How long did it take you to be able to wavedash L-cancel etc. consistantly

[Anarchy plz]

Hey, I'm a new melee player and just while I'm trying to learn how to wavedash and L-cancel I was just wondering what the average time was for someone to be able to do it consistently.

 

[literallybacon]

It took me about 6 months before I was good enough with wavedashing to start integrating it into my play.

At the start I practiced it a lot but as it got on I just started trying to do it in games and I got better at it.

 

[multigrain_cheerios]

For all of the tech stuff: about twenty minutes to learn each individual tech (wavedash, SHFFL, basic techs...) to the point where I could do it consistently. Add another week or two to actually incorporate them into my playstyle. The playstyle part may or may not take longer depending on the character you play and how you play them. My advice is to just keep practicing tech skill and trying to use it in game

 

[Sir Bubbles]

Took me 1 month and a half to consistantly wave dashing in my play. Still trying to l-cancel consistantly

 

[AAkacia]

3 1/2 months for both.

 

[STiCKYBULL3TZ]

I've been playing Melee for a long time but only started to try and get good these last couple months. I can perform all the ATs consistently in training. In an actual fight even with CPUs I'm not very consistent at all. It just takes practice to really get it down. Results vary so don't be discouraged by someone who can accomplish it in a few days.

 

[ViVio]

about 2 weeks for me but as the above poster mentioned, results vary

 

[The Soap]

It really only took me a few minutes of practice to learn both of them and start implementing them into my play. I found l-cancelling to be a bit more difficult at times though, due to aerials taking different amounts of time depending on whether you whiff, it hits, or you hit their shield, but it's not that difficult.

 

[20YY SS | Saiblade]

I've been playing for 3 months and can do both consistently, though I haven't been able to integrate it into my play much.

 

[Crawfiish]

After about a month I found I went from barely being able to pull of a wavedash in training mode at 1/4 speed and refusing to L-Cancel, to subconsciously doing it. I found that playing against low level CPU's helped me the most, weird enough. Against players I had to focus on how to win without the techniques, and against high level CPU's I just know what they're going to do so it's hard for me not to do the same thing every time

I didn't even realize it at first. I was like "Dayum I am moving so fast... Have I been L-Canceling and Wavedashing this whole match?!"

 

[thatoneguy1]

3 days to consistently shffl and wavedash, and about a week to incorporate them into my matches without messing up.

 

[20YY SS | Saiblade]

3 days to consistently shffl and wavedash, and about a week to incorporate them into my matches without messing u.

Uhhh, what? I highly doubt that this is legit.

 

[thatoneguy1]

Uhhh, what? I highly doubt that this is legit.

serious i read up on advanced stuff first then attempted for hours until i got it perfect although i still have issues teching when i get hit to this day.

 

[Crawfiish]

serious i read up on advanced stuff first then attempted for hours until i got it perfect although i still have issues teching when i get hit to this day.

You must have autistic levels of patience. I'll be wavedashing for 5 minutes, and I'll start hitting the CPU and twenty minnutes later I've practiced combos but not wavedashing.

 

[thatoneguy1]

tech is boring as hell to practice so i just do it in between matches

 

[Astraea31]

1-2 weeks to do basic shine combos (wavedashing/l-cancelling/waveshineing). The more advanced stuff took a little longer though.

 

[N1c2k3]

Back before streaming video and guides: about a few weeks to get it down in practice, few months to incorporate effectively. From the people I've talked to that were learning in the same time era it was relatively the same for them

Nowadays: I expect most people to learn in days/weeks to incorporate.

 

[Gamecube]

Took about 1 month for wavedashing but I mess up like once every 10 times every time i do it in a row, and I've been trying to l-cancel for almost a month but i still can't do it half the time. L-canceling is a lot harder for me

 

[Sparklepower]

You must have autistic levels of patience. I'll be wavedashing for 5 minutes, and I'll start hitting the CPU and twenty minnutes later I've practiced combos but not wavedashing.

This is probably a problem everyone has (I mean, hitting people around in this game is so satisfying, it's hard to resist).

What I do is either listen to music, or have a youtube video or tv show playing in the background while I practice tech like that. The thing is that learning a lot of tech just comes down to doing it over and over again until you have a 99/100 success rate, and this takes a lot of hours in training mode for more difficult techs like pivoting or DACUS in PM.

 

[Vizc]

Pulling them off as an input in training modes time is based on your desire to learn to do so, people who want to be capable will practice more. Playing games in general also helps with inputs. It's really just controlling your hands.

Now when it comes to a real match and application, playing games in general means nothing, some other fighting games experience may help, but not being too much of a fighting game person I can't say how much can transfer as experience. SSBM is the best game to learn SSBM.

As for how long it might take to learn, I really wanted to wavedash when I first started, It's all I wanted to do, It's all I tried to do. To me, it was just so cool that a game had this unintended movement as a staple for play. It took a few weeks, but it was coming off a few years of playing games seldom.

As for L cancelling, the input is simple enough and at six frames before landing, is looser than some (Or all?) characters timeframe for airdodging after leaving ground to perform a wavedash.

So if the game is considered a system of timing, L cancelling should be quicker and easier to learn than wavedashing, but for me, it's not nearly as interesting and I don't practice it as much.

On another note, more of a warning, I practiced wavedashing and neglected shorthopping before it was second nature to me on my character of choice, this causes problems in real matches when you do what you didn't intend to do, and makes it far harder to analyze what went wrong or right.

 

[Kidney Thief]

4 months and I'm starting to get good at it. I learn stuff extremely slowly but once I know stuff I'll use it better then most other people. So it's a tradeoff.

 

[AAkacia]

Yo. I've picked up the 20xx hack pack recently to improve more-so and it helps a ****ing ton.

 

[Abaddun]

Took me about 1 month to consistently wavedash, took me 2 months for l cancel..

 

[x412]

About a week scourging the internet looking for all the tech that's available.

About a week practicing them to understand how it should look and button input order.

Currently still working on consistency in matches and learning when to use the techs. It's different when you play against someone versus practicing against CPU to get the muscle memory down. Been playing for about 2 months.

 

[Elyssa Xey Hexen]

I honestly cannot remember how long it took me.

However, this is a blurred boundary between doing it at all to doing it proficiently.

 

[MookieRah]

Also, I think people should distinguish between being able to do it in training mode, being able to do it in a match, and finally actually understanding it's use and how it plays into your movement. I remember being able to wavedash with fair consistency quickly, but I would just sorta wavedash at derpy times. It didn't help me whatsoever during this phase, and because of that my crew mates didn't think much of wave dashing at first because it didn't improve my game (and perhaps made me worse overall). After I began to understand it's uses better, I began to take advantage of things that you couldn't otherwise, and my crew mates quickly realised it was very important.

This was all back in 2004 though, and it was an entirely different environment. Now videos are so abundant and people discuss smash theory, movement, and all that on the boards all the time. If someone is dextrous and mindful of what one should be doing then I would imagine it's very possible to learn how to wavedash in a way that improves your game in a week.

 

[El_Mariachi]

Took me 3 weeks to wavedash but it took me 2 months to wavedash while playing. Idk how long it took me to l cancel but it took a while.

 

[Hoagie]

I started playing smash back in March. I learned about wavedashing from the start but was finally able to execute it smoothly in April. Now i would say I can wavedash pretty fluently in a game but it still needs some work, its all just muscle memory to be honest. Just use it as much as you can in all your games, if you mess up and get punished well than good it just shows what you need to work on.

 

[DerfMidWest]

I've seen people learn in a few minutes, and I've seen people struggle with it for months.
I think it took me a month or two before I could use it in actual play.

 

[MookieRah]

Another thing that people should take away from this:

It doesn't matter if it takes you months or a few days to master this. It's not like that has any bearing on your ability to make good decisions overall, which is a far more important indicator of a good player than their ability to quickly learn tech.

 

[TOGOpuff]

I found it way harder to incorporate to my play style than doing it consistently on training. I recommend putting a lot of time with your characters (BF or FD) with the name entry glitch . It's good to train movement overall. Once you think you're good enough with L-cancel, wavedash, wave land and SH>aerial>waveland you can train against cpus and players. I recommend level 3 heavy cpu's to train wavedash combo. I like bowser DK and Ganon to train these. Doing against players is the hardest (if they have good DI which is hard to find in my country btw as ISAI said in a video that has been deleted from youtube "Brazil's DI suck")

it took me 1 month to do both consistently and 3 months to adapt my game without having to think "now imma waveland". The learning curve jumps in most cases though. You just have to redo the same moves over and over and when you see you're doing it everytime.

 

[children's_novel]

For both techs, it took me a matter of minutes to learn and be able to do. I'd probably say that it took me about two or three months to be consistent (it probably would have taken longer if I did not practice in training mode).

It shouldn't take too long to become consistent at WDing or L-cancelling (with practice), but everyone does learn at different paces.

 

[BigWilly]

Not hard to learn in training mode but very difficult to master and implement into your gameplay. I have to tell my self before I do an aerial to L-cancel i can't seem to put it to muscle memory but if you keep practicing you can master anything. Ive been trying to just incorporate wavedashing into my gameplay little bits at a time by using it to grab ledge or dash forward and then wavedash back and try to bait out a move. Still working on lots of things

 

[Altanic]

It took me probably ~ a week or 2 of grinding to learn wavedashing and l-canceling. Took me a little bit longer for l-cancels because if different timing. It took me another like 2 or 3 months before I realized how to properly use wavedashing in my gameplay, but that was also because I didn't watch many videos about it because I wanted to teach myself. L-canceling masters itself after enough practice. You start paying attention to when you hit the ground and you think about what to commit to.

 

[Hee443]

After I realized what L-cancelling is and how to do it, it took me about 1-2 months to be able to do it with some consistency. Wavedashing was much harder for me, I just recently about a month ago am now able to do it in game, after about 9 months since I started playing competitively. I never put in the effort until last month to really understand how to do it. Now wavelanding and wavedashes are much easier for me now.

 

[HntrDrizzt]

I was able to pick up and utilize wavedashing in my gameplay much more quickly than I was able to incorporate L-cancelling. This is largely due to my lack of committing to the L-cancel under pressure as you have to be conscious of when you are going to touch the ground and be aware of that timing. I just found myself forgetting to do it, however, the concept made sense. I would say a couple of weeks on the wavedashing, and a few months on relatively consistent L-cancelling.

 

[Crawfiish]

Coming back to this thread two months after I thought I got wavedashing and L-Canceling down, I can safely say having it down and "using it in matches" is completely different than doing it to the degree once you master it. I don't know how to explain it, but I just feel... powerful now that I am fluently using the techniques

Like i said tho, 2 months

 

[EPsilon933]

It took me about 2 weeks to be able to wavedash fluently in an actual game and 2 more weeks to start putting it to good uses

I somewhat learned l canceling, but I'm still bad at it. It's more difficult

 

[Stalled]

locked down l canceling in a couple of weeks, knew how to wavedash but I played ganon at that point so i rarely actually did i. The trick is to drill tech skill, shffl in place until you get it, then shffl a cpu, then shffl someone shielding, then do it while moving, then l cancel out of a full hop, etc. Once you get a tech down start applying it vs cpus and then against players, just try to do the latter without thinking too much about your tech since the focus might do more harm than good.

 

[AirFair]

Got Wavedashing and L cancelling down in a month. I still mess up sometimes tho, and I'm still trying to understand how it works to have better knowledge of it's use. I think that everyone has their own pace so it's fine if I take a bit of extra time with it.