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ways SSBM is harder than it looks

curi

Smash Cadet
Joined
Jun 10, 2003
Messages
31
i like watching tournament games, but i'm not that good. i played a lot in the past but haven't had someone to play with recently. but i recently started practicing some tech skill by myself anyway (mostly as peach and marth). i wanted to see what it's like to do techniques the pros use. i found some stuff is way harder than it looks, which i thought was interesting.

i'm not a total nub, i've played a lot of games. i already knew how to wavedash and tech and how SHFFLing works. and i knew you have to jump cancel grabs when dashing, for example. but SSBM is still way harder than it looks even if you know a bit.

like i figured out that JC grabbing is harder than it looks. why? b/c until i practiced it a decent amount i didn't realize you had to hit jump and grab on different frames. from what i can tell, if you hit them on the same frame you get a dash grab, so you have to kinda very slightly delay hitting grab after you hit jump. i find it easier to hit them in the correct order on the same frame rather than on separate frames, but that doesn't work. but when you try to intentionally delay hitting grab, it's easy to delay it too much and end up jumping.

for peach float cancelled nairs, it takes more practice than you might expect to avoid doing dairs and still do them quickly. also moving left/right during them is hard for me.

chain grabbing is harder than it looks, like if you are bad and try it you'll be late a lot when you have to turn around and move to get a regrab. or if they only DI a tiny bit, it's hard to tell if you need to turn around or not.

multishing is damn hard. i mean everyone says it's hard, but try it out yourself! any beginner can try it. hold dstick down and put index finger on B, middle finger on Y. press B Y B Y B Y B. observe how hard you fail. after some practice you can get it a bit. what i found let me multishine a few times in a row is i hit B. then i sorta pause slightly and waste a few frames, and then i hit Y B super fast. then i waste a couple frames then Y B again. so it's like initially B, then after than repeating Y+B, cuz you have to hit B VERY fast after Y, but you don't have to hit Y super fast after the B.

after you try that and can do a couple multishines, try to do it with your thumb hitting both buttons. i can't do any. not even close. i know westballz can do a bunch with just his thumb. just wow!

for ledge play, i found fair onto stage isn't that hard (tho as a scrub i can still suicide it, lol). but nair and wavedash onto stage are much harder!! i did not realize from watching tournaments how much harder nair and wavedash onto stage were compared to fair onto stage.

also doing any edgeguarding ariel from the ledge, then going back to the ledge, is harder than it looks. you need decent timing to you can SD pretty easily. (mostly tested this with marth bair and dair, the dair is so easy to suicide with even after practicing a bit). this one probably gets a lot easier with practice/experience, but still it was harder than it looked.

short hopping is harder than it looks too. initially i had issues short hopping peach (4 frame max button press in my understanding). after practicing i can do marth pretty well (3 frames), but fox (2 frames) is still really hard for me to short hop.

when i practiced wave dashing and L cancelling, one thing that happens to me reasonably often is my shield comes out briefly from holding down L too long. i don't see pros do that. i didn't realize it was an issue you have to practice to avoid.

shield dropping is harder than it looks. like as a viewer you might kinda assume he just hit down, no big deal. but after trying to do it, i found out it's not so easy.

smash DI is something i haven't been able to try doing by myself, but i'm pretty sure it's hard and lots of viewers don't realize what it's like to do it or how big a difference it makes.

even dash dancing is harder than it looks. sure i can do it, but if i try to keep doing it for a while continuously i'll accidentally move the dstick too high and jump at some point.

also way harder than it sounds: doing tech skill in a real game that you can do in practice.

what else is harder than it looks?

PS do you know what's NOT harder than it looks/sounds? downloading dolphin and SSBM and losing some netplay games and getting a clue how bad you are :) (but actually the people beating you up are total scrubs compared to tournament players)
 
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Kadano

Magical Express
Joined
Feb 26, 2009
Messages
2,160
Location
Vienna, Austria
what else is harder than it looks?
Pivot edgehog. PC edgehog with smash turn. Frame 1 digital shield. Max length wavedashes. Shield drops in a match. Up-B initial turnaround for characters like Fox and Sheik.
 
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curi

Smash Cadet
Joined
Jun 10, 2003
Messages
31
oh yeah reverse dolphin slash is something i tried. if i understand right:

if you're facing right, you hit up-B then left after but really fast. (i can only do it in half speed, lol)

before reading about it i thought it just meant hitting diagonal up-left and B so marth turns around, rather than doing 2 separate things. (i'm still not certain i understood correctly from reading about it, but seemed like it's 2 things with tough timing, and that is somehow better than just doing diagonal up B to do it behind you.)
 

Twinkles

Smash Lord
Joined
Mar 5, 2011
Messages
1,022
Location
SoCal
see, many of the things you described can become very not-hard with practice. in fact, lots of players may tell you these things both look easy and are easy, but that might be because it's ingrained enough with them that they don't see it as difficult in anyway

Pivot edgehog is still really, really hard though ><
 

curi

Smash Cadet
Joined
Jun 10, 2003
Messages
31
stuff getting easy with practice doesn't mean it's not hard, it means you're skilled (and fans/viewers ought to appreciate the difference!)
 
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SAUS

Smash Ace
Joined
Aug 20, 2008
Messages
866
Location
Ottawa
Even sweetspotting with certain characters can be hard (ie you are recovering and you use your jump/up-b such that you grab the edge from as low as possible). It's one of the huge things that newer players don't realise they should do (always recover too high) and it's harder to fix than it seems - it's very easy to go slightly too high and just eat a smash move.
 

Zelbertoad

Smash Cadet
Joined
Jun 13, 2013
Messages
66
Mastering technical inputs like wave dash, L-cancel, power shield is hard at first; however, those are just simple tools that can be mastered with enough practice.

IMO, what's even harder is understanding and applying concepts like spacing and movement into your strategy.
Also improving your skill to adapt to a lot of different situations is hard.
 
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