SuSa
Banned via Administration
I will be fixing this for what I feel are errors (I will not be removing those pieces! Simply moving them).Guide to Projectile metagame
Important notes
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The ultimate goal of any spam game is to "not get hit." While this is nearly impossible and impracticable as Links spam game can break down due to his slow speed. Links projectiles are flexible but they are not fast enough to keep all opponents at bay., you can learn a few tips from this guide to limit the amount of times you are hit.
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Everyone spams differently. Optimal spamming will also be different for each character and each stage. Instead of focusing on such detail, I will try to focus on building a good core. Each projectile has weaknesses and to make you spam game better, I try to find and highlight the best options for working around those weakness so that your spam game is better faster and stronger. Instead of criticizing the style of spam, please try to take away the concepts.
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The way I play online is way different than offline. I may do many things with arrow cancels online but that is not the best way to spam in real life. I do that kind of stuff online to take advantage of lag :D
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This guide assumes you know Links AT’s prior to reading the guide. Any discussion regarding spam game can be taken here. Questions about it as well as questions regarding the AT’s I mentioned should be asked in the Stickied Link Question and Answer Thread
Intro:
Time to give away some secrets. Many Links have no idea how to properly spam. Constantly they find that there spam game is fail and must go into close combat. This most likely happens for 3 reasons, the first is that they do not understand how properly transition into and out of a spam game. The second is that they do not know how to properly spam. The third is that they do not know how to properly speed up there spam. This guide will address all three reasons. Lets get to it. First, I'll brefly outline what each projectile is most useful for and then we will go in depth.
Jab: Transition initiation.
Zair: Transition and spacing
Bomb: The core of your spam game
Boomerang: not the core but a good asset to your spam game due to flexibility
Arrows: Best used as an edge guard tool and for interrupting with arrow canceling. Charging them are for long distance (across FD)
Jab:
In no way shape or form is this a projectile but it needs to be mentioned. I assume that the reader knows what jab canceling is. Most readers and Link players like to jab cancel into things such as grabs to refresh moves or quick moves like d-smash and u-tilt. Some people even finish jabs.
When it comes to spamming the best way to do this is to jab cancel into a retreat. Try jab canceling into a retreating zair or a retreating short hop bomb draw. Most opponents will continue to shield or spot dodge anticipating a grab which can give you space to begin you spam.
To ensure your opponent does not follow, you may want to use one of the options outlined in the first paragraph of this session. Those quick moves and grabs and even finishing the jab. These options keep your opponent on their toes So you can safely do a jab cancel into a retreat sequence.
Not enough Link players do this. Not only does it give you the option and opportunity to go into a spacing and spam game, but it extremely hard to punish when compared to the other jab cancel options. Keep it in the back of your mind and use it. You won't regret it.
Zair:
I won't go into much depth here as its a spacing tool, not a projectile. I do want to say though that this tool is great for moving into projectile spamming and closing projectile spamming back into your close combat game. Because of this potential, it also is a great mind game as you can do either. For example, you could spam and then zair, they think you'll go into close combat mode with something like a dash attack to follow up as a combo but you can just reset the spacing and go back to spam.
If you transition from zair you can cleanly combo out of a spam game. Common transition include zair to dash attack, zair a smash depending on the spacing, zair to grab and zair to jab
Bombs:
It is the easiest to start off with as it should be the core of your spam game. You may use other projectiles as part of your spacing game and spacing is good but if you are truly spamming a projectile game, bombs are your core.
Some of you may have noticed that bombs are AMAZING. You can throw them in two different trajectories. If you learn both these trajectories, you can become a good predictor once you understand the meta game and create a crazy good spam wall. The trick to bombs is that you must remain mobile. If you are not moving around you will be easier to hit. Bombs are great but they are slower that other things like pits arrows and falco's lasers. That's because you have to both throw them and pull them out. Therefore, to be successful, stay mobile when using bombs.
Fortunately, There are a lot of Bomb AT's to assist you with this. Bomb sliding is a great way to restore spacing and adding it to your spam game can only help. F-smash is a great spacing tool and therefore bomb smashing can find its uses. Then there is always ZAC. ZAC is so for catching people off guard and restoring spacing. You can even Jump Cancel Toss (JTC) bomb.
The reason why bombs should be the core of your spam is because opponents often make strange movements and avoid hitting bombs. Bombs bounce off shields which puts opponents in a situation not ideal to them. Often times, they spend thier time running around and taking indirect and slightly less effective approaches than they normally would. This is especially true if you mobilize your bomb techniques and mobility. You can play a "not get hit" game and make it really hard for the opponent to get a good clean combo off on you.
Unfortunately, bombs have one more weakness and its big. Your opponents can catch bombs. Unfortunately there is no way to stop this. There are ways however to make it harder. You could arrow cancel after short hop throwing a bomb or something but that is not optimal as arrow cancel has ending lag and you could have done something better. Allow me to introduce to you the boomerang which if used right can limit the exploitation this weakness.
Boomerang:
The boomerang is a great projectile. It is almost as good as your bomb. It's very flexible. It can be thrown in 3 different directions with 2 different strengths for a total of 6 different types of boomerang throws. It comes out of your hand fast too. Commonly, the boomerang is use to set up things like jab locks and act as a repellent to approaches. This is much in part due to the nature the boomerang. At ranged distances, gale can play with spacing. At short distances the boomerang can knock somebody down (if they don't tech) under certain conditions. The chance of knocking them down is 100% if the conditions (you can control spacing but not always the side they are hit on) are perfect. For strong throws the best spacing is about Bowser length away. For weak throws its Mario length. These are all very good strengths and great uses of the boomerang.
In the spam game, the boomerang fulfills a few rolls. It does fill the roll of a repellent. In its nature, the gale boomerang has a wind effect that can mess up spacing. Also when it hits, it stops the opponents approach as they must reset. I mentioned before that the weakness of bombs is that your opponents can catch them. The boomerang has the potential to stop this if used in proper conjunction with bombs. Even if they do successfully catch the bomb, they still may get a boomerang to the face. Then they must reset and then the bomb is ready to go off in their hand. Often times though, the gale effect of the boomerang will hit the opponent on the way back. This often messes up their timing for catching bombs and makes it much harder. If they do try to go for the catch, they will probably eat a bomb in the face.
Since you should already be mobile with your bombs, you should probably stay mobile with your boomerang. You can use the boomerangs flexibility to compensate and with careful aim and practice, you should always be able to throw the boomerang on the appropriate angle sending it blitzing towards the opponent. One thing to be weary of though. The boomerang may have blitzing speed while out but to actually throw it is another thing. The boomerang is slow to come out so don't over use it. Use it's flexibility to complement the core of your spam. Using it in any other way will result in a complete failure and your opponent will eat you.
Unfortunately, the boomerang has a weakness of its own. Catching the boomerang can be devastating and it can stagnate your projectile game. In the time you caught the boomerang, you could have drawn another bomb. Catching your boomerang also hurts your mobility. If you catch the boomerang in the air, not only do you have to deal with that lag animation, but the extra landing lag can prove to be a real pain. There are only two ways to get around this. The first is to not catch the boomerang. Use your mobility so that the boomerang goes past you so you do not catch it. You do not have to deal with the catching animation and you are free to do whatever you please. Its only weakness is that you do not get the boomerang back for some time and have to wait to throw it again. If you throw it too soon, you get nothing. This option is almost always available and should almost always be used when you are spamming unless you can pull off the more optimal second option. The second option is to out prioritize the catching animation with another move. If you are in the process of another move you do not have to deal with the catching animation. You do not have to deal with getting the boomerang back immediately. To top it off, you are using a move that can harm an opponent. You want to use a move that cannot be punished easily which means that it probably should have good range and cancel/autocancel quickly. Since you are probably mobile it will probably be an air move. Zair fits all of those requirements and is probably the best option. Use this move to cancel out the boomerang catching animation then let it auto cancel. The beauty is that the gale effect can draw people into your Zair so you can continue to combo or go back to spam. If you are really far away, another great option is to pull out a bomb to continue to spam. This also cancels out the boomerang catch animation.
Practice to utilize the second way of canceling your boomerang animation. Zair is a great boon to your projectile game play and even if it doesn’t hit, they probably won’t be that close so you can go back into spam. This little tip is perhaps the most important part of speeding up your projectile spam game.
Lastly, It takes longer to pull out a bomb and throw it. If your mobility is limited and you fear punishment a quick boomerang throw may or may not help. Often People follow this up with a semi-charged or uncharged arrow. Then they avoid the catching animation via zair or Short hop bomb pull. This is a good spam strategy but it limits your mobility and ability "Not to get hit" much more than a bomb spam. Use it when your going to be limited anyway.
Arrows:
Arrows have 5 uses. They are 1. Edge guarding. 2 spacing 3. Interruption. 4. Locking 5. mindgames. It is okay to charge an arrow for a long range shot once in a while but doing it anything more than on a rare occasion will get you in trouble.
Let’s talk edge guarding first. Arrows are a great tool for edge guarding. Especially if you have a terrible offstage and edge guarding game. I mean Link has a bad offstage game as it is but some people like me fail hard at offstage and make it look so much worse than it is. Bombs hit your opponents up so don’t use them unless you’re counting on a stage spike. The boomerang can actually help the opponent because of the gale unless you are gale guarding which is very hard to do and not optimal as Link has better edge guarding tools in almost every situation. That leaves arrows. Take careful aim. Your goal is to hit them before they use their up special (most characters) so that they loose recovery distance.
Let’s talk spacing next. Zair is usually more optimal but lets pretend your facing the wrong direction for a Zair and your opponent is running in on you. Jump away from your opponent and do a bair. This will give you some initial space. Next, reverse arrow cancel him Reverse Arrow Cancel or RAC as I call it is a technique that combines Links arrow cancel technique with the general AT special reversals or b reversals. Yes, Zair is more optimal but this technique shouldn’t be overlooked as it has its uses.
Interruption time. Your spam game should be mobile as I have stated before. This is one of the main reasons why. If you are mobile in the air you can fast fall and stuff as well as arrow cancel of even fast fall into an arrow cancel. I should mention that arrow canceling is not a good way to spam. Arrow canceling has bad end lag and it stops your mobility. Therefore this technique is only good fore interruption. If your opponent becomes predictable and you know what he is going to do, fast fall into an arrow cancel. You’ll have to reset yourself but so will he and you did get some damage in so you did gain something. Plus, you probably stopped his attack and saved yourself some damage. Arrow canceling can also block a few other projectiles that might cause a nuisance.
I'll briefly discuss Arrow Locking here. There are times where you can land a move and your opponent fails to tech. Such an example would be BACL (Boomerang Arrow Cancel Lock) This is when you throw a boomerang and it hits and go into an arrow cancel to lock them. Arrows can Lock so use and arrow canceling is the best way to do it because it eliminates beginning animation. After the lock. Run up for a spin attack. Don't go for BACL consistently because it may backfire once they get use to it. To do it, you need the boomerang but don't forget that bombs are your main spam tool, not the boomerang. You also need to either full hop the boomerang or use your double jump to properly get in the AC and this can take away from movement. This is something you may want to try on a rare occasion to catch your opponent off guard. Stick to your normal spam game and only go for it if you see a good opportunity. If you succeed your in for a treat. If you mess it up, you may have restricted your movement for an extended period of time and your opponent might be able to find an opening to approach. Just don't forget that if the opportunity presents itself, even if its not BACL, arrows can lock like a jab lock and force a slow get up. Don't rely on BACL for this, Look for other safer setups as well. Even if they are more rare. This can lead to many things that can help you.
Finally, let’s talk mind games. It is okay to charge an arrow for a long range shot once in a while but doing it anything more than on a rare occasion will get you in trouble. One of the greatest mind games of all is the RAR bair approach. This approach gives you two great mind game options. The first is to Reverse Arrow Cancel out of it. It isn’t as good as an approach as Zair. But, you still want to do this every once in a while so when you do the other option, your opponent won’t expect it. The other option is out of bair is to craq walk out of it and make your opponent eat an F-tilt. F-tilt can kill at higher percents and this is a great way to make use of one of Links harder to use moves.
Conclusion:
Here is what you should have gotten out of this guide.
1. Stay mobile. If you stay mobile, you will not only be harder to hit but have more options such as arrow canceling for interruption. Link has a lot of flexibility in his projectiles so they are not hindered when you go mobile as you can still control them to a great extent and hit your target. Bomb sliding and Jump cancel throw bombs are a great way to stay mobil and "not get hit"
2. Zair is a great transition weapon, not just a spacing tool. It helps you transition in and out of spam games. However, do not overlook other ways to transition. Pivot Boosting, Craq Walk and other techniques can help you create good spacing and are thus great ways to transition in and out of spam games.
3. Ways to speed up your projectile game. I mentioned canceling your gale catching animation with zair. It is a great way to speed up your game and provide an easy flow of your projectile game. If you use properly utilize Links flexible projectiles learn the trajectories your spam game will seem really fast because your not giving your opponent much breathing room. If you find that your opponent is catching on and slowing down your spam game transition into a spacing and close combat game. But whatever you do, do not approach. Make the transition when he approaches you.
4. Because Links spam is mobile, platforms provide great mind games to Links spam. Many people think differently but platforms are actually a boon to Links spam game. Why else would people consider Rainbow Cruise and Norfair to be Links best stages? Mobilize platforms to your advantage. Use mind games to avoid opponents and projectiles to keep them away. If you do this, you can effectively play a "not get hit" game
Credit:
Thanks to Aurashade for being a constant inspiration by being Aurashade
Thanks to Havokk for examining the conditions of the gale boomerang Knockdown
I will be organizing this in a slightly different matter. (Having a section on physics, AT's for each part, etc.)
I will be willing to add to his so long as its new and efficient. Don't give me extremely situational things like "lol push someone with your boomerang at perfect distance while they are charging their up-B or something". It has to be more widespread usage then that.
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