ROB Q&A!! Read this before asking questions...ALL OF IT!

[Sudai]

Learn to hover your aerials. Learn laser angels. Learn gyro tricksies(glide tossing, gyro on a platform to limit opponent movement, et cetera). Learn to use your Up-B in spurts to conserve gas and when to just throttle past an opponent with it. BAir/NAir stage spikes. FAir gimps, et cetera.

 

[toasty]

a post from the ROB video thread:

also...a friend of mine has a small vid of me on his wii (dunno when the hell I'll get that ) doing the wavebounce gyro cancel stuff but not the run-off-the-edge craziness...a much more practical use, although the MOST practical use is to not wavebounce at all but just jump forward and imagine doing like a reverse hadoken in midair [so down-b-quarter circle motion backward, or something like that, maybe even 8th circle backward] and then cancel...anyway, it's faster than doing RAR and you don't have to worry about pivoting or anything............................I don't know if this make sense so I'll summarize. you jump in the air forward, pull out the gyro facing backward, cancel it, and bair or do whatever. That's essentially what it looks like.

The fancy thing that happened in the vid? IIRC, I jumped backward away from the opponent, did the wavebounce which not only propelled me forward, but I was now turned around, and I canceled the gyro at the same time, and then did a bair. it's beyond surprising, so save this gem for when you can get a kill on those pesky DDDs or whoever tries to camp your aerial/attack lag.

You can also bait a premature Falco sideB by doing this since his SideB is faster than all of your aerials (meaning if he sees you jump, if you space far enough away, you can jump toward a recovering Falco, "gyrodash" [as JCaesar called haha...might need a new name] and bair....pretty **** in my head if you can do it =D

hope I can get that video soon, but no guarantee

 

[Sudai]

I think it could be useful, but way too much thought process involved there. lol.

 

[toasty]

haha yeah, but once you get down the gyro-cancel stuff and the wavebouncing/turn-around gyros separately, combining them becomes natural. a lot of stuff in Melee was mad complicated and required a lot of thought process when the applications hadn't been...well...applied yet. They just seemed like crazy ideas...

it's like "did you know you can l-cancel your aerials so there's no lag? did you know Fox can l-cancel-shine so that he won't get shieldgrabbed? did you know you can jump out of shine instantly? did you know you can jump-cancel grab?...........well...did you know that your opponent may learn to expect the l-cancel shine so they'll continue to shield, but you can jump-cancel-grab out of the shine?!"

Spoiler

haha, who wants to hear about broke-*** waveshining anyway?

I'm not arguing with you Sudai, O' Beholder of Delicious Tournaments, I'm merely illustrating this point further: at high level play, everything is useful. Any sort of edge. Complex button input or thought process or not, it has it's place, and this, I think, can be pretty ****.

Can you win without this? absolutely. Does Masashi need all those crazy Fox trixies to ****? Of course not.

=D

 

[Hey_Its_Nacker]

Hmm these past 2 pages seem to hold very useful info >.> i might need to practice this shizz today seeing how i dont own brawl at home lol

 

[Sudai]

Toasty, I was not denying its potential usefulness, I was denying my urge to learn it. XP

Yeah there was a complicated stuff in melee I learned (I mained Fox. Even before he was Cool. Why do I tend to pick Top Tier characters without knowing it? x.x) but none of it was really too complicated and it all had a lot of use. Wavedashing and l-canceling was ****ed near important for a lot of characters. Jump Canceling (or Dashattack canceling) grabs and upsmashes were important for alot of people too. There you have all the elements of the most complicated technique for Fox. Basically combined a lot of really easy things I already knew for something very useful and near critical to my character's game play.

Now I know the Gyrobouncedashturnaroundbairmofo...of doom... is definitely useful for mindgames and such, but I'm not very tempted to start trying to dedicatedly learn this. I'll probably be using it in less than a month's time regardless though. I can do the gyro-cancel and the turn-around gyro cancel. (El oh el for Auto-RARing into a turn-around gyrocancel into landing with no attacks and grabbing someone who's thinking "Oh! BAir! Wait! Gyro! Keep shielding! Oh no!! >< Grabbed x.x") I just can't wavebounce constantly nor did I feel the need to learn it since there was no way you could use it for that great of mindgames, just spacing, which most of my characters already had good spacing. So..guess I'll start practicing wavebouncing when my opponent is dead and respawning. My taunt is practicing **** in your face. : P

 

[Overswarm]

Wow, I leave for two weeks and every other ROB steps their game up? Also, where are these awesome ROB sprites coming from?!

Good posts by everyone ^_^

Someone post a vid of whatever toasty is talking about o_O

 

[JCaesar]

OS, read the last couple pages of the video thread, it gets explained pretty well. I would love to see a vid of this as much as you.

 

[Ch0zen0ne]

As i understand it, it basically allows ROB a SudoWaveDash [that can be used in the air =0]

 

[JCaesar]

And only in the air. It's like wavebouncing an up-B except you can attack right away, plus you don't get stuck in your up-B.

 

[toasty]

and you can laser [or airdodge if things didn't set up as planned]...I'll see what I can do about making a short clip >_> *looks at SuperDoodleMan...though for all we know, he could be making this ish right now ^_^*

lolll more **** Factor: you do a bunch of empty jumps back and forth near the edge while allowing someone to recover safely and then in one of those jumps (timing is key here, depends completely on when they get to the ledge) you jump away from the edge, WBGC* back toward the edge [but facing the stage] and do a fair or bair...by the time you're out there, they will have lost invulnerability frames and get stage spiked...too good.

gahhhh so many applications @_@

*Wavebounce Gyro Cancel.....gyrodashing...gyrobouncing, robot rock [haha, okay no, i just like Daft Punk] whatever you want to call it

 

[Overswarm]

wtf is a wavebounce

 

[ipitydatfu]

wtf is a wavebounce

lol agreed. and whats a gyrodash?

 

[Wolydarg]

Fairly certain wavebouncing is the effect of your character moving backwards after using a b special, especially noticeable with lucas and a b-sticking setup.

Set c-stick to special, run right with lucas, hit c-stick left, and voila, wavebounce.

Assuming what I wrote above is considered wavebouncing and I'm not using outdated vocabulary, is gyrobounce/dash/whatever just DI'ing backwards after canceling/using down B or is there something more to wavebouncing without b-sticking? (Sorry for being an ignorant noob >_>)

 

[JCaesar]

Wavebouncing is just using B moves and pressing the control stick immediately after to drastically change your momentum. Do they call it something else in the BRoom? Try it with ROB's laser, that's the only one I can wavebounce consistently.

Gyrodashing is just a wavebounced gyro, immediately cancelled by pressing shield (if you do it fast enough, the gyro will be cancelled but ROB won't airdodge; you can thank toasty for discovering that). SDM was using wavebounced up-Bs to do essentially the same thing, but the up-B has lag at the beginning where you can't do anything, whereas gyrodashing is lag free.

 

[Dubz]

The gyros the only thing I've really been able to bounce with lol. But this sounds really cool, if you have a charged up gyro and cancel it like this does it lose charge life if you tried to shoot it off but got hit before you were able to get it off?

 

[Sudai]

Can't cancel a charged Gyro, sadly.

So, I practiced wavebouncing between my opponent's stocks. I have issues doing it with the Gyro, but I have no issues doing it with the Nikita. Joystick motion is just too precises to do it consistently for me at the moment. Oh, and I refuse to B-Stick. : P

Fairly certain wavebouncing is the effect of your character moving backwards after using a b special, especially noticeable with lucas and a b-sticking setup.

Set c-stick to special, run right with lucas, hit c-stick left, and voila, wavebounce.

You have to jump before pressing left on the c-stick.

Assuming what I wrote above is considered wavebouncing and I'm not using outdated vocabulary, is gyrobounce/dash/whatever just DI'ing backwards after canceling/using down B or is there something more to wavebouncing without b-sticking? (Sorry for being an ignorant noob >_>)

Using B-Sticking, you you press diagonally down and back, but more down, you can wave bounce your down-b.

 

[Overswarm]

Wavebouncing? What a weird name.

Probably won't catch on >_>

I'll have to test this gyro canceling thing... you can only do it when you have your second jump though, right?

 

[noodles]

smashboards and its terminology @_@.

 

[Hey_Its_Nacker]

So..... how was Ireland xD

Good **** yesterday JC for getting 9th =D

 

[JCaesar]

f yeah! first top 10 at a major tourney. Say my name b1tches!

good **** Nacker for getting 3rd (it was 3rd right?).

 

[Hey_Its_Nacker]

-_- i ****ing wish then i wouldn't be broke atm i got 4th **** meta knights around the world

 

[Zastrozzi]

So, if I'm reading this right, this "gyrodashing" thing sounds more like a mid-air pivot (which is cool enough) then a dash. Where does the additional momentum come from?

Do you know if anyone else can do a gyrodash-style technique? I'd think that Donkey Kong's donkeypunch would be vaible for it.

 

[Fear The Force]

Hey OS; I noticed in your vids vs. Kira when you played Robot you used a lot of spacing from him to smash him when he tried to dash at you etc. In the event we have to play G&W and metaknight, what else should we do besides distance ourselves. I know the f-tilt helps a bundle but meta ***** Robot up close, and G&W screws Robot up if he's in the air (any suggs. will be appreciated).

 

[HugS]

are there any videos of any of this?

I saw vids of wavebouncing (****ty name) but not with ROB.

 

[Sudai]

I completely agree wavebouncing is a ****ty name.

Zastozzi: The added momentum comes from wavebouncing the gyro.

OS: "Wavebouncing" was found a few months ago and sadly, the name did catch on. I think the only other name that almost caught on was Special Momentum Reversal or something too long.

 

[toasty]

wavebouncing is definitely a terrible name...and leave it to noobs to think a) Lucas is so ****ing amazing because of it and b) that's the only way to play someone like Lucas [by changing your control config]....even if these people aren't noobs [some of them are great players] it's still not the thing to rely on.............whatever.

I'll have to test this gyro canceling thing... you can only do it when you have your second jump though, right?

you can do it any time you like as long as you're in the air and not doing your upB [and as long as you have the ability to charge a gyro]


This is an old video by someone who did a Wavebouncing [gahhhh] demonstration with all the characters using the B-stick [C-stick set to "special moves"]...whether you use Bstick or not, wavebouncing has the same effect...the button input is just a lot harder without the bstick.

Moving on: at 6:05 you will see ROB wavebounce his gyro charge.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG098jC4in0

now imagine bouncing back like that [and you could be facing whichever direction you choose after the bounce] and not having to worry about shooting the gyro or airdodging..you could just to an aerial or a laser or something!!! like you and an opponent jump at eachother [he's trying to counter your edgeguard] and he does an attack, but you wavebounced back out of their attack range, canceled the gyro, and then shot a phase3 laser for the KO or did a bair/nair or something!!! crazy!

Also the horizontal distance greater than it appears in the video due to a skewed aspect ratio in the video.


EDIT: just a reminder, this is what the basic cancel looks like.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yl6b79_1Th0

@2:14 I cancel it twice

 

[WarranThad]

I saw a few of your matches and noticed you were pretty agressive with rob. when i play him i find myself runnning away almost the entire match when I can outprojectile the other characters and it's pretty effective (and frustrating for the opponent). Do you find being agressive with ROB can be just as good or better or is it a patience thing or a not being a total jerk thing? Running away and launching discs and lasers all day is just so much fun for me and I find it opens up your opponent more as they become a lot more agressive and make mistakes.

 

[Overswarm]

I saw a few of your matches and noticed you were pretty agressive with rob. when i play him i find myself runnning away almost the entire match when I can outprojectile the other characters and it's pretty effective (and frustrating for the opponent). Do you find being agressive with ROB can be just as good or better or is it a patience thing or a not being a total jerk thing? Running away and launching discs and lasers all day is just so much fun for me and I find it opens up your opponent more as they become a lot more agressive and make mistakes.

I once played a man in Starcraft on a consistent basis. He played Terran, while I played Protoss.

He was much better than me and always played to his fullest. While these were friendly matches, there was probably never a rivalry between myself and another person that I took so seriously. I had to beat him. After over three months of playing, I took the first game from him.

After that, I won one out of three games for a week or so. I then deicated myself with renewed vigor, watching the replays to find exactly what I did right and what he did wrong. As he always played to his fullest and never goofed off, it was mostly what I did right that worked.

Within a month, I was beating him 100% of the time. I never, ever, under any circumstances, lost.

Like everything else, history repeated himself and there was a reversal of power. Soon HE was the one trying as hard as he could to win while I was the stagnant, yet victorious, player.

I picked up on this and started experimenting. I would use several "inferior" strategies and beat him effortlessly. I could play risky, play odd, play serious, whatever I wanted and find a way to win.

His fatal flaw was that he found what worked best, did it as well as he could, refined it beyond belief, and then had nowhere to go once he started losing.

It is the same in Smash. When I first started playing, I camped religiously with ROB. Many of my early matches are campy enough to remind people of Final Fantasy's old ATB system. It worked.

Unfortunately, there are ways around it. I learned this quickly. If you lose one game with a particular strategy, you can lose another. I found that camping was mostly so effective because of the inferior mindset most players had. I could stand back and laser and gyro all day and they could do nothing because of their impatience and anger at this unfamiliar territory.

So now I am often incredibly aggressive with ROB against inferior players as well as for the first few matches against other players. My goal is to get good at playing aggressively with ROB, as I know I can camp with ROB better than most, if not all. Then I have two styles of play I can switch between; I can adapt. My starcraft friend couldn't do that, and since I could, he never recovered. I experimented and refined all sorts of "inferior" strategies simply so I could use them to throw people off when they were unfamiliar with it.

So that's a long story as to my aggressiveness with ROB.

The best style of play is always going to be determined by your opponent, no matter what. It will rarely be aggressive or defensive 100% of the time. It is safe to say adapting to your opponent is better. While some people play their character one way... going through my videos you can very obviously see that I have more than one way to play. Hopefully, if I run into someone I don't think I can beat with ROB, I can simply pitch a tent and throw them for a loop.

I also often play super aggressive for my opponent's first stock, and then camp for their entire second stock.

 

[noodles]

true, imo you can only get better playing someone better than you.

 

[WarranThad]

what are good counterpick stages for ROB against some of the more popular characters? What are good counterpick stages against his bad matches?

what's a good alternate for ROB to deal with his bad matchups? I like DeDeDe, Peach and Donkey Kong very much, but i'm also partial to toon link.

If I post a vid, will you critique my ROB?

Thanks for the advice .

 

[Overswarm]

true, imo you can only get better playing someone better than you.

Moderately better.

When you are really bad, play people that are a billion times better than you for a few games just as an eye opener. Take in what you can.

Then you go and play people that are only slightly better than you. You cna ALMOST beat them most of the time when they try. Then as you beat them more and more consistently, move up in the world. If you play the same person, you'll rarely, if ever, surpass them to the point that you win 100% of the time when you couldn't have been very close to that before. If you play new people once you start winning 75% of the time or so, you'll come back to that same player in a month and beat him effortlessly. So always move on to stronger opponents when you can.

That's why tournaments are so important. You play people of all sorts of skill level until you are knocked out of the tournament. When you are knocked out, go around and play people that were knocked out around the same time. You'll improve drastically in that one day.

Playing those that are worse than you isn't bad for you though. It sounds like it is from the above statements, but it isn't. If it was, I wouldn't ever play friendlies!

When playing those worse than you, it gives you the ability to both refine and experiment. Sure, I beat some pretty good people with relative ease. But did I ever make a mistake? Did I try to do something but fail? When playing friendlies with someone much worse than you, you can "feel around" until you don't mess up anymore. I didn't learn to drillshine to upsmash with Fox in Melee by playing tournament matches. I played bad players that I could easily beat and just tried to drillshine to u-smash a lot until it was second nature, and then I brought it to the tournaments with me.

Experimentation is also good. Your ROB might be great with his fair and nair approach, but can you approach with bair? Can you WoP with bair? Can you punish a shielding opponent with dair, thus lowering their shield enough to where they can't shield your lasers? You can try these things against less competent opponents until you can make a decision about them, and then you can refine them as well.

You also can experiment with secondary characters. I play several characters on the side, and generally goof off with them in pool play if I can, but mostly they just come out during friendlies. In time, they will improve to a point of competition. My Ness is already doing as well, if not better, than my ROB in certain matchups. Maybe as time goes on I may pull out Ness for certain counterpicks? I would never have that ability if I didn't play worse players.

what are good counterpick stages for ROB against some of the more popular characters? What are good counterpick stages against his bad matches?

what's a good alternate for ROB to deal with his bad matchups? I like DeDeDe, Peach and Donkey Kong very much, but i'm also partial to toon link.

If I post a vid, will you critique my ROB?

Thanks for the advice .

These have all already been answered.

In short, Frigate, Skyworld, and Luigi's Mansion can all be good CPs for ROB.

ROB has a few bad matchups. Toon Link does well in them, as does Snake. DK isn't bad either.

I won't critique ROB's normally.

 

[WarranThad]

'kay thanks for the timely reply.

 

[Hey_Its_Nacker]

Forgot Rainbow cruise that stage is to good ... easy Fair kills , back throw kills and fthrow kills well anything can kill ! also you dont die when you try to recover unlike other characters

 

[noodles]

true,

i usually counter pick luigies mansion, and delfino, but lately ive been fine with hannenbow

 

[kenkowtow]

Is there a concrete time in which you decide that camping is definitely better than taking an offensive stance?

Is is limited by map, character, or whatever factor? Or is it really only your opponent's playstyle.

And on the assumption of playstyle: What are some movements (by your opponent) that tell you when you should go aggressive or defensive?

 

[Overswarm]

Hey OS; I noticed in your vids vs. Kira when you played Robot you used a lot of spacing from him to smash him when he tried to dash at you etc. In the event we have to play G&W and metaknight, what else should we do besides distance ourselves. I know the f-tilt helps a bundle but meta ***** Robot up close, and G&W screws Robot up if he's in the air (any suggs. will be appreciated).

Distance is your friend against them. It's all about getting momentum and keeping it from them. Just don't DI towards them, ever. MK doesn't **** ROB up close though. If he gets inside, just do a retreating fair.

Is there a concrete time in which you decide that camping is definitely better than taking an offensive stance?

When I'm at high % and a stock ahead. The risk/reward situation changes. At that point, any damage I receive is worthless to my opponent. Any damage he receives is great for me. I'm inevitably going to lose the stock; I'm at a high %. He's being pushed closer to losing a stock.

Running towards him to get off grab combos or fair combos or other high damage dealing strings might seem like a good idea... but it isn't. He WILL come to you. So, pelt him with lasers and gyros until he gets close. THEN go for the string if you can't get out. No reason to stick your neck out for something not guaranteed when you can always get at least 10% off of lasers and gyros.

Is is limited by map, character, or whatever factor? Or is it really only your opponent's playstyle.

When I want to win, I camp D3 to hell and back. I also camp out Snake a lot. Same with all the other slow characters.

I also camp frequently on stages like Luigi's Mansion, Frigate, and Jungle Japes.

On Japes, if I camp on the right side and he hits me, I can fly over, go to the water and come out the other side, or go to one of the two ledges on the side. Super easy and safe.

On Mansion, I can stay behind one of hte pillars on the bottom and spam laser. If I get hit off, I can shoot a gyro at the pillar and the gyro will bounce back and guard the ledge for me. I can also fly above the stage and land on the top to recharge my fuel and jumps.

On Frigate, I can jump on the side plats that stick out and spam laser/gyro. If the player comes to get me, I can grab and b-throw him easily. Sometimes I can grab and just hold him or d-throw and get a KO as the plat leaves the stage if I'm a stock ahead.


If my opponent is really aggressive, I always camp. It's too good to just grab a ledge and hit a person over and over when he gets close... losing to ledge camping is about as embarassing as it gets.

And on the assumption of playstyle: What are some movements (by your opponent) that tell you when you should go aggressive or defensive?

Look for an opponent's "wakeup" signs. When they are suddenly hit in the air, do they jump first, do an attack, air dodge, what? When they are on the ledge? When they get hit on the ground? When they trip?

Most noobs jump immediately after being hit, roll when they are on the ledge, getup attack on the ground, and roll backwards when they trip. Look for those and abuse them... those situations are habit formed 100% of the time. Even the best players simply have something they almost always do out of instinct. It isn't until after you start punishing them that they observe you first.

 

[jobcrackerbah]

Question about peach that was asked in hard character matchup thread. What's the best way to play a canceling peach when running an offense. I can beat my friend when I camp and just utilize robs range and projectiles, but I'd like to know an effective way to go offensively against a canceling peach because of the small amount of lag and difficulty in approaching peach in the air.

 

[toasty]

I had the same problem with Forte's Peach...**** was crazy her fair trades hits with like every move in the game ;____; so yes, I'd like to know toooo

 

[Ch0zen0ne]

Bair is slower, but has more priority/range than Peaches Fair.. also falling Uairs are quite good in this matchup.. Spaced Ftilts.. SH'd Fairs... spam weak lazer to cancel her float..