Squall's Youtube Channel: fun little TAS

[Sangoku]

Here is the beginner's application guide to DI I said I was doing. Initially I thought about doing it for battlecow (since he asked for it), but it took me so much time (didn't think it would)...

Anyway, if you have comments or questions, don't hesitate. I know it's not ultra precise (I did that on purpose), but I hope it's kinda exhaustive (I know I missed Link's usmash =/). Again, the goal was to give a concrete guide and not provide frame data and stuff.

Here's the link:

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


Oh and one more thing:

Yeah, but use your RIGHT hand to move the joystick, since you have much more control and speed with your right hand than your left thumb. So, in that example, you would keep the joystick pressed to the left with your left thumb, then, with your right hand, shake the controller up and down (like as if you were jacking off) to get that sliding motion. You should get really good DI this way.

I'll make the video sometime soon! I promise!

Somebody kick my *** if I don't.

Oh wow, that's almost exactly it for the side DI. You don't actually have to move your left hand off of the controller like that, just hold the joystick in position.

I'll make a video anyway.

Still waiting for the video .


Hope this video will help some beginners (would be annoying to think I did all that for nothing lol).

 

[SSBPete]

fox:

first thing i noticed was the single laser. single lasers are good but not all the time. try to use more sh double lasers and when using the single lasers, try to get them a bit lower. improving the ability to use laser will massively increase your skill with fox.
when you have an oppertunity to punish, take it. i noticed maddy missed a falcon kick and you had a good few seconds to start a combo or grab, but you wasted it by walking instead of dashing towards him.
more shield pressure, lots of people say 2 dtilts in a row works, but i dont think its that good. just grab him and get him off the stage for an easy gimp.
sometimes you stop moving, like after a grab or a missed attack, which probably means youre thinking about what to do (if youre anything like i was) but what you should be doing is a sh arial or a dsmash after a missed grab. just continue moving, it makes a huge difference. you will notice that the speed you play at will increase too.
try not to approach with uair, i saw you get punished for it once or twice.
combos are ok but you need to use a finishing attack. i saw you use fair-fair for the last 2 hits of a combo and falcon made an easy recovery. remember that the same attack used twice in a row makes it weaker. its good for sometimes continuing combos, but for finishing combos you should try fair-nair.
your fox is good, but definately has room to improve. getting to the next level is tough but if you keep practicing you should get there in no time

if this was helpful i can analyse the other characters too

 

[asianaussie]

re: ness

it's very stock standard
i get that these are friendlies, so ignore me if this isn't relevant, but sometimes you get lazy (down-b at low damage? space wars with f-air?) and your reactions are a tad slow, or your'e a bit imprecise (like with ness pk thunder edgeguards > edgehog), but these can all be forgiven since i do the same thing lol
you don't use u-tilt very much, hey? it's a good get-out-of-jail free card since it has a stupid long hitbox - lots of times you could've gotten a free u-tilt > damage while you were trying for a grab
otherwise pretty decent, i saw good use of djc u-air and empty short hops

 

[ballin4life]

Fox vs falcon match:

don't utilt on shield. especially against falcon where you'll get usmashed.

laser them a bit before approaching. fair/bair won't have any hitstun at 0%

other general thing is just weak punishment for mistakes. obviously there was that falcon kick but also some times where he rolled and other stuff where you had a guaranteed grab/combo opportunity and didn't take advantage

also don't make your youtube links be to a playlist lol

 

[TANK64]

@Pete. Dtilt x2 on shield is less useful if they angle their shield (I don't remember maddy angling), and it gets you away from a grab or a falcon upsmash (unless you just mean you don't like comboing from dtilt and rather do something else).

Also what Ballin' said about punishing more. Work on your reactions. I feel like lots of situations you gave up a free shine, upsmash, or even rising bair punish oos.

Edit: and yea, Pro Tip: Video Manager> Click and copy urls from there. <3

Edit: Yoshi: Try getting your initial fair lower and more in front of them rather than on the top of their heads. It helps give you more time while they're in shield stun and helps position you for nairs if it lands. Other than that, I would say work on edgeguarding not only with downB but bair, and dtilt. Also upB edgehog if you have time, and just regular edgehog works wonders (especially on Mario). Also, if he's already in the air try to bair (reverse or not) him not uair him. It gives you more follow ups (ftilt>fair on plats or just fair) especially since you can cancel your jump on accident when Uairing. I Like your use of parries =D ; practice makes perfect, and of course watch out for multi-hits (I'm assuming you were practicing so you were trying to parry more and caught some drills).

Sorry if I suck at this critique thing :/ .

 

[Sangoku]

Didn't know about that playlist thing (didn't know it made a difference either), I changed it.

Pete: I took note of what you said, I'll try to apply it in the future. However, concerning the shield pressure, I used to jab dtilt a lot on shields and most of the time, the opponent would just roll away. I know about the Falcon kick miss, I thought I had time to slowly punish which was dumb lol. Especially because I tend to **** up more when rushing. And yes, your analysis was helpful so if you don't mind doing one for the other chars too .

aa: Down b at low damage was like "You want to keep throwing fireballs instead of approaching?". So it was more to force him to approach. I didn't get that fair thing though, could you elaborate please? I use fair too much? Also in what instance are my reactions slow? (I know they are btw, but that's common with any char). I try not to use utilt against floaties, because I can't follow up with anything. But if you say otherwise, I might reconsider this. And of course these were friendlies, otherwise I wouldn't have tried this last attack.

Ballin: hmm got it I guess. How can I approach by the way? I always laser then aerial (when I'm not going for the laser grab game), but if I only use fair, it gets too much predictable and uair is bad.

Tank: Falcon's grab and upsmash is what keeps me away from wanting to pressure shield lol. Concerning Yoshi, I know I still can't use fair correctly, I'll try to change that. Took note of everything else.

Thanks everyone for answering, I'll try to apply it all. Keep in mind that I've only been playing a little during the weekends for the past year and a half (except from summer holidays) so I probably won't correct all my mistakes anytime soon.

 

[ballin4life]

Didn't know about that playlist thing (didn't know it made a difference either), I changed it.

not a big deal or anything just slightly annoying

Ballin: hmm got it I guess. How can I approach by the way? I always laser then aerial (when I'm not going for the laser grab game), but if I only use fair, it gets too much predictable and uair is bad.

how does fair get predictable? i mean you could use bair or even dair (proly not so much against Falcon's usmash though), but it's not varying the attack that makes you unpredictable, it's varying the movement before the attack and the timing of the actual approach.

anyway i do laser aerial all the time for approach because it ****ing rocks (don't do it when they are close to you though obviously - don't want to get hit before you can get your aerial out). i do laser dtilt sometimes. and you could just laser then laser some more

anyway shield pressure is for noobs just grab and gimp on DL

 

[Olikus]

if you want squall we can have a serious friendly set next weekend. Might be better for feedback since we both kind of goofed around allot in the matches. Even though my pika downtilt shieldpressure actually worked lol.

 

[Sangoku]

Ballin: oh this is new to me. I mean I had never think of predictability that way. I'll try to think about it next time I play.

Olikus: this is precisely what I don't want. I don't want tourny-like games or too serious games of any sort that will only end up as boring and gay gameplay by both. This is one of the reason why I don't say when I'm recording. As I said in the past, everyone tries to play to win absolutely when I record, as if they were afraid of the judgement they might get from those videos.

 

[Battlecow]

Hard to improve by fooling around...

 

[Sangoku]

Where did you read "fooling around"? I'm just saying that I prefer uploading matches where both try to do some pretty stuff rather than play-to-win games. I guess you can't understand that lol. Also I never said those vids were only for improving purposes, try to be more NixxxoNian sometimes.

 

[Battlecow]

Cool it, action

You were just like

Hey critique these videos so I can play better

but that works better if we know what you can do and what's you jerking around

so

Casual play if you want fun to watch fun to play matches

srs play if you want critiques

would be my advice

Take it or leave it.

 

[Sangoku]

Cool it

I'm cool, stop assuming otherwise.

You were just like

Hey critique these videos so I can play better

I just said "tips anyone?" Again, stop assuming things. The main purpose wasn't to have serious matches and ways to "play better" but rather to show some Europeans gameplay. And if I could get some tips at the same time it would have been perfect.

but that works better if we know what you can do and what's you jerking around

Jerking around (which I never even mention by the way, you again assumed it) doesn't mean someone plays dumb on purpose. For me it means trying either to get a combo longer (when you could have finished it) or training some skill specifically (shines, parries, etc). If you had seen I could have finished a combo but I didn't, then you couldn't know if I'm "jerking around" or not. You would therefore tell me "at that point you could have finished your combo". Since nobody said that, it's reasonable to think I wasn't "jerking around" that way. Now if I'm parrying ten fireballs in a row there are two possiblities: either you see that I'm "jerking around" and don't say anything because it's so obvious. Or you don't see and you point it out here by saying I shouldn't do that. Again this wasn't the case. My point is that it's easy to see when I'm "jerking around" or not. If I use too much fair with Ness, that's because my Ness sucks, not because I'm doing it on purpose. Why would I otherwise? Will it get my combos longer? No. Is it a cool move to show off? No.

 

[asianaussie]

aa: Down b at low damage was like "You want to keep throwing fireballs instead of approaching?". So it was more to force him to approach. I didn't get that fair thing though, could you elaborate please? I use fair too much? Also in what instance are my reactions slow? (I know they are btw, but that's common with any char). I try not to use utilt against floaties, because I can't follow up with anything. But if you say otherwise, I might reconsider this. And of course these were friendlies, otherwise I wouldn't have tried this last attack.

i saw a couple uses of f-air in spacing, and that's not very effective since turning around and using b-air is basically better in every way except for a surprise quick hit

i saw a couple times, once in edgeguarding, where you didn't turn around and grabbed at air, same in the tent (from memory, might be wrong)

you might be right about u-tilt, but i still stand by it as a great security blanket, since you can threaten with your ok u-air afterwards - you were right not to use it in the tent where there was the better option of grab > tent combo, though

 

[SSBPete]

@tank, i find very often good players jump oos after the first fox dtilt

 

[Sangoku]

AA: I see what you mean. However, I still want to emphasize that I used to do it much much more often. In this match I did only two series of spacing fairs . I'll try to reduce that even more though, thanks for pointing it out. The turnaround thing always happens to me, with any char. It's not that I can't turn around, it's more that I think I should dash grab.

 

[TANK64]

@tank, i find very often good players jump oos after the first fox dtilt

NO! Impossible! There are NO counters!

*runs*

 

[asianaussie]

double d-tilt on shield is amazing in lag

 

[The Star King]

I used to dtilt -> jab -> repeat when I was like B tier, but people usually act after the second or third hit on shield so nowadays I usually just go for the grab after the first hit on shield :S

People don't read shielding enough I think. Samus dair -> grab is super cool because a ton of people will stay in shield after the dair (admittedly I stole this from Boomfan)

 

[Sangoku]

Bump: DI guide in the OP. Updated it.

 

[TANK64]

Top notch vid.

Overdue to say the least.

This will be linked for years to come lol.

 

[SSBPete]

Excellent video. I thoroughly enjoyed it!! This would've helped me soo much when I was a noob. I especially liked the little joy stick and the comparisons. Well done man

One thing, you can DI samus' up b left or right just as easily.

 

[Sangoku]

Glad you guys liked it, thanks.

Samus's upb can indeed be DIed left or right, but since Samus can follow you left/right and not up/down, I recommended this "safer" option. Now I also know DIing left/right is often easier to do...

 

[Olikus]

Really good guide squall. We really lacked a DI guide. Only thing. someplaces the text vanish a little too quick. Its not a big problem since you can pause and rewind, but if its not to much pain to fix, you could let the text sequences hang alittle longer. Someplaces I dont even have time to finish reading before a new text/video comes up.

 

[The Star King]

Glad you guys liked it, thanks.

Samus's upb can indeed be DIed left or right, but since Samus can follow you left/right and not up/down, I recommended this "safer" option. Now I also know DIing left/right is often easier to do...

Not to mention that Samus's up-b "sucks you in" (the left side moves you right and the right side moves you left) so you have to fight against it (you also have to if you DI down since the attack moves you up, but this is compensated by the fact that Samus is moving up away from your DI)

 

[Sempiternity]

Damn, this is really slick.

One thing, though. The last DI clip where you got Falcon back onto the stage... is that the same way to input that wonky Dreamland DI that launches you at a ~45 degree angle back over the stage (at high percents) like the Falcon Punch on Fox clip?

I seem to recall Nintendude saying DI up and towards the stage when barely peeking above the stage itself to perform that DI recovery.

 

[SSBPete]

Theoretically it is safer going up/down but escaping sideways is so much easier.

DI Marios down b diagonally down and you take that weird diagonal trajectory.

 

[Sangoku]

Really good guide squall. We really lacked a DI guide. Only thing. someplaces the text vanish a little too quick. Its not a big problem since you can pause and rewind, but if its not to much pain to fix, you could let the text sequences hang alittle longer. Someplaces I dont even have time to finish reading before a new text/video comes up.

I added some text afterward, because I thought it was incomplete, that's why the times aren't always perfect. The software I used (openshot) doesn't allow me to shift several clips from several timelines, so it would be a pain in the *** to change everything. I don't think pausing is that much of a problem anyway.

Damn, this is really slick.

One thing, though. The last DI clip where you got Falcon back onto the stage... is that the same way to input that wonky Dreamland DI that launches you at a ~45 degree angle back over the stage (at high percents) like the Falcon Punch on Fox clip?

I seem to recall Nintendude saying DI up and towards the stage when barely peeking above the stage itself to perform that DI recovery.

It's probably the same in the game's physics, but method-wise, it's not. It's all a matter of placing yourself. In the FP clip, you just need to DI up and away (after rolling against a ledge) to hit the corner. In the reverse ledge DI one, you first need to DI in order to be in the correct position, then a simple DI toward the stage (ie right) allows for the reverse ledge DI. I think the different inputs are due to different initial position.

Theoretically it is safer going up/down but escaping sideways is so much easier.

DI Marios down b diagonally down and you take that weird diagonal trajectory.

Are you sure about this? I will check it myself. It doesn't seem probable though, since diagonal is basically down + side and since side virtually doesn't affect it, it's the same as down I guess. But in my video, the weird diagonal trajectory depends simply on which hit you escape from.

 

[Olikus]

I added some text afterward, because I thought it was incomplete, that's why the times aren't always perfect. The software I used (openshot) doesn't allow me to shift several clips from several timelines, so it would be a pain in the *** to change everything. I don't think pausing is that much of a problem anyway.

I see. yeah pausing isnt a problem. More of a tip for future vidoes if you werent aware of it. But you was aware, so its all good^^

 

[Sempiternity]

Sangoku, can you do reverse ledge DI by smashing in only one direction?

Or do you need two inputs as you said?

So is reverse ledge DI best (only?) done with slide DI because of more inputs in multiple directions?

 

[Sangoku]

I see. yeah pausing isnt a problem. More of a tip for future vidoes if you werent aware of it. But you was aware, so its all good^^

Sure, thanks =).

Sangoku, can you do reverse ledge DI by smashing in only one direction?

Or do you need two inputs as you said?

So is reverse ledge DI best (only?) done with slide DI because of more inputs in multiple directions?

Maybe I wasn't clear. You only need one direction. On one frame, you input "right", then you get the reverse ledge DI. Now the problem is, you need to be at the perfect place for this to happen and you have more chance of reaching this position by simply DIing several times (sliding up and into the stage for example, or simply into).

Also, what I believe is there are several positions from which only one DI input is needed to get the reverse ledge DI. For example if you roll by a ledge (like the Fox and Falcon Punch clip), you only need one diagonal up/into DI input to get the reverse ledge DI. This position cannot be reached while recovering (obviously), that's why when recovering you try to get into another position where DIing into the stage allows you to reverse ledge DI.

I'm not saying that's the truth though, but that's the way I felt it was.

 

[Sempiternity]

Oh okay, that clears things up a bit. So theoretically, you only need one DI input to get the desired result? Of course, that's highly circumstantial and you need to to be at a precise location for it to happen.

So you recommend slide DIing all the time? Sometimes it's more intuitive to smash DI, but it would definitely be easier to premeditate a DI recovery when off the ledge, so sliding should always be used when recovering. I've always smashed, but that's because I'm a n00b. I'll try sliding when recovering, but it'll probably mangle my controller even more horribly.

 

[Sangoku]

Yeah that's what I think, only one DI input.

Hmm I recommend slide since a lot of people find it easier to do (physically I mean) and it gives twice the number of inputs. On the other hand, if you find smashing easier, then maybe you should keep up with smashing.

 

[Sempiternity]

Smashing comes more natural; I just gotta work on the sliding muscle memory.

 

[Battlecow]

Excellent video, as I said on YT. Just what we needed. I bet a lot of new players will have a lot of questions answered by this vid.

A quick note: at high percentages/against characters who have trouble getting up fast and killing, the straight-up DI can be very useful indeed. I've been saved by it many a time.

 

[The Star King]

OK, I just watched it. It was REALLY well done. A ton of example clips used for people to see, and the editing was nice and clean. Downright professional. I am thoroughly impressed, and I applaud you.

Lol @ troll Dreamland wind in the Falcon ditto dtilt clip

I like to DI Falcon's Fair down if he is moving up slightly, like if Falcon fthrow full hop fairs you (hi Battlecow)

 

[Battlecow]

hehe

That did work on your samus a surprising percentage of the time

And I stopped doing it when you started DI'ing hard enough

peeps never expect it though. It's always good for at least one combo a set against the bros. mario, although kirbies tend to see it coming.

 

[RickySSB]

Nice Video, you should do a player's DI compilation.

 

[SSBPete]

Are you sure about this? I will check it myself. It doesn't seem probable though, since diagonal is basically down + side and since side virtually doesn't affect it, it's the same as down I guess. But in my video, the weird diagonal trajectory depends simply on which hit you escape from.

oh.. i'm definately wrong. dammit i've been wasting effort DIing marios down-b diagonally

 

[Sangoku]

Excellent video, as I said on YT. Just what we needed. I bet a lot of new players will have a lot of questions answered by this vid.

A quick note: at high percentages/against characters who have trouble getting up fast and killing, the straight-up DI can be very useful indeed. I've been saved by it many a time.

Thanks. And do you mean the Dreamland vertical ledge DI?

OK, I just watched it. It was REALLY well done. A ton of example clips used for people to see, and the editing was nice and clean. Downright professional. I am thoroughly impressed, and I applaud you.

Lol @ troll Dreamland wind in the Falcon ditto dtilt clip

I like to DI Falcon's Fair down if he is moving up slightly, like if Falcon fthrow full hop fairs you (hi Battlecow)

You're making me blush lol. Thanks. Yeah, there are some variations for more advanced players I guess, once you get basic DI down. I was thinking if making a video for that could be good or not... (For example by specifying stuff like jiggly's dair, where you choose whether you want to get grabbed or utilt depending on %, etc)

oh.. i'm definately wrong. dammit i've been wasting effort DIing marios down-b diagonally

For the record, the left DI I used to show you couldn't escape Mario's tornado was a perfect smash DI lol. So, I don't think any human can have a better DI than a frame perfect smash DI (even though slide DI is so much more powerful). Maybe I should also make a video about difference between sliding and smashing? That would be more a frame data stuff though. Not sure if useful or not.