How to train when live brawling isn't an option?

[Saikyoshi]

I heard that playing against CPUs develops bad habits. But I don't have any humans to play against for long, and Amiibos obviously aren't an option. I need to hear from someone more experienced - how do I train alone?

 

[raymundoTheGod]

I try not to just play against computers, but to work on certain strategies, techniques, and to test my toughness (like trying to comeback with 1-2 stocks on them). For example, say you want to practice l-canceling, instead of practicing in training against a dummy, train against the computer so you can get used to the pressure of l-canceling while fighting. Or if you want to practice zoning, options, whatever, I like to do it on a computer instead of a dummy. You get bad habits from playing cpu's when you expect people to react and play like a cpu.

 

[-Dubs]

I grind techskill when I have nobody to play.

 

[Lagann]

There is also the choice of getting netplay and start playing from your computer. The only problem you will have really is lag issues between who you play with.

 

[Y-L]

Highly recommend Netplay. The lag is only ~2 frames. Just make sure your cpu can handle it. Check out my siggy.

 

[Bellioes]

Another tip that really helped me is watching my own matches. If you can somehow record your netplays matches, that is ideally going to be the most helpful.

Otherwise, saving and rewatching your replays of matches is very easy and convenient in PM if you have the wi-fi set but requires a training partner :/ you can watch your replays from playing cpu's if you like but it wont be nearly as helpful as against human opponents.

Watching yourself play really helps you pick out your bad habits (ie.shielding too much, rolling excessively, predictable recoveries etc.). During a match, its hard to realize these sorts of things and so going back and reviewing your matches is a great way to improve as well. Once you pick out your bad habits, it will be a lot easier to specifically focus on removing those specific habits in future matches rather than trying to figure out ingame what habit needs to be removed in the first place.

 

[Pseudomaniac]

I normally play against CPUs when I'm picking up a new character so I can adjust to the character's playstyle and figure out their moveset. I also played CPUs when learning how to apply L-cancelling and wavedashing. However, playing the CPUs too much can cause you to develop bad habits in the neutral and ledge game because AIs don't behave at all like humans in those situations.