Meta Those who fight further: The Cloud Meta-Game Discussion/Community Guide

[Syde7]

Not 100% if this is the correct thread for this, but it seemed like it might be. So, if it isn't... my apologies.

I'm putting some time into Cloud bc I am a huge FF7 fanboy, and I am really enjoying him as a character. That being said, I want to make sure that I steer clear of developing bad habits with him (as best I can, anyway). Does anyone have a "list" of bad habits they have seen other Cloud players fall into, or perhaps habits they fall into themselves? Also, even if its not a "bad habit" what sorts of things should one just not do with Cloud?

Thx in advance

 

[rocker9999]

Not 100% if this is the correct thread for this, but it seemed like it might be. So, if it isn't... my apologies.

I'm putting some time into Cloud bc I am a huge FF7 fanboy, and I am really enjoying him as a character. That being said, I want to make sure that I steer clear of developing bad habits with him (as best I can, anyway). Does anyone have a "list" of bad habits they have seen other Cloud players fall into, or perhaps habits they fall into themselves? Also, even if its not a "bad habit" what sorts of things should one just not do with Cloud?

Thx in advance

Throwing out moves just to throw out moves. Even nair can be punished if it isn't spaced properly. Abuse Cloud's auto-cancel frames. Abuse them. I mean it.
Not charging Limit when you have a chance. Limit usage is what can make or break a Cloud. Charge Limit when that's the best option you can do.
Charging Limit too often. You shouldn't give up an opportunity to apply safe pressure, knock them off stage, or just assume stage control. Limit is important, but it isn't the most important factor in the match.
NOT KNOWING WHEN CLIMHAZZARD WILL SNAP TO LEDGE. Cloud's climhazzard won't snap ledge on the way up, but it can snap if you start climhazzard very close to ledge and on the way down. Be careful using the down variation to snap ledge. If you aren't high enough you'll plummet to your death.
Implement grabs.
That sums it up. Don't throw out moves just to throw out moves, grab, properly utilize Limit charge, and know the in and outs of Cloud's Climhazzard.

 

[Buckstrom]

So I landed a shield break in a match once, and my opponent was at ~20%. My limit meter was empty, and I had no idea what to do.

In cases where we get a shield break at low percents and limit isn't full enough to charge into an option, what is the most optimal punish combo we can do? I'd assume it would start with a landing U-air (meaning there's some leeway to get lots of Limit Charge), but at low percents what's our highest amount of guaranteed damage? And if we're at a stock lead, is there a way to guarantee a Climhazzide against a perfectly still opponent?

 

[Ark of Silence101]

Any tips on how to edgeguard properly?

 

[meleebrawler]

Any tips on how to edgeguard properly?

Don't, unless you have limit and/or the recovery is predictable.

 

[Ark of Silence101]

Does anybody know which point of Cloud's down aerial meteors?

 

[Ffamran]

Does anybody know which point of Cloud's down aerial meteors?

Head over here if you're looking for specifically at what frames moves do what: http://smashboards.com/threads/clouds-frame-data-1-1-3.426026/. Cloud's Dair will spike at frame 11 to 13, so 3 active frames - you count the first frame too. It's not a really big window, but that's to stop it from being too broken like how NA Melee Falco's Dair spiked throughout its entire duration. Zelda's Dair can spike throughout its entire duration as well, but the strong spike only lasts 1 frame, frame 14 while the rest, frames 15 to 24, the last 10 frames, is a weak spike. Now, if you're looking for where on the hitbox, the Buster Sword, it spikes... I can't help you there; someone else can, though.

 

[Ark of Silence101]

Head over here if you're looking for specifically at what frames moves do what: http://smashboards.com/threads/clouds-frame-data-1-1-3.426026/. Cloud's Dair will spike at frame 11 to 13, so 3 active frames - you count the first frame too. It's not a really big window, but that's to stop it from being too broken like how NA Melee Falco's Dair spiked throughout its entire duration. Zelda's Dair can spike throughout its entire duration as well, but the strong spike only lasts 1 frame, frame 14 while the rest, frames 15 to 24, the last 10 frames, is a weak spike. Now, if you're looking for where on the hitbox, the Buster Sword, it spikes... I can't help you there; someone else can, though.

Thanks. I read in Smash Wiki that it spikes with the tip.....

 

[MagiusNecros]

Does anybody know which point of Cloud's down aerial meteors?

Immediate. Opponent must be below you. Think ddd dair but hitbox is immediate.

Not sure if it is at tip or hilt though.

 

[FightingPolygon]

Immediate. Opponent must be below you. Think ddd dair but hitbox is immediate.

Not sure if it is at tip or hilt though.

It only spikes at the middle of the sword.

 

[MagiusNecros]

It only spikes at the middle of the sword.

Weird Design choice.

 

[Locke 06]

Non-limit cross Slash1 jab locks on platforms. I've gotten guaranteed usmash and up air, but there is a better punish to be had.

If anyone is looking for a project, that's one that would be nice.

 

[Hanku Hirru]

Not 100% if this is the correct thread for this, but it seemed like it might be. So, if it isn't... my apologies.

I'm putting some time into Cloud bc I am a huge FF7 fanboy, and I am really enjoying him as a character. That being said, I want to make sure that I steer clear of developing bad habits with him (as best I can, anyway). Does anyone have a "list" of bad habits they have seen other Cloud players fall into, or perhaps habits they fall into themselves? Also, even if its not a "bad habit" what sorts of things should one just not do with Cloud?

Thx in advance

Here are my thoughts based on bad habits I've noticed of which a lot of Cloud players are guilty:

Definitely don't be too greedy and fish for damage. Cloud is very powerful and quite nimble, but his frame data doesn't support a fast reactionary style of play (a la Captain Falcon or Little Mac). Too often I see players fishing for F-Smash damage or trying to KO with Finishing Touch without a proper set up. I've found that Cloud benefits from a bait and punish style of play, but he can also be the aggressor depending on the pace of the match. I feel this is one of the biggest issues I see a lot of Cloud player's face and that is knowing when to approach and when to camp.

Don't waste your jumps. Folk's ***** about Cloud's recovery, but it isn't terrible. He has two solid options to stall his descent (Cross Slash, Blade Beam and they also act as a good deterrent if your opponent is attempting off stage shenanigans) and he gets quite a bit of mileage out of his jumps. So, don't panic when you get launched off stage, keep your cool, and remember that Cloud has tools to mitigate his off stage woes.

Don't try to use his grabs as a means of setting up big combos for big damage because you won't find many. They should be used to put space between you and your opponent and allow you some breathing room to charge your Limit Break. He requires a lot patience and good reads, so you'll be spending a good portion of the match either charging your Limit Break or playing defensively with good spacing/punishing your opponent on their whiffs.

 

[MagiusNecros]

So if I usually play Ganon/Bowser I can carry over my fundamentals and be amazing as Kuraudo Straifu.

 

[KittyKyat]

How should I play his neutral barring Blade Beam and Limit Charge? I try spaced nair but it seems quite weird to get the timing down. Ive got some sucess with stuffing aerial approaches with uair and spacing bair to apply pressure, but what else do I do?

 

[Hanku Hirru]

I'd suggest you continue to practice your timing with Nair. It won't become easy unless you practice, so hunker down and keep at it. Aside from Bair, it's is best spacing tool. Are you utilizing Nair during a FH or SH? That certainly makes a difference, as well.

 

[HFlash]

Hey guys! One of my favorite smash youtubers just uploaded a cloud combo tutorial for Cloud.

Enjoy

 

[Rewrite]

I feel a relatively brutal mix-up that has been overlooked out of down-throw is Climhazard. If your opponent is at low percent and has your back to the ledge and you get a grab, down throw them off the stage. If you have your opponent conditioned to air-dodge or react to down-throw in some other way, you can catch them with the entirety of Climhazard and send quite a few opponents to a very early demise. Just be mindful of your positioning so you grab the ledge.

Also, we can use Limit Blade Beam to edge-guard Sheik's recovery. because of the large and somewhat lingering hit-box, catching Sheik in her frames of ledge snap from snap special has a somewhat open window which becomes easily feasible with minimal practice.

 

[Meta_X]

Hey guys! One of my favorite smash youtubers just uploaded a cloud combo tutorial for Cloud.
Enjoy

This video was really helpful. I expected I would already know most of it but turns out I only knew maybe a third of the content in here. It's got a ton of interesting followups I hadn't thought of, for example dthrow>nair at low-mid percents. With a bit of practice I feel my Cloud game's already improved.

 

[Nu~]

Any tips on how to edgeguard properly?

I would suggest going down and using Nair to stop characters from recovering. However, it depends on the character. Characters like Robin and duck hunt are relatively free offstage for spikes, Nair gimps, and the like.

Characters like shiek?

Stay on that ledge and charge lol

 

[HFlash]

I would suggest going down and using Nair to stop characters from recovering. However, it depends on the character. Characters like Robin and duck hunt are relatively free offstage for spikes, Nair gimps, and the like.

Characters like shiek?

Stay on that ledge and charge lol

Climhazzard onto the ledge and LB side B are very strong edge guard tools. Sort of unconventional (Cloud specific) so it might be awkward to incorporate into your gameplan at first.

 

[FightingPolygon]

Back Throw to Omnislash is guaranteed. :^}

 

[Random4811]

So I landed a shield break in a match once, and my opponent was at ~20%. My limit meter was empty, and I had no idea what to do.

In cases where we get a shield break at low percents and limit isn't full enough to charge into an option, what is the most optimal punish combo we can do? I'd assume it would start with a landing U-air (meaning there's some leeway to get lots of Limit Charge), but at low percents what's our highest amount of guaranteed damage? And if we're at a stock lead, is there a way to guarantee a Climhazzide against a perfectly still opponent?

A shield break is a guarenteed full meter, even at 0. Especially at low percents, as shield break only becomes easier to escape higher up. I've seen a cloud get a shield break on an opponent at 30%, charge limit to full, and then FT just as they woke up, and net a kill
The same could be done for limit charge to Limit Slash or Limit Beam, or even Limit Hazard

 

[Dingo1011]

Guys, up air can frame cancel
test it on falcon at 0%, fc up air can true combo into upsmash. (but this isnt too useful unless you can punish getups with it, but up air has little landing lag as is)

 

[Random4811]

Guys, up air can frame cancel
test it on falcon at 0%, fc up air can true combo into upsmash. (but this isnt too useful unless you can punish getups with it, but up air has little landing lag as is)

but uair already auto cancels, I thought?

yeah, uair auto cancels at less than frame 26. So the move just ends if you hit the ground with it prior to that frame, and you can act out of it. Thats why ff uair is so good

 

[Dingo1011]

but uair already auto cancels, I thought?

yeah, uair auto cancels at less than frame 26. So the move just ends if you hit the ground with it prior to that frame, and you can act out of it. Thats why ff uair is so good

It does autocancel, but I'm talking about frame cancelling which makes it slightly faster(?) Should I make a video of it?

EDIT: plus this way you can get the strong hit of up air

EDIT 2: and you can hit shorter enemies too because ff uair can't(?)

 

[Eureka]

It does autocancel, but I'm talking about frame cancelling which makes it slightly faster(?) Should I make a video of it?

EDIT: plus this way you can get the strong hit of up air

EDIT 2: and you can hit shorter enemies too because ff uair can't(?)

Up air literally autocancels the frame after the hitbox ends, you can combo into up smash with it anyway, even with the strong hit of up air. Frame canceling up air would be super impractical and honestly I can't think of a situation where it would be necessary.

 

[Wintermelon43]

Sorry if this is the wrong place, but can anybody please give me good Cloud footage. Because all I can find is S@X Cloud only tournament footage, and I want to be able to rate him properely.

 

[Dingo1011]

Up air literally autocancels the frame after the hitbox ends, you can combo into up smash with it anyway, even with the strong hit of up air. Frame canceling up air would be super impractical and honestly I can't think of a situation where it would be necessary.

I know, but i just thought i should point it out anyways hence why i said in the first post "this isn't too useful".

EDIT: I am so dumb, I didn't know that every aerial can frame cancel... I'm sorry for wasting time on this

 

[Random4811]

I know, but i just thought i should point it out anyways hence why i said in the first post "this isn't too useful".

EDIT: I am so dumb, I didn't know that every aerial can frame cancel... I'm sorry for wasting time on this

Auto cancels cancel the move lag and give you regular landing lag, do they not? because they cancel the move entirely?

Am I misguided? im pretty sure im right
So if the move did frame cancel, how would we know any differently?

Also, ff uair can hit short opponents. You can ff so that the hitbox comes out just as you land, hitting even kirby

Edit: yes, an auto cancel removes all lag from the move and gives regular landing lag. Frame canceling does not impact Nair or uair at all, considering that they both AC even during the hitbox. It might be useful if you could frame cancel fair or bair, but Fair's hitbox is trick and Bair's range is a problem for that, and even still they have pretty good ACs so kinda strike that, I read the number wrong

Up air literally autocancels the frame after the hitbox ends, you can combo into up smash with it anyway, even with the strong hit of up air. Frame canceling up air would be super impractical and honestly I can't think of a situation where it would be necessary.

Uair autocancels at every frame before frame 26 according to Kurogane's site.

 

[Eureka]

Uair autocancels at every frame before frame 26 according to Kurogane's site.

Up air autocancels every frame AFTER frame 26. Hence why it's marked 26 >, as in if the number of the frame is greater than 26 it autocancels. If it was before frame 26 it would autocancel for every frame the hitbox was still active, which would give the move basically zero landing lag and be broken as hell.

 

[Random4811]

Up air autocancels every frame AFTER frame 26. Hence why it's marked 26 >, as in if the number of the frame is greater than 26 it autocancels. If it was before frame 26 it would autocancel for every frame the hitbox was still active, which would give the move basically zero landing lag and be broken as hell.

In my defense, im an art major

 

[DominusTempest]

So I landed a shield break in a match once, and my opponent was at ~20%. My limit meter was empty, and I had no idea what to do.

In cases where we get a shield break at low percents and limit isn't full enough to charge into an option, what is the most optimal punish combo we can do? I'd assume it would start with a landing U-air (meaning there's some leeway to get lots of Limit Charge), but at low percents what's our highest amount of guaranteed damage? And if we're at a stock lead, is there a way to guarantee a Climhazzide against a perfectly still opponent?

An interesting combo I found was up-air into dair/fair (which is guaranteed), you need to hit with the weak part of up-air however. You can also do dair into fair, sorta like a reverse Ken combo (this is also guaranteed). Finally, for damage, I like to do Dair into Up-tilt X2 into Nair into Up-air into Nair into Up-air into either an Up-air or Climhazard. This is not guaranteed however.

 

[Top Boss]

(this is probably already known) but Cloud can 2 frame Sheik's recovery with limit enhanced blade beam and cross slash. Just aim them both right at the ledge for a stage spike. You could also drop down right below the ledge and cross slash(which is riskier) and send the opponents towards the blast zone instead of the ledge, so then you won't risk the opponent teching. Stage spikes have the capability of killing at any realistic percent and a drop down cross slash can kill near 75%.
If you want me to record myself doing this so you can see, then let me know.

 

[Random4811]

(this is probably already known) but Cloud can 2 frame Sheik's recovery with limit enhanced blade beam and cross slash. Just aim them both right at the ledge for a stage spike. You could also drop down right below the ledge and cross slash(which is riskier) and send the opponents towards the blast zone instead of the ledge, so then you won't risk the opponent teching. Stage spikes have the capability of killing at any realistic percent and a drop down cross slash can kill near 75%.
If you want me to record myself doing this so you can see, then let me know.

Limit slash is really hard to tech
and this isnt limited to just Shiek, if you're quick on your reflexes you can get a lot of kills off of it on a lot of characters

 

[Top Boss]

Limit slash is really hard to tech
and this isnt limited to just Shiek, if you're quick on your reflexes you can get a lot of kills off of it on a lot of characters

yeah. I don't see why it would not work on others, but I just mentioned Sheik because sh'es normally really hard to edgeguard.

 

[Random4811]

yeah. I don't see why it would not work on others, but I just mentioned Sheik because sh'es normally really hard to edgeguard.

True, it depends on how she recovers though. Because if she's not mixing up her recovery often, you can get a fairly good edgeguard off on her with a well timed dair or fair, especially if she loves bouncing fish above the ledge

 

[Top Boss]

True, it depends on how she recovers though. Because if she's not mixing up her recovery often, you can get a fairly good edgeguard off on her with a well timed dair or fair, especially if she loves bouncing fish above the ledge

this was just assuming Sheik recovers low with up b. I didn't test anything with bouncing fish.

 

[Random4811]

this was just assuming Sheik recovers low with up b. I didn't test anything with bouncing fish.

If you know shes going to go for a fish above the stage, you can typically catch it with fair, although you might not spike. You can certainly catch it with bair, and potentially usmash depending on your spacing. uair is also a thing. However, you might be trading with some of these instances. I cant fully remember, and I cant test it as I dont have a wii u with me at the moment.

 

[MagiusNecros]

Limit Cross Slash is miles and away his best move.