How Do I Improve?

[Nani?]

Title says it all. I know how to play, but something isn't clicking. I know my strats, I know my combos, but I feel like I'm doing something wrong. Any tips?

 

[Nohbl]

What are you doing wrong?
Try grabbing more, including shield grabbing.

 

[TheRealJoker]

Watch your own footage, and compare it to that of top players. What do they do that you don't do? What are you getting hit by?

Break the game down. When your opponent is at 0%, generally your goal is to raise their percentage quickly, while defending yourself from the opponent trying to do the same thing. Know your characters' kill percentages on their moves, against certain characters. When you've gotten your opponent to a certain %, you should be almost only looking for these kill opportunities. This is all common sense, but often times we forget about it mid-match and go into autopilot mode.

 

[Frihetsanka]

Stop rolling so much. Stop throwing out so many unsafe f-smashes. Stop spamming PK Fire. Stop being so obvious when fishing for a backthrow.

I'm not sure if that helped, but those are some fairly common issues with Ness mains. It's really hard to give advice since you didn't give us much to go with, though.

 

[Thatonehelper]

Observe, study, practice.
There are entire books on this subject. Obtaining proficiency applies to all things in life and not just Smash. So here is a quick overview.

• Observe: The first step and the easiest. Expand your knowledge. Watch and learn what others are doing. You can see and are introduced to new things, think about them, be reminded and reinforced by them if you see it again.

Examples: Learning new combos and optimal playstyles with an unfamiliar character in a tutorial/guide, learning the theory and design of each character, learning your habits by watching your own footage, learning player and character habits from watching others

• Study: Know and prepare yourself for what is to come. Learn counters, strategies, and recognize ability. Improve your presence of mind. If you are not ready for what is to come, how can you fight it?

Examples: Digesting the commentary on competitive vods, going through competitive sets play-by-play, analyzing and taking track of a player’s habits, figuring out what is good/bad or right/wrong, watching old videos to see progression/things you may have missed, discussing tactics with other players, figuring out movement tricks and the advantages and disadvantages of certain stages, Rockpaperscissors, learning advanced techniques, glitches, character strengths and weaknesses, matchups, learning the language and objectives of different phases of the game: neutral, punish, edge guard, edge trap, disadvantage, advantage, at ledge, tech chase etc.

• Practice: The more time invested the more proficient you become. Practice is the key to mastery. You become faster, your precision is much better, decision making is improved, confidence is built and doubt is removed. The best spend endless amounts of time on practice. Explosive improvement comes through trial and error, by pushing one’s self. Challenge yourself to never be comfortable so that you are always improving in some aspect. You may be the first , become an inventor/engineer, and be powerful if armed with knowledge. However, knowledge alone is not enough to becoming the best.

Examples: Gaining the muscle memory to utilize Bidou tech and RAR aerial attacks, mastering advanced techniques like edge cancels;dash dancing; wavedashing;shield dropping; 10/10 times instead of 3/10 attempts, knowing exactly when to be defensive or offensive, pushing your character to its utmost limits, consistently KOing opponents through edgeguards and kill confirms, practicing to remove your bad habits and build good habits, playing more matches and winning more sets, taking on challenges to improve your proficiency, learning the spacing of certain moves, accurately short hopping and full hopping when you want to