Pretty new to this

[Deleted member 189823]

Hey.

I am thinking of trying P:M out, competetively. I main Brawl as a game, and I want to give this one a try as well, seeing as it has quite the hype and fandom behind it. What are the things I should know, before starting? The really obvious ones are probably Wavedash & L-Cancelling.

Also, do you guys have a sort of tier list and/or MU Chart? That'd help a bit when picking a character I'd like to play.

 

[MattNF]

You should play whoever you think is fun, not who the tier list says is "good" or "bad".

 

[Deleted member 189823]

Well, I do main Bowser in Brawl (who's pretty bad). 8P That should say how much it matters, to me...although it would help a bit.
I feel interested in DK, Yoshi, Charizard, Ivysaur and DDD.

 

[Mithost]

Start playing as them. Project M is ridiculously balanced, so if you learn a character and can outsmart your opponent, you will most likely win.

 

[V-K]

Well, I do main Bowser in Brawl (who's pretty bad). 8P That should say how much it matters, to me...although it would help a bit.
I feel interested in DK, Yoshi, Charizard, Ivysaur and DDD.

No character is really horrible and if you like Bowser play him, he is pretty good in PM.

 

[Vashimus]

Bowser's at least bottom of high tier, and has won plenty of P:M tournaments, so you have nothing to worry about there.

Everyone's pretty much viable. There are some characters that are inherently better than the others, because the PMBR aren't magicians, but any character is capable of placing high or winning in tournaments. So play whoever you think is fun.

I think your first order of business is downloading the game and trying out every character in training mode, just to see what they have had changed from Brawl that you need to get used to. A lot of Brawl characters have been either slightly tweaked or changed quite a bit, so it's best to start with them.

 

[9bit]

]Hey.

I am thinking of trying P:M out, competetively. I main Brawl as a game, and I want to give this one a try as well, seeing as it has quite the hype and fandom behind it. What are the things I should know, before starting? The really obvious ones are probably Wavedash & L-Cancelling.

Also, do you guys have a sort of tier list and/or MU Chart? That'd help a bit when picking a character I'd like to play.

There aren't too many PM-specific guides out there for general stuff, but Melee vids will work just fine. Here are a couple that you should watch if you haven't seen them already:

• Advanced How to Play (Complete)
• Smash Tutorial #1: Spacing
• Smash Tutorial #2: Reading Comprehension

And like others have said, really don't worry about a tier list for picking a character. There just isn't a solid tier list for this game: the current patch (3.0) which introduced new characters and balanced the existing characters, it only just came out. And if over time any character is deemed too strong or too weak, chances are they'll get balanced appropriately. A big goal of this mod is character balance so you can pick a character you like to play as and do well.

 

[Brim]

Okay, three things you should learn/know:
1. Don't ever rely on a Tier list to determine who you want to play, like others have already told you, play who you want to play, not because you think they're the best choice. In a game like this tier lists usually don't matter as much, as long as you're willing to put in the effort to REALLY learn your character.
2. I cannot stress enough, how far good fundamentals can and do go in this game, especially when it's put to use with a character you. Never ever wait to learn the fundamentals from a game like Smash, especially wave dashing, or L-cancelling, but there's more to it than just those things. Don't hesitate to ask questions about how it all works, I'm really not an expert with Smash, but I believe I know the game itself (Project M, or Melee) well enough to know they are very complicated games. Trust me when I tell you fundamentals are one of the biggest things you want to have a firm grasp on in a game like this.
3. Forget everything from Brawl, but the characters and the sort of floatyness (I think they're kinda floaty in Brawl, not at all in Project M though). Project M is an entirely different beast compared to Brawl. Just think how happy you'll be to know that MetaKnight isn't the most OP character ever~!

 

[Phaiyte]

Wavedashing is not important. L Cancelling and spacing are far more beneficial. Wavedashing is seriously just the icing on the cake if you're not Fox or Falco.

 

[Burnsy]

Wavedashing is incredibly important for stringing together complex movement patterns. Even characters with short wavedashes must know how to use them for the other benefits they provide.

 

[Sai_]

Lucas can get some pretty nice combos with down-B + wavedashing. Wavedashing is a sort of defensive maneuver that can space you between your opponent very well dependent on your character's physics. Lucas', Mewtwo, Luigi, and Marth are examples of good wavedashers. Bowser's wavedash is pretty bad since he doesn't slide very well, but I haven't played much with him to know how to use wave dash with him.

A good example for wavedash for characters like Marth is to confuse your opponent: your opponent may come towards you to do an aerial attack (you should be SHFFLing as well) you can wavedash backwards and do a forward smash.

One thing to note about Bowser is that he gets super-armor and a lot of his attacks. You'll notice Bowser will turn a shade of red when his super-armor is activated when he does a move, so practice with until you know when and where to take advantage of Bowser's super armor.

Wavedashing can also be a safer substitution for dashing since you can quickly slide left or right if you feel like you're in danger.

 

[Roy of Pharae]

you use over you want. wave dashing is easy to do, but you don't have to use it.

 

[Burnsy]

but that's wrong. Bowsers wavedash is quite useful and if you want to play P:M at a high level you must master wavedashing and wavelanding no matter what character you use.

You can still pull of nice looking things without it but the fact remains that leaving it out of your kit leaves you at a inherent disadvantage and if you want to get better and beat all the best players you can't just skip the process of learning wavedashing.

 

[Phaiyte]

Wavedashing is incredibly important for stringing together complex movement patterns. Even characters with short wavedashes must know how to use them for the other benefits they provide.

You seriously have an easier time winning against most people by standing still and just countering your opponent. Moving all kinds'a fast is completely pointless if you still get hit all the time. Wavedashing is honestly not all it's cracked up to be. You can have someone that wavedashes all day but has no clue how to actually play the game and pit them vs a player that doesn't really have any techskill but demonstrates flawless basics and that basics guy will win every time. 90% of most character's mobility comes from dash dance animations. Fox and Falco only need them because they have to jump cancel out of shines. Seriously, even top players don't worry about all that flashy stuff to get the job done when they're in the mindset to just win. You'll see them dash dance and keep their spacing right before doing any type of wavedashing.

 

[sushifreAk]

You can just ignore all that tier nonsense when choosing a PM character. The gaps between characters are pretty darn small, and the game is more balanced than Nintendo could ever make it.

 

[Deleted member 189823]

So I've downloaded this hack, and it's looking pretty.
I'm not much of a Melee player myself (ever rarely play it), but I feel like I can get used to this fast. Checked out the basics video, and I think it's safe to be able to know how to Waveland, and the very fundamental L-Cancel.

In Brawl, I usually incorporate Dash-Dancing...but what is the purpose of it here, exactly?

 

[Brim]

So I've downloaded this hack, and it's looking pretty.
I'm not much of a Melee player myself (ever rarely play it), but I feel like I can get used to this fast. Checked out the basics video, and I think it's safe to be able to know how to Waveland, and the very fundamental L-Cancel.

In Brawl, I usually incorporate Dash-Dancing...but what is the purpose of it here, exactly?

Mostly for the sake of positioning, and it makes it that much harder for your opponent to guess what'll be your next move.

 

[DrinkingFood]

So I've downloaded this hack, and it's looking pretty.
I'm not much of a Melee player myself (ever rarely play it), but I feel like I can get used to this fast. Checked out the basics video, and I think it's safe to be able to know how to Waveland, and the very fundamental L-Cancel.

In Brawl, I usually incorporate Dash-Dancing...but what is the purpose of it here, exactly?

Dash dancing is much more flexible in PM/Melee. Check out the Smash Tutorial on Spacing that was posted earlier, they explain its purpose in a more intuitive way.
But if you want to know the limits of a character's dash dance in PM (which are more lenient than in brawl by far) just do this: Tap forward quickly on the control stick and release as quickly as possible so you do the shortest possible dash. Your character will start the initial dash animation, then begin a transition to the idle animation, then stand in the idle animation. During any part of that sequence, you can cancel into a backwards dash to repeat the process- it can be done as slowly or as quickly as you like, and different timings have different applications.
Don't know what to do to punish a whiffed attack by the opponent while you are DDing? these are reliable options:
Jump-canceled grab (JC grab): just press jump right before you press grab out of a run. this will cancel the jump start into a STANDING grab instead of a dash grab
Dash cancel into anything: should be called a run cancel but whatever. A run is just when you hold forward after the initial dash animation. Canceling the run into anything is done by crouching while running, which then allows you to do anything out of the crouch, like smash attack, tilt, jab, etc.
SHFFLing: videos should cover this, of course since you can jump out of a dash/run you can SHFFL out of them too, letting you put out a quick aerial after your DD.

 

[teluoborg]

The differences in dash dance between Brawl and PM :
-your initial dash is much longer in PM, allowing you to have more variations in how far you can dash before turning around
-you can cancel your initial dash with a lot more options. For example in Brawl you'd have to wait a long time before shielding out of a dash, which isn't the case in PM.
-jumping out of a dash carries your momentum a lot more in PM, that means that you can approach (or retreat) from the air way faster than in Brawl and that short hop aerials (or SHFFLs) have a bigger burst range.

And lmao at dash dancing in Brawl with Bowser, I'm really curious of what uses you found for it.

 

[Vashimus]

but that's wrong. Bowsers wavedash is quite useful and if you want to play P:M at a high level you must master wavedashing and wavelanding no matter what character you use.

You can still pull of nice looking things without it but the fact remains that leaving it out of your kit leaves you at a inherent disadvantage and if you want to get better and beat all the best players you can't just skip the process of learning wavedashing.

While wavedashing is a good thing to learn in your kit, if your character's wavedash isn't that useful, then you don't have to use it. While wavelanding useful no matter what character it is, wavedashing really isn't all as it's cracked up to be in the first place. And saying you'll won't beat top players without it is just nonsense. Reflex has shown us that much.

 

[Burnsy]

Wavelanding on a platform has use no matter who your character is. In most cases it is faster than simply jumping/double jumping and waiting to land. This is just one example of why everyone must learn to waveland. Another example is that even characters with a very low wavedash rating, like Lucario, are able to avoid certain spaced moves if they wavedash OoS at the proper range.

 

[Vashimus]

While wavedashing is a good thing to learn in your kit, if your character's wavedash isn't that useful, then you don't have to use it. While wavelanding useful no matter what character it is, wavedashing really isn't all as it's cracked up to be in the first place. And saying you'll won't beat top players without it is just nonsense. Reflex has shown us that much.

 

[Burnsy]

Sorry I missed that, but are you seriously going to argue to me that characters with low-mobility wavedashes wouldn't benefit from wavedash out of sheild, or to stop their skid animation?

 

[Vashimus]

If the character's as big as Bowser, I don't think they benefit enough from it. You bring up a good point with the skidding animation, I haven't given that any thought.

 

[Burnsy]

Another thing is dash>rar>wavedash back, which is a universal and quick way to grab the ledge for edgehogging/edgeguarding regardless of wavedash length. Much better than shorthopping and weaving backwards, plus many characters dont have access to a move that instantly snaps them to the ledge from an onstage position (falcon side-b/ Bowser up-b).