Welcome to the Maze! A Beginners Pac-Man Guide - (In-depth Apple + Melon Guide Added)

[WeirdChillFever]

It also works on DHD's cans.

EDIT:
Bonus Fruit reflects the can.

 

[LittlePac]

The U-turn side B into the hydrant is funny and something I thought no one else knew about because I had never seen anyone else do it. There's a lot of quirky little stuff like that with this guy. I forget who it was, but I threw an orange against someone's projectile and it caused the orange to fly an almost perfect 45 degree trajectory upward.

Since the Side B is so punishable if you whiff, I do u turns or semi turns with it to KO sometimes. I have lost several matches from poorly timed side B's.

 

[Selodin]

Was playing against a D3 today and my harder hitting fruit were definitely knocking his gordos back at him / powering through them. Not sure if the first 2 or so will do the same, not many D3 players to confirm it on.

 

[AGES]

Found out something kinda funny, if villager pockets a hydrant still on the ground and puts it down again, if its bair'd or sent flying some other way it still does double damage/KB lol

Since the Side B is so punishable if you whiff, I do u turns or semi turns with it to KO sometimes. I have lost several matches from poorly timed side B's.

Yeah side B is veeeeery punishable, also only 80% of the time should be using it to recover only to sweetspot the ledge

I approve of that avatar btw

 

[CCCM89]

found something else, not sure how usefull it could be. holding A will make you spam the first hit of your standing combo, right? well press A again for the second hit, hold it down untill the first hit triggers, then repeat. you will punch your way slowly across the stage.

if we can find a way to make this a viable approach, I will laugh.

ladies and gentlemen, I am laughing maniacally right now ^_^

 

[LittlePac]

Found out something kinda funny, if villager pockets a hydrant still on the ground and puts it down again, if its bair'd or sent flying some other way it still does double damage/KB lol

Yeah side B is veeeeery punishable, also only 80% of the time should be using it to recover only to sweetspot the ledge

I approve of that avatar btw

Haha thanks!

I've been using it mostly as a follow up to a combo. You can be very unpredictable with it since you can change the trajectory at any time in the animation. The best thing is punishing people who tech roll backwards or just roll too much - side b towards them and you'll send them flying as soon as they're done rolling. That's the best use I've found so far. It's one of my main kill moves so far, but you gotta be reaaaally tricky and careful with it.

 

[Skymin50]

ladies and gentlemen, I am laughing maniacally right now ^_^

New Pac-Man tech confirmed, move over DI

 

[Ragna22]

Buddy your guide is brilliant, I spent the day trying to understand how to use Pac-Man and I couldn't for the life of me, but I was dedicated enough to want to, found this thread and I understood that it wasn't how I was using Pac-Man it was what I'm not doing enough of and that's Bairing and using the hydrant as an edge guard tool, and of course learning that Bair helps knock out the hydrant with or without forward tilt.

I started applying these to my online matches after practicing, admittedly it took some time to get it in my muscle memory but I eventually got it and I was getting bodied a lot less afterwards lol.

 

[ptrk83]

No one responded to my previous post. lol. >_< I think it is best we separate the guide into two threads... One for the basics.. Which would be this guide. And one for the advance techs and strategies which would be another. Is anyone on here willing to make and work on an advance tech guide before I delete that section? I feel this should serve as a starting guide for all Pac-man want to bes, and the advance guide could be for established pac-mans trying to get better. I would make it but I can't keep up with both. Unless you all think the advance section should continue to be here?


If that is the case.. I will need help sorting through the new information. can someone post a list of the new tech I need to add?

 

[Paper Maribro]

No one responded to my previous post. lol. >_< I think it is best we separate the guide into two threads... One for the basics.. Which would be this guide. And one for the advance techs and strategies which would be another. Is anyone on here willing to make and work on an advance tech guide before I delete that section? I feel this should serve as a starting guide for all Pac-man want to bes, and the advance guide could be for established pac-mans trying to get better. I would make it but I can't keep up with both. Unless you all think the advance section should continue to be here?


If that is the case.. I will need help sorting through the new information. can someone post a list of the new tech I need to add?

Couldn't you add the AT stuff to the M'n'M thread? It'd make sense since it is for Pac's Meta… Would make things a lot simpler than making a new thread with a new person to run it.

 

[ptrk83]

Couldn't you add the AT stuff to the M'n'M thread? It'd make sense since it is for Pac's Meta… Would make things a lot simpler than making a new thread with a new person to run it.

*agreed. But then I am worried some weird information is gonna get lost.. I am fine with removing the advance tech completely.

 

[Paper Maribro]

*agreed. But then I am worried some weird information is gonna get lost.. I am fine with removing the advance tech completely.

I think it's important that some of the advanced stuff is stored somewhere as to prevent repeated questions being asked. In an ideal world I'd take it on, however I don't have much experience running a thread and with heavy time constraints due to university at the moment, I doubt I would be able to provide a satisfactory experience.

 

[Zzuxon]

I think it may be notable that pac-man can do 2 fairs on a shorthop. That move is FAST.
That may be in the guide already, but I'm saying it just in case.

 

[Zage]

I think it may be notable that pac-man can do 2 fairs on a shorthop. That move is FAST.
That may be in the guide already, but I'm saying it just in case.

It almost resembles Marth's melee F-air in terms of speed, If you time it right, its fairly easy to carry someone with a string of fairs across the stage at low %s.

 

[Captain Norris]

Having a single trapoline on the ground is crazy nice against Little Mac Players

 

[AGES]

No one responded to my previous post. lol. >_< I think it is best we separate the guide into two threads... One for the basics.. Which would be this guide. And one for the advance techs and strategies which would be another. Is anyone on here willing to make and work on an advance tech guide before I delete that section? I feel this should serve as a starting guide for all Pac-man want to bes, and the advance guide could be for established pac-mans trying to get better. I would make it but I can't keep up with both. Unless you all think the advance section should continue to be here?


If that is the case.. I will need help sorting through the new information. can someone post a list of the new tech I need to add?

I'm down with making a tech guide/thread(and/or a video thread if need be) if nobody else really wants to do it, I'll be active enough and have been following pac techs in general to probably add to whats already here.

 

[Tesh]

Apologies in advance for not reading the thread, but i wanted to share some things i learned on my own.

Instead of Fair into Nair/Fair/Uair/Bair in a shorthop, you can Fair-Hydrant-Nair. Nair just barely comes out before landing on the hydrant and does 10 damage, so you can easily set up those more useful hydrant angles with a weak move like uptilt or jab.

Bonus fruit is a good way to open up an approach or just punish, but its also a great follow up. Dthrow sets up very nicely into Orange, Apple, Plane (what is this thing?) and even Melon if they DI in. Dash attack can combo into the Bell at low to mid percents.

You can platform cancel with Dair and Uair.

Ledgeguarding can be annoying sometimes because people can stand up from the ledge with complete (or almost complete) invincibility, BUT, if you place a trampoline on the floor next to the ledge, you opponent cannot ledge attack, getup or even roll without being immediately forced straight up. Since they have already grabbed the ledge once, this means almost anything they can do is punishable by just dropping a hydrant or bell on them.

The meteor trampoline's spike is very weak, so landing on the trampoline a 3rd time on stage can save you from being punished while helpless. You can immediately tech jump into an aerial or hydrant.

 

[Paper Maribro]

I found a crazy good edge guard tool last night, dunno if anyone else has said this.

It seems the Bell has infinite range until it hits something, so it works kind of like a weaker version of the Villager's bowling ball. It looks like it would be pretty handy against anyone that recovers low, such as Villager, ROB, etc.

 

[Skymin50]

@ Tesh "Plane" would be Galaxian, considering you're talking about the red/blue/yellow ship.

Thanks for the info! I'll keep some of it in mind.

 

[Skymin50]

I found a crazy good edge guard tool last night, dunno if anyone else has said this.

It seems the Bell has infinite range until it hits something, so it works kind of like a weaker version of the Villager's bowling ball. It looks like it would be pretty handy against anyone that recovers low, such as Villager, ROB, etc.

Bell does seem like interesting edge-guarding but it is very situational. Still, if it works, it works, I suppose.

 

[Tesh]

what kind of priority is the bell? i've never seen anything beat it

if its laser priority, it would allow us to get stagespikes or footstools on recoveries with strong hitboxes (like shulk/metaknight)

 

[Paper Maribro]

Bell does seem like interesting edge-guarding but it is very situational. Still, if it works, it works, I suppose.

It requires really, really good spacing, but I pulled it off against this Ganondorf earlier, felt amazing. He just got stunned and flied off. If at a high enough percent or a lighter character, would easily kill people and would be

a) Tough to avoid, the thing has a weird throwing trajectory and would come down from right on top of their head. There's no way they could avoid it and still get the ledge.
b) Great for a hydrant, if you can react or predict it well enough, you could hydrant drop them while they're stunned.

 

[CCCM89]

link to the advanced techs when you make the thread please.

 

[AGES]

Well I'll start up the techs thread later tomorrow, would do it tonight but just don't have enough time to make it pretty/detailed etc.

In the meantime, anything specific in this guide outside of the advanced section you guys want in the new thread?

 

[CCCM89]

Well I'll start up the techs thread later tomorrow, would do it tonight but just don't have enough time to make it pretty/detailed etc.

In the meantime, anything specific in this thread you guys want in the advanced one?

check my past posts in the last couple pages. I think I've brought up some good points. some of them are pretty basic, light Nair Fair Dash attack and up smash all have little to no end frames and can thus be chained and exploited, but I'm not sure if something like that should be in the basic thread for being something with the character's base moves themselves, or if it should be an advanced thing since it's a bit more in depth with the character's physics/mechanics.

 

[CCCM89]

found something interesting after a mirror match with another pac-man. if your opponent/teammate places down a hydrant, then you place one slightly overlapping, say on the left side for this example, then the falling damage is enoguh to knock the first hydrant to the right, but when it is knocked up, it imediately hits the other hydrant and carries it along with it.

Could the double hydrant be an effective team strategy? with practice and a little polish, I think being able to get a surprise 26% out with a chance for some easy followups would be pretty awesome.

 

[AGES]

found something interesting after a mirror match with another pac-man. if your opponent/teammate places down a hydrant, then you place one slightly overlapping, say on the left side for this example, then the falling damage is enoguh to knock the first hydrant to the right, but when it is knocked up, it imediately hits the other hydrant and carries it along with it.

Could the double hydrant be an effective team strategy? with practice and a little polish, I think being able to get a surprise 26% out with a chance for some easy followups would be pretty awesome.

Sounds like it could be effective, although I personally always liked the idea of having two different bounce trajectories on the hydrants to cover more space.

 

[CCCM89]

the trajectories ARE different. at least different enough to force the enemy to block, which leaves them open to a grab by the first pac-man in a team match.

 

[AGES]

Will have the advanced thread up tomorrow, I got caught up with some stuff today so while I did get a lot of info down its not quiiiiiite ready to be posted yet, but expect to see it tomorrow [:

 

[Gam3rALO]

I like to play aggressive Pac Man sometimes, and it works. Dash attack into them or Nair after throwing a cherry. Also setting up quick hydrant to knock into them is fun. Many ways to play Pac Man. Switching up in the middle of a match is nice and tricky!

 

[AGES]

http://smashboards.com/threads/pac-attack-advanced-techniques-and-strategy-guide.373546/ advanced thread posted

 

[Skymin50]

Sweet, thanks AGES! This'll be good to study up on.

So when has everyone been using hydrants? I try to use them when my opponent won't expect them - if they're on the ground I try not to use it because it's easily smacked away and counter-able. If they chase me in the air I'll drop it on them, they either air-dodge or get hit by it, I've had yet to have it hit back at me though.

 

[Gam3rALO]

Sweet, thanks AGES! This'll be good to study up on.

So when has everyone been using hydrants? I try to use them when my opponent won't expect them - if they're on the ground I try not to use it because it's easily smacked away and counter-able. If they chase me in the air I'll drop it on them, they either air-dodge or get hit by it, I've had yet to have it hit back at me though.

I believe the hydrant can't be hit at you in the air.

I set up hydrants at the beginning of the match. I also always drop the hydrant if they want to hit me mid-air.

 

[Little Pac]

You guys know if bair's percentage is sweet spotted or completely random?

 

[Gam3rALO]

You guys know if bair's percentage is sweet spotted or completely random?

I think it is sweet spotted because, when sweet spotted, Bair launches the hydrant and when it isn't sweet spotted, it doesn't.

So that means more damage when sweet spotted (don't know exact %)

 

[Little Pac]

I think it is sweet spotted because, when sweet spotted, Bair launches the hydrant and when it isn't sweet spotted, it doesn't.

So that means more damage when sweet spotted (don't know exact %)

Maybe it's the online latency, but for the life of me I can not figure out the sweetspot offline.

 

[Bumbler]

Maybe it's the online latency, but for the life of me I can not figure out the sweetspot offline.

You don't need to sweetspot bair to launch a hydrant, it just needs to be fresh (meaning you haven't recently hit another player with bair)

Fresh moves do 105% damage, giving it just enough damage to launch a hydrant. Once you hit another player with bair, it will start doing 100% damage, which isn't enough to launch a hydrant. The reason you can never launch a hydrant with 1 bair in training mode is because moves always do 100% damage in training mode.

 

[Little Pac]

You don't need to sweetspot bair to launch a hydrant, it just needs to be fresh (meaning you haven't recently hit another player with bair)

Fresh moves do 105% damage, giving it just enough damage to launch a hydrant. Once you hit another player with bair, it will start doing 100% damage, which isn't enough to launch a hydrant. The reason you can never launch a hydrant with 1 bair in training mode is because moves always do 100% damage in training mode.

Is this a new mechanic to Sm4sh or was this around in Brawl? I've only played Melee/PM seriously.

 

[LittlePac]

I've been using the apple a lot as an edgeguarding tool, but by bouncing it so its trajectory goes far lower than what you'd get if you jump and throw it. It really catches people offguard, and can lead to funny kills like this:

 

[AGES]

Two little pacs