Various Questions About Starting To Play Competitively

[gapw]

I played Melee for years unaware of any technical stuff or competitive scene. Only now have I started to watch tournaments/recordings of tournaments online, watch videos and read about the various 'advanced techniques' necessary to playing competitively, etc etc. Now I want to get into the scene and start to become a better, competitive player that can eventually compete in local tournaments.

I found this link (https://sites.google.com/site/yalemelee/so-you-wanna-play-melee) and had already been practicing techniques demonstrated in the first video (it's the first one from 2006 by Wak), but I have several questions about the competitive game that I would like to know more about before I even begin to really start training.

1. Are there certain characters that would be excellent for a beginner to the competitive scene to learn the advanced techniques with? I used to main Ness when I played with my brothers or my friends, but looking at the tiers it seems obvious he's not the greatest pick for playing competitively. I also considered Captain Falcon, but I've heard that he's very technical and difficult to control. Dr. Mario is also a character I'm interested in.

2. Is it possible to practice in a very useful way without playing competitive human opponents? I know several people who play Melee (one of which is currently in the competitive scene for 4), but they're the same as me- a lot of experience with the game, but very little knowledge of playing competitively. Should I practice SHFFLing and performing combos and wavedashing and that sort of thing against CPUs or should I try to always fight humans, no matter what level they're at, for practice? Or should I train my friends while I train myself? I'm just confused.

Those two questions and all of the questions within them are what I really need to know. If you want to a shorter version of both of them, my questions can be shortened to- 1. What character should I start with? and 2. How should I practice?

Thanks. First post here, so if it's an 'incorrect question' just yell at me.

 

[Delta Chae]

I would personally recommend Marth for you if you're just starting out as he's very much based on strong fundamentals with basic tech. That's just me talking however, play whoever you want and if you want to main Ness then I say go for it.

CPUs are okay for practice if we're only talking about getting tech skill down to muscle memory. After that however you'll need to find some decent practice partners. If you can find someone on your level who's also interested in competitive play then you can practice against each other and constantly be improving at a similar rate. Keep in mind that knowing how to DO the tech is one thing, knowing how to USE it is another matter entirely so I would recommend against practicing on CPUs except for muscle memory practice and figuring out the basics of how your combos work.

 

[gapw]

I would personally recommend Marth for you if you're just starting out as he's very much based on strong fundamentals with basic tech. That's just me talking however, play whoever you want and if you want to main Ness then I say go for it.

CPUs are okay for practice if we're only talking about getting tech skill down to muscle memory. After that however you'll need to find some decent practice partners. If you can find someone on your level who's also interested in competitive play then you can practice against each other and constantly be improving at a similar rate. Keep in mind that knowing how to DO the tech is one thing, knowing how to USE it is another matter entirely so I would recommend against practicing on CPUs except for muscle memory practice and figuring out the basics of how your combos work.

I know someone else that I could practice with, but he's just as new to Melee's competitive scene as I am. We played together a lot in childhood, but were always unaware of the metagame. He now plays Smash 4 competitively but not Melee. Are you saying that this is an almost ideal practice partner?

 

[deadPhoenix]

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_6o5NHvI9P8-qHp2M8w1gDzL_-JNonEE81Mh4ulY1PY/edit?usp=sharing

SleepyK's beginner's guide is also a great place to start!

 

[EddyBearr]

Play Fox and read CunningKitsune's guide.

Don't focus on tech skill, focus on winning.

 

[EPsilon933]

1.
I recommend starting with Fox or Falco. They'll push you to develop tech skill faster than any other character. Once you feel you're fluent, you can try learning the rest of the top 8 to find out who fits you best. Don't worry about who's best among them unless you're actually competing to be the best in your state

2.
Just play the game with friends. Don't make it boring by teaching them how to win. You'll likely bore them into quitting. Practicing and textbook learning is something people can do on their own. Even if it's Smash 4, you'll still learn the abstract skills like spacing and reading

 

[Delta Chae]

I know someone else that I could practice with, but he's just as new to Melee's competitive scene as I am. We played together a lot in childhood, but were always unaware of the metagame. He now plays Smash 4 competitively but not Melee. Are you saying that this is an almost ideal practice partner?

Even as a competitive Smash 4 player he still needs to have good fundamentals to be successful. Good fundamentals with basic tech will take you far, subpar fundamentals with all the tech skill in the world won't help you one bit.

 

[Elyssa Xey Hexen]

* The game will be much, much, much more enjoyable in the long run if you pick characters you prefer to play. Its quite surprising how long people play without say sticking with one character, but end up being proficient enough general ability to play well enough.

I believe you would stay with this longer if rather than caring so much about the competitive side that and you play whatever characters come to mind while practicing the competitive aspect. The progress will be a tad slower if you are choosing multiple characters, but I think its important that have that sort of time period where you really try out several characters to get the best feel for one's you really want to improve upon.

It makes it all the more satisfying in my opinion later on when you have that one character you really want to try pushing above the rest. At the very least self improvement in some skill has always been part of what keeps me going again and again.

* Practice generally getting a head start on whatever technical related matters you can get a hold of. The technical barrier is often the most difficult barrier to get past and will continue to haunt you for a long time. The goal in my cases is to be able to do something without ever making an input or timing error time and time and time again. You cannot expect mastery in a short period of time. Even top players you can notice clearly make mistakes every so often which gets them in trouble, but the idea is to get more proficient execution.

 

[Wreckarooni]

1. Play Bowser, Up-B, and barrel roll from ledge
He's mega kawaii, Boozer is love Boozer is life


2. no, but you can master the fundamentals and movement on your own.

 

[-Philip Coast Philip-]

1. Are there certain characters that would be excellent for a beginner to the competitive scene to learn the advanced techniques with?

2. Is it possible to practice in a very useful way without playing competitive human opponents?

1. Doc is good.

2. That's how M2K got good, by playing CPUs endlessly. He was also very analytical.

3. Watch how the pros play that character, read up on some threads in the character boards, you'll be good in no time. I played a guy the other day, he just switched to Melee from like CoD or another unrelated game, been playing two months, he basically skipped all the mistakes newer players make when it comes to learning the game simply because he copied how the pros play that character which made his moves unprecedented for someone who lacked experience and mindgames. He was one of the harder opponents I'd fought in awhile, and he had just picked up Jigglypuff like that week.

 

[vexoskeleton]

This links to a pretty good way of practicing by yourself as described by PPMD where he goes into a fair depth on it.

http://smashboards.com/threads/falco-discussion-thread.256826/page-439#post-14739329