How important is perfect pivoting?

[AoS~Akito]

This is a question that has been on my mind for a while. Is learning perfect pivoting necessary to get into a higher level of competitive smash or should I focus on solidifying my MU experience and basic fundamentals? As of right now, I believe that other techs (although maybe easier to pull off) such as fox trot canceling and reverse aerial rushing (RAR), should be mastered by newer players rather than perfect pivoting since fox trot canceling and RAR have more useful applications in the neutral. But for more experience players, I'm not certain if I should spend time trying to learn/apply perfect pivoting into my game. Any input would be helpful! Thank you!

 

[Eggggggggggbert]

Depends on what character your playing, but I'd say you can go pretty damn far without it. Any sort of tech that is advanced yet only minutely useful with most characters probably should not be priority.Even if this were melee where there is a lot of advanced movement, I would still say prioritize creating a foundation on matchup knowledge and character comfortablity because it takes a wholehearted priority even over something even as useful as wavedashing. Mostly it boils down to if you don't have that basis, you won't understand the application side of the techs even if its is easy to practice some trick brainlessly.

 

[LightLV]

not very at all.

 

[Xeze]

At this point of the game it's not relevant, until someone comes along and starts winning tournaments by perfect pivoting on regular basis.

 

[Xermo]

It certainly isn't wavedashing

 

[LightLV]

It's just another random quirk that's trying to be pushed as an advanced technique. It's not half as useful as the ones that dominated Brawl's metagame, while being harder to execute.

Look at the latest EVO matches, nobody in the top 8 really made any use of it. It has limited offensive potential and defensively you'll get just as good of a result from just perfect shielding...

Hell, or just regular shielding.

 

[ChaikaBestGirl]

Id say it is pretty miniscule, i think b reversibg is the only necessary tech you need to know to get far, but even that depends on character

 

[Planty]

You REALLY need to know RAR. B-reversals and wavebounces can be pretty important too, but it's character dependent. The most important thing though is getting good fundamentals.

 

[Raijinken]

Not very, but I've been seeing more and more skilled players make use of it for spacing, so it may be worth learning or at least getting a basic feel for.

 

[Xeze]

Foxtrot-cancel is more important since it actually has use for spacing.

 

[UpBforVictory]

This is a question that has been on my mind for a while. Is learning perfect pivoting necessary to get into a higher level of competitive smash or should I focus on solidifying my MU experience and basic fundamentals? As of right now, I believe that other techs (although maybe easier to pull off) such as fox trot canceling and reverse aerial rushing (RAR), should be mastered by newer players rather than perfect pivoting since fox trot canceling and RAR have more useful applications in the neutral. But for more experience players, I'm not certain if I should spend time trying to learn/apply perfect pivoting into my game. Any input would be helpful! Thank you!

Its useful but not mandatory.

 

[TheHypnotoad]

I once played a bunch of friendlies with this guy, and I lost every single game we played. When I asked what I had been doing wrong, he told me "You absolutely need to integrate perfect pivots into your gameplay."

I think that was the worst advice I've ever been given.

 

[Big-Cat]

Focus on your fundamentals and MU's before anything else. The only techs I think are helpful or necessary to learn are pivot titlt/smash, foxtrot, B-reversal, ledge trumping from the stage, and perfect shielding. Notice though how those are deeply integrated into fundamentals. If you have strong fundamentals, adding these will make them even stronger. However, adding fundamentals to these techs will give you this weird reaction - sort of like trying to stir a pot with perfect technique, but nothing in it.

 

[leesinger]

Perfect pivoting is literally just a waste of time. Worry about fundamentals, nothing else matters. Lemme put it this way go watch the high level players like zero, nairo, and esam and count how many times they perfect pivot. You might see it once from esam because he's probably the most technical out of the three, but its usually just for fun it doesnt actually give him any kind of advantage. This game is literally ONLY, I repeat ONLY about how good your neutral game is, i.e how good your fundamentals are. That is why zero always wins, he literally makes the least mistakes possible and uses the optimal punish every time.

 

[DungeonMaster]

The only techs I think are helpful or necessary to learn are pivot titlt/smash, foxtrot, B-reversal, ledge trumping from the stage, and perfect shielding. Notice though how those are deeply integrated into fundamentals.

Good list and good advice. I would personally add in RAR, pivot grab and out-of-shield options like up-B, nair.
Some character specific basic options which is useful to know how to do reflexively in general is fast-falling short hop aerials, wall jumps and rising short hop air-dodge.
Even amongst esoteric stuff, I feel it's well down there on the smash 4 tech list, someone willl likely get more mileage from practised frame cancelled aerials and instant wall jump for instance.

 

[DavemanCozy]

Dependent on character.

I find it useful for Fox for retreating ground lasers (pp laser) or to sneak in an u-tilt. I don't really find it useful with Wario.

 

[16bit]

Useless. Just people desperate to make Sm4sh melee.

 

[LightLV]

Useless. Just people desperate to make Sm4sh melee.

Anyone who played melee would realize how weak perfect pivoting is

 

[SoniCraft]

Idk I think this tech has potential. Hasn't anyone seen that Sheik combo tutorial video where Perfect Pivoting is used to extend combos? I think it also gives some characters like Villager a better OOS option to punish fsmashes on shield and stuff. I think it's too early to count this tech out, but definitely prioritize fundamentals and MU knowledge over it.

 

[NegaNixx]

For Marth I use it for Micro-Spacing tippers. But in general I just feel some characters need to be as agile as possible to be viable. Marth is one of them. It's useful for Falcon, Sonic, Fox, Pika, Luigi, Kirby, Shiek, and that's all I can think of.

It really depends on your character.

 

[Gawain]

It's pretty much gimmicky nonsense. Every minute you waste practicing this is better spent doing literally anything else. The time cost to benefit ratio is atrocious.

 

[Uncle Honey]

Perfect pivoting is amazing if you integrate it into smashes and tilts.

 

[LightLV]

It's pretty much gimmicky nonsense. Every minute you waste practicing this is better spent doing literally anything else. The time cost to benefit ratio is atrocious.

^
Can't really explain it any better. It's just a desperate attempt to call something in this game "technical". Even Marth has miniscule use out of this because you can't move forward and face forward at the same time.

It's useless, go practice abusing ledge vulnerability or something.

 

[san.]

Any movement option is worth learning if it has legitimate uses. You need to have a high success rate before implementing it in your playstyle. That being said, I believe quite a few other things have priority to learn. You can still perform the easier input of dash dance+attack at the same time.

 

[sjb.dario]

Any movement option is worth learning if it has legitimate uses. You need to have a high success rate before implementing it in your playstyle. That being said, I believe quite a few other things have priority to learn. You can still perform the easier input of dash dance+attack at the same time.

^
I do think perfect pivoting can be useful. It certainly isn't worthless. However, I'd rather just master other techs like foxtrot cancel first before jumping into perfect pivot.