Tips for a beginner

[KingTeo]

Have a friend trying to get into Smash. She's new to video games in general and plays Lucina. Her For Glory record is about 40 or 50%. Whenever I try to give her advice, it always devolves into "Just pay attention to what your opponent is doing and learn to git gud"

Any advice I could try to tell her? Is Lucina a good basic character for someone who doesn't have much fighting sense but hates projectile spam?

 

[Raijinken]

Marth has been considered a relatively easy-to-learn character since Melee (though hard to master), and Lucina is easier Marth, so yes, she should be a very solid basic character. Of course, her lack of projectiles will make dealing with projectile users harder.

At a basic level, my normal advice for learning is to suggest people work their way up the CPUs until they can beat a Level 9 no sweat. That level of dodging and grabbing practice will easily beat a lot of low-level players, but in the process you can develop a lot of bad habits (like predictably dodging the way the computer wouldn't attack, or always grabbing after a shield).

Past that, the best way is to just keep playing. Play against more opponents, play against friends locally, play teams, play 1v1, just play a lot. Especially in friendly matches, try new things like going for more Counter hits, or starting attacks with Dancing Blade. Try not to become predictable (it happens at all levels of play, but the less predictable, the better). Practice trying to meteor-smash people with Down-Air, etc.

For people really intent on improving, it can help to save replays and watch for your own mistakes. Be aware not only of what the opponent was doing, but of what you were doing and why.

Also, it's easy to decry all use of projectiles as "spam", but there are several characters (Ness, (Dr.) Mario, Robin, etc) that have projectiles that are rather ineffective when spammed (at least against decent opponents), but can help cover approahces or combo into finishers at certain percents. Robin, especially, is wholly unable to spam spells more than a few times in a row (same for Smash attacks), and in that regard, can actually serve as a sort of training character to teach players to not rely on the same attack too many times.

 

[SwoodGrommet]

Does she know about smashboards? If I didn't join, I really doubt I'd be learning as fast as I am, so I think she could really benefit from joining.

 

[Roukiske]

I think her record is good enough to keep playing for glory. I don't think CPU's help as much since you want to learn to read human players like the OP said.

When I face a new opponent, I analyze by checking for habits. This includes, move spamming, roll spamming and which way they like to do it, bad spacing, too much or too little grabbing, get-up attacks, etc. In general, look for your opponents patterns. A skilled player can change their play style, making them harder to read. Once you know what they're going to do, you get free f-smashes all day.

Since your friend plays Lucina, I would recommend the Lucina boards, but here's a few things I do as her that have given me success.

I spam full-hop fair's (2 - 3) for spacing, tall characters will get hit by the first fair if you do it immediately and can lead to more fairs. My ground game is f-filts, d-tilts, throws, and side-b's if the character can be fully combo'd (you have to time the hits). At higher percents, If I block an unsafe move, I will almost always let go of my shield and go into f-smash. Most importantly, when your opponent is off-stage, go off the stage and try to back-air them. If they are below you, obviously go for a spike, but go for it below the edge because if they up-b they will most likely grab the ledge for invincibility.

 

[CommanderVimes]

Honestly, the best character for someone getting into the game is the character that they most want to use (I fell into this trap of main purgatory so many times...). But yes, Lucina is a fine choice for someone working out the fundamentals.

As for general advice:
Game-related:
-You may want to tell her about some basic strategies in the game, particularly shield-grabbing. It's very easy to do and instills in players early that you don't just roll around all the time and the idea of punishing.
-Generally work on the difference between tilts and smashes. Again, not a difficult thing, but it feels good to be able to be in control of every attack you have.
-Maybe the difference between short and full hops? Maybe not all the crazy tactics related to it, but again being in control of one's character.

Mindset:
-Try to take one thing away from every game you play. Did you roll too much/not enough? Were they punishing you for doing the same thing too often? What moves were working the best for you?
-Save a replay every now and again to watch.
-Don't try to do so much at one time that it becomes overbearing: you'll stop having fun.

 

[SoulSeizures]

CPUs are a good start. The way I see it, if you can't beat CPUs, your base skill isn't high enough to be legitimately considering the implications of fighting a human player. Basically just ingrain a focus on giving a distinct purpose to certain actions rather than just "button mashing". Reading Rainbow and other stuff like that comes after the basics, which should be able to come naturally through playing.

 

[Alaya]

The most important thing for a truly new player is to break the button mashing habit. Have them practice using each move one by one in a variety of situations so that they truly understand the purpose of each and start using moves in game not randomly but because they intended to do that. This alone will vastly separate them from the majority of 'casual' players.

Also, don't spam specials... that's the #1 tipoff to me that someone is completely new in For Glory - when they only use special moves and don't shield at all. Specials aren't just special because they are unique, they are special because they each have a special nuanced purpose. You would get torn to pieces by any half competent player if all you did was spam specials without any overall strategy, so make sure that they understand that there's a time and a place for each of the B moves.

 

[Pachyy]

Watching videos of people playing helped me to improve really well, maybe watch the videos with your friend, so it's not 100% boring and so you can explain what's happening on the screen to her. (Try Shofu's videos, it's a rather good level, and the guy is going through all the character in a "For Glory" series and the commentary helps sometimes too.)