How do I play the neutral game better?

[salaperuna]

Introduction:

Hi guys, I started a few months ago with Game and Watch. Having played melee a lot a long time ago, I was really pleased how GW is now. So I watched everything I could find by @ Dakpo (and others), wrote down good techniques and drilled them a lot. Now I think I'm proficient with the techniques, but against some opponents I feel my neutral game is lacking.

Here are my options:

• dash dance with the maximum dash distance to bait an attack
• short hop backward, then b-reverse fast fall bacon or just bacon forward while moving back
  
• run towards the opponent, then JC grab (risky) or dtilt (safer)
  
• jump towards the opponent and fair (risky), or a fast fall pan hit leading to jab+grab or a dtilt (safer on shield)
• jump high, immediately take out the key, waveland or uair on landing
• dacus or bacon->dacus for mixups
• RAR bair to grab or smash or whatever

Questions:

• When dash dancing backwards, and the opponent is attacking, I can only do either a bair or a dash attack canceled grab as a punish. I feel these are really weak punishes sometimes. Are there some ones that are better? What should I do? To clarify, this is because I'm running back and can't turn, or if I can turn around (dash dance turn) I don't have enough time to get a powerful move out, such as fair.
  
• Am I missing on some approaches? Are some of my approaches weak? I've looked at how the very experienced players approach and I feel they are somehow... better. What could it be?

 

[cisyphus]

For the questions:
1. You should be able to fair perfectly well by pivot jumping (aka reverse aerial rush to face forward). You can also just use your dashdance proper and dash in, crouch to cancel momentum, and then f-smash, d-smash, down tilt, what have you. If you're unable to turn, then you aren't dash dancing correctly.
2. Without videos It's difficult to tell. You can get two neutral Bs out of a short hop, though. I'd assume maybe you aren't spacing things well, because G&W has great amounts of disjoint and fair, bair, and d-tilt all have pretty low cooldown. You can also dash forward wavedash back in lieu of G&W's long wavedash.

 

[Taytertot]

As far as I can tell (though i have limited G&W experience right now) G&W was pretty predictable approach options and his strengths lay more in his combos and early kills. This leads me to believe that G&W should not be an all out approach character like other character (aka spacies) can. Though, he also cant camp well or force others to approach. what he can do is use bacon to try to get his opponent to commit in some way that opens up an approach, but if the opponent has a safe defensive option to deal with that or simply has the space to dash dance back then that doesnt do much for G&W.

That being said G&W isnt the only character with this issue and from my experience with watch sethlon's roy as well as playing a lot of roy. The way to play neutral should be, generally speaking, to threaten space as opposed to actually putting physical pressure on the opponent. What I mean by this is that by standing/crouching in a given location (preferably with stage control for most options available to G&W) you are effectively threatening a given area around yourself because G&W has good disjointed range and frame data on his attacks. So, youre not exactly throwing out attacks constantly (though throwing out some non-committal attacks is a good idea as long as it isnt too frequent) youre more forcing your opponent to choose to be risky and go in to attack you, standing in place or moving back in attempt to avoid an incoming approach from you. If they decide to run in then you can easily hit them away, which will give you momentum and in all likelihood start a combo. If they stand still you can inch forward to try to hit them with dtilt because dtilt has great range and is fairly safe if they dodge or block as long as youre at max range (if they dodge backward with either a dash dance or and roll that leads to the third situation...). They could move back which gives you the opportunity to push in your spacial control, which effectively cuts off more of their options without you having to throw out an attack; if they do this then they are putting themselves in a situation where they have to do something risky in order to gain stage control because you can simply inch forward while being prepared to hit them with dtilt if they are grounded or intercept them with an aerial if they try to jump over or attack you from the air.

As long as you play this situation carefully and smart you can force them to commit to something and punish them for it by just continuing the same gameplan and slowly moving forward. (when i say slowly i dont mean that you shouldnt be moving around and staying mobile, i mean that you are staying in the same general area while keeping a close eye on their movement and choices so that you can predict their decisions and continue to push your advantage more and more.

Im linking sethlon's guide to roy because there are a few concepts that I think help to explain my info a bit better then I can.
http://smashboards.com/guides/playing-with-ph1r3.62/
if you go down to the part about controlling space he has some visuals of threat zones and then goes into detailed explanations of what choices hes making and why for certain sections of matches. Id very much urge you to read the explanations of his decisions and watch the videos (slowed down) with it. In particular the video of him vs K9 from neutral should help because he explains why and how he is cutting off space for K9 and what he does once hes forced K9 to make a bad commitment.

 

[salaperuna]

Thanks for the replies, guys. I see my problem isn't with a lack of approaches but maybe using them at the wrong time. You've been really helpful.

 

[felipe_9595]

Thanks for the replies, guys. I see my problem isn't with a lack of approaches but maybe using them at the wrong time. You've been really helpful.

I agree with the above, you should only approach only as your last resort, most of the time you will be perfectly fine controlling space (G&W can do this extremely well thanks to his bacon and disjoints, also, with his fast Utilt/Dtilt and UpB OOS you can effectively shut down a lot of rushdown characters)

I am no Dakpo but there are some of my sets:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-vF2YxoyF4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nD4l6JLBwA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4cb43fgVbY

 

[Dakpo]

I big part of it will depend on your bacon game. Mix up B reverses, Wavebounces, and melee B reverses. I usually don't feel good about approaching without my bacon friends to help me. Pan is also a really hard hitbox to beat. It even beats fox nair approaches O_O

 

[Taytertot]

I big part of it will depend on your bacon game. Mix up B reverses, Wavebounces, and melee B reverses. I usually don't feel good about approaching without my bacon friends to help me. Pan is also a really hard hitbox to beat. It even beats fox nair approaches O_O

good to know. i didnt know pan was that powerful

 

[salaperuna]

I'm already seeing a lot of improvement based on your suggestions. I feel like before I was more concerned about the techniques of approaching, and now I'm focusing more on space control, baiting and punishing as well as varying strategies.

I almost feel like a new level of play is starting to unlock in my head. So thanks, guys

Also, bacon is a really fun projectile. It's janky and random but deceptively powerful, just like Game and Watch himself.