Ideas for further improvement

[DrGrimReaper]

Hey, as I was playing yesterday I thought of further means of improving my overall game. Thinking back to the guides I've read on how to use Dr. Mario I realized that they all favored certain moves more than others. For example, bAir>dAir & f-tilt>d-tilt.

I feel that each move has its own unique uses and that no move should be favored more than another. With this in mind I developed a small little idea called "hemispherical conditioning". --It's kind of long, but if you want to give me good feed back, read the whole thing through. It's my own original concept, and I'd appreciate positive<-->neutral feedback only.

Hemispherical Conditioning:

Use of this concept should be limited to only people who know the game well and have interest in developing bit by bit, the collective pieces that make up their game. This idea is not intended for beginners / intermediate players (lol like myself )

The concept is pretty straight forward. What this is, is limiting your range of control over the analog stick to a given side when attacking.

An example of what this would include, is upper-hemispherical conditioning. Everytime you go to attack your opponent you can only use upward attacks, which are: b-up, smashUp, utilt, and uair.

The four Hemispheres:
Upper Hemisphere: as stated aboves, the only moves that can be used to damage & ko your opponent are up-b, upSmash, utilt, & uair. Here I would put emphasis on developing timing for your up-b move, such as hitting falling victims at the peak of your up-b motion as a means of extended juggling. Emphasis on utilt comboing into uair juggling and/or utilt into uSmash. Also a great means to develop the very uncommon SHUAWD.

Lower Hemisphere: The moves here are your down-b, dSmash, dtilt, & dair. From the guides & videos I've seen dair & dtilt are severely under used. also, the while you see down-b used a lot you hardly ever see it on the context of attacking. I feel down-b can be used to counter falling opponents by meeting them at the highest possible peak of a floating down-b and sending them flying horizontally before they have time to react to your unexpected down-b floatyness! --dtilt is, in most strat guides, a move to avoid. Quite the contrary, this move I feel can serve very much to your advantage. WD into a dtilt with someone at 50% or higher and they'll be flying behind you like 'Wtf jus' happn'd?' unlike smash attacks, dtilt can be decked out faster which makes up for its short range. the dtilt is indeed quite useless. But with enough lower hemispherical conditioning I have confidence anyone can make it quite useful! I find it works best on somone slightly above you in the air or big people like bowser/dk. dsmash is just a good move all around, esp. for ko'ing when lower hemispherical conditioning.

Frontal Hemisphere: Here the moves are cape, sideKick, fsmash, and fair. (dash will not count in this hemisphere). Cape, like down-b, is another special attack not used to its full potential. Just the cape itsself deals out 10%damage on the first swipe. That's a bit more than any of the other b-attacks. Another use for this might be dash-short-hopping & caping. Though I don't know for sure, I'd say cape has more range than doc's nair & dair, and is also a bit easier to pull off than fair. So use cape more often for attacking/ racking up %! Fair, well this is already a staple in every doc's game so I don't have much to say about this, other than to work on your aim. Oh, one thing I hardly ever see anyone do is replicate what is shown in the actual game video tutorial, as Bowser is trying to make his way back to stage Mario counters with a fair (angled downward) sending bowser straight down. Just because bair is great for horizontal edge guarding, I feel in a person's frontal hemispherical training they should put more emphasis on timing downward angled edge-guarding fairs.

Back/Null Hemisphere: This would be by far the hardest hemisphere to train in with the lack of smash attacks. None the less, its collective moves and combos should not be over looked! Moves I will put in this hemisphere are: Nair, DashAttack, A(punch punch kick), bair, & of course, pill. The null hemisphere would be the one a given person should train in a lot, it has the bread and butter to approaches, as well as one of the two edge guarding tech's bair. PillRushing, flying nairs, dash to nair combos, pill combos, & improving nair aim would be great uses of back/null hemispherical training. Bair edgeguarding in terms of throwing in multiple bairs into a given edgeguard attempt should also be developed, as the more ballsy your bair edgeguarding attempts the harder you will be pushed to recover, so it improves both your edgeguarding & recovering skills @ the same time. In this hemisphere SHBAWD & figuring out combos should be youre main priority, as the rest of its potential are things that come to you over time.

Further Thoughts: If you start getting bored or are frustrated with having to limit yourself to the same hemisphere try combining two, such as upper and lower, or lower & null/back, or back & front. There are plenty of combinations and though I won't immediatley delve into all the possibilities of each combination, I will venture to say if you mix&match chancs are you will find interesting combos you'd never seen before.

**note** Hemispherical Conditioning is meant only to affect the moves you use to deal damage & ko with. A given hemisphere should by no means govern your movement, your DI, nor your recovery. **note**

Constructive critism is welcome, but remember, if you don't have anything nice to say, then don't say anything at all.

Thanks for humoring my idealogy and thoughts. I'm still more or less a noob so don't respond harshly. Constructive critism is welcome, but remember, if you don't have anything nice to say, then don't say anything at all.

 

[Hylian]

Hey, as I was playing yesterday I thought of further means of improving my overall game. Thinking back to the guides I've read on how to use Dr. Mario I realized that they all favored certain moves more than others. For example, bAir>dAir & f-tilt>d-tilt.

I feel that each move has its own unique uses and that no move should be favored more than another. With this in mind I developed a small little idea called "hemispherical conditioning". --It's kind of long, but if you want to give me good feed back, read the whole thing through. It's my own original concept, and I'd appreciate positive<-->neutral feedback only.

Just to let you know each move does have its uses but that doesn't mean you should use them. You SHOULD favor some moves over others. Why do a move when you can do a better move and get a better result in its place? You should do moves that lead to combos kills or grabs. Don't use moves that are not that benifitial twoards your play and are easily punished. For example you should never use Ganons utilt...ever. You should know and be aware of all your moves yes but you shouldn't just throw moves out because they are not used often.

This is an intresting concept but I don't believe that it will help your play at all.
That's my opinon anyways >_>.

 

[Ronin686]

I *really* don't think this will help your game.

 

[Dogysamich]

I get the idea of what you're getting at, but I too dont like the idea.

But the reason why I dont like it is cause you're saying to use moves that dont really work (i.e. the d.tilt)

The basic concept is fine, although it seems kinda hard to do anything other than just slotting attacks in because you usually have to "cross hemispheres" to link stuff together.

Well, not usually. U.tilt to u.air would work fine, but that's about all you can get, I think.

 

[Endless Nightmares]

the dtilt is indeed quite useless. But with enough lower hemispherical conditioning I have confidence anyone can make it quite useful!

But the reason why I dont like it is cause you're saying to use moves that dont really work (i.e. the d.tilt)

I'd just like to say that I find the dtilt to be very useful. Of course it's not one of my most common moves but I always find good times to use it. Since it knocks them behind you, you can face away from the edge and dtilt them off the stage for a bair edgeguard. You just have to be a little sneaky. Many times with dtilt I've managed to stagespike someone who was about to grab the edge. But of course there may be better options, and watch out because it can be teched if they see it coming. It's kind of a last-ditch move to pull off in that situation.

Also, to elaborate on the hemispherical conditioning, I believe that many smashers do this but they don't really think about it. I know I use this. For example, the upper hemisphere...I might use these moves in order (not necessarily a combo): uthrow, utilt, uair, uair, uthrow, uair, uair. And to add to the upper hemisphere emphasis I would use control stick up to jump and press A to do the uairs. So I'm almost always holding up in that sequence.

 

[St. Viers]

I think his point isn't to go into tournies only using one hemisphere...Its that people need to think of using all of Doc's moves. Many people just think b-air, b-throw, f-air, and n-air. Because of that they lose out on many of Doc's options. By training yourself this way, you force yourself to get timing, and expand your strategies.

Yeah, but after you do this you have to then practice breaking hemispheres. Yous shouldn't ever be thinking about a real match as "I'm going into it to use x.y,andz moves" You should be going in thinking "I'm going to win, and because I know the range and spacing for my moves now, I'll be able to play better"

 

[Endless Nightmares]

I think his point isn't to go into tournies only using one hemisphere...

I never said that. Not sure where you're getting that idea. I was just using one hemisphere as an example. But I agree with everything else in your post.

 

[Bullet Bill]

Good idea Dr Grim Reaper. I think it'squite a clever Idea for helping you get used to new moves that would have otherwise been swept under the carpet. I think most of us have moves that we harly ever use for whatever reason and it's a good idea to practice with them more.

A few criticisms- I never use upB to lengthen combos. It can be useful in places in dreamland however as you can upB your recovery landing them on the platform above. Down and B is easily avoidable. The Cape shouldn't really be used to rack up damage as there is 0 knockback on it meaning all your opponent has to do is turn around and grab you or combo you. I do think it is underused though. Caping can sometimes really put your opponent off. I cape people when they're sheilding for example as they usually are looking for a sheild grab. Good ideas though Grim

bill

 

[hhliveson]

its an interesting concept but it has the problem of forming bad habits, and what i mean by that is favoring one hemisphere over the other. doc has some really useful moves in every hemisphere so to only use one or two at a time means that you are only decreasing your arsenal. if you really wanna improve your game then you need only to do two things:

1. experiment with doc by playing other people.

2. watch some vids and take a close look at what some people do in certain situations.

 

[DrGrimReaper]

hhliveson, you are correct, that is most definitley another means of improving your Doc. however, I originally wrote this targetting people who've already done such things and still have reached their own unsurpassable boundaries.

The concept of hemispherical conditioning was not only meant for pro smashers & experts @ melee to learn & figure out new combos, but also to diversify the # of given attacks a Doc might use on their opponent.

The reason diversifying a Doc's attacks is important is simple: if you're using b-air, f-air, n-air, a, & d-smash over & over eventually the collective damage dealt by all of those moves will be half, or less, of what they should be dealing. By using other moves like d-tilt, drill, down-b, up-b cancels, etc etc, you increase the overall damage of your offense!

 

[MuBa]

Don't use d-tilt at all...

Btw 56K where did u get those sigs from?

 

[Endless Nightmares]

http://smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=82986

 

[choknater]

c-stick is your friend

 

[Bullet Bill]

Don't use d-tilt at all...

Btw 56K where did u get those sigs from?

d tilt is not that bad. Crouch cancelled near the edge at high %s will give you a erfect cape opportunity

 

[hhliveson]

The reason diversifying a Doc's attacks is important is simple: if you're using b-air, f-air, n-air, a, & d-smash over & over eventually the collective damage dealt by all of those moves will be half, or less, of what they should be dealing. By using other moves like d-tilt, drill, down-b, up-b cancels, etc etc, you increase the overall damage of your offense!

it's not about how much damage you deal in a fight, it's all about keeping your opponent on their feet by switching up your approach or playing mindgames. some attacks of his as well as every other character are useless or don't help all too much in a fight. you can use several attacks over and over again, but try and use them in different situations and see how your opponent reacts. there is a limit to what you can do with doc, but that also changes with the way your opponent plays. adapting to your opponent can give you even more possibilities.

 

[Hylian]

hhliveson, you are correct, that is most definitley another means of improving your Doc. however, I originally wrote this targetting people who've already done such things and still have reached their own unsurpassable boundaries.

The concept of hemispherical conditioning was not only meant for pro smashers & experts @ melee to learn & figure out new combos, but also to diversify the # of given attacks a Doc might use on their opponent.

The reason diversifying a Doc's attacks is important is simple: if you're using b-air, f-air, n-air, a, & d-smash over & over eventually the collective damage dealt by all of those moves will be half, or less, of what they should be dealing. By using other moves like d-tilt, drill, down-b, up-b cancels, etc etc, you increase the overall damage of your offense!

This can't be directed at pro's/semi pros because they already know all of the technical aspects of their characters. Most pros don't ever practice by themselves they only play with other people.