this is mostly a reply to jake's post in some thread where he remarks that bernie probably dislikes brawl for using fox in melee because brawl takes more "strategy" and "thinking" opposed to "lololol u-smash".
i'll be honest. i think it takes strategy, but the thinking portion is grossly exaggerated.
brawl doesn't require much thinking if you play intelligently. this sounds strange, but there are systems that effectively shut down the vast majority of the casts' combo rock/paper/scissors systems. it works through a combination of di and buffering defensive options, though, so if you're not prepared to learn specific dis and listen to air-dodge theory and whatever else is in here then don't bother reading this because it's quite tl;dr.
okay. first this whole "yomi" crap and "combos are determined by thinking and reading" crap i keep hearing about.
yeah. it doesn't exist. it's a myth. in fact, the anti-combo system is extremely simple.
when you are hit by an attack, di as far away as possible (unless it's lethal range or near-lethal range in which case survival di; the "SMASH DI NOW" frames when the game freezes to process knockback and allow smash di makes this very, very easy to differentiate). then, when you are done with hitstun, look for the first strip of land (or platform), fast fall and/or drift towards it, and air-dodge if they come after you. effectively, this shuts down any sort of juggle they could do for two reasons.
1) the air-dodge is ridiculously fast and has less "blind spots" this time around
self-explanatory. if they attack you directly, your air-dodge will eat it. naturally the counter to this is to come after and wait out the defensive option but this is negated by the fact that...
2) air-dodge is lagless
having no lag means it's retardedly hard to punish. buffering shield or sidestep = ftw. buffering roll = ftw. you can basically buffer a defensive option and it will work AS SOON AS your air-dodge is done, with like a 1 frame intermission. 1 frame for a chance at follow-through is a very, very small window.
this effectively wrecks combos by basically everyone who relies on the air to juggle with the exception of characters with rapid aerial attacks and amazing aerial mobility. so basically metaknight's fair, sideB, and b. and pit sort of. beyond that this system is virtually flawless. i do not jest. making air-dodge invincibility longer allows many break-outs with proper di and drift abuse.
this in turns shuts out the yomi argument because of the lagless landing; hence the need for the proper use of drift and fast fall. offensively, you can know where the opponent is going at all times after you hit them, but it often does no good if they abuse this system. invincibility into shield/roll is absurd (we needed air-grabbing and faster aerial movement dammit). lagless defenses are not cool.
obviously you can put them in a situation where they can't fast fall and land lagless invincibility but that's awkward and most characters do not have that ability to set it up. so even if you do argue that certain characters can do that, then how is this game balanced at all? if only a handful of characters with situational counters to easily-mastered defensive outs are capable of "pressuring" (brawl pressure is a joke) then how can the ones who can't be usable? food for thought.
now, ground combos are trickier. but generally mashing air-dodge (or shield, depending on the nature of the knockback) is effective for those and kill everything what with no lag and whatever.
here's something cool. did you know that you can actually buffer shield during fox's dair and powershield any follow-through he does into whatever you want? well, now you do. and it's so easy. whenever fox comes in for the drillshine or dair --> u-tilt/u-smash, just hold L/R. the shield should pop up just as the shine/u-smash/u-tilt hits, which effectively shutss him out. this is supposed to perfect shield. from there, shield cancel and punish with whatever your character can do from shield-cancel. and obviously if you want to play it safe and they're good and expect you to perfect shield the shine/tilt/smash and instead "mindgame" and go for grab, you can forgo the shield-cancel altogether and roll away. and the roll works no matter what they do, because there's too much lag after the drill for their grab to beat your roll.
i have never since been comboed by fox's dair. i know people are supposedly praising his dair u-tilt/smash combos as his savior but none of them work.
and this is rapidly becoming apparent with a lot of other characters. lucas can't chain anything together that isn't pk thunder in a circle (circle beats air-dodge but if they do an attack this is nullified so this rps hasn't entirely been destroyed) after launcher (usually tilt or uair) basically. rob can't combo anything, his "combos" at the moment are basically repeated pokes from fair or a tilt that are highly escapable. it's becoming very, very clear that the only character where you can't just rely on spacing with PURELY is snake and the crappy characters; in the case of the former, he actually requires some genuine thought because of his awkward (yet unbelievably powerful) moveset. as for the crap characters, they tend to rely on tricks as a whole. this is nothing new.
any sort of combo that was previously decided by guessing actions seems to be becoming obsolete because there's an answer somewhere between shield, air-dodge, and the lagless nature of both. grab is NOT a suitable follow-through because only two characters (dedede and ic) can do anything with grab, if what efex messaged me for is true at all.
apparently falco's cg is escapable with light characters at low percents if you forgo di and footstool jump off him when he comes in for the grab. supposedly this worked with kirby. m2k says marth can up+b out at certain percents (higher ones probably; 30ish up maybe). with the more-generic weights and physics, falco is most likely not cging many characters past 40.
this basically leaves dedede and ics as the sole characters who can do ANYTHING with a grab. sonic can tech chase for like 14% sure but honestly sonic is so unbelievably bad it doesn't even matter. oh no, a character with a garbage moveset has one move that deals more than 10% (with a chance of hitting). how horrible. oh well. i guess we can't just exploit the fact that sonic is kill ********. and has no range. or priority. or damage source. and really is just a fast ****** who can do d-throw tech chase.
so. with the insane ease of escapability, how anyone can argue brawl requires deep mental thought is beyond me. i have read sirlin, but in his articles he deals with rps dynamics when he talks about yomi. what do you do, i ask, when there's a surefire escape? what would compel you to not use it? once you learn the escapes (or begin to get general common sense on escapes) the rock/paper/scissors model that people flaunt as adding game depth begins to vanish very, very quickly. obviously some combos are cemented in stone, like ike's jab, or marth's dancing blade, but these combos for the most part are pre-programmed. what is there to discover from the creative spectrum if nothing but the bare basics work? what use is there worrying about what your follow-through is when the game more or less TELLS you to do nothing (or retreat via roll) by its own nature (tripping and no hitstun). why on earth is there this belief that more thinking is demanded when your mobility options for the most part (assuming not everyone plays pikachu) are your basics and basics only, your moveset is exactly how it is laid out, and that you can never be punished severely for anything but in turn cannot punish them back*?
* the exception is the ics infinite
