When have you noticed objective improvement in yourself?

[Phyanketto]

Last week I was having a really hard time getting kills as marth. I would get a hit, and then that would be that. Somehow in this week I learned how to follow up, get more hits, juggle more effectively, hit the almighty ken combo, etc. Something just clicked in my head or with my fingers. I'm still not perfect, and I still make a lot of mistakes, but I feel so much better, and people are noticing.

Last week I challenged a guy on netplay (4 buffer) for a bo10 in marth dittos. He creamed me, 5-1. Today I saw him again, and asked him for another bo10. I beat him 5-1. His movement felt stupid and predictable, and I knew where he was going to tech. I felt like I just knew when to shield his approaches, and when to shieldgrab. I was able to follow up on my hits, and get much more out of my grabs and juggles. I just felt like an overall better player than I was before.

Anyone have any stories of objective improvement like that? It feels great to clear that plateau. It's probably all to do with the amount you play, but it's just a great feeling to feel like you've gotten somewhere.

 

[Deleted member]

Learning L-cancelling, wavedashing, and teching pretty much changed the game for me. I still get 4-stocked by most seasoned players (I've been playing competitive less than a year) but I feel I am well above casual now.

 

[Big Daddy Josh]

Last week I was having a really hard time getting kills as marth. I would get a hit, and then that would be that. Somehow in this week I learned how to follow up, get more hits, juggle more effectively, hit the almighty ken combo, etc. Something just clicked in my head or with my fingers. I'm still not perfect, and I still make a lot of mistakes, but I feel so much better, and people are noticing.

Last week I challenged a guy on netplay (4 buffer) for a bo10 in marth dittos. He creamed me, 5-1. Today I saw him again, and asked him for another bo10. I beat him 5-1. His movement felt stupid and predictable, and I knew where he was going to tech. I felt like I just knew when to shield his approaches, and when to shieldgrab. I was able to follow up on my hits, and get much more out of my grabs and juggles. I just felt like an overall better player than I was before.

Anyone have any stories of objective improvement like that? It feels great to clear that plateau. It's probably all to do with the amount you play, but it's just a great feeling to feel like you've gotten somewhere.

I'm still waiting for this "epiphany" to happen to me...
I've been practicing every day for a while now. I have all my Marth tech down, and currently trying to get all my matchup knowledge down but I've been attending local tournaments every other week, but still haven't seen any improvement in my placings but I do feel better overall, just not in a huge leap.

 

[JKJ]

For me, I don't really know when it happened, specifically. I've actually had many "epiphany" moments in my Smash career. I've been playing for about 2 years, and my first epiphany moment happened after I'd been practicing for a few months. All of the sudden, I was able to move the way I wanted, without thinking about it. I was able to think and do simultaneously, which was huge for me. That was the first huge improvement moment that allowed me to begin my long effort to become better at the mental game; it felt as though all the time I'd been playing I had never been able to truly play the game.
My next epiphany moment was a few months ago, when I made a 4-stock comeback in tournament against Ben Grimm, one of the best players in my region. I didn't win the set, but I ran an extremely tight set and just knew that I had reached a new level: I had overcome tournament jitters. My last epiphany moment happened recently, actually just a week ago, when I placed 4th at a relatively stacked local tournament, 2-0ing a well-established player in my region. I proclaimed, after beating him, that I was so glad I had made it to Loser's Semis, and the player waiting in Grand Finals said "No, you're in quarters. You have to play Minty (the player in my region)." and I said " I just 2-0d him." He paused his friendly and asked for clarification. Later, my friend overheard him talking about me with the player who got 2nd, and he said that I was really leveling up and becoming a threat.

Here's to many more moments.

 

[ECHOnce]

My last epiphany moment happened recently, actually just a week ago, when I placed 4th at a relatively stacked local tournament, 2-0ing a well-established player in my region. I proclaimed, after beating him, that I was so glad I had made it to Loser's Semis, and the player waiting in Grand Finals said "No, you're in quarters. You have to play Minty (the player in my region)." and I said " I just 2-0d him." He paused his friendly and asked for clarification. Later, my friend overheard him talking about me with the player who got 2nd, and he said that I was really leveling up and becoming a threat.

Here's to many more moments.

Damn. That must've felt cool as hell aha.

I'm still waiting for my moment. I've been playing the game casually for a while, so basic movement wasn't an issue when I started competitively. Just been working on tech and frame traps, etc. for a few months. One of the bigger goals I've reached was prob taking a game off a reputable player in the state PRs, but I got wrecked in the next few games that set, and came out feeling like I only won that one match due to PM jank. Hoping to legitly win matches against big names in the near future; keeping track of personal objective improvement like this just feels so great aha x) awesome to see others improving too

 

[Yori]

I got into Melee a few months ago and I practiced wavedashing, dash dancing, and L-canceling in training mode at first, but I feel like I could grow a lot in this short time thanks to Netplay. The community is awesome and gives objective feedback on how to improve.
Now I'm almost on par with most of the IRC players.

 

[Red Rice]

When people start noticing you, it really pushes you to improve. Personally, I'd been a solid player but when people around my region started recognizing my name (like randoms here and there at toruneys), it's kind of like a self-esteem boost that made me play a lot better. That's when I had my first major epiphany since coming into the smash scene at the beginning of 2014. Not only with my main, but I could pick up any top tier char and play them well. Then the more you play, the quicker you begin to pick up patterns and behaviors on other players. You learn more situations, when to do what and where. You get an elevated sense of control over your own character as well as your opponent.

Like JKJ said, I hope those moments continue

 

[Backgammon]

This Wednesday, actually.

I was previously using characters like Dr.Mario and Young Link, stubbornly not using characters above A tier, because I believe that contributes to the staleness of the game. So, to mix it up, I went Zelda on the Melee setup that was at the tourney I go to weekly.
I proceeded to beat a Sheik multiple times, a Captain Falcon and the best Melee player there with his Fox.

 

[Big Daddy Josh]

This Wednesday, actually.

I was previously using characters like Dr.Mario and Young Link, stubbornly not using characters above A tier, because I believe that contributes to the staleness of the game. So, to mix it up, I went Zelda on the Melee setup that was at the tourney I go to weekly.
I proceeded to beat a Sheik multiple times, a Captain Falcon and the best Melee player there with his Fox.

Nice! Are you going to main her? Need more Zelda mains! lol

 

[Backgammon]

Nice! Are you going to main her? Need more Zelda mains! lol

I plan to! She's so much fun to play. And people are just like "What. That's Zelda, not Sheik. Wtf."
It confuses people for just long enough to change their playstyles, because they have no idea what Zelda can actually do.

 

[Big Daddy Josh]

I plan to! She's so much fun to play. And people are just like "What. That's Zelda, not Sheik. Wtf."
It confuses people for just long enough to change their playstyles, because they have no idea what Zelda can actually do.

That's true I only know she has deadly toes lol

 

[Spennicus]

I had a lot of trouble beating my friend's Mario so I decided to practice with Mario a bit to get a better understanding of the character and then I destroyed him twice in a row. It was glorious.

 

[Sleepless]

I've been playing melee with my older brother ever since we were 7 and 8. We played a match about a week before i started seriously practicing and I had many flashbacks of getting my ass handed to me. After about a week of practicing, it wasn't even close, I destroyed him. It was then I realized I have potential to not be trash.

 

[Saikyoshi]

First, I started understanding things I just plain wasn't getting before about fighting games in general after reading Shoryuken.net's free beginner's eBook. After practicing in Super Street Fighter II for a while, I finally had a firm grasp of the genre's fundamentals that I was just trying to get by diving head first before, and it carried over into my practice in Project M and Melee. Also, I found myself commenting on the players' technique and missed opportunities during EVO '14 when I would've had no idea what I was talking about before.

Second - this wasn't in Melee, this was Smash Flash 2 - my online play account had just gotten activated, and I was playing against my first human opponent in years. I kept on staring in disbelief as I made successful punishes and counterattacks. Even after saving the replays, I still have a hard time believing it.

 

[Luwafer]

Yeah, I still suck...

 

[JKJ]

Another moment just happened at Zenith 2014. Not only did I almost beat Phish-it to make it out of my pool, but I also had another incredibly validating moment. I asked a player what pool he was in, and he said that he was "in a pool with DJ Nintendo, Phish-it, JKJ, and a bunch of no-names". He was in my pool.

I'm not a no-name.

 

[Wretched]

Smash literally taught me how to do well and be happy in every other aspect of life that wasn' smash. It is like a happiness meter for me. My performance is almost always directly linked to my contentedness at the time. It makes smash a useful tool for living a better life because it gives me insight on how well I'm doing. I've been really sad one week and done poorly, and then for the week following I could see things just clicking more and more like you mentioned op, so I think I can relate. Maybe things are going good for you outside of smash.

 

[Rued]

I'm not good enough to objectively gauge my improvement and I haven't played Smash enough as well to see my improvements.
In a general sense, the only thing I've noticed that could be remotely relevant to Smash would be my reaction time improving in the past few months.

 

[Sir Bubbles]

When I was using aerials, l-canceling them, wavedashing, and consistantly defeating cpu