Give up?

[CommanderRin]

As soon as you can't believe in your own growth and potential is when you should quit or stop taking something seriously.

People confuse magic with the idea that you can become miraculously better. Magic is the trials and accomplishments that stick with you as your journey continues.

 

[Hippieslayer]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDChsqq8vL0

^Replay of one of my better FG matches.

Also, my win rate is 68%. (In case you wanted to know.)

People with super high win rates can be really good. But most often they are not, I can beat people with 90% win rates, even though mine is probably in the seventies somewhere (I don't know I haven't checked it for ages because it doesn't really matter). The reason being they get their win rates by leaving when they lose and staying when they win, which is moronic. It's when you lose that you stay and when you consistently bop someone that you leave, that's how you get better. Even if that means having a ****y win rate, win rate doesn't matter.

 

[NegaNixx]

I felt myself getting better when I started dedicating a large chunk of my play time to pure labbing. I'd lab Character Tech (Ledge Cancelling), General Tech (As simple as Short Hopping), Advanced Tech and Combos for an hour before I actually stepped on smash ladder or even for glory.

I also started off with learning basic play of a lot of characters. I'd literally play any character that interested me the slightest bit.

Learning the basics of all those characters not only allowed me to eventually narrow it down to who I wanted to focus on (Marth/ZSS) but it also gave me an idea about how to fight them.

Once I narrowed it down. I started scouring the boards and YouTube for videos and guides on what to do specifically for the character. You don't practice until you can do something once. You practice until you can do it again and again without fail. I'd be spending 10 minutes on a simple combo with ZSS just to get the timing down. With Marth I'd practice Ledge Guarding just against CPUs until I could garuntee they'd not make it back, it wouldn't be the same as a human opponent but it was still good practice. Sitting down with some music and just labbing is really great you'll see it improve your game. Before I couldn't confirm any kills with ZSS (which is embarrassing) but now that I've lab bed it out my muscle memory is a lot better and I can confirm kills at 30%~. Feels good!

Good luck

 

[TheMorninSun]

I felt myself getting better when I started dedicating a large chunk of my play time to pure labbing. I'd lab Character Tech (Ledge Cancelling), General Tech (As simple as Short Hopping), Advanced Tech and Combos for an hour before I actually stepped on smash ladder or even for glory.

I also started off with learning basic play of a lot of characters. I'd literally play any character that interested me the slightest bit.

Learning the basics of all those characters not only allowed me to eventually narrow it down to who I wanted to focus on (Marth/ZSS) but it also gave me an idea about how to fight them.

Once I narrowed it down. I started scouring the boards and YouTube for videos and guides on what to do specifically for the character. You don't practice until you can do something once. You practice until you can do it again and again without fail. I'd be spending 10 minutes on a simple combo with ZSS just to get the timing down. With Marth I'd practice Ledge Guarding just against CPUs until I could garuntee they'd not make it back, it wouldn't be the same as a human opponent but it was still good practice. Sitting down with some music and just labbing is really great you'll see it improve your game. Before I couldn't confirm any kills with ZSS (which is embarrassing) but now that I've lab bed it out my muscle memory is a lot better and I can confirm kills at 30%~. Feels good!

Good luck

Practice until it becomes a habitat eh? Well I do something similar to that. When I'm going on for the first time in a day, I go into practice mode and practice gimping with Lucina and Marth. The problem is that situation almost never occurs in a real match. Whenever I try to set up a ledge guard/gimp, I'm mostly met with an air dodge, or a shield. Gimping is Lucina's only kinda easy way of killing IMO. Also, another problem is tilts. Because you can't use a GameCube controller on a 3DS, I frequently mess up with them. When I want to do an up tilt out of f-air, I end up doing an Up-Smash, and it ruins everything.

http://youtu.be/DBAsRisAxOM

My Lucina vs a Yoshi^

 

[NegaNixx]

I didn't realize you mained Luci.

Some tips for Marcina in general:

Keep yourself centre stage make that your fortress retreat to it pressure from it find away to always get back there. Falchion offstage game is defensively nothing stellar Dolphin Slash is a great recovery to protect but it's distance isn't anything to write home about. So stay centre stage and fight from there. Push them off your hill. That's what Marth and Lucina are all about, King (Queen) of the Hill, poke, trap and pressure your opponent to the edge and then use their amazing ledge game to get kills.

Be sure to read Emblem Lord's write up in the Marth boards on Traps or just Emblem Lords stuff in general. It helps raise your Fighting Game IQ.

Position is always more important than percentage for Marcina.

As for Tilts all I can say is muscle memory. Get that down. If you're using them after a move hold the direction of the tilt while he move is in action so that you don't have to worry about accidentally smashing. It really only gets harder. Adding in Advanced Tech makes the room for error even less.

If you want to go a few rounds I'm game. I play the 3DS version as well.

 

[Game Boy]

Yeah I know the feeling, I guess practice is all I can say, get to know your character, while also learning what other characters have and how long certain moves they do last so you can shield or dodge appropriately.

 

[TheHypnotoad]

Lucina is very netplay friendly, she's the type of character i'd expect to have a high winrate online. No spacing mechanic on her sword, good punish with Fsmash, an option to break shields, a counter move, ect.



Aggressive play loses to defensive play on this game. You have to learn to be aggressive by abusing the defensive mechanics in this game. Yes, i know, "that sounds stupid" you think, but it's how this game works.

Learn the art of runup > shield. It beats like, everything.

Learn to read your opponent's airdodge habits, and learn to bait them into doing it for an attack or grab.

Also, learn to read the situations when your opponent wastes their second jump. It leaves them in a terrible position if you get them offf the stage. Combine this with airdodge reading and you can do some real damage.

Learn to respect the fact that rolling/sidestepping is stupid on this game. If you have a character with long-active hitboxes that easily punish rolls, wait for the frontroll and smash them for it. Otherwise, just learn how to let it go and go back to neutral.

Again, just because you know a roll or sidestep is coming doesn't always mean a punish is going to be easy, depending on your character. Rolls are very good, and some players, even "scrubby" ones, know how to abuse this in a way that baits you into a bad situation. Netplay just makes it worse.

It's possible to use rolls offensively as well. If your opponent is close to you, roll behind dtilt or roll behind ftilt is actually a pretty good option. You don't want to use it all the time, since the opponent will inevitably catch on and punish you for it, but it's good to use occasionally.

 

[LightLV]

It's possible to use rolls offensively as well. If your opponent is close to you, roll behind dtilt or roll behind ftilt is actually a pretty good option. You don't want to use it all the time, since the opponent will inevitably catch on and punish you for it, but it's good to use occasionally.

Rolls are so good on this game, they can be used offensively.

The sad part is, this is true.

 

[Sünta]

What I've learned about this game is that no matter how good you are, if you play aggressive against a defensive player, you'll get bodied. I've also learned that if you do want to play aggressive, you have to read your opponent very well. You can't really practice reading your opponent, its just something that you see, certain things your opponent generally does. On FG, people usually air dodge when you get close to them so what I do is do a throw, jump up to them and fast fall to the ground and either punish them when they airdodge, or evade them/shield if they decide to attack. Reading how your opponent will react when you approach them will also help quite a bit.
TL;DR Reading+skill=win

 

[_gold_]

"I have not failed. I have just found 10,000 ways it won't work." - Edison

Keep at it, that's all I can say. Next time, if you happen to lose, analyze the match. Study it. Figure out why you lost. Build upon your mistakes and improve upon them. There's no potion or easy way. Practice makes perfect.

 

[Ze Diglett]

I feel your pain. I myself am very easily discouraged when it comes to Smash; just losing one or two consecutive matches can be enough to put me out of the Smashing mood for the rest of the day, and I always feel like I need to take at least one match off of someone before I can walk away feeling like I'm actually good at the game. If the opponent leaves after beating me two matches in a row, then I'll often just call it a day, feeling like the worst player in the world.
Basically, that's how I know that the competitive lifestyle just isn't for me. I know I'm bad, and I know I can't handle a loss, so I've essentially given up trying. Competitive Smash just isn't for some people, and I know that firsthand.

 

[Foxus]

I feel your pain. I myself am very easily discouraged when it comes to Smash; just losing one or two consecutive matches can be enough to put me out of the Smashing mood for the rest of the day, and I always feel like I need to take at least one match off of someone before I can walk away feeling like I'm actually good at the game. If the opponent leaves after beating me two matches in a row, then I'll often just call it a day, feeling like the worst player in the world.
Basically, that's how I know that the competitive lifestyle just isn't for me. I know I'm bad, and I know I can't handle a loss, so I've essentially given up trying. Competitive Smash just isn't for some people, and I know that firsthand.

I can relate. It's easy for me to get so irritated that either I just DC or don't play the game for the rest of the day.

 

[Opossum]

Whining/advice threads aren't allowed here. Please go to the dedicated Competitive Advice thread in the Competitive section.