Questions about Captain and Melee

[Poisson]

Hey guys,

I recently got into smash, maybe about two months or so, and I want to try to get into the competitive scene. At the moment I'm not even consistent at L-canceling.

The main question I had was if the fair, or knee, has to be frame perfect to SHFFL. Or is there a small leeway. I can't seem to be able to get the timing down, probably because my hands aren't fast enough to move the c-stick during the jump animation. I know that it's possible to SHFFL the knee, so if anybody has any recommendations on how I can improve my speed so I can get near-frame perfect aerials that would be great. Should I just keep practicing? Cause I fear I might build up muscle memory for incorrectly timed SHFFLs.

I've already seen the majority of new player videos and threads like the 20GX video, Captain Falcon trials, the tech skill trials, etc.

Should I focus on learning how to SHFFL first? Or should I learn Falcons movement? i.e. Dash dancing, analog jumping, wave dashing/landing

Thanks!

 

[Twinkles]

Welcome!

Knee does not have to be frame perfect in order to get the hitbox out. Getting it out fast enough to be useful is just practice, and unless you're holding your controller upside down, I don't think you'll develop any bad habits for muscle memory. Focus on just getting the knee out as fast as possible, and then you can start mixing up SHFFL timings. The way I would approach this is if you're just not fast enough atm to get the knee out, just try going from jump to c-stick as fast as possible until you can get it.

20GX videos are great, I guess a big issue with this slew of content is that new players are very confused about the order in which to learn things or how to focus their improvement.

IMO, the 4 techniques you should be focusing is SHFFLing, dash-dancing, JC-grabbing, and wavedashing in that approximate order. Get these down very comfortable before moving onto slightly more complicated stuff. After you learn this tech skill, you should also be trying to learn punish game aka how to combo and edgeguard the **** out of people.

Also, play a lot and have fun! You solidify the stuff you learn from playing other people.

If this sounds like a lot, it really is haha. It's mad fun though, so I hope you stick with it!

Edit: I can't count.

 

[Poisson]

Welcome!

Knee does not have to be frame perfect in order to get the hitbox out. Getting it out fast enough to be useful is just practice, and unless you're holding your controller upside down, I don't think you'll develop any bad habits for muscle memory. Focus on just getting the knee out as fast as possible, and then you can start mixing up SHFFL timings. The way I would approach this is if you're just not fast enough atm to get the knee out, just try going from jump to c-stick as fast as possible until you can get it.

20GX videos are great, I guess a big issue with this slew of content is that new players are very confused about the order in which to learn things or how to focus their improvement.

IMO, the 3 techniques you should be focusing is SHFFLing, dash-dancing, JC-grabbing, and wavedashing in that approximate order. Get these down very comfortable before moving onto slightly more complicated stuff. After you learn this tech skill, you should also be trying to learn punish game aka how to combo and edgeguard the **** out of people.

Also, play a lot and have fun! You solidify the stuff you learn from playing other people.

If this sounds like a lot, it really is haha. It's mad fun though, so I hope you stick with it.

Thanks for the reply! I'll definitely work on it. I hope I stick with it too! I got a couple of friends who are already in the community. And one that is trying to get into competitive smash as well!

 

[SwiftOfDaSouth]

don't make the mistake lots of new players make these days;

learn the game before you move on to the hard stuff. Learning a bunch of technical stuff is worse than useless if you can't dashdance or move well, least of all play all the characters first. If you've played the game casually for a while and just not competitively, you should be fine, but if you're just starting, moving at a competitive pace right off the bat is actually a HUGE liability down the road. Learn your fundamentals first, work on finger speed, and learn the game. It was a hard pill for me to swallow, but melee takes a LOT of time. Best of luck.

 

[タオー]

Movement is one of Falcon's most important traits, it's what makes being so fast useful. Learn how to access your dash dance at all lengths of your dash animation, as well as extend your dash dances with WD (Dash->WD). Furthermore, another useful movement option for when you enter Run (Run comes after Dash) is to crouch and immediate turn around (Run->Crouch->Dashback). It's a 1 frame link but it's worth the time.
Also, a side note for when you're practicing tech skill, work on entering the inputs as quickly as you can first, so you can develop the muscle memory. After grinding out the sequence, slow it down as necessary to meet the frame windows to transition from each state as quickly as possible. This is super important for optimizing your speed, and some more Advanced Tech requires frame perfect inputs. Don't be intimidated though; with hard work all these techniques are possible.

 

[Nishifue]

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