How can I practice to actually beat people? Also Dolphin online play...

[kReign]

Hey smashboards...I've been playing Brawl recently and I got pretty good, so I thought - I can basically wreck most cpus. I don't play against them too often since I'm trying not to get into any habits like that, but I don't really have people I can play against too often.

So usually I'll play against someone remembering the last time we played thinking "yeah, I can probably win!" and then I get wrecked. It doesn't help that they can pick random and still beat me. So that makes me think that maybe I don't have the fundamentals down as well as I had hoped. So I need a way to practice them and I really need to practice with people who know what they're doing.

It's hard to remember to think through some of the things I've read on smashboards when playing and I usually feel something like "there has got to be SOMETHING I can do to not get hit here" but I never know what it is or I just mess up at it.

So my question is...is there a way I can practice against someone from here or something like that? We can do online with PM and melee and N64 but can we do Brawl online with Dolphin?

Thanks...I'm really getting frustrated that I can't ever really manage to win against anyone even though I'm pretty okay at the game :-|

I should note that the people I play against do a lot of dodge rolling and I just can't seem to punish it because it's so damn fast! I have no way to really practice that since the bots don't do it that much...

 

[Phan7om]

Dont know what character you are using but remember to always play it safe. 1st you would need to learn basic stuff like jump out of sheild, DI, RAR, Powersheilding, Sheild dropping (like no one uses this amazing option in Brawl, sd ff airdodge is good) DACUS/GT (if your character has them), and even platform cancelling.

Afterwards master the movement with your character, a long with every possible combo, string, ATs, and frame traps your character can do. Know his/her weaknesses and strengths. After that learn the matchups, you wont be able to do this properly unless you know everything about your character. After that it all comes down to figuring out your opponent and punishing them for options they choose.

You know they'll roll, dont throw out an attack just wait and see what they'll do if they roll turn around and punish hard. Bait them to throw out a move and punish the whiff. It just takes practice, the quicker reaction time you have the better. Mindgame your opponent to make them think you'll do something, dont, and then do something else they wont expect, if youre good at this step you can make lots of "useless" mvoes hit because you'll just know how to hit them.

That being said, I hope my advice was helpful... im not a top player or anything Im trying to get good myself xD. Maybe someone better than me will comment below to add onto/disagree with this lol.