Okay,
@Nah, here's the rundown of what I have to say~
First off, I don't think you're terrible. You have solid fundamentals for the most part and you seem to understand your characters to a respectable degree - enough to keep me on my toes, at least. It's a definite improvement from the first time we had a scrap. I can tell you're serious about getting better, and you demonstrated that well!
In terms of critique, I have a few things to point out (note that I am definitely guilty of some, if not most or all, of these things, so I'm not singling you out here):
You don't seem to focus on the "big picture", you just take every step one at a time. It's good to keep track of what you're doing, but if you don't have a gameplan in the macro sense, you can very easily fall apart under pressure. You definitely had some good setups there and you strategised well for the most part, but when I weaved through your defenses, it wasn't that difficult to gain momentum.
You need to
THINK ABOUT EVERYTHING YOU DO: why am I using this move? What do I hope to gain from it? Is it a good option to cover my opponent's options? What if it doesn't work, what's my backup plan? I think you had a pretty good idea of what to do in most situations we were in, but sometimes you seemed to panic and - to quote Raziek - you just hit buttons to try to keep me out. For a character who relies on micromanagement and organisational strategy to the extent that Robin does, that can be suicide, especially when faced with a punish-heavy character like Pit who will exploit every weakness you display.
I don't think you made good use of combos or followups. I know Robin isn't exactly the combo queen, but she has good setups (hell, she's
made of setups) and followups, especially off of grab. Getting the grab is difficult, but the reward can be immense. I don't think I ever saw you use Checkmate or any real d-throw followups, which is a shame, because you punished me very well with grab when you got in.
Defensively, you need to mix it up. Very often I managed to just run in and dash attack you, which shouldn't be happening that much. You don't need to approach, per se, Robin's great at keeping folks out, but you need to have a Plan B in case somebody does get in. This ties back to what I said about considering the impact of your moves and keeping a strong contingency plan: if I can get in and put pressure on you, you're in a very difficult spot. That being said, when I tried to get in and you
did evade and punish, you did it very effectively with grab, retreating f-air, d-smash and even a few Nosferatus - if you can optimise your ability to evade and punish your opponent's aggressive options, you can definitely mitigate one of Robin's biggest weaknesses.
Your tech skill needs improvement. This is definitely secondary to good fundamentals, but there's so much cool stuff Robin can do that you didn't, which may well have sealed a few of my stocks. You need to get better at catching tomes when they'e ejected, using the tomes as weapons effectively, switching between the Levin and Bronze swords and going for Elwind spikes. Just small things can make a big difference if you know how to use it at the right time!
In terms of tech, you did a few things very well. You switched between wind jab and fire jab at the right times depending on the situation (wind to frametrap and rack up damage, fire to get off-stage and kill), made very good use of your airs (the getup f-air was beautiful and you punished my descent options with u-air very nicely), got some
very nice punishes with Nosferatu (seriously, work on that, you're so good at it) and made good use of Elwind in conjunction with the platforms on Battlefield to keep me out. Good stuff, but you can do so much more if you practice!
The final thing I want to say, and this is probably the most important: you seem to get frustrated and disenchanted when you get beaten. I know exactly how that feels. You put the effort in, you
know you're good with this character, you
know the theory and you've got everything planned out - and then it just falls apart. Your confidence dies and you don't even know what to do, you just switch off and hope you don't get beaten too badly. I felt this towards the end of our set, I couldn't focus and made stupid mistakes - I could see myself making the mistakes, but I couldn't think about how to fix them. Yet I persevered and pulled it back. I conceded that I was upset, but being upset wouldn't help me win or get better, so I told myself to keep playing and do my best. You said it yourself, the best way to improve is to get beaten and ask for advice: if you discover something from your defeat, then it isn't really a defeat, it's a small victory in a clever disguise.
You have the innate skill and the drive to be a great player, you're not a lost cause and you can be incredible if you set your mind to it, but you need to overcome this psychological side of it first. Competition is half physical effort and half solid mindset. You have the former, but I'm not sure about the latter. I hope that this feedback helps you get better in that sense, because I want to see what you can do and I know you've got it in you to do just that.
