Video Critique Thread

[343]

Only airdodge if they're close enough to do a strong/kill move and you're reaaaally scared. If they don't do a move, you'll get punished every time. Watch how the good Samuses return to the stage.

I also have a problem where I try to input the same thing multiple times; it's very dangerous, heh. Get used to doing things after stun ends, or at least go for an "option-select" type thing: only repeatedly do inputs if you know it won't get you in a bad position regardless of what they do.

To edgeguard a spacy going for the ledge, you should either ledgehog, missile/chargeshot if they're high, homing missile if you think they'll up-b, dangled ftilt, dangled fsmash, or dsmash. They actually have a lot of recovery mixups--saving doublejump, shine stall, walljumps, different forward-b heights, different up-b angles, etc. Jumping out with a nair won't work unless you catch them in their initial up-b animation or if you stick your foot in the path of their forward-b.

 

[JerkPhil]

If your opponent is on the stage, you better space the airdodge-grapple so they can't reach you with i.e. Marth's Ftilt. Is there even a single move (not projectile) that has a longer range than grapple?

All moves has different shieldstun. It also depends on how stale the move is. Therefore it's hard to tell you how to upB OoS during pressure. It's something you learn with experience.

As already mentioned, missiles (and chargeshot) when they are further away to limit their options, then Utilt, Ftilt or down angled Fsmash covers the ledge. It's important to learn the exact ranges of all recoveries to know when to edge hog. I've lost some sets misjudging the range of my opponents' upBs...

 

[MintyFlesh]

Help me get good please. Peach gives me alot of trouble, its really hard.

Vs peach http://www.twitch.tv/smashingatempire/b/542128696 1:11:10
Vs Falcon http://www.twitch.tv/smashingatempire/b/542128696 2:05:14
Vs fox http://www.twitch.tv/smashingatempire/b/542128696 216:45

Then I have another set vs the Peach player later on, but I played really bad lol. Mad johns. If you could critque the set with peach / fox that would be awesome, as those were the toughest for me.

 

[bubbaking]

Oof, having to play against Ben Grimm is rough, largely because he literally has years of experience playing the Peach:Samus MU with Knut and myself. Idk how much you want my critique, seeing as how we're rivals somewhat, but I'll give it anyway. I wrote these comments as I was watching the video, so forgive me for the haphazard nature of the notes.

1:11:28 - At the beginning you upB'd way too preemptively. I generally wait for Peach to hit my shield with the aerial first before I upB.

You were really great at catching him with all those grabs, though.

1:12:41 - It's Ben, and you know what his reputation is. I would have just gone for the semi-guaranteed nair, but if you're gonna try anything else, make sure it's out of dsmash range.
1:13:28 - You shouldn't have gone for dthrow > nair at the edge of the stage after Ben demonstrated that he knew how to DI it. This also goes for all the later times when you kept going for it, because Ben always DI'd it away. DA catches DI away (and you did do that once before), so you should have done that more instead switching to fthrows.

In general, I would say to that if Peach tries to pressure you at all, you can just upB OoS on reaction to the aerial or the jab. Spot-dodging can (and did) cause you to eat dsmashes. Most of the times when you did upB, you did so too hastily and ended up completely whiffing.

1:15:22 - You know the Peach is going to float eventually. I generally always save the Charged Shot for one of those moments, since Peach has bad vertical mobility. In fact, in that very situation, if you had jumped to fire instead of shooting it along the ground, you definitely would have hit him. A lot of Peaches are randomly good at powershielding (Ben is one of those people), so jumping to shoot it also avoids that nonsense.

Good stuff catching those rolls with fsmash to take the first two stocks.

Just worked a night shift, so I need to go to sleep, but I will probably watch the rest later.

Edit: I quickly skimmed through the second match and I saw that you CP'd Ben to Yoshi's. Did he ban Stadium? I'm guessing that you probably wanted to kill him earlier, since he was living for a pretty long time on BF, but I would have CP'd Peach to Stadium and lamed the f**k out of him. Double missiles on stadium is a real force to be reckoned with and there isn't really anything Peach can do about excessive camping. Of course, with all of his Samus experience, he probably banned Stadium immediately.

 

[FreezyEffects]

Hello, I am new to the smash community and I am trying to get better. This is just 3 games with my friend, I know I am a scrub, what can I do to get better? (Sorry about the quality)
#1 samus vs sheik: http://youtu.be/1ApYGv9HDdk
#2 samus vs shiek: http://youtu.be/UJPV0AZYFxU
#3 samus vs sheik: http://youtu.be/AZU4SvfeYrI

 

[bubbaking]

Got 5th at a VA tourney a week or two ago. I feel like I'm getting a better hang of the Sheik MU, but I still need a lot of help with that one. Can somebody harshly critique these videos? I know I made a lot of sloppy mistakes. Unfortunately, the quality of these vids is not that good (the latter half of each one is pretty un-watchable)...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bvo6rCJEgsY (Samus vs Marth)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1wRsjWpqUs (Samus vs Sheik; only game 3 was recorded)

 

[Litt]

My matches over the weekend,

Vs. The Moon
http://www.twitch.tv/underworldgamez/c/4705468

vs Dj Nintendo at 51:30
http://www.twitch.tv/underworldgamez/c/4705121

 

[bubbaking]

Are you looking for critique or were you just posting these vids for people to look at?

 

[ycz12]

Well, this is the critique thread.

I watched your match against The Moon. Just as a general observation, it seemed like most of the time when you were getting hit it was because you did something unsafe and got punished, rather than because he outplayed you in the neutral game. You were generally capitalizing better than him and getting plenty of hits in, but you would occasionally do something dumb like randomly airdodge, or ledgehop fair when he was out of range, or try to bomb-cancel grapple right next to the stage, or ledgejump. Marth can hurt you pretty bad, don't give him too many free chances.

Perhaps more specific advice incoming

 

[bubbaking]

I only watched your first match against DJN on BF, but here were some things I noticed:

53:00 - I don't think it was a good idea to commit to a charged fsmash when he had so many options available to him. You could probably just tilt to cover the angle right at you and then be able to react to other angles.

53:14 - Dangled ftilt covers the sideB sweetspot and can secure the edgeguard. Also super easy.

53:25 - I know you probably meant to drop through the platform into a MC, but even so, your position was pretty bad. Once you go onto that platform, if Fox is center-stage like that, he can easily run in and just nair through the missile AND you. It's best to avoid going onto that platform if Fox is so close.

53:34 - You are going for all these fancy edgeguarding set-ups when you should really be closing out this stock. All you need to do is dangled ftilt (or just grab the ledge) to cover the sideB sweetspot and then react to the Firefox. He was way too far out to try to fool you.

53:47 - At this point, I noticed that you only ledgejump back onto the stage and it's making your very vulnerable. Don't be afraid to plank just a little longer until your opponent moves into a more favorable spot for you. If DJ had gone with his guess and come down early with bair, you could have ledgehop fair/uair/nair'd him. Mix it up.

53:54 - Not required. At all. Could have easily drifted forward a little into your max ledgegrab range and just taken your ledge invincibility instead of going for a risky rising grapple right next to stage which got punished.

54:10 - Definitely the wrong place to be shooting that missile when you're literally on top of Fox.

54:33 - After the first ledgehop fair > dsmash got completely shielded, I think you should have done the Darrel and gone for ledgehop fair > grab. Ledgehop fair > upB on shields is also sometimes a decent option because you can FF back to the ledge if it doesn't poke (which it will a lot of the time).

55:02 - Yeah, more edgeguards like this!


Something general I noticed is that throughout most of the match, you were playing the game of 'tag' that DJ Nintendo loves to play. Basically, instead of positioning yourself in areas where you could cut off or threaten areas of the stage from Fox, you were chasing him around the stage and of course you weren't catching up to him because Fox is faster than Samus in every way. Your movement was pretty on-point, but chasing after Fox's tail is not what you want to be doing, I would think.

 

[OddCrow]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=...eature=player_detailpage&v=gBssEmy60AM#t=1889

I play two matches here vs. Marth (Erow) who is currently the best player in Reno. I know I grab too much. ):

EDIT: I've only been playing since late May

 

[bubbaking]

The time-stamp didn't work, but I watched three Samus vs Marth matches starting at 28:00, so I'm guessing those were yours. Here were some general things I noticed that you should work on:

• Stop rolling. Learn to wavedash out-of-shield. Samus' roll can always be reacted to, and more often than not, it will get you punished very badly. Learning how to WD OoS is a MUST for any aspiring Samus.
• Sweetspot the ledge with upB and your grapple. You can avoid getting hit back offstage that way. Samus can actually sweetspot with her upB a fair distance from the ledge, so take advantage of that.
• Crouch cancel so that Marth's moves don't launch you upwards. You never really wanna be in the air against Marth, unless you're hitting him, because he won't let you back down easily.
• DI Marth's moves away from him when he's comboing you and don't try to double jump too early. DIing away will lessen the severity of his combo and will keep you from being Ken Combo'd. DJing too early will get you caught without a jump.
• Forward tilt more and don't forward smash as much. Fsmash is pretty unsafe, and if you don't space it (which you weren't really), you can be easily shieldgrabbed. Ftilt is one of Samus' best spacing and zoning tools.
• Tech. When Marth throws or hits you to the ground, tech so that you can avoid all of those fake follow-ups he was hitting you with. In general, you should be teching 90% of the time that you're knocked to the ground.
  
• Don't try to come in high with a DJ forward air when you're recovering, especially against Marth. If you're going to use fair, come up with it when the opponent is too close to the ledge. Otherwise, it's pretty easy to beat out.
  
• Stop trying to respond to everything with DJ down air. It made you extremely predictable and often got you caught in the air with no jump to save yourself. Marth can easily just swipe through anything you do. Your first priority should be landing.
  
• You recognized this, but it requires repetition. Stop trying to grab. For now, I will say that you probably shouldn't try to grab much at all until you learn some decent set-ups for it (like missile cancel > grab).
  
• Don't panic and jump when Marth gets too close. Stay grounded. Marth is very good at juggling and Samus sucks at getting down. It's easier to deal with him up close if you know how to WD OoS and CC properly.

On a more positive note, I just saw you do a 40% combo (dair > usmash > uair). Now I wanna check to see if this is a real thing, 'cause I was not expecting that kind of damage output on only three moves. O_O

 

[OddCrow]

Awesome, thanks so much. It really helps to hear this stuff, I had watched the footage multiple times and didn't even notice how much I was blowing my DJ, which caused me some really embarrassing recoveries. A big problem right now is execution, I think maybe 2 of those rolls were on purpose, the rest were flubbed wavedashes. I also have a bit of trouble gauging samus' timing for fast falls, l-cancels and techs due to slow fall speed. I really see how many bad habits playing CPUs has given me, like f-smash just eats up cpus because it slightly moves samus' hurtbox, but people aren't so easily fooled.

I really want to use uptilt more, but I flub it like 50% of the time while playing other people due to nerves, Wavedash into uptilt has proven especially difficult. Especially when I'm trying to continue a combo with it. I think a lot of what I'm noticing is nerves leading to execution errors. I feel like I drop combos too early because I'm too eager, jump in where I shouldn't, or forget basics like recovering safe and teching. Hearing exactly how that affects my play really, really helps.

Also, I hear mixed opinions on whether or not to bother with CCd dtilts at all, I'm trying to do more dsmashes, but it's to mixed results so far. There are no other Samus players in Reno, so there is no one to offer me samus advice. Again, thanks a ton for this, back to the lab

 

[ycz12]

It really helps to hear this stuff, I had watched the footage multiple times and didn't even notice how much I was blowing my DJ,

Um,

 

[OddCrow]

Um,

It's different when watching your own footage - you glaze over a lot of details.

 

[ycz12]

That wasn't what I was um-ing about.

 

[343]

get your mind out of the gutter jeez

 

[bubbaking]

Well, let's at least try to be helpful, since that is what this thread is all about.

 

[Litt]

my match against slox is CTs first of many to come weeklies on thursday nights, first time TOing and it was pretty fun, match starts at 02:07:34
http://www.twitch.tv/guaranteeddamage/b/553245398

 

[bubbaking]

I only just now realized the joke that ycz was making.

my match against slox is CTs first of many to come weeklies on thursday nights, first time TOing and it was pretty fun, match starts at 02:07:34
http://www.twitch.tv/guaranteeddamage/b/553245398

In the first match, you still have a bad habit of going for too many ledgejumps and going for zair tricksies when you could just take your ledge invincibility (like at the very end of your first stock). Even if you didn't die, IMO it's a bad idea to throw away your only tether so carelessly.

2:10:53 - Possible technical error? You can follow-up a 'tipped' upB like that one with a quick ledgedash into something to tech-chase. Flip the tables on 'im.

Other than that, the match was pretty nice.

I didn't watch all of the second match, but going off what I did see, you made some pretty questionable edgeguard choices.

 

[Litt]

My philosophy with the tether is, if you have it, use it, dont just hold it in forever because its just an extra option you can use, im exploring how far I can push the gimmick so I just get alternative movement options, simular to dj canceling, but with bombs and the zair, its becoming more successful but I have a ways to go with it. As for battlefield, I dont like to AI or Hax dash on it because the risk is too high and im not consistent enough at either for this stage yet, when im on all other stages I use ledge invins much more efficiently.

 

[Ringedge]

I start playing 57 minutes in http://www.twitch.tv/play_for_keeps/b/558847134 I have been playing Samus for about 3 months if that helps, and the people I were playing were not that great (No offense if they are reading), so I did try to do some stupid things for fun and to see if it would work (read:EXTENDUUUUURR). Anything is helpful, thank you!

 

[bubbaking]

OK, I started to watch your first set against the Falco, but it wasn't really worth analyzing. It was just clear that you were completely better than your opponent and even your really bad habits were being rewared.

Second set against Marth was the same.

Some things in general you could work on, though, are using wavedashes out-of-shield, instead of rolling, and your ledge options. Instead of always going for regular ledge get-ups, especially ledgejump, you should try to use ledgehops and ledgedashes more often.

 

[Ringedge]

I thought that might be a problem, I will try to get some gameplay against the rest of my crew this weekend and upload and link that, we all lose and win to each other so it will be good. Thanks for the general knowledge though!

 

[Litt]

Pretty much the rule of thumb here is if you arent winning a national, dont post videos of you winning because well you won, you obviously did enough right to win and shouldnt be asking for help in what you did wrong in that match

 

[Noxus]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dImwA6AtTfo
A set i had with lucky's falcon over the weekend, I feel i adapated pretty well the 2nd game but have a few clear mistakes but a critque would be greatly apprecaited!

 

[JerkPhil]

Don't Dsmash if you're not certain it's going to hit. Falcon punishes hard if they shield it. I usually Dtilt instead as the lag is much less, makes it harder to punish.
If you notice you missed the grapple sweetspot, do a walljump directly after the pull in in to a missile, weak charge shot, Bair or bomb. This makes your mistake harder to punish.
Work more on your DI (both combo and survival.
Also work on your edgeguard. Falcon shouldn't come back on stage vs Samus.

I also question you choice of counterpick stage. Maybe it's your personal preference?
I prefer FoD (Lucky banned it?) or else YS as Falcon can't move around as freely on smaller stages. Also a larger part of the games will be spent edgeguarding, where Samus gets most of her chances killing Falcon.

 

[Noxus]

Don't Dsmash if you're not certain it's going to hit. Falcon punishes hard if they shield it. I usually Dtilt instead as the lag is much less, makes it harder to punish.
If you notice you missed the grapple sweetspot, do a walljump directly after the pull in in to a missile, weak charge shot, Bair or bomb. This makes your mistake harder to punish.
Work more on your DI (both combo and survival.
Also work on your edgeguard. Falcon shouldn't come back on stage vs Samus.

I also question you choice of counterpick stage. Maybe it's your personal preference?
I prefer FoD (Lucky banned it?) or else YS as Falcon can't move around as freely on smaller stages. Also a larger part of the games will be spent edgeguarding, where Samus gets most of her chances killing Falcon.

Thanks for the advice man, appreciate it. Good critique my edge guarding was very off this set, during those up air chains should i be trying to smash di up and away? And yeah i would have gone FoD for sure but he banned it, i guess i just chose dreamland so i could live a little longer but i think as my movement and stuff improves then i will be more confident to counter pick to yoshi's :D

 

[bubbaking]

Don't Dsmash if you're not certain it's going to hit. Falcon punishes hard if they shield it. I usually Dtilt instead as the lag is much less, makes it harder to punish.

Actually, that's not entirely true. It really depends on which part of the dsmash you hit with, but both moves are generally equally unsafe. Dtilt is -25 on block, and dsmash is -29 if you hit with the front and -22 if you hit with the back. All three cases are easily punished by Falcon, and I've actually had my dtilts punished even more because it has less push-back, although it does tend to poke more often.

If you notice you missed the grapple sweetspot, do a walljump directly after the pull in in to a missile, weak charge shot, Bair or bomb. This makes your mistake harder to punish.

If the opponent is standing very close to the ledge or is hanging on it, instant wall-jump upB after a tether is also a pretty good option that can catch fast-fallers by surprise and even get them killed if they were on the ledge.

 

[JerkPhil]

Alright. I ignored the second hit of the Dsmash as it comes out later anyways.
I also get punished more often when Dsmashing than Dtilting...

 

[343]

people might not know the hitstun for dtilt as well and try to act too early?

 

[Noxus]

@ ycz12 Hey I watched your set with Alan at GSATHF https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vH2U8o5xjlQ
and i noticed in your game against peach you were really good at catching turnups! do you have any tips for how you do this so well? or good ways to practice? as i sometimes struggle with that match up :D

 

[JerkPhil]

An idea is to play catch with a friend.

 

[343]

Help, I suck! http://www.twitch.tv/beastlismash/b/577344687?t=5m48s

lol @ my own advice to airdodge back to the stage less from like 4 months ago

(to be fair, this guy took a game off ycz, but my lead game 1 really evaporated)

Things I'm terrible at:
- getting back onto the ground
- spacing??
- not messing up tech skill

 

[Litt]

Help, I suck! http://www.twitch.tv/beastlismash/b/577344687?t=5m48s

lol @ my own advice to airdodge back to the stage less from like 4 months ago

(to be fair, this guy took a game off ycz, but my lead game 1 really evaporated)

Things I'm terrible at:
- getting back onto the ground
- spacing??
- not messing up tech skill

First hint... no up smashes, second you were being mad agressive and disrespectful, marth just wasnt keeping up at first. F smash and D smashes are for punishing... not for neutral bud, learn the difference (and by learn I mean stop doing them so much especially when you aren't at least 60% sure they will connect)... dont waste your charge shots like that, especially when you are down, just holding them makes your opponent respect you move and give you more space to breath, STOP missing so many wavelands on platforms... these misses aren't even small oh air dodged a little too soon, you were off by a mile on a number of them, go practice them until your fingers blister. WHY DID YOU KEEP FULL HOP NAIRING?!?! after it didnt work twice for a read... your opponent will notice... hmm this guy is going to keep jumping up for me to swat around... geez thanks? And here is the biggest reason why you that lead you had vanished... when he was in shield... jab fsmash... or jab jab downsmash.... if you land a big unsafe attack on shield and your pressure was not successful.... you got grabbed or hit as soon as you tried that bigger attack... play smarter and realize when your opponent adapts because you didn't change much about your game from the beginning to end. (Also marth jumps from ledge... you fsmash... ok cool you went for a read.... marth proceeds to jump onto top platform... fsmash again.. wutt?!? where you watching your opponent, going for the hardest of reads?!? or did you just drop your controller at that point? cmon bud we have spoken before and I know you are much smarter than what you showed in that match)

Side note, a little surprised he took a game from ycz, but he didnt win the set so it doesnt mean shet

Edit: ^ that was all just for game 1, read it and try to think about game 2 yourself, I don't have time to watch the second

 

[343]

Upsmashes and probably the fullhop nairs were techskill errors And probably a bunch of the fsmashes when he was nowhere nearby were also missed jumps, heh

I feel like I miss lots of wavelands in tournament for whatever reason -__-

Agreed that I should've held charge more, and that I need to end jab pressure with wd back / ftilt / other tilt (I'm still working on this; I often fsmash by accident when I'm trying to ftilt, tbh). And I need to stop being so cstick heavy during neutral A lot of the times I dsmash / fsmash his shield is because I'm trying to punish something he did on my shield, but I'm too slow. I guess I just need to know frames better.

What do you think about fairs onto platforms? Leon apparently wasn't impressed by them.

Thanks!

 

[Litt]

Upsmashes and probably the fullhop nairs were techskill errors And probably a bunch of the fsmashes when he was nowhere nearby were also missed jumps, heh

I feel like I miss lots of wavelands in tournament for whatever reason -__-

Agreed that I should've held charge more, and that I need to end jab pressure with wd back / ftilt / other tilt (I'm still working on this; I often fsmash by accident when I'm trying to ftilt, tbh). And I need to stop being so cstick heavy during neutral A lot of the times I dsmash / fsmash his shield is because I'm trying to punish something he did on my shield, but I'm too slow. I guess I just need to know frames better.

What do you think about fairs onto platforms? Leon apparently wasn't impressed by them.

Thanks!

Any monkey can do a fair onto a platform, thats why he wasnt impressed by them. Its what you accomplish or follow up with that fair that can impress another player... (Ex: Rising fair on platform against a marth in shield, into isai drop fast fall up air as marth tries to grab you, so he gets hit by the up air, then l cancel that up air into a quick up tilt to hit marth through the platform, and then jumping nair to finish off the combo.) that is impressive... but just fairing someone on a platform with a bit of control, not impressive. If you feel you miss a lot of wavelands in tourney... then you have not practiced enough, if you are using smashes too much or are having input errors, you have not practiced enough. Its all cool to say something was prob a techskill error, but YOU SHOULD NOT BE USING THAT TECH SKILL IF YOU DO NOT YET HAVE IT, either put in the time to learn it so you can apply it when it really matters, or reduce the amount of inputs you are trying to accomplish so you can use that thing inbetween both your ears that you failed to tap into in that match against bob (im talking about your noggin bud).

 

[Jagoffian]

I played Lil Fumi at a local today, and I think I did okay:
http://www.twitch.tv/mrsirtable/b/578592838?t=2h28m30s (@~2:28:30)

1st match is preferred because i felt like i made less dumb/obvious mistakes. Thanks in advance!

 

[Var Parasite]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmMmYnZb62k
I'd like any advice I can get on playing against falco or when feeling under pressure. Bonus points for advice on how to keep your head cool and stay with the correct tactics you know. This match is not one of two equal players, but rather me getting outplayed by someone far above me, I hope that's not a bad thing as far as critique is concerned.

 

[Ringedge]

I got to play against Silent Wolf, Mike Li (Top 5 Falco in B.C.) and some random Falco at the last P4K monthly, I will upload youtube videos to go with the time stamps once I get them all up, but for now there is just this http://www.twitch.tv/play_for_keeps/b/581862219 Anything is helpful, thanks!!

VS. Silent wolf 3:09:31 http://youtu.be/tZFMSZEja84
VS. Mike Li 3:00:30 http://youtu.be/TMMfkoXI_a0
VS. Random 3:25:00