moving on... ive received a lot of questions regarding wave dashing. so here goes.
in case anyone doesnt know--a quick how to:
you can cancel your jump by dodging back down towards the ground. depending on how soon you cancel your jump, you'll get two different types of movement.
triangle jump: jumping forward then dodging downward at a 45degree angle a split second after you leave the ground will result in what many people call a triangle jump (i believe this is a term from MVC2). you jump in the formation of a triangle jump, hence the name. what good is this? honestly, i hardly (very rarely) use this, but the person who pointed this technique out to me claims that he uses it a lot. first off, the t.jump happens very fast. so, theoretically, if you can jump and fake out your opponent by cancelling it downward. also, because you dodge downward, in the last part of your jump (the last part of the triangle) you are invincible. this can be used to dodge through the opponent and whatever attacks they have, putting you behind them and at a possible advantage. again, i stress the word *possible* since i dont personally use this technique much (please dont let my laziness in ssb discourage anyone else from using it, hopefully someone will show me the true power of tjumping). finally, you can also tjump backwards: jumping forward then dodging back the direction you came from. though it no longer looks like a triangle, i'll still refer to it as backward tjumping. with this, you can bait your opponent into whiffing an attack, on which you can capitalize. ex. the guy that told me about this (his name is tragic) uses DK. he said he'd jump towards a guy and tjump backwards. if the guy fell for his bait, ie he attacks rolls forward, then tragic would grab with DK.
wave dashing/crouch dashing: same concept as tjumping. you cancel your jump with a dodge. BUT instead of waiting a split second, you cancel your jump IMMEDIATELY. i mean really fast. your character shouldnt even leave the ground. just in case, this is the easiest way for me to do it.
start off holding d/f on the control stick, your character will be crouching. hit jump then press block right afterward. what you should see is your character stand up very quickly from his crouch, then crouch back down, all the while sliding forward (the distance and speed of the the slide depends on the character, more on that later). the result is your character sliding forward while still crouching. this is called, by me and many others--for obvious reasons--a crouch dash. now, doing many crouch dashes in succession is a littler harder, as it requires a certain rythm (and dependiing on your characters crouch dash, the rythm is different). i find the best way to wave dash is to just hold d/f on the control stick and just alternate really fast between jumping and dodging:
[d/f]x~r, x~r, x~r, x~r...
and so on and so on. [d/f] means to hold d/f the whole time. the ~ symbol indicates that you should not be pressing x and r at the same time (that is usually represented by a + symbol), but immediately one after the other. what you will see is your character crouching then standing for a split second while sliding forward. again, to recap, cancelling your jump VERY QUICKLY so that you dont even leave the ground is a crouch dash. doing many crouch dashes in succession is wave dashing. also, the distinction between cd and wd isnt that strict, in most circumstances, the terms are interchangeable. and, unlike tjumping, crouch dashing/wave dashing has no window of invincibility.
i have to use abbreviations to save me, and everyone else, time.
tjump - triangle jump
cd - crouch dash
cding - crouch dashing
wd - wave dash
wding - wave dashing
did i miss anything? i put this little glossary up in hope that i dont have people asking me what a cd or wd is. i felt that i clearly explained a sex kick in my previous posts, but there are still people asking in this thread, so apparently i didnt make it clear enough. so now im patronizing you mofos hehe. since i dont use tjumping much, i put its possible uses up top. my uses for cding/wding follows. i just realized that wasnt a very quick how to...
oh! one more thing... i'll be using these conventions (hopefully they make things easier for everyone, i dont mean to complicate things...) for attacks:
u/f/d+a = smash attacks
u/f/d-a = medium attacks
i hope that doesnt complicate things... its easier for me to type that than typing out the whole smash/medium thing.
ok wave dasing... first off, characters have different properties to their jumps and dodges, so it makes sense that theyd have different types of cd's right? ex. bowser has a REALLY long dodge and his jump hardly goes off the ground, so his cd is rather pathetic and (as far as i know) not of much use at all, he hardly goes anywhere, and the rythm for his wd is really awkward. bowser probably has the worst cd in the game. luigi, on the other hand, has imo the BEST wd game in ssbm. he has a high jump, and, as everyone knows, ABSOLUTELY NO TRACTION. in other words, he naturally slides. so, just ONE of his cd's moves faster and goes farther than 3-4 of bowser's cd's. other characters with decent wd's:
yoshi, mario/dr.mario, G&W, marth (roy?), jigglypuff, kirby...
thats all i can think of for now. im sure there are others.
i'll be discussing luigi's wd tactics here only. im sure a lot of this can be applied to other characters as well.
the wd alone is a useful tool in movement. for luigi, its faster than his run, so you can cover distances much faster by wding than running. Also, you can wd BACKWARDS while facing the opposite direction. its basically the same thing as wding forward, you just hold d/b instead of d/f. wding backwards lets you run away faster as well.
the thing about wding is that you still have complete control of your character at any time during the cd animation. this means you can attack, dodge, block, roll, jump, throw, and so on. the possibilies are literally endless. some uses for wding:
-picking up items. you can wd over items and pick them up. this is useful for when you are racing against an opponent for an item that has fallen on the ground. wd over an item and press A and you'll pick it up while sliding. of course, youll be vulnerable to attack...
-giving attacks forward momentum. very useful. doing an attack while cding gives it forward momentum. for example, if i have a fan with luigi, i like to cd towards the opponent while mashing on A. i'll slide towards the guy with a barrage of quick fan hits. or, if i have a crackbat, i'll cd towards them and f+a. thats pretty scary having someone slide towards you with an instant ko hit. cding into throw is also very very useful. often times (when i played luigi exclusively...) id catch matt by surprise by cding and throwing. his first reaction when i cd towards him, most likely, will be to block any attack. thus i can get a free throw. also, it happens so fast that, often times, itll just catch someone off gaurd. my staple cd attacks were cd into throw or cd into f-a. everyone knows what crouch cancelling is right? well, since you are holding d/f while wding, you get the added advantage of ccing attacks. thus, wding into a crouch cancelled d-a attack is VERY VERY good. since you get to move forwardthis is useful for a lot of other characters as well, its kinda like a universal tactic. for luigi, i also use the d+a and u+a and even the chink (u+b) out of a cd. chinking out of a cd is EFFING SWEET. it catches more people off gaurd than youd think. of course you shouldnt be doing this all the time, i throw it out very rarely since you wanna keep it as a surprise tactic. if someone doesnt tech out of your down throw, you can cd to them and chink them (*note* we call the u+b a chink, obviously, because it makes the chink noise when it connects). i think luigi's ground attacks arent that great, but his ability to cd well gives him the needed boost in the ground attack department.
-dodging. one of the few disadvantages to dodging is that you have to stay in one spot when you dodge. with luigi, dodging out of a cd is also an incredibly useful tactic. because of this i can cd right at someone and not be scared. ex. luigi cd's towards mario, as defense mario tries to cape luigi (which is unblockable), luigi dodges the cape and gets a free attack (i usually throw, since youre already holding r to dodge, just hit A to throw). too good. now, this technique is kinda tricky, i myself cant do it at 100% consistency, but it can be mastered and is well worth the effort. cd into a dodge will avoid every attack you can think of. running towards dk will often get you thrown, but a cd into dodge will avoid the throw, giving you the upper hand. i cant stress enough how good this technique can be. the only disadvatage is that you can do it on uneven ground and that its somewhat hard to pull out 100% consistently.
-rolling. you can roll out of the cd. anytime you want to abort your attack, you can roll backward or forward. very useful.
there are obviously many other uses to be figured out, with many other characters...
ok, one last thing (i think). cding backwards. because youre facing the opposite direction while you cd, you can attack in the opposite direction of your momentum as well. this has some really really weird results. ive done luigis dash attack facing one way, while moving the other. weird. everything that can be applied to the forward cd can be applied to the backwards cd.
and! you can wd back and forth... this really is really confusing, to both you and the oppoenent hehe. wding back and forth is how i got the backwards dash attack to connect (dont ask how, caues i wouldnt be able to explain).
i think thats it. any questions?
