Q&A -Fox Advice/Questions Topic-

[Silent Wolf]

As much as id like to respond, now its just too much lol. My hands are ****ed up so there's no way I'm typing all that -_-

 

[Jim Morrison]

All I want to say now is that adaptibility would definitely be the most worthwhile part of your theory, the one that can carry you furthest.

Sorta related, What I think can really improve your play is to just realize that there's no reason to react to anything he does before he does it. I've been drilling it during a few matches and it yields impressive results when you just keep repeating "Only react to one thing at a time when he threatens me". It's a way of focusing intensely on the enemy character, something that I often forget to do well. It's something you hear extremely often, watching your opponent and sure, we all do it, but we keep forgetting that watching your opponent is more than just seeing what he does. It takes a lot of focus and is probably the most exhausting part about playing the game, watching your opponent.

Often times, you can find extremely good punishes by just waiting longer. You can miss some opportunities, but I really enjoy just waiting a tad longer, it really messes up some people.

I finally have some footage of me playing again, which I'd be very grateful if some of you would take a look at. I'm definitely not gonna ask you to watch it all, but if you just pick some moment and find something to point out to me, I'd already appreciate it a lot!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VE074ji3Qdk

Oh and someone please tell me what's the best option for some nice damage on Sheik after U-throw, I still don't really know. If she doesn't DI, U-tilt is nice, but with DI???

 

[Rocketpowerchill]

good looks overswarm those tracks are filthy
honestly some of the best music ive ever listened to
@NathanBostick up there with god like **** like bomberman hero ost
spacey music all day mangz, i deed it

 

[Tarv]

Let's try this again: It's all strategy and execution. If you have a great strategy it doesn't matter if you aren't able to execute it. Likewise even if you're able to execute your strategy perfectly it wont matter if said strategy is ineffective or sub-optimal. Things like mental fortitude, adaptation, the various kinds of control etc etc would all fall under these two things. If someone wants to know why they're losing I can't think of any other reason (in game) than these two (getting nervous would result in poor execution, the reason why you lost was because you couldn't execute not because you were nervous.) People can consider these two options and figure out which one they need to work on ( or if it's a combination of both.) Either your strategy was ineffective, you couldn't execute an effective strategy or both. No, it won't solve the "Why am I losing?" problem but it'll at least steer you in one direction or the other and better be able to figure out why you're losing. Think of it more like the beginning first two options of the flow chart rather than a final solution. With this you'll be to adapt one way or the other to solve those problems.

 

[Bones0]

If someone wants to know why they're losing I can't think of any other reason (in game) than these two (getting nervous would result in poor execution, the reason why you loss was because you couldn't execute not because you were nervous.)

Right, but if you present the problem as being their execution, you are essentially telling them to go practice tech skill when in reality the root cause of their failure is their mental preparedness. Saying that their execution was the issue won't help most people because when someone messes something up, they immediately realize that they messed up. If your model wants to analyze why people win or lose, it should examine the root causes because the surface causes are the easy things to spot. People will watch their own videos and realize "wow, I had poor execution" or "my strategy isn't working, but I don't know what to do in place of it." A model that is so vague that it breaks their loss into simply poor execution or poor strategy doesn't tell them anything. If you were to further break down reasons for poor execution, it's not really a model at that point, just a guide to good tech skill. While some players would surely benefit from reading about how to improve their tech skill and practice it better, it largely just comes with grinding and you won't get any shortcuts.

Strategy is something you can absolutely take shortcuts with, and strangely enough, it's what Overswarm is talking about on the previous page (did you post your theory because of what he said, or was our discussions intersecting happy coincidence?). You can try to grind out all the possibilities in a certain scenario, but Melee offers way too many possibilities for that to be a reasonable approach if you intend on winning, especially if you haven't been playing the game since '01 and are trying to catch up to 12 years of metagame development. I'd suggest bypassing out-of-game factors entirely because they are largely obvious to players. I can't think of how to even begin modelling the entirety of strategy in Melee, but it's a hell of a lot more manageable than "why do people lose?", so it's at least an improvement from what you originally had.

You're going to have to think long and hard for any and all factors that contribute to effective strategy and see what you can lump together, and even then you will have to ignore a lot of details about different aspects, which is why it seems like a relatively insurmountable project. For example, just focusing on how timing affects your strategy could be a ****ing thesis. The number of ways in which timing contributes to or detracts from a strategy is huge, and the number of variations of timings is ridiculous. Then you have the same issue with spacing, surprise factor, playing odds, accounting for your opponents tendencies, being unpredictable, risk and reward of different approaches to the game, etc. There's so many aspects to strategy running through my head I can hardly pin them down to list as examples.

I guess you could always stick with the concepts you view as being the major ones and expand on those. I still don't think I could do such a project myself without having nearly 50 topics to analyze that could all be contributing to effective strategy. I also don't know how deep it would be worth going for each aspect. Surely you don't want to write a novel for each one, so perhaps going super basic and just typing a paragraph or two for each would be best. Just enough to describe it so players can tell whether their strategic problems fall into that category and let them hash out the details for themselves. I'm sure there's also plenty of strategic aspects that people have never thought of. I can imagine that someone reading this post who has largely ignored how predictable they are could gain something just from reading that as an aspect. Similarly, I'm sure you can come up with an element of strategy that I either haven't considered at all or haven't really fleshed out in my own game which could definitely help improve my strategy-making.

 

[omgwtfToph]

playing fox without L-cancels or jumping out of shine is equivalent to trying to bodybuild by doing this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kav2ndhc6h8

LOOOOL

I could see it being useful if you specifically wanted to work on certain aspects of your game unrelated to those things (like dashdance grabbing or whatever) but specifically not L-cancelling your aerials is at best artificially limiting and at best a good way to build bad habits

Evo was fun as hell glad I got to go thanks to every1 who supported me

Sorry I did not do good to every1 who expected me to but I learned so much about the game and how far the meta game has changed

Like I said be4 tho im deff here to stay and get back to my prime level

Good **** to the fox players who repped fox and did good

See u guys at rom

^ homie

PS: bars

see you at rom jman

 

[Bones0]

playing fox without L-cancels or jumping out of shine is equivalent to trying to bodybuild by doing this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kav2ndhc6h8

LOOOOL

I could see it being useful if you specifically wanted to work on certain aspects of your game unrelated to those things (like dashdance grabbing or whatever) but specifically not L-cancelling your aerials is at best artificially limiting and at best a good way to build bad habits

Really? To me it just seems directly comparable to isolating muscle groups. Instead of preventing yourself from using different arm or leg or chest muscles, you're stopping yourself from using particular mental muscles. By shutting down your "SHFFL muscles" (lol) you enhance your focus on different parts of your gameplay (body). Playing with all of the groups at once is then comparable to competing in the sporting event you are trying to build muscle for. Of course you want to practice the event itself a lot, but it also doesn't hurt to remove all but a few or single aspect to focus on that individually as you'll see quicker gains.

 

[Rocketpowerchill]

what powder shud i be using
tryna make gains mangz
edit : oops wrong thread

 

[Bones0]

what powder shud i be using
tryna make gains mangz
edit : oops wrong thread

I'm about to smoke some waveshine right now.

 

[BTmoney]

rom 6? (o_ o )

 

[mastr0fmyd0main3]

My question is to smashers who consistently, reliably, and successfully use up-smash out of shield in games that matter. I know all the specific methods for doing it; I've been around for a bit. It's extremely useful, in my opinion, but I pull it off so inconsistently that it can screw me over in games of some consequence; often, it would be a clutch move but with my failure rate the risk of doing it can outweigh the benefits. I currently shield with L, and use up on the control stick and C-stick to do it. Despite practice, I only get it 60% of the time.

To those smashers who consistently, reliably, and successfully use up-smash out of shield in games that matter:

1. Which method do you use?
2. Do you find it even remotely risky because of potential technical failure?
3. Did you ever find it remotely risky because of potential technical failure and how did you improve to a state of reliably minimal error?

Thanks.

 

[Rocketpowerchill]

i like upsmash oos so i use control stick and a

 

[Pengie]

My question is to smashers who consistently, reliably, and successfully use up-smash out of shield in games that matter. I know all the specific methods for doing it; I've been around for a bit. It's extremely useful, in my opinion, but I pull it off so inconsistently that it can screw me over in games of some consequence; often, it would be a clutch move but with my failure rate the risk of doing it can outweigh the benefits. I currently shield with L, and use up on the control stick and C-stick to do it. Despite practice, I only get it 60% of the time.

To those smashers who consistently, reliably, and successfully use up-smash out of shield in games that matter:

1. Which method do you use?
2. Do you find it even remotely risky because of potential technical failure?
3. Did you ever find it remotely risky because of potential technical failure and how did you improve to a state of reliably minimal error?

Thanks.

1. I claw (i.e. use my index finger to press Y and use my thumb to hit up on the C-stick)
2. Not really.
3. I used to do it the same way you currently do it and I'd mess up every now and then, but then I switched to clawing and I got pretty consistent at it. I've also told a few people how I do it and they seem to find it more consistent. I think it's because you should be inputting the upsmash and the jump within three frames of each other so using one hand to do both inputs is easier to coordinate than using both hands.

side note: I don't claw regularly; my index finger is usually resting on z and middle finger is on the R button, so to do Up smash OoS I just move my index finger to the face of the controller and then move it back.

 

[Iron Dragon]

playing fox without L-cancels or jumping out of shine is equivalent to trying to bodybuild by doing this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kav2ndhc6h8

LOOOOL

I could see it being useful if you specifically wanted to work on certain aspects of your game unrelated to those things (like dashdance grabbing or whatever) but specifically not L-cancelling your aerials is at best artificially limiting and at best a good way to build bad habits



^ homie

PS: bars

see you at rom jman

my guess is that you just straight up didnt read umbreon's explanation on it. and if you did and you're still posting this then you're doing it wrong. and especially so after overswarm FURTHER explained it(which wasnt even necessary, he just did it cuz he name searches).

 

[rokimomi]

Up on c stick and up on control stick.

The window between the two actions is larger than you may think and when I was learning it, the majority of my failures was when doing it in the wrong order or at the same time.

 

[Deleted member]

I could see it being useful if you specifically wanted to work on certain aspects of your game unrelated to those things (like dashdance grabbing or whatever) but specifically not L-cancelling your aerials is at best artificially limiting and at best a good way to build bad habits

fox generally loses by extending into an opponent and getting punished by superior range/priority. removing l canceling and shine cancels also removes all of the common ways that fox extends into the opponent, thereby removing your character's most common disadvantage. of course, you sacrifice all of the good that comes from those powerful tools as well, but that's not the point. the idea is to re-frame your mindset toward the character. once again, try the exercise. if fox feels substantially worse without those things, you are probably extending often with him and you will lose many games for it. if fox still feels like a broken character, we have many more interesting things to talk about. if you are still able to compete at all, even if you're losing, it's indicative that you're either adapting or you don't play into your opponent as often, and both of those are positive. just try it and sit and think on it for a few days, come back and tell us how it went.

i hear plenty of excuses from people i respect when i try to convince them to play a to a certain method. man up. you are good enough to learn something. i don't know anything before i learn it, and you probably don't either. fox is an incredibly good character and becomes that much better when he's played correctly. you will be rewarded for putting in the effort it takes to learn.

 

[Silent Wolf]

At a high level of play, fox can't get away with anything without l canceling lol. I don't see how adding tons of irrelevancies to your play is in any way more effective than just putting more thought into what you should be using, even for a brief period of time.

If you guys want a practical way of improving, try watching videos of yourself playing and analyzing each situation you find yourself in, especially ones where you take hits. Consider why you got hit, how you could of avoided that, how you could bait them into thinking you're gonna do that again and punish/set up a favorable position, etc. Take into consideration what they can do, what you can do, and what they're most likely going to do. Take risk/reward into consideration. Honestly I could go on all day, but it seems unecessary. Improving in this game should be pretty obvious imo.

If you actually think about what you're doing and analyze your play, its pretty easy to spot bad habits and eliminate them. You don't need to go out of your way and generate a whole irrelevant style to help with that, which may even give you bad habits in itself lol.

And as for someone of my skill level trying to do this..it's just not gonna happen. It would be so much work to reverse all my habits, bad or good, just to experiment with this. Even trying to play Falco without lasers is incredibly hard.

 

[omgwtfToph]

fox generally loses by extending into an opponent and getting punished by superior range/priority. removing l canceling and shine cancels also removes all of the common ways that fox extends into the opponent, thereby removing your character's most common disadvantage. of course, you sacrifice all of the good that comes from those powerful tools as well, but that's not the point. the idea is to re-frame your mindset toward the character. once again, try the exercise. if fox feels substantially worse without those things, you are probably extending often with him and you will lose many games for it. if fox still feels like a broken character, we have many more interesting things to talk about. if you are still able to compete at all, even if you're losing, it's indicative that you're either adapting or you don't play into your opponent as often, and both of those are positive. just try it and sit and think on it for a few days, come back and tell us how it went.

i hear plenty of excuses from people i respect when i try to convince them to play a to a certain method. man up. you are good enough to learn something. i don't know anything before i learn it, and you probably don't either. fox is an incredibly good character and becomes that much better when he's played correctly. you will be rewarded for putting in the effort it takes to learn.

for someone who everyone tells me is really intelligent, you use a lot of logical fallacies when trying to convince people you're right

 

[clowsui]

in max's defense, most of what he posts on the boards is explaining why the "obvious" works and the rule of thumb. if you're good enough to need to know about the specifics, then he'll either find you or you'll find him. for example, on the marth boards him and i actively drive discussion away from "how to use nair" because nair is a bad move except in specific situations, and if you're good enough to use nair properly chances are you won't gain very much from discussing w max

also worth noting is that as a temporary didactic measure, playing like he says is not a bad idea. for anybody who is learning the game now, it will take them anywhere from 1.5-2 years to get to the top level assuming they're dedicated. 1 week or 2 weeks of practicing with this isn't really going to hurt you in the long run, and gets you thinking. not everybody is as proficient at video analysis and situational evaluation as the standard w/in the community might suggest.

 

[Deleted member]

i didn't know anyone talked about me, especially in california. i'll take the compliment.

 

[Rocketpowerchill]

can anyone say why people dont opt for waveshine combos? hardly ever see waveshining an easy character like peach or falcon anymore.

 

[Jim Morrison]

At what level of play? At high level of play it's probably because you have to hit the shine grounded which is usually set up by a drill first which you should rarely hit like that. After that, they can SDI the shine to slide further and I think Falcon is able to shield your U-smash by then, and you can grab, but U-throw on Falcon isn't really all that amazing.
I don't know where you've been, but at newb/intermediate levels, waveshine combos are definitely bread and butter for a lot of Fox's.

 

[BTmoney]

can anyone say why people dont opt for waveshine combos? hardly ever see waveshining an easy character like peach or falcon anymore.

you get like 3% per shine, you trade predictable outcome and a hard enough punish with easier execution for a combo that does 3%-9% more damage and you are 10x more likely to mess up and let them off the hook

I would disagree Jim Morrison. I don't think low level/mid Fox players are abusing waveshines like that. If you have a free grab or usmash set up you should probably take it.

 

[Jim Morrison]

But waveshine IS a guaranteed grab/usmash. After hitting a drill, you can't get a free grab or usmash, you can always convert into shine if properly spaced and L-canceled. Not taking waveshine there is basically risking throwing away the free grab/usmash.

 

[BTmoney]

But waveshine IS a guaranteed grab/usmash. After hitting a drill, you can't get a free grab or usmash, you can always convert into shine if properly spaced and L-canceled. Not taking waveshine there is basically risking throwing away the free grab/usmash.

No I mean more than 1 wave shine as in drill->shine->follow up = good

while drill->shine->shine->shine etc. is extraneous

edit: I assumed the question was about an actual "waveshine" combo, like multiple shines because who doesn't do drill shines? I assumed he wasn't talking about that lol

 

[Jim Morrison]

Oh.

Yeah in that case waveshining more often is very situational and don't do it for more damage.
You can do it for stage positioning, like for a platform setup, or to shine them all the way off the edge. I can't count the times I shined off Falcon to just shinespike off-stage as well.

 

[omgwtfToph]

people def be waveshining

 

[Rocketpowerchill]

do people now practice on shine di
i feel like theres too much to know how to do to get out of a fox vortex

 

[noobird]

while drill->shine->shine->shine etc. is extraneous

why? sometimes the added 3% is the difference between killing and not, which is sort of a big deal.

 

[Redd]

Tombers ICs. I was up like 2 stocks game three and kept getting wobbled. Hard to stay consistent with that few of games. Made me hate wobbling more but /shrug, use all the tools you have etc.

Still had a sick time. Need to implement a few things.

 

[BTmoney]

why? sometimes the added 3% is the difference between killing and not, which is sort of a big deal.

Just making the point, or introducing the idea, that you should pick the more consistent option especially when the consistent option is perfectly good enough. If you think adding a shine will lead to a kill then go for it. It's part of a decision making process.

Lets say you do something like a rising ledge hop drill versus idk Falcon and you hit him. Now you're on your way down, you now have the option to shine->wavedash->grab or usmash. Both of those are good enough to make me concede the fact that I could have shined him 5 more times across the stage, so I'd go with the more simple punish.

Objectively the more shines/percent ending with the same launcher obviously is the better punish but when you weight the punish versus the chance of you dropping it and the chance of your opponent escaping it (since honestly at every level, people occasionally miss their waveshine follow up and you literally give Falcon in this scenario more chances to SDI/DI and mess you up) the simple option which also ***** him hard becomes more attractive when you consider all the semantics.

Reasonable Best case scenario:
You grab him or usmash him and combololrape him

Reasonable Worst case scenario:
You grab him or usmash and you mess up positioning/combo from there and neutral pretty much gets reset

vs.

Reasonable Best case scenario:
You do the extended waveshines then you **** him for more damage or dsmash him once he's by the ledge and edge guard him for free 99.

Reasonable Worst case scenario:
He SDI's away (idk if Falcon is a character that can SDI out of wave shines, I know some can and I am assuming he can. That's not really the point) or you mess up and he grabs you and GGs.

That's all I'm sayin'



New topic fun time:
First hit fair death combos into usmash vs. Marth (and versus a lot of characters) vs No/survival DI. It probably works versus combo DI at earlier percents. But this combo will kill him starting at 73% on FD maybe even a few percents lower (with no DI on the usmash obviously)

I believe one can react to combo DI (and Marth teching) the fair on reaction as well but I don't have any testing for that. I just feel like you could after messing around with this.
Also this works (first hit fair) at percents where Marth dies when he fully DIs the usmash (but not the fair).

PP fairs so much with Falco I figured I might as well see what it's worth with Fox.
Discuss fair

 

[Bones0]

Single hit fair is gimmicky because they can just aerial out at pretty low percents.

 

[BTmoney]

Single hit fair is gimmicky because they can just aerial out at pretty low percents.

It's more of a late percent/kill/usmash set up thing, I'm still trying to flesh it out since the point is to have the low knockback work into your favor

Sorta like how mango does weak hit nair->dash->usmash. Only immediate difference between these two is that nair has to be out for a "weak" hit while fair doesn't. I could see it being implemented

 

[Bones0]

It's more of a late percent/kill/usmash set up thing, I'm still trying to flesh it out since the point is to have the low knockback work into your favor

Sorta like how mango does weak hit nair->dash->usmash. Only immediate difference between these two is that nair has to be out for a "weak" hit while fair doesn't. I could see it being implemented

Why wouldn't you just usmash in the first place? Nairing at people is relatively safe as long as you're spaced, so occasionally hitconfirning into usmash seem logical. Fair isn't going to be safe on shield and will easily be ASDIed down into buffered shield, so the only time you can use it is if the are airborne, preferably in lag. If that's the situation, straight usmashing seems much more reliable.

 

[Silent Wolf]

you.only.really.use.fair.when.theyre.in.the.air.-i.find.there.are.a.lot.of.times.when.it.is.the.only.move.that.will.reach/beat.out.other.characters.aerial.responses.-that.upwards.angle.helps.out.a.lot.with.it.

edit:--woow.****.my.computer.lool

 

[Bones0]

you.only.really.use.fair.when.theyre.in.the.air.-i.find.there.are.a.lot.of.times.when.it.is.the.only.move.that.will.reach/beat.out.other.characters.aerial.responses.-that.upwards.angle.helps.out.a.lot.with.it.

edit:--woow.****.my.computer.lool

You need to work on your spacing, bro.

 

[RaynEX]

Mango was running Nair on shield directly into grab vs. Armada. Risky grab setup but Armada was expecting a shine so it worked a few times. I love **** like that. He also went for tons of raw usmashes from neutral. In the right situation it can be pretty difficult to punish (i.e.: they are DDing away and their back is turned when they block) and if it hits they die. Usmash as a "poke" aka far reaching pseudo-safe kill move is pretty dope to pepper in, I must say.

 

[Rocketpowerchill]

just wondering if fair beats bair when trying to beat another arial
i was doing this shine turnaround rising bair from the ledge for some random mixup, probably one is better when rising and one is better when comboing but i thought that bair from the ledge was hype.

 

[Apasher]

Is there a specific window of frames when nair trades with Dolphin Slash?

 

[DLA]

After watching Brawl slowly die, and Melee wildly flourish, I came to the conclusion that Melee is gonna be around for a very long time. Therefore I'm going to stop putting off my improvement and instead practice tech skill for 15 minutes a day so I can rise above "has the tech skill of a bonobo." Anyone care to share to share any "practice routines" they go through? Videos would be awesome, and/or descriptions of specific things to practice and how to practice them. Right now I'm going off of what 10,000 Words of Power is telling me, but I'm looking for any more help I can get. I already know all of the basics (waveshining etc) and either know or consider myself capable of performing all of the advanced stuff. I'm a very tech-skill oriented player in Brawl (take that as you will), so throw anything you got at me.