everytime undr and i sit down to play 2-3 hours of smash, our skills have noticeably improved. undr because he's undr and makes up craziness, but i only seem to improve because i've adapted to undr. i wish i could discover craziness for samus in the same way undr does for pit. we're going to practice today and i just know that undr has discovered some new options for pit. i need to come up with something or at least work harder at the basics. so i'm going to take some time before i meet up with undr and review the stuff i thought i needed to work on after our last session
powershielding into charge blast - i need to rack up damage and fight attacks that, when shielded, push me out of range. for example, pit's f-smash
powershielding into f-tilt - i couldn't get it to work last time without some tremendous start-up lag
shuffle the zair - just shuffling it isn't enough. i need to shuffle it at the height that makes it fully extend (its close) WITHOUT necessarily connecting. the range is ridiculously short on most shuffled zairs
learning the air dodge timing - i don't know the timing for coming out of the air dodge. learning to chain air dodges asap. undr beats me senseless because of this, but i believe that learning this will stop him from connecting most of the time
firing a homing after every aerial - the timing is weird and i haven't been able to play at the borderline
zairing after an aerial - i always forget that z is an air dodge after an aerial. i'm not in the habit of l-z'ing yet
pivot grabbing with a dash grab
jabbing and running away - not following up when there is no chance. running away adds to the mindgames
rolling - especially after landing from an aerial. my timing is way off when landing
ledge tactics - grappling and canceling by pressing down, ledgehopping with left and right instead of down, just sitting there when i know they're gonna smack me for my impatience... i just had an idea, i remember a few times where i jumped, grappled the ledge and was above the level while still connected. in the future, if i cancel the grapple, then i might have found a better ledgehop. i might even be able to ledge-cancel projectiles and reset the 3 limit on my grapple. NICE!
shield dashing - maybe i could learn to use the shield dash like a mini-wd if i could get the timing down for releasing the shield button and sliding
weird stutter-step (?) to f-smash - a sliding f-smash in the opposite direction. the range isn't extremely short and i can only use the f-smash. similar to the dashing u-smash
jab-cancel-jab faster - i'm not even going at half speed. if i were faster, i might be able to pseudo-lock people and walk with it. or get in two jabs before they touch the ground after powershielding their aerials.
use the fair - i just started using it last time. its nice, but i don't know how to follow it up. luck and button mashing have worked before...
landing an uair on the shield - especially when they're waiting to powershield my lame attempts at surprising the with shuffled aerials... which brings me to my next point
SHUFFLING - i rarely shuffle. it makes such a small difference in my battles that i never think about it. however, any speed gain is a good thing. whenever i screw up an aerial, i'm usually immediately met with a beating, so there is never an opportunity to shuffle. but there are rare cases when shuffling might have made a difference or created an opportunity. i don't want to miss those
using the nair - i don't know what to do with it. sometimes, while button mashing, it'll have some cool effects. i'd definitely try it more often if i could get into the habit of shuffling
zair, homing & smash missles with jumps - mixing them up in a jump. still not really clear on what i can mix and what i can use it for. whenever i fire a smash missle its always a mistake and 50% of the time it connects. mindgames
sh'ing a smash missle - i've done it, but i don't know about how low i can go
there is probably alot more, but undr called, so i'm off to do battle. its amazing what a little preparation can do for me. normally, i would never take the time to think ahead and i'd just be making stuff up as i went. i should do this more often. then maybe i really will discover something about samus. if only i could trick the game into letting me FF the up+b...
