krains123
Smash Rookie
How long did it take you to get L Canceling down pat and how much longer to learn to shffl efficiently? I'm starting to learn and I'm just curious. Any tips?
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L Canceling
- Thread starter krains123
- Start date
ECHOnce
Smash Lord
At first, it can be hard to get a feel for the timing of L-canceling. Here's what I did:
Among your mains, choose the one with the longest aerial animations, or animations that end in about the same time (e.g. Marth, Ganon). L-canceling requires a Z press, or a soft L/R press 7-ish frames before you're character lands. Short hop, fast fall to once you reach the peak, aerial, and press Z/L/R quickly. If you're testingq something like Ganon's fair, it should have a fairly consistent timing. So long as you're keeping it at a consistent timing that feels comfortable, it should start to feel natural after a few minutes of repetition. Try it out with the other aerials. Don't try to experiment with starting aerials much earlier later than just a basic SHFFL timing just yet.
Try to incorporate it into your play when practicing against friends. Nothing too difficult or abstract; just the repetitive timing you're comfortable with. Once you're both used to the timing, and can start to integrate it into your play until it comes out naturally, then you should try experimenting with timings.
Sounds sort of like it could be a long way around or boring, but that's how the tech learning process often is lol. You can apply this to just about any tech; lookup the inputs, check vids for examples if it's hard to visualize, practice it rudimentarily, and get used to using it naturally in play. GL
Among your mains, choose the one with the longest aerial animations, or animations that end in about the same time (e.g. Marth, Ganon). L-canceling requires a Z press, or a soft L/R press 7-ish frames before you're character lands. Short hop, fast fall to once you reach the peak, aerial, and press Z/L/R quickly. If you're testingq something like Ganon's fair, it should have a fairly consistent timing. So long as you're keeping it at a consistent timing that feels comfortable, it should start to feel natural after a few minutes of repetition. Try it out with the other aerials. Don't try to experiment with starting aerials much earlier later than just a basic SHFFL timing just yet.
Try to incorporate it into your play when practicing against friends. Nothing too difficult or abstract; just the repetitive timing you're comfortable with. Once you're both used to the timing, and can start to integrate it into your play until it comes out naturally, then you should try experimenting with timings.
Sounds sort of like it could be a long way around or boring, but that's how the tech learning process often is lol. You can apply this to just about any tech; lookup the inputs, check vids for examples if it's hard to visualize, practice it rudimentarily, and get used to using it naturally in play. GL
what exactly are you having issues with? that'll help with tips, a lot.
the big thing to remember about lcancelling is that the timing will vary just slightly between hitting a shield, hitting a character, and hitting nothing. this is much more noticable with high damage attacks, as those add more hitstop to your character (i.e. hitting the opponent with ganon's dair, vs whiffing ganon's dair. his dair deals 22%, so it has A LOT of hitstop and the timing it notably different between the two instances).
the big thing to remember about lcancelling is that the timing will vary just slightly between hitting a shield, hitting a character, and hitting nothing. this is much more noticable with high damage attacks, as those add more hitstop to your character (i.e. hitting the opponent with ganon's dair, vs whiffing ganon's dair. his dair deals 22%, so it has A LOT of hitstop and the timing it notably different between the two instances).
Do it always, and don't be afraid to get worse because of it. It will make you better in the long run. It will mess you up for a while, but don't stop doing it because your suddenly doing worse against your friends who don't even try (I had a lot of those). Combos become so much more enjoyable when you get it consistently. That's just a general mindset tip to remember when it gets tough.
It took me about a month to get it to the point where I didn't think about it or mess up that much. But I put a lot of hours into it.
It took me about a month to get it to the point where I didn't think about it or mess up that much. But I put a lot of hours into it.
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Schir
Smash Rookie
I'm also having a bit of an issue with L-canceling. I can L-cancel reasonably well if I don't hit a character, but I'm not quite sure when I should press L if I do manage to hit a character. I know Cory mentioned earlier in this thread that the timing does vary when hitting a character, but I'm not quite sure when I should be pressing L when I do. Do I press L before I hit the character, or do I press it after? If it is after, how long after is it?
Any advice or videos would be much appreciated.
Any advice or videos would be much appreciated.
Always just before you hit the ground. So don't do it before you hit the character. How long after is completely dependant on the move/character/and character getting hit. To make sure I was getting it, I used to use links dair to test. Its very noticeable on all links aerials when you get the cancel. ECHO mentions some other good aerials to test with too.
I don't have it, but you should look into the 20XX hack pack. It has a feature that causes your character to blink red when u miss a cancel. Wish I had it when I was learning.
krains123
Smash Rookie
Is 20XX only for melee? I only found a 20XX melee hack pack.
It is, if u play PM though its actually unnecessary. PM 3.5 has the feature where u can make missed L-cancels visible, along with a lot of 20XX's features. L-canceling in PM is easier than melee too, they give you a larger window to input it in. Since I learned to L-cancel in melee its a lot easier when I play PM.
ninjuh1124
Smash Cadet
If you want to practice with hitlag, you can practice on Shadow Moses Island
elisekimchi
Smash Rookie
- Joined
- Dec 3, 2014
- Messages
- 8
Be sure to only lightpress when you l-cancel. A hardpress will mess up your techs.
Pwnz0rz Man
Smash Lord
What? You can make missed cancels visible? When has that ever been an option in PM? I know in 20XX it flashes red when you miss, but to the best of my knowledge, in PM the only thing that displays is if you did succeed and it's always on. Can't turn it off either, far as I know.
krains123
Smash Rookie
I was wondering that myself.
M2K has said it before (maybe AMA?), and I always hear johns to the effect of " if we were playing PM I wouldn't be missing my l-cancels". Impeccable sources I know, but its always something I've heard. Whenever I played PM I found I didn't miss any, so I figured it to be true.
Sorry that's what I meant by missed L-cancel visible. The successful ones are visible, therefore missed ones are also visible. I should have said its different from 20XX.
I didn't know it was always on though, I thought the group of guys I play with just always had it on.
MonkUnit
Project M Back Roomer
L-cancel window is the exact same as Melee's.
standardtoaster
Tubacabra
You should never take hearsay as fact especially from M2K (he makes rash judgements a lot. this isn't a shot against him). With debug mode you could have confirmed for yourself that it actually in fact is not different than melee. 
I'm glad to hear this. I haven't actually taken PM seriously until 3.5 came out, it by far feels the most like melee (wavedashing mostly). Still played a lot because it was really popular with others. When I get a wii of my own I'll definitely be messing around in debug.
RIP my placebo though
RIP my placebo though
Pwnz0rz Man
Smash Lord
Surprising to hear that it's the same. I tend to have a much easier time L canceling consistently in PM than I do when I try to do the same stuff in Melee, even when I'm using the same character. It could be a placebo (Or the overall sluggish feeling of anything that isn't perfect top tier play in Melee), but what is it exactly that makes L canceling feel better in PM?
Thane of Blue Flames
Fire is catching.
White flash honestly has a lot to do with the ease of L-Cancelling in PM.
Pwnz0rz Man
Smash Lord
The white flash doesn't make it easier to do though, just to see when you did do it. 20XX has that too, but it still kind of feels jerky in it. Maybe it's just that PM feels a tad more fluid compared to the more stiff Melee.
MaxThunder
PM Support
i got to about 50% consistency after about half a year... then a year later i was a little bit better, but then i improved a lot when i found out you can just spam z until you land instead of timing one input...
To start off, practice SHFFLing with neutral arial because it's less inputs than direction arials. When you do a neutral air, instead of simply pressing Y and then A, you want to tap Y then press A, down, then L. Just repeat in your head over and over: Y, A, down, L. Y, A, down, L. Once you have "Y, A, down, L" memorized, you can work on getting more precise with the timing for the down and L parts. Then you can try to SHFFL direction arials.
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DrinkingFood
Smash Hero
How in the hell does it take you 1 year to get to 50% consistency lol.
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Schir
Smash Rookie
Doing L cancels consistently in training mode and remembering to do them consistently in a match are two very different things.
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mimgrim
Smash Hero
This is true... when practicing by yourself in training mode. I can L-cancel consistently when practicing by my lonesome self.
Playing against an actual player is a different story though and I end up missing/messing up a lot of things I shouldn't.
But I also don't get to play against people that often, once a week at most if I'm lucky but quite often can go to once every 2 weeks, or 3, or even a month at times.
Schir
Smash Rookie
A couple more amateurish questions:
What are the benefits of L-canceling and how might an amateur like myself better incorporate it into play?
Is it better to use
or for nair?
Finally, a bit unrelated to L-canceling, but how would one go about consistently wavedashing a certain distance?
What are the benefits of L-canceling and how might an amateur like myself better incorporate it into play?
Is it better to use
or for nair?Finally, a bit unrelated to L-canceling, but how would one go about consistently wavedashing a certain distance?
Leafeon
Verdant Pokémon
It's better to use A for nair assuming you have plans to try out the many character options in P:M.A couple more amateurish questions:
What are the benefits of L-canceling and how might an amateur like myself better incorporate it into play?
Is it better to use
Finally, a bit unrelated to L-canceling, but how would one go about consistently wavedashing a certain distance?
That way when you play a character with a zair you don't go around using that because you're just used to it.
Otherwise it doesn't matter.
There is no drawback to L cancelling really, so the benefit is that you simply can act earlier from landing with an aerial. If you can see a benefit to moving earlier, use it. This is pretty much everytime that you do not land a killmove aerial, which you should l cancel in case it whiffs anyway. There's lots to incorporate it, whether it be shielding afterwards, grabbing quickly afterwards,jumping for another aerial, going into dashdance, running away or running through, all of those things are benefitted by the L-cancel.
As far as the wavedashing goes, I figure it's mostly just not getting fixated on the three bottom spokes of the hexagon when you look at your controller. I believe airdodge has more angles, so you just have to get used to not getting your control stick in those spokes all the time. Similarly to getting those in-between angles with fox's UpB.
Lime Cultivist
Smash Apprentice
Well, the timing for SHFFL'ing is different for every character, so whenever I played a new one it was difficult at first to get used to the timing. People are saying that it's easy to learn, and it is, but actually remembering to use it consistently in matches against real people took me pretty long. I just kept forgetting to wavedash and l-cancel in the pressure of the match. But now after a few months I do it automatically and get around 90% usually. I also really do like the white flash, it's helpful.