Luddoj
Smash Journeyman
I've been playing Mario for 10 years now. 9 & 1/2 years were spent as a casual player, and I just joined the competitive community about half a year ago, so I have just half a year of experience playing against other skilled players and learning advanced techniques and all that good stuff. And I'm really proud of my improvement up to this point.
However, as hard as I try, I struggle a lot against friends who use characters on the S Tier, specially against Shiek, Marth, Peach, Fox, Jiggly and Falco. Falcon I can handle, at least a little.
My problems with those characters are as follows:
- Against Shiek: getting chaingrabbed (normally the chain starts because of a shield grab), needles completely DESTROY my recovery, Shiek just chains like 15 moves against my plumber and then finishes by conveniently linking F-Tilt > F-Air, U-Air
- Against Marth: the matchup is really hard, Marth ridiculous grab range and his disjointed hitboxes, cannot approach properly, always get spiked.
- Agains Fox: as soon as I get shined, I'm done. My body gets pushed across the stage and is sent flying away by Up Smash or Up Throw > Up Air, or if I'm pushed off the stage, Shine Spike. Cannot grab because shine is out way too fast, laser adds a lot of percentage when I'm not approaching and if I approach I'll probably end up dead, cape is almost useless because of Fox always going for the sweetspot or mixing up recoveries. When Fox crouch cancels my attack I should be ready to be wave shined to my doom.
- Against Falco: SHORT HOP DOUBLE LASER - PILLARING. GG
- Against Peach: Too floaty and way too much priority on her aerials. Trying to recover is just stupid.
- Against Puff: I really hate this matchup. Puff can make you play its own game at its own pace. The game is slow and it basically consist of you trying to approach while also avoiding her aerials with really dumb hitboxes. Side B's hitbox is out for SO LONG. Back air chain while off stage is death. I can't combo or chain attacks after my grabs, and most of my hits just send Puff too far away, so when I try to chain other moves I just get hit with a Pound or a N-Air.
I don't have a lot of experience against Samus so I don't know what Mario's weaknesses would be, I assume the Cape just works well for that MU. I wouldn't know how to edgeguard though, since Samus has a lot of options to come back to the stage.
Falcon is not that bad. I think I can chain lots of attacks after each other right after a grab. Plus, Mario has chaingrabs and edguarding the good Captain is not really that hard due to his predictable recovery pattern.
So my question is, how to improve? I already know how to: keep my movement consistent with wavedashes and dash dances to bait out certain moves (works for Shiek and Marth), always waveland to trick the opponent into attacking and leaving themselves open for an attack of my own, waveland grabs, CC Smash Attacks, Up-Smash OoS, Waveland form ledge to stage, D-Air to Up-Tilt or Down-Smash, Up-B Walljump (have to practice it when starting the Up-B away from the wall, as I consider that to be pretty tricky and I still haven't found the timing to it), also I can get the max range out of the Tornado for recovery purpouses, B-Reversed Fireballs + Waveland and chaingrabbing most of the characters.
I need to learn how to SHBAWD to keep the pressure on, space my attacks better to avoid getting shield grabbed, practice the "Marth Killer" (Light Shield Edgeguard) as I have never used that before and start learning how to Smash DI properly, I guess.
Mind sharing with me your training regimen with Mario? How much time do you spend practizing and what exactly do you practice? On which stages?
Also, keep in mind that I have to train mostly on my own, and smashing against CPUs is not a very good thing, since they don't act AT ALL as real players do. They never sweetspot, they don't try to edgeguard you, Fox never waveshines or tries to shine spike you, Falco uses laser while standing up and the only thing Marth does well is starting jab combos as soon as you approach. Is there a way to actually LEARN or PRACTICE something while battling CPUs?
Also, any more suggestions or techs I should practice or learn, plus, information on how to counter the characters I mentioned above, and how to get over all those obstacles I mentioned as well, would be amazing.
I love Mario, I just think that it has to work way too much to achieve what Shiek or Marth can, and I want to learn how exactly I can get the most out of the character. I don't plan on playing Space Animals, and some months ago I started playing Falcon as my secondary, but can potentially become my Sub-Main. Still, even if I end up switching mains (Samus and Shiek are really fun to play with too) I think having a really good Mario in store can really throw off some people because of the rare MU and beacuse they don't know, or at least not right off the bat, what actually works against him.
...Except for Fox. He can Waveshine > Up-Smash/Shine Spike anything and win.
I hope you can help me and I'll be waiting or your replies. Thanks in advance!
However, as hard as I try, I struggle a lot against friends who use characters on the S Tier, specially against Shiek, Marth, Peach, Fox, Jiggly and Falco. Falcon I can handle, at least a little.
My problems with those characters are as follows:
- Against Shiek: getting chaingrabbed (normally the chain starts because of a shield grab), needles completely DESTROY my recovery, Shiek just chains like 15 moves against my plumber and then finishes by conveniently linking F-Tilt > F-Air, U-Air
- Against Marth: the matchup is really hard, Marth ridiculous grab range and his disjointed hitboxes, cannot approach properly, always get spiked.
- Agains Fox: as soon as I get shined, I'm done. My body gets pushed across the stage and is sent flying away by Up Smash or Up Throw > Up Air, or if I'm pushed off the stage, Shine Spike. Cannot grab because shine is out way too fast, laser adds a lot of percentage when I'm not approaching and if I approach I'll probably end up dead, cape is almost useless because of Fox always going for the sweetspot or mixing up recoveries. When Fox crouch cancels my attack I should be ready to be wave shined to my doom.
- Against Falco: SHORT HOP DOUBLE LASER - PILLARING. GG
- Against Peach: Too floaty and way too much priority on her aerials. Trying to recover is just stupid.
- Against Puff: I really hate this matchup. Puff can make you play its own game at its own pace. The game is slow and it basically consist of you trying to approach while also avoiding her aerials with really dumb hitboxes. Side B's hitbox is out for SO LONG. Back air chain while off stage is death. I can't combo or chain attacks after my grabs, and most of my hits just send Puff too far away, so when I try to chain other moves I just get hit with a Pound or a N-Air.
I don't have a lot of experience against Samus so I don't know what Mario's weaknesses would be, I assume the Cape just works well for that MU. I wouldn't know how to edgeguard though, since Samus has a lot of options to come back to the stage.
Falcon is not that bad. I think I can chain lots of attacks after each other right after a grab. Plus, Mario has chaingrabs and edguarding the good Captain is not really that hard due to his predictable recovery pattern.
So my question is, how to improve? I already know how to: keep my movement consistent with wavedashes and dash dances to bait out certain moves (works for Shiek and Marth), always waveland to trick the opponent into attacking and leaving themselves open for an attack of my own, waveland grabs, CC Smash Attacks, Up-Smash OoS, Waveland form ledge to stage, D-Air to Up-Tilt or Down-Smash, Up-B Walljump (have to practice it when starting the Up-B away from the wall, as I consider that to be pretty tricky and I still haven't found the timing to it), also I can get the max range out of the Tornado for recovery purpouses, B-Reversed Fireballs + Waveland and chaingrabbing most of the characters.
I need to learn how to SHBAWD to keep the pressure on, space my attacks better to avoid getting shield grabbed, practice the "Marth Killer" (Light Shield Edgeguard) as I have never used that before and start learning how to Smash DI properly, I guess.
Mind sharing with me your training regimen with Mario? How much time do you spend practizing and what exactly do you practice? On which stages?
Also, keep in mind that I have to train mostly on my own, and smashing against CPUs is not a very good thing, since they don't act AT ALL as real players do. They never sweetspot, they don't try to edgeguard you, Fox never waveshines or tries to shine spike you, Falco uses laser while standing up and the only thing Marth does well is starting jab combos as soon as you approach. Is there a way to actually LEARN or PRACTICE something while battling CPUs?
Also, any more suggestions or techs I should practice or learn, plus, information on how to counter the characters I mentioned above, and how to get over all those obstacles I mentioned as well, would be amazing.
I love Mario, I just think that it has to work way too much to achieve what Shiek or Marth can, and I want to learn how exactly I can get the most out of the character. I don't plan on playing Space Animals, and some months ago I started playing Falcon as my secondary, but can potentially become my Sub-Main. Still, even if I end up switching mains (Samus and Shiek are really fun to play with too) I think having a really good Mario in store can really throw off some people because of the rare MU and beacuse they don't know, or at least not right off the bat, what actually works against him.
...Except for Fox. He can Waveshine > Up-Smash/Shine Spike anything and win.
I hope you can help me and I'll be waiting or your replies. Thanks in advance!
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