Q&A Official FAQ and QnA Thread - Ask Your Questions Here!

[Ripple]

they are just stupid

 

[-LzR-]

Thanks. I knew it sounded a bit odd.

 

[Papinguim]

Hello everyone, just found out about this Smash community and I joined so hi. Melee is one of my favorite games of all time and I've been playing it since around 2002 or '03. Well, I just recently found out about all of these advanced Melee techniques and how do I do them and what do they do? How do I wavedash? When should I L cancel? Stuff like that

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

Before wavedashing, you need to know how to dash dance (you may already). If you press left-right-left repeatedly, relatively fast, your character will dash left and right at the precise rhythm of your motion. However, when you dash, your actions are then limited to dash attack, dash grab, shield, or jump.

Wavedashing is to control your movement, like dash dancing, but it has different trade-offs. On the plus side, after a wavedash you can do any action your character could from standing. The downside is that there is approximately a quarter second of lag before you can. You can perform this by jumping and immediately air dodging diagonally downward. Note: when practicing your timing, take into account the characters don't leave the ground immediately when jumping.

The cousin to the wavedash is the waveland, which is airdodging into the ground while falling instead of immediately after jumping. It may or may not be easier for you to practice this first.

Lag canceling or L canceling, should be done whenever you are going to land on the ground after doing an aerial attack and are still in some part of the animation. L canceling will cut the landing lag of your move in half, so it is always better to lcancel than to not do so.

You can find more information and visual examples of these in Wak's Advanced How to Play guide:
part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4n4s5yB7ZkE
part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiZLs2doK8E
part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFmGIOcWdsM

 

[Bones0]

I would highly recommend using this general control scheme, though if you've been playing since '02 it may be pretty hard to change from what you use now:

- Jump with Y (primarily useful for Fox and Falco because going from Y to B is generally easier than going from X to B; mostly just make sure you aren't jumping with the control stick for everything).
- Only L-cancel with a light press of L or R instead of a full press (because it can mess up teching).
- Use one trigger for light shielding and L-cancelling, and the other for wavedashing, teching, and powershielding. For the latter, you will want to use the "trigger trick", which can be done by simply holding your L or R down as you plug in your controller, or you can remove the spring from the trigger entirely.
- Roll and spotdodge with the C-stick. Using the C-stick buffers your actions (meaning it will perform the action as soon as possible) unlike using the control stick where you have to time it properly. Having the control stick free also makes it possible to tilt your shield to cover certain areas of your body or get good DI if you get hit trying to dodge.

 

[AceDudeyeah]

I tell new people to try L for l-canceling and wavedashing instead of R.
The motion feels more comfortable when you're trying to wavedash with your jump button hand being separate from your air-dodging hand. This motion of pressing the jump button is different from the motion your thumb makes when hitting down in a SHFFL. Hitting down and shield to l-cancel in a SHFFL is comfy too.
Weird

 

[gravy]

What do you guys aim for when you're practicing? I feel like there's so much of a challenge in this game just figuring out how to practice. Things like speed are sometimes easy enough to practice, but incorporating spacing properly and practicing your neutral game seem difficult for me.

 

[AceDudeyeah]

What do you guys aim for when you're practicing? I feel like there's so much of a challenge in this game just figuring out how to practice. Things like speed are sometimes easy enough to practice, but incorporating spacing properly and practicing your neutral game seem difficult for me.

Are you talking about practicing by yourself or friendlies?
If by myself I practice unperfected tech skill and chain-grabbing a fox/falco(marth main).
If in friendlies against someone able to beat me, I try altering a response one option at a time. Oh, I keep getting wavedashed-off bair'ed or I keep getting shined when my shield is being pillared? Why don't I try dropping lower next time or rolling instead of wavedashing out of shield and see if it works. Oh, my opponent adapted and is now just edgehogging or waiting for the roll? Why don't I try the original plan or see if something else works better.

 

[Papinguim]

I would highly recommend using this general control scheme, though if you've been playing since '02 it may be pretty hard to change from what you use now:

- Jump with Y (primarily useful for Fox and Falco because going from Y to B is generally easier than going from X to B; mostly just make sure you aren't jumping with the control stick for everything).
- Only L-cancel with a light press of L or R instead of a full press (because it can mess up teching).
- Use one trigger for light shielding and L-cancelling, and the other for wavedashing, teching, and powershielding. For the latter, you will want to use the "trigger trick", which can be done by simply holding your L or R down as you plug in your controller, or you can remove the spring from the trigger entirely.
- Roll and spotdodge with the C-stick. Using the C-stick buffers your actions (meaning it will perform the action as soon as possible) unlike using the control stick where you have to time it properly. Having the control stick free also makes it possible to tilt your shield to cover certain areas of your body or get good DI if you get hit trying to dodge.

Yeah, I tried using Y but I'm just so used to X. I've been practicing wavedashing with Luigi and I've gotten pretty good at it. Really fast way to move. I use L for shield and roll and I've been using R for wavedashing and other stuff. And can you change your controls in Melee? I know that you can in Brawl.

 

[Bones0]

No. All you can do is enable or disable rumble.

 

[Xyzz]

Removing the motor from your controller is the best way to deactivate rumble! :D

 

[asianaussie]

so, is there ever a situation where you don't want to L-cancel in melee?

baiting attacks with low-lag moves aside, i mean (and this one is sketchy)

 

[Xyzz]

Why would there? If you don't want to act as fast as possible after landing (to mess with his OOS timings / whatever), you can do that just as well by not pressing stuff before you feel like it. No need to be forced into passiveness by not l-canceling.

 

[Metal Reeper]

Non L cancelled shield pressure is the way to the future. It's gonna ruin everyone's timing.

 

[-LzR-]

Removing the motor from your controller is the best way to deactivate rumble! :D

What I never understood is why people hate rumble so much?

 

[Xyzz]

It just happens to distract me a bit, and I am afraid I'd maybe mess up control stick stuff if the controller vibrates (:

 

[Bones0]

Removing the motor from your controller is the best way to deactivate rumble! :D

I agree, I did this. The lighter controller also feels better.

so, is there ever a situation where you don't want to L-cancel in melee?

baiting attacks with low-lag moves aside, i mean (and this one is sketchy)

The landing lag of some moves when you miss L-cancels can contort your hurtboxes to avoid certain OoS punishes. Never heard of anyone actually using this though, so just L-cancel every time. lol

 

[KrIsP!]

What I never understood is why people hate rumble so much?

Not huge but when someone puts it on and you don't know it surprises the **** out of me. Could also screw with concentration if you don't like it but not really anything other than being annoying as **** IMO. Why do people like it? Does it tell them when to DI?

 

[Papinguim]

What I never understood is why people hate rumble so much?

I don't know. Personally, I love rumble.

 

[-LzR-]

Not huge but when someone puts it on and you don't know it surprises the **** out of me. Could also screw with concentration if you don't like it but not really anything other than being annoying as **** IMO. Why do people like it? Does it tell them when to DI?

Personally, it's hard for me to say as the controller doesn't rumble strongly enough for me to even notice in middle of a game. I never even know if it's on or not. I just wonder why some people avoid it like the plaque. As if it had any impact on your game.

 

[Bones0]

You must be pretty gdlk if your controller shaking has NO impact on your stick precision. Just super saiyan.

 

[Lvdr]

I'm a long time amateur Ssbm player who is looking for practice partners in the Maryland/dc area.

 

[Bones0]

I'm a long time amateur Ssbm player who is looking for practice partners in the Maryland/dc area.

Where in MD are you actually at? I'm further north, but DC has a lot of active players. I'd recommend subscribing to THIS thread since Sypher hosts a lot of fests that you can go meet everyone at. He's also hosting a TOURNAMENT on Dec 29th in Vienna, VA. This is the FaceBook page. When you request to join just say you are new and Bones sent you. Hope to see you around. ^_^

 

[Ripple]

I like rumble because it feels like my attacks actually do something (or moreso) when Its on

 

[Bones0]

I can see why that'd be an attractive quality for a Roy main.

 

[Ripple]

yeah, because his aeials don't hit hard enough to register the rumble to function :C

Spoiler

they actually do but imagine if they didn't. LOL

 

[Lvdr]

I'm in cheverly if that means anything to you. Its on the orange line of the dc metro.

 

[Piemaster37]

So I'm new to trying to play melee competitively. I'm so used to 64 that its hard to adjust but I was wondering if anyone could help because I feel like I'm just not fast enough or I'm just playing the game wrong. Am supposed to be playing footsies? Or am I just sort of attacking with all I got. It seems impossible to make reads and just overwhelmingly chaotic.

 

[rpotts]

You have listed as your 64 character, the most 64-Kirby-like character in Melee is Sheik. Just don't fsmash. No one in Melee really plays like 64 Kirby, not even Kirby...actually, especially not Kirby. All I can really say is practice; I came into Melee after 10 years of playing 64, the last couple of those years being after I found Smashboards and started employing all the advanced techs I could learn, and yet, playing Melee still felt bizarre and loose. It took me a couple years of playing it to really start enjoying it as much as I previously enjoyed playing 64. This game's learning curve is tough, it's really off-putting to new players. Do you have any vidoes of you playing 64, for reference?

Here's an Advanced How to Play video, It's from 6 years ago but it covers much of the additional tech skill that isn't available in 64, it might be a decent starting point for you.

 

[KrIsP!]

What does parallel survival DI do? because misinformation:
http://strategywiki.org/wiki/Super_Smash_Bros._Melee/Advanced_Techniques

Edit: scroll down to DI...the page is for melee specifically. More reason why we need SWF as the first result on google...also easier access to information for newcomers in melee disc.

 

[Strong Badam]

parallel DI does nothing

 

[KrIsP!]

Exactly...but the first google result that comes up says different.

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

But at the same time, mods won't let us open new threads for information, they just close it and tell us to post in a huge thread. Because of that, answers can't be easily searched for. That means people on google can't find the answer, much less people searching through SWF's search.

 

[Bones0]

I'm about to make a huge ****ing archive of everything organized properly. It would take so ****ing long, but I guess I could just outline it and have other people PM me stuff to fill in Wiki-style with people like Magus giving explanations for **** like DI that is commonly explained improperly. I died a little inside reading that page's "How to DI" section... and can Samus actually cg anyone? >_>

 

[Ripple]

samus can CG pika and pichu

 

[KrIsP!]

Can't we edit this in the mean time? It's wiki...

 

[iRobinhoood]

samus can CG pika and pichu

Explain please.

 

[Gea]

I'm about to make a huge ****ing archive of everything organized properly. It would take so ****ing long, but I guess I could just outline it and have other people PM me stuff to fill in Wiki-style with people like Magus giving explanations for **** like DI that is commonly explained improperly. I died a little inside reading that page's "How to DI" section... and can Samus actually cg anyone? >_>

Can't we edit this in the mean time? It's wiki...

Supposedly there has been talks of directly integrating smash wiki with SWF somehow. Even if we can't use smash wiki directly, integrating a wiki with the website and transferring information would basically do exactly this.

The issue is that smash wiki is lacking in a lot of ways, but that's primarily because so few people use it as a resource at the moment. For example, if I wanted to know the info for shino stall, no page exists. Well okay let me check sheik's page. Nope, nothing there about it. Oh but vanish is on that page, so maybe if I click that...? Nope. No actual useful information on that page, just trivia. No frame data, no hitboxes, nothing.

Yet if I was to dig the forums here I could probably find all the exact frame data for not only all of her moves, but for stalling as well. Yet it is a huge hassle. With a properly integrated wiki you would hopefully just click on Sheik's page and click a move and bam, learn everything you need to know instead of cluttered threads here.

All I can say is talk to AZ about it and stress how much you want it.

 

[oukd]

samus can CG pika and pichu

Explain please.

I second this motion

edit: dthrow?

 

[iRobinhoood]

I second this motion

edit: dthrow?

Will try this against CPUs today.