First of all, if you have any footage of yourself playing, that would be extremely helpful.
It just sounds like that friend has a better grasp of the matchup versus Puff than your other friends. You'll just need to improve your basic understanding of the game, along with the specific matchups that you're struggling in, to really see yourself improve.
here are some things to consider:
Can you use your tech-skill consistently? (dashdancing, wavedashing, wavelanding, etc.) Do you apply it in matches?
- Wavedashing is very helpful to give yourself a better control of space and the stage, such as how Hbox and Mango control their character so well. Learn how to waveland, dashdance, wavedash and just generally improve of understanding your own character. And of course, you should have down L-cancelling asap. Just mess with your character a lot so you feel comfortable with their strengths and weaknesses, so you understand their capabilities and limitations in terms of mobility and know how to utilize the pros to their fullest. I won't go too in-depth on this, there are 100 guides on tech skill all around the forums so just look around.
Do you find yourself spamming specific moves, like bair?
- To reduce predictability, you need to not only use different moves, but change how you use your moves. For instance, jumping at your opponent with a bair or fair may work sometimes, but sooner enough they'll expect it and react. Delay your aeriels, wait until after double jumping sometimes, fast-fall sometimes but not always, etc. If what you're doing isn't working, try something new. Hell, try running straight at your opponent and see how they act. You don't need to space with bairs to be safe, simply running at them is more safe than you might think as you can shield almost instantly when you see them do something. This is a great way of baiting your marth friend to through out an fsmash, you simply guard it and punish him with a fair out of your shield or even a rest if you're close enough.
What moves do you find yourself getting hit with a lot by your opponent?
- Don't give your opponent too much credit, or rather their character. If you're getting hit by a lot of fsmashes, then stay closer to him and smack him for it or simply be safer with your approaching and be ready to shield them. If you're getting hit by a ton of aeriels, stay more grounded and plan out your jumps better. Every character has a variety of strengths and weaknesses you need to get used to and learn to abuse individually. For instance, if you're jumping around spamming bairs versus marth, that's actually bad. It makes it easier for him to space you and hit you when he finds openings, since he generally has more range. Puff may be a generally defensive player, but marth is better at spacing you out, so don't be afraid to get close to marth where his attacks are generally less effective, plus you can duck under his standing grab and rest him. Just think about what moves are giving you trouble, and think about the weaknesses of that particular move and how you can counter it.
Do you keep safety in mind while playing?
- As the famous words from isai, "Don't get hit." Remember that, typically, this game isn't about killing your opponent. It's about surviving, and every hit matter. Focus more on not getting hit and less on landing hits if you need to. If you ever do something and you get punished or hit for it, reconsider it and think carefully before doing it again. Think about your risk/reward, and try to stay on the safer side. Shield more, retreat more, wavedash back more, roll more, etc. but don't do anything too much and become predictable, especially rolling. Learning more about DI is a great way to improve survivability, just look more into it as there are many resources on the forum about this. To give you the basic rundown, you have Survivial DI to live kill moves (aiming your trajectory towards the top corners to increase the room you have to travel before reaching the kill boundaries, done by holding analogue stick up if you're launched left/right, or holding it left/right if you're launched up based on whichever corner is closer) and you have Combo DI (to get out of combos, typically holding away from your opponent or any other direction to mess up their combo).
Do you make predictions while playing?
- This is a huge part of playing puff, since she's so slow. Being reactive is good as well, but the way to truly dominate with puff is to be good at predicting your opponent and locking down their options. Throw out attacks that predict your opponents actions while also being safe, this is what Hbox and other top puff players do. It may look like "bair spam," but most of the time it's well calculated and thought-out aeriel placement that leads to great success. Think about it this way, when you throw out a predictive attack (i.e. one that is placed to predict movement and will otherwise miss) either 1. they run into your attack and get hit, 2. nothing happens and you retreat safely, or 3. they expected it, you failed to retreat safely and you get punished. A good player will mix up a lot and know how to effectively minimize the possibility of #3, making your opponent feel trapped and uncertain what to do. Here's an example of this: you jump towards your opponent and they start shielding because they anticipate an attack, instead of attacking them directly you double jump and bair right above their head while retreating back to where you were, you bair again right before landing. If they jumped out of shield initially, they'll have jumped into the first bair and gotten hit. If they either try to roll towards where you were, or try to run towards you to punish you, they're get smacked by the second bair. This is great, you rolled the dice with little-to-no chance of loss (theoretically) instead of simply trying to hit them dead on with an attack which is much more unsafe. Think about this, and learn to adapt it into your style as a puff player, but don't solely rely on it.
I hope this helped out, if you have any questions at all please feel free to ask.
And welcome to the smashboards!
) but they're not typically worth going for. Usually it's about knowing how to get the setup, and making sure you capitalize. Often times with reads and such. For instance, here's a trick I did versus a shiek player in a tournament a bit ago: I landed on front of his shield and held duck, he tried to grab me and I rested him. Next stock, I did the exact same thing, except I knew he wouldn't be dumb enough to grab again, so I landed right on front of his shield and did a Utilt instead, which would normally be unsafe but I knew he would try to jump OoS this time. I was right, landed the utilt and got another rest on him.
