learning spacing

[Crimson_Smasher]

I was wondering how people learn spacing since it seems to be very important. How much of it just comes naturally from playing a lot and how much is something else?

 

[asianaussie]

Play more and get experienced. Learn when Falcon will rush to U-Smash. Learn when a pivot smash is coming. Time your pivots so you just dodge out of D-Airs.

It's that simple.

 

[dandan]

I was wondering how people learn spacing since it seems to be very important. How much of it just comes naturally from playing a lot and how much is something else?

imo spacing comes of a result of experience, it is hard to train. you just figure out where to be so your opponent will miss and you will hit and so on.

 

[KoRoBeNiKi]

Play more and get experienced. Learn when Falcon will rush to U-Smash. Learn when a pivot smash is coming. Time your pivots so you just dodge out of D-Airs.

It's that simple.

but that complex at the same time.

but yes, you just get better at it by playing better people, one of the reasons why I enjoy online as I can play people of various skills.

 

[smakis]

you need to know the moves, speed and range of all characters, then you focus on staying out of that range, speed is important since you need to know how fast the attack can get to you, meaning you have to know which attacks are safe to use at that specific moment.

 

[NixxxoN]

The more u get owned the more u will learn.

 

[Blue Yoshi]

A great way to practice spacing is to play against a good Jigglypuff. She is probably the easiest character to space against (well... depending on your character) since she has the smallest range of every character. And... well, you'll know when you messed up your spacing, as you will lose a stock.

I guess learning spacing comes down to knowing what moves on a character you should avoid at all costs (sticking with Jigglypuff, that is Down-air and Grab... and obviously Rest). Now play while avoiding these moves at all costs. The more you play, the more you'll know where you can be without getting hit by these moves, which in turn improves your spacing. The best thing in my opinion is if you get hit by one of Puff's moves, take a short pause (don't pause the game... but while you are dying... or in-between matches) and think to yourself "why did I get hit by that move? Did I use the wrong attack? Was I too close to the other character? Was I simply in a bad spot?" The more you do this, the more you'll find what you are doing wrong, and the more you'll improve.

I seriously don't know why I'm talking about brawl alot recently... but anyways, I played against a really good Ice Climbers in brawl (one grab and you're dead) as my main Mr. Game & Watch. At first, I got grabbed over and over again, but the more we played (we ended up playing almost the entire day), the more I learned where not to be, what moves to use against him, and what moves to avoid. Since these were all friendlies, we didn't mind pausing mid-way. Every time I got grabbed, I paused the game, and asked him what I did that got him the grab (usually a mis-spaced aerial). The more the matches went, the more I changed my playstyle for the matchup, and the more I improved.

It's the same thing with smash 64. If you mess up, try to figure out what you did that made you mess up, and figure out what you could do instead. The more you do that, the better your spacing (and playstyle in general) ill improve.

 

[Tambor]

I think I my spacing improved a lot when I started playing a lot of Samus. It was like the breakthrough in my smash career.

 

[DMoogle]

Samus and Link are probably the two best characters to use to improve your spacing skills, because you're essentially forced to with them. If you don't space well, you'll get *****.

 

[srbsburrito]

another great way is variety. use all or as many of the characters. each character brings a new skill/niche to the playing field i.e your gameplay/style

 

[ciaza]

Samus and Link are probably the two best characters to use to improve your spacing skills, because you're essentially forced to with them. If you don't space well, you'll get *****.

This. Back in the day everyone told I only won matches because I only used pikachu and gimped (which was true). So I took it upon myself to learn myself Samus and when I went back to pikachu I found I was a much better player.

(And now I play everyone well to a certain extent, except Yoshi).

 

[SSBPete]

you have to experiment aswell, do things you normally wouldnt in that situation, and most of the time they wont pay off, but when they do, you try it a few more times and if its continually succesful you know you've improved.

 

[Lawrencelot]

Everytime you're hit, consider that a mistake on your part