Question about how to get better at the game

[DinosaurPwn]

I was wondering if when I play FG matches should I be analyzing every single move I am making as well as my opponents? I have found myself just mindlessly playing for a while, and I scold myself for not trying to activley learn as much as I can for every match I play. I do this on twitch streams too, I will start analyzing how good players play my mains and try to learn from it, but I keep loosing focus. I don't have anyone to play with so I am stuck doing FG 1v1 trying to get better, and also reading as much info from guides as well, but reading how to combo with lucina / marth is a lot more confusing that seeing it in action.

 

[Prawn]

According to quillion just roll and then luck will decide if you win or lose

 

[CURRY]

Yeah, it's nice if you look at the subforum for your specific character, and start with the basics of the character. The "bread-and-butter" moves are obviously the ones that you should constantly be using-- these moves are often listed.
Learn your kill moves, safe-on-block moves, etc. etc.

First of all though, you should get rid of bad habits, most players' habits being consistently rolling, throwing out laggy moves, and dashing when you don't need to.

Read this, it's a Brawl article, but Smash 4 is pretty similar to Brawl anyway, and since it's early in the metagame, this is pretty much the mentality of a lot of people right now.
http://smashboards.com/threads/understanding-your-options-an-article-on-playing-smart.206225/

 

[Deleted member 269706]

If you really wanna get better, you have to know your character. Everything about them, the knock-back for each move, the speed, the start-up and end lag, the potential dangers...I find it best to go into training mode and just mess around. Practice hitting characters off the ledge and battling off stage. Figure out some good combos at both low and high percentages. It takes time, but once you really figure it out, you'll see improvement. Only other piece of advice I can give is watch some high level play with your character, watch what those players seem to be doing, and try and emulate it in your own fashion. Good luck mate!

 

[Mega Rayquaza]

Save your replays (especially matches you lost). Analyze what you did wrong/right during your last matches. What could you have done better?
+learning your character's combos is one thing and applying them is another. If all else fails, just go into Training Mode and practice not killing the CPU but executing your combo(s) on them. Knowing your characters inside and out is key.

 

[DinosaurPwn]

If you really wanna get better, you have to know your character. Everything about them, the knock-back for each move, the speed, the start-up and end lag, the potential dangers...I find it best to go into training mode and just mess around. Practice hitting characters off the ledge and battling off stage. Figure out some good combos at both low and high percentages. It takes time, but once you really figure it out, you'll see improvement. Only other piece of advice I can give is watch some high level play with your character, watch what those players seem to be doing, and try and emulate it in your own fashion. Good luck mate!

That is a great idea to practice in training mode. I have always been practicing against CPUs to warm up before going online to play FG, but I was never able to accurately lock down any kind of combos. I will put hours into it, and see if I can't up my game with Lucina

Yeah, it's nice if you look at the subforum for your specific character, and start with the basics of the character. The "bread-and-butter" moves are obviously the ones that you should constantly be using-- these moves are often listed.
Learn your kill moves, safe-on-block moves, etc. etc.

First of all though, you should get rid of bad habits, most players' habits being consistently rolling, throwing out laggy moves, and dashing when you don't need to.

Read this, it's a Brawl article, but Smash 4 is pretty similar to Brawl anyway, and since it's early in the metagame, this is pretty much the mentality of a lot of people right now.

Wow, that was an amazing read! I am so glad you linked that for me. I have been focusing heavily on comboing and ATs and constantly get owned by people that read me, and just wait for me to attack them so that they can shield then grab me, or shield then punish me. That is the one thing that keeps getting me owned. I guess I should mix it up a bit and sometimes go for the attack and sometimes keep space and throw in some neutrals after they shield my non attack and go in for a hit (or even shield grab them after they go back in out of shield) I really appreciate the response!

Could you iterate more on dashing when you shouldn't?

 

[CURRY]

Wow, that was an amazing read! I am so glad you linked that for me. I have been focusing heavily on comboing and ATs and constantly get owned by people that read me, and just wait for me to attack them so that they can shield then grab me, or shield then punish me. That is the one thing that keeps getting me owned. I guess I should mix it up a bit and sometimes go for the attack and sometimes keep space and throw in some neutrals after they shield my non attack and go in for a hit (or even shield grab them after they go back in out of shield) I really appreciate the response!

Could you iterate more on dashing when you shouldn't?

The only options you have out of a dash are shield (Startup of dash does not allow this option though), jump, dash attack, usmash/jump cancelled usmash, and dash grab. There are weird things as well, like the pivot grab... and in this game, there's a pivot ftilt and fsmash. There's also foxtrotting, which allows you to act with an fsmash out of dash, but it's a lot less useful than it sounds-- you can't shield very well out of foxtrot, and the fsmash is limited to certain time increments. There's also the problem with having a slow fsmash, whether it be slow startup (useless foxtrotted fsmash), or slow cooldown (highly punishable). I don't think there are any spammable fsmashes in the game, so yeah, everyone has a slow fsmash of some sort.

Walking is a movement option in which you have all your tilts, smashes, and grounded specials instantly available. A lot of characters that are fine with dashing almost all the time though because of how they're played, so ehh. See what works for you, but just try walking around for a while.

>I have been focusing heavily on comboing
That's fine. Knowing how to follow up when you land certain moves is always nice.

 

[RESET Vao]

Time will make any player better, as cliché as it sounds. You have to grind things out and not expect instant results. Care more about "doing well" than winning and you'll find yourself improving. If you're only really playing to win with no other real motive, you're probably already good at Smash and called M2K.

 

[DinosaurPwn]

Time will make any player better, as cliché as it sounds. You have to grind things out and not expect instant results. Care more about "doing well" than winning and you'll find yourself improving. If you're only really playing to win with no other real motive, you're probably already good at Smash and called M2K.

I will try out that mentality. Maybe I need to spend hours in training mode and learn my character more.

 

[RESET Vao]

Training mode helps in traditional fighting games. I'd refer to myself as a "Lab rat" in Street Fighter.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NuDXmQ1o_y0 is a good example. I found out an unblockable setup for C.Viper vs Rolento.

As for Smash? I've spent next to no time in training mode in Brawl, nor Smash 4. The games rely heavily on what your opponent is doing, reading and adapting. Training mode doesn't help here much. I did spent a little getting "The Saviour Combo" down, if anyone remembers it. Edit: Oh and the Peach vs Fox 0 death, that **** was cash.

Melee's training mode is legit useful, but again the actions of an opponent are equally as important as your own.

Just play a lot of people, try to think "What is he doing? What should I be doing to stop that?"

 

[Azazel]

how to get better:

1. Fundamentals; Spacing, punishing, Bn'B combos, recovering, safe vs risky etc.
2. Prediction; reads, mix ups: Reads for kills/damage/combo resets. Mind games to avoid being read, or conditioning your opponent for easier reads.
   
3. Knowledge; match ups, player habits, etc. knowing what can be punished and what's risky. Recovering. pro strats
4. Tech skill

 

[Duet]

It sounds like you are pretty much in the same boat as me. I can go maybe 30 minutes of analyzing moves when I am playing in FG an then I end up zoning out for hours before I realize I haven't really learned anything. Another big problem with FG is the skill level of the players that you face. At first I was struggling pretty bad trying to settle on a main and learn the character I wanted to play, since I kind of jumped right into online mode and all the people who had been playing the 3ds had a huge jumpstart on me, but now its to the point where I am winning around 80% of my matches and the competition is mediocre at best in comparison most of the time.

If you want to really learn a lot the best thing to do is probably find like minded players that you can play with on a regular basis who are around the same skill level as you, or a bit better. Other than that, just keep on practicing and watching people who are much better than you and try to learn what they do and get in the same mindset as them.

If you play on Wii U, then you can add me and I will play some matches whenever, I main Lucina too, and finding decent Marth or Lucina players to learn from has been a bit of a challenge.

 

[Azazel]

I feel getting powerful reads is what really makes a good player then knowledge then tech skill. If you want practice with that try mii brawler. He relies on reading airdodges to completelyt annihilate characters. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6UmzRqvvcA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_NpL2uCdJE