Questions on how to approach

[The Jets]

When I play characters with good movement, like falcon fox marth sheik, I have a lot of trouble approaching. I know I have to use my DD to play sort of a bait and punish, but often I don't create an optimal situation for myself. This could be due to my not so strong DD.

I use nair to approach a lot, which works, but it gets very predictable and I am the one often getting baited or just going in at a poor time.

Here are some things I think I do wrong: It's possible I am relying on nair too much as an approach and don't always realize I have other things like D-tilt. My DD has a sort of predictable rhythm that doesn't vary too much as the game/set goes on. My platform movement isn't superb, I think I should be using platforms to bait but it's hard to punish from that position and I end up getting hit.

Are there any tips you guys can think of to help me approach faster characters? I know this is an abstract question and also has match up specific answers. What are your general thoughts on approaching and baiting in the neutral game?

 

[N64]

Will answer in greater detail later, but I think a decent place to start is to watch some of Pikachad's matches. It sounds to me like you're following a "DD a few times then shorthop nair in" plan, which is ok assuming you're using the DD to watch and wait for an opening, but can as you mentioned get predictable. Pikachad does a fair amount of mixing up his approaches, and he is generally more patient at approaching than Axe. Not to say this as a bad thing, it's a difference of style, but it's probably easier to identify different approach options by watching him. If you want help on getting more out of successful approaches, Axe is probably better to watch (but both are good).

Approaching depends as much on what you're doing as what your opponent is doing. Sometimes you have to guess, but if you rely a lot on 'throwing out a nair and seeing if it connects' regardless of what your opponent is doing, you'll get into bad situations. Watch them, look for the openings they create, and then test them to make openings yourself. Approaching also doesn't mean immediately hitting them. If you can get into their space, you've approached. Running up and shielding an attack and then punishing them oos works on some characters. Running into their area of control and then wding back and waiting for their response is a decent approach. Hell, just rolling towards them can sometimes put them in a really bad spot.

 

[The Jets]

Yeah those guys are great I've seen a bunch of their sets, a lot of them more than once. As I learn more, I go back and rewatch videos and get more out of them. I'll post some follow up thoughts if I come up with anything, thanks for your reply.

 

[uboa]

Canceling your dash into a downtilt is pretty good and works well as a mixup from short hop nairing in.

 

[PonderousSealion]

Even baiting your opponent with a fake approach often works. Pseudo-approaching ftw