ECHOnce
Smash Lord
Hi, I've been here on the Zelda boards for a few months, but haven't posted until now. I've been through the MU and Triforce thread, and through a bunch of others. I've gotten lucky and have been assigned to a college dorm with several other Smash players, so I get hours of daily practice with most of the PM character roster. After maining Zelda for 3 months, I feel I have her down, and feel confident going into a match against every character but one - Squirtle.
I've looked everywhere on Smashboards and elsewhere, and it seems nobody has much info on Squirtles. I didn't think much of them at first, but when a few of my friends started using him, they started abusing his high priority, speed, and super armor to heck. The two Squirtle mains were ok - I wouldn't think of myself good either - but considering that I could fairly consistently easily 2 or 3-stock them playing as mains they've put months into, and then within a few days of picking up Squirtle they're JV2 stocking me...idk.
TL;DR - Squirtle has ridiculously high priority and a plethora of moves that have unnecessary super armor. He's not an OP character or anything, I'm not here to discuss that; I just need help figuring out how to beat him when he so easily powers through all of Zelda's attacks, and punishes Zelda so hard when I miss the few attacks that can beat him in priority.
The sad part is, all they're doing is just abusing Side-B to get past Zelda's defenses; Neutral-B, F-tilt, F-smash, D-smash, N-air, jab, and D-tilt all have lower priority, and Squirtle just powers right through them. U-tilt, dash attacks (I think?), grab, and lightning kicks can, but if I'm baited into those when they're Side-B'ing by turning away, slowpoke Zelda can't really respond before Squirtle turns back around again. Teledashing isn't fast enough to get away when they're close, and if they're further away..whereelse would I go but toward them, and get hit in ending lag? Of course, when they're further away I'd probably go for Dins instead, but guess what powers through those...their Side-B. It's just...feels so stupid not being able to get past an attack that's so simple.
Obviously that's not the only thing they're doing, but every move they do that lets them retreat into their shell during the attack gives them super armor. They're side smash? Super armor. Down smash? Super armor (I think?). Several of their aerials? Super armor. As if they needed more, their down throw is a kill throw, Bubble is a ridiculously good gimp (although that's not as much of a problem for Zelda), and their U-smash has ridiculous range and kill power. And yet, the moment they play someone with a main with either higher priority than Squirtle (Ganondorf) or has long close-ranged attacks (Marth, Charizard, etc.), they lose almost consistently, going further to prove they're completely dependent on Squirtle's invulnerability against most of the roster; they seem to either win the MU, or they lose, outright. I don't even main Marth, but I got closer to beating them that way than with my mains.
I know I'm just raging to an extent at this point, and maybe a lot of this just comes down to my lack of skill. But I've been playing with these people for months, and Squirtle is just my bane. I can beat their other mains with Zelda, but I have close to 0 wins (if any at all) against their Squirtles, whether I'm using Zelda or another one of my mains, so I am a bit desperate and butthurt. Worse yet, they're the epitome of casual players, with NO tech skill and just fundamentals...it's crushing losing to them despite researching and practicing so hard. I wasn't going to ask about it on the boards because I'm afraid of being embarrassed about losing to a character mentioned twice in the MU thread and dismissed as no threat, but when my other friends started having the same issue with mains covering most of the rest of the roster, I figured it was about time I asked for some help/advice.
I would be open to offering videos or netplay so you could help point things out that I'm doing wrong, but my computer isn't very powerful. (I can only get my Melee emulated at 35fps right now...)
I've looked everywhere on Smashboards and elsewhere, and it seems nobody has much info on Squirtles. I didn't think much of them at first, but when a few of my friends started using him, they started abusing his high priority, speed, and super armor to heck. The two Squirtle mains were ok - I wouldn't think of myself good either - but considering that I could fairly consistently easily 2 or 3-stock them playing as mains they've put months into, and then within a few days of picking up Squirtle they're JV2 stocking me...idk.
TL;DR - Squirtle has ridiculously high priority and a plethora of moves that have unnecessary super armor. He's not an OP character or anything, I'm not here to discuss that; I just need help figuring out how to beat him when he so easily powers through all of Zelda's attacks, and punishes Zelda so hard when I miss the few attacks that can beat him in priority.
The sad part is, all they're doing is just abusing Side-B to get past Zelda's defenses; Neutral-B, F-tilt, F-smash, D-smash, N-air, jab, and D-tilt all have lower priority, and Squirtle just powers right through them. U-tilt, dash attacks (I think?), grab, and lightning kicks can, but if I'm baited into those when they're Side-B'ing by turning away, slowpoke Zelda can't really respond before Squirtle turns back around again. Teledashing isn't fast enough to get away when they're close, and if they're further away..whereelse would I go but toward them, and get hit in ending lag? Of course, when they're further away I'd probably go for Dins instead, but guess what powers through those...their Side-B. It's just...feels so stupid not being able to get past an attack that's so simple.
Obviously that's not the only thing they're doing, but every move they do that lets them retreat into their shell during the attack gives them super armor. They're side smash? Super armor. Down smash? Super armor (I think?). Several of their aerials? Super armor. As if they needed more, their down throw is a kill throw, Bubble is a ridiculously good gimp (although that's not as much of a problem for Zelda), and their U-smash has ridiculous range and kill power. And yet, the moment they play someone with a main with either higher priority than Squirtle (Ganondorf) or has long close-ranged attacks (Marth, Charizard, etc.), they lose almost consistently, going further to prove they're completely dependent on Squirtle's invulnerability against most of the roster; they seem to either win the MU, or they lose, outright. I don't even main Marth, but I got closer to beating them that way than with my mains.
I know I'm just raging to an extent at this point, and maybe a lot of this just comes down to my lack of skill. But I've been playing with these people for months, and Squirtle is just my bane. I can beat their other mains with Zelda, but I have close to 0 wins (if any at all) against their Squirtles, whether I'm using Zelda or another one of my mains, so I am a bit desperate and butthurt. Worse yet, they're the epitome of casual players, with NO tech skill and just fundamentals...it's crushing losing to them despite researching and practicing so hard. I wasn't going to ask about it on the boards because I'm afraid of being embarrassed about losing to a character mentioned twice in the MU thread and dismissed as no threat, but when my other friends started having the same issue with mains covering most of the rest of the roster, I figured it was about time I asked for some help/advice.
I would be open to offering videos or netplay so you could help point things out that I'm doing wrong, but my computer isn't very powerful. (I can only get my Melee emulated at 35fps right now...)
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