How NOT to play as Wolf

[Ookami-kun]

No, not that Fox vs. Wolf vid.

I realized that people usually approach Wolf as "OMG A FOX CHARACTER ONLY SLOWER!". This is very wrong. Wolf plays quite differently from Fox and Falco. He has his own style. When people play him like the other space animals, they'll surely fail.

People should give him a Wolf approach. :D

 

[Drack]

I have not noticed Wolf to be significantly slower in attacks than other Brawl space animals.

Wolf's speed is in his lag before and after attacks. Most attacks have extremely little. He's a fast character who kills.

Wolf doesn't run terribly quickly though, but that's not his style. When you're reasonably close, you can threaten anywhere around you extremely quickly, and that kind of speed is better than travel speed (Sonic for example) in my opinion.

I haven't played enough of Brawl Fox to make a detailed comparison, though.

 

[Pikaville]

This is the character for me I think.Evil and slick.

 

[Roman.]

I think for now, wolf should be played with baiting. People underestimate the range and speed of his attacks and that's what needs to be taken advantage of.

 

[Ookami-kun]

They also prefer side smash than down smash.

 

[Ookami-kun]

His side smash is more used than his more killing down smash.

 

[Drack]

I think I can word this better if I explain how TO play wolf and the common pitfalls a noob may fall into.

-Wolf has good A moves AND B moves. Use them. Don't find one move/approach you like and stick with it. Brawl has a larger penalty for move overuse so spamming Fsmash (for example) isn't a valid strategy. You must vary your attacks. Not only will you not be penalized, but your opponents won't know what to expect. Mindgames are important in Brawl, being unpredictable is key for them.

-If you're up against someone who has no reflector or projectiles, spam Blaster. It's essentially free damage plus control over how they approach you. Closing in gives them what they want: A fight on their terms (melee only).

-Conversely, if your opponent has BETTER projectiles than yours (Pit comes to mind), throw up your reflector and make them come to you. If he doesn't take the bait, who cares? You can pull out your reflector as fast as he pulls out arrows, so carefully approach, but never blaster as he'll outspam you every time.

-Don't be dumb. I swear, this is the most obvious advice ever, but don't approach by rolling. You'll get down smashed almost every time, I guarantee it. Rolls are a mind game and an important part of Brawl, but it's not a valid approach. It gives the opponent plenty of time and the knowledge of exactly where you are going to be.

This really isn't wolf-specific at all, and for that I apologize. Most pitfalls a noob will fall into, they'll fall into regardless of what character they play.

 

[Kashakunaki]

I have an approach for Wolf... I've been tinkering around with him and I found that Wolf can control the match very well as long as another character doesn't have very good projectile spam (Falco comes to mind).

Call it something if you want to, don't call it anything if you don't think it should have a name. I call it the Wolf Wall, or WW. It's basically a WoP (Wall of Pain) with Jigglypuff, but Wolf style. Rather than WoPing horizontally, you Wolf Wall (wall = vertical) up and down.

Still clueless? You should be. His Bair is by far one of his best moves. Decent knockback... can kill at about 130% and does decent damage, but that's not the point... I don't think his bair should be used as a kill move. It should be your combo move, your match controlling move, and just a tool you use to your advantage.

You see, I noticed that wolf can double aerial full jump most of his aerials. For example, full jump bair bair, or bair fair, or uair uair, or bair uair, or dair bair, etc. The only thing you can't do is fair fair (his laggiest aerial next to dair, and besides, I think fair should be reserved as a killing move.).

Again, what am I getting at? Well, I'll make a video to show you more in-depth later, but you can short hop (or if you're Sakurai, small jump) his bair. Yes, hurrah, go you. But if you do it quickly and time it correctly, you can also double jump after this and bair again, and again, maybe even a third time, but I doubt it, or as an alternative you can just full jump bair > bair or full jump > bair > double jump > bair bair. His move comes out so fast and has long enough reach you can use it to space and combo people. You don't have to worry about it losing damage and knockback.

I think this will be a huge part of Wolf's metagame... so please heed me here. I, Kashakunaki, think this is an important aspect to Wolf's metagame and should be paid attention to. Wolf Walling, or WWing.

You might want to add WW and/or just the simple fact that Wolf can full jump double aerial to your first post in that other thread, Drack. I think it is very valid information.