Hey guys. So I'm new to the Melee competitive community, but I'm really committed to improving. Problem is, I can't seem to find a good resource for doing so. Watching vidoes of high level players is good, but they don't show me HOW to do what I want to. Anyone have a really good resource that covers all the things I need to know? I like playing Marth, and I have a local tourney in a month that I want to be ready for.
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Q&A Official FAQ and QnA Thread - Ask Your Questions Here!
- Thread starter DtJ Jungle
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Fortress | Sveet
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No offense, but if you haven't found it I don't think you are looking very hard. For example, one of the stickies next to this one is a thread labeled "Drastic Improvement". And here is a google search you can use to find more: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=site:smashboards.com+improve
Bones0
Smash Legend
If you're still learning the techniques, I think Smash Lounge is pretty good because it has visuals, brief explanations, and covers all the major advanced techniques you need. Improvement for more strategically minded problems are much less common, unfortunately. Your best bet is to connect with Smashers nearby and at tournaments and learn that way. An average player can help you improve way faster than you can on your own reading or watching 10 hours of theory crafting. Text on SmashBoards and videos on YouTube are definitely useful, but I think they should mainly be for enhancing your improvement gained from playing. Noticing a pattern in a top player's gameplay is great, but if you don't get out there and practice it vs. another human it's impossible to internalize it.
What universal tech skill are most people not really using yet, or to their full advantage? Sheild dropping comes to mind (I know it is being used, but not by everyome), and powersheilding... but is there anything else?
If that didnt make sense ill ask it a different way.
Say Melee was still as strong or stronger as it is now in 10 years. What would the most technical player be doing at that time? Or rather what would be the norm at that time? (The norm for us right would be wavedash, lcancel, shffl, dash dance, wd oos, etc.) Forget any 20XX Fox stuff, im talking about overall tech that every character in the game can do.
If that didnt make sense ill ask it a different way.
Say Melee was still as strong or stronger as it is now in 10 years. What would the most technical player be doing at that time? Or rather what would be the norm at that time? (The norm for us right would be wavedash, lcancel, shffl, dash dance, wd oos, etc.) Forget any 20XX Fox stuff, im talking about overall tech that every character in the game can do.
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Fortress | Sveet
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Probably see PC edgehogs to counter fox/falco's down angled upb. Maybe more powershield->dsmash against approaches. Everyone would be doing hax dashes and invincible ledge stalls, and combo execution would be an even bigger factor.
Bones0
Smash Legend
Pivoting: it's not just for Marth mains.
ManoxMano
Smash Journeyman
What is a PC edgehog?
Fortress | Sveet
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You walk towards the edge, turn around, then continue sliding off the stage with your momentum and grab the edge.
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Krynxe
I can't pronounce it either
probably double jump
Scroll
Smash Ace
- Joined
- Jun 15, 2014
- Messages
- 559
thanks. that's probably it yea xD
SH means Short Hop. Is it FH for Full Hop? or FJ?
What's the difference between a jump and a hop? Can we just agree to call it one thing?
It's all fine honestly, but not as simple as a beginner could wish for...
Bones0
Smash Legend
Most people use FH for full hop, but I've seen FJ for full jump as well.
Krynxe
I can't pronounce it either
You can do it, it's just very difficult to do.
Bones0
Smash Legend
Easy test: pause on the pivot frame of your dash dance, hold the utilt input, then unpause. Your character will pivot utilt.
Tyler Martin
Smash Rookie
- Joined
- Jun 6, 2014
- Messages
- 7
Hey guys I may have found some sort of new tech, today when I was practicing evasion with marth, I notice one time when I rolled that I executed some sort of double roll or reverse roll, marth was about halfway through his roll when he changed direction and covered more ground the opposite way, I haven't been able to do it since, is this new or am I r noob?
Bones0
Smash Legend
You probably just mis-saw what happened. There's no way to interrupt your roll animation, and certainly not by rolling again in the opposite direction. Someone would have accidentally done it by now. Maybe you rolled towards a ledge/edge of a platform and then rolled the other way immediately after?
Bones0
Smash Legend
http://smashboards.com/threads/new-kind-of-ledge-stall-that-most-characters-can-do.336751/
As far as why, it's a combination of how fast they fall, how fast their DJ rises, how short their DJ is, and how quickly their character can be considered "over" the stage far enough to airdodge back towards the ledge.
Hello everyone, I have been playing melee competitively for several months now. And as of right now I feel like I really suck. I am very frustrated at the moment. I love the game and i definitely have the drive to improve, but i just feel like i don't understand what Im doing wrong and how to get better.
I know all the advanced techniques like L-canceling SHFFLing etc and i can perform them relatively well. And i try to practice my tech skill every day. For the past month or so i have been going to a couple weekly tournaments in my area. And every single time i get absolutely destroyed. I try to get as many friendlies as i can with good players and ask them questions and do everything i can think of to improve. But even in friendlies it just feels like i cant even touch these guys. The whole match i am on the defensive and just trying not to die (and failing miserably). It honestly feels like they are so much better then me that im not even getting better by playing them.
I know i have to play more to improve but the only friends i have that live close by that i can play every day are the same level as me. I play them almost every day, I practice my tech skill every day, but when it comes time for a weekly i still get wrecked and it doesnt seem like i improved at all. So what do i have to do to get better? I know my tech skill is no where near as good as it needs to be. But beyond practicing that every day I dont know what to do. I just dont understand why im losing so bad and why exactly they are so much better than me. But whenever I ask one of them they usually say something along the lines of "just play more and eventually you will start to get better" Is that all there is to it or am i missing something?
I know all the advanced techniques like L-canceling SHFFLing etc and i can perform them relatively well. And i try to practice my tech skill every day. For the past month or so i have been going to a couple weekly tournaments in my area. And every single time i get absolutely destroyed. I try to get as many friendlies as i can with good players and ask them questions and do everything i can think of to improve. But even in friendlies it just feels like i cant even touch these guys. The whole match i am on the defensive and just trying not to die (and failing miserably). It honestly feels like they are so much better then me that im not even getting better by playing them.
I know i have to play more to improve but the only friends i have that live close by that i can play every day are the same level as me. I play them almost every day, I practice my tech skill every day, but when it comes time for a weekly i still get wrecked and it doesnt seem like i improved at all. So what do i have to do to get better? I know my tech skill is no where near as good as it needs to be. But beyond practicing that every day I dont know what to do. I just dont understand why im losing so bad and why exactly they are so much better than me. But whenever I ask one of them they usually say something along the lines of "just play more and eventually you will start to get better" Is that all there is to it or am i missing something?
Krynxe
I can't pronounce it either
@
Z
Zees
, It sounds like you're suffering with a plateau related to fighting game fundamentals. A lot of smash players just tell you to keep playing to get better because they themselves often don't really understand why they got better. Most likely, it came from them getting experience through trial and error to see what does and doesn't work, and slowly developing their own set of fundamentals that allowed them to understand the game better. If you want to improve the fastest, I believe the best way is both practice and keep playing - as they say - but also to deepen your understanding of the game so you have something to apply to your game rather than being forced to learn through trial and error.
There are a lot of great resources on the forums to learn about this game. One incredible read is here (http://smashboards.com/threads/drastic-improvement-under-construction-for-apex.311129/), there's a lot of fundamental/general things to learn from this thread that can give you both a new light and inspiration to improve. From there, you should check the Character Specific Forums and learn some things about the character you play, and important matchups. You can also check out tournament footage and get a look at what the high level players do, don't simply to to mimic them though, you have to understand why and how they do what they do to truly apply it (if you mimic what you see, you'll find that it won't work the same because everything in this game is situation to both player and character matchups, and many more layers of depth)
Hopefully that's a helpful start for you, let me know if you have any other questions and welcome to the smashboards
There are a lot of great resources on the forums to learn about this game. One incredible read is here (http://smashboards.com/threads/drastic-improvement-under-construction-for-apex.311129/), there's a lot of fundamental/general things to learn from this thread that can give you both a new light and inspiration to improve. From there, you should check the Character Specific Forums and learn some things about the character you play, and important matchups. You can also check out tournament footage and get a look at what the high level players do, don't simply to to mimic them though, you have to understand why and how they do what they do to truly apply it (if you mimic what you see, you'll find that it won't work the same because everything in this game is situation to both player and character matchups, and many more layers of depth)
Hopefully that's a helpful start for you, let me know if you have any other questions and welcome to the smashboards
Bones0
Smash Legend
All I'm really going to tell you is not to get too upset because the phase you are in now is normal, and nearly everyone goes through it, if not playing Melee, then when they play other games, other sports, or even doing other activities in life. You have been met with a challenge that may feel insurmountable even if you logically understand it isn't. At first this sucks, but then you overcome that obstacle. Then you overcome 2 more. Then you overcome an entire array of obstacles as you continue to improve. Thus, you will transform into a better competitor and likely a stronger individual in general. Here's a great starting point now that you are past the "learn how to play the game" phase and entering the "learn how to be good at the game" phase.
http://myneverendingbrainstorm.blogspot.com/2014/07/goals-in-ssbm-intro-to-player-vs-player.html
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Bones0
Smash Legend
Really good video series I found for improving past "learn the advanced techniques": Sauce's Metagain
dyl0n
Smash Rookie
Hey guys, I'm new to the scene, been training by myself for the past 2 months or so and still with a ton of questions regarding Melee. One thing thats been bothering me for a while now is dash canceling crouches. I've read up on it multiple times and watched a video but I still can't seem to get it down. Is it literally just pushing down on the control stick or is it a wavedash in place? I play Marth and when I try crouching mid dash nothing happens. Rather, I crouch when the full dash animation is over as it transitions into a run but I feel like that can't be it.
Another subject I'm curious about is the difference between controller "generations?" I use a platinum controller, while my brother uses a purple controller from when we first got our Gamecube. Mind you they are both official Nintendo products and had them since back in the day. I've noticed his control stick is a little less stiff than mine and I can dash dance & tilt easier with his, but I assumed it was simply due to it being older and more used than mine. Then I watched a stream by westballz the other night. Somebody asked him a question about his controller asking if it was "God tier" then he went into a lecture about different controllers and their advantages ranging from Club Nintendo to white controllers, but not in a real elaborate sense. Also to note, I was on Ken's twitter looking through his photos and he had a controller which he called "first gen." So what exactly are the differences between these "generations" of controllers and which ones are they applied to? Because after using mine for a while with a character like Marth, and all this curious knowledge I've found out, I definitely feel like I need a different controller because of the stick being a little too stiff for my liking.
Another subject I'm curious about is the difference between controller "generations?" I use a platinum controller, while my brother uses a purple controller from when we first got our Gamecube. Mind you they are both official Nintendo products and had them since back in the day. I've noticed his control stick is a little less stiff than mine and I can dash dance & tilt easier with his, but I assumed it was simply due to it being older and more used than mine. Then I watched a stream by westballz the other night. Somebody asked him a question about his controller asking if it was "God tier" then he went into a lecture about different controllers and their advantages ranging from Club Nintendo to white controllers, but not in a real elaborate sense. Also to note, I was on Ken's twitter looking through his photos and he had a controller which he called "first gen." So what exactly are the differences between these "generations" of controllers and which ones are they applied to? Because after using mine for a while with a character like Marth, and all this curious knowledge I've found out, I definitely feel like I need a different controller because of the stick being a little too stiff for my liking.
Sashimi
Smash Ace
- Joined
- May 25, 2013
- Messages
- 704
You can only crouch out of a run, not a dash. If you want to do something out of a dash, some options are pivoting, wavedashing in place, or jump cancels (JC only works for Up smash, Grab and Up B)
Don't know much about controller differences myself, but there is information on it here. If your only problem is the stick being stiff, you can usually fix that just by using the controller a bit more.
Don't know much about controller differences myself, but there is information on it here. If your only problem is the stick being stiff, you can usually fix that just by using the controller a bit more.
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Scroll
Smash Ace
- Joined
- Jun 15, 2014
- Messages
- 559
I can deffinatly dash cancel with a crouch and input anything like a smash. I dont actually see the crouch.
To ensure you do it roughly input the dash > down > smash at the same pace as a JC grab or Boost Grab.
I find many things hard, but these two techniques are easy for me. Just try and be quick with it.
I hope that helps
To ensure you do it roughly input the dash > down > smash at the same pace as a JC grab or Boost Grab.
I find many things hard, but these two techniques are easy for me. Just try and be quick with it.
I hope that helps
Fortress | Sveet
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Trip, that is out of a run. "Dash" refers to the initial part of the animation, as in "dash dance". You cannot crouch during your dash, only your run.
STiCKYBULL3TZ
Smash Ace
I understand everything in this game but DI. I know what it is but how do I use it effectively? Do I need to predict when and how I'm going to be hit and hold the control stick accordingly? Is it on reaction? Do I constantly hold a direction just in case I'm hit? This is the only thing that troubles me. My game should be able to reach that next level if I can properly use it consistently. Thanks!
Fortress | Sveet
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Yeah it takes a level of anticipation. When you recognize that you are about to be hit you start to DI. The game rewards you for being precise: if you are early you are safe, if you are perfect you can SDI, if you are late you get nothing (and die like a noob 
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)
STiCKYBULL3TZ
Smash Ace
And I often die like a noob lol. Mainly because I think my move will always come out first and have priority or I just don't expect a certain move to come out and hit me. I guess a lot of it goes into learning patterns of your opponent or character and know what moves they'll try to use at what moment.
Naut
Smash Rookie
Are there any ways to deal with crouch-cancel as Shiek besides spacing bairs, grabbing (including tech chases), and needleplay?
Krynxe
I can't pronounce it either
spaced fairs, air needles into grab, and using your own downsmash can all be good options. It depends on both the matchup and the percent of your opponent. Especially the downsmash, since it can be quite unsafe if used wrong, but the multihits can give you a lot of damage and push some characters over their CC threshold perfectly if you know the percents
you'd be better off asking a question like that in the sheik boards but yeah that's my understanding but I don't main sheik so I'm probably missing some important info
Bones0
Smash Legend
You should try to incorporate option select (OS) DI. Essentially, if you are playing Falcon dittos and you and the opponent jump at each other with a knee, you should DI up once you realize you might trade. If you win the aerial battle outright, you can L-cancel like normally and edgeguard. If you lose, you're more likely to survive, and if you trade, that extra DI assistance might keep you alive when your opponent dies even if he was at a lower % and/or further from the blast zone. It is really hard to get used to because you have to understand the situation well enough to go "I think I might get hit/grabbed here", and even if you realize that, you have to process it QUICKLY to get the DI in time. Practicing DI in general is your best bet to improve OS DIing.
For more basic DI knowledge, click here.
STiCKYBULL3TZ
Smash Ace
DI seems like it may be the hardest to learn or master because it requires an input you wouldn't normally press. Like the example above, if I'm doing a knee, I'm pressing forward A. But if I expect to lose out or trade I need to quickly press up so I can get the DI. In a normal situation I wouldn't normally press up because I would look for a follow up or expect the kill. I'm an aggressive player so I think about attacking a lot and not enough about getting attacked. This is another reason why I never DI unless I'm being comboed or edgeguarded.
I also have the issue with trying to hold the control stick parallel to my trajectory instead of perpendicular but that's a bad habit I just need to kick.
Would you recommend playing against an opponent and instead of fighting just worry about DI'ing their moves?
I also have the issue with trying to hold the control stick parallel to my trajectory instead of perpendicular but that's a bad habit I just need to kick.
Would you recommend playing against an opponent and instead of fighting just worry about DI'ing their moves?
Bones0
Smash Legend
I'd recommend playing against a really good player using a character with long combos (like Falco). I played a ton of friendlies vs. Hax at Zenith and my DI was AMAZING for the rest of the tourney because when he got me into combos, he didn't drop stuff constantly. When you are confident the opponent is capable of keeping the combo going, it becomes much easier to focus on good DI, SDI, techs, bounces, and the patterns the come along with all of the above. When I play lesser skilled players (even ones who are still pretty good), I spend more time trying to mess up their combo/tech chase by doing weird stuff or I don't do anything at all because them messing up is almost inevitable. By focusing on the weird, gimmicky escapes that shouldn't really work, I pay less attention to the "solid" ways of getting out of followups or minimizing the impact of a full combo. It's kind of hard to explain, but if you play a really high level player you'll get a feel for what I'm talking about.
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STiCKYBULL3TZ
Smash Ace
Ok yeah I think I understand what you mean. One last question: I don't get the chance to play with other players very often and the ones I am playing with I'm training to my level. For someone playing essentially by myself is there a way I can practice DI efficiently, if not, at all?
EDIT: This is to get a basic understanding. I know I won't be able to truly practice and master alone
EDIT: This is to get a basic understanding. I know I won't be able to truly practice and master alone
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Bones0
Smash Legend
I'm in a similar situation. You really just have to travel as often as possible and pay attention to DI a lot when you are studying vids. Whatever matchup you are learning about, I recommend watching the same matchup played by bad players (or one good player vs. a bad player). You can tell the difference between good DI and bad DI more easily that way.