How to practice?

[Mike Mercury]

I like playing Dr. Mario, I am pretty good at wavedashing with him, I have pretty good overall control of him, but I am pretty lacking in the way of teching and shffling and whatnot.

I have a gamecube in my room and plenty of time, but I think that what I don't really have is knowledge of what to do in order to improve my playing ability when I'm sitting there with the controller in my hand. I play the french horn, and I know that it takes a lot of time and patience to improve at something that is very difficult. That being said, it is also necessary to know how to practice.

I know how to practice the french horn, but I don't have a clue how to practice melee. When you were a novice, how did you really get the hang of advanced techniques?

 

[EPsilon933]

http://www.amazon.com/Gripmaster-Pr...=UTF8&qid=1343644008&sr=8-1&keywords=prohands

It works in my experience

 

[Varist]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4n4s5yB7ZkE

You can practice things like chain grabbing level 3 fox with up throw, practice wavelanding on battlefield. Stuff like that. There will eventually be a master thread for semi-good players on how to practice alone.

 

[Bones0]

Practice everything in these videos until it's second nature:
Advanced How to Play

Simple things you can do on your own:
Dr. PP: How to Practice on Your Own

Inspiration in the form of tech skill videos:
Lovage's Berserker

I also highly recommend hanging out on the Doc forums to see what kinds of things players talk about, and watch a lot of videos of Shroomed and other Doc players. Watching videos is probably the easiest way to get better when you are first starting out because there is just an overload of information. As long as you are paying attention and not just watching the pretty combos, you can watch the same video multiple times and learn a bunch of different things each time. Lastly, I would recommend making sure the way you hold your controller will be comfortable for future techniques you are using. Stuff like using the control stick to jump or pressing L/R all the way in when you L-cancel may not seem to matter much when you first start out, but later those habits will haunt you, so make sure you change now while you still can fairly easily. Good luck!

 

[Elyssa Xey Hexen]

As far as I can tell, there are only two things that ever happen with smash players. One, you copy off of others. Two, you try to figure out stuff for yourself.

I guess at first you want to watch how other people play the game through videos or personal experience. After you have an idea of what stuff is possible or could work, you try to mimic them. And you practice what you see others do. Keep practicing until you can do it yourself nearly flawlessly.

Without experience, you might see something work which is only situational or was by mistake. The most common example is you might think two moves will link together as a combo, but that's only because a person DI wrong to avoid a follow-up move. This is the major drawback to watching other people. You try practicing something you saw without having any experience with it in matches against other players.

Its not until you really start playing other people and really start testing out what you have been practicing that you start to get a clearly picture of what works and what will not work. What might be considered a mix-up or what can be guaranteed as a combo.

And once you get enough experience, you sort of start knowing what you should practice on your own. Or even what is possible to really practice on your own and what is not.

 

[Bones0]

I agree that people who just try to copy things are only limiting themselves in the long run, but there's no conceivable way to catch up to the metagame if you're not going to pull from other sources. As bad as someone trying to be a clone of a top player is, someone refusing to take any ideas that have been tested against years of competitive play is just idiotic. I know that's not what your saying, but I just think it's important to understand that it's a balance that needs to be maintained.

 

[EPsilon933]

As bad as someone trying to be a clone of a top player is, someone refusing to take any ideas that have been tested against years of competitive play is just idiotic. I know that's not what your saying, but I just think it's important to understand that it's a balance that needs to be maintained.

I don't watch videos, read threads, or anything. 99.9% of my game is entirely self-developed. I did copy a few ARmada edge guards and use of dtilt from him though

 

[Mike Mercury]

I don't watch videos, read threads, or anything. 99.9% of my game is entirely self-developed. I did copy a few ARmada edge guards and use of dtilt from him though

But the real question is, did you self develop all that stuff by playing against cpus, or against a real person? I don't have someone to play with on a regular basis, and I am finding that no matter how much I play against the cpu, I still don't have very much of an edge against people who don't know advanced techniques.

 

[Crypt]

i'm learning doc as well and tbh when you first start out in smash just try to get as technical as you can with your character (assuming when you play alone). you can also practice DI against level 9 cpu's (DI is a big reason why doc is kind of on the borderline of decent/good character, just look at videos of Shroomed/OTG for examples of doc's potential).

matchups and counterpicking and all that junk will come with time after you play enough people at tournaments.

also as Bones suggested, the doc character boards are always a good resource of knowledge (respect yo elderz).

edit: also make sure your controller is decent because i started out with a crappy third-party controller and when i bought a new one my movement with doc got a lot more crisp.

 

[EPsilon933]

But the real question is, did you self develop all that stuff by playing against cpus, or against a real person? I don't have someone to play with on a regular basis, and I am finding that no matter how much I play against the cpu, I still don't have very much of an edge against people who don't know advanced techniques.

Playing against people. Almost none of them play Peach and I rarely ever play against a Peach. Playing vs CPUs never worked for me. I always got worse and bored

 

[Zodiac]

When I want to get better I start by copying people that are good with my character and just work in my own style as I play, not consciously mind you but the way you like to play the game will put your own twist on things you copy as you go. And eventually when you learn everything about the game you can make up play styles and combo's that are straight out of your head.