How to progress?

[SAK0577]

First off, I'd like to introduce myself to the forums, I just registered. For the last couple of weeks I've picked up Melee and played with it, getting good (casually), and trying to improve my game to the point where its at the bottom of the spectrum professionally. I've read all the guides, picked up on the lingo, and tried some of the stuff in game, but what I want to know, is in what order should I improve myself? Before I go on, I must say that I know the forum rules, and I'm not asking for the moves, I'd just like some advice from some experienced players who went from playing casual to getting REALLY good. I know most of the terms, so feel free to use them, I'd really just like to know in what order I should learn moves, like wavedashing etc. Seeing the vast library of terms in Melee, its sort of hard to sipher out what I should do first, and what I should save until I'm more advanced. As you can see by my avatar, I like playing with Mewtwo (at least recently, I've found his chain grab really cool to use) as well as Ganondorf (my veteran main). I appreciate any help, and look forward to getting better and learning stuff on this forum.


-SAK0577

 

[darE::to::Dream]

Learn anything that you feel would come easily enough to you, and view Wak's Advanced How to Play videos for a visual tutorial.

Perhaps the most important part is knowing how to incorporate said techniques into your game. The ever broad-reaching term "mindgames" covers pretty much everything you want to develop the most, and advanced techniques will only increase your options. So I'd first work on learning to play dynamically, then learning some advanced techniques whenever you feel limited and think something (wavedashing, SHFFL, DJC) would give you something to do in that moment you previously had nothing to do.

 

[strider43]

First off i would like to say this, you don't really have to learn advanced techniques as much as you have to learn how to apply them into your game. What you need to learn is to instinctively do things like L-cancel and SHFFLC'ed aerials and mind-games. If you want to learn one advanced technique, definitely learn mind-games first. You need to be able to automatically go for edge-gaurding, and learn how to do combos. Essentially all this advanced mumbo jumbo leads to doing combos and that's pretty much what you need to do, combine everything you know and do a chain of attacks.

 

[cowboyardee]

Assuming you know all the normal advanced stuff, the main thing in between you and greatness is really just a truly enormous amount of practice matches against good opponents and tournament experience. An enormous amount.

Seeing as how that's not really too helpful to you, seeing as you no doubt either realize this or will come to soon, there are a few other things you can do to speed up the process. A lot of people who got good at this game fast spent a decent amount of time analyzing pro videos (especially ones of your character of choice, and the most recent videos of all kinds of matchups to see the newest tricks being used - for example current marths don't edgeguard the spacies in the same way they did a few years ago).

On top of that, spend a lot of time in the character specific boards going over matchups and the minutae of dozens of situational manuvers (example -- is it better to fast fall then dair or dair then fastfall when pillaring with falco? What attacks and at what percents can you cc into rest with jiggly? etc).

Talk to good players about these situations. See what they recommend. Tape yourself and analyze your own play for places where you consistently take damage, miss edgeguards, are edgeguarded successfully, find yourself pushed off the stage, miss easy damage, go for damage when your could have had the kill, etc. Find these spots and come up with a remedy or a counter.

Mostly it's just a lot of work and some talent.

 

[goateeguy]

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

this is the advanced how to play video part one of three. These videos go through all if not many of the advanced techniques of SSBM, and they do them in a general order of easiest and most necessary for pro play to most difficult and meticulous to get a tiny edge. practice especially shffling, wavedashing, and sheilding basics as these are the most critical to ur game.

it sounds like ur doin fairly well with mewtwo, so along with the advanced how to plays, check out some combo videos of taj and u should be set.

 

[Rapid_Assassin]

For either of your characters, make sure you learn lcancelling first. You can learn it along side of shorthopping and fast falling, or work on lcancelling first. In any case, lcancelling is the single most important thing to learn with your characters. Make sure you can do it whether you full jumped the aerial or not, and make sure you can do it whether you hit nothing, hit the shield, or hit the opponent. (the timing is very slightly different)

Then work on the rest of the advanced techniques.

 

[Umpy]

i would choose a character first....i had a proablem with this i chose a character based on the tier list....BIG MISTAKE....i went through a lot of characters until one appealled to my senses..which turned out to be the 2 goofyest characters in the game, GAW and Luigi. I then applied the advanced tech. to them and that is a about it. Don't use the tier list is what i am trying to say.

 

[Rapid_Assassin]

He clearly isn't using the tier list, seeing how he says he plays Mewtwo and Ganondorf.

 

[Golddron]

yeah, i agree with Rapid Assasin, learn l-cancelling.

 

[Imperial Wraith]

Actually, before you learn how to L-Cancel, I suggest you learn how to shorthop perfectly.

 

[BishopTS]

Considering who you main, i would focus on mindgames alot. Learn how to utilize mewto's up-b and his air dodge effectively to fool your opponents.

As for Ganon, i would focus on l-canceling, wave dashing, edge guarding.