Smash Wii U How come I'm not improving?

[firedude953]

I've practised a lot on For Glory and Anther's Ladder, watched tournament matches, went to locals, read guides, and asked questions on SmashBoards, but I can't seem to get any better. What can I do to fix this?

 

[medofbr]

Honestly practice more. The amount you practice has to be more than that of your opponent also the people you are playing probably have more experience so you need to be able to equal The ridiculous amount of exp they have. Yes it's a grind. But it could even take a year to see a moderate improvement. It took me about 1.5 year s to go from averageing .5-2 in my local to averageing 1.5 - 2

 

[Lola Luftnagle]

Seems to me you answered your own question. It would also help if you save replays of your online matches, especially for the ones you lost. View them thoroughly and seek out mistakes, bad habits, etc. Those are things you can work on next time. I also don't have to tell you that playstyles of Smashers here are multifaceted in nature, so you must adapt to them.

And may I suggest you hop on to Training Mode and apply everything you've learned thus far. It is going to take a good amount of time to master advanced techniques, but it'll be worth it.

 

[hylian_buffalo]

My only suggestion would be to get on training mode more often and practice things such as walking, tilts, fast falls, and any other tech you can think of. Do this just as much, if not more, than actually playing matches. I started doing this for 30 minutes a day (15 min with Ike, 15 min with Lucina) and I saw drastic improvements after a few weeks of doing this. The better you want to be the longer you should do this.

On a side note, you wont see improvement instantly. You will always go through plateaus where you don't see any improvement. This will happen all the time. You will see improvement for a time and then not see improvement for a while. If you aren't getting better, the best thing to do is keep practicing and I promise you will get better. Not instantly, but you will get better.

 

[FamilyTeam]

Like stated before: You really don't improve from night to day. You don't even notice you're improving even though you are. It's natural. This is often a seamless process for most people, so don't be discouraged. I am infinitely better today than I was a year ago and it's not like I was ever able to somehow accurately keep track of how much better I was getting.

 

[GLORY12HOUND]

My tips are just practice, practice, practice. Just perfect your B&B's and just work hard at the neutral. Also, u might not be able to see your improvement but trust me u r. It might be minimal and impossible to see but it might just help u in a match.

 

[Uffe]

When you watch tourney matches, are you actually paying attention to what's going on and why what works for top players isn't working for you? When you fight other players, do you go auto-pilot, or are you actually focused to the point you adapt to their methods? And what kind of questions are you asking? Because if you're asking, "I main Bowser, so how do I deal with so-and-so?" That's not specific enough. What is it that the character giving you trouble is doing that you're having a hard time getting around? They say practice makes perfect, and if you're only putting an hour of Smash 4 in a day while others are putting in a lot more, then don't expect your results to change immediately. No one said getting good was going to be easy and I feel like I'm currently in your position at the moment as well. Maybe you shouldn't be so focused on winning, but learning. Winning is the objective, but if you're not learning anything, then what's the point? Just work hard at it.

 

[Uffe]

Anther's has a ranking system, so if you're worried about not moving up on there by simply just playing to learn, then going to FG might be your best friend for learning things. Of course Anther's also has friendlies, so you could actually ask people for advice. That's probably a much better option.

 

[Matt11111]

Like stated before: You really don't improve from night to day. You don't even notice you're improving even though you are. It's natural. This is often a seamless process for most people, so don't be discouraged. I am infinitely better today than I was a year ago and it's not like I was ever able to somehow accurately keep track of how much better I was getting.

Right. I never noticed I was getting any better, but then I watch replays of myself when I first got the game and I feel embarrassed that I ever thought Super Jump Punch and smash attacks were Mario's only good moves.

 

[GLORY12HOUND]

Right. I never noticed I was getting any better, but then I watch replays of myself when I first got the game and I feel embarrassed that I ever thought Super Jump Punch and smash attacks were Mario's only good moves.

I had a similar experience I used to never shield and only roll. I didn't even know anything about grabs and I never knew how mutch ike gets off them. (21-25% a grab and kills)

 

[KirbCider]

To be honest, I'm not really sure what to say (especially something that hasn't been said already) other than just keep practicing.

Nobody improves instantly and sometimes you won't notice it. One thing I can say is perhaps saving Replays of your own matches and showing them to others might help. You can practice day in and day out, and read/watch dozens of guides/matches but you also need to be aware of your bad habits. What are you not taking advantage of? What are you taking advantage of? Are you doing something like rolling away when you can obviously land a good punish? Things like that. Know your bad habits and fix them.

I can't really vouch for Anthers Ladder as I never used it; however I will say it's probably best not to evaluate your skill on For Glory. While For Glory can be good practice sometimes your opponent is always random in terms of skill. I win the majority of my matches on For Glory but that's normally because the majority of my opponents aren't that great, yet I can have a severely difficult time with other Members I've smashed with here on SmashBoards. So I wouldn't take For Glory matches to heart to be honest.

In the end all you got to do is practice and keep working on it.

 

[Tilting]

Cause you main browser, jeez dude I was like maybe I can learn something out of this threat but no. Came in here read the question and saw who you mained.

 

[Uffe]

Cause you main browser, jeez dude I was like maybe I can learn something out of this threat but no. Came in here read the question and saw who you mained.

Bowser is easily combo food, but he can last a long time, he's got power, and with the rage mechanic, that up throw > up air can be really scary. You really have to respect the character for what he can do. And this is no disrespect towards M2K. I just couldn't believe what I watched a few days ago.

 

[Mini_Mac]

As a Mac main, this has always been a question I have been asking myself. The truth is (in my opinion) that improvement only comes when you are able to understand what you are doing wrong. Let's say you are trying to main Mac and you go on for glory and you realize that you are losing your stocks too early because people are taking advantage of your aerial/recovery weakness. You ask yourself, "what am I doing wrong and how can I fix that?" A good thing to do is save your replays.

Here would be a scenerio for someone who is trying to get better with a certain character (lets use little mac as an example).

"I'm fighting Shulk and he keeps baiting me towards him so he can grab me and throw me off the ledge in an effort to take advantage of Mac's recovery weakness and GIMP me at a low percent. I use my double jump to get back on but before I use my side-B to get back on, he does a Fair and I'm now too far away from the ledge costing me a stock at 30%."

Let's disect the words this Mac player has used and see if we can figure out what he can do differently.

"I'm fighting Shulk and he keeps baiting me towards him so he can grab me and throw me off the ledge in an effort to take advantage of Mac's recovery weakness and GIMP me at a low percent. I use my double jump to get back on but before I use my side-B to get back on, he does a Fair and I'm now too far away from the ledge costing me a stock at 30%."

M'kay, m'kay. I know the problem

1. Don't let Shulk have that opprotuinity to bait you. Be on the defensive and patiently wait out for an opprotuinity to go for an attack. Remember, (this especialy goes for Mac players) it's not about who hits the most; it's about not getting hit.

2. When you are thrown off the edge at low percents and at a distance from the ledge where you can just use a side-B or an up-B without using your double jump, DON'T USE YOUR DOUBLE JUMP!! Just use your recovery move to get back on stage. That way, if you get hit by an aerial offstage, you'll still have another chance to get back on safely by using that jump you saved up.

Likley response: "Well every time I try and go for an attack think I have an opprotunity, Shulk always shields and then punishes me by grabbing me! I can't seem to hit him or rack up any damage!"

MY RESPONSE: Well have you tried grabbing yourself?........

Anyways, this is the mindset you should have when you are trying to improve in Smash. It is a stradegy that has worked for a whole lot of people including me. Save your replays and then use this mindset to examine what you are doing wrong and how you can fix your issues.

 

[Baby_Sneak]

I've practised a lot on For Glory and Anther's Ladder, watched tournament matches, went to locals, read guides, and asked questions on SmashBoards, but I can't seem to get any better. What can I do to fix this?

What guides have you read

 

[firedude953]

What guides have you read

Big Sean's Guide to Bowser

 

[Baby_Sneak]

Big Sean's Guide to Bowser

LIt's a good guide, but That's it? lemme recommend something to you, a couple steps to success.


1. Punching bag- set up a lvl 3 CPU to wail on and get to gropes with your movement and inputs. Practice your movements, fluidity, try to 0 to death the CPU on everything, try new things, explore, etc... but ALWAYS try to do everything you want to do, no input errors.

2. Go on FG/anthers ladder or w/e, play to learn, not to win, record your loses, analyze them (why did you get hit? why did you die?), etc...

3. Meditate on these guides

 

[FamilyTeam]

You cannot settle with just one guide and leave it at that. Lab your character yourself. Work on your techniques, your dexterity, study MUs, study your own character inside and out and then see what everything he has is good for.

 

[P-J]

Life is all about plateaus and figuring out how to get past them, which inevitably leads to other plateaus. Basically, when things get difficult or you feel "stuck," think outside the box, but also put the work in. I feel like people miss this a lot. They get complacent and either give up or settle with the plateau they're at. If you truly want to get better, keep grinding. As others have mentioned, be smart about it though. Learn your character and his/her matchups. Have an appetite to learn. Knowledge of your material is just as important as tech skill.

EDIT:

I forgot to emphasize that this is applicable to every aspect of life. Want to learn a foreign language? Put the work in and keep at it when you hit that plateau. Want to learn a sport or a craft? Your first few times trying will be "bad" because you're inexperienced. Eventually, what once was difficult becomes easier and you will notice improvement in that sense. You decide how good you want to be at something.

 

[Axel311]

It takes time, and there are a lot of plateus along the way. You've really got to figure out what you're doing wrong that you haven't noticed before. You can do that by comparing your play with the play of a top player of your character. Or get opinions of others. Because believe me, there's a lot of things everyone who isn't a top player is doing unoptimally and can improve on massively. It's just a matter of finding them and putting the practice in to change those habits. It takes a lot of deep thinking and theorycrafting sometimes. Finding the changes you need to make isn't always easy or obvious.

 

[FamilyTeam]

It takes time, and there are a lot of plateus along the way. You've really got to figure out what you're doing wrong that you haven't noticed before. You can do that by comparing your play with the play of a top player of your character. Or get opinions of others. Because believe me, there's a lot of things everyone who isn't a top player is doing unoptimally and can improve on massively. It's just a matter of finding them and putting the practice in to change those habits. It takes a lot of deep thinking and theorycrafting sometimes. Finding the changes you need to make isn't always easy or obvious.

Every top player can still improve a lot. Pay enough attention to matches and you can see holes even in their styles.