• Welcome to Smashboards, the world's largest Super Smash Brothers community! Over 250,000 Smash Bros. fans from around the world have come to discuss these great games in over 19 million posts!

    You are currently viewing our boards as a visitor. Click here to sign up right now and start on your path in the Smash community!

PPMD's Falco Discussion Thread

FalcoSBM1990

Smash Cadet
Joined
May 19, 2015
Messages
55
Location
Germany
Mang0 revealed a high performance on Falco-Puff matchup and he used a lot of PPMD's tactics especially the double aerial laser pressure, Westballz is starting in using Falco's laser more frequently as well, Falco is developing very well in the last months.
 

Bones0

Smash Legend
Joined
Aug 31, 2005
Messages
11,153
Location
Jarrettsville, MD
Situation: I shine a fox at low % in the middle of battlefield. He DIs to a side platform and I can't get there fast enough to shine again before he techs.

How do you guys react to a fox's platform techs?
For tech rolls I can waveland and grab, JC shine, or shield drop shine. I often get hit by a quick getup attack or tech in place shine. If I shield anticipating getup attack then I can't cover roll behind me really. Tech in place is too fast to punish after wavelanding so I have to commit to a shine waveland, which is slower.
Sometimes I SH under the plat, shine stall, then DJ on reaction to their option and hit them with an aerial. This sometimes yields suboptimal followups, but trying to actually react to TIP/stand with FH shine is too hard for me, at least for now. You can also shine the TIP/MT spot on the plat, then DJ WL on to cover their TR. They'll have time to do something, but at least get a grab their shield vs. bait out their attack/movement mixup.

20xx theory crafting has me thinking you could ledge cancel a Phantasm on the plat to cover everything, but the fear of getting killed by a GUA is real. Maybe if I commit to it as soon as the shine hits I can ensure I'm there quickly enough to cover TIP/MT, but I doubt it.
 
Last edited:

Nils.

Smash Rookie
Joined
Nov 11, 2016
Messages
16
Location
Hönö, Sweden
Copypaste from Falco R&D:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjiFppgJQS0&feature=youtu.be

Nothing new, I stole this from Westballz. But it seems underutilized. This is against a CPU but I believe that the double shine is a mixup. If your opponent DIs away, jump through them and shine > shine. If they DI in, just do it in front of them. Correct me if I'm wrong.

I'm thinking this could be worth going for more often considering how incredibly early they die if you succeed.
 

Dr Peepee

Thanks for Everything <3
Moderator
BRoomer
Joined
Sep 29, 2007
Messages
27,766
Location
Raleigh, North Carolina
Situation: I shine a fox at low % in the middle of battlefield. He DIs to a side platform and I can't get there fast enough to shine again before he techs.

How do you guys react to a fox's platform techs?
For tech rolls I can waveland and grab, JC shine, or shield drop shine. I often get hit by a quick getup attack or tech in place shine. If I shield anticipating getup attack then I can't cover roll behind me really. Tech in place is too fast to punish after wavelanding so I have to commit to a shine waveland, which is slower.
I can react and jump shine waveland tech in place/get up in place or GUA but I'm pretty sure Foxes can ASDI down and out to get off of platforms if you do that during their tech rolls to either side. Sometimes I Bair them so they get pushed toward the edge and take a lot of damage, and I'm wondering if you can waveland down Fsmash tech toward the edge reliably(you could mix this with Utilt maybe). Tech roll into the stage would be the hardest to reliably punish hard, but the Westballz Bthrow DA is an alright start. Maybe Utilt can work there if they're DI'ing the way they are? I don't know but I just realized I need to lab this out so I'll write it down, thanks.

Copypaste from Falco R&D:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjiFppgJQS0&feature=youtu.be

Nothing new, I stole this from Westballz. But it seems underutilized. This is against a CPU but I believe that the double shine is a mixup. If your opponent DIs away, jump through them and shine > shine. If they DI in, just do it in front of them. Correct me if I'm wrong.

I'm thinking this could be worth going for more often considering how incredibly early they die if you succeed.
This assumes you can get the setup with Utilt reliably, but yeah this is pretty cool I like it. Saved.
 

InvisibleYeti

Smash Rookie
Joined
Sep 1, 2017
Messages
1
Hi Everyone, I’m a new Falco main I have a question for my Falco elders. As a Falco who is currently learning how to move around properly I’ve found kirbykaze’s blog on basic movement drills really helpful.

http://kirbykazemeleeblog.blogspot.ca/2014/10/diy-ssbm-movement-drills-part-12.html?m=1

http://kirbykazemeleeblog.blogspot.ca/2014/11/diy-ssbm-movement-drills-part-22.html?m=1

The blog basically talks about how to break down melee’s movement into action states, and then he gives a bunch of basic movement drills that help you learn to move between the action states better.


Example of some of the drills

[Stand-Turn-Stand-Crouch-Stand-Turn-Stand-Crouch-Stand-Turn-Stand-Crouch]

[Stand-Dash-Stand-Walk-Stand-Turn-Stand-Dash-Stand-Walk-Stand-Turn]


Are there any sequences of movements like these that you guys could recommend for a new Falco main to practice?
 

Dr Peepee

Thanks for Everything <3
Moderator
BRoomer
Joined
Sep 29, 2007
Messages
27,766
Location
Raleigh, North Carolina
I always liked laser dash(or dash laser). And since there are a lot of variants of that(whether you jump with momentum to laser or not, or how far you dash) it's pretty intensive. Maybe laser turnaround Utilt/Bair to cover Falco's weak spot.
 

Bones0

Smash Legend
Joined
Aug 31, 2005
Messages
11,153
Location
Jarrettsville, MD
Hi Everyone, I’m a new Falco main I have a question for my Falco elders. As a Falco who is currently learning how to move around properly I’ve found kirbykaze’s blog on basic movement drills really helpful.

http://kirbykazemeleeblog.blogspot.ca/2014/10/diy-ssbm-movement-drills-part-12.html?m=1

http://kirbykazemeleeblog.blogspot.ca/2014/11/diy-ssbm-movement-drills-part-22.html?m=1

The blog basically talks about how to break down melee’s movement into action states, and then he gives a bunch of basic movement drills that help you learn to move between the action states better.


Example of some of the drills

[Stand-Turn-Stand-Crouch-Stand-Turn-Stand-Crouch-Stand-Turn-Stand-Crouch]

[Stand-Dash-Stand-Walk-Stand-Turn-Stand-Dash-Stand-Walk-Stand-Turn]


Are there any sequences of movements like these that you guys could recommend for a new Falco main to practice?
I have a laser sequence I've always done since I first started playing Falco that really helps for mastering the types of laser variants PP mentioned. Starting on one side of the stage (longer stages are usually easier), I will go to the other and keep going back and forth as desired. It goes something like this (RSHL = reverse short hop laser):
- Dash forward RSHL, dash forward SHL (continue alternating these until you reach the edge of the stage)
- RSHL in place
- Repeat from beginning

You can mix up the pattern however you want. If you need to be more comfortable with reversing lasers you can do dash forward RSHL all the way across, you can mix in shield stops to get more staggered movement, or you can just sit in the center of the stage and do turnaround lasers in place. I think coming up with your own drills is more fun so once you've done a few basic drills that KK recommends, don't be afraid to get creative. Just be sure you aren't favoring the techniques you find the easiest and are actually working on your weak areas.
 

xeaid

Smash Rookie
Joined
Jul 21, 2017
Messages
7
I have a not super falco related question, but I feel like it plays a prominent role in his neutral game. When people make adjustments to their playstyle mid-game I have a lot of trouble quickly noticing it and quantifying exactly what they've changed. What are the most important times to observe what your opponent does?, So for example, I try to look at what my opponent does after they land and after I laser at them. What other times are important? If that question's too broad I get it.
 

Dr Peepee

Thanks for Everything <3
Moderator
BRoomer
Joined
Sep 29, 2007
Messages
27,766
Location
Raleigh, North Carolina
The question is too broad, but you can give yourself ways to get answers. If you pick apart positions and look at the options and how to make them choose that's one way. If you analyze matches and see common decisions in these positions that's another way. If you practice so that you can react quickly and set them up for specific choices, that's another way. I also recommend trying to remember what happened between stocks/games that led to your hit or theirs. That's also a skill you can train, starting with the very last thing that happened on your stock and working backwards more and more.
 

FE_Hector

Smash Lord
Joined
May 26, 2015
Messages
1,420
Location
Raleigh, NC
First off, I wanna say thanks for the advice on adapting. I've been starting to find recurring situations that I'm understanding a lot better because I've taken notes on what's happened previously there, so it's definitely some beginning progress. I just need to hone it more.

I'm wondering though, how do you help build up in-game discipline? Waiting a bit tends to be the big issue for me in that regard. Sometimes I'll know that somebody wants to do a very specific option, so I just take the back seat and punish the option once I actually see it happening, but most of the time I lose a lot of exchanges partially because I'm not disciplined enough mid-match to wait a little longer or just acknowledge the situation and change up my responses. You're sort of the god of discipline, so I figured you could help. I can probably elaborate more if needed.
 

Dr Peepee

Thanks for Everything <3
Moderator
BRoomer
Joined
Sep 29, 2007
Messages
27,766
Location
Raleigh, North Carolina
Well for one, you need to be doing something while you're not going in. Even standing in place can be doing something if you're actively checking for things you expect them to do. Secondly, I learned after a long time that when you "wait" for stuff in Melee you're really only waiting an extra second or so but it just feels like a long time, so don't sweat it. Building discipline is a muscle like any other skill, so you'd need to practice it, ideally in and out of game. In game you'd want to practice actions where you have time to wait or watch and can still serve a useful purpose and then you hone this in friendlies. Out of game this can be honed with things like meditation or reading books.
 

NIFOFD

Smash Apprentice
Joined
Aug 20, 2014
Messages
86
Location
NC
A recent discussion on Twitter got me thinking about punish game. How hard you punish seems very heavily influenced by how you start your combo. If your opponent isn't very good at the matchup or is just bad in general,I'm it's pretty straightforward for Falco to get an opening and start a combo from a grounded dair or waveshine. Perhaps a shine read near a plat so that you can waveland is a tier below, but also still good. As I reflect upon my games vs. the good players that I got to play last weekend at Smash Con, I get the sense that they are better at avoiding these types of punishes. It isn't how I initially would have envisioned it though. It's not just that better players lose neutral less often, but the entire way they play neutral often serves to limit or mitigate the punishes they get hit by. The resulting experience on my end was "damn, I keep beating this guy in neutral, but he's only losing in ways that give me minimal combo opportunities."

Does anyone have any thoughts on this aspect of the game? Is it better to focus on expanding the different ways you can start hard punishes? You could work on converting grabs/stray hits into harder punishes, or alternatively, you could focus on hitting grounded dairs/shines by approaching from different angles, with different timings, or different setups from laser pressure. I assume both aspects are important, but my gut tells me the grabs/stray hits route is unreliable just due to the nature of those options. It feels like no matter how good I get at getting hits off of throws, it will never be an efficient way of winning games compared to finding those key dairs/shines that yield huge punishes much more consistently. Perhaps you only need to be good enough with those options to make them play around them, which opens them up to more dair/shine opportunities. I can't say I've ever seen a specific example or had anyone describe a situation in which this dynamic was very clear, unfortunately.
I'm very glad that you brought this up. I recently transitioned from Marth (not sure if I'll stick to the bird though), and this aspect of Falco's game was the first thing that stuck out to me. As you can imagine, winning neutral with a grab while playing Marth tends to lead to much more predictable outcomes. Even a stray fair with Marth is often easier to convert off of than a hit with Falco. The fact that Falco's pressure is far more "active" also exacerbates the problem because I will often get a hit mid-pressure without actually anticipating that the hit would occur. This makes it even harder to hit big punishes.

To give a typical example, sometimes I'll opt for shine-grab in pressure, only for the shine to catch an OoS option. Since the grab still comes out, I either lose so much time that I can't follow up, or I lose so much time that I have to opt for a followup that doesn't lead to as extended of a punish.

On the other hand, sometimes this works in my favor. Actually hitting a grab in pressure typically means your opponent wasn't expecting it. This in turn tends to lead to poor DI and bigger punishes.

Given that every Falco pressures differently, I was wondering if good Falco players tried to pressure in a way that would lead to bigger followups. Any thoughts on this?
 
Last edited:

Dr Peepee

Thanks for Everything <3
Moderator
BRoomer
Joined
Sep 29, 2007
Messages
27,766
Location
Raleigh, North Carolina
Generally Falcos want to hit with Dair, or more ideally shine since it's safer to start combos but since that isn't always feasible you settle for getting advantage or some damage/position and condition for a better followup next time. I've skewed more heavily toward playing for position and conditioning for later, but I want to round myself out. I think knowing how to play both is best but having a preference isn't a big deal.
 

Squidster

Smash Ace
Joined
Mar 3, 2008
Messages
798
Location
Southern California
Medz has been beating me up recently and I’m trying to break down a couple interactions that seem to happen repeatedly. One of them is when he kind of stand stills and I’m at mid to longish range as we kind of reset to neutral, generally him being closer to center (example is if I got hit by a sh Nair and teched away and now I’m near the ledge or something.)

Generally if I shoot a SHL asap he powershields it, if I try to dash dance or approach then I just kind of feel painfully slow compared to Marth, approaching seems to be easily met with dash back and dash dancing doesn’t seem to be accomplishing much that far away.

Now I don’t think powershield inherently puts me in a bad spot as I can jump over the PS, laser > go to the side platform, I can shield / PS the PS or just eat the PS and act immediately but I feel like I’ve been missing parts of this interaction or something cause it’s been going pretty poorly for me. Also jumping of PS lasers feels weird at longer ranges (like I can do it at close ranges or even laser > approach over the PS, but at longer ranges you can’t really approach over the powershielded laser since you wont reach them in 1 sh?) I FEEL like if Marth puts me in the corner and then just kinda gives me all the time in the world to shoot a laser I should be able to garner some form of advantage out of it but maybe I’m looking at things too black and white.

Not exactly sure how to most productively phrase this question. If you know your opponent is looking for a powershield, would you shoot the laser anyways? Am I being too short sighted here and I should be looking to read his followup actions too? How do you go about threatening a Marth who’s standing still / how do you encroach on his space. I feel like if he’s closer to center then I can’t really laser and make him come to me but being proactive seems difficult.

Thanks!
 

Dr Peepee

Thanks for Everything <3
Moderator
BRoomer
Joined
Sep 29, 2007
Messages
27,766
Location
Raleigh, North Carolina
Try shooting lower. Those lasers are either 1 frame or impossible to PS(outside of Z-PS which no one does) iirc. Not like Marth is gonna jump over your laser anyway. Something else I like to do is dash once or twice and set up for a differently positioned laser. Even if Marth is just waiting for a laser, if it comes at a time or space he's not totally certain about he's more likely to miss the PS. At any rate it sounds like a position to practice for the PS anyway, but I just know for me personally shooting low and adding a little DD lasering has made this a non-issue against Marths who do that.
 

KP17

Banned via Administration
Joined
Jul 6, 2012
Messages
113
Location
Atlanta, GA
i have a supposedly cheap tactic for this... approaching laser into spotdodge. PS outplays are reactions to laser and then no further reactions on the marth's part.

spotdodge is really good imo if used well

i used to laser roll a long long time ago and i might revisit that, but spotdodge is less comitttal

What pp said is very valid. dashing does take a while, i like neutral jump into back drift SHL or forward drift SHL

I also like dash RSHL edge cancel FF DJDL
 

Yort

Smash Apprentice
Joined
Aug 27, 2014
Messages
168
Location
Georgia
Situation: I shine a fox at low % in the middle of battlefield. He DIs to a side platform and I can't get there fast enough to shine again before he techs.

How do you guys react to a fox's platform techs?
For tech rolls I can waveland and grab, JC shine, or shield drop shine. I often get hit by a quick getup attack or tech in place shine. If I shield anticipating getup attack then I can't cover roll behind me really. Tech in place is too fast to punish after wavelanding so I have to commit to a shine waveland, which is slower.
It's possible to fh / dj waveland into reaction tech chase and cover every single option in most scenarios.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BrM-st5_CY

this video I made while researching a few months ago should give you some insight into what i'm talking about.

PP used to use sh dj waveland to top platform to tech chase from side plats for example, although I don't think he reacted that often, this was a while ago and the concept was new and underveloped, you can see examples of him doing this in PPMD vs mang0 at koc.

Druggedfox makes it a staple of his punish game, and I draw a lot of my knowledge of this from him but I expanded upon it to a degree.

Alternatively, you can dash below the platform, react to the tech in place with fh shine waveland, dash jump shine waveland for tech rolls, still not certain about the practicality of this one.

You can also do fh shine to hit tech in place and waveland directionally to grab / run off shine tech rolls. This is 3/4 option coverage and is also pretty good, much easier as well. Can't find any examples of this one though. Pretty sure i've seen west and momo use it effectively.
 

Klemes

Smash Journeyman
Joined
Jul 4, 2015
Messages
236
Location
France
sorry for the repost, happened during backup. can't figure out if i can just delete a post
 
Last edited:

StrayDog

Smash Rookie
Joined
Jan 23, 2017
Messages
21
Dr Peepee Dr Peepee how should I respond to a fox that comes in with run up > shield by default ?
He's more experienced and a good deal faster than me so atm I struggle to establish/maintain good control over him, which lets him pick his spots and force interactions at will most of the time.

I get more and more focused on finding my openings from a read on my opponent's movement (which I can pressure or influence with my own movement/lasers). This leads good players to look for scenarios and angles of attack for which my answers are weaker, which I understand and it motivates me to learn new tactics and clean up my gameplay. But right now I'm in a detrimental stalemate with fox (and DD heavy chars like Marth/Falcon) run up > shield.

I can't predict the spacing at which he's gonna shield, so everything I do about it is sketchy and puts me off balance (or straight up gets me killed).

-laser : he dashes in from close enough to threaten nair, and even when he does run up shield often he shieldgrabs me before I can do anything after landing. Should I focus on getting a good FF so I can be at a frame advantage more often ? Fadeback laser seems better to me than laser in place there (I should be out of range of OoS options) but even then I don't know how to capitalize on this read (he's ready for the immediate counter-attack there) and I gave him ground for free. Should I look out if he takes the laser/shields it ? What can I go for when either happens ?

-shieldstop > dair in place : this is what I do when I think he's gonna run in generally. I can fadeback at the peak of my SH if needed, and if it hits I can get a big reward. I prefer this as a defensive move to utilt and AC bair, which I prefer as anti-air barrage. But the thing is I can't afford to delay the dair very much, in case he just nairs/grabs right away, so when he runs up shield at the right spot, I hit his shield super high and give him a free punish. Do you think this is a poor option when I know he wants to run up shield ? Should I try and get a super fadeback, or a crossup ? Would you risk tomahakw>grab/shine-grab in this scenario ?

-wait/DD : I'm not confident to just let fox get in my space like that. He drill>shines me into techchase instantly anyway.

-I just thought about WD back when he runs in like that. If he shields I can wait for him and threaten his options (except roll/WD back), and to punish me for it he'd have to read me big time. I would WD there because Falco's dash is too short/slow to get me out of harm's way typically.

Oh and what do I do to discourage fox to just drill me when I'm on the ground ? This move is annoying me like hell right now :)
I struggle dealing with fox's options as well, but I find that foxes generally run up shield when then expect falco to do an early aerial (to beat out their approach.) I think the key is recognizing that although fox has many options, he has to pick one. Staying one step ahead in the yomi game is super crucial. If you have been beating out some of his options with early aerials (early dair grab is nice) then, at least at my level, they will generally try to feint situations in which your early aerials have been winning and then run up shield or do an early aerial to beat you to the punch. I think conventional wisdom says that AC bair in place is just a good option in general for beating both of these. If you do it from outside of its max range and then fade in you can get a safe shine on shield if they run up shield, and it will always beat short hop dair and either beat or trade with nair. It loses hard to cc though, but generally people will not be running up and ccing if you have been beating them with dairs. As for beating drill, what about wavedash back? It's pretty narrow, if you hold down while WDing back you should also CC nair. If they're going for super deep drills you can shield instead (or just nair/bair which should beat it clean.)
 

Dr Peepee

Thanks for Everything <3
Moderator
BRoomer
Joined
Sep 29, 2007
Messages
27,766
Location
Raleigh, North Carolina
Dr Peepee Dr Peepee how should I respond to a fox that comes in with run up > shield by default ?
He's more experienced and a good deal faster than me so atm I struggle to establish/maintain good control over him, which lets him pick his spots and force interactions at will most of the time.

I get more and more focused on finding my openings from a read on my opponent's movement (which I can pressure or influence with my own movement/lasers). This leads good players to look for scenarios and angles of attack for which my answers are weaker, which I understand and it motivates me to learn new tactics and clean up my gameplay. But right now I'm in a detrimental stalemate with fox (and DD heavy chars like Marth/Falcon) run up > shield.

I can't predict the spacing at which he's gonna shield, so everything I do about it is sketchy and puts me off balance (or straight up gets me killed).

-laser : he dashes in from close enough to threaten nair, and even when he does run up shield often he shieldgrabs me before I can do anything after landing. Should I focus on getting a good FF so I can be at a frame advantage more often ? Fadeback laser seems better to me than laser in place there (I should be out of range of OoS options) but even then I don't know how to capitalize on this read (he's ready for the immediate counter-attack there) and I gave him ground for free. Should I look out if he takes the laser/shields it ? What can I go for when either happens ?

-shieldstop > dair in place : this is what I do when I think he's gonna run in generally. I can fadeback at the peak of my SH if needed, and if it hits I can get a big reward. I prefer this as a defensive move to utilt and AC bair, which I prefer as anti-air barrage. But the thing is I can't afford to delay the dair very much, in case he just nairs/grabs right away, so when he runs up shield at the right spot, I hit his shield super high and give him a free punish. Do you think this is a poor option when I know he wants to run up shield ? Should I try and get a super fadeback, or a crossup ? Would you risk tomahakw>grab/shine-grab in this scenario ?

-wait/DD : I'm not confident to just let fox get in my space like that. He drill>shines me into techchase instantly anyway.

-I just thought about WD back when he runs in like that. If he shields I can wait for him and threaten his options (except roll/WD back), and to punish me for it he'd have to read me big time. I would WD there because Falco's dash is too short/slow to get me out of harm's way typically.

Oh and what do I do to discourage fox to just drill me when I'm on the ground ? This move is annoying me like hell right now :)
Yeah doing lower lasers would help you a lot, and against Fox you can shine/JC shine or jab out of that to have advantage. You can also dash if you're unsure or grab and it's a tight timing for them to do anything about it.

You can also run in and grab.

Something safer is to just space Bair when they run in so it beats approaches and has frame advantage on shield.

Bair/Utilt/maybe other aerials or DJ'ing over it or going to a platform and attacking down into Fox could all work against drill.
 

Klemes

Smash Journeyman
Joined
Jul 4, 2015
Messages
236
Location
France
Dr Peepee Dr Peepee how should I respond to a fox that comes in with run up > shield by default ?
He's more experienced and a good deal faster than me so atm I struggle to establish/maintain good control over him, which lets him pick his spots and force interactions at will most of the time.

I get more and more focused on finding my openings from a read on my opponent's movement (which I can pressure or influence with my own movement/lasers). This leads good players to look for scenarios and angles of attack for which my answers are weaker, which I understand and it motivates me to learn new tactics and clean up my gameplay. But right now I'm in a detrimental stalemate with fox (and DD heavy chars like Marth/Falcon) run up > shield.

I can't predict the spacing at which he's gonna shield, so everything I do about it is sketchy and puts me off balance (or straight up gets me killed).

-laser : he dashes in from close enough to threaten nair, and even when he does run up shield often he shieldgrabs me before I can do anything after landing. Should I focus on getting a good FF so I can be at a frame advantage more often ? Fadeback laser seems better to me than laser in place there (I should be out of range of OoS options) but even then I don't know how to capitalize on this read (he's ready for the immediate counter-attack there) and I gave him ground for free. Should I look out if he takes the laser/shields it ? What can I go for when either happens ?

-shieldstop > dair in place : this is what I do when I think he's gonna run in generally. I can fadeback at the peak of my SH if needed, and if it hits I can get a big reward. I prefer this as a defensive move to utilt and AC bair, which I prefer as anti-air barrage. But the thing is I can't afford to delay the dair very much, in case he just nairs/grabs right away, so when he runs up shield at the right spot, I hit his shield super high and give him a free punish. Do you think this is a poor option when I know he wants to run up shield ? Should I try and get a super fadeback, or a crossup ? Would you risk tomahakw>grab/shine-grab in this scenario ?

-wait/DD : I'm not confident to just let fox get in my space like that. He drill>shines me into techchase instantly anyway.

-I just thought about WD back when he runs in like that. If he shields I can wait for him and threaten his options (except roll/WD back), and to punish me for it he'd have to read me big time. I would WD there because Falco's dash is too short/slow to get me out of harm's way typically.

Oh and what do I do to discourage fox to just drill me when I'm on the ground ? This move is annoying me like hell right now :)
 

StrayDog

Smash Rookie
Joined
Jan 23, 2017
Messages
21
what are people's thoughts on going high? in which matchups is it most/least advisable? people have often told me that going high against marth is bad, but as of lately I have been having a lot of success with short hopping at marth and mixing up the standard ff aerial with double jumping to the top platform. from this position if marth tries to wall me out with fair or up tilt I can waveland slide off fast fall dair or bair to punish it (or accomplish something similar albeit much less fast with waveland isai drop ff dair.) or if I'm unsure of what they will do, waveland slide off away from them and come down with a laser, or just waveland and ambiguously come down. it seems like it requires a read from marth to punish this and if I'm mixing it up enough, marths at my level virtually never get it.

in the CF matchup on the other hand, any time I go high it is hell on earth and honestly almost never gets me anything.

against Peach it seems safe and honestly mandatory.

against Puff it seems safe but I struggle to get anything off of it, but I struggle to get anything against Puff anyway and honestly I don't really ever understand how I win even when I win.

against Fox it feels much easier for him to threaten the top platform with impunity because his vertical speed seems much faster than marth's and he has better ways to threaten the platform with the intent to land on it rather than sharking it, so I am undecided on whether or not it is useful, but it seems like a fantastic way to punish his fullhop. example, fox is showing a habit of fullhopping after getting lasered to beat laser shffl, so you laser and dj waveland towards him on the top platform and you are threatening him from above. it seems to more reliably get me results than trying to rising bair or utilt.

slide off/run off ff aerial is obviously unreactable and it seems like a lot of opponents will try to read you coming down, so slide off dj backwards waveland into slide off or run off seems to catch a lot of options and require reads to punish, and even if they start reading that you could slide off dj backwards and waveland backwards.

slide off/run off ff shine dj waveland also seems incredible and soft wins against dding under the side platform.

is it just that people at my level are bad at dealing with fast platform movement or is there something fundamentally solid here?
 

Dr Peepee

Thanks for Everything <3
Moderator
BRoomer
Joined
Sep 29, 2007
Messages
27,766
Location
Raleigh, North Carolina
Going high is good, and can even be good vs Marth(especially on YS/maybe FoD) but for the most part I tend not to recommend it since people mess it up. Falco is the best character after Fox of abusing platforms to fight so you're doing it right, but you just have to beware of Marths hedging their bet that you won't come in and then follow you up, or reposition after you move up or whatever.

Playing vertical games with Puff is good because her Uair and Dair aren't great so getting over or under her is really good, but it's still pretty hard to do that from above since Falco's slow.

Against Fox you pretty much want to do it to cut off his own vertical play, and since that's common for him in the matchup it's pretty good against him.
 

AGTallon

Smash Rookie
Joined
Aug 9, 2017
Messages
9
Location
Rockford, IL
I'm having some trouble dealing with marth, I never really get the sense of when to go in, and tend to get walled out pretty handily when I choose an offensive option. I've found that the best thing for me to do is to space around and stay out of his dash attack, grab, and down tilt range by shooting lasers, dash dancing, and jumping to platforms. When I get a hit its pretty difficult for me to follow up without the marth jumping out. My matches end up being a game of cat and mouse where I run from marth and get small hits in where I can. There has to be a better solution, but I'm at a loss.
 
Last edited:

Bones0

Smash Legend
Joined
Aug 31, 2005
Messages
11,153
Location
Jarrettsville, MD
I'm having some trouble dealing with marth, I never really get the sense of when to go in, and tend to get walled out pretty handily when I choose an offensive option. I've found that the best thing for me to do is to space around and stay out of his dash attack, grab, and down tilt range by shooting lasers, dash dancing, and jumping to platforms. When I get a hit its pretty difficult for me to follow up without the marth jumping out. My matches end up being a game of cat and mouse where I run from marth and get small hits in where I can. There has to be a better solution, but I'm at a loss.
Laser him until he approaches, then stuff his approaches between the lasers with approaches of your own. If he just wants to sit and wait for you to approach, then you can laser indefinitely, or push him towards the corner and approach when he no longer has any room to retreat.
 

StrayDog

Smash Rookie
Joined
Jan 23, 2017
Messages
21
I'm having some trouble dealing with marth, I never really get the sense of when to go in, and tend to get walled out pretty handily when I choose an offensive option. I've found that the best thing for me to do is to space around and stay out of his dash attack, grab, and down tilt range by shooting lasers, dash dancing, and jumping to platforms. When I get a hit its pretty difficult for me to follow up without the marth jumping out. My matches end up being a game of cat and mouse where I run from marth and get small hits in where I can. There has to be a better solution, but I'm at a loss.
You have to play a push/pull style against Marth in my experience. I find that short hop dair handily beats dtilt and dash attack. This is your push. To get Marth to pick these options, you have to "pull." This involves shooting lasers and feinting approaches with ambiguous movement until Marth feels like he has to reach for you. Marth's most popular tool for walling is his fair, which is not active for very long, and I often find that I can squeeze in a dair or a nair if he whiffs a fair while close to the ground (right as he is landing.) I find that I can do it semi-consistently by faking an approach and then dash dancing or waiting just outside of his fair range and then immediately going in. Don't try to punish rising fair, you can't, and it's often unworth trying to punish falling fair if you think you were too slow because they will just land and DD you or just fsmash. If Marth does bad fairs (moving towards you) they are very punishable with run up shield or wavedashing inside their tipper range and CCing. You can get shield grabs, off of shielding or dtilt off of CCing.

Also, while comboing Marth, be aware of when you can get true followups and when you can't. Marths love to fair you if you are late with a reaction and try to get the followup anyway. Take advantage of this by feinting a followup attempt (I find that empty short hop works well) and then punishing their fair, or running under them to threaten a juggle and then just shielding and looking for a shine out of shield. Against spammy Marths waiting for them to swing their sword and then beating them up will get you tonnns of results. Often it is not a matter of doing things faster but doing things slower.

Also getting hits in where you can is a large part of most floaty matchups, but Falco can combo Marth really well, and you really need to make use of this if you want to win the matchup because Marth also combos Falco ridiculously well and if the punish game is too skewed in Marth's favor then they will be able to go for riskier, cheekier options with impunity which can be really annoying.

EDIT: oh yeah, you can also beat some of Marth's grounded walling tools cleanly. If they are using ftilt, up tilt, fsmash, you can beat these by going high, wavelanding on a platform and fast falling with an aerial. You can also beat fsmash with wavedash out of shield. I also find that on suboptimal netplay conditions, side B out of shield functions as a decent alternative for punishing fsmash.
 
Last edited:

L33thal

Smash Apprentice
Joined
Mar 28, 2014
Messages
131
Location
Monterey Park, CA
I just went 2-2 (lost to a Puff and Samus) in a local today and I noticed some HUGE problems I had. I know things are matchup dependent, but I generally have a LOT of trouble against floaties that are shielding.

From my perspective, it feels like shielding is so good for floaties against Falco. It prevents hits from Falco's most common approaches (e.g. aerials, dash attack, etc.). Falco's options for punishing shield are limited imo; the only ideas I can think of are: overshoot/cross-up and attack from behind, late/cross-up aerial shield pressure to set up a read or shield-poke, bait with pressure into fadeaway, laser grab, shine grab, and laser spam. And I feel like Falco's follow-up game off grabs on floaties isn't very strong so that takes away a lot of the benefit of getting grabs on shielding floaties (aka the "Puff can go for risky rests against Peach since there is no strong punish" mentality). I also feel like at low/mid-level it's way easier for Falco to get punished for trying to read actions OoS or make a play against shielding floaties; basically, the risk-reward is heavily skewed in favor of floaties.

Anyone have thoughts on this?
 

Dr Peepee

Thanks for Everything <3
Moderator
BRoomer
Joined
Sep 29, 2007
Messages
27,766
Location
Raleigh, North Carolina
I'd also include run (JC) shine, spaced aerials(especially Bair), or consistent pressure(involving 1-2 shines at a time and aerials). The moving forward shine is just to make sure they don't try to move OOS when you come in but spaced aerials and consistent pressure punish floaties for just holding shield. Plus spaced aerials are very safe and help you retain stage position. I still think grab is fine you just need to be able to work your FH/DJ Bair afterward and juggle well instead of going for confirms. If they could DI in such a way where you can't easily juggle then just throw them closer to the edge since that still benefits you and your spaced aerial game even more then.
 

SalaMenace

Smash Cadet
Joined
Feb 13, 2016
Messages
26
Hey I'm pretty new to this game, just wanted to ask if there's a way to shine on a platform without falling through? It seems like shinegrabs on platforms are impossible, and even just waveshining on platforms is hard.
 

Squidster

Smash Ace
Joined
Mar 3, 2008
Messages
798
Location
Southern California
Been having trouble vs Falcon (and by that I mean s2j and n0ne bop me).

I have a new theory about the matchup I figured I’d run by you and see what you think.

Here’s my old theory which I now think is wrong: basically it was just that running shine is really strong vs Falcon compared to sh aerials or approaching sh laser. MY thought was that it lets me stay grounded and therefore CC, it basically always confirms on his while sometimes I Dair and miss the shine followup, it’s good on hit or on shield while approaching aerials you gotta account for shield in different ways, it sets up roll baits between run up shine and run up wd back, it lets me space pretty close to them and still have threats and stuff.

The problems I’ve ran into is that they can kinda spam retreating Nair or stomp in place or even approaching stomp, I end up spacing close enough to where I feel like I always have to account for Nair which I end up trying to stuff with Utilt or Bair but since I’m always scared of the move I end up throwing out Bairs pre-emptively all the time which they can just wait for. I feel like my lasers don’t end up working great since laser running shine isn’t the most threatening thing and if I’m looking for running shine I’m spaced too close to laser and stuff.

So I rewatched mango vs s2j at shine and intend to do a bit more studying but I noticed mango actually backs off and spaces further than I expected, and dash dances further than I expected. This made s2j be the one pre-emptively throwing out things like Nairs which mango just punished with approaching laser or approaching Nair, even if neither directly punished they always led to s2j having to shield and mango getting good pressure. Since mango is spaced further his lasers protect him and threaten approaching and at any time he’s threatening to do approaching laser into approaching aerial which I’m starting to realize actually just beats so many options including powershield if you do low laser and jump asap over it with your aerial.

This also makes more sense why you’d do things like laser > jab quite a bit in that set with s2j since you end up doing approaching laser to punish stuff but you land at basically max jab spacing based on where you were spacing before the laser and stuff. I’m imagining now that at this range laser > jab is good if they hold shield or roll in and laser > instant aerial is good vs basically anything else.

I think I had similar problems Marth tbh of not realizing how powerful it is to space a bit further than was intuitive to me. This combined with how powerful low laser > instant approaching aerial is I think is making me understand the ground game quite a bit more. Thoughts?
 

Dr Peepee

Thanks for Everything <3
Moderator
BRoomer
Joined
Sep 29, 2007
Messages
27,766
Location
Raleigh, North Carolina
Hey I'm pretty new to this game, just wanted to ask if there's a way to shine on a platform without falling through? It seems like shinegrabs on platforms are impossible, and even just waveshining on platforms is hard.
I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but you can slightly hold down on the stick and not fall through I think. Either that or go for the partial down into full press. I'm sure someone here knows all the specifics of it though.

Been having trouble vs Falcon (and by that I mean s2j and n0ne bop me).

I have a new theory about the matchup I figured I’d run by you and see what you think.

Here’s my old theory which I now think is wrong: basically it was just that running shine is really strong vs Falcon compared to sh aerials or approaching sh laser. MY thought was that it lets me stay grounded and therefore CC, it basically always confirms on his while sometimes I Dair and miss the shine followup, it’s good on hit or on shield while approaching aerials you gotta account for shield in different ways, it sets up roll baits between run up shine and run up wd back, it lets me space pretty close to them and still have threats and stuff.

The problems I’ve ran into is that they can kinda spam retreating Nair or stomp in place or even approaching stomp, I end up spacing close enough to where I feel like I always have to account for Nair which I end up trying to stuff with Utilt or Bair but since I’m always scared of the move I end up throwing out Bairs pre-emptively all the time which they can just wait for. I feel like my lasers don’t end up working great since laser running shine isn’t the most threatening thing and if I’m looking for running shine I’m spaced too close to laser and stuff.

So I rewatched mango vs s2j at shine and intend to do a bit more studying but I noticed mango actually backs off and spaces further than I expected, and dash dances further than I expected. This made s2j be the one pre-emptively throwing out things like Nairs which mango just punished with approaching laser or approaching Nair, even if neither directly punished they always led to s2j having to shield and mango getting good pressure. Since mango is spaced further his lasers protect him and threaten approaching and at any time he’s threatening to do approaching laser into approaching aerial which I’m starting to realize actually just beats so many options including powershield if you do low laser and jump asap over it with your aerial.

This also makes more sense why you’d do things like laser > jab quite a bit in that set with s2j since you end up doing approaching laser to punish stuff but you land at basically max jab spacing based on where you were spacing before the laser and stuff. I’m imagining now that at this range laser > jab is good if they hold shield or roll in and laser > instant aerial is good vs basically anything else.

I think I had similar problems Marth tbh of not realizing how powerful it is to space a bit further than was intuitive to me. This combined with how powerful low laser > instant approaching aerial is I think is making me understand the ground game quite a bit more. Thoughts?
For starters, it sounds like you think the starting space in the matchup is too close to the opponent. I'd like for you to consider threatening range, or the default position in matchups more. Falco's longest ranged threat is his dash SH Nair, so he needs to be a bit farther away then that since DD mixes up your timing and in order to be safe an opponent would need to be past that. Then you need to know your opponents'. That range, the intersection between both of your threatening ranges(or really the longest one between the two of you) is where you start. You'll see at that range you have to laser and can actually plan your approaches as Mango and I do. From there we can fake our SH Nair approaches by getting a little closer and dashing in(which carries our threat of SH Nair) and this forces Falcon to throw moves early. Then that's a free punish for us.

Now in matches you aren't often at TR, but then you need to know you can't plan or react and need to at least back up and laser when possible to re-establish frame advantage and get some reactable positioning back when possible. Against Marth, this is even more important since Marth would love for you to be near him without a laser out. It's his winning position, while yours is being close with a laser out. The only way for you to get your position though is to get there from father away.

Besides all of that, Falco's run is just awful lol you get a much faster and bigger threat from aerials. If you want to laser and use aerial threats to get closer and then do some run in/dash JC shine then that's fine but I don't think it should be a staple, or at least not to the extent you're making it seem.

I'd write more but I want to see what you think of this as it is.
 

orvs

Smash Cadet
Joined
Sep 17, 2012
Messages
50
does anyone here purposely do delayed double shines? Like you shine someone on shield and then just wait (so now it looks like you messed up your jump out of shine), but then as they try to punish it, you quickly shine them first as they try to shield grab or whatever? i originally thought this was just funny af but it was working kinda well because people are so programmed to punish certain mistakes (like missing a jump out of a shine) in a specific way
 

kaptinkillem

Smash Cadet
Joined
Nov 3, 2014
Messages
38
So I've been having a ton of trouble vs marth basically since always, and it's been a great source of frustration for me. I've started to really think hard about the matchup and how I feel I can change my play and I think I've found something I can run with but I wanna run it by here to see if i'm thinking along the right lines.

Basically way too much of my game right now in the matchup is reliant on whiff punishing, or at least trying to. Trying to catch marth throwing out aerials or going for bad grabs. However in doing this i've found that whiff punishing gives me mixed results, and It feels like this style of play benefits marth in risk reward in a lot of scenarios, especially with grab because unless im extremely close (where I don't want to be) punishing marth's missed grab on reaction seems extremely difficult to me. The end result is that I get grabbed a ton and im not punishing enough of the missed grabs to make it worth it. I also tend to get clipped by an exorbitant ammount of uptilts (and I don't consider uptilt to be an amazing neutral tool in this matchup for marth) and a number of fairs.

At first I thought this was just a spacing problem, i figured i was just the tinniest bit too close to marth, but as ive tried to improve my spacing, the need to get further away has mad these tight timing windows even harder to hit.

Today I realized that I think im following a flawed idea of the matchup, and that in my pursuit of trying to punish marth for throwing out moves, I was going about it in the wrong way. I think my main problem is that I don't control the pace of the match. I sit back and never feel like i'm applying any pressure to marth. I played a bit of netplay and while I olbviously havent been able to flesh out much of this new take on the matchup it already felt a lot better. Rather than trying to punish grabs and uptilts on reaction it seems much more practical to be punishing these moves based on timing mixups, and to try to put more pressure on marth to force bad reactions rather than expect him to commit into me just because I was lasering outside his range with much less threat of me coming in.

I know this extremely basic but I was just hoping to get some insight on if i'm following a good path in the matchup. I think I need to retool my marth matchup from the ground up as it is by far my worst one, and I want to make sure I at least start off going in the right direction. Thanks!
 

Bones0

Smash Legend
Joined
Aug 31, 2005
Messages
11,153
Location
Jarrettsville, MD
Hey I'm pretty new to this game, just wanted to ask if there's a way to shine on a platform without falling through? It seems like shinegrabs on platforms are impossible, and even just waveshining on platforms is hard.
Whether you fall through or not is determined by whether you're still holding down on the 4th frame of shine. To not fall through, you have to allow the stick to reset to neutral before then. Tilting can help achieve this, but isn't necessary. It's important to note that if you hit the opponent or their shield with shine, you undergo hitlag which makes this much easier. Hitlag gives you extra frames to release the stick so you will notice shining on plats is much easier when you hit people.

If you aren't sure if you will hit the opponent or not and can't consistently release before frame 4, the best alternative is to hold down while you land on the platform. Whether it's lag from a waveland or attack, you can hold down before the lag ends and shining will not cause you to drop through. If you are trying to land without lag, you can shoot a laser (or fake one where the animation starts but the laser doesn't come out) or you can use the IASA frames at the beginning of uair to start an attack without a hitbox or additional landing lag.


Been having trouble vs Falcon (and by that I mean s2j and n0ne bop me).

I have a new theory about the matchup I figured I’d run by you and see what you think.

Here’s my old theory which I now think is wrong: basically it was just that running shine is really strong vs Falcon compared to sh aerials or approaching sh laser. MY thought was that it lets me stay grounded and therefore CC, it basically always confirms on his while sometimes I Dair and miss the shine followup, it’s good on hit or on shield while approaching aerials you gotta account for shield in different ways, it sets up roll baits between run up shine and run up wd back, it lets me space pretty close to them and still have threats and stuff.

The problems I’ve ran into is that they can kinda spam retreating Nair or stomp in place or even approaching stomp, I end up spacing close enough to where I feel like I always have to account for Nair which I end up trying to stuff with Utilt or Bair but since I’m always scared of the move I end up throwing out Bairs pre-emptively all the time which they can just wait for. I feel like my lasers don’t end up working great since laser running shine isn’t the most threatening thing and if I’m looking for running shine I’m spaced too close to laser and stuff.

So I rewatched mango vs s2j at shine and intend to do a bit more studying but I noticed mango actually backs off and spaces further than I expected, and dash dances further than I expected. This made s2j be the one pre-emptively throwing out things like Nairs which mango just punished with approaching laser or approaching Nair, even if neither directly punished they always led to s2j having to shield and mango getting good pressure. Since mango is spaced further his lasers protect him and threaten approaching and at any time he’s threatening to do approaching laser into approaching aerial which I’m starting to realize actually just beats so many options including powershield if you do low laser and jump asap over it with your aerial.

This also makes more sense why you’d do things like laser > jab quite a bit in that set with s2j since you end up doing approaching laser to punish stuff but you land at basically max jab spacing based on where you were spacing before the laser and stuff. I’m imagining now that at this range laser > jab is good if they hold shield or roll in and laser > instant aerial is good vs basically anything else.

I think I had similar problems Marth tbh of not realizing how powerful it is to space a bit further than was intuitive to me. This combined with how powerful low laser > instant approaching aerial is I think is making me understand the ground game quite a bit more. Thoughts?
Based on what I saw, Mango seems to space close enough that Falcon's dash SHFFL goes too far, but far enough that SHFFL in place/OoS is not far enough. In this range, he has more freedom to laser, and if S2J wants to commit to hitting the laser preemptively, he's at risk of getting his aerials stuff by bair/utilt. The weird thing is that after game 1, S2J seemed to become so uncomfortable in this range that he started playing more grounded/defensive, which allowed Mango to just approach continuously. He would start aerial shield pressure or chase his escapes with approaching lasers.

Watching Mango vs. Wizzy at Dreamhack Austin 2017, Wizzy seems to do a better jump in this range utilizing immediate DJs to get over lasers and quickly attacking. I've seen S2J do this too, so I'm curious why he basically never attempted it vs. Mango at Shine. He tried a couple things involving higher-than-SH height options, such as immediate DJs, FHs, and platform movement, but all-in-all he didn't seem to want to leave the ground. I feel like BF's platforms actually played a significant role in that factor as the plats make it hard/impossible for Falcon to come down with aerials without landing on the platform first. Idk if he can drop through and bair, but he can definitely uair.

I actually analyzed one of your sets vs. S2J a while back for a local Falcon player, and the biggest thing I pointed out was how vertically he played, abusing jumps and plats to pick his spots. Falling down with uair reminds me a lot of Marth fair the way it utilizes range to open people up for grab opportunities, but the fact that it starts low instead of high makes it even better when running off of plats or coming down from FH/immediate DJ. Bair can be used similarly, but it more for KOing, knocking down, or setting up edgeguards. I think if S2J had done this style of mixup vs. Mango he would not have been able to abuse the "no man's land" range as much as he did, though it certain still seems like the best spot to be. If you expect Falcon to jump, I'd imagine you could replace your lasers with more waiting to anti air him, but it might be best to simply reposition. I personally dislike trying to fight Falcon straight up because of how much it hurts to trade or outright lose hitbox vs. hitbox interactions.



So I've been having a ton of trouble vs marth basically since always, and it's been a great source of frustration for me. I've started to really think hard about the matchup and how I feel I can change my play and I think I've found something I can run with but I wanna run it by here to see if i'm thinking along the right lines.

Basically way too much of my game right now in the matchup is reliant on whiff punishing, or at least trying to. Trying to catch marth throwing out aerials or going for bad grabs. However in doing this i've found that whiff punishing gives me mixed results, and It feels like this style of play benefits marth in risk reward in a lot of scenarios, especially with grab because unless im extremely close (where I don't want to be) punishing marth's missed grab on reaction seems extremely difficult to me. The end result is that I get grabbed a ton and im not punishing enough of the missed grabs to make it worth it. I also tend to get clipped by an exorbitant ammount of uptilts (and I don't consider uptilt to be an amazing neutral tool in this matchup for marth) and a number of fairs.

At first I thought this was just a spacing problem, i figured i was just the tinniest bit too close to marth, but as ive tried to improve my spacing, the need to get further away has mad these tight timing windows even harder to hit.

Today I realized that I think im following a flawed idea of the matchup, and that in my pursuit of trying to punish marth for throwing out moves, I was going about it in the wrong way. I think my main problem is that I don't control the pace of the match. I sit back and never feel like i'm applying any pressure to marth. I played a bit of netplay and while I olbviously havent been able to flesh out much of this new take on the matchup it already felt a lot better. Rather than trying to punish grabs and uptilts on reaction it seems much more practical to be punishing these moves based on timing mixups, and to try to put more pressure on marth to force bad reactions rather than expect him to commit into me just because I was lasering outside his range with much less threat of me coming in.

I know this extremely basic but I was just hoping to get some insight on if i'm following a good path in the matchup. I think I need to retool my marth matchup from the ground up as it is by far my worst one, and I want to make sure I at least start off going in the right direction. Thanks!
I sort of mentioned this recently in the thread, but from your description, it sounds like you could gain a lot from focusing on your laser game. Marth doesn't have any good options to immediately punish consecutive lasers if he isn't within range. He can't FH aerial like Fox or float over them like Peach. As a result, having lasers out automatically creates that pressure you feel you need. Once you've established that pressure, it's a matter of figuring out how to land your hits. One of the ways to do this is to whiff punish. If Marth expects an approach after a laser, he is likely to throw out a utilt or fair OoS to catch you, and it sounds like you're relatively well versed in this area. The catch is, of course, that Marth won't expect an approach if you never approach. This is where Marths that just spam run up grab, dash attack, or fsmash tend to get success, especially if you're not lasering properly. You can approach with aerials (stuffs attacks OoS or initiates shield pressure) or lasers (catches backward movement and is also safe on shield), and if you think they might approach, don't be afraid to do defensive aerials. Fadeaway dair or dash back SH bair are great for catching those run up grabs that Marths fiend for. You can intentionally leave gaps in your lasering to bait these types of approaches, or you can catch them moving in between lasers by reacting to the fact that they approached and grabbing or dashing away. Grabbing is good because they're right in front of you with a laser in their face, but dash away can help if they are good at powershielding as it option selects SDI away, and Marth's usually go for grab after this type of forward movement anyway, which you should be able to whiff punish as long as you're expecting it since you will be pretty close.
 

mrdoingboing

Smash Cadet
Joined
Dec 10, 2009
Messages
38
Location
Winston-Salem, NC
Hey, does anyone have any general tips for dealing with Peach float when she's right above SH laser height? The only 2 ways I've found of dealing with it somewhat effectively is 1) sharking with SH up air and 2) dash dancing at a reactable distance and whiff punishing an FC aerial with laser. With the first scenario, I end up getting hit pretty hard if the peach reads my approach by fading back a bit or going for a pre-emptive aerial. I think it's an alright mixup, but I don't know if it's much more than that. Whiff punishing with laser isn't really getting me punished, but it's just frustrating that trying to punish with an aerial just usually results in hitting a shield. I feel like I'm on the right track with dash dancing a good distance away from the float, but I'm not sure where to go from that point onward.

Also for reference, I'm good at mentally keeping track of how long Peach has been floating in the heat of the battle. I'm not sure if that opens anything up for me, but I feel like I can time things pretty precisely if I can anticipate exactly when and where she's landing.
 

SalaMenace

Smash Cadet
Joined
Feb 13, 2016
Messages
26
Hey so I just started getting into smash about 2 months ago, needless to say I'm pretty bad. I've just been playing netplay friendlies as much as I can, and I've improved quite a bit from when I started. I haven't done any real analysis on the game, since I figured I needed to just get a feel for the game first. Plus how can I begin to analyze when I don't know the first thing about anything? A lot of times I'm just getting beat because of my sloppy movement and missed inputs. But now as I'm starting to get more comfortable with my control, I'm wondering when I should begin the analysis process. Is it ever to early to start? Should I just keep playing and learning more naturally, and keep getting a better feel for the game?
 

StrayDog

Smash Rookie
Joined
Jan 23, 2017
Messages
21
Hey, does anyone have any general tips for dealing with Peach float when she's right above SH laser height? The only 2 ways I've found of dealing with it somewhat effectively is 1) sharking with SH up air and 2) dash dancing at a reactable distance and whiff punishing an FC aerial with laser. With the first scenario, I end up getting hit pretty hard if the peach reads my approach by fading back a bit or going for a pre-emptive aerial. I think it's an alright mixup, but I don't know if it's much more than that. Whiff punishing with laser isn't really getting me punished, but it's just frustrating that trying to punish with an aerial just usually results in hitting a shield. I feel like I'm on the right track with dash dancing a good distance away from the float, but I'm not sure where to go from that point onward.

Also for reference, I'm good at mentally keeping track of how long Peach has been floating in the heat of the battle. I'm not sure if that opens anything up for me, but I feel like I can time things pretty precisely if I can anticipate exactly when and where she's landing.
Take anything I say with a grain of salt 'cause I'm really not that good but I find going to platforms against Peach to be hilariously good. Peach's up air seems pretty bad in neutral and her fair is too slow to use reliably for trades. You can laser her from the side platform, jump off the side platform into an aerial (if they're floating they can't CC nair so doing a nair above them and then FFing through them sets up combos nicely. You can jump off the side platform like you're gonna aerial and then dj waveland on the top platform, which is great against Peach in my experience 'cause her vertical movement is so slow and you can easily react to anything she does to try to threaten the top platform. From the top platform you can run off/slide off/fall through FF aerial, jump to a side platform, jump and fall through a side platform (which will put peach above you if she moves to threaten the side platform), run off/slide off/fall through DJ waveland to bait moves, come down with laser if they're trying to camp under side platforms. Another way to attack peach under side platforms is jump off, fast fall through the plat, aerial shine, DJ waveland.

I really love being on platforms against Peach in general because she can't:
-dash attack
-grab
-run up dsmash
-get effective turnip trajectories easily

These are some of her most common neutral tools along with, as you said, floating above SHL height, which is also not great if you can get to the top platform. And once you have Peach trying to deal with your platform movement, suddenly the ground is a very nice place to be again because you can threaten her with up tilts, rising bair etc. Anyway I'm just a scrub, but I was having the same problem you were, and when I started playing floor is lava against Peach I got insane results.
 
Last edited:

StrayDog

Smash Rookie
Joined
Jan 23, 2017
Messages
21
Hey so I just started getting into smash about 2 months ago, needless to say I'm pretty bad. I've just been playing netplay friendlies as much as I can, and I've improved quite a bit from when I started. I haven't done any real analysis on the game, since I figured I needed to just get a feel for the game first. Plus how can I begin to analyze when I don't know the first thing about anything? A lot of times I'm just getting beat because of my sloppy movement and missed inputs. But now as I'm starting to get more comfortable with my control, I'm wondering when I should begin the analysis process. Is it ever to early to start? Should I just keep playing and learning more naturally, and keep getting a better feel for the game?
I was where you are relatively recently. I started playing like a year ago and only just started getting good, valuable results from analysis like 3-4 months ago. It took a number of realizations before I really started seeing the game in a way that made sense, and I gained a lot of understanding from the game from reading what PPMD had to say in this thread. The biggest thing that improved my understanding of the game was what PPMD had to say about "threatened ranges."

In essence, you need to first internalize the range that you threaten with your dash SHFFL nair. When you are in this range, your opponent will be forced to act, and you can influence how they will act with the options you pick. For example if you ALWAYS dash shffl nair at this range, your opponent can beat you simply by walling you out or dash dancing. But if you dash and then DON'T SHFFL nair (feinting a SHFFL nair,) and your opponent picks one of these options, then you have your own options that you can pick which will reward you. For example if your opponent has been showing a tendency to wall you out after a laser, you can laser, dash like you're about to SHFFL nair but instead wavedash back and search for a whiff punish on their move. If they show a tendency to dash dance, you can move forward while firing another laser and gain stage position.

There are a huuuge number of possible interactions, those are just a few examples, but the point is that once you start breaking the game down into interactions like this, analysis becomes possible. "What can I do from this position, what are my opponent's options for dealing with it and how likely are they to pick these options, and what options do I have to deal with those."

Now, those things are examples of proactive play, in other words, play that advances your own strategy, but you must also engage in reactive play, play that blocks your opponent's strategy, and to do that you must familiarize yourself with their threatened range, their proactive options and ultimately, their praxis for the usage of these options.

One thing that I think is true is that while there is something to be gained from analyzing high level matches, you won't be able to meaningfully analyze them until you really have a firm grasp on each character's options. Think about it like a ludicrously complex rock-paper-scissors match, except that in addition to rock, paper, and scissors there is also mushroom, alligator, guitar, teepee, monster truck, mask, pterodactyl, rifle, water filter, dandelion, and trumpet, and you can see that players are throwing these but you have no idea what beats what and therefore no idea why they are picking these options. You should familiarize yourself with these options and experiment with them in your own matches. Then you will start to form a rough sense of what beats what. Record your matches and try to remember what options you picked in your head when your opponent gets hits on you. Obviously for stuff like tech errors the answer is "practice more" but if you feel that you executed an option well and you still got beaten then it's likely that you got read and your opponent's option counters yours. If you watch one of your games and think "hmm, that's the second time where after I shot a laser he did an immediate attack and that stuffed my shffl approach" then congrats, you just conducted meaningful analysis. From there you need to develop counters to your opponents options and ways to get them to pick these options.
 

Dr Peepee

Thanks for Everything <3
Moderator
BRoomer
Joined
Sep 29, 2007
Messages
27,766
Location
Raleigh, North Carolina
does anyone here purposely do delayed double shines? Like you shine someone on shield and then just wait (so now it looks like you messed up your jump out of shine), but then as they try to punish it, you quickly shine them first as they try to shield grab or whatever? i originally thought this was just funny af but it was working kinda well because people are so programmed to punish certain mistakes (like missing a jump out of a shine) in a specific way
I've thought about doing this myself and the little I messed with it it looked good. I say keep on with it.

Hey, does anyone have any general tips for dealing with Peach float when she's right above SH laser height? The only 2 ways I've found of dealing with it somewhat effectively is 1) sharking with SH up air and 2) dash dancing at a reactable distance and whiff punishing an FC aerial with laser. With the first scenario, I end up getting hit pretty hard if the peach reads my approach by fading back a bit or going for a pre-emptive aerial. I think it's an alright mixup, but I don't know if it's much more than that. Whiff punishing with laser isn't really getting me punished, but it's just frustrating that trying to punish with an aerial just usually results in hitting a shield. I feel like I'm on the right track with dash dancing a good distance away from the float, but I'm not sure where to go from that point onward.

Also for reference, I'm good at mentally keeping track of how long Peach has been floating in the heat of the battle. I'm not sure if that opens anything up for me, but I feel like I can time things pretty precisely if I can anticipate exactly when and where she's landing.
FH/DJ laser onto platform(or falling on FD) hits Peach float height well because she has to always float slightly above side platform height to effectively threaten you. You can also do low SHL on platforms to hit her. If she sees this coming she will drop and you can follow with runoff laser or sh laser into her or laser on platform to keep her from jumping back up, and so on.

Also sometimes if she's closer you can FH Nair her. If she doesn't do early Fair or does Nair you can Utilt/Bair her, and you can also SH delayed Bair her landing since she's usually trying to space Fair around Utilt. This conveniently beats her jabs after landing.

Hey so I just started getting into smash about 2 months ago, needless to say I'm pretty bad. I've just been playing netplay friendlies as much as I can, and I've improved quite a bit from when I started. I haven't done any real analysis on the game, since I figured I needed to just get a feel for the game first. Plus how can I begin to analyze when I don't know the first thing about anything? A lot of times I'm just getting beat because of my sloppy movement and missed inputs. But now as I'm starting to get more comfortable with my control, I'm wondering when I should begin the analysis process. Is it ever to early to start? Should I just keep playing and learning more naturally, and keep getting a better feel for the game?
Analysis is a great habit, so I'd definitely recommend starting it ASAP. It's easiest to look at your own stuff and people that are a bit better than you up to the lower end of top 100 so don't worry too much about Mango or Westballz right now unless you think you find some stuff you can directly use that's straightforward. The simplest thing I advise for people doing analysis is looking for a hit and trying to figure out why it happened. Basically come up with theories and see what patterns develop. You may have to look a little before the hit for answers. Really the most important thing is to DO IT and then check your progress and understanding as you refine the skill. It's something to be trained like anything else.
 

kaptinkillem

Smash Cadet
Joined
Nov 3, 2014
Messages
38
Thanks bones I'll try to work on my laser game/think more about each laser im doing and why.

I have a more specific questions for the board too.

1. What do I do against sheik roll? I generally do OK vs sheiks playing standard but I played one sheik today who after pretty much every move would just roll. It has such little lag I found trying to react with dair was almost always unsuccessful even when she was rolling into me. Even when I read it and preempted it with a wd back or a dair to cover away, she would be able to dsmash or shield a lot of the time. Also I found dair very difficult to space properly so shine would hit afterwards, but I think thats more of practice thing to get my dairs more accurately (and experience in knowing excatly where she'll be after a roll). What do you guys usually do to punish sheik roll? Is it as unreactable as it seems to me?

2. Is there a video or something I can read about combating marth uptilt on platforms? I know you can do some double stick DI to slide off but im not sure which directions to do.

3. What do you guys think about buffered fullhop after a tech vs marth? I find it's pretty good if you think they are gonna go for a grab right away or try to wait out a spot dodge or shine, and making them go for moves after you tech seems pretty good to me (obviously this only applies if they can't get you when you're inactionable after techs)
 
Last edited:
Top Bottom