Fundamentals or tech?

[noblet]

Hey all this is my first post.

I always considered myself a middle top tier player. Mostly because I could decimate most of my friends, even the ones who I judged to be very skilled.

I mostly played brawl and that was my last game before ultimate. I mained Zelda ever since she was introduced. Never switched to shiek, and it only boosted my ego that everyone would say Zelda is trash and then get wrecked.

Since playing ultimate online, however, I came to realize that there is a whole level of people who aren't too tier playing and placing in tournaments, but are still worlds better than I am.

Now, to get to the title of my thread, I have a feeling I already know what the answer is. Since I have gotten into ultimate with the vast array of characters I've been experimenting with maining others. I especially like the very technical characters though I always lose with them but am determined to use them. Peach and shulk in particular. The basic sword characters and sort of general type characters don't really appeal to me. I have spent hours learning dial storage and now have moved on to getting used to peaches float techs.

To say something about my fundamentals. I have no idea how to learn spacing, it is hard to know what is safe on shield, what distance I need to be with various characters because I can't set my training dummy to shield. I am terrible at edge guarding, edge pressure and falling aerials. Out of shield options is something very new to me, which is consistently miss or fail to do. I know I roll too much and try to stop.

I think I am probably getting ahead of myself, but unfortunately I have far surpassed all of my casual friends and no one wants to play with me anymore. I have a hard time integrating what I am practicing in training mode as far as techs are concerned into my actual matches, and feel as though I have hit a wall. I love the game, and have an unhealthy obsession but there is honestly nothing I'd rather do than play.

How do I integrate techs and fundamentals into my game? Do I have to just say to myself when playing online, "ok, my goal is not to win, my goal is to execute x three times?"

I would love to find people to play online with who can help or just willing to learn with me. Any advice, suggestions or personal experiences would be greatly appreciated. Happy smashing!

 

[Sean²]

Building fundamentals is like building the pyramids. It takes a long time to get them to a certain level, but you'll always have that sturdy foundation to keep building upon, then they'll last forever once you do. Tech is kind of like...an inverted house of cards. Might take a few hours to get it right, looks impressive, but without the engineering knowledge or experience to successfully build the base of your house, it crumbles quickly under pressure.

Take that as you should probably focus more on building fundamentals first.

On that same note, I usually tell people they should fight as many people as possible, and figure things out along the way. That probably seems like terrible advice...but it's kind of how you build your gameplan. When you're playing other people, your main focus should be to learn from them. Especially as a beginner. Maybe you're playing the most technical character in the game - but what you should try to do is figure out how to get your opponent in disadvantage and eventually take stocks....with as little tech as possible. Drop it back to the basics. Try to adapt to what your opponent does. Take note to any habits. For example, a lot of people spotdodge immediately after they whiff a move to prevent a punish, and then punish whatever their opponent then whiffs on their spotdodge. If you start to take note of this, try charging a smash attack/strong multihit move like Peach's dsmash, or Zelda's fsmash, to catch them before they can act out of spotdodge.

It might get boring, but playing in a super simple fashion will help you build your fundamentals. You might have to slow down the game a bit, but you can eventually build to the point where you can integrate character-specific techniques into your play. This is why very basic characters like the swordfighters/Pits/etc of the game are recommended to help beginners learn. They are generally really honest characters that don't have a lot of janky stuff you can end up leaning on too hard to get wins.

My next thing I'd probably say, is practice getting your techs down in training mode before pulling them out in a real battle. Watch videos of good players playing your characters, and see when they pull them out. Pause and rewind several times if you have to to really grasp the situation in which they used something and figure out why they used it. Same goes for learning about what's safe on shield, and what spacing to use. A lot of the time, a retreating aerial can be fairly safe on someone's shield if it's fast enough. There are a lot of character specifics in this game that will modify that slightly though. A character with stubby reach like Kirby may not be able to followup, but someone like DK might be able to still grab you in your endlag if what you use doesn't cause a lot of shieldstun.

I think watching some tutorials would be very helpful for you at first, as well. Jtails puts out a lot of good help-related videos that both beginners and seasoned players can learn something from. Don't just try to copy what he does and expect it to work though, you have to really absorb the information and understand the "why" on a deeper level than the "how".

 

[noblet]

Thank you for the thought out reply! It helps a lot. I kind of figured that fundamentals were going to be the key. I spend hours upon hours just practicing attack canceling and RARing but I am not getting the results that I may have expected. The whole idea of canceling anything is new to me in the world of smash. (I did play an tps called "gunz the dual" which had some crazy cancelling properties)

I go into training stage and practice the attack cancel going to the blast zone and I can usual do it in that direction ok. Once I get warmed up I can do it consistent. But only if I've been practicing it for like an hour a day. Going the opposite direction is even harder. Some days I'll be able to go both directions the entire length, then I won't do it for a couple days and I'll struggle to get even 3 in a row. What's harder still is to work a single one into the match.

It seems basic knowledge to me that you need to be able to execute your characters moves consistently, reliably, and on a whim. However, I thought I'd have better muscle memory or something by now because I train about an hour a day during my lunch at work.

Also, I don't know how significant the difference is, but I only use a joycon. Does using a different controller help substancially?

I've started practicing RAR in the same way and it seems like it would be more opportunities to use it effectively than the stationary bsckair attack canceling provides.

I love bananaboy and jtails, they have helped me a lot. My only YouTube subs are smash people now lol.

Thanks again!

 

[noblet]

Oh, and one more question, am I training right? Should I just keep up this mindless training up until I can do it consistently and then go online? It's new to me and uncomfortable, even when I can do it fairly consistently so I end up using the moves I'm more comfortable with. (This post and my last I'm talking only about using Peach, btw.)

How do you get comfortable using them in actual matches? Should I be trying to execute them against computers to see how I might use them in a match? (I watch high level peach videos and it's just so far above me with the float cancel bair spam and all kinds of stuff it's hard to really take away much.)

 

[Baby_Sneak]

Ignore any and all advanced peach tech. That's for advanced players only.

If you can execute anything you want on the joycons, then they're not a problem. If you can't, get a regular switch controller for $20.

For training mode, work on basic movements, platform fall-through, dash-dancing, fox-trots, Short hops and fast falling, etc. Very basic stuff.

Learn every move peach has and see what it does to the opponent. Practice every move.

Okay, work it out on a lvl 3 cpu. They're your punching bags. Don't take it seriously.

After that, you should have a strong sense of comfort with your character. Now, you just play online and against as many people as possible. Read on guides about neutral, spacing, mix-ups and etc. You still can't use advanced tech yet, but you can start labbing it in training mode.

As you get more solid on your fundamentals, you'll begin seeing where to incorporate tech and stuff, and then you'll be a really good player.