I got the chance to watch the set with the Diddy. and you played pretty well, but here are some of my critiques:
1.) This was more prevalent in the duck hunt match, but I noticed that the Diddy was much more patient than you. He waited for you to over commit, then he went in for the punish. My advice is to play more patient in the neutral game. He knew that you were an aggressor and just waited for you to make a mistake.
2.) I noticed that you spaced a lot of fairs out against Diddy. Fair is a nice move, but if you trade hits (your fair with his fair), he will have a huge % lead on you. Maybe try spacing nairs, in case that a trade does happen, it'll be an even trade.
3.) I only saw you did this once, and he didn't punish you for it... But, never never never air dodge right after getting Dthrow by Diddy. Jump to safety. Diddys wait for that punish all day.
4.) This last one is just something that really bothered me... The Diddy didn't take advantage at all of the new ledge mechanics. Everytime he saw you grab the ledge, he backed off like a mile away, giving you free backs to the stage.
I do have a problem with sometimes not being patient enough. I sometimes need to make my decisions more carefully.
The difference between spacing fairs and nairs depends on how Diddy decides to use his fair. If he does a rising or quick fair, it'll trade with our fair and we'll lose the trade terribly. If he does the fair at the apex of his jump or tries to do a late retreating fair then fair will catch him for free. Nair will usually trade with a rising or quick Diddy fair, and will be outranged if he goes for a retreating or well spaced fair. So sh nair is not the catch all option for dealing with Diddy's fair. But neither is sh fair. I should've been predicting and mixing in more sh nairs with my sh fairs. Another option that I was using against him in the previous set was just using pk thunder if he was trying to space fairs. It worked surprisingly well, but it's an option with heavy committment, so if he doesn't short hop we'll get punished for trying to use pk thunder.
Mixing up early airdodges, late airdodges, and doublejumps is all fine when trying to get out of dthrow follow ups. It's essential to slightly change up your timing of your airdodge or jump to avoid the uair followup. Sometimes it's ok to airdodge immediately after a dthrow. In the previous set he was never able to followup with an aerial after a dthrow at high percents. Because of that he had lots of difficulty killing me in the previous set and I won. In this set I did a poor job of mixing up my escape options, as well as not DI'ing the throw correctly. Thus, I died a lot.
And yeah he wasn't too great at putting pressure on me when I'm on the ledge.
Thanks for the advice. I'll keep it all in mind the next time I face a Diddy.
Super sorry for the double post, but I didn't want to post this video in the same post as my critique, in case it might be missed.
But I would really like some expert advice on my Grand Finals set. I beat Triple R's kirby in Winner's Final 3-2, but he came back in grand finals to 6-0 me.
He got me pretty bad, and I had no answer for him. I have no idea how to land safely, the whole match I felt like I was being juggled.
Ok so Kirby's dair is quite good and you had some trouble with it. Dair has quite a decent amount of range and lasts a very long time. Trying to beat it directly with uair, usmash, or utilt is not usually a good idea. Trying to shield grab it can also be difficult because Kirby will usually land behind you, and there's a landing hitbox on it as well. Trying to bait it out and punish the landing has a very tight window as the landing hitbox stays out for a while, and the window between the landing hitbox and the ending of the landing lag is a bit small. The best way to punish an incoming dair is to just run away from the dair and then pivot pk fire. If you predict that Kirby is going to dair you then pivot pk fire is your best option against it. Now pivot pk fire can be slightly dangerous. If Kirby baits out the pk fire from you and uses a double jump instead of dairing, you will be punished quite heavily.
Now for Kirby to make use of his Dair, he has to do it out of a full hop, or short hop double jump. Depending on where and when Kirby performs his jump, you can punish him. Kirby takes time to get into his proper positioning to use dair. The hitbox is only below him and it doesn't come out immediately, so he has to be quite high in the air to use it effectively. That combine with his slow dash speed and air speed means that you have a very large window to punish Kirby while he's in the air before his dair comes out. Now If Kirby runs up close to you and full hops to do his dair, you can just hit him with a nair, fair, or uair before the dair comes out. You have to jump with him, or shortly after him. I'm not really sure whether or not you can really do it on reaction. It might require a read. I don't have enough experience against Kirby to know for sure. Conversely, if Kirby tries to jump from a farther distance, you can just punish him by using pk thunder. This is actually a very decent option against Kirby if he's trying to approach you from high above with multiple jumps.
Kirby's dair is his main combo tool, and the easiest way for him to wrack up damage. It's vital that you learn how to correctly play against Kirby's dair. To summarize, punish him landing with dair by running away and pivot pk firing, hit hims with a fair, nair, or uair if he tries to full hop near you, and use pk thunder if he tries to position himself from farther away with multiple jumps. Those are the three best options to deal with Kirby's dair IMO. Try to punish it before the hitbox comes out, or when he lands. trying to fight the dair itself is very difficult I find.
Triple R was doing a lot of short hop fairs and bairs. When opponents are trying to wall you out with fast aerials there are a couple options you have. If they don't retreat it properly, you can punish their landing with a pk fire. If they are using an aerial at the apex of their jump, sometimes you have enough time to run up below them and sh nair. If you have space between you and their using a lot of empty hops and sh aerials, you can also pk thunder them. If the aerial they're shorthopping doesn't have a lingering hitbox that lasts until right before they land, you can also punish their landing with a dash attack, as it has great range and it's disjointed.
If you see someone positioning themselves for a trump, try to spam roll. If you can buffer the roll you can usually avoid the trump. I'm not sure if it's an infallible option against someone attempting to trump, but if you try to roll as as soon as possible it makes the timing for them really difficult.
When you're trying to land from getting juggled, you keep trying to use fair. When you were using fair you were using it way too early, and by the time you reached Kirby's height, the hitboxes for fair were gone. You were having a lot of difficult landing against Kirby. Nair is not too bad an option sometimes. However it's very easy to shield grab. There are two good options to take when landing if you think your opponent is going to shield. A great option is to just land with no aerial. Just land and immediately grab or jab when you land. If your opponent tries to initiate a shield grab when you land, you can usually jab to beat their shield grab. If you land without an aerial and your opponent hesitates while shielding, you can get a grab. Also while landing it's wise to do your best to land behind their shield. Just removing the option for them to shield grab you is very potent. The second option to do against someone trying to shield your landings is to hit their shield with a sweetspot bair, especially the back of their shield. Sweetspot bair has a lot of shield stun and shield pushback, and characters can't shield grab it. Because Kirby has low mobility, he also can't drop shield and dash into a punish. So when you're trying to land from a juggle, land with no aerial into a jab or grab, land behind their shield, or land with a sweetspot bair on their shield.
This set was actually entertaining to watch. Triple R clearly had you figured out, but it was fun seeing a proficient Kirby play. It's very rare to find good Kirby players. For what it's worth, I think the Ness Kirby matchup is probably even, or if not even then only slightly in our favor. I can tell you're a good player. Even though you were beat very solidly, he was punishing you off very small mistakes, and he just had a very good reading of you as a player. You didn't typically lose because of a couple of huge mistakes. It was a multitude of small mistakes that led to his victory. I really enjoyed watching your Ness. Do you have any VODs of a set that you win in?
