Q&A Game Play Advice and General Discussion

[Foar]

Hoo Hah will cease to exist tomorrow, what will be the next scapegoat?

 

[Shaya]

We don't even know if it'll be gone completely, it's not like other characters don't have similar abilities.
I think if they went out 'killing' all of them then we'd be getting down to basics, where I guess characters like Sheik, Falcon, Yoshi who all have an amazing set of normals will start to be a better consistent characters than kill confirms from grab.. guys.

 

[Foar]

We all know it's knock back properties will be changed, Beep Boop deserves to stay in the game however because R.O.B kinda needs it to stay relevant. I assume cheap kill throws will become the next scapegoat.

 

[eveningninja]

In many/most cases, when I am facing in the opposite direction from my opponent, at about the distance that a side-tilt would hit him, and I want to do a short hop immediate/rising Bair into his face to send him flying away, I tend to overshoot and the Bair JUST barely misses over the top of his head. And I don't mean against characters like kirby or jiggs or pikachu who are short. But against regular-height characters.

Though, I've been mainly practicing at the moment using characters like ZSS and Ike. Is it just harder to hit the short hop Bair with those characters, or could I possibly be doing something wrong? Too slow?

Thanks.

 

[The MC Clusky]

Hitboxes in general are wonky in this game. There are many aerials that can't almost ever hit grounded characters from a short hop

 

[DavemanCozy]

Aside from character heights, you also need to consider whether they're crouching or not.

You might be doing the aerial too high on the short hop. Instead of focusing on doing it as fast as possible, try aligning it with your opponent.

A character example: 's B-air needs to be aligned with short characters like and even , so it needs to be slightly delayed on short hop. I won't be auto-cancelling upon landing it because of this, but I'll be hitting them for sure. Even on shield, Fox's B-air has good frame advantage, so I need to watch out for whiffing it.

 

[Artmastercorey]

Is there a list of kill percentages for throws anywhere i cant seem to find anything like it

 

[Pazx]

Is there a list of kill percentages for throws anywhere i cant seem to find anything like it

http://smashboards.com/threads/throw-ko-percents.387043/

It's no longer entirely accurate but it's pretty close.

 

[TimSin]

I need help with Spacing and Zoning. I have no idea what it is, and videos explain what it is, but doesn't explain how to apply them. Please help.

 

[digiholic]

Spacing is where you position yourself to be at an advantage, for example, Marth wants to be at tipper range, Mewtwo wants to be below his opponents, Olimar wants to be at whatever range his current Pikmin's grab/fsmash range is, etc.

Zoning is where you position your opponents to be at a disadvantage, for example, throwing angled metal blades downward at Mewtwo to prevent him from staying below you, or throwing missiles at Olimar to keep him too far away to throw pikmin.

Zoning is usually used to refer to projectile zoning, but that's only a bit of it. For example, Captain Falcon can zone with his dashgrab, making opponents unable to safely remain on the same level as Falcon, choosing to fight from the air or platforms. It's about denying options to your opponents, making your job of knowing what they'll do next easier.

Additional information: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqPn3f7Wjk8&list=PLZBZvx1DKvKof4CsKWBtaJGC_1gtrYiiK

 

[TimSin]

Thank you! I will keep this in mind! ^_^

 

[Uncle Honey]

Simple question. When baiting and punishing air dodges/spot dodges, do players react to the dodge and input their attack or do they delay their attack to hit after the dodge is over? e.g. ZSS dthrow>uair out of combo percentages.

 

[free33]

Does anyone have any doubles strategy tips? my brother and i are entering a doubles tournament for the first time next week. I know doubles is much different then singles, but does anyone have any tips in terms of spacing? should we go after one opponent? or keep them both out of the center? Thanks!

 

[NotAnAdmin]

Simple question. When baiting and punishing air dodges/spot dodges, do players react to the dodge and input their attack or do they delay their attack to hit after the dodge is over? e.g. ZSS dthrow>uair out of combo percentages.

It sort of depends on what they want to do and the options available to the character.
As a Falco, I like baiting with his high jump and tricking them into a bad position and punishing with a dtilt or smash attack of my choice.

 

[allshort17]

Does anyone have any doubles strategy tips? my brother and i are entering a doubles tournament for the first time next week. I know doubles is much different then singles, but does anyone have any tips in terms of spacing? should we go after one opponent? or keep them both out of the center? Thanks!

It depends on the characters you're playing, the character's they're playing, and the playstyle of the other team. For example, if you're playing a Robin/Wario team, their strategy probably is to have Robin charge his projectiles while Wario flies around keeping you guys out and protecting him. In this case, it would be good to avoid Wario and gang up on Robin, shutting down Robin's projectile game and forcing Wario to come at you rather than keep you out.

Really, you don't need to really on character strats, but cooperation. Call which player you're each going to fight if you choose to do 2 1v1 and if you're having trouble, don't be afraid to tell your partner to switch. Watch over your partner and help him when he's offstage or in a bad position. Also, be weary of your partner sending the opponent your way so you can capitalize with a follow-up. Just talk and always remember that you're a TEAM.

 

[Funkermonster]

Does anyone know of a guide or teaching the basic controls, movement options, and stuff and how to ? Or at least on stuff when you are absolutely brand new to the game (including casually) and want to become at least competent? I want to get my cousin into this game but she's kind of a complete newbie and hasn't even mastered the full controls, I tried teaching her but I don't know the best way to word things and I haven't done too great a job.

 

[Uncle Honey]

It sort of depends on what they want to do and the options available to the character.
As a Falco, I like baiting with his high jump and tricking them into a bad position and punishing with a dtilt or smash attack of my choice.

Thank you for the response. I understand the theory behind baiting/reading and punishing but my execution is off. I often find myself reading/baiting my opponent to do something, but I'll mistime my attack or follow up too late allowing them to spot dodge, roll, shield, jab, etc.

Does anyone else have input on this?

 

[Storm Erion]

I find more and more that against really good players, they're really good at bullying me when I'm off stage. Be it recovering from the ledge, or when they come try to gimp me, I just get destroyed.

Let's say someone like Pit or Meta Knight jump off stage to fight me, I get scared, so I airdodge, and it gets read. Okay. I decide not to do it, and since I'm not air dodging I get knocked even further off of the stage, so it's just a cycle of getting bullied out of my recovery because I can't seem to tell if the person is going to wait for my airdodge or just straight up attack me.

As for the ledge, characters often times stand in such a way that I can't seem to push them away from the ledge with an aerial, and no matter what other options I try (rolling from the ledge, just standing back up, or jumping off of it) seems to get me punished, and I get pushed right back into a ledge guarding situation.

I feel like this is my worst point as a player, and if anyone could give me some advice as to dealing with that, I'd greatly appreciate it.

 

[NotAnAdmin]

Thank you for the response. I understand the theory behind baiting/reading and punishing but my execution is off. I often find myself reading/baiting my opponent to do something, but I'll mistime my attack or follow up too late allowing them to spot dodge, roll, shield, jab, etc.

Does anyone else have input on this?

Punishing is all about knowing how your opponent will react to certain things happening in a match. Along with spacing. You've got to know both your own character and your opponents options/limits.
You get better at it with practice, it will come eventually as you learn your the best options and your execution is on point.

I find more and more that against really good players, they're really good at bullying me when I'm off stage. Be it recovering from the ledge, or when they come try to gimp me, I just get destroyed.

Let's say someone like Pit or Meta Knight jump off stage to fight me, I get scared, so I airdodge, and it gets read. Okay. I decide not to do it, and since I'm not air dodging I get knocked even further off of the stage, so it's just a cycle of getting bullied out of my recovery because I can't seem to tell if the person is going to wait for my airdodge or just straight up attack me.

As for the ledge, characters often times stand in such a way that I can't seem to push them away from the ledge with an aerial, and no matter what other options I try (rolling from the ledge, just standing back up, or jumping off of it) seems to get me punished, and I get pushed right back into a ledge guarding situation.

I feel like this is my worst point as a player, and if anyone could give me some advice as to dealing with that, I'd greatly appreciate it.

I know this feeling, Falco's recovery is so easy to predict. It all about keeping your cool and predicting what they will do. Along with spacing. I would suggest messing around in practice mode and learning where your character can/can't recover from.
Such is life for the mains with bad recoveries. Also try counter-attacking, you can air dodge and then attack the opponent to turn the tables.

 

[TheDeathChicken]

I have been playing a lot lately but I don't feel myself getting any better. What should I be practicing and how do I practice it correctly?

 

[KoeBigS8]

Hey so I'm trying to break out of habits like using dash attack unsafely do I just so using the move for awhile. I don't have wifi to test this on people but I'm trying to not get bopped as much in tourney lol

 

[Dark Dire Wolf]

Any tips on incorporating tilt? I dash attack or smash attack way too often during a game.

 

[TheBlueSpirit]

I find more and more that against really good players, they're really good at bullying me when I'm off stage. Be it recovering from the ledge, or when they come try to gimp me, I just get destroyed.

Let's say someone like Pit or Meta Knight jump off stage to fight me, I get scared, so I airdodge, and it gets read. Okay. I decide not to do it, and since I'm not air dodging I get knocked even further off of the stage, so it's just a cycle of getting bullied out of my recovery because I can't seem to tell if the person is going to wait for my airdodge or just straight up attack me.

As for the ledge, characters often times stand in such a way that I can't seem to push them away from the ledge with an aerial, and no matter what other options I try (rolling from the ledge, just standing back up, or jumping off of it) seems to get me punished, and I get pushed right back into a ledge guarding situation.

I feel like this is my worst point as a player, and if anyone could give me some advice as to dealing with that, I'd greatly appreciate it.

NotAnAdmin makes some great points, but also try to focus ways to avoid losing stage control/being able to stand of the stage to your opponent. If you incorporate that, along with finding ways around edgeguarding, you may not have to worry about offstage recovering as often in your play. I try to work on this a lot, because that's the biggest weakness of Doc, and I rarely get KO'd by anything except punishes now

 

[Ulevo]

Any tips on incorporating tilt? I dash attack or smash attack way too often during a game.

There are two ways to tilt. You can either get good at tilting the stick from a neutral position, which is hardest but most rewarding way. The second way is to tilt the stick while performing another action. Say you roll and want to perform an up tilt out of the roll, you simply hold up as you roll and then perform the tilt. Since you buffered the input during the roll, you won't jump when you come out of the roll and can tilt this way. With down tilt this is easy, you just need to space out the timing between when you hit A and when you press down. Typically people have trouble with forward tilt and up tilt, the latter if tap jump is turned off. You can turn it off, but I advise you don't if you ever intend on playing a character that benefits from up special or up smash out of shield, like Meta Knight or Link. One of the easiest ways to learn how to tilt the stick without involuntarily jumping or dashing is to practice walking in your matches. Walking is highly undervalued at low levels of play and is an important concept to handle if you want to space properly, which is essential for your neutral game.

I have been playing a lot lately but I don't feel myself getting any better. What should I be practicing and how do I practice it correctly?

Let me put it this way. When you look at a pyramid, what do you see? Most people see the pyramid, or the amalgamation of all the bricks in to a single entity. In metaphoric contrast, when you see a pro player play, what do you see? Most people see just the player, or the results that player produces. They see the sum, the fruits of the labour, and not the details that come together to form that excellence.

If you want to improve, you need to focus on the bricks, not the pyramid. To you, the pyramid shouldn't even exist. The devil is in the details. It doesn't matter what you decide to improve, just pick something and practice it until you have it. If something interests you, work at it. If you do this diligently, patiently, and with determination, you will eventually reach where you want to be.

 

[BlueX]

How can i get better at Dashdancing in 3DS? The analog stick is really flat and makes it harder to do.

 

[AnthonyGriffion]

Hello,

My name is Anthony, though I would like to go by my screen name "Griffion" /grif-i-on/. I am a novice Smash player. I never had a N64 or Gamecube and only started playing Smash in 2012 when I got Brawl. Over the past 3 years, I have seen and learned about the competitive side of the game. With the introduction of a new game, Smash Bros for Wii U and 3DS, I thought it would be a window into joining the competitive scene. So I've only been practicing a playing Smash competitively since December when I got Smash for Wii U and with Project M late last year.

I know I won't get better over night, but here is my problem. With how I have been practicing I feel I am not progressing at all. I've watched and read guides for my main, Shulk, here on Smash boards and watched some videos on the game mechanics. I'd say that helps, but when I ask some of my really good friends how they train... I get several different answers. One suggestion I got was simply playing with the friends I can never beat. I don't mind losing, but everytime?! I feel discouraged when I do that. Sometimes I feel I should give up.

So my question today is, how should I train? I expect several different answers here as well, but I hope there will be some highlights. And if I can never reach the competitve level, in what way can I be involved in the Smash community? If you could please answer in a broad way, perhaps to help other in my situation.

Thank you,

Griffion

 

[NotAnAdmin]

It's just practice, practice, practice.

Look at how M2K started out, he was considered a scrub when he started and now, everyone in the community has to give him his props, he is one of the best Smashers in history. There is no one good way to practice, this is something that you will have to find yourself. There may be bits and pieces of how others practice you like, but others like to focus on things that you may not find so important. I don't play Shulk at all so I can't really give you any specific ways to practice.

I can tell you one thing, learn your spacing, Shulk's strong point is walling out everyone with his range.
Most Shulks try to run the same old nair or fair approaches and get punished for it. He really can be almost untouchable if you can space correctly.

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

Go to tournaments in your region. Pick a better character. Learn frame data. Practice practice practice. Their used to be guides and stuff on this that should help.

 

[RedNova]

Everybody practices differently. As for myself, I always practice with this one friends that just reads you like you were a wikipedia article, so I obviously lose a lot (he's a pretty cool guy, so I don't mind. I don't know about your friends, tho). Just until recently I started winning some matches,because I started learning and not being predictable. Just don't give up!

 

[NotAnAdmin]

How can i get better at Dashdancing in 3DS? The analog stick is really flat and makes it harder to do.

Don't. Seriously, don't do that, the 3DS can't handle that kind of movement. You'll break the thing right off.

 

[BlueX]

Don't. Seriously, don't do that, the 3DS can't handle that kind of movement. You'll break the thing right off.

Oh wow really? Thank you telling me that before i did continue. I honestly never thought that doing so could break it.

 

[AnthonyGriffion]

Everybody practices differently. As for myself, I always practice with this one friends that just reads you like you were a wikipedia article, so I obviously lose a lot (he's a pretty cool guy, so I don't mind. I don't know about your friends, tho). Just until recently I started winning some matches,because I started learning and not being predictable. Just don't give up!

I have a few friends that I am alright against. Do lose a lot, but they actually encourage me to do better. My one friend I can never beat on the other hand... he is friendly about it, but he tends to rub it in abit. Whether it be in our skype chat or "that disrespect" in game! xP I just get discouraged against him and feel I've made no progress. Thanks for the replies every1!

 

[ligersandtigons]

Who's generally considered the best rush down character so far?

Falcon?

 

[Duck SMASH!]

The best rush down characters are likely among the fastest. Yoshi, Sonic, Falcon, Sheik, Pikachu, and Fox come to mind. All of them have strong approach options, as well as great aerial games, and are great at pressuring opponents up close.

BTW guys... I have serious trouble power shielding, and it's costing me dearly when I fight zoning characters.... Several times I'll get frustrated mid match and eat a ton of % through sloppy play...
Any suggestions for how to improve my powershielding? I main several characters, but I especially have trouble keeping my cool with the larger and heavier ones... I am prone to panicking and shielding too early, or too late and getting hit, which prompts me to shield for too long and usually results in a grab. >.>

 

[Nobie]

Does anyone know what determines who stands closer to the ledge when two characters try to occupy that same space? It never quite makes sense for me.

 

[JehJehKeyblade]

Hello.

Recently, I played a friendly match against my younger brother. I KOed him as Fox, and as a joke, I attempted a DD, and it worked! However, it was NOTICEABLY shorter than his Melee DD. Can I still make this dashdance useful? And if so, how?

 

[NGUY (guitarstage)]

i use it mainly for mindgame but i use it as a taint too

 

[ぱみゅ]

They're about as useful as they were before: a circumstantial trick to be done not too often.

 

[AvengerV]

not really

 

[Megamang]

I find more and more that against really good players, they're really good at bullying me when I'm off stage. Be it recovering from the ledge, or when they come try to gimp me, I just get destroyed.

Let's say someone like Pit or Meta Knight jump off stage to fight me, I get scared, so I airdodge, and it gets read. Okay. I decide not to do it, and since I'm not air dodging I get knocked even further off of the stage, so it's just a cycle of getting bullied out of my recovery because I can't seem to tell if the person is going to wait for my airdodge or just straight up attack me.

As for the ledge, characters often times stand in such a way that I can't seem to push them away from the ledge with an aerial, and no matter what other options I try (rolling from the ledge, just standing back up, or jumping off of it) seems to get me punished, and I get pushed right back into a ledge guarding situation.

I feel like this is my worst point as a player, and if anyone could give me some advice as to dealing with that, I'd greatly appreciate it.

You have received some great advice so far; I wanted to add maybe saving your second jump could help your problem. You can go lower, and if they come down too, you can often jump and airdodge through them.


As for standing on the ledge... you are at a disadvantaged position; there is no sure fire way to get back but you need to mix it up. I know exactly what you are talking about, when people stand in that safe zone where they can still get your getup options. Sometimes I just ledge roll and DI towards the middle and take small damage rather than die over the ledge slowly.


This is all me with my non mains, I chose mains with great recoveries because I don't like dying that way.