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Meta Knight: Video Compilation & Critique Thread

Katakiri

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Katakiri
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Welcome to the Meta Knight Video Compilation & Critique thread. Post videos relating to your favorite blue ball here. Matches, techniques, anything! Videos in the OP will be cycled in and out to keep things up-to-date.


Advanced Techniques
Up-Throw to kill Pikmin https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJJVXZJ5ayo

Random/Other Videos


Singles Gameplay
Doubles Gameplay
@ Katakiri Katakiri & Bowser/Mega Man vs Greninja & Ness (Winner's Finals) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqNGsuE50rg
@ Katakiri Katakiri & Bowser/Mega Man vs R.O.B. & Sheik (GF Set 1) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFfpHtlcw0E
@ Katakiri Katakiri & Mega Man vs R.O.B. & Sheik (GF Set 2) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vom04NsYtTA

@Slither2Hunter & Link/Greninja vs Fox & Mario https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59jJ2qWflCg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59jJ2qWflCg
 
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Ruminator

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This was shared with me the other day and I figured it'd be a decent contribution to this thread. Some tech with f-air.

EDIT: Just saw this was posted in another thread but I'm going to keep it here, since it's the video thread.
 
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Jellyfishn

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ItoI6

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Have some videos that I would love to have critiqued if you guys have some time. :)

Vs. CF
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqAFGrElNws
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HD4AoiVen1A
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAEBInYd0Xw (Got owned this match)

Vs. ZSS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTi86npmIuk

Vs. Shiek
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1oHIBrdGqM (I feel like I played best here)

Any comments or advice would be apprectiated.
I think the main problem here is that you press too many buttons, you're too unsafe, and your punish game is really unoptimized. Just as a quick reference mk's dthrow has guaranteed combos at almost any percent, it goes something like dthrow-upsmash 0-20%, dthrow-fair 20-45%, dthrow-uair-upb 50~% (the hitstun is there but the percents are narrow), dthrow-upb 45-100%. Dash attack upb also works at various percents too. Don't use his fthrow lol it does 3% and is bad in almost every scenario. MK has horrible damage (7%< usually lol) on like everything he does except his dthrow combos and full tornado, so you need to be looking to use those for better punishes. Like I'm just looking at this game vs sheik and I notice you miss a lot of punish opportunities because you were flinching spotdodging or buffering an attack and weren't prepared to run in and actually punish him when he messed up by using an unsafe dair or was charging a smash or something.

Remember that if you use tornado while on top of someone and mash the whole thing it does 20% which is more than even his throw combos lol. I wouldnt use the move as anything other than a punish though, don't use it unless youre sure itll hit basically. I noticed you actually did hit the move once but it ended it very quickly. If you actually land the move, you need to mash like your life depends on it lol. Go to training mode and try to get the full 20% nado and youll get the idea of how much you need to mash. Also if ur in training mode try and get more comfortable with upb, its kind of easy to let your opponent fall out of the move unless you hit with it in the right way.

The rest isn't specific to mk but just kind of how you play. You just dash a lot and generally aren't ready for things when they actually happen. Try and walk more and be ready to act if they dash in on you or do something unsafe. Just walk, shield and react basically. If you mix that up with dashing in and sudden bursts of moving fast it messes up your opponent a lot and is generally just scarier to face. If you wanna learn to play like that try playing mac or some character with really safe tilts. It's very intuitive with him and will help you a lot with every character. This is basically how high level brawl is played which is pretty much just like this game.

There's a lot of other little things but that^ is the core of the matter. gl yo
 
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Jellyfishn

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I think the main problem here is that you press too many buttons, you're too unsafe, and your punish game is really unoptimized. Just as a quick reference mk's dthrow has guaranteed combos at almost any percent, it goes something like dthrow-upsmash 0-20%, dthrow-fair 20-45%, dthrow-uair-upb 50~% (the hitstun is there but the percents are narrow), dthrow-upb 45-100%. Dash attack upb also works at various percents too. Don't use his fthrow lol it does 3% and is bad in almost every scenario. MK has horrible damage (7%< usually lol) on like everything he does except his dthrow combos and full tornado, so you need to be looking to use those for better punishes. Like I'm just looking at this game vs sheik and I notice you miss a lot of punish opportunities because you were flinching spotdodging or buffering an attack and weren't prepared to run in and actually punish him when he messed up by using an unsafe dair or was charging a smash or something.

Remember that if you use tornado while on top of someone and mash the whole thing it does 20% which is more than even his throw combos lol. I wouldnt use the move as anything other than a punish though, don't use it unless youre sure itll hit basically. I noticed you actually did hit the move once but it ended it very quickly. If you actually land the move, you need to mash like your life depends on it lol. Go to training mode and try to get the full 20% nado and youll get the idea of how much you need to mash. Also if ur in training mode try and get more comfortable with upb, its kind of easy to let your opponent fall out of the move unless you hit with it in the right way.

The rest isn't specific to mk but just kind of how you play. You just dash a lot and generally aren't ready for things when they actually happen. Try and walk more and be ready to act if they dash in on you or do something unsafe. Just walk, shield and react basically. If you mix that up with dashing in and sudden bursts of moving fast it messes up your opponent a lot and is generally just scarier to face. If you wanna learn to play like that try playing mac or some character with really safe tilts. It's very intuitive with him and will help you a lot with every character. This is basically how high level brawl is played which is pretty much just like this game.

There's a lot of other little things but that^ is the core of the matter. gl yo
Thanks for the tips. I played a lot of competitive brawl but I admit that I never really used walking. I try to punish but often find myself unable to because I am busy doing something else as you said, I really needed to hear that haha.

I am new to Meta Knight and wasn't aware that mashing b actually gave more damage. Thought it just changed the movement. Need to do more research I guess. :/

I will also admit that some errors(like some of the throws) were input errors due to a little bit of lag online, but I do need to make better decisions over all.

Thanks for the constructive criticism. I really appreciate it. I will get better. :)

Edit:Also any tips on getting in on a character like Shiek who will just needle you out and shield and punish when you approach? I think part of the reason I run so much is to get in on her and be able to grab. I sometimes have a hard time punishing spammers.
 
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ItoI6

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Thanks for the tips. I played a lot of competitive brawl but I admit that I never really used walking. I try to punish but often find myself unable to because I am busy doing something else as you said, I really needed to hear that haha.

I am new to Meta Knight and wasn't aware that mashing b actually gave more damage. Thought it just changed the movement. Need to do more research I guess. :/

I will also admit that some errors(like some of the throws) were input errors due to a little bit of lag online, but I do need to make better decisions over all.

Thanks for the constructive criticism. I really appreciate it. I will get better. :)

Edit:Also any tips on getting in on a character like Shiek who will just needle you out and shield and punish when you approach? I think part of the reason I run so much is to get in on her and be able to grab. I sometimes have a hard time punishing spammers.

Against projectile characters you can just use a bunch of jumps to close the distance, then land where they cant comfortably start up their projectile without being in range for mk just running up and hitting them. MK is pretty fast, so thats like about 1/3 of the stage away. Like the one thing that got buffed from brawl to smash 4 was mk's air speed so its pretty easy to gain ground in the air. You don't need even need to be that close, just close enough where there is a risk to them starting up their projectile. From there you can just keeping shielding the projectile and punish if they get too predictable. Sheik's projectile is pretty fast and safe but if you're just patient and shield, then the needles really won't accomplish all that much damage wise even in the worst case scenario. A full charge of them does 7%, and the single needles do only 1. When you get put into hitstun from an attack it tends to panic people a little bit but really the damage from them is so insignificant it's almost like dealing with fox's laser lol. Going in and attacking their shield is exactly what they want you to do, but what's really more effective is forcing them to stop by making using their projectile a risk, even if its a small one. Just get into that range, and watch how they react. Walking forward a small amount from 1/3 stage will usually force a reaction, and you can see what kind of player they are. Keep on the lookout for a roll behind u if theyre bad.
 

ndayday

stuck on a whole different plaaaanet
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.04 matches, critique please? I'm showing one where I get dumpstered and one that I felt was a solid win. I have looked through it and I have my own ideas on what to do better but I want some activity and advice

http://puu.sh/cXNa0/812645b141.webm dump
http://puu.sh/cXMJc/d2cb040012.webm better

(I want wii u so I can record in good quality dear god)

also sorry for it being FG, oh well.
 
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ItoI6

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for the first one it looked like u played pretty well actually on the 1st life but i think ur punish game is still kind of unoptimized. I dont think you should totally stop using dthrow just because fthrow works now, i mean fthrow still doesnt let you followup unless ur sliding forward from dash grab past like ~40% while dthrow to shuttle loop works for way longer i think. also you shouldn't really bait airdodges by jumping and waiting unless its actually possible for them to escape or youve revealed that you always shuttle loop on ur followups. i mean there was like 3 or 4 dash attacks that you landed where the shuttle loop was guaranteed and you tried to bait an airdodge but he just kept jumping away when really you couldve just hit him. on the 2nd life idk sometimes things just wont go ur way but if u find urself getting hit a lot i would just jump away and reset to neutral. if you get hit then u got hit, if you push too hard then ur just gonna fall into his flow. If he keeps trying to push his advantage you can just wait for him to do something unsafe and upb oos or get him in the air so you can kill.

for the 2nd one all i can say is you really need to have more faith in shuttle loop followups from dthrow and dash attack lol, they really will work and they do more damage than using uair and backing off or his fair. and u need to push ur juggles more u just let him land way too easy. u just wait outside of his range expecting him to fall toward you and attack i guess but he just fastfalls to the ground to safety each time. just dash under him and shield or dash under and hit him or something idk. also if you land an uair you shouldnt backoff from it unless theyre like under 40% and have so little hitstun that they can move before you, but after about that % you can chain multiple uairs together from like 40-60% or shuttle loop followup for a good while afterwards.
 
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ItoI6

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dont use specials in neutral

walk and shield more

dont do unsafe things like down air on someones shield and land right next to them. if ur gonna do unsafe things make it not obvious ur gonna do it

work on your punish game. if you know how to shield and oos punish well you will basically always beat someone who doesnt.

use ftilt, dash grab, shield grab and upb out of shield.

you should be forcing ur opponent to create a mistake that you can punish, not immediately making a mistake yourself out of nothing by using tornado or dimensional cape like 5 feet away from him.
 
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ecaflip

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If I may make a request, could someone capture meta-knight's dthrow in slow motion with an annotation of the soonest point you can act out of it. I've been having trouble with my follow-ups and a gif/webm/whateva of when you can move would be a great help, and would look nice on a guide.

Edit -
Taking itol's advice into consideration, I went off and played some matches with a friend and some rounds in for glory. I took some recordings of my memorable fights. As always, advice/criticism is welcome.
For glory -
With friend -
 
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ItoI6

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If I may make a request, could someone capture meta-knight's dthrow in slow motion with an annotation of the soonest point you can act out of it. I've been having trouble with my follow-ups and a gif/webm/whateva of when you can move would be a great help, and would look nice on a guide.

Edit -
Taking itol's advice into consideration, I went off and played some matches with a friend and some rounds in for glory. I took some recordings of my memorable fights. As always, advice/criticism is welcome.
For glory -
With friend -
perhaps i should have been more clear on what i meant by oos punish. this is an excerpt of a guide i wrote to help my friend learn competitive smash

The Most Important Tool in Smash 4 - The Shield

The Shield in Smash 4 and in its close cousin Brawl is the most overpowered mechanic in the entire game. If you look at the frame data for the move, that is to say the speed of technique, you can see why it’s so strong. In Brawl (which seems identical to Smash 4) the shield appears on frame 2 after the R button is pressed, or in layman’s terms, 1/30 of a second. It blocks every attack in the game that isn’t a grab or very select moves, and can be dropped within only 7/60 of a second to allow for free movement again.

Now we are going to practice the Out of Shield game, or oos for short. Pick Little Mac (for ease of demonstration I’m not telling you to main him lol) and go into training mode for a little bit.

Use Shield, let go of R, then use forward tilt (Mac’s one-two punch, also called ftilt). You want to use ftilt on the earliest possible frame when the shield drops down. Did you notice how you can input ftilt while the shield is still dropping down? This is something called a buffer window. In Brawl (which seems similar to Smash 4 in this respect though I’m not sure of the exact specifics for the new game) you have a 10 frame window to input commands in the end lag of whatever previous action you had just committed. This means that if you press forward and A in the end lag of the shield dropping, (7 frames) ftilt will always come out in the earliest possible frame. Keep practicing it for a few minutes. It’s not particularly difficult, but you want to get it in your muscle memory.

Next try it against an opponent or a cpu. Just shield, and whenever an attack touches your shield, instantly shield drop then buffer a ftilt. If they’re too close to you need to buffer a jab instead because ftilt whiffs at close range. It isn’t too obvious against a computer, but against a bad opponent it becomes readily apparent just how powerful this is. It’s as simple as shielding on reaction to laggy attacks, and buffering the ftilt or down smash for the kill. For characters whose ground games aren’t as good as little mac, you probably aren’t able to punish as many things that hit your shield, but every character has some tool to use oos to hit any character that does an unsafe attack. Metaknight might use oos dash grab, Captain Falcon might use oos Dash Attack. Shield Grabbing in an option for any character. You can also jump oos to hit with an aerial which skips the lag from shield dropping. Practice with your character of choice to learn what their strongest options are out of shield and in which scenarios.
also if ur playing mk you just absolutely cannot be bad at followups. for one thing when mk lands a dash attack from 0-10% it has the uncanny ability to fling the opponent directly above your body which makes shuttle loop impossible to hit. using up air is also impossible because they dont fly that far up. this is like the only scenario where using uptilt is a good idea. from like 10-30% u should nair, 30-50 uair, and past that i shuttle loop. Dash attack-shuttle loop and dthrow-shuttle loop should be something u get to work every time. go to training or against cpus or something and practice it. its hard not to get them to fall out of shuttle loop at first but its like really essential.

if im being real i think you would really benefit from playing a very simple character like little mac or bowser and just spacing on the ground using ftilt, jab and getting good at oos game. learn the game's essence before learning complicated followups and **** that are character/di/very percent specific. if u pm me a time ill play u for a bit and try and answer some questions. i cannot stress enough how important that oos stuff is. if your oos game is accurate and fast you will crush bad players easily.
 
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ecaflip

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Well damn, don't I look like an idiot here. I'll put in the lab hours and get my oos game down to near perfect accuracy. I haven't really explored much outside of playing MK and the friend fighter Ike, but I'm sure my Ike game would vastly improve from getting out tilt punishes as fast as possible. I'll drop you a PM when I get some free time, it would be quite the treat to have some sparring sessions with someone much more versed in the intricacies of this game.
 

Lavani

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If I may make a request, could someone capture meta-knight's dthrow in slow motion with an annotation of the soonest point you can act out of it. I've been having trouble with my follow-ups and a gif/webm/whateva of when you can move would be a great help, and would look nice on a guide.
My advice would be to go into training and dthrow>hold shield to see and get a feel of the timing yourself. I don't think seeing it in a gif will mean anywhere near as much as having hands-on experience for learning when to start pressing buttons.

But as you request:
 

-Jax

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I'm seeing a lot of good feedback in this thread so here's a video of myself playing (excuse the shabby quality, I don't know how you guys get such good recording quality off a 3DS lol):


This is my 40th game with Meta Knight, so you'll see me missing a lot of followups that should've been pretty much guaranteed, or sometimes just not acting out of a dthrow because I have no idea what to try in this situation. I'm thinking I'm being over reliant on Side-b, throwing it out unsafely a lot, and in fact relying on my specials a lot in general. I'm also having some issues figuring out where the heck I'll end up out of a down-b, but that's just a trial and error type of thing.

Any pointers you guys can give to me based on this game? Any obvious basic stuff I'm missing? I'm noticing a lot of Meta Knights look a lot more 'dynamic' while playing, while I'm just pretty much doing nothing a lot of the time except for waiting for my opponent to do something.
 
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ItoI6

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you know if the last hit of side b doesnt connect then you wont fly backwards. you were really close to killing yourself in the first few seconds lol. you did have some times where shuttle loop was guaranteed and didnt go for it. you should be more willing to risk it if youre near the ledge because you can fastfall down onto it even if you miss. besides that you played ok outside of using drill rush way too much.


me actually playing

http://www.twitch.tv/norcalsm4sh/b/593198707

@ 11:10 in vs zero suit
went pretty well

@ 17 minutes in vs Diddy
more of a serious match but i couldnt kill him lol. in a real match i wouldnt have approached at all though if i was up 100+%

its really hard to react to di in time and how to followup in all situations...i guess ill just have to play more
 

-Jax

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you know if the last hit of side b doesnt connect then you wont fly backwards. you were really close to killing yourself in the first few seconds lol.
Yeah, I kill myself a lot honestly. Though in this case I would've canceled it on the stage if I didn't get that first hit in. I shouldn't take extremely unecessary risks like that..
you did have some times where shuttle loop was guaranteed and didnt go for it. you should be more willing to risk it if youre near the ledge because you can fastfall down onto it even if you miss.
I have a hard time figuring out when to shuttle loop and when not to. Though I think usually shuttle loop is a better option than no shuttle loop, as you've said it's pretty safe. I'll keep this in mind and just shuttle loop instead of hesitating and doing nothing!
besides that you played ok outside of using drill rush way too much.
Yeah, I think that was something I found worked against (this) Game & Watch specifically after the 3 games before this, which is why you see it an insane amount in this match. It trumps his pancakes and jab combo, which this guy used a lot. What are alternatives you can propose to Drill Rush? I generally use it to punish laggy stuff with lingering hitboxes. How do you commonly use Drill Rush?

I probably haven't been punished using it enough so I'm still considering it a good move, I read somewhere on this board canceling it on the floor when you don't hit is a good way to go unpunished, and I found it works pretty good. But I'm sure this won't hold water against more experienced opponents. And I'm pretty sure most characters can actually grab Meta Knight out of it on shield.

I'll take a look at your vids and see if there's anything I can steal... :drsad:
 
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ItoI6

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http://smashboards.com/threads/nov-29th-norcal-tight-or-fight-10-smash-4-usfiv.377024/

http://www.twitch.tv/cpsiv/b/594141490

vs Robin
match 1 1:30:05
match 2 1:34:40

vs Sheik
match 1 3:45:20
match 2 3:49:00

vs Sheik and Lucario
match 1 4:04:27
match 2 4:08:05

vs Diddy WSF
match 1 5:24:00
match 2 5:29:55

vs Palutena LQF
match 1 5:37:10
match 2 5:41:00
match 3 5:45:45

vs Sonic LF
match 1 6:03:30
match 2 6:09:07

vs Diddy GF
match 1 6:14:50
match 2 6:18:54
match 3 6:24:28

i played pretty well in every set except grand i think. it was like 2am when it started, i hadnt eaten like anything the whole day and i was playing really braindead and just got punished for everything while he just rolled like 3 times in a row lol. some diddy advice would also be much appreciated. got 2nd and won 120$ going solo mk
 

WootSnorlax

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http://smashboards.com/threads/nov-29th-norcal-tight-or-fight-10-smash-4-usfiv.377024/

http://www.twitch.tv/cpsiv/b/594141490

vs Robin
match 1 1:30:05
match 2 1:34:40

vs Sheik
match 1 3:45:20
match 2 3:49:00

vs Sheik and Lucario
match 1 4:04:27
match 2 4:08:05

vs Diddy WSF
match 1 5:24:00
match 2 5:29:55

vs Palutena LQF
match 1 5:37:10
match 2 5:41:00
match 3 5:45:45

vs Sonic LF
match 1 6:03:30
match 2 6:09:07

vs Diddy GF
match 1 6:14:50
match 2 6:18:54
match 3 6:24:28

i played pretty well in every set except grand i think. it was like 2am when it started, i hadnt eaten like anything the whole day and i was playing really braindead and just got punished for everything while he just rolled like 3 times in a row lol. some diddy advice would also be much appreciated. got 2nd and won 120$ going solo mk
Ah! I thought I didn't think I'd find you actually on here. If your matches weren't going to be posted on here I would've done it for you. Glad to see you are actively forming the MK meta. If you hadn't noticed I was the Kirby player annoying you the whole day.

These matches really demonstrate how good of a character Meta Knight actually still is. With down throws setting up guaranteed combos, the up air strings, and with shuttleloop being so safe MK can solidly rack up percentage quickly. Good stuff man, you really opened my eyes and made me want to pick him up even more.
 
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Oblivion129

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http://smashboards.com/threads/nov-29th-norcal-tight-or-fight-10-smash-4-usfiv.377024/

http://www.twitch.tv/cpsiv/b/594141490

vs Robin
match 1 1:30:05
match 2 1:34:40

vs Sheik
match 1 3:45:20
match 2 3:49:00

vs Sheik and Lucario
match 1 4:04:27
match 2 4:08:05

vs Diddy WSF
match 1 5:24:00
match 2 5:29:55

vs Palutena LQF
match 1 5:37:10
match 2 5:41:00
match 3 5:45:45

vs Sonic LF
match 1 6:03:30
match 2 6:09:07

vs Diddy GF
match 1 6:14:50
match 2 6:18:54
match 3 6:24:28

i played pretty well in every set except grand i think. it was like 2am when it started, i hadnt eaten like anything the whole day and i was playing really braindead and just got punished for everything while he just rolled like 3 times in a row lol. some diddy advice would also be much appreciated. got 2nd and won 120$ going solo mk
That was great and congrats!
Diddy advice? Diddy's punish game is too strong and Uair kills early. The best you can do is to never get hit lol. Hopefully someone has some legit Diddy advice.
 

DiggersBoy

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May 30, 2014
Messages
137
perhaps i should have been more clear on what i meant by oos punish. this is an excerpt of a guide i wrote to help my friend learn competitive smash
Hey you know if you'd like to send me that guide it would be great I'm looking towards getting more people into the competitive scene because everyone at my school is a bunch of League fanatics and I want to get some people to practice with other than my one sparring buddy

I plan on sparring a bit more, then uploading the various videos for help.
 

ItoI6

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Messages
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Oakland, Cali
i dont really think it would help tbh

if they dont care enough to look for such advice on their own they probably wont take it that seriously

if you really want to get them more invested in smash just ask some friends if they would want to go to a local and play some friendlies and ****. it might spark some genuine interest in a few of them.

if you want to take a look at what i wrote here u go

I see a lot of guides on how to play smash bros, guides about how to use a certain character, guides for useless techs, guides for nearly useless techs, and guides for some obvious **** that you could’ve figured out by looking at gameplay footage. I see good players tell the new players looking for advice things like, “work on your spacing,” or “try and roll less.” Those things might be true, but they really aren’t going to help you in practice. It’s basically just a way of telling you that you need to figure things out on your own. This guide is not about making you a perfect player, but instead will teach you the essence of this game and how to abuse it. It’s dirty and it’s cheap, but it’s a strong way to play. If you can’t win more than 10% of your games in For Glory, if you can’t beat your friend, your older brother, your rival, and you want to do whatever it takes to win or if you just want to break into any kind of competitive level then this guide is for you. this is not the pinnacle of smash, but a stepping stone

For quick reference, Smash 4 runs at 60 frames per second. That means that 1/60 of a second is the smallest unit of game time. K?

The Most Important Tool in Smash 4 - The Shield

The Shield in Smash 4 and in its close cousin Brawl is the most overpowered mechanic in the entire game. If you look at the frame data for the move, that is to say the speed of technique, you can see why it’s so strong. In Brawl (which seems identical to Smash 4) the shield appears on frame 2 after the R button is pressed, or in layman’s terms, 1/30 of a second. It blocks every attack in the game that isn’t a grab or very select moves, and can be dropped within only 7/60 of a second to allow for free movement again.

Now we are going to practice the Out of Shield game, or oos for short. Pick Little Mac (for ease of demonstration I’m not telling you to main him lol) and go into training mode for a little bit.

Use Shield, let go of R, then use forward tilt (Mac’s one-two punch, also called ftilt). You want to use ftilt on the earliest possible frame when the shield drops down. Did you notice how you can input ftilt while the shield is still dropping down? This is something called a buffer window. In Brawl (which seems similar to Smash 4 in this respect though I’m not sure of the exact specifics for the new game) you have a 10 frame window to input commands in the end lag of whatever previous action you had just committed. This means that if you press forward and A in the end lag of the shield dropping, (7 frames) ftilt will always come out in the earliest possible frame. Keep practicing it for a few minutes. It’s not particularly difficult, but you want to get it in your muscle memory.

Next try it against an opponent or a cpu. Just shield, and whenever an attack touches your shield, instantly shield drop then buffer a ftilt. If they’re too close to you need to buffer a jab instead because ftilt whiffs at close range. It isn’t too obvious against a computer, but against a bad opponent it becomes readily apparent just how powerful this is. It’s as simple as shielding on reaction to laggy attacks, and buffering the ftilt or down smash for the kill. For characters whose ground games aren’t as good as little mac, you probably aren’t able to punish as many things that hit your shield, but every character has some tool to use oos to hit any character that does an unsafe attack. Metaknight might use oos dash grab, Captain Falcon might use oos Dash Attack. Shield Grabbing in an option for any character. You can also jump oos to hit with an aerial which skips the lag from shield dropping. Practice with your character of choice to learn what their strongest options are out of shield and in which scenarios.

Punishing Landings

There are many situations in a match where one character takes advantage of the other’s position to land a free hit. When they’re offstage, hanging on the ledge, or trying to avoid a projectile, there any many situations you can take advantage of. By far the most common however, is when your opponent is above you and trying to land safely on the ground. The correct way to juggle people is incredibly simple and ties in to the oos punishes.

If someone is trying to land, get under where they will land, and shield.

If they attack your shield, oos punish. If they air dodge, oos punish. The only way they can avoid being juggled is if they land outside of your oos range without using an attack or air dodging at all (which isn’t intuitive for any beginning player), use one of their specials, or have an incredible airspeed that makes it difficult to get under them. If they just jump away from you when you shield, it does nothing except reset the situation, and you can just run under them and shield once more.

It sounds easy but its actually very difficult to continuously pull off in a match. Nonetheless it’s definitely the most common advantageous situation you’ll find yourself in during a match, and you should practice the intricacies of pulling it off against any character.


Ground movement - How to Zone

There is a time and a place for running and walking. You run when you want to get into a certain zone as fast as possible, and you want to walk when you are in that zone, and are carefully waiting for a reaction you can punish.

Now what does that mean?

Lets say for example that you start a match as Little Mac vs Samus. Little Mac wants to shut down her annoying projectiles, but if he just runs up and dash attacks hes gonna get punished for it. If he stays back, hes gonna get spammed and there's nothing he can do to punish it. What Little Mac wants to do here is be in the zone where there’s an actual risk every time Samus starts up her Side B missiles. He wants to stand at a distance where if Mac correctly predicts Samus’s Side B and dashes in at that moment, he will be able to land a dash attack. By standing at this distance, you can repeatedly shield Samus’s Side B and if she continues to go for it, run in and punish if she gets too predictable. This “Zoning” is a way of shutting down projectile users by creating a risk every time they use their weapon.

Now that you’re in the zone that you want to be in vs a specific character, you want to walk. Walking is useful for the reason that you can use any action immediately at any time. When you walk, be prepared for your opponent to run up an attack you. Picture their fastest means of attacking you, and be ready at any time when you are walking to shield, and oos punish. If an opponent has that mental preparation set-up, its extremely difficult to approach someone who just shuffles back and forth in the appropriate zone vs your character while throwing out safe tilts or projectiles. This is the least intuitive and hardest concept to grasp and put into practice for any new player, so if it really confuses you just stick to the two topics above.

Approaching - How to Dash Shield

Well the guide has covered how to beat someone who blindly attacks you, and someone who spams a projectile, but how will you beat someone who’s just standing there? He’s just chillin, and he’s waiting for you to attack his shield or do something dumb so he can punish you. Well the answer lies in getting to the appropriate zone that I talked about in the last paragraph, and the fastest way into that zone is to dash shield.

What is dash shielding? It’s going into a dash and halting your momentum by shielding. Now why is this so strong? It’s because normally when you dash at someone it provokes a panic button or set response. But when you shield it allows you to be safe and react to most common panic button responses fairly easily. Some common reflexes people have when you run at them are
1) Rolling behind you. Punish oos should be simple for any character.
2) Jumping away. They’re in a bad position now. Juggle them.
3) Attacking. Well the shield beats this, just punish oos with your best option.
4) Shielding themselves. It depends on how close to the opponent you were when you started shielding, but you might be able to shield grab if you’re close. If you aren’t you can just shield drop and space a safe tilt on shield or safe aerial.

A strong advantage to Dash Shielding is that it’s the quickest way to use your ground game such as ftilts and jabs out of a run. Not every character has access to good approach tools, but all of them can do this.

The other way to approach isn’t truly approaching, but it will force a reaction that you can punish most of the time. What you want to do, is walk back and forth in the appropriate zone that I talked about in the last section. You should be in the range where you can hit your opponent just by dashing at them and hitting them whenever they perform an attack, or the range where extending your walking shuffle slightly toward them allows you to hit with a safe ftilt. This makes your opponent incredibly jumpy and nervous. If they continue to remain calm and patient, try and break out of your shuffle with a dash shield toward them. That should provoke a response you can punish. While you shuffle back and forth in the zone, be ready to shield and oos punish at all times.

Basically, you need to become a shark.

Making Inhuman Punishes - Becoming the Machine

You know rolling a lot is bad, you know charging a smash randomly is stupid, and you know using projectiles even when its unsafe is obnoxious, but damn, no matter what you do you just can’t seem to punish them in time when it actually happens. Now when top Brawl players tell new players to wait and be patient in order to punish, it’s sort of inaccurate. What you really want to do, is wait-WITH an expectation. The difference between waiting, and waiting with an expectation is enormous.

The first step, take note of how your opponent moves. Is he walking toward you? Running toward you? ...Rolling toward you (lol)? By seeing what type of player he is, you get a good feel of how he would react if you dash shield at him. By far the most common bad habit i see is rolling behind or away from an opponent. So this next section is going to be about punishing someone with a roll habit just for sake of an example.

Remember when I said be prepared to shield and oos punish whenever someone started running at you while you were shuffling around? What you want to do, is create a new reflex for yourself. Something that you constantly expect to happen. Every time that you’re in the zone vs this opponent, you should CONSTANTLY expect a roll. It should be on the tip of your mind, always. There’s a world of difference in reaction time between something that you’re so sure will happen that its a certainty, and something that you think will maybe happen in this situation. It’s in this way that I can punish bad habits with some regularity. The proper mindset is very machine-like, and it’s like I’m playing with 2 objectives in mind.

1) Play as I regularly would.
2) Look for back-roll. If he backrolls right at this very moment, can I punish it?

Now if you play like this, it’s going to let some punishable things get past you. You won’t be able to react to every bad habit if you look for only one, but you should be able to react to that one habit inhumanly fast. You can also update or switchup what you are looking for if you feel its not working or the situation has changed. Let’s say your opponent is on the ledge. You should

1) Be prepared to play regularly, whatever happens.
2) Look for ledge roll.

Let’s say your opponent is standing just on the tip of your range for a fast dash attack. You should

1) Be prepared to play regularly.
2) Look for projectile pull.

If you play this way, you aren’t going to catch everything, but if you are smart in your updates for what you are currently looking for, it allows you to play with superhuman reactions in all sorts of situations. If you’re really good, you can search for and play with multiple expectations in mind, though even I can’t do this very well. It’s extremely difficult not to get messed up when several expectations are on the tip of your mind. Just try and play regularly with an expectation of something you can punish. Make sure that when something you expect actually happens that its possible to punish, for example trying to punish mac’s roll away from jigglypuff just isn’t possible lol. That is what separates the good characters from the bad.
some people might disagree but i really think this stuff is like the most important thing you have to know to be a competitive player
 
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DiggersBoy

Smash Apprentice
Joined
May 30, 2014
Messages
137
i dont really think it would help tbh

if they dont care enough to look for such advice on their own they probably wont take it that seriously

if you really want to get them more invested in smash just ask some friends if they would want to go to a local and play some friendlies and ****. it might spark some genuine interest in a few of them.

if you want to take a look at what i wrote here u go

some people might disagree but i really think this stuff is like the most important thing you have to know to be a competitive player
Thanks!

And about it not helping much, hey, might as well give it a shot, right? Can't drive just yet, so my friends and I can't really go to any local tournaments. All that's really possible practice-wise around here is 1v1s, and it's not that great when you get wrecked by someone else, especially on FG, when communication between the two people is scarce.

Also, even if they want to look up advice on their own, then it's easier for me to pinpoint things out as we're playing. If spamming Airdodge is figured out to be actually good in this game, and I don't know about it, I won't be able to see my opponent fail to spam Airdodge, and I won't be able to tell my opponent about it.
 

MagiusNecros

Smash Master
Joined
Nov 16, 2014
Messages
3,176
http://smashboards.com/threads/nov-29th-norcal-tight-or-fight-10-smash-4-usfiv.377024/

http://www.twitch.tv/cpsiv/b/594141490

vs Robin
match 1 1:30:05
match 2 1:34:40

vs Sheik
match 1 3:45:20
match 2 3:49:00

vs Sheik and Lucario
match 1 4:04:27
match 2 4:08:05

vs Diddy WSF
match 1 5:24:00
match 2 5:29:55

vs Palutena LQF
match 1 5:37:10
match 2 5:41:00
match 3 5:45:45

vs Sonic LF
match 1 6:03:30
match 2 6:09:07

vs Diddy GF
match 1 6:14:50
match 2 6:18:54
match 3 6:24:28

i played pretty well in every set except grand i think. it was like 2am when it started, i hadnt eaten like anything the whole day and i was playing really braindead and just got punished for everything while he just rolled like 3 times in a row lol. some diddy advice would also be much appreciated. got 2nd and won 120$ going solo mk
Just watched a few of these matches and wow. That's pretty amazing. Wish I could play Meta Knight that well. This is really getting me motivation to try and do well with Meta Knight. Those combo's were disgustingly good.
 

DiggersBoy

Smash Apprentice
Joined
May 30, 2014
Messages
137
http://smashboards.com/threads/nov-29th-norcal-tight-or-fight-10-smash-4-usfiv.377024/

http://www.twitch.tv/cpsiv/b/594141490

vs Robin
match 1 1:30:05
match 2 1:34:40

vs Sheik
match 1 3:45:20
match 2 3:49:00

vs Sheik and Lucario
match 1 4:04:27
match 2 4:08:05

vs Diddy WSF
match 1 5:24:00
match 2 5:29:55

vs Palutena LQF
match 1 5:37:10
match 2 5:41:00
match 3 5:45:45

vs Sonic LF
match 1 6:03:30
match 2 6:09:07

vs Diddy GF
match 1 6:14:50
match 2 6:18:54
match 3 6:24:28

i played pretty well in every set except grand i think. it was like 2am when it started, i hadnt eaten like anything the whole day and i was playing really braindead and just got punished for everything while he just rolled like 3 times in a row lol. some diddy advice would also be much appreciated. got 2nd and won 120$ going solo mk
http://www.reddit.com/r/smashbros/comments/2o7b36/metaknight_upair_to_upb_string_kills_at_58_by_ito/

Got featured on front page of SmashBros Reddit. Good job.
 

ItoI6

Smash Journeyman
Joined
Jun 14, 2010
Messages
383
Location
Oakland, Cali
nb

im trying to go to some tournaments in socal but there are no carpools passing through san diego i guess lol

youd think that since its one region itd be all close together but no theyre all like 2 hours away.

my wifi at the dorm sucks too and its close to finals week...rip me

if anyone wants to give it a shot though i will definitely play you if you ask.
 

DiggersBoy

Smash Apprentice
Joined
May 30, 2014
Messages
137
Lol Cali too hard

In order to get to tournaments you need this miracle called Car

To get to SoCal you need this thing called time

Both two things I don't have god damnit even the Bay Area seems huge okay
 

W.A.C.

Smash Ace
Joined
Sep 3, 2014
Messages
738
http://smashboards.com/threads/nov-29th-norcal-tight-or-fight-10-smash-4-usfiv.377024/

http://www.twitch.tv/cpsiv/b/594141490

vs Robin
match 1 1:30:05
match 2 1:34:40

vs Sheik
match 1 3:45:20
match 2 3:49:00

vs Sheik and Lucario
match 1 4:04:27
match 2 4:08:05

vs Diddy WSF
match 1 5:24:00
match 2 5:29:55

vs Palutena LQF
match 1 5:37:10
match 2 5:41:00
match 3 5:45:45

vs Sonic LF
match 1 6:03:30
match 2 6:09:07

vs Diddy GF
match 1 6:14:50
match 2 6:18:54
match 3 6:24:28

i played pretty well in every set except grand i think. it was like 2am when it started, i hadnt eaten like anything the whole day and i was playing really braindead and just got punished for everything while he just rolled like 3 times in a row lol. some diddy advice would also be much appreciated. got 2nd and won 120$ going solo mk
Oh man, I was loving this stream but it ends abruptly at 04:20:52. I wonder why 2+ hours of that disappeared. :( You're easily the best Meta Knight player I've seen at this game and I wanted to watch the rest of your rounds.
 

Thirtyfour

Smash Journeyman
Joined
May 18, 2008
Messages
424
Location
Delaware
Any chance Ito's matches being uploaded to youtube? Saw the stream completely by chance and need more.
 

W.A.C.

Smash Ace
Joined
Sep 3, 2014
Messages
738
This is all they uploaded to YouTube. [LINK] [LINK] I asked them if they were going to upload additional footage and they said they can't because they aren't "able to view or upload" the additional footage because it wasn't recorded locally.
 

ItoI6

Smash Journeyman
Joined
Jun 14, 2010
Messages
383
Location
Oakland, Cali
Hello MK boards! I have a Falcon problem and I could really use some tips on that match-up. Would anyone have any advice for me?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fcCA-6k6MQ&list=UUFJ48g9BcsNm8P7nWsz-97Q

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MShMfXAkGRk&list=UUFJ48g9BcsNm8P7nWsz-97Q
wow you actually know what youre doing, nice work

just a few things. When falcon grabs you at the ledge you should hold away from him, i saw you hold up or you were diing toward him for some reason and he was able to get a followup off of it. also something important thats missing from your game is cross up dash attack. in neutral its like his only good approach thats not a hard read basically. you want to get the initial hit of dash attack to connect, the late hit that sends them straight up doesnt have enough hitstun to connect into upb at later percents. you were walking up and ftilting a lot and i dont think its that great except for stuffing approaches/people running at you because of its multihit nature. i wouldnt walk up to someone and do it and its not really safe to do for so little reward.

I also think you shouldve gone for upb out of dthrow more. You went for a lesser option like fair or upsmash at like around 40-60% when upb always works around here and is plainly bettter. You also used backthrow to get him off a ledge when you shouldve used downthrow to a followup onstage at low to mid percents. Guaranteed damage>being in a better position then them almost every time. You werent even converting off of your better position most of the times you did it. if you want to ledge trap someone you should stand just out of range of their drop down double jump upair, and be prepared to time a grab or something when they do a standing get up. thats the number one option i expect because it has an asston of invincibility and you cant really punish it unless you expect it and I saw him do it a lot. tornado sounds like a good idea for punishing it but idk its kind of hard to pull off, but if you are expecting him to do it i guess it works. also if falcon is ledge trumping you, you should buffer a ledgeroll and itll put you in a better position then him and you wont get thrown off.

actually you werent even playing bad this falcon is really good holy **** lol. personally i dont think mk is viable because he has some death matchups but this matchup is very doable for mk. i think your biggest problem is diing falcons stuff wrong and not playing neutral so well. you pulled off some really well played punishes though, like that gimp on him i saw was perfect. keep it up yo

id like to play you so shoot me a pm if you wanna do some wifi
 
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ScAtt77

Smash Journeyman
Joined
Sep 7, 2008
Messages
385
Location
Lithonia, Georgia
NNID
ScAtt77
wow you actually know what youre doing, nice work

just a few things. When falcon grabs you at the ledge you should hold away from him, i saw you hold up or you were diing toward him for some reason and he was able to get a followup off of it. also something important thats missing from your game is cross up dash attack. in neutral its like his only good approach thats not a hard read basically. you want to get the initial hit of dash attack to connect, the late hit that sends them straight up doesnt have enough hitstun to connect into upb at later percents. you were walking up and ftilting a lot and i dont think its that great except for stuffing approaches/people running at you because of its multihit nature. i wouldnt walk up to someone and do it and its not really safe to do for so little reward.

I also think you shouldve gone for upb out of dthrow more. You went for a lesser option like fair or upsmash at like around 40-60% when upb always works around here and is plainly bettter. You also used backthrow to get him off a ledge when you shouldve used downthrow to a followup onstage at low to mid percents. Guaranteed damage>being in a better position then them almost every time. You werent even converting off of your better position most of the times you did it. if you want to ledge trap someone you should stand just out of range of their drop down double jump upair, and be prepared to time a grab or something when they do a standing get up. thats the number one option i expect because it has an asston of invincibility and you cant really punish it unless you expect it and I saw him do it a lot. tornado sounds like a good idea for punishing it but idk its kind of hard to pull off, but if you are expecting him to do it i guess it works. also if falcon is ledge trumping you, you should buffer a ledgeroll and itll put you in a better position then him and you wont get thrown off.

actually you werent even playing bad this falcon is really good holy **** lol. personally i dont think mk is viable because he has some death matchups but this matchup is very doable for mk. i think youre biggest problem is diing falcons stuff wrong and not playing neutral so well. you pulled off some really well played punishes though, like that gimp on him i saw was perfect. keep it up yo

id like to play you so shoot me a pm if you wanna do some wifi
First, thanks for the reply man I could definitely see a couple of things that I could fix. I feel as if cross up dash attack is a decent option in neutral, but that's only if my opponent is sitting in shield. I'll definitely try to implement it though. As far as Di'ing against Falcon, I wasn't sure if vectoring was still a thing or not at the time. Even though I know that what I was doing in the video was wrong, I'm still not sure how to DI the majority of his moves (I.e dthrow, u-air, nair). Falcon's ledge roll is so frustratingly long too. >_> When ledge-guarding from the position that you described, how do you prep yourself? Do you hold shield, do you short hop/ full hop, or do you just stand still and react to the option that your opponent chooses?
 

Exdeath

Smash Master
Joined
Sep 20, 2009
Messages
3,006
Location
Florida
Hello MK boards! I have a Falcon problem and I could really use some tips on that match-up. Would anyone have any advice for me?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MShMfXAkGRk&list=UUFJ48g9BcsNm8P7nWsz-97Q
This was basically week 1 gameplay, so I doubt that you have so many issues, but the main ones are: Fsmash, goals, and means. Fsmash is super safe (mix up charge times unless you react to him doing anything, mix up Dtilt, dash attack, shield, roll, etc. afterward)/rewarding against Falcon; at low % it leads into a pressure set-up and at mid-high % it puts him off-stage/kills. Your goal on Falcon is not to hit him/hurt him, but to put him off-stage.

If Falcon must use his Up-B without a jump and you don't make a mistake, Falcon has lost his stock.

This is for two reasons, one of which you used in your match: If you tech it (and sometimes even if you don't) then it is unsafe on hit, which means that you will hit him for hitting you -- even if it is a positive damage trade for him -- allows you to continue to harass him off-stage and you can time an attack to trade with his grab so that it grab releases him and allows you to fast-fall>foot stool KO him. To this end, your tools are primarily footsies (Fsmash/Dtilt/Ftilt/Dash Attack) and juggling follow-ups.

For the former, something that Fatality should have been using is Falcon's powerful Jab. To put this in perspective, entire characters sometimes lack an answer to this jab. Its modus operandi is to out-speed as much as possible and to clank with and then give frame advantage from what it doesn't. Add in its above-average reward and you have an excellent mix-up tool, along with his jerky dash grab. Meta Knight's Dash Attack's composition allows it to sneak a hit box through the jabs to start a combo/juggle, Ftilt out-ranges non-Smash attacks when you're walking and don't have time to space Dtilt and spaced Dtilt is so safe that it's almost a free action.

To be clear, Meta Knight's combo game is comparatively weak when paired with characters like Mario, Sonic, etc. but what he does have going for him in this match-up is that his juggle traps essentially loop until you can put Falcon off-stage. Ultimately, this comes down to timing Uair/Utilt so that it will hit if he tries to fast-fall and you can attack again if he attempts to jump (at which point you really want to get him off-stage) or he tries to land, especially on a platform. At some point, Falcon will just try to get to the ground any way possible and will be waiting for a way to fast-fall>stuff to land. Ideally, you want to hit him at the juncture of this input with a Bair so that he's off-stage with bad DI, but that requires a read and you're better off trying to just dash attack to reset the situation/put him off-stage anyway.

One of Meta Knight's greatest strengths is that he can quickly take full stage control and it is complimented by a fairly unique trait that Meta Knight possesses in this game:

Meta Knight on the ledge is formidable.

While other characters are often in a bad position while on the ledge, Meta Knight's ability to use his multiple jumps and ledge grab-canceled Up-B enables him to maintain his position off-stage, even without invincibility. Keep in mind that you can buffer an invincible get-up attack as a panic button, a get-up for what is essentially a spot dodge, and a ledge roll for a, "You just overly committed and now I reversed our stage positions," option. What this essentially means, though, is that a well timed get-up allows you to grab>Bthrow Falcon off-stage, which is a bad position for him at 0% and at 100%. There have been quite a few times when I've been at kill % and managed to gimp an opponent at low % with a Bthrow and a read. Outside of this, Meta Knight can live to a significant rage % and then finish off Falcon at a relatively low-%.

Falcon has difficulty killing Meta Knight with a grab. With proper DI+VI, you should be living until ~150% every stock and taking Falcon's before 130%. The main tools that Falcon has to force the kill are Uair and Bthrow -- especially by the ledge. If you blindly ledge get-up and he pivot grabs you, rage Bthrow can kill you below 70%. Speaking of 70%, keep an eye out on Dthrow around this area, as Dthrow>Fair combos and will likely kill, provided that you DI incorrectly and allow it to hit. Fsmash can out-space/out-range your attacks and kill you in this range. Dsmashing a roll-in will kill you in this range. Don't try to punish his Dsmash unless you powershield it at close range; for some reason it has very little end lag. Generally, doing anything other than shielding that isn't reacting to Falcon can get you killed at mid-%.
 

Conda

aka COBBS - Content Creator (Toronto region)
Joined
Mar 1, 2008
Messages
2,185
Location
Toronto
Robin vs Metaknight

The robin player plays multiple characters btw.

 
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