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How long did it take you to master Wave Dashing?

Fortress

Smash Master
Joined
Oct 2, 2013
Messages
3,097
Location
Kalispell, MT
I feel the same. Offline, cool, Weegee's fine. Online? Nope, I'm just airdodging around everywhere, and occasionally accidentally do a wavedash.
 

Crescent Monkey

Smash Apprentice
Joined
May 9, 2011
Messages
106
Location
Olney, MD
It took me a relatively short amount of time to learn how to do it, and when I do it in a match, which is not often enough, I usually do it right, but for some reason I legit always SD trying to WD onto the edge, which is why I always Raptor Boost to the edge.

Also someone asked about what buttons people press to Wavedash. I jump with Y and Airdodge with R. I always shield with R, but I still use R to airdodge when wavedashing OoS. Its probably not the best setup, but its what I learned, and I dont feel like relearning how to Wavedash when I could be practicing/learning other techniques which would help my game a lot more, like Shield dropping consistently, and actually techchasing on reaction instead of just using fancy Dash Dancing to mask the fact that I'm randomly guessing which direction the opponent is going to tech in.
 

Chzrm3

Smash Ace
Joined
Feb 4, 2008
Messages
625
3DS FC
3926-5442-3703
I think I jump with X and airdodge with L but I'm not actually sure. I never really pay attention to it anymore, it's like breathing haha.
 

deadjames

Smash Lord
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Aug 16, 2013
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Missouri
NNID
deadjames
3DS FC
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Not very long, maybe like a few minutes. I can do it perfectly with most characters, but I have yet to master wavedashing with Bowser though which sucks because he's my main, I also have trouble wavedashing with Link, but I don't play him much anyway so that's not too much of an issue.

Its also very character dependent to. Some characters really benefit from wavedashing like Luigi, Fox, Marth.

Where for other it really doesn't help that much like Link, or Bowser.
Bowser's wavedash is actually extremely useful, it's just hard to do.
 

DrinkingFood

Smash Hero
Joined
May 5, 2012
Messages
5,600
Location
Beaumont, TX
He's got an 8 frame jump start, slowest in the game by 2 frames, how is that useful at all. It explains why his is hard for anyone used to other character's wavedashes though- the timing is much slower.
He doesn't even get that much distance, better than some, but it's pretty bad for his size. Dropping shield for him is actually faster than his wavedash, granted you don't move though. I will give you his waveland is useful, but that applies to every character so ehh.
 

the_suicide_fox

Smash Champion
Joined
Dec 18, 2002
Messages
2,008
Location
nj
If you open the controller you can remove the spring for L or R on gamecube controllers. I know this helped a lot of people to learn back in the day.
 

FlareHabanero

Banned via Warnings
Joined
May 20, 2012
Messages
16,443
Location
New Jersey
When it comes to wavedashing, it only took about 2 minutes. However, mastering it with every character is another story because every character has a different air dodge, probably Bowser being the hardest.
 

deadjames

Smash Lord
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Aug 16, 2013
Messages
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Missouri
NNID
deadjames
3DS FC
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He's got an 8 frame jump start, slowest in the game by 2 frames, how is that useful at all. It explains why his is hard for anyone used to other character's wavedashes though- the timing is much slower.
He doesn't even get that much distance, better than some, but it's pretty bad for his size. Dropping shield for him is actually faster than his wavedash, granted you don't move though. I will give you his waveland is useful, but that applies to every character so ehh.
He gets pretty significant distance, enough to throw off your opponents spacing and get a fsmash.
 

Plum

Has never eaten a plum.
Premium
Joined
Jun 28, 2008
Messages
3,458
Location
Rochester, NY
It took me maybe a few days of practicing it to get it down on a technical level.
That was like six years ago for me mind you.
I'm still learning and improving every time I play (okay... maybe not when we play Smashed Smash). Getting the muscle memory to do something on command is one thing, but truly learning a technique is way more involved than just that.
As an aside, I have yet to relearn the muscle memory for wavedashing OOS with PM's different shield mechanics...

#FreePMSocial
 

Phaiyte

Smash Ace
Joined
Jul 6, 2010
Messages
932
It only took me 5 minutes, and it shouldn't ever cause sore hands. The Gamecube controller is pretty ergonomically awesome like that. It might help you to lightly press R when you perform it so you're not performing actions with your thumb and index at the same time on your left hand, or you can even do like me and set a shield button to Y. That set up is really good for characters that have a 3 frame jumpstart because you can just roll your thumb from x to y and it won't get in the way of anything.
 

Sarix

Smash Ace
Joined
Jan 18, 2012
Messages
796
Location
Grand Rapids, MI
It took me a few days to get it down to where I could reliably do it since I constantly had to warm up my hands (Raynaud's Phenomenon). I actually had a MUCH easier time learning L-cancelling compared to wave dashing.
 

DarkFlame

Smash Apprentice
Joined
Sep 29, 2013
Messages
96
I'm just going to say real quick that this does not apply to me since I have not even NEARLY mastered wave-dashing yet, but I feel no real need to. I tried doing it a little bit in Melee, but it's just one of those things that I really don't see any real use to doing it or the dash-dancing, though it is entertaining to dash-dance, but overall, I just feel that all of these advanced techniques are useless, and I doubt I'll really ever find any use to it that'll actually make me want to master any of it. I do not go to tournaments, even if I do play against my friend a lot. He doesn't do it either. I know how to do wavedash, I've done it, but, well, it's always been in Training Mode with quarter speed, go figure. I just feel that basically none of these advanced techniques are of any use for me.
 

Phaiyte

Smash Ace
Joined
Jul 6, 2010
Messages
932
I'm just going to say real quick that this does not apply to me since I have not even NEARLY mastered wave-dashing yet, but I feel no real need to. I tried doing it a little bit in Melee, but it's just one of those things that I really don't see any real use to doing it or the dash-dancing, though it is entertaining to dash-dance, but overall, I just feel that all of these advanced techniques are useless, and I doubt I'll really ever find any use to it that'll actually make me want to master any of it. I do not go to tournaments, even if I do play against my friend a lot. He doesn't do it either. I know how to do wavedash, I've done it, but, well, it's always been in Training Mode with quarter speed, go figure. I just feel that basically none of these advanced techniques are of any use for me.

I bolded the problem
 

Sarix

Smash Ace
Joined
Jan 18, 2012
Messages
796
Location
Grand Rapids, MI
I'm just going to say real quick that this does not apply to me since I have not even NEARLY mastered wave-dashing yet, but I feel no real need to. I tried doing it a little bit in Melee, but it's just one of those things that I really don't see any real use to doing it or the dash-dancing, though it is entertaining to dash-dance, but overall, I just feel that all of these advanced techniques are useless, and I doubt I'll really ever find any use to it that'll actually make me want to master any of it. I do not go to tournaments, even if I do play against my friend a lot. He doesn't do it either. I know how to do wavedash, I've done it, but, well, it's always been in Training Mode with quarter speed, go figure. I just feel that basically none of these advanced techniques are of any use for me.
So basically you're saying you'd prefer to play at a casual level. That's perfectly fine.

However, saying ATs like wave dashing and dash dancing are useless will come as a slap to the face for the majority of the community since Melee and PM players have been using them as a base for advancing their respective character's metagames. If you watch videos of professionals you will see a massive difference in how simple things like wave dashing and dash dancing affect the match amongst many other ATs. You don't have to learn any ATs if you don't plan to be competitive; but if you were and said they were useless then you shouldn't expect to advance in bracket very easily.

Not trying to flame your post, just giving you an understanding as to why people will react your opinion as if you declared fire is cold.
 

KayB

Smash Master
BRoomer
Joined
Jan 2, 2013
Messages
3,977
Location
Seoul, South Korea
I'm just going to say real quick that this does not apply to me since I have not even NEARLY mastered wave-dashing yet, but I feel no real need to. I tried doing it a little bit in Melee, but it's just one of those things that I really don't see any real use to doing it or the dash-dancing, though it is entertaining to dash-dance, but overall, I just feel that all of these advanced techniques are useless, and I doubt I'll really ever find any use to it that'll actually make me want to master any of it. I do not go to tournaments, even if I do play against my friend a lot. He doesn't do it either. I know how to do wavedash, I've done it, but, well, it's always been in Training Mode with quarter speed, go figure. I just feel that basically none of these advanced techniques are of any use for me.
If you're actually trying to go competitive and/or be a better player, then you are very, very wrong, no offense.

If not, then carry on.

Naturally it'll feel useless if you play against a friend who doesn't use it either. If you don't master it, you won't see the uses either since you won't be applying it to your game.
 

Doctor X

Smash Lord
Joined
Mar 1, 2004
Messages
1,397
Location
Cincinnati, OH
I'm just going to say real quick that this does not apply to me since I have not even NEARLY mastered wave-dashing yet, but I feel no real need to. I tried doing it a little bit in Melee, but it's just one of those things that I really don't see any real use to doing it or the dash-dancing, though it is entertaining to dash-dance, but overall, I just feel that all of these advanced techniques are useless, and I doubt I'll really ever find any use to it that'll actually make me want to master any of it. I do not go to tournaments, even if I do play against my friend a lot. He doesn't do it either. I know how to do wavedash, I've done it, but, well, it's always been in Training Mode with quarter speed, go figure. I just feel that basically none of these advanced techniques are of any use for me.
http://youtu.be/mk09c6iLLdU?t=21s

If you can't see why this is good, you're just not seeing the same game that competitive players see. If you never plan on playing for real, that's fine. Otherwise, you probably shouldn't jump to conclusions because there's clearly a lot about this game you've yet to learn.

On topic:

It actually took me at least a month of staring at training mode until my forehead started to bleed. This was 2002 and there weren't really any easily obtained videos of people doing it, and nobody in my city could do it. All I had was a bunch of people on GameFAQs telling me to airdodge at the ground for some reason. To be perfectly honest I didn't even know what it should look like. Kids today have it so easy. :p

Eventually I was able to do it out of a long dash to sort of fake people out. Certainly didn't win me any tournaments. >.<
 

Medaka444

Smash Apprentice
Joined
Aug 17, 2013
Messages
89
I got Melee months ago. I carefully read guides on wavedashing so I could start practicing. But first, I needed to learn how to shorthop. That was a real pain, and I still have great difficulty with it. Especially since it was far easier to do in Brawl. I have terrible reaction speed, which is one reason why I sometimes prefer playing the sequel.

Anyway, it took me weeks to get wavedashing down even slightly. Sometimes I would pull it off several times in a row; other days, I could try it for five minutes and only end up hopping around. This is in Training mode. Anywhere else? Forget it. By now, my skill has improved to the point where I can pull it off more often, maybe once or twice in Versus mode, use it to move only slightly slower than rolling across a stage, and almost have good enough reflexes to use a smash attack during it. Also, I plan on going to Apex 2014 in January.
 

Doctor X

Smash Lord
Joined
Mar 1, 2004
Messages
1,397
Location
Cincinnati, OH
I got Melee months ago. I carefully read guides on wavedashing so I could start practicing. But first, I needed to learn how to shorthop. That was a real pain, and I still have great difficulty with it. Especially since it was far easier to do in Brawl. I have terrible reaction speed, which is one reason why I sometimes prefer playing the sequel.

Anyway, it took me weeks to get wavedashing down even slightly. Sometimes I would pull it off several times in a row; other days, I could try it for five minutes and only end up hopping around. This is in Training mode. Anywhere else? Forget it. By now, my skill has improved to the point where I can pull it off more often, maybe once or twice in Versus mode, use it to move only slightly slower than rolling across a stage, and almost have good enough reflexes to use a smash attack during it. Also, I plan on going to Apex 2014 in January.
Some notes that you might find helpful:

For a wavedash, you don't have to shorthop. You stop the upward motion of your jump with the airdodge, so how far you would have gone if you didn't airdodge doesn't really matter. Granted, you do want to learn to shorthop for other reasons. You just don't want wavedashes seem more difficult than they really are.

-

Simply performing a shorthop or a wavedash has nothing to do with reaction speed. Players don't actually watch with their eyes for the end of Fox's jumpsquat animation (only one fifteenth of a second long) and try to time an airdodge right after it. That would be ridiculous. They simply train their hands to perform the entire motion by looking at the overall result to judge whether they should adjust the timing. While you're practicing it, take care not to mash buttons. Press the jump exactly once, and the airdodge exactly once. If you do this, you'll always get one of three results:

  • You see your character leave the ground, then airdodge.
    This means your fingers delayed too long between jump and dodge, giving your character time to move upwards a bit.
  • You see your character jump, without airdodging at all.
    This means your fingers didn't delay long enough between jump and dodge, causing the game to ignore the input since you can't airdodge during jumpsquat.
  • You see your character perform the whole airdodge animation right next to the ground.
    This means you timed the jump and airdodge correctly, but weren't inputting the downward command on the control stick early enough. You can actually hold down before even starting the wavedash, so there isn't really such a thing as "too early" here.
There are no variables aside from the length of the jumpsquat, which is constant for each character. Thus, once you have the timing down for a given character, you never need to alter it based on anything happening in the game. The whole motion becomes one unit in your brain, like walking. You don't think about what each individual muscle has to be doing by staring at your legs. You just think "hey I want to walk" and start walking, because you've already memorized how to walk.

-

Finally, if you're using training mode to slow down the game so you can practice these things, you're doing a lot more harm than good. As I've noted previously, the only real variable to consider is the length of the jump squat animation, which determines how much of a delay there should be between jump and airdodge. In slow motion, you're arbitrarily increasing the length of this animation, effectively teaching yourself the wrong timing. It'd be like teaching a baby how to walk in a wading pool.
 

Chzrm3

Smash Ace
Joined
Feb 4, 2008
Messages
625
3DS FC
3926-5442-3703
Btw, I've had a really annoying problem forever where every time I wavedash, my shield immediately comes up. It's gotten so consistent that I pretty much plan around it, but I know it doesn't have to be like that. Anyone have any advice for how to correct this? I'm guessing that I'm just holding down L too long when I dodge, but when I try to just flick it off immediately, it doesn't seem to work. Do you think I should use another button for WDing, instead of L?
 

Medaka444

Smash Apprentice
Joined
Aug 17, 2013
Messages
89
@Doctor X: I guess "reaction speed" was the wrong term to use. Regardless, my problem is that most of the time I either shield during the wavedash or I shorthop and then quickly fall to the ground, where I waveland. I still can't figure out how to do smash attacks during it.

I haven't used slo-motion in a long time. I said I could only do it consistently in Training was because that's where I'm not panicking or keeping my eyes on both my wavedashing and the enemy's attacks.
 

Fortress

Smash Master
Joined
Oct 2, 2013
Messages
3,097
Location
Kalispell, MT
@Doctor X: I guess "reaction speed" was the wrong term to use. Regardless, my problem is that most of the time I either shield during the wavedash or I shorthop and then quickly fall to the ground, where I waveland. I still can't figure out how to do smash attacks during it.
Use the C-stick to do those smashes, bro. Do it during the slide. What you should practice, at normal speed, is jumping and air dodging straight into the ground until you're getting the big dust cloud without leaving the ground at all. Then, slowly angle the control stick such that you're doing the same, but diagonally against the ground. Don't hold L for so long, that'll cause the shield to pop out.
 

Medaka444

Smash Apprentice
Joined
Aug 17, 2013
Messages
89
Use the C-stick to do those smashes, bro. Do it during the slide. What you should practice, at normal speed, is jumping and air dodging straight into the ground until you're getting the big dust cloud without leaving the ground at all. Then, slowly angle the control stick such that you're doing the same, but diagonally against the ground. Don't hold L for so long, that'll cause the shield to pop out.

1. I've been using the C-stick all this time. Maybe I'm not quick enough to flick the C-stick in the correct direction.

2. I've tried that method you described. I think it mostly worked.

3. Now it sounds difficult to press down L (okay, R) for such a short time, when I can barely do everything quickly enough while I'm not exhausted and unfocused.
 

Fortress

Smash Master
Joined
Oct 2, 2013
Messages
3,097
Location
Kalispell, MT
Don't worry, you'll get it eventually. It will start to feel like second nature when it feels like you're doing all of the inputs at practically the same time, and you can scoot corner-to-corner on Final Destination without leaving the ground.

You want some good practice. Head to Battlefield in Training Mode, and do nothing but waveland around. Run 'laps' around the map from platform, to platform, to platform, from the ground, back to platform, and so on. It'll sort of help with wavedashing.
 

DrinkingFood

Smash Hero
Joined
May 5, 2012
Messages
5,600
Location
Beaumont, TX
Btw, I've had a really annoying problem forever where every time I wavedash, my shield immediately comes up. It's gotten so consistent that I pretty much plan around it, but I know it doesn't have to be like that. Anyone have any advice for how to correct this? I'm guessing that I'm just holding down L too long when I dodge, but when I try to just flick it off immediately, it doesn't seem to work. Do you think I should use another button for WDing, instead of L?
Two possibilities-
You haven't practiced enough, meaning your finger isn't conditioned to release button quickly enough
or
You have a "sticky" L button, where it presses and releases just fine but seems to think you're still holding the button down. I have two controllers like that, I used to only use L to l-cancel, which may have caused it. Your controller might have the same issue though, try switching do a different one(s).

A good way to learn proper wavedashing/landing is to pick up a character with ****ty movement otherwise, like Luigi (personally I picked MewTwo back in melee tho), who basically has to spam wavedashing/landing to ever get anywhere quickly. If you have a good player to play against who will beat you for not moving around properly as luigi, that would be ideal. You don't have to enjoy the character or make them a new main or secondary, just use them as a learning experience.
 

GHNeko

Sega Stockholm Syndrome.
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Don't forget that input assist is available to help you out. I recommend using it until you get wavedashing and wavelanding down consistantly and then start to stop using it when practing, but leave it on for matches, and then turn it off all together and go from there.

Sent from my SGH-T699 using Tapatalk 2
 
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