. Though generally I tend to only care what people who have a member number under 1000 say, but over the many years here i've had to make many exceptions. This board has gotten too big - but it's a good thing. What's not cool is some new guy coming in here claiming the name for a move - however I thought it was humorous more so than it was a serious attempt at renaming a pre-existing strategy. There isn't one technique that people call it by the person's name who found it. I don't think it'll ever happen, because that's ****ing stupid. Actually, the more I look at the situation, the more funny I think it is that Valken suggested we name it after him.

I've gotten wobbled before... o.O

EDIT: lol at people thinking he seriously named it the v-drop... what ever happened to actualy reading a thread befor posting???

 

[ham-tomato]

I can see the usefulness of this move but I think there are several reasons why you don't see many Wolf's employing it that often. One is simply that is dangerous, wolf has the most finicky getback in the game and no matter how good you get there is always the chance you mess up. Wolf has a lot of moves that send a person up, or on a steep diagonal upwards; it is seldom in 1v1's that i find a person in the lower percentages below the level because of this. Fox had a lot of moves that could get people over the edge horizontally and the speed to capitalize, wolf seems to lack both. There are also a lot of characters where it is just silly to try and outmatch them away from the stage. I don't see it as wise going after someone like meta knight, kirby, etc in this way.

Which is why I have seen your Valken drop done often by DDD and seldom by wolf.

.

 

[Seraphi-Kid]

LOL.

I can't even think of anything else to say.

Just.

lol.