Tournament help for Roy

[TNatty]

Hi, this is my first time ever posting to the smash boards.

So I am a fairly new smash player but not a complete noob to everything. I have a very solid grasp on the competitive scene and I have a good bit of tech skills. (consistent: SHFFLs, L cancels, wavedashes, wavelands, blah blah and I can sometimes pivot fsmash) What I am lacking is experience with real people who know how to play on a competitive level. All of my friends think competitive smash is dumb or just don't want to get into it so all of my MU knowledge is from people that spam c stick and special moves. I have gone to one tournament and got stomped and all of my matches were lost because of my lack of MU knowledge. I'm going to another one this weekend and is there anything I can do that isn't playing other people to help me out?

Thanks

 

[Binary Clone]

Just play other people. Really. It is hands-down bar-none THE best way to improve. Play a lot of friendlies with people, don't just play tournament matches. Meet people, talk to them. Ask people when they beat you what you can do better, or how you can deal specifically with their character. They'll probably have some insight, and they'll probably be willing to share and help you out. Beyond that, talking to people like this can help you find new people to play with outside of tournament settings, too. Try to hunt for training partners that are willing to play with you and can communicate with you how to improve, and try to do the same to them.

Be aware of everything you do. Every movement, every attack, should have a specific intended purpose. After a match, think about what you did and what worked or didn't work and why. Be aware of spacing and fundamentals, because that's much more important that tech skill. Make sure you make use of all of your options and when to use them, what is and isn't safe on shield, etc. But reading your opponent is key, and you won't get that any way other than playing real opponents.

 

[Azureflames]

Best advice i can give is just to play play play and practice and practice even more. The most valuable time at a tournament to improving is friendlies, use that time to really just practice and try to understand how the opponent moves around and what they're trying to accomplish. If you can find that out you can start to learn ways around it. If you have a decent computer i can advise getting a GC controller adapter and practicing through netplay.

As for practicing yourself, the best thing you can do is just keep practicing different L-cancel combinations into dash/tilt/wavedash front or back and anything else you can think of. Wavelanding is a pretty big deal also. Don't bother practicing against computers.

 

[TFerg]

The thing about Roy that it's important to understand is that he is essentially a no bull**** melee character that has been improved in various ways; there are no tricks to Roy, it all comes down to your proper movement/grab/combo/tech-chase/spacing game that encompasses all the basic fundamentals of smash, and in order to be a strong Roy player you will first need to be a strong Smash player.

If Roy has a "gimmick" to learn to immediately improve your game, I suppose it would be Crouch cancelled d-tilt. At early percents this is an extremely favorable option in most matchups and can generally setup a tech chase or combo punish situation.

D-tilt>fair>grab
Fair>diltlt>fair>dtilt>up air>forward smash is one of my favorites, works against a lot of people, it's sort of a DI trap
Up air into back air is really important
Neutral B is good edge-guarding and is basically an aerial smash attack as strong as ganon's fair
Forward Smash is amazing, learn to time it well and always know when you can end a combo with it safely, because you should basically do it.
Pivot Side B is easy to good and effective
YOU HAVE TO LEARN TO DI. Sloppy DI leads to poor recovery situations, which will get edgehogged and make you salty

As hard as it is to resist, don't just through out aerials all the time. This was a bad habit of mine I had to kick. When you watch a top level player like Sethlon play, it seems like they are just "being Roy" and going in hard with their punish game. Generally this is actually smart aggression that is reactive while using proper spacing. Learn to move, and learn to think in game

 

[MudkipUniverse]

d tilt for dayz

 

[NIFOFD]

If you end up getting knocked out of brackets early you should see if anyone is available to play friendlies with. This might be a problem though if setups are lacking.

If netplay isn't an option and you find yourself destroying your friends, try to watch streams or videos of players like sethlon on VGbootcamp. You might have a decent grasp of techskill, but learning how to intelligently apply techskill is much harder than just learning inputs and timing.

Lastly, even if you main Roy, play and watch other characters so that you can know their options at any given time. If you understand what your opponent is trying to do, you can try to adapt (even if you don't necessarily have the most experience in the matchup).

Either way I wish you luck in future tournaments (guess I'm responding a little late to the post).