Some questions from a noob

[Schizophrenia]

Hello all,

I have been practicing fox now for about 3 weeks. I have learned how to wavedash, L cancel 90% of the aerials I do(drill kick too stronk) move with fox to a mediocre degree, waveshine 50%~ of the times I try, and shuffl into shine almost every time. But there are some things that seem basic to me that yet I can't seem to figure how to fix, and wanted to ask other players to help me with.


1st: I can't give exact buildup as to how this happens, but I get into instances where I want to grab, but every time I press z it just lightshields me. It will happen like 3 times in a row as I'm trying to fast grab follow-up to whatever I was doing, so that I actually have to stop inputting an action for 2-3s before it will let me grab. Does anyone have any insight on this?



2: I play on 20xx by myself mostly, and I have the desire to grind for hours, but I feel like I can play for At most an hour before I just don't feel like playing anymore, it is like boredom, but also like I feel like what I'm doing just doesn't matter, I know I'm not nearly where I want to be in skill, but I just can't find the motivation to play and practice. Anyoen have any tips as to keep myself interested?




3: I would like to help with (2) find a secondary character to play in order to change it up, I really like messing around with G&W but I don't know if he's a legitimate secondary character to put time into. I don't enjoy playing falco very much, I don't enjoy Falcon either, I was thinking peach/G&W/or even marth maybe. Would anyone be interested in "selling" a character to me that you really enjoy?




4: Lastly are there any routines that you do for practice that you would let me utilize? Any regiments that you find keeps you grinding but also keeps you on your toes so that you don't get bored?



I appreciate any/all responses that you are able to give me.

 

[Archelon]

Did you play Smash 4 before? Anyways, for the grab/ lightshield issue, you are pressing z too early, for instance while you are still in the lag from an aerial. In Smash 4 this makes you do a frame perfect buffered grab, and in Melee it makes you lightshield.

 

[pyroplushy]

Lightshielding happens when you hold Z when you can't grab because you're in a different animation (this is how you buffer light shield), so you need to slow it down just a little bit.

I ran into a similar problem with practice and I found that the best way for me to practice is to go into it trying to do one specific thing. For example recently I have been practicing invincible ledgedash and u throw combos. The way I do this is I spend some of my time just ledgedashing using 20XX's save states and either a standing CPU or just me (you can force load with one player by holding start, but you can't be on stock). When I feel pretty confident with that I open up training mode with a standing CPU and just JC grab and Uthrow into a combo as best I can. If I drop it I hit start to reset there percent. If I feel confident in that then I test it against 4.05 AI to see if they can get out. If I drop a lot of them then I keep practicing. If I don't drop many than I switch the character I'm playing against. I do this for hours while listening to music and I don't really get bored.

In terms of secondary It's difficult with fox because there are no matchups that he really loses. If I were you I would look at all the top 8 matchups and see if there are any you hate then find a character who has a good matchup vs. those characters. I will say that if you're just starting out and you go into tournament with a secondary and lose the first game in a set with fox and then switch off your not giving your fox a good enough chance, and it will slow down your improvement.

 

[{Lemons}]

Other people have already covered the lightshield problem so I'll just talk about the secondary choice. If you are just picking up a secondary so you can have a change of pace, then it doesn't matter whether or not the character is viable. If you are planning on having a secondary for tournament use then I would recommend picking a character that helps deal with matchups you are uncomfortable with. However if it is just to have a change of pace and have a bit of fun by all means pick up G&W. You might even learn some stuff about the game playing him.

 

[Oddyesy]

I think that if you're starting out then there's no need to pick up a secondary until you're at a decent level with one character, at least competitively speaking. Personally, I cycle between like 3 main characters since I just find them fun to play. I feel like this hinders the growth of my other characters, though.