Learn How To Make Reads With DireOnFire

[The Derrit]

Compared to earlier entries in the series, Smash 4 is a game of many reads. But what exactly is a read, and how are they applied in this new game? YouTuber DireOnFire has created a great video talking about how reads work, and situations where they can be applied effectively. Both offensive and defensive reads will get players the upper hand in Smash 4, and this tutorial explains the best ways to safely implement them into your game.

Improving Your Reads
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What do you think? Was this video useful to you? What other competitive concepts would you like to learn more about? Make your voice heard in the comments below!

The Derrit loves making reads with Mega Man's upair. Blow some hot air with him on Twitter at @TheDerrit.

 

[Sgt-Sol]

WHOA 1st comment

 

[Seal]

Take a look. It's in a book...

 

[MoHarp]

This tutorial video will most definitely improve my reading game. I thought I was gonna have to take a trip to the library.... Oh, and dude, great inspiring last words. Cheers.

 

[Blue Dusk]

Take a look. It's in a book...

Turns out, I've been lackin' the reads!

 

[Sarah Everett]

I need to learn all the reads...

 

[skylandersspyro]

Cool stuff

 

[Gr4pefru1t]

Absolutely necessary to keep in the forefront of a player's mind while playing competitively. Incredibly well put together video.

 

[ソチャラ「Sóchara 」]

Fina f-kingly. This makes things a lot clearer. It's something that needs to be practiced.

 

[Luggy]

Let's learn how to read, even though it's pretty simple by itself.

 

[Elyssa Xey Hexen]

I think an aspect that should be recognized is good prediction methods and terrible ones.

A terrible prediction will be committing yourself to option that does not have a safety net attached to it. A good prediction will be choosing an option which if successful gets you a bonus to your situation, but if it fails does not impact you.

Unfortunately, Brawl/Sm4sh do not usually allow you to make good prediction choices. In melee, the preferred thing to do on tech chases is to react to them since you can react and punish tech chases. However, due to the nature of brawl/sm4sh it is very unlikely to react to techs and punish accordingly except in specific cases.

In the Sonic/Greninja options on this video Sonic's Dthrow into a tech chase is a good situation of choosing to cover roll back, tech in place, and no tech. Its easier and possible to cover. Being able to cover roll away means to give up coverage of say roll back.

If you mess up this gamble by going for predicting roll towards the ledge, then you completely gave greninja stage advantage over you. The preferred method I feel is to cover roll back, in-place, and no tech. In this situation, you might not get a punish, but you maintain your positional advantage over greninja.

You are predicting, but you are making wise choice predictions that always push you closer to better advantages or the same advantages as the last interaction.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

I think an aspect that should be recognized is good prediction methods and terrible ones.

A terrible prediction will be committing yourself to option that does not have a safety net attached to it. A good prediction will be choosing an option which if successful gets you a bonus to your situation, but if it fails does not impact you.

Unfortunately, Brawl/Sm4sh do not usually allow you to make good prediction choices. In melee, the preferred thing to do on tech chases is to react to them since you can react and punish tech chases. However, due to the nature of brawl/sm4sh it is very unlikely to react to techs and punish accordingly except in specific cases.

In the Sonic/Greninja options on this video Sonic's Dthrow into a tech chase is a good situation of choosing to cover roll back, tech in place, and no tech. Its easier and possible to cover. Being able to cover roll away means to give up coverage of say roll back.

If you mess up this gamble by going for predicting roll towards the ledge, then you completely gave greninja stage advantage over you. The preferred method I feel is to cover roll back, in-place, and no tech. In this situation, you might not get a punish, but you maintain your positional advantage over greninja.

You are predicting, but you are making wise choice predictions that always push you closer to better advantages or the same advantages as the last interaction.

I'm a bit confused here what you are saying, for me in any smash reads are the same. What us different are the punishes and if you actually need to make a read vs just reacting to what your opponent does.

Melee pm have more reaction based situations vs Brawl/4 where reads are more important with more confrontations in neutral etc.

That's how I have viewed it at least though. But reads are important on every smash game.

 

[WalnuT ~]

This'll definitely improve my Sm4sh gameplay, the tutorial was great.

 

[Remobit]

he forgot about MINDGAMES!

 

[EazyDI]

I need to learn all the reads...

I don't think you quite understand how reads work lol. You don't learn "all the reads", you just read.

 

[Alfonzo Bagpipez]

Take a look. It's in a book...

READING RAINBOW!!!!! $$$

 

[Jakee]

Great video

 

[Kevdo]

I don't think you quite understand how reads work lol. You don't learn "all the reads", you just read.

You totally missed the nature of the comment, huh? That, or I completely missed the nature of yours lol.

 

[Elyssa Xey Hexen]

I'm a bit confused here what you are saying, for me in any smash reads are the same. What is different are the punishes and if you actually need to make a read vs just reacting to what your opponent does.

Melee pm have more reaction based situations vs Brawl/4 where reads are more important with more confrontations in neutral etc.

That's how I have viewed it at least though. But reads are important on every smash game.

The differences in the games to me are the number of viable good options you can carry against various situations. The later smash installments have diminished so many traits of the early smash games that you generally are always at a risk for being countered for just about any action you make.

 

[Cazdon]

I appreciate this being on the news feed, as it gives newer members that show up instant gratification to helping them get better, which is why many people join.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

The differences in the games to me are the number of viable good options you can carry against various situations. The later smash installments have diminished so many traits of the early smash games that you generally are always at a risk for being countered for just about any action you make.

Older games tend to favor reacting over attempting a read.

You need reads in the new games and while the reward isn't as high per say, it's still there a core part of the game.

 

[Ragna22]

Making reads is a weird thing to be teaching people, it's not so much that it's bad it's just I feel like experience is the big key to making reads, if you're good at paying attention to everything that's happening in the match and you're paying attention to your mistakes and your opponents move ments, eventually you're going to get it in your muscle memory, from there you'll have to learn to adapt to the match ups against other characters and the process resets with each character you fight, the more you fight them, the more you understand them.

Granted different players have different strategies of course, the way I play Duck Hunt Dog is completely different from most people I've seen so I understand that completely but when you understand the properties of their movements and attacks and mobility options you'll slowly understand what reads you'll be making especially if you're good at adapting mid-fight.

That's just my experience though, tutorials on reads have never really helped me in any fighting game so I just wound up teaching myself which I prefer to do anyway because I can get strategies in my muscle memory easier.

 

[DavemanCozy]

I think an aspect that should be recognized is good prediction methods and terrible ones.

A terrible prediction will be committing yourself to option that does not have a safety net attached to it. A good prediction will be choosing an option which if successful gets you a bonus to your situation, but if it fails does not impact you.

Unfortunately, Brawl/Sm4sh do not usually allow you to make good prediction choices. In melee, the preferred thing to do on tech chases is to react to them since you can react and punish tech chases. However, due to the nature of brawl/sm4sh it is very unlikely to react to techs and punish accordingly except in specific cases.

In the Sonic/Greninja options on this video Sonic's Dthrow into a tech chase is a good situation of choosing to cover roll back, tech in place, and no tech. Its easier and possible to cover. Being able to cover roll away means to give up coverage of say roll back.

If you mess up this gamble by going for predicting roll towards the ledge, then you completely gave greninja stage advantage over you. The preferred method I feel is to cover roll back, in-place, and no tech. In this situation, you might not get a punish, but you maintain your positional advantage over greninja.

You are predicting, but you are making wise choice predictions that always push you closer to better advantages or the same advantages as the last interaction.

I completely get what you're saying: in Smash4, you can hang back and make the safest decision and not chase the tech (in Sonic's case, just go back to a position where you are guaranteed to keep centre stage control, and missing the read will be minimal risk).

Do keep in mind that you will inevitably get more reward out of properly reading an opponent, however. Perhaps not from an opponent at low percent, but one in the higher damage percent close to KO who is expecting you to do "the safe option" (this is where the conditioning part comes in) will do what is safe to them: roll behind or just tech since they know you'll just run away. In this case, getting the read, for example Sonic chasing with his running U-smash or RAR sh b-air on the roll or get-up attack, to get the KO would be sufficient reward for reading properly.

In fact, if you would have chosen not to go for it, you risk leaving your opponent in rage percent, which against certain characters is not a good idea to let them live longer than they should.

 

[PigglyJuff]

 

[Phan7om]

You totally missed the nature of the comment, huh? That, or I completely missed the nature of yours lol.

You missed the nature of his. His comment completely makes sense and is correct.
--------
But otherwise, I liked this video. It was way more informative than I thought it would. As someone who thoroughly analyzes the nature of reads and conditioning this video did cover a lot of the basics. It can go more in depth but im sure then it would go over tons of peoples heads. I thought this was gonna be a video that basically only says reading is predicting your opponents rolls or airdodges lol. Glad it wasnt because it would spread so much misinformation about reading to the newer players.

 

[Phoenix502]

pretty sound tips here, but as a few people stated already, experience is one of the most important factors in this.

that being said, some fighters, like Little Mac, are generally easier to read than someone like Megaman. so reading opponents and avoiding being read can become infinitely more important with the less popular (or low tier, in case people nitpick) fighters.

 

[◥θ┴θ◤ | JJ]

Me when I first started playing Smash competitively.

 

[Zad]

Get read like a book.

 

[Kevdo]

You missed the nature of his. His comment completely makes sense and is correct.

Let me elaborate, just to rid any confusion:

Sarah Everett said:
"I need to learn all the reads..."

to which EazyDI replied:
"I don't think you quite understand how reads work lol. You don't learn 'all the reads', you just read."

Now, I'm pretty sure Sarah Everett was being sarcastic, jokingly commenting about needing to learn "all the reads," however, I think EazyDI didn't catch Sarah Everett's sarcasm. Unless, of course, EazyDI was also being sarcastic in his or her response, in which case, I missed whether or not EazyDI understood Sarah Everett's sarcasm.

So, either one or two sarcastic comments were missed, or none were.

 

[MarioMeteor]

Reminds me of Boss.

 

[Phan7om]

Let me elaborate, just to rid any confusion:

Sarah Everett said:
"I need to learn all the reads..."

to which EazyDI replied:
"I don't think you quite understand how reads work lol. You don't learn 'all the reads', you just read."

Now, I'm pretty sure Sarah Everett was being sarcastic, jokingly commenting about needing to learn "all the reads," however, I think EazyDI didn't catch Sarah Everett's sarcasm. Unless, of course, EazyDI was also being sarcastic in his or her response, in which case, I missed whether or not EazyDI understood Sarah Everett's sarcasm.

So, either one or two sarcastic comments were missed, or none were.

Oh well, lol if sarcasm was being involved then I was the one who missed the nature of one or both. Facepalm lmao.

 

[WinterShorts]

Take a look. It's in a book...

AHHH I see what you did there!

 

[chainmaillekid]

I'm in the camp that can read, but can't punish, particularly online.

Nothing in the world is more frustrating than making a perfect read, setting up a punish, and then you get the timing all wrong.

There's also the issue where you know exactly whats coming, but you don't know enough about all the character options to exploit it.

This isn't mentioned in the video but...
I feel in order to incorporate conditioning, you need to actually be playing players who are good enough to learn your patterns to begin with.

I feel this is a particular problem online, people have the option of cycling between so many different opponents all at once, picking up the patterns of individuals isn't rewarded nearly as much. so you have a lot of players floating around who adapt on a more macro scale, who regurgitate tactics which are hard to punish ( regardless of whether they're read or not ) because of the online environment.

Oh, and lastly.
I've really found playing teams is a good way to practice reads, because the game mode really rewards when you watch, learn, and react to your team mates patterns, in addition to learning and reacting to your opponent.

I may not have the experience to really know what I'm talking about, but this sounds like it make sense to me.

 

[Aguki90]

Another good time to read is...

Know all the characters weakness. Every character has one move can you usually can counter back easily with a attack.
Others have use weak attack first, counter with a stronger attack or a strong projectile (like Olimar F-Smash attack is a good counter because is a projectile that can pierce trough attacks.)
Many love to air attack, Just shielding or perfect shield can counter air attacks very effective
Most of the time have large ending lag, use that for advantage to deal damage to the opponent.

Mind read is not a normal thing, Mind READ is the real way to fight in Smash like, Analysis there move and yours, See moves their doing and weakness of each one of them and your Errors too and try to punish in the perfect moment to win and perfect moment to dodge in most critical succession.

I recommend Ganondorf to practice read in my opinion, Is you do a error, I always kick back. Is the best character to learn READ.
Ganondorf is the teacher of Smash Bros.

 

[Lay-Z]

It seems like its all about the conditioning and observation. That's how you get your reads done right.

 

[WinterShorts]

So now that I've actually had time to watch the video, I'll say.....amazing short tutorial!

 

[HeavyLobster]

I recommend Ganondorf to practice read in my opinion, Is you do a error, I always kick back. Is the best character to learn READ.
Ganondorf is the teacher of Smash Bros.

To an extent, yes, Ganondorf is a good character to teach you how to make reads, as he thrives off of them and conditioning. However, be warned that the nature of the character forces you to rely on riskier reads than you'd want to make while playing most other characters. Ganondorf doesn't have many safe options, but his reward for reading the opponent correctly is great enough to compensate for the risks he has to take. Making the same kind of reads you'd make with Ganondorf with Sheik is a bad idea because Sheik can't afford to get punished and has to make safe reads due to her low damage per hit and kill power. The skills can translate to an extent, but you have to be more keenly aware of the risk involved in a given read while playing less powerful characters, as the reward is often not great enough to justify it.

 

[No_Skillz]

he forgot about MINDGAMES!

mindgames and conditioning are the same thing

 

[Pazzo.]

Great video. Hope he does more in the future.

 

[Losnar]

Pffff, I can fly twice as high.