Q&A -Fox Advice/Questions Topic-

[Bones0]

Shield pressure started getting exposed a couple years ago. Spacie mains just haven't realized it yet or are in denial about it not working.

 

[Phonz]

Shield pressure started getting exposed a couple years ago. Spacie mains just haven't realized it yet or are in denial about it not working.

so double shines and implementing them is definately something i should get on?

 

[Engo]

If you just started playing fox: (and by your join date i'm sort of assuming you're new to competitive melee if not my bad)

Focus on shffling as well as possible, different timings, do it while running, while moving backwards etc. Make sure you are getting the fast falls and l-cancels everytime. It should become second nature.

Jump cancelled grab and jump cancelled upsmash

Make sure you practice your dash dance while moving, different distances, keeping it unpredictable etc.

Learn to waveshine into grab, into upsmash, or into another waveshine.

Up throw > Up air. Learn it and practice moving after the upthrow into the up air as early as possible

Everything else don't worry about for now.

 

[BTmoney]

[3/26/2013 3:53:42 PM] Victor Haynes: I also should probably practice more

[3/26/2013 3:53:43 PM] Victor Haynes: outside of matches
[3/26/2013 3:53:53 PM] Umbreon: depends what you want to practice
[3/26/2013 3:53:56 PM] Umbreon: fox is hard to practice
[3/26/2013 3:53:59 PM] Victor Haynes: movement really
[3/26/2013 3:54:15 PM] Victor Haynes: that and double shines. specifically double
[3/26/2013 3:54:22 PM] Umbreon: don't learn double shine
[3/26/2013 3:54:24 PM] Victor Haynes: I don't think triple or beyond that is the most useful thing
[3/26/2013 3:54:40 PM] Victor Haynes: Lol because of some negative connotation you have with it
[3/26/2013 3:54:41 PM] Victor Haynes: right?
[3/26/2013 3:54:48 PM] Umbreon: if you want to learn movement, that's correct, but learn action into action sequences
[3/26/2013 3:54:51 PM] Umbreon: l cancel into dash
[3/26/2013 3:54:54 PM] Umbreon: for example
[3/26/2013 3:54:56 PM] Umbreon: super useful
[3/26/2013 3:55:01 PM] Victor Haynes: I do like that
[3/26/2013 3:55:02 PM] Victor Haynes: with fox
[3/26/2013 3:55:08 PM] Victor Haynes: esp
[3/26/2013 3:55:35 PM] Victor Haynes: But I knew you'd have something to say about double shining lol.
[3/26/2013 3:55:39 PM] Victor Haynes: It literally is good
[3/26/2013 3:56:32 PM] Umbreon: i mean
[3/26/2013 3:56:34 PM] Umbreon: no?
[3/26/2013 3:56:35 PM] Umbreon: it's not
[3/26/2013 3:56:41 PM] Victor Haynes: elaborate
[3/26/2013 3:56:49 PM] Umbreon: what does the second shine do that the first one didn't
[3/26/2013 3:57:45 PM] Victor Haynes: You can literally always (if your character has a 4 frame roll) beat any post shine on shield option with a c-stick roll
[3/26/2013 3:58:04 PM] Victor Haynes: I need to check shine grab (again) but everything else and I'm pretty sure even that
[3/26/2013 3:58:15 PM] Umbreon: that begs the question
[3/26/2013 3:58:20 PM] Umbreon: why did you shine on shield?
[3/26/2013 3:58:37 PM] Victor Haynes: because your aerial hit shield. But I see where you are going with this
[3/26/2013 3:58:44 PM] Umbreon: why did you aerial a shield?
[3/26/2013 3:58:58 PM] Umbreon: why are you using the wrong correction to fix what is already an obvious mistake?
[3/26/2013 3:58:59 PM] Victor Haynes: Because who needs decision making? Who needs openings? You're fox
[3/26/2013 3:59:11 PM] Victor Haynes: That's not serious
[3/26/2013 3:59:15 PM] Umbreon: well at least now we're on the same page
[3/26/2013 3:59:19 PM] Umbreon: i know you're joking
[3/26/2013 3:59:22 PM] Victor Haynes: lol
[3/26/2013 3:59:22 PM] Umbreon: you see my point right
[3/26/2013 3:59:37 PM] Victor Haynes: yeah I saw it before I asked it. I just figured you'd say it lol
[3/26/2013 3:59:45 PM] Umbreon: why set up high-risk engagements with a character that gets molested so easily
[3/26/2013 3:59:54 PM] Victor Haynes: essentially shield pressure is a product of you doing somthing wrong in the first place
[3/26/2013 4:00:23 PM] Umbreon: shield pressure does have its uses, but to "go for shield pressure" with fox is wrong about 100% of the time
[3/26/2013 4:00:30 PM] Victor Haynes: I know that lol
[3/26/2013 4:00:54 PM] Victor Haynes: but if you hit on shield, which you probably shouldn't have, you should probably do something other than let go of your controller lol
[3/26/2013 4:01:10 PM] Umbreon: just jump
[3/26/2013 4:01:15 PM] Umbreon: fastest jump in the game
[3/26/2013 4:01:24 PM] Umbreon: shinegrab if you must be stupid
[3/26/2013 4:01:28 PM] Umbreon: don't double shine though
[3/26/2013 4:01:54 PM] Victor Haynes: I don't know man if your opponent is a human they are either gonna stay in shield or roll
[3/26/2013 4:02:04 PM] Victor Haynes: and get hit out of the roll
[3/26/2013 4:02:11 PM] Umbreon: ok
[3/26/2013 4:02:29 PM] Umbreon: so you hit them out of a roll in this fantasy
[3/26/2013 4:02:31 PM] Umbreon: now what
[3/26/2013 4:02:39 PM] Victor Haynes: hit confirm
[3/26/2013 4:02:53 PM] Victor Haynes: you can definitely hit confirm double shines, I won't argue multishining though
[3/26/2013 4:02:57 PM] Victor Haynes: which is pretty stupid
[3/26/2013 4:03:52 PM] Umbreon: so wait, you're going to shine, shine again after a few frames, hit them because your opponent also has perfect timing and fell for this, get hit by shine, and you're going to react to it and hit them again in the 15 frames of stun that they have, not counting your reaction as well
[3/26/2013 4:05:02 PM] Victor Haynes: Well I see people roll out of the very first shine a lot because the game literally allows you to do it and it's not that hard to hold the c-stick while you are in shield stun from the shine hitting your shield
[3/26/2013 4:05:34 PM] Victor Haynes: if they do that then you know the second shine will hit them, I won't concede that once the technicality isn't an issue that hitconfirming a double shine isn't that bad
[3/26/2013 4:05:49 PM] Umbreon: buffer roll out of shine pressure is a good answer to a bad fox tactic

There you go Fox dudes. That was when I was more noobish and thought you could hitconfirm your double shine (you can't) and I was partially defending and partially playing devil's advocate for shield pressure.

But I now agree that shield pressure is pretty stupid when you have the option to shine grab (which nets you massive gains) or reset neutral since you're better there than your opposition anyway.

Thanks Mow =]. You're why I play Fox now.

 

[Machiavelli]

people look at fox stuff in too many pieces

 

[Strong Badam]

u made another spacie player

are u ****ing happy max

 

[BTmoney]

Whenever I go to a big tournament I'm going to have the lameeeeest Fox ever. The age of the stupid-Fox is over.

people look at fox stuff in too many pieces

Isn't any sequence a sum of its pieces?

 

[PK Webb]

dont over complicate things and everything will be good fox players lol...dont emulate other ppl either just do you see u guys in a year lol

 

[genkaku]

ado that's partly because you think/thought that aiming for shieldbreaks was legitimate.
Shield pressure is about actively conditioning and limiting options. It's not a replacement for an adequate neutral game because nothing is.

 

[Phonz]

If you just started playing fox: (and by your join date i'm sort of assuming you're new to competitive melee if not my bad)

Focus on shffling as well as possible, different timings, do it while running, while moving backwards etc. Make sure you are getting the fast falls and l-cancels everytime. It should become second nature.

Jump cancelled grab and jump cancelled upsmash

Make sure you practice your dash dance while moving, different distances, keeping it unpredictable etc.

Learn to waveshine into grab, into upsmash, or into another waveshine.

Up throw > Up air. Learn it and practice moving after the upthrow into the up air as early as possible

Everything else don't worry about for now.

Thanks for the advice and yea I'm pretty new to melee, started in may I believe, I created this account for brawl originally but whatever. I know SHFFLing and L cancel and can do them semi consistently I will take your advice and practice that way more till its second nature, however one question I have is on jump cancel up smash. I know jump cancel grab is X/Y + Z does that make jump cancel Usmash X/Y + up on c-stick?

 

[Phonz]

Also one more thing sry, does anyone have of list of characters that can be consistently waveshined across stage?

 

[BTmoney]

ado that's partly because you think/thought that aiming for shieldbreaks was legitimate.
Shield pressure is about actively conditioning and limiting options. It's not a replacement for an adequate neutral game because nothing is.

What? I think you are recalling that Westballz thread but I think you misunderstood me.
Shield pressure, to me, is substantially inferior to shine grabbing. Or choosing a movement option after hitting shield.

 

[genkaku]

shield pressure isn't just one static thing, so you can't just straight up say that it's inferior to a shinegrab. Shinegrabs are great, especially as fox, and so is positioning, but this game doesn't boil down to option1>option2>option3 after a certain level. All those options should all end up supplementing each other (as mixups) based on your opponent's reactions/tendencies and the situation at hand.

I love pressure because it's a complex tool that gives you initiative and allows you to funnel your opponent's options with enough room for creativity and adaptation to take any number of safe ways out (including going for a shine grab) on your terms. There are definitely times when it'd be stupid to pressure and there are definitely a lot of people that do it badly, but the same can be said for any concept in the game.

 

[Deleted member]

u made another spacie player

are u ****ing happy max

i mean he's from the midwest so it probably won't matter.

see what i did there?

 

[Rocketpowerchill]

lol im really ****ing confused
do i not want to be pressuring someone's shield
can arial shines, and multishines get exposed that easily?
i just want to know what my options are since i see guys like shiz who dair to continue a combo but someone shields so he shines to beat a possible grab, then full jumps out most of the time

where as guys like mango nair shines nair shine nair shine, mangos pressure is pretty quick and openings for grabs are tight as ****
but is it really as unbeatable as people say it is, can people grab you?
im torn because i want to play the right way and im not sure what im doing on shields, and oos myself are good.

i want to play with swag
and i shdl so yea, i ****ing play with swag, but how do i play this game lol

 

[L__]

play the game however you want

listen to your heart

**** *******

 

[Chroma]

Who plays like umbreon's ideal fox?
And why do foxes who don't play like that succeed?

 

[unknown522]

Holy **** Unknown was definitely in the zone

That set vs Hax was beautiful, your shield pressure UNNGGG.
I noticed that you roll actually very often vs Hax, and it works out well. Is this something you do on purpose and if so, why does this work? I see you rolling into him and getting him with a shine more than it -should- work.
And huge props to the comeback 1st match 2nd set after the suicide, can't believe you got off 3 stocks with that last one, most would have just given up there.

I'd also like to hear your own thoughts on that set, if you don't mind sharing those.

I roll a lot when people are spamming moves, and I can't reach them.

Alright, so a small write-up about the set:

First I'll talk about our condition - We both had very little sleep the night before. He had almost none at all and I had like 2 hours. Fortunately the tourney ran really fast so GFs was at like 4pm, so it wasn't late in the day.

Next up, mindset - One major thing is that I did not want to let hax win the tourney because he assumed that he would just come and win it for free. From what I remember, I was pretty confident because when I had played hax in the past, I usually did well when I had at semi-usable controller. Except for NEC, where I used an abysmal (to me)/borrowed controller. Before going into the set, I thought I would win 3-2 in both sets with how I was playing leading up to that.

How I feel I was playing before the set - I felt that I was playing ok leading up to the set. Not amazingly well or anything. I lost to weon-x pretty badly in winners semis, but I felt I was playing decent with fox before that, and it was just one bad set. Losers Quarters and semis, I played a little better than that, letting me have close games with KK's fox, and a really bad set with I.B (He pretty much killed himself all day in that set. I feel like I didn't really do anything in that set). I played better than those sets vs weon-x in Losers Finals, but I think he was playing worse than the first set. I think I was moving well in general, aside from the set vs I.B, and my edgeguarding was pretty good.

Next, how I feel I was playing in the set - I'd say I was playing decent; I was playing really well in some aspects and really bad in others. Movement was really good, decent tech chasing, but then really bad technical flubs and SDs. I failed majority of my ledge WDs, and for some reason I couldn't tech roll when I tried.

About the set - From what I can remember (I'll probably watch the set at some point), I would describe the way I played as a defensive offence. I move back or around him a lot and shielded a lot. I mostly just tried to either find a way to get in on him, or keep him out before he could box me into a corner, or try to box him into a corner. If I did get trapped, then I would just try to fight my way out by either moving out of my shield according to his spacing, and move he was doing. If I trapped him, then I mainly just tried not to get u-air'd, and also not let him jump around me. Generally, I'm proud of my anti-gimp game around the edge. I tend to avoid getting gimped a lot, but in this set I did get gimped a few times that I could've avoided. Hax has very solid play around the edge as well and I was already aware of this, so he's not easy to gimp or set up a gimp against. My goal was to make him feel like there's no escape once I hit him. Keep putting on pressure, and shut down his defensive options by defending myself in close quarters with my shield, attacks, or movement. I use platforms to move quickly around him, but I tried not to stay on them too long, or else he'll just u-air me every time probably.

Sometimes I did deliberately go to a corner to give him an incentive to approach me (or maybe make him think that he boxed me in on his own accord), and I think it did work well throughout the sets. It was indeed risky, but I think was careful enough to not let things go badly in those situations. When we got to around game 4 of the first set, he was starting to catch on to that I was mostly teching in place. I really really tried to start tech rolling to mix it up because I knew that he was catching on, but for some reason every single time I tried to tech roll to a side....it just didn't input. I don't know why, but it was very annoying for sure.

Set 2 started to go a little worse. I did get a sort of lucky win game 1. Then he lucked out really hard game 2 and 3 and the SDs were piling on more. So at that point I started to get annoyed. I was sure that I would play better game 4, but then I immediately SD'd, then had a really bad stock game 2 (which was like the same as an SD to me). I tried really hard to bring it back, but it wasn't enough at that point.

When the set was done, I wasn't upset, thought I was disappointed about losing and how/why I lost, but I was pretty happy that I didn't play that bad as well. I had fun throughout the set.


Major things I need to work on:
- CCing (I rarely do it in general)
- Finishing combos/tech chasing
- Gimping
- Expanding situational move usage (like when to up-smash/tilt)
- Tech skill/technical consistency
- better recovery/angles/shortens (I did the wrong firefox angle unintentionally a lot)
- When to survival DI

 

[Rocketpowerchill]

lol i dont understand what playstyls are
i just do me
once i got sufficient tech skill, i cud just play my fox however i wanted

however, patient fox is really hard to play against,
i dont have a playstyle, i just like to get my kills with spacies with most efficient way, and use single hit moves mostly
i also love fox on fd even if i can get chain grabbed 0-death, i think his movement is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKYGZxPF0yA

fox is prob the most overrated technical character, since the best foxs like jman do things so simple and dont do anything rediculous.

i realize that di wins games

 

[Xyzz]

I don't know about you, but Javi is definitely a noteworthy fox-player to me, and he is doing pretty ridiculous technical things.

And you do have a playstyle, everybody does. In some situations there's clearly a best way to handle things, but far more often the choice you're running with is about personal preference (I always mention KK rather comboing the opposing spacie and M2k rather throwing them offstage for a quick gimp attempt here, but there's many other things). Well, and that's what I guess most people would call "playstyle". Maybe yours isn't quite refined yet, and you do end up changing it quite frequently, but you definitely have one

 

[BTmoney]

Who plays like umbreon's ideal fox?
And why do foxes who don't play like that succeed?

The closest thing to a Mow fox is/was probably Jman. One thing Mow emphasizes is how good waiting is.
You basically wait and run away being entirely noncommittal until you can open up your opponent because in order of importance: 1. you are substantially faster between your ground speed (dash dance//length, and run speed) and your fall speed (and jump speed/height) which is actually an asset when it comes to maneuvering on platforms (for the opposite of this, see Peach's movement on platforms) and 2. you have a way better moveset or at least one that is very effective out of neutral.

The only issue is Falcon since he's actually faster than you but you hit him way harder and you can kind of just steam roll him. Spacies vs. Falcon isn't a good MU at all for Falcon conventionally.

Jman was actually comically patient. Sometimes he would literally do nothing and wind up on top of the situation. I'll link to a good few Jman matches later. I have to leave for class.

Other patient Foxes: Kels, M2k's when he's playing Fox well, and Mango's only versus Hbox when wants to win and starts DD Grabbing.

Disclaimer: my interpretation and a bast-ur-rdized extrapolation of what Umbreon said. I think a lot of abusing Fox comes down to being noncommittal and grabbing (uthrow) more. I think shine grabbing is almost, if not always, superior to shine pressure. Resetting neutral or choosing a movement action is also good. Shine pressure is an answer to an illogical situation.

Other Foxes succeed and don't play like this because we aren't perfect obviously. Just because you opt for aggressive play and extended pressure doesn't mean you can't win. It's just not the best thing you can be doing. But if your opponent keeps on crumbling under the pressure then there isn't much of a reason to stop. Pressure is hard to deal with while gay-Fox is broken.

 

[Tarv]

This discussion of the so called ideal patient fox has me wondering. The game has hundreds if not thousands of fox mains around the world; what are we missing? So, If nobody minds a series of vague questions...

In your opinion what separates a "good" fox from a bad "fox"? Additionally what separates a "good" fox, from a "great" fox? Finally if you feel bold enough what separates a "great" fox from being "one of the best ever"?

Obviously the terms in quotes are all pretty arbitrary restrictions in terms of definition so leave that up to your own personal discretion.

Been playing fox with the intent to get better for a few weeks now (taking a break from Marth) and am starting to really wonder what it takes to be great with this character. I feel like I understand how the character works, at least on a bare bones level but if there's one thing I learned about melee is to never assume you know something and to never take anything for granted.

Really interested in hearing what people have to say.

Thanks all!

 

[Jim Morrison]

Difference between good and bad is definitely most obvious in how they approach and how they edgeguard.

I can't tell you the difference above that.

 

[Tarv]

Could you perhaps expand on that a bit? What is the difference between a good approach and a bad approach? To me a good approach is an inherently safe approach, something you can do where the possibility of getting punished is minimal. Although you may have a different theory. And what do you mean how they edge guard? When I hear good edgeguarding I think of positioning one's self to inhibit the most options and shutting them down likewise. Perhaps there's more to it than that? Not trying to sound daft, just trying to get as much information as I can.

Thanks for the response though!

 

[Bones0]

Approaching being good or bad is too narrow of a view of Melee to yield even remotely meaningful results. You can spend all day tabulating "approaches" you did in videos to see which are "good" and which are "bad", but it's a fruitless endeavor. First of all, you can't simply view the approach in a vacuum on its own. Even if you could come up with a way of approaching that had 100% success rate, it won't do you any good if the opportunity for said approach is too rare. It also won't do you any good if it sacrifices other parts of your game. If you're constantly giving your opponent excessive amounts of space to work with because you only want to do your one, or even handful, of perfect approaches, you'll lose before you even get the chance to attempt it. You also have to consider the risk and reward of approaches. If you can hit your opponent with running shine a bunch of times but are unable to ever convert it because of how you are using it, then how good is it really? If an approach works 80% of the time but costs you your stock the other 20%, it's probably not worth it.

So instead of watching footage or thinking about gameplay from a second ago and wondering why your approach didn't work, think about why you weren't in a position where your approach couldn't NOT work. I know that's a lot of double negatives, so to clarify, look for problems in your approach before you actually do the approach. In my recent viewings of PP's Falco, I notice so many scenarios where he just seems to nair without a care in the world. Does he do the approach in a safe way? Of course, but even if he didn't, he'd still be much safer than the average player because of the position he was holding prior to deciding to attack. There's even unseen advantages oppressing his opponent because of his positioning. They don't feel safe to move, so they shield or dodge and get punished. I played my training partner yesterday and decided to focus on solely controlling center stage. Lo and behold, approach opportunities started cropping up everywhere, and in many instances he was overextending as a preemptive strike against my inevitable approach from my GG positioning.

I played M2K in 3 days' worth of friendlies, and one thing I always noticed was he was constantly ready for me to jump right in his lap. Usually I am told by others and myself that I need to just overshoot aerials. Yeah, overshooting aerials is important, but it's honestly just a mixup because they can smack you as you run towards them if you don't jump early. What yielded better results was keeping myself in positions where I didn't have to overshoot by ridiculous distances. If I approached from the outer edge of plats or when there was a lot of stage between us, I got DDWD grabbed every time. When I took the time to box him out to the ledge before approaching, he loses that option.

If you are trying to attack a Ganon or Marth from the top plat over and over, you might be doing the best approach possible from that position, but it still will only work 10% of the time. Instead of trying to figure out how to optimize your approach from the top plat, try to figure out how to get in a position for a better approach all together. Now of course knowing the optimal tricks and baits and techniques to approach from every angle is important, but it is generally more important to have advantageous positioning before you attempt to hit your opponent as there is only so much you can do in certain positions. This especially applies to Fox because movement is his key to victory. Slower characters like Ganon and Samus are much more likely to focus on optimizing head to head combative technique because it's largely their only option and they thrive at it anyway.

Wes: "Get yo Fox into da fray, son!"

Wes WANTS your Fox in da fray because Fox sucks in the fray. Get your Fox out of da fray, son. Make the fray come to you, or at least keep it in one place long enough to move towards it safely.

Disclaimer: I have no idea if this is how good players actually view the game. It's just my current take on it.

 

[Kadano]

I don’t think there is more to it than understanding your own and your opponent’s options as well as the options those lead to in a given situation, quickly perceiving what your opponent is doing and then taking action precisely. This is a very general statement by intention—I don’t think it is necessary for Fox players on highest level to have godly tech skill. Watch Genesis 2 GF match 1 for example: The only time Mango does something that takes more techskill than most Fox players have (1:02), it wasn’t even that rewarding. Mostly, he’s just doing the right moves at the right time. At the very beginning, Armada is doing a FC bair that should be fairly safe, and it seems to me Mango predicted very early that Armada would bet on his ability to dash away in time.
It was a fake approach by Armada, but Mango knew that and thus was able to punish not his approach but his approach faking.

I believe that greatness is when a player does this intuitively and doesn’t need to actively think about his opponents options but feels them instead. If you aren’t a prodigy, I think the best way to get there is to concentrate on situation options consciously all the time. Most bad players fall into habit play very easily. If they view their own matches, they frequently shake their heads at the stuff they are doing. At the time they played, they didn’t feel that way though. They were recalling their standard procedures whenever the situation triggered them. As they were only playing reactively and were not aware of the future options, they were effectively stuck in the past.
Many Fox players believe they need to play faster as in press buttons more quickly when in reality they need to play earlier. They need to know all of the opponent’s options within the next, say, 10 frames and “react” to the last of these instead of the frame they are perceiving at the moment. Of course this is predicting and not reacting, but the word predicting often makes people think of a natural talent to read your opponent that they can’t possibly achieve. As that’s far from the truth, I prefer to avoid it.

 

[Rocketpowerchill]

pressuring center stage doesnt do much at any percent, i feel shine grabs are pretty unstoppable and you can abuse uthrow uair
but shield pressure near ledge may both help and hurt you, no reason to get grabbed by shiek near ledge, but shield pressure is essentilly patience since your just waiting for your opponent to react while under pressure, so i cant see how thats bad at all
also with the elevated shine gives you oppurtunity to wavedash down and read a roll. as oak once said
There's a time and place for everything! But not now.

 

[Deleted member]

learning to play fox correctly is hard. if you guys want to try an exercise, play fox without L canceling or jumping out of shine. Make your opponents play their best, and play for at least an hour or two. No L cancel. No Shine cancel. If Fox feels like garbage, you're playing him wrong. If he's still broken, you're onto something.

 

[Rocketpowerchill]

i think dj nintendo shud fight unknown without Lcanceling

 

[Bones0]

learning to play fox correctly is hard. if you guys want to try an exercise, play fox without L canceling or jumping out of shine. Make your opponents play their best, and play for at least an hour or two. No L cancel. No Shine cancel. If Fox feels like garbage, you're playing him wrong. If he's still broken, you're onto something.

What about for Falco?

 

[Silent Wolf]

Lol if you beat anyone without l canceling and jumping out of shine they're bein weak. Fox gets ***** so hard

 

[Deleted member]

Lol if you beat anyone without l canceling and jumping out of shine they're bein weak. Fox gets ***** so hard

frankly i think that's a statement that reflects the west coast very well. fox is clearly better with those things but i assure you he's still quite good without them.

 

[Tarv]

Umbreon, is it fair to assume that you see DD camping, grab, shine spike and otherwise using fox's superior speed in creating positional advantages as the essential ingredients in making a good fox? I don't have someone to play with in order to test out your suggested exercise but this is what I came up with the exclusion of l-canceling and shine canceling techniques as far as theory goes.

Thanks!

Thanks for everyone else's replies. Don't have a lot of time to reply right now but I will eventually

 

[Deleted member]

the short answer is yes. removing two mechanics that heavily encourage risky play should make the observant players more aware of it.

 

[Jim Morrison]

Could you perhaps expand on that a bit? What is the difference between a good approach and a bad approach? To me a good approach is an inherently safe approach, something you can do where the possibility of getting punished is minimal. Although you may have a different theory.

I'm gonna have to agree with Bones's post, a good and bad approach is not the difference between a well spaced N-air or running in with a grab, it's about positioning, that's what seperates Fox's most likely, but those result in good and bad approaches. Positioning is key and an approach is more than just the moment you run in for a N-air, shine on shield or whatever your plan is, the whole dash dancing, running on platforms, wavedashing in place etc. those all are necessary for a good approach.
Imagine a very simple situation, you run at Marth and right before the spot where you'd normally jump in with a N-air, you wavedash in place and stop the dash entirely, and the Marth F-smashes on reaction. You are now in a completely neutral position while Marth is still in the lag of his F-smash. You can now 100% safely punish him. What was it that made the approach succesful? Your position and throwing your opponent off. Now while this is a dumb example and should rarely happen (though it happens more often that it should), it's the same idea with everything. Be slippery.
Got forced to retreat with your double jump? Think you'll get grabbed? Waveland your landing and punish him if he goes for something. Things like that can make the difference.

 

[Lovage]

umbreon ****ty poster


GL to all my fox homies this weekend

 

[Deleted member]

definitely a good counterpoint, being a shitty poster totally negates my ideas, what was i thinking.

you're playing a top 1-2 character with top 1-3 best tech skill in the world. you don't think maybe your in-game decisions are holding you back from doing better? even just a little bit? the nairplane doesn't solve everything.

 

[Silent Wolf]

definitely a good counterpoint, being a shitty poster totally negates my ideas, what was i thinking.

you're playing a top 1-2 character with top 1-3 best tech skill in the world. you don't think maybe your in-game decisions are holding you back from doing better? even just a little bit? the nairplane doesn't solve everything.

Oh, so you weren't joking lol. Imo there are better ways of dealing with making better in game decisions than disabling things that are potentially harmful, yet very crucial to your gameplay. You may as well just put more thought into using what comes with l canceling and shine than to just not do them. You're going to be using them in serious play, so you should practice using them so you know where they fit into your game best. There's no better practice for something than just practicing what you wanna get better at. Taking things like that out of your game seems like an unecessary chore.

Thinking about playing someone actually good like that seems like a really bad idea. You wouldn't even be able to use defensive bairs reliably in a lot of situations, among other things besides nairs. You'd basically have to develop a whole new unecessary style just to rid yourself of a few bad habits that can be exterminated easier than such. Foxes should be experimenting with what they'll actually use when they're improving, even if it means getting ***** and not knowing exactly how to use it for a while

 

[noobird]

I don't think Umbreon was advocating removing those things from your gameplay for an extended period of time - his original post just says try it for an hour or two. He's just trying to illustrate a point and going off the reasonable assumption that you'll understand it better if you do his little exercise.

 

[Silent Wolf]

I know what he meant.