How much of Melee is reactions and how much is reads/mixups?

[Sdhy]

I heard it's a lot of both.

So like... I heard that no one can play Melee perfectly.
So how much of Melee is punishing a pro when they messed up something or made the wrong call?

Thanks.

 

[InauspiciousPio]

If you’re talking actual statistics, I’m not your guy lol.

That being said,

Melee is a good mixture of both. The player has to always be in motion and ready for an attack or defensive option if they are the offender. This is seen with numerous fighting games, but what makes Melee so special is the amount of options available when moving, attacking, defending, etc. Reads and mixups can usually depend of how quick the player is to catch a mistake made by the opponent, and also they’re knowledge of the game and characters. The expanse of options thus makes this difficult, because there are hundreds of facts about the roster needed to know in order to play ‘perfectly’.

 

[R3D3MON]

I heard it's a lot of both.

So like... I heard that no one can play Melee perfectly.
So how much of Melee is punishing a pro when they messed up something or made the wrong call?

Thanks.

It's a lot of both.

A large part of the game is whiff punishing, which is reactionary in nature and execution. However, getting the setups for the situations in which you can whiff punish definitely requires reads/mixups (50-50s and etc.), both in and out of the game (mentality is key).

The amount of mixups that is prevalent in Melee just from slight differences in aerial/ground distances covered by wavedashing, dashdancing, or aerial drift is actually insanely deep and still has much more room for growth.

Just check out the stickied threads in Falco and Marth character boards if you want some in-depth Q&A sessions with PPMD

 

[Bones0]

There's no Melee webshow called "The Mixups", so I think it's pretty much all reads.

 

[R3D3MON]

There's no Melee webshow called "The Mixups", so I think it's pretty much all reads.

"TOPH, DID YOU SEE THE REEEEEEEEAAAADDDSS???!!!??"

 

[Ten of Nine]

Armada has said it a lot, it's mostly reads and knowledge (punish/combos) that win most encounters on and off stage.

There are exceptions for some characters that rely heavily on reaction like Sheik and CF, but even than it's choosing the best option coverage (and limiting options) instead actually reacting to 1 option out of many.

After playing this game competitively for a while I can tell you one thing for sure: A large majority of players overestimate their reaction time to a massive degree. Most believe they that see things, react, and input within 12-15 frames but really it's far worse than that (like 30-40 frames) given that they are truly reacting to a variety of options. Add in nerves, adrenaline, input lag, display lag, etc and it only gets slower.

There's a ton of high level evidence of this and it's why simple tactics like tomahawk grabs or Samus WD back U-tilt still work. Edge guarding is where you can really see how slow reaction time is for humans, quite often top level players will fail to react to things that are telegraphed a full 1-2 seconds in advance. There are a lot of possibilities defending a ledge and recovering to ledge, even for pros who have seen every scenario 1000s of times it's difficult to react.

Personally I believe someone with crisp, fast, and tight movement will always beat anyone that has above average reactions but mediocre movement. Melee is far too fast, it favors aggressive play and MU knowledge.