Transitioning to Melee

[vegeta18]

I am a long time brawl player. People have been wanting me to play melee for ever, but I just could not get into it, couldnt stand the gravity and stuff, found it boring to watch, and graphics not nearly as nice looking as brawl. Lately I got past all that and im getting really into melee and watching it as well.

I want to start playing melee now, I main pokemon trainer and marth in brawl, and I plan on maining Marth and playing a bit of roy for fun in melee. I know I should check the character specific boards, but point is I have been watching melee, and i have played here and there but not much. A few days from now I am going to actually start getting into melee and getting competitive, also hoping to play a lot of project M when ever i can get the chance.

What are some basic things i should know about melee? i know things like wave-dashing/dancing sort of. I really only heard the name around forums dont know too many advanced melee things although im sure i can look around on this forum, and youtube videos. If someone could just give me a few starting things that i should know about the basics of melee thatd be good.

Transitiong is my next thing, What is it like transitioning to brawl into melee? any tips for it? I know a few basics like gravity and speed are a lot different, and no tripping. I dont wanna give up playing brawl or get much worse, I wanna learn to be at a competitive level in both of these games.

Brawl marth vs melee marth? idk if i should post this on the character specific board, but what are the main changes i should look for?Can I play him the same way as i do in brawl? I know how to play marth decently well in brawl(i mained PT for along time, still somewhat new to marth, been playing him for about a month or 2)

 

[EPsilon933]

Smash is so much about intuition. As you play, you'll get better

 

[himynameisruss]

-Short hopping
-Short hop fast falling
-L-cancelling
-SHFFLing (Short-hop fast fall L-cancel)

Once you can SHFFL consistently, work on landing it with each aerial on an enemy and successfully L-cancelling. The timing can differ sometimes depending on which aerial you are using (ie. Marth's down-air).

Once you can do this comfortably and consistently, work on the timing of SHFFLing whilst the enemy is shielding.

To do this, start a match with items on high and only the Mario star. Wait until the opponent gets star power, and then attempt a SHFFL'd aerial on them. This is extremely important for shield pressure.

-Dash dancing and wavedashing (although dash dancing is less of a technical skill than wavedashing, but make sure you can do both comfortably).
-Crouch-cancelled forward smashes are important especially for a melee Marth.
-Ground teching
-DI. DI is very important as the hitstun compared to Brawl is drastically increased. Without good DI, you'll get combo'd a lot more than necessary.


Just some random stuff you'll need to work on for basics.

 

[Ryobeat]

I'd say first thing to do is say where you are from. Local smashers will help you alot better than what you will get here. You need someone to teach it to you.

 

[Elyssa Xey Hexen]

I did something similar. Moved from brawl to melee. Now striving to keep both going. The three biggest problems I still have between the games are teching, DI, and buffering even after a couple of years.

Brawl is gracious in allowing you to make inputs and have them come out frame perfect. Melee lacks this feature and requires you to build up the intuition about having frame perfect timing. Many, many times I try finding myself shielding and expecting to buffer a wavedash or Usmash out of shield during hitstun. Instead, I often times spot dodge instead because my timing was too early.

Another annoying issue that gets me way too much punishment is the teching. In brawl, if I miss a tech, I can still go and try teching the next time I am about to hit a surface. With melee, if you attempt to tech after having already tried doing so, you actually cancel your tech window. For example, I am about to l-cancel with a spacie, but get hit by a low knockback move and start slamming into the ground. My reaction from brawl is to try teching this, but because I attempted to l-cancel from before, I cancel my window and I get no tech. Teching in brawl works by having to press the shield button a certain distance from a surface. In melee, if you press the shield button once, you will tech anything in the next 1/3 sec (20 frames). If you press it within this window again, you cancel your ability to tech.

DI is something I still find myself getting stuck on. In brawl, DI up is virtually good for pretty much any sort of attack, but melee you have to realize that DI isn't just for survival, its to avoid follow-ups as well. Without DI to the side against Falco, you will pretty much get shine to dair for a good long while. But, if you get the DI away on a shine, it prevents him from following up with dair which leads into move moves. In short, getting the right direction to reduce how many hits you take is beneficial to you.

Oh, and about racking up damage, it no longer matters in melee in the same as it does in brawl. With brawl, percentage mattered because characters found themselves in neutral all the time and every battle was to gain some damage in neutral and eventually land a KO move for most match-ups I would say. With melee, a move is used to keep a character in a disadvantage and eventually work them into losing a stock. I suppose an analogy would be that in brawl, you are playing with a ball and you just want to hit it a lot even if you drop it a lot. With melee, you hit a ball to keep it up in the air and you never want to miss so you keep it up in the air. The percentage is only there for the sense of it giving or taking away what moves are benefical. For shiek, pretty much any move other than grab at low percents is a risk due to crouch canceling. While at higher percents, moves like Ftilt is less risky.

 

[JKJ]

I post this in every "I'm new to Melee" thread, but here it is.
Watch these:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4n4s5yB7ZkE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiZLs2doK8E
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFmGIOcWdsM
Read this:
http://www.smashboards.com/threads/295524/

You're welcome.

Hope to see you around the boards!

 

[bearsfan092]

That last link is what drives me crazy about Smashboards' organization. That link is absolute gold, yet I've never heard of it until now because it's buried in the Midwest board.