Fox training advice?

[Squirrell]

I started out a few months ago seriously training as a Puff main. Over the last few weeks though, I really haven't liked playing Puff at all. I've been using Fox as a secondary and I've gotten to the point where the only matchups I ever still need a Puff are against Falco and Sheik.

So I've decided I'd like to main Fox, but I don't feel like I'm good enough to call myself a Fox main. Here's a quick list of what I can and can't do as Fox, what I'm asking for is advice on how to seriously train my Fox. How to get better and more consistent with the things I can do, and how to learn the things I can't.

Can:
- Wavedash/Waveshine/Waveland (90% consistency)
- Land most waveshine combos (90% consistency)
- SHFF Aerials (75% consistency)
- Invinsible ledgedash (75% consistency)
- DL on platforms

Can't:
- SHDL
- L-cancel consistently at all
- Multishine

Any advice is greatly appreciated!

 

[adPEXtwinDoNG]

Most of this was out of a txt file I have siting around for practice purposes. Don't worry about SHDL. (You'll learn it in a matter of time.) Single lasers are good enough for passively pressuring and are more mobile. (SFAT single lasers a lot). Focus on being able to LCancel no matter what. You'll need it against IC's very much and for general shield pressure.

Things you should pickup based on what you currently know:

• Learn to shinegrab. It'll change you're shield pressure. You won't have to learn how to multishine past 2 (no one counterplays doubleshine grab yet so maybe 3 if you're really serious).
• Running shine & JC shine out of dash (Being able to approach with shine whenever is important)
  
• Wavedash OOS. Super important to defensive play / corner pressure mitigation.
• Waveland Grab. For platform techchasing
• Shield stops. SS into aerial out of dash is great for microspacing.
  
• Being able to shine spacies during their up-b vulnerable frames
• Chaingrabing spacies
• Look through MU guides for char specific punishes. Watch latest top level play. (Against sheik especially)
• Shield drops
• Waveshine OOS (Combined w/ upsmash OOS this tech in my experience gives you a lot of fat opportunities)
• Running jab (Nailing Jab upsmash against floaties is important)
• Invincible rising drill from ledge against spacie up-b (Armada and Leffen do this currently)

These are some other things you should consider when practicing and refining your tech skill.
Consider watching some 20GX videos about movement fundamentals while you're at it.

• Dashing Control: Dash length/speed (Long, Short, Medium, "Figureskating" go from longest to shortest back to longest)
• Dash Dancing (accross stage imagining moves to whiff punish)
• Backdashing (being able to do this out of any kind of lag is highly important)
• Smashturning out of lag
• Run Canceling (Early, Mid, Late into waveshine, DSmash)
• Jump Control: Analog of jumps (Standing, pivot, running)
• Drifting (Out of neutral jump, empty pivots)
• Wavedash: Perfect Wavedashes of varying lengths (Long, Medium, Short, at the ledge after rolling towards)
• Perfect WD down (During dash, run)
• Perfect WD OOS (Without shielding at the end, forward and backward, practice options out of it such as pivot or dash)
• Perfect WaveShines (Forward, Backwards. Out of different moves. Run (short, med, long), nair, drill, jc shine, shine oos)
• Empty pivots
• Perfect ledgedash
• Shield dropping
• Perfect Waveshine OOS
• Firestall at the ledge

There are more things I'm probably missing but this is more than enough to get you started.

I'm asking for is advice on how to seriously train my Fox. How to get better and more consistent with the things I can do, and how to learn the things I can't.

The most important thing is to copy what good Foxes do, actively think while you play, asking local players for advice and posting videos/replays for critique (especially when you get stuck w/ any problem). Find some local Melee buddies who want to git gud with you if you haven't already. Imho they're the most important part alongside personal work ethic. The road to "git gud" is challenging but you will be rewarded well if you try your hardest to constantly learn, apply and refine. Good luck dood.

Youtube + Googlefu + vods.co for your Melee video studying needs.
Heres the Melee library incase you haven't seen it.
Heres another dope site about Melee.

 

[Archelon]

Here's how I recommend going about learning to waveshine.
First of all MAKE SURE you are practising this to always be hitting a character or shield because if you learn to wavedash too quickly (ignoring hitlag or whatever) it is super hard to unlearn (at least in my experience).
The way I worked on it was by first just shining and wavedashing out (on a character or shield of course). Practise on characters with high-ish traction like peach and falcon with grabs, up-smash and d-smash with out a dash. On characters like Marth, you need to do a dash after, then a JC grab or up-smash. I recommend for grab and u-smash on high traction characters doing the JC anyways because it only costs you a couple of frames and you have lots of time on high traction characters anyways (no harm getting in the good habit).
Once you have that down, the next step is working on waveshine-waveshine-waveshine etc. Start on Peach or Zelda, who have the highest traction do a waveshine on them, then another waveshine right after. You want to do the second shine fairly quickly during the wavedash. I say to wavedash out of the second shine because then when you work on several waveshines in a row it's easier because you're not stuck in shine.
Once you have the second down, work on getting a third, fourth etc. Once you can do this easily, work on ending the chain with u-smash, grab and D-smash.
Then move on to Falcon, who has a bit less traction, doing the same things. Go back to Peach/ Zelda every so often too.
Eventually, you should move on to Sheik, the hardest top tier character to waveshine who you can actually waveshine. (With Marth he goes to far and you the need just JC grab/u-smash him with a dash, and for fox/ falco/ puff, you need to thunders' combo, which I'll get to in a next).
On Fox, Falco and Jigglypuff, you need to perform a "thunders' combo", since they are knocked down by your shine. It's basically jab resetting them out of you waveshine. It's pretty tricky. FWI, the timing is that you need to hit them after they first hit the ground but before they hit it the second time after they bounce. If you notice that they are consistently teching your shines, you basically just need to tech chase them because you can't jab reset them.
In terms of choosing which option to pick after you string of waveshines, u-throw u-air does more damge than a u-smash if you can land it on the character at that percent, espeacially if you get multiple u-airs. At kill percents you should always just u-smash regardless because it's more reliable. D-smash is if you waveshine someone to the edge of the stage and think you can use d-smash to gimp them (and u-smash won't kill). This is especially useful on Captain Falcon.
Hope I could help!