Help Me Improve

[ItsBenjii]

So, I've been playing a lot of Melee and practiced my tech skill quite a bit. Right now, my mains are Sheik and Marth and space animals on occasion. My problem is, I don't really know how to get started with improving beyond tech skill. If anyone could help move past this plateau of improvement, it would help a lot. Any advice with the characters or just general gameplay tips would be appreciated so much.

 

[deadPhoenix]

First of all, read this: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_6o5NHvI9P8-qHp2M8w1gDzL_-JNonEE81Mh4ulY1PY/edit

A lot of what I'm about to say is stuff that's said in the guide as well, but still read the guide. The guide will get you exactly where you need to be going.

- Play in tournaments. Tournament experience is priceless and will help you in more ways than lab practice will. There's only so much you can learn and practice in the lab. With tournaments, you play against real people, so you learn the neutral game, mind games, proper spacing, and how to deal with tournament pressure, among other things. On top of that, you can play friendlies with good players who will help you improve most likely if you ask them.

- Find more things you can be practicing in the lab. Find new tech you've never done before, new strategies, whatever, and practice it. Best way to do this is finding things here on Smashboards in your character specific sub forum, watching pro play, and experimenting.

The guide touches on lots more, so I'll let you go through that. I hope this helps though! Happy smashing!

 

[ItsBenjii]

First of all, read this: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_6o5NHvI9P8-qHp2M8w1gDzL_-JNonEE81Mh4ulY1PY/edit

A lot of what I'm about to say is stuff that's said in the guide as well, but still read the guide. The guide will get you exactly where you need to be going.

- Play in tournaments. Tournament experience is priceless and will help you in more ways than lab practice will. There's only so much you can learn and practice in the lab. With tournaments, you play against real people, so you learn the neutral game, mind games, proper spacing, and how to deal with tournament pressure, among other things. On top of that, you can play friendlies with good players who will help you improve most likely if you ask them.

- Find more things you can be practicing in the lab. Find new tech you've never done before, new strategies, whatever, and practice it. Best way to do this is finding things here on Smashboards in your character specific sub forum, watching pro play, and experimenting.

The guide touches on lots more, so I'll let you go through that. I hope this helps though! Happy smashing!

You've been so much help, thank you so much.

 

[LegendarySquid]

If you want to learn more about individual characters, then I would suggest visiting their respective subforums. There should be some helpful threads there.

 

[DYLirious94]

Look up "my explenation of footsies" on youtube. It's about 40min watch and also about sf4 but the concept is very much the same as smash. Some parts are sf4 specific but there are things to be learned from the concept of what is explained.

This is just my own opinion but it stirred thoughts about how I should play smash as a whole.

 

[zero sum]

stick to one character for now tbh

it takes a really long time to actually get very ‘good’ at any one character. when you're playing another character, you have to think about the game differently from how to space moves to how to use dash dancing. there's a lot of other stuff in between too like wavedash lengths, recoveries, etc. that you have to consider as well. i don't know how much you play sheik, for example, compared to marth and spacies, but where you are now you should probably pick just one character if you want to improve. that doesn't mean that you can never play other characters, but you should definitely be spending much more time with one character than any others.

aside from that watch videos (vods.co/melee is a really great source) to notice kill set-ups, things to do in certain matchups, etc. there are also a few set analyses from top players like mango and leffen floating around on youtube and you should watch those too. they're really good resources for learning how you should play the game. also every time you lose a stock or get hit you should ask yourself why and try not to get hit like that again. gl

 

[Cereal Rabbit]

The best advice is to record yourself playing and then let it be critiqued by you, others, and respected players.

 

[ItsBenjii]

stick to one character for now tbh

it takes a really long time to actually get very ‘good’ at any one character. when you're playing another character, you have to think about the game differently from how to space moves to how to use dash dancing. there's a lot of other stuff in between too like wavedash lengths, recoveries, etc. that you have to consider as well. i don't know how much you play sheik, for example, compared to marth and spacies, but where you are now you should probably pick just one character if you want to improve. that doesn't mean that you can never play other characters, but you should definitely be spending much more time with one character than any others.

aside from that watch videos (vods.co/melee is a really great source) to notice kill set-ups, things to do in certain matchups, etc. there are also a few set analyses from top players like mango and leffen floating around on youtube and you should watch those too. they're really good resources for learning how you should play the game. also every time you lose a stock or get hit you should ask yourself why and try not to get hit like that again. gl

I've made this discover myself. I've been solely playing Sheik for the past few days.