bubbaking
Smash Hero
Oh ok, that makes at least three of us who have noticed this.
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Alright, I guess WDw should suffice or maybe just wdw. You didn't say anything on ANY of the other Squirt threads or in my Index of Abbreviations and the term has been used several times already (by people other than me, no less).Please don't use "WD" to describe Withdraw. My first reaction was, "Why would he think Squirtle could wavedash through moves...?"
It doesn't miss, but crouching makes you crouch-cancel the pop-up hit at any realistic percent, making it so that R.O.B. may as well miss entirely.Are you sure R.O.B.'s Usmash misses? It has a grounded hitbox near his hands.
No, the crouch puts him at his lowest point, with crawling around being a close second. Withdraw and shellshifting aren't really short enough to avoid much at all.do his withrdraw and shellshifts make him as low to the ground as crouch does? it seems he can avoid a lot of characters grabs pretty effectively with couching, and with a pretty decent dtilt to add on, the crawl approach seems to be a very viable option. if his more prominent approach options (shellshift,withdraw) give him that same, very low hitbox, i can see a lot of other MUs instantly shifting towards squirtles favor.
Just say "w/d" so people instintively read it beginning with "with".Alright, I guess WDw should suffice or maybe just wdw. You didn't say anything on ANY of the other Squirt threads or in my Index of Abbreviations and the term has been used several times already (by people other than me, no less).
Whenever you feel like crawling to sneak under hitboxes, just abuse his awesome WD to beat them with speed instead.do his withrdraw and shellshifts make him as low to the ground as crouch does? it seems he can avoid a lot of characters grabs pretty effectively with couching, and with a pretty decent dtilt to add on, the crawl approach seems to be a very viable option. if his more prominent approach options (shellshift,withdraw) give him that same, very low hitbox, i can see a lot of other MUs instantly shifting towards squirtles favor.
I'm really not that much newer than you at this point, not by a margin that matters anyway. I have plenty of spacee experience. Sol, Chillin, Redd, Wenbo, etc., they all live or lived in my region and I've played all of them. I'm not optimistic at all. A "good MU" can be something as bad as a slight disadvantage. It doesn't have to be a winning MU, especially in the case of Fox who has NO losing MUs. Nobody's "played enough". Not when this mod is only a few months old and everything is probably going to change in a few more months anyway. If anything, my experience with PMBR members and top players makes my experience almost as noteworthy or significant as yours.Meh
They just haven't played enough. Optimism is most common in newer players; we're just jaded by now, Reflex.
WD OoS. People seriously do not utilize this enough (as well as crazy jab mix-ups). Luigi has the same 'problem', but he can WD OoS > tilt/smash/grab "mindless strong attacks" as punishment. I see no reason why Squirt should be any different. In addition, this problem should be mitigated somewhat whenever you guys figure out how to port true Melee shield KB into P:M, but even without it, WD OoS solves a plethora of OoS problems for those who have them. I'm sure Squirtle can also just SH Bubble or w/d to punish powerful moves as well.Shield pressure can be done with mindless strong attacks, as Squirtle has trouble setting things up and his weak traction makes him slide too far to punish.
No offense to Reflex, but I don't even think he's good enough at WDing to actually implement it in games. It makes his play style very barlw-like to me. lol Just watch his vids (again, not trying to diss or anything, but I don't remember seeing a single WD out of all his matches).Reflex, why do you put so much stock into Squirtle's running speed to support that Squirtle is bad at approaching? Squirtle has one of the fastest and longest WDs in the game. That offsets his 'bad' running speed quite a bit. Think Samus or Luigi, two also bad runners who make up for it with great WD/WL mobility. Squirtle has it even better because he has better aerial mobility on top of moves that completely alter his momentum and a skid that doesn't take years to finish and can even boost his speed. What really matters in Squirt's MUs is the mid/close-range game, and Squirt's incredible mobility and his ability to completely change his momentum on a dime really shines here. Frame 2 jabs, some safe pokes, and good killpower are also on good display. I'm sorry, but I really think you're being a little overly pessimistic here, and I find it a little off-putting that you tried to pin my experiences to my opponents being bad (which is completely false).
Edit: And stop saying that we don't have ample Squirtle experience to know what we're talking about. Aside from myself and Bones, we're all in the same region as cmart, who is not only one of Squirt's premiere users but is also one of his most notable developers. In addition to all the experience he's given us, I use the little turtle nearly every time I play P:M at all, and so does Bones. Let's not go there, people!
How anyone can consider Squirtle's approach bad is beyond me. Maybe if you're just trying to bum rush like an idiot he isn't too hot, but he has the best direction-changing approaches in the game. Situations in which most characters must rely solely on pivot grabs and WDing back, Squirtle can SS well out of his opponent's danger zone and come in with spectacular speed. He also has w/d which enables him to approach into a perfect launcher from the air or ground, and you can even jump from the ground during the move to ensure that you hit them. If you miss with a w/d approach, you're probably just going to go through them and be perfectly safe, and you can even sometimes double back and get the approach on the second try anyway. Don't even get me started on SH bubble...Here's something from yesterday. I need more practice.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNGtL94bFnE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEbD43e07LQ
You know that when I gave my example of Samus' 18-frame shieldgrab, that didn't mean that you only had 18 frames to punish any of those scenarios, right? You actually have MORE. If Samus has plenty of time to land a shieldgrab in those situations, you have even more time to just WD forward and do something. Besides, even IF you only had 18 frames, you're still at a frame advantage. You're not restricted to just jabs. You can do a LOT of things before your opponent can. The only thing Fox can really count on if you decide not to jab is his shine, but this discussion goes past just the spacees. If you're someone else and you're using a similarly laggy, powerful move just because it sends Squirt's shield careening backwards, odds are anything you try afterwards can be stuffed by Squirt's WD OoS tilts or grabs. Again, you also have SH w/d and Bubble OoS. Even IF Squirt was limited to guaranteed jabs, what about all those potent jab mix-ups?Significant shield pushback means that you basically have to wavedash forward. 5-frame jumpsquat, ~1 frame wavedash startup, 10 frames of landing lag. There goes at least 16 of those frames, and that's assuming you time the jump perfectly after shielding a move with great shieldstun. Now what--Are you gonna Jab him to death?
The current metagame is so young, it might as well be nonexistent. Each region has its own powerhouse characters. In MD/VA, I constantly hear from multiple people about how ROB is so good and 'Top Tier'. Nintendude thinks he's stupid, JC thinks he's very good, KnightPraetor thinks he's one of the best chars in the game, etc., but I distinctly remember that, when I still lived in NY, it was almost universally believed that ROB was a fairly mediocre character who kinda sucked at a lot of things. This was an opinion expressed to me by Eli, Leelue, Ben Grimm, Gallo, and more. Where you live and who you play with greatly influences how each char is being seen right now.I'd be happy to be proven wrong, but only a fool would ignore what the current metagame has shown us so far.
If Bowser is just zoning with meaty hitboxes, you don't have to just WD in with an attack and get slapped around. You can WD in shielding, and almost all of Bowser's moves are laggy enough to punish with whatever you want. DDing and WDing are the super core elements behind spacing in Melee. It's so fundamental that if a player can DD/WD significantly better than his opponent, he will almost always win. Sure, some characters emphasize more WDing than DDing or vice versa, but both are so critical to opening players up that I don't see how you can comment on how viable Squirtle's approach options are when you literally DD/WD 1-2 times per match...I wavedash away here and there in the videos, as Bowser just has to stick attacks out to beat you and Up-B molests Squirtle's entire zttacking moveset, so you have to play around it instead of focusing on holes between attacks to squeeze into. Wavedashing forward to "catch" it will often get you hit by late spin hits and punished for it. Also, if you're using "amount of wavedashes" as a judge for how Melee-like a playstyle is, you're ridiculous.
Your options only seem telegraphed because you never DD/WD. Any time you start moving, your opponent just assumes you will do what it looks like you are doing. If you SS towards your opponent and then mix in a DD before you get within their range, almost everyone will whiff an attack, and then you can DD back in and grab/dair/whatever. This obviously won't work all the time once people become more accustomed to Squirtle's amazing SS/DD/WD mixups, but I know no one is accustomed to them because I haven't seen any Squirtles really abuse it. Once people start doing mixups in anticipation of that DD delay after the SS, suddenly you have classic Yomi. Don't want the 50-50? How about we start SSing, dash away, SH bubble? Suddenly whatever they were doing to hit you out of your DD grab/aerial is getting them bubbled in the face all the time. Of course, this is a great example of classic conditioning. They get afraid of the bubble, start shielding when you SS/DD in front of them, and you just start grabbing them. If are experienced with Melee, these shouldn't even be Squirtle-specific things. I only have ~5 total hours of Squirtle practice vs. humans, and I just know to do these things because of parallel tactics in Melee. I just find moves that condition them to react in certain ways, and they start using counters as soon as they are conditioned.With the exception of Withdraw in some situations, Squirtle's approaches are pretty telegraphed. Shorthop Bubble is solid, but you have to really lean on it, and it can be rolled under, shielded and pressured, or just hit beforehand (it doesn't have great startup). If you start a shellshift, it's pretty obvious what direction you're headed, so unless people are whiffing attacks they shouldn't be using in the first place, it's hardly a reliable approach. Most of his options exist to put you just close enough to poke with a Jab or grab...and that's pretty much it. A majority of his moveset is shut down by CC-ing, and if you attack when someone else attacks, you'll trade at best and often straight-up lose. He doesn't dish out enough damage per won encounter, doesn't have enough range or reliable mobility options, and his recovery is merely okay. He doesn't really excel at anything other than having a long wavedash, which doesn't really amount to much if you have nothing substantial to do out of it.
I'm not waiting for anything. I'm not particularly heavily invested in P:M, but I enjoy playing Squirtle so when I do get my matches in, I take them very seriously and try to cram in as much knowledge per match as possible. If I have ignored any comments you've made about why Squirtle's approach is ineffective, I'd be glad to explain why I disagree. I think it's only fair that you do the same by addressing the fact that you ignore the base fundamental approach tools carried over from Melee (DD/WD). Even the worst characters in Melee are able to approach with decent success as long as they have solid DD/WD games, and Squirtle's DD and WD are both AMAZINGLY above average, so there's no reason he can't approach, even if it means something as linear and predictable as DD/WDing until you have a grab opportunity.If you're waiting for a dedicated Squirtle main to show a high-level neutral spacing game, there's a good chance you're gonna be waiting until 3.0 comes out. He's not a very technical character, but he takes so much effort to get even a marginal reward out of. Feel free to ignore comments about his lack of approach options, though--I prefer to take what results and experience have given me. I'd be happy to be proven wrong, but only a fool would ignore what the current metagame has shown us so far.
I'm baffled how you can continue to call his DD/WD bad when you clearly do not apply either to any extent in your game. If you need proof, just look at my matches and see how I apply them, and I am not even fully accustomed to Squirtle's options yet. I agree that characters with the boost-movement techniques unbalance the neutral game, but that doesn't mean it's a necessity to win. Even vs. someone like ROB who an boost into attacks, Squirtle still has more than enough tools to outmaneuver him.While it is versatile and effective in the right situations, you clearly overestimate how useful wavedashing is. Squirtle's dashdance is pretty awful, and I don't know what to tell you other than that you're wrong on a lot of points. You can have whatever feeling you want, but having instantaneous mobility options and really powerful strings out of them is imperative to success at a high level in this game engine, and Squirtle doesn't have either of those. A grab doesn't mean much when he should get nothing off a grab other than slight pressure on F-Throw or an edgeguard attempt on D-Throw.
I'm not saying you aren't using the character correctly. I'm saying you're not playing the game in general correctly. I don't usually like to assume things, but I would bet anything that all of your other characters are very barlw-esque in the sense that they sort of just passively zone as opposed to manipulating space with DDing and WDing. If that's the case, it's no wonder you feel like instantaneous movement techniques are the only way to win, but it's simply not true. The funny thing about all of this is you are acting like I am making a bunch of assumptions about what Squirtle can do. I'm not saying Squirtle can 02d people every time or approach without ever getting hit, but you are saying he can almost never combo and almost never approach. You are making claims about Squirtle as a character when he's only been explored for, what, a couple of months?Virtually all of his combos, including the stuff you mentioned, don't have enough hitstun to combo properly with the influence of (S)DI for more than two or three hits. If you're getting more than that, the opponent is missing techs, not (S)DI-ing, or generally just not trying to get back to neutral position.. Unless you're fighting a really big character, these are only happening for longer because you're actively outplaying your opponent, whether you're great and they're not, or they just don't know anything about Squirtle.
Anyway, you're welcome to prove me wrong. I would definitely love for Squirtle to show off some new stuff. I'm all for metagame advancement, but you're telling me that I'm just not using the character correctly while skipping over really fundamental problems with the character. It's hard to see your point when more important points are being ignored, either through ignorance or blind faith.
I've watched a couple videos of your Wario and Ivysaur as well. Neither apply DDing or WDing whatsoever. That doesn't instantly make you bad, but it does put a significant limit on how you can approach. Do you honestly believe that your playstyle even scratches the surface of in depth approaches when it completely ignores two of the most fundamental spacing tools from Melee?Two videos against a character with enormous hitboxes and super armor does not adequately show the entirety of my playstyle.
U-Throw has horrible frame (dis, in some cases!)advantage and will more often than not get you punished for using it. Landing follow-ups just means that the opponent didn't know when he could jump/attack.
It's clear that you want to believe a specific set of ideas that aren't supported by the current results. I don't have time for assumptions--I have time for experimentation and results. Until either of those show real promise, you'll have a hard time convincing me (or most people) that Squirtle is not clearly lacking.
Uh my squirtle is alright. I'm mostly getting off on SideB stuff along with my opponents ignorance. That doesn't last forever though.For all it's worth, so far, I -am- the results. Literally no one else has one anything substantial in tournament with Squirtle. I have no doubt that Rat can sling a mean Squirtle, and I don't think my one tournament win against locals who have little to no tournament experience against Squirtle means much, but it seems silly to tell someone who is among the frontrunners of this character's metagame, as well as the PM metagame as a whole, that he doesn't have a good grasp of how to play the game.
There's a reason Squirtle is an unpopular character, and it's not because he's complicated (especially because he's not complicated). I am skeptical of Squirtle's long-term potential because of the time I've spent with the character. He is sorely lacking in too many crucial places to be a viable character at high-level play.