Neutral and Frame Advantage
Note:
When I was writing my initial brain-sorting on neutral and positioning (that this document is in spirit an addendum to), I was intrigued by the primacy of positioning but frustrated by its incapacity to describe mixups beyond generalized footsies. There’s an additional timing/movement-based decision mechanism that was a struggle to identify but I believe that Relative Frame Advantage reconciles Melee movement with FGC footsies.
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Frame Advantage/Traps
In Street Fighter frame advantage refers primarily to the relationship of blockstun to endlag. If you hit a blocking character with a move with enough blockstun and little enough endlag, you can perform an action before they can. The greater your frame advantage, the better your options to combo or counter an opponent’s action out of blockstun. Naturally, a move that is negative on block can get you punished. Shieldstun and endlag work very similarly in Melee. Very few moves are positive on shield in Melee, but because our possible actions are restricted to a handful, we tend to look for things that are better or worse than -7, the threshold for a guaranteed shield grab. Anything better allows for a mixup with a jab/dash/crouch etc. designed to beat the grab.
Due to differing game mechanics not worth divulging here, these post-hit mixup scenarios work a little bit differently in Street Fighter but are called Frame Traps. Frame Traps are normally straightforward mixups based on how positive a move is on block. Generally speaking, the greater the frame advantage the greater the potential punish off a correct read. That being said, there is some amount of nuance to the system and this is where things get interesting. Some moves or spacings push the blocking character too far away to punish out of block directly. Let’s take for an example Yun’s light shoulder in SF4. Even though it is technically negative, it is safe on block because the spacing creates an interesting scenario where any immediate punish attempt will whiff. If the extra space/time for a slight walk forward needed to punish a poke exceeds its endlag then it can be considered to have effective/relative frame advantage. Although this advantage is indirect it is very real. After a light shoulder Yun can basically do whatever he wants (normally to wait and punish a potential whiffed punish or walk forward/jump) as if he had a frame trap himself.
This setup is very interesting but it isn’t actually that unusual. The only change from a normal frame trap scenario and this backwards sort of one is the additional space.
This space keeps Yun safe by artificially subtracting frames from his opponent’s relative frame advantage by requiring that it be used for movement.
It’s not really any different than had the two arrived at this timing variation from full screen as opposed to a block. What is important is that we are beginning to consider movement as a time commitment as vital as startup.
Druggedfox has previously expanded on frame advantage as it applies to playing neutral beyond whiff punishing laggy fsmashes. In an option vs option scenario, say Falcon’s nair vs Shiek’s ftilt, Falcon requires a certain amount of frame advantage in order to protect his movement to position, jumpsquat, and nair startup (a minimum of 11f for nair vs Shiek’s minimum of 6 for ftilt, so at least +6). In order to land a nair without fear of it being beaten by ftilt, Falcon must anticipate Sheik’s committing to some kind of lag (be it a whiffed move, a WD, a dash, etc) that will provide him with at least a 6f head-start but as soon as he recognizes it the nair is guaranteed to beat an ftilt*. Naturally, if Falcon does not have relative frame advantage then committing to the nair is unreasonably unsafe given the risk/reward.
*At this point it’s important to note that while it is impossible to
discern exact frame advantage in the moment as competitive players we
are very very very good at approximating it. Over the course of however
many ungodly number of times we’ve experienced it our guts have learned
to recognize when a shieldgrab is guaranteed or when a nair is unsafe.
Examining the specifics will not only help us fine-tune our impulses but
to use them to our pronounced advantage.
Consider how this relates to Opportunity Cost. If Falcon thoughtlessly dash dances, WDes in place, retreating nairs, or whatever other unhelpful rhythmic habit he’s picked up then the opportunity to recognize and to seize his +6f relative frame advantage to get a nair will pass him by.
Relative frame advantage gives us ways to reliably win even unfavorable option vs option fights. It should be the chief methodology in neutral after accounting for stage position. But relative frame advantage applies beyond specific move vs move scenarios. I will expand on two related concepts, Scrambles and Tempo.
Scrambles
For the purpose of this conversation, scrambles are situations that are a) unreactable and b) that neither player has prepared for. They are often accompanied by a harried feeling. One more common scramble is Fox accidentally undershooting a nair outside of grab range. The opponent can’t directly punish the nair but can make one decision at the same time that fox comes out of his landing lag. This is of course reminiscent of Yun’s backwards frame trap, but in this instance the relative frame advantage is not deliberate. Because scrambles are unreactable and unintentional any decision made within it will be made on impulse. You can look at scrambles with the impulse guidelines below, which should prove revelatory on several counts.
1) What a player does first he will do most often.
2) If you directly punish something, they will not do that again in the next instance (if the event passes unrecognized then ignore this rule).
3) Players will use ~3 options at most in any given situation.
4) Decisions are prompted by position/relative frame advantage.
This is exactly how Samus players get those magic grabs out of nowhere. Because the grab beats spotdodge (a common habit in scrambles) and dashing away might be restricted by timing/stage position a Samus player just has to confirm that their opponent does not jump out of scrambles. As long as jump is off of the table grab will beat most other options. Its success rate goes through the roof.
#4 is the real kicker, though. This is an observation that due to its nature isn’t precisely provable but I’ve paid very close attention over the past month or so, watched videos, and asked a few good players to confirm. I am now confident in stating that actions out of scrambles are impulsive and based on frame (dis)advantage, not the situation itself. A scramble is a scramble because it is a strange, unintentional situation requiring an immediate, habitual decision. This makes it difficult to recognize, so guideline #2 rarely applies and he’s very unlikely to mix up between prepared options. Yet we recognize that actions out of scrambles do vary. In minor scrambles maybe the Fox player will dash back, in major ones maybe he spotdodges. The decisions that are being made are responses to the amount of danger unconsciously assessed which we can measure in frame disadvantage. Usually the bigger the disadvantage the more dramatic the decision (e.g. light frame disadvantage = dash back, heavy frame disadvantage = spotdodge) but there is no difference between similar frame counts. If fox makes a habitual decision to spotdodge at an about -18f relative disadvantage after a shallow nair then he will make the exact same decision to spotdodge at an about -18f relative disadvantage after a whiffed dash attack. It’s important to note what that decision is (the punish on a Fox that habitually shields when very nervous is completely different from the punish on one that spotdodges) but understanding frame disadvantage, not the situation itself, as the motivator for the decision dramatically decreases the complexity of perceiving and punishing Fox’s habitual decisions out of bad situations.
Naturally, these instances of certainty will decrease in frequency as a player increases in skill i.e. familiarity with situations. It does however have incredible benefits beyond the occasional punish out of a scramble. Because relative frame advantage includes the amount of space that a character can travel in x number of frames, you can use these principles to track and to anticipate decisions made in neutral exchanges on the borders of reactable (~20f, which in terms of space varies dramatically by character). You may notice and even compel responses to soft/hard frame advantage by intentionally changing your levels of commitment. If they dash back every time then do it on purpose and take the stage. Etc. This points to a very interesting methodology for punishing not just a move choice but a timing and movement choice.
Tempo
Tempo is a chess term that I’ve seen referenced in a Smash context but never sufficiently expanded on or married to melee outside of a few personal conversations I've had with Frootloop that inspired this entire exercise. In chess, every move costs exactly one turn unit of in-game time. If by way of some tactic you can achieve a desired effect in two fewer turns than with another tactic then you reap the benefit of having two extra turn’s worth of time, which is obviously incredibly valuable.
In Melee our commitments vary in duration, but they are all still time commitments. I’ve written about the how even a safe move can be costly in terms of opportunity. A retreating bair might go unpunished, but it costs so much time (jumpsquat+startup+endlag+landing lag) during which you cannot do anything else that you might be giving up an opportunity to grab etc. In addition, there’s a spatial cost. A retreating bair surrenders space to your opponent. This is space that they can use to dash dance as well as space that will take even more time for you to cross over again, should you need to in the future. Situationally, a WD away might achieve the same defensive objective as a retreating bair with a very small fraction of the time commitment. Managing your time commitments relative to your opponent (Including in relation to the space between you) is Tempo. In this way it is another iteration of relative frame advantage.
Using a tempo advantage to pressure the opponent into acting first is sometimes called initiative. In a way you could see it as forcing them to throw in RPS on “scissors” while you have the space/time to wait until “shoot.” The clearest examples in Melee involve severe stage advantage being used as a resource for frame advantage. Consider Puff’s edgeguard on Marth below the stage. Puff sits on the ledge and simply reacts correctly to Marth’s recovery options. Because his options are limited to DJ, sideB, and upB, none of which are in this case very threatening, it is not very difficult to flowchart a series of reactions out of ledge invincibility to ensure a 100% edgeguard rate off of Marth’s compulsion to act first (i.e. before he falls too low and dies). Positional advantage manifests very similarly as initiative by restricting options and compelling the opponent to act first. With stage/frame advantage many mixups dramatically favor the center by way restricting/enhancing access to space to retreat. That is, if they need be played at all.
Many situations in Melee are flowchartable. Picture again Yun’s light shoulder. Yun gets effective frame advantage for connecting a light shoulder even on block. He can potentially use this opportunity to force his opponent into the corner, limiting their options and perpetuating his tempo advantage as initiative. If Yun plays well then his light shoulder can = initiative. Similarly, any situation that nets Yun a light shoulder on block can = initiative. Yun doesn’t have to wait around for initiative to be given to him, he can actively pursue it with light shoulder on block and confidence in his ability to consistently convert from there! Maybe he uses light frame advantage from waiting out of range of a poke instead of getting scared and whiffing an attack to then walk forward and force a block. It could be that simple.
Actively playing with tempo is managing your active threats, your active range as potential, and your vulnerable lag to engineer stage and frame advantages. While it is impossible to avoid commitments completely it is possible to orchestrate their placement. If you land further away than fox can run during landinglag + dash etc then you are safe to land. However, if you land in a space that fox can actively threaten then you land with frame disadvantage. If an approach is spaced such that a WD can avoid it then WDing saves valuable frame advantage relative to jumping. Avoiding habitual or superfluous movement rhythms allows you to better look for and take advantage of overcommitments. You can use a small amount of space to protect the startup of a jump+bair in order to use it to purchase more space. You can jump empty to use the threat of bair to purchase space without actually committing to a bair. All of these are active uses of time commitments and ranges to engineer ever greater advantages.
Friday, May 20, 2016
Thursday, May 19, 2016
Impulse and PvP
Impulse and PvP
Tapion, a very read-dependent Falcon player of lore, gave me two tendencies to note in the PvP. I have added two additional rules of thumb for a list of four.
1) What a player does first he will do most often.
2) If you directly punish something, they will not do that again in the next instance (if the event passes unrecognized then ignore this rule).
3) Players will use ~3 options at most in any given situation.
4) Decisions are prompted by position and/or relative frame advantage.
While this methodology has it’s most direct application in tech-chasing, high-level players actively use these guidelines to predict DI, double jumps, exit routes, etc.
Let’s look at these tendencies individually.
1) What a player does first he will do most often.
This is pretty straightforward. With no information to go off of, a decision is made impulsively or because it is comfortable. This means that whatever action is taken is impulsive or comfortable. In a game as cut-throat as Melee no one opens with intentional risk.
2) If you directly punish something, they will not do that again in the next instance (if the event passes unrecognized then ignore this rule).
Unless a player is oblivious to the interaction, they attempt to learn from and control their previous decision. For whatever reason (I’m not up on the psychology enough to say exactly) this means that they choose something else the next time they recognize the decision. However, if they do not recognize the decision as a choice then Rule #1 stands. Humans are profoundly terrible at randomizing their behavior. Every decision has a source and you probably just located it.
3) Players will use ~3 options at most in any given situation.
Normally your character will have one or two options that are clearly, mechanically better than then alternatives. These decisions are reinforced every time you make that decision. As it plays out over and over it becomes a habit. I noticed this while I was researching Puff on Shield. No player uses every option from shield. Even in the cases where they attempt to mix things up they are just going to commit to 1 of about 3 that they've internalized as "sufficiently good." This is a general trend that goes beyond techs and OoS options and into various positions etc and allows for massive adaptation by a mindful player. Obviously you can net a clean stock off of a clean read (especially as Jigglypuff) but often times knowing what an opponent won’t do is exceedingly useful. There are only so many other options that they can or will commit to. A player afraid to tech roll in will stay in the vicinity of tech in place/out, a much smaller and normally reactable range. A Fox that won’t FH nair enables a number of Puff’s otherwise overly risky nair/fair patterns that can consistently beat out many of his other options.
4) Decisions are prompted by position and/or relative frame advantage.
People will react differently to you standing in front of your shield vs behind it. They techroll differently depending on where they hit relative to center stage. Generally, impulsive decisions are all directly related to the perceived threat more than the moves etc involved.
For frame advantage refer to http://alexspuffstuff.blogspot.com/2016/05/neutral-and-frame-advantage.html
Obviously this is not an exact science. It only brushes against conditioning or confusing non-zero-sum theory that I don't intend to read (lol). However after careful thought and testing I believe that these guidelines are simple and comprehensive enough to have massive net gains over time that can supplement a strong gameplan.
SUPER IMPORTANT NOTE:
If you can react then don't bother with this shit and take your guaranteed stuff
Tapion, a very read-dependent Falcon player of lore, gave me two tendencies to note in the PvP. I have added two additional rules of thumb for a list of four.
1) What a player does first he will do most often.
2) If you directly punish something, they will not do that again in the next instance (if the event passes unrecognized then ignore this rule).
3) Players will use ~3 options at most in any given situation.
4) Decisions are prompted by position and/or relative frame advantage.
While this methodology has it’s most direct application in tech-chasing, high-level players actively use these guidelines to predict DI, double jumps, exit routes, etc.
Let’s look at these tendencies individually.
1) What a player does first he will do most often.
This is pretty straightforward. With no information to go off of, a decision is made impulsively or because it is comfortable. This means that whatever action is taken is impulsive or comfortable. In a game as cut-throat as Melee no one opens with intentional risk.
2) If you directly punish something, they will not do that again in the next instance (if the event passes unrecognized then ignore this rule).
Unless a player is oblivious to the interaction, they attempt to learn from and control their previous decision. For whatever reason (I’m not up on the psychology enough to say exactly) this means that they choose something else the next time they recognize the decision. However, if they do not recognize the decision as a choice then Rule #1 stands. Humans are profoundly terrible at randomizing their behavior. Every decision has a source and you probably just located it.
3) Players will use ~3 options at most in any given situation.
Normally your character will have one or two options that are clearly, mechanically better than then alternatives. These decisions are reinforced every time you make that decision. As it plays out over and over it becomes a habit. I noticed this while I was researching Puff on Shield. No player uses every option from shield. Even in the cases where they attempt to mix things up they are just going to commit to 1 of about 3 that they've internalized as "sufficiently good." This is a general trend that goes beyond techs and OoS options and into various positions etc and allows for massive adaptation by a mindful player. Obviously you can net a clean stock off of a clean read (especially as Jigglypuff) but often times knowing what an opponent won’t do is exceedingly useful. There are only so many other options that they can or will commit to. A player afraid to tech roll in will stay in the vicinity of tech in place/out, a much smaller and normally reactable range. A Fox that won’t FH nair enables a number of Puff’s otherwise overly risky nair/fair patterns that can consistently beat out many of his other options.
4) Decisions are prompted by position and/or relative frame advantage.
People will react differently to you standing in front of your shield vs behind it. They techroll differently depending on where they hit relative to center stage. Generally, impulsive decisions are all directly related to the perceived threat more than the moves etc involved.
For frame advantage refer to http://alexspuffstuff.blogspot.com/2016/05/neutral-and-frame-advantage.html
Obviously this is not an exact science. It only brushes against conditioning or confusing non-zero-sum theory that I don't intend to read (lol). However after careful thought and testing I believe that these guidelines are simple and comprehensive enough to have massive net gains over time that can supplement a strong gameplan.
SUPER IMPORTANT NOTE:
If you can react then don't bother with this shit and take your guaranteed stuff
Saturday, May 14, 2016
How To Look At Jigglypuff
HOW TO LOOK AT JIGGLYPUFF
Intro to how this godlike/pitiful little balloon pokemon works in SSBM
For a lot of players it is difficult to look at and understand Jigglypuff. I only half-jokingly say that it’s because her big plays usually have to do with jumping at the right time or drifting at a steeper angle instead of screaming or flashing neon lights. That is understandably a bit subtle for newer players but unfortunately the ambiguity and confusion persists even in many veterans. Such a beautiful, interesting character is so poorly represented that “bair and rest” is not a meme, it’s to some degree a popular misunderstanding.
In the following paragraphs I will address a few important to recognize properties that come together to make Jigglypuff a unique threat as well as outline how the better Jigglypuff players pull from these to create dynamism.
FOOTSIES AND PUFF’S GODLIKE WALK BACK
First, let’s talk about Street Fighter. In Street Fighter and other traditional fighting games, much of the player vs player interactions start with Footsies. Footsies is basically an intricate mixup system in which Pokes lose to Whiff Punishes, Whiff Punishes lose to Movement, and Movement loses to Pokes. This triangle of options necessarily permeates how fighting games are played and designed, even Melee. One of the implicit boundaries that keeps this system in check is the fixed length of the stage. In order to maneuver out of the range of a poke, a character must have enough space behind them to do so. The more liberally they give up space for the chance to whiff punish, the less space they have left to give up. Eventually, their back will be against the wall, removing the option to whiff punish altogether and putting them at a severe option disadvantage.
This concept translates directly to Melee. You could feasibly say that because Marth’s conversions off of grab are stronger than his conversions off of his traditional approach options (probably dtilt or fair), marth’s whiff punishes are stronger than his pokes. He’s more likely to throw rock than scissors because he nets more off of rock. Playing against a Marth, you can anticipate this by throwing paper and collecting significant stage gains. Once Marth loses enough stage control not only can he not dash dance around your approach, but he is close to an easy edgeguard situation.
Jigglypuff breaks this pattern. Jigglypuff does not need ground under her feet to be effective. Her multiple jumps and incredible drift control translate to aerial prowess and a near immunity to edgeguards. This makes stage control a less valuable asset to her. She doesn’t need the stage to move, nor is she immediately threatened by its loss. Generally speaking, throwing rock won’t net Puff much of a gain but neither will it cost much. It is a softer throw than for other characters (At this point it is important to note that while the comparison is useful, mixups are not exactly RPS situations. The timing element means that you can to usually bait, postpone, avoid, or react to commitments).
But while Puff’s walk back is significantly buffed by having a much less direct relationship with the stage length, it is not infinite. There are several balance mechanics in place. First, like everything in melee, with a hard read on drift timing you can just kill her outright. Second, for many characters, stage control can be used to indirectly threaten Puff with projectiles, forcing her to turn her butt right back around and use high-commitment approaches. Lastly, every time Jigglypuff jumps she is committing to landing eventually. She can postpone that landing as many times as she has jumps left but she will eventually have to touch ground, at which point she is extremely vulnerable. Forfeiting the stage limits the amount of space she has to keep that landing ambiguous, making landinglag punishes significantly easier. These responses and the risks involved to both players deepen rather than simplify the gameplay.
KILL POTENTIAL
Thus far, we’ve only discussed Puff’s Walk Back. This is what people see, recognize, have a hard time articulating, and generally don’t like because it’s pretty 1-dimensional as a holistic gameplan. If that was all there was to Puff, every match would be solely a “war of attrition” that she would usually lose at the end. Thankfully this isn’t the case. Remember, Puff doesn’t lose much at a time from walking backward, but neither can she gain much. Retreating bairs just don’t combo. Time spent jumping away is time that can’t be spent on a reaction punish. These are judgements to be made in the moment. We recognize that Puff’s got a sick nasty punish game off of reads/reactions. If she gets a grab, uptilt, pound, upair, bair, dair, nair, etc in the right conditions you might just die to a 1f kill move from nowhere. Her combo potential is great and her edgeguard potential is even better. When Puff isn’t walking back It’s not a “war of attrition,” it’s a balancing act by both players. If you slip up in front of Hbox you will probably lose your stock. The same could be said for any other top player. This is to say that while Puff’s walk back is definitely strong, it is clearly not her only dimension nor is it in actuality her most important dimension. Much of hbox’s recent success has been a direct result of fine-tuning his impulses to round-out his approach and better enable his punishes.
MIXUPS BABYYYY
But beyond the latent threat of reaction punishes on mistakes and overcommitments ("backair and rest"), Puff has additional kill potential in her frequent mixups. This is where puff gets even more cool and even more complex. Let’s take for granted that outside of reaction punishes Puff always has the threat of a high-reward opportunity off of a movement read. Melee has blessed her in that they exist but are usually difficult to identify and risky to go for.
Edgeguarding Fox is a good example. Puff has an edgeguard opportunity vs Fox. It feels like there are a group of 50/50s in a row but there’s just one that we need to look at because the principle translates to the others. First, depending on how far Fox was thrown, he can recover high or low. Puff cannot normally cover both on reaction. She must choose. Most of the time Hbox is going to prioritize his stage control, let Fox snap to ledge ledge, and hit any high side/upB should it happen. This has the lowest net cost because should Hbox fair in front of the ledge to prevent fox from sweetspotting and the guess was wrong then Fox regains stage control at the very least. A good Fox knows this about Puff and about Hbox, so he’s more likely to sweetspot the ledge. But both players understand that as soon as they both commit to that ledge Fox loses his stock at any %. They’re both weighing the evolving risk at every instance. Eventually Hbox will strike. This principle is relatively constant throughout edgeguard situations in the MU. Most of the time Fox is going to make it back to ledge/stage and Puff will preserve a soft advantage via stage control, but if Puff makes a power play and jumps into a read commitment, one of them is probably going to die because of it. This is difficult to spot without knowledge of the situations but permeates Puff gameplay from edgeguarding to predicting jumps/shields/etc in neutral.
Picture Soft or Tekk choosing to land in front of a grounded Shiek. This situation is extremely high risk high reward for both characters. If Sheik grabs and puff crouches then Sheik dies instantly to rest, but if Sheik dsmashes instead then Puff takes crucial damage (keep in mind Sheik starts to breaks Puff's CC at ~50%, at which point converting hits into a kill is relatively easy for her). However, if Sheik dsmashes and Puff shields, Sheik can get rested OoS. Naturally if Sheik grabs and Puff shields/jumps then Sheik gets at least damage and stage position, potentially a kill of her own. Puff’s punish game, especially in regards to rest, creates high-risk high-reward mixups in a number of micro-situation.
The dichotomy between these extreme high-risk high-reward scenarios and the aforementioned low-risk low-reward footsies principles largely defines Puff as a character.
Granted, many Puff players will avoid high-risk scenarios out of discomfort and often times rightly so. Eliminating risk wins tournaments. But historically the Puffs that see high level success have all looked carefully to identify and exploit these scenarios by breaking down the dichotomy as non-exclusive. If anything at all this is what I want to impress on Puff players.
ADAPT-BASIS
Soft has said that constantly attacking isn’t cool or aggressive, it’s as predictable as always throwing scissors. Likewise, constantly retreating is just as effective as always throwing rock. Puff can and must balance her spacing and tendencies to avoid being predictable or her patterns will be exploited. That being said, if the Puff player is attentive, they can actively use the opponent’s reactions to net much higher rewards or more favorable situations on prediction. This is the entire basis of MangoPuff. Mango’s Puff was built specifically not just to keep track of, but to condition and encourage certain reactions that could be taken advantage of at a later time. You might notice the prevalence of nair. Nair in itself is very ineffective. It’ll do 9%. Low-risk low-reward, just like retreating bairs. But no one wants to get hit with nair 4 times in a row. Eventually they stop running forward and if you can predict/encourage someone letting up then Puff gets to take stage with something akin to the other MangoPuff special, FH fair (or very low DJ fair) into a descending drift mixup. Stuff like that. In this way MangoPuff uses his low-risk low-reward commitments not just to keep herself safe but to gather valuable data and color his high-risk high-reward plays. This is not to say that Hbox does not. Hbox is doing the same kind of thing to greater degrees all the time and in the context of both more specific situations and a much more polished holistic gameplan.
Jigglypuff’s unique drift/jump mechanics and brutal kill setups combine to allow her the freedom to condition, adapt and punish in ways slightly outside of the methodologies applied to the many other Melee characters. This is what it means to play the game with Jigglypuff: balancing options, playing footsies, and predicting a strong opponent. Far from a one-dimensional gimmick, high-level matches with and against Puff can display and even amplify core fighting game mechanics.
Intro to how this godlike/pitiful little balloon pokemon works in SSBM
For a lot of players it is difficult to look at and understand Jigglypuff. I only half-jokingly say that it’s because her big plays usually have to do with jumping at the right time or drifting at a steeper angle instead of screaming or flashing neon lights. That is understandably a bit subtle for newer players but unfortunately the ambiguity and confusion persists even in many veterans. Such a beautiful, interesting character is so poorly represented that “bair and rest” is not a meme, it’s to some degree a popular misunderstanding.
In the following paragraphs I will address a few important to recognize properties that come together to make Jigglypuff a unique threat as well as outline how the better Jigglypuff players pull from these to create dynamism.
FOOTSIES AND PUFF’S GODLIKE WALK BACK
First, let’s talk about Street Fighter. In Street Fighter and other traditional fighting games, much of the player vs player interactions start with Footsies. Footsies is basically an intricate mixup system in which Pokes lose to Whiff Punishes, Whiff Punishes lose to Movement, and Movement loses to Pokes. This triangle of options necessarily permeates how fighting games are played and designed, even Melee. One of the implicit boundaries that keeps this system in check is the fixed length of the stage. In order to maneuver out of the range of a poke, a character must have enough space behind them to do so. The more liberally they give up space for the chance to whiff punish, the less space they have left to give up. Eventually, their back will be against the wall, removing the option to whiff punish altogether and putting them at a severe option disadvantage.
This concept translates directly to Melee. You could feasibly say that because Marth’s conversions off of grab are stronger than his conversions off of his traditional approach options (probably dtilt or fair), marth’s whiff punishes are stronger than his pokes. He’s more likely to throw rock than scissors because he nets more off of rock. Playing against a Marth, you can anticipate this by throwing paper and collecting significant stage gains. Once Marth loses enough stage control not only can he not dash dance around your approach, but he is close to an easy edgeguard situation.
Jigglypuff breaks this pattern. Jigglypuff does not need ground under her feet to be effective. Her multiple jumps and incredible drift control translate to aerial prowess and a near immunity to edgeguards. This makes stage control a less valuable asset to her. She doesn’t need the stage to move, nor is she immediately threatened by its loss. Generally speaking, throwing rock won’t net Puff much of a gain but neither will it cost much. It is a softer throw than for other characters (At this point it is important to note that while the comparison is useful, mixups are not exactly RPS situations. The timing element means that you can to usually bait, postpone, avoid, or react to commitments).
But while Puff’s walk back is significantly buffed by having a much less direct relationship with the stage length, it is not infinite. There are several balance mechanics in place. First, like everything in melee, with a hard read on drift timing you can just kill her outright. Second, for many characters, stage control can be used to indirectly threaten Puff with projectiles, forcing her to turn her butt right back around and use high-commitment approaches. Lastly, every time Jigglypuff jumps she is committing to landing eventually. She can postpone that landing as many times as she has jumps left but she will eventually have to touch ground, at which point she is extremely vulnerable. Forfeiting the stage limits the amount of space she has to keep that landing ambiguous, making landinglag punishes significantly easier. These responses and the risks involved to both players deepen rather than simplify the gameplay.
KILL POTENTIAL
Thus far, we’ve only discussed Puff’s Walk Back. This is what people see, recognize, have a hard time articulating, and generally don’t like because it’s pretty 1-dimensional as a holistic gameplan. If that was all there was to Puff, every match would be solely a “war of attrition” that she would usually lose at the end. Thankfully this isn’t the case. Remember, Puff doesn’t lose much at a time from walking backward, but neither can she gain much. Retreating bairs just don’t combo. Time spent jumping away is time that can’t be spent on a reaction punish. These are judgements to be made in the moment. We recognize that Puff’s got a sick nasty punish game off of reads/reactions. If she gets a grab, uptilt, pound, upair, bair, dair, nair, etc in the right conditions you might just die to a 1f kill move from nowhere. Her combo potential is great and her edgeguard potential is even better. When Puff isn’t walking back It’s not a “war of attrition,” it’s a balancing act by both players. If you slip up in front of Hbox you will probably lose your stock. The same could be said for any other top player. This is to say that while Puff’s walk back is definitely strong, it is clearly not her only dimension nor is it in actuality her most important dimension. Much of hbox’s recent success has been a direct result of fine-tuning his impulses to round-out his approach and better enable his punishes.
MIXUPS BABYYYY
But beyond the latent threat of reaction punishes on mistakes and overcommitments ("backair and rest"), Puff has additional kill potential in her frequent mixups. This is where puff gets even more cool and even more complex. Let’s take for granted that outside of reaction punishes Puff always has the threat of a high-reward opportunity off of a movement read. Melee has blessed her in that they exist but are usually difficult to identify and risky to go for.
Edgeguarding Fox is a good example. Puff has an edgeguard opportunity vs Fox. It feels like there are a group of 50/50s in a row but there’s just one that we need to look at because the principle translates to the others. First, depending on how far Fox was thrown, he can recover high or low. Puff cannot normally cover both on reaction. She must choose. Most of the time Hbox is going to prioritize his stage control, let Fox snap to ledge ledge, and hit any high side/upB should it happen. This has the lowest net cost because should Hbox fair in front of the ledge to prevent fox from sweetspotting and the guess was wrong then Fox regains stage control at the very least. A good Fox knows this about Puff and about Hbox, so he’s more likely to sweetspot the ledge. But both players understand that as soon as they both commit to that ledge Fox loses his stock at any %. They’re both weighing the evolving risk at every instance. Eventually Hbox will strike. This principle is relatively constant throughout edgeguard situations in the MU. Most of the time Fox is going to make it back to ledge/stage and Puff will preserve a soft advantage via stage control, but if Puff makes a power play and jumps into a read commitment, one of them is probably going to die because of it. This is difficult to spot without knowledge of the situations but permeates Puff gameplay from edgeguarding to predicting jumps/shields/etc in neutral.
Picture Soft or Tekk choosing to land in front of a grounded Shiek. This situation is extremely high risk high reward for both characters. If Sheik grabs and puff crouches then Sheik dies instantly to rest, but if Sheik dsmashes instead then Puff takes crucial damage (keep in mind Sheik starts to breaks Puff's CC at ~50%, at which point converting hits into a kill is relatively easy for her). However, if Sheik dsmashes and Puff shields, Sheik can get rested OoS. Naturally if Sheik grabs and Puff shields/jumps then Sheik gets at least damage and stage position, potentially a kill of her own. Puff’s punish game, especially in regards to rest, creates high-risk high-reward mixups in a number of micro-situation.
The dichotomy between these extreme high-risk high-reward scenarios and the aforementioned low-risk low-reward footsies principles largely defines Puff as a character.
Granted, many Puff players will avoid high-risk scenarios out of discomfort and often times rightly so. Eliminating risk wins tournaments. But historically the Puffs that see high level success have all looked carefully to identify and exploit these scenarios by breaking down the dichotomy as non-exclusive. If anything at all this is what I want to impress on Puff players.
ADAPT-BASIS
Soft has said that constantly attacking isn’t cool or aggressive, it’s as predictable as always throwing scissors. Likewise, constantly retreating is just as effective as always throwing rock. Puff can and must balance her spacing and tendencies to avoid being predictable or her patterns will be exploited. That being said, if the Puff player is attentive, they can actively use the opponent’s reactions to net much higher rewards or more favorable situations on prediction. This is the entire basis of MangoPuff. Mango’s Puff was built specifically not just to keep track of, but to condition and encourage certain reactions that could be taken advantage of at a later time. You might notice the prevalence of nair. Nair in itself is very ineffective. It’ll do 9%. Low-risk low-reward, just like retreating bairs. But no one wants to get hit with nair 4 times in a row. Eventually they stop running forward and if you can predict/encourage someone letting up then Puff gets to take stage with something akin to the other MangoPuff special, FH fair (or very low DJ fair) into a descending drift mixup. Stuff like that. In this way MangoPuff uses his low-risk low-reward commitments not just to keep herself safe but to gather valuable data and color his high-risk high-reward plays. This is not to say that Hbox does not. Hbox is doing the same kind of thing to greater degrees all the time and in the context of both more specific situations and a much more polished holistic gameplan.
Jigglypuff’s unique drift/jump mechanics and brutal kill setups combine to allow her the freedom to condition, adapt and punish in ways slightly outside of the methodologies applied to the many other Melee characters. This is what it means to play the game with Jigglypuff: balancing options, playing footsies, and predicting a strong opponent. Far from a one-dimensional gimmick, high-level matches with and against Puff can display and even amplify core fighting game mechanics.
Monday, April 25, 2016
Opportunity Cost
Opportunity Cost is a term used in economics to describe the relative yield of a choice between options made mutually exclusive by a limited resource. The primacy of resource management in starcraft lends to good examples. If I use a drone to scout then the opportunity cost of the drone is the mineral count that the drone could have gathered if used as a harvester. If the drone is used to harvest then the opportunity cost is the information that it would have gathered as a scout. Because time is a limited resource, any use of the drone carries some kind of opportunity cost. Starcraft is interesting because minerals and information are both very valuable so you have to make tough calls.
Opportunity cost exists in smash as well. In melee, the opportunity cost of any given action is the potential to perform a different action. This gets complicated rather quickly, but I think it’s an important concept to consider.
For Jigglypuff, the most common example involves her bair. Bair has a low-moderate reward and extremely low risk, even on whiff. If you use that math then committing to spaced bairs pays off over time. It is possible (common, even) to space bairs outside of a character’s range until they take a different position or get hit. This makes bair appear like a one step solution. In some matchups it effectively is. However, in others even though the risk attached to bair is low, the opportunity cost is quite high. It is active, but it is not proactive. Every bair is a commitment to the air and at least 31 frames of bair animation. Habitually using that time on a safe but low reward action will net you much worse results than a player capable of recognizing an equivalent or better option with a lower opportunity cost.
Example: If Captain Falcon dashes at puff she can jump away and bair. His options to directly punish a retreating bair are few and carry a high risk, so he’s likely to just take a bit of stage presence at most. However, by jumping away Puff is forfeiting her opportunity to react to Falcon’s potential action commitment (probably with crouch or with uptilt, options that on confirm can net a stock, not just 12%). It doesn’t matter if the Puff player reacts to Falcon’s movement if she is already committed to a lengthy animation.
Opportunity cost applies very frequently to Puff’s approaches. Remember, every bair is a 31f minimum commitment. Committing to bair now prevents you from committing to a slightly later bair, a moderately later bair, or sometimes no bair at all. Any one could situationally be the most effective. The opportunity cost of a preemptive attack is in this case both the potential to react to the opponent’s movement and the potential to keep your own intent ambiguous and difficult to react to. In this way even if a bair goes unpunished or even hits it can be a costly overcommitment in terms of what could have happened if you chose a different option or even a different timing.
When formulating strategy and making decisions, weigh the opportunity cost of an action beside its risk and reward as an additional axis.
Opportunity cost exists in smash as well. In melee, the opportunity cost of any given action is the potential to perform a different action. This gets complicated rather quickly, but I think it’s an important concept to consider.
For Jigglypuff, the most common example involves her bair. Bair has a low-moderate reward and extremely low risk, even on whiff. If you use that math then committing to spaced bairs pays off over time. It is possible (common, even) to space bairs outside of a character’s range until they take a different position or get hit. This makes bair appear like a one step solution. In some matchups it effectively is. However, in others even though the risk attached to bair is low, the opportunity cost is quite high. It is active, but it is not proactive. Every bair is a commitment to the air and at least 31 frames of bair animation. Habitually using that time on a safe but low reward action will net you much worse results than a player capable of recognizing an equivalent or better option with a lower opportunity cost.
Example: If Captain Falcon dashes at puff she can jump away and bair. His options to directly punish a retreating bair are few and carry a high risk, so he’s likely to just take a bit of stage presence at most. However, by jumping away Puff is forfeiting her opportunity to react to Falcon’s potential action commitment (probably with crouch or with uptilt, options that on confirm can net a stock, not just 12%). It doesn’t matter if the Puff player reacts to Falcon’s movement if she is already committed to a lengthy animation.
Opportunity cost applies very frequently to Puff’s approaches. Remember, every bair is a 31f minimum commitment. Committing to bair now prevents you from committing to a slightly later bair, a moderately later bair, or sometimes no bair at all. Any one could situationally be the most effective. The opportunity cost of a preemptive attack is in this case both the potential to react to the opponent’s movement and the potential to keep your own intent ambiguous and difficult to react to. In this way even if a bair goes unpunished or even hits it can be a costly overcommitment in terms of what could have happened if you chose a different option or even a different timing.
When formulating strategy and making decisions, weigh the opportunity cost of an action beside its risk and reward as an additional axis.
Monday, April 18, 2016
Analysis for Moose
Moose VI vs Vic (I got their tags mixed up so moose is the puff not the falco like I say but no matter)
Game 1 BF
notation by in game timer
8:00 threaten center then move over a potential laser to take it
get clipped with a laser, could have WLed off of side plat to avoid that
7:57 second fair is oriented too high so you end up in a bad angle. The fairs themselves were good options to push him to the corner from that range
7:56 no reason to nair it just telegraphs your land
7:55 his shine whiffs so you get a grab. Looks like you were trying to grab before he could laser grab which was a good call
7:54 your DJ was a little too late. You made the right decision.
7:52 I try to sdi that dair forward so that he can’t uptilt.
7:50 that pound from the corner was high risk and predictable. You could have techchase rested again.
DJ bairs aren’t spaced to account for where he actually is.
7:44 that nair is kinda interesting. It beats all of his grounded options but loses to a preemptive bair. So that’s a good thing to think of as a specific tool in a specific mixup. Follow him with nair if he stays grounded, hang back and punish his fall/land if he is jumpy?
You didn’t space close enough to follow up but the FH after his jump away is great. However you leave it empty so you end up getting hit instead.
7:41 you get hit again introducing lag with a useless fair
7:39 this time he waits outside of the predictable pound
good bair, bad fsmash. He would have had to DI the bair badly, in which case you’d rather grab.
He misspaces a punish so you get a bair
Hmmmm, the ledgegrab was obvious, I think had you SHFF faired you would have barely caught it
interaction after is really strange
7:33 you should be taking center stage to preserve your advantage
7:31 I don’t think the upair could have hit him even if he jumped OoS
7:30 that fair is a bit too high again. Practice doing those as low to the ground as possible. That’s the second time a too-high fair turns a good situation into a bad one.
using the corner of the platform to keep your route back to stage ambiguous is good esp because he doesn’t want to challenge you directly
7:25 your movement out of shield is too slowly to take advantage of the space he’s giving you
7:22 Because puff is so short that shield grab has too small a success rate to go for.
After, I like to WD under his lasers at that range. You can tell it’s a laser when he jumps straight up, at which point you WD under it and can grab him (or double fair if you are slightly too far away still)
7:20 this time your shield grab gets shined
not the end of the world vs falco but it is a complete loss of stage
7:17 you could have gone closer to center after he committed to lasers
7:15 bad nair. From that angle it didn’t protect your land at all
7:14 another fsmash that needed to be a grab
7:08 you take center then you guess that he’ll jump. You don’t really have to guess, you can wait for him to do it and then punish the descent, esp because you are invincible
7:06 CC grab
looool that dash away pound was maybe the biggest guess I’ve ever seen
7:04 you get uptilted not respecting his range
7:01 good position set up to edgeguard but you don’t react to his sideB
you could have gotten invincible daired several times during your recovery and died under 40%. Recover vertically away from him so that that can’t happen.
6:56 good coverage
you could have easily baired his upB on reaction
6:48 you go the the ledge which is safe but gives up the whole stage. You could have hung out around the side platform outside of his range to the same effect while still maintianing a threat when his inv runs out
he gives you a bair though so it works out lol
good reaction punish on his FH
looks like you dropped the punish by missing a ledgecancel, that’s ok the idea was there.
6:44 this bair is much too late to hit him so you needed to prioritize position. This is recurring.
ok good you maneuver to center then FH over the laser
fair prevents his crossup
6:38 this time he dashed back and then lasered so that it would coincide with your descent
you didn’t recognize this so you get shot. It is subtle. You needed to bair earlier to hit the top of his SH. Had he not SHed then you would fade away and keep center stage.
6:37 if you sdi’ed the laser down then you could have shielded. That’s not really expected but good to keep in mind.
6:35 at that range you can WD in between the lasers to fix your spacing while still being able to react if he tries to approach with an aerial.
the descending nair spacing after you missed your WL was perfect. You should have gotten a great grab after you land and he whiffs a bair but you were stuck in drop shield animation.
6:30 close to the same principle. He is dashing away and lasering your jump from a distance. In this case you needed to WD after his dash and then react.
good job buying your way back to stage with bair, then catching him loitering.
6:26 falling upair after bair rarely hits spacies. It is much better to land empty and then grab.
6:24 misspaced bair necessitates techchase, you are too eager to hit so you only cover missed tech. Additionally, the landing lag from fair gives him enough time to roll away from a direct followup.
6:22 oh that’s interesting. Normally a FH there will counter if falco uptilts but moose chose to dash a little further and bair. I haven’t seen that before. In that case you need to space well outside of him with the intention to use your disjoint when jumping toward falco from about a roll’s distance.
6:19 would have hit him without the DJ
afterward you don’t fade back enough
if an aerial whiffs then puff needs to fade back a lot.
6:15 you take center then sort of but not effectively cover his retreat. However it is enough to take stage control and make him nervous and jump into a slightly delayed uptilt, which is worth it.
oh nooooo you slightly misspace the rest. That’s 2 kills dropped. Boooooo.
oh ok cool spotdodge roll. Good place for those.
the grab was super misspaced though. I would have just double WDed toward center and CC grabbed if he tried to hit me with anything on my way.
6:07 you could have grabbed before he did. You should have been mashing grab in case the nair hit, anyway. In those situations hold L and then mash Z and A.
6:05 bair is too early.
6:04 this is a neat situation to look at. You get baired for jumping at falco from what looks like a good position but if you look at it you actually didn’t have a reason to jump at all. You could have just sat there empty and reactively punished anything that he does. Not that that’s easy, but it’s more consistent and probably easier than guessing.
poor DI on his bair makes it combo
6:01 that fair won’t hit him. You needed to fair where he was going, not where he was.
5:58 that crossup was risky. You only just sneaked through.
5:56 looks like you tried to shield grab again. Puff is too short to shield grab even high ff dairs
5:53 faded way too close
5:47 no reaction to the missed tech
5:42 you were too slow to get all the way over there and poke at his feet, you needed to recognize that and delay your decision to bair
he should have FH baired you but he SHed so you get a punish
I’m pretty sure it was impossible to cover that sideB sweetspot so just prioritize stage control.
5:35 good, you stay out of his range and keep an ok position to threaten when his inv runs out
he actually gives you the whole stage, inviting you to go low.
5:32 I think that you jumped away from his jump forward thinking that it was an aerial but instead it was a laser so you got shot. Hbox will sometimes spotdodge or roll instead. It is interesting and good but not good if you spam it.
5:29 there we go. You spam grab after landing next to him, upthrow rest. Very valuable stock.
oh and a great tech. Good shit dude.
5:19 you try to shieldgrab backthrow during hitlag of the shine so you end up rolling.
If you mash L+A+Z then that won’t happen
second grab attempt was unlikely to work, you should have just angled your shield up.
after he backed away from the ledge I personally would not have left it until he either gave me a chance for a WL grab or to do damage with ledgehop dair/bair
by vertically spacing toward center you are risking death and a perfectly even game and he is risking a single hit or two. Not good odds for you.
5:06 yeah exactly that happened lol
5:03 idk what your design for your inv was.
5:00 ok nair beats grounded falco
you get jabbed out of your grab because you tried to dash away from a CC option and still grab him. You can’t have your cake and eat it too you are not playing as fox.
4:58 that grab was a little too late but he was nervous and shielded for some reason so you get the uprthow rest. GJ
Stocks Lost:
Fsmash his shield, upsmash OoS
runs into a bair at high %
fall into a bair at high %
Stocks:
extended edgeguard after a pound
bair, he misses sideB sweetspot
upthrow rest
upthrow rest
I’m not seeing any glaring holes in your gameplan. If you hit the rests and fix a couple things then your gameplay will look much more coherent and it will be much easier to optimize from there. I mean, you earned 4 rests but only got 2 kills from them.
1) a good number of your aerials are misplaced.
Sometimes you are guessing that he will jump when you don’t have to. You can wait and react to it, then punish his descent.
Sometimes you are attacking where he is without respecting that he can and usually will dash away from you. Unless falco is in some kind of endlag then you have to assume that he will dash back and delay or overshoot your aerial a bit to account for that.
2) This is really tricky and takes practice/focus but you need to distinguish between different types of lasers and tailor your response to them. If he dashes back and then lasers then your response needs to be different than if he lasers in place or jumps back with a laser. They are all effectively different moves that need to be punished differently or you will whiff something and then take 30+% from a bair uptilt dair or something like that.
This is made even more complicated because you punish a laser in place at close range differently than a laser in place at mid-range etc. That’s why I don’t have a list of what to do vs what. I personally don’t have it 100% figured out yet either. Right now, I think that the best way to learn it is to sit down and play friendlies for an hour or two and only focus on how best to avoid/punish lasers on reaction to how he sets them up.
3) Never shield grab falco unless you know 100% that it will work. 90% of the time it won’t.
From here I’m going to be a little less exhaustive and look for patterns and solutions.
Game 2 FoD
8:00 The DJ fair only covered a jump that he wouldn’t have done.
7:57 that fair was really good because of the range. Covered most of his options. You could have probably grabbed after the second one if you faded in.
good job not overcommitting after he dairs over you
but you’re being a little fishy. You could be reactively punishing a whiffed AC bair.
7:48 ok so the reason that WDing under that platform was good is that he can’t aerial through it very well. So if he runs forward then it’s super obvious that he’s going to do a grounded option, which for falco at this moment is almost certainly a grab.
7:43 there’s no reason to challenge that rising dair
7:39 good zoning
FH after the missed tech was good too, initiates pressure.
when you are descending over it there is a mixup between bair and empty land grab. If you always bair then bair isn’t good. If you always grab then grab isn’t good. You need to mix them up a lot for that to be a good position.
7:33 he overcommits pretty hard so you get stage
lmao woah I was not expecting that pound
yeahhhh, if you counted up all of the pounds that puffs do that hit vs all the ones that get punished I don’t think any of us would use sideB ever again.
7:25 good job going over his lasers without putting yourself in danger of getting baired
but then you FH nair into one (; _ ; ) bad risk reward.
7:20 you catch the cheeky crossup, should be an edgeguard
you start moving that way too late to cover the sweetspot jump
7:15 overextension. Now you’re in a bad position instead of a great one. You’ve done that a couple times so far this match. You need to recognize a winning situation and take advantage of it.
7:11 waveland was good idea but you got clipped anyway gross
7:10 ok that works lol
7:05 perfect position
7:04 noooo don’t double jump there, he was stuck!
7:01 nair was cool but it didn’t AC so you had to shield so it was bad
7:00 don’t shield grab that crossup. It’s a trick. They will uptilt a lot. Hbox likes to WD out then punish what they do when they land. Moose is choosing to spam AC bair, you could be punishing it.
yeah you’re just not punishing anything that he’s doing this match.
6:54 bad shieldgrab
6:51 you need to be prepared for your moves to hit him, haha
6:49 ooh, that was really good but just barely whiffed.
could have baired his dash attack
6:47 if you FH bair there then you need to fade conservatively or a whiff will be punished.
6:44 he gave you a fair but you were thinking about something else so you didn’t take it
reactions!
6:36 bad bair, didn’t have a purpose
6:32 consider that those FH nairs that you fade back at the end don’t actually have a reward. You can tell if a nair is going to connect, at which point you need to fade them in instead of out in order for them to be worth it.
good reaction/option coverage vs the techs. You could have potentially reacted to the missed tech with a dash attack but I’m not certain.
6:20 moose is slow to move out of the bair so you get a grab
6:18 when you do that SH DJ bair aim for their feet.
6:17 DJ fair out of hitstun should have been a falling fair. You didn’t react to where he was.
6:15 bad shieldgrab.
6:11 good vertical spacing
FH bair afterward is badly spaced vs his options
bad pound
6:07 ooh he whiffs, money grab.
SH upair was better but you make the fair work.
mmmm, you are consistently late and suboptimal in how you get to the ledge so these edgeguards are impossible instead of hard.
6:02 gave you a free bair
6:00 there it is. Good empty land grab mixup. Bthrow was better in that position/%
5:51 perfect position again but this time the nair commitment restricts your movement and makes you land so he can pressure you. The nair has a high opportunity cost.
5:41 good spacing over his lasers and close enough to catch an advancing jump.
5:39 by now you should catch on to how he likes to AC bair when he’s not really sure how you’re going to move and be ready to either bair or grab it.
5:38 I definitely would have spammed grab after that nair
5:37 bair would have hit. Falling upair vs spacies is a bad habit. Terrible success rate.
5:24 like this AC bair here. Exactly like this. Good job lol.
aw, the DJ was unnecessary so you drop the combo
5:17 ooh that SH nair covered a lot of options
this game you were mostly too busy trying to do something that was in your head to take advantage many of the opportunities that you had but you reigned that in during the second half. A bit less going on because moose was less willing to laser on a smaller stage, so it is a good one for looking at spacing your jumps around his aerials without being in danger of a counter bair.
Stocks Lost
FH nair into a bair
rest punish
Stocks
raw fsmash
techread rest
raw FH bair
bair, edgeguard
Game 3 FoD
7:57 second nair was unsafe because he was behind you. You needed to react to his position and just take center stage during his endlag with like runoff bair or something like that.
7:56 that upair never works
some wonky pressure, you get grabbed.
7:51 bad pound
7:49 bad upair burns opportunity, DJ bair is slightly misspaced so no shieldpoke
second DJ bair couldn’t have possibly hit him and puts you in a poor position
7:47 CC grab
7:44 good going over the lasers, I don’t agree with the nair, I would have just fallen empty. It’s lucky that it beat bair.
could have grabbed if you faded in.
7:42 the dash then laser catches your jump
he was cornered after so there’s not too much reason to jump anyway.
lmao that’s a funny kill.
7:30 good getting back stage with safe bairs
7:29 that nair was really good but unnecessary to fade back so it became bad.
bad shieldgrab
7:26 this nair was started high enough that it was easy to react to. You recognize that it’s not safe and back off.
7:23 good reaction to the roll and grab, should have been an upthrow.
7:21 good position (staying grounded under the platform) but bad spacing so ledgedash got you.
7:16 you force him up, which is great. Focus on punishing his land if/when he jumps.
eh, premature upair so you have to let him down.
7:13 ooooh, probably unintentional but your lightshield makes the shine whiff which = free grab. You can do the same thing with shield DI but it’s though.
7:10 you could have regrabbed or fsmashed after the upair.
the next little bit is scuffly. You could have come out on top by FHing around him.
7:00 good position to cover his SHs but you don’t FF well so you can’t.
6:55 just WD under them.
6:48 that was actually pretty interesting. The empty land crossup then shield was good but then the platform coming up freaked you out. You could have still WDed OoS to center to achieve the same design.
6:42 ah wow good spacing to take adv of his whiffed dair
6:40 you’re getting really good milage out of this SH nair edgeguard
really really good spacing to get off of the ledge after his inv
ah, but you miss the turn grab. It’s weird because you can’t jump cancel it or it won’t recognize your orientation change.
6:25 lol would have been baller if you rested him but stage control is good too.
You don’t need quite that much though.
6:23 had you sdi’ed the laser down you could have grabbed.
6:17 you could have gotten the followup after the getup attack but you were late to move.
6:12 bad nair
you take a lot of damage in the next little bit spacing too closely to him
5:55 don’t fish. Even if it’s not punished directly there is an opportunity cost.
5:52 dunno why you jumped
hit per hit you’re not doing that bad but your single hit rising nairs etc are overly difficult to follow up
this entire stock you’re playing from positions that favor falco, not puff
puff thrives on singular punishes (grabs etc) that will kill falco every time. Generally speaking, the rest of her hits are to buy enough stage and respect to get them.
5:27 no need to upair right away. Let him burn some shield and get nervous first.
5:27 fair is too high. Look at where falco is, not where you feel.
5:23 you can’t punish falco jumps on reaction on the way up. You have to wait a moment and then punish the descent.
5:22 this is a good example of an instance in which you react to a whiffed aerial with a jump bair which ends up being shielded. You need to instead recognize when you are slightly slow (because of reaction time + character state) and either keep your jump empty or grab instead.
5:15 good spacing until the end. After the lasers you stopped respecting his aerial.
5:11 I am of the opinion that if you are going to attack a shieldin opponent in the corner then you go all out and do like a low bair grab or something. If you expect them to roll then just do nothing and wait to react. (You can dash dance or something to stay ambiguous). But if you try to do both then it is very very easy to end up covering 0 options.
5:06 bad pound
5:03 predictable grab
4:51 DJ burned your opportunity
4:48 from that range just WD under the laser, he can’t jump at you before you can react
4:47 shielding covered 0 tech options
4:35 ok so you’re in a good position under that platform to avoid his SH stuff and prevent an overhead approach
4:33 lucky shieldgrab but you kind of need it. Backthrow is good. Could have FHed then reacted to what he did.
Could have rested OoS.
Could have upsmashed his predictable rising aerial.
when you’re in the corner in this position it’s up to you to sneak something while he’s specifically trying to deny it to you
meaning that it’s about tempting him to overextend, like he did with the dair earlier.
4:10 bad jump
Stocks:
lol gettup attack to ledgehog
bair to SH nair edgeguard
Falco SDs
Stocks Lost:
jab bair
baired at high %
naired at high %
jump into bair at high %
I stand by the numbered list after game 1. I would add though that you have a lot more dead frames than you probably think that you do. You can play in 20xx with the green overlay on to spot those more easily. I would also note that there are a number of situations (like punishing rising jumps or instances where you try to bair a land and it is shielded and resets to neutral) that you overestimate your reaction time and need to look carefully at how long the startup of your intended punish is vs the endlag of their option and come up with a more lenient punish or (more likely) take an indirect punish like stage or position to cover what he will do after. Especially in this last game you are hitting too many shields with rising bairs. It’s a symptom of a simple but consistent problem.
Saturday, April 9, 2016
ASDI down
ASDI down
Crouch Cancelling is one of the stronger techniques in SSBM. By cutting KB by 1/3rd, CCing a move can frequently allow you to counterattack from a grounded position before your opponent can follow up. With CCing, “Don’t Get Hit” is incomplete. In the right situation, getting hit can have a massive reward.
The inherent weakness of CCing is that it requires you to crouch. Crouching is conspicuous. This makes CCing somewhat telegraphed and easy to recognize and punish with a multi-hit move or grab. Crouching also severely limits your mobility. You might recognize that Dash Dance heavy characters CC with far less frequency than others. A Falcon player is less willing to surrender his capacity to dash back than a Sheik main.
But Melee offers us a compromise in the form of ASDI down.
ASDI down results in a sort of pseudo-CC. At %s that do not trigger tumble, landing will interrupt hitstun with a normal, 4f landing animation. ASDI will move your model a small amount downward. Additionally, ASDI triggers a ground collision. In game, if you are hit with a low-mid KB move at low %s and then ASDI down then your character will go straight from hitlag to 4f of landing lag, leaving you with frame advantage comparable to CCing. This will work to great effect up until the trajectory of f1 after hitlag exceeds the ASDI unit of distance at mid-high %s.
But the real beauty of ASDI lies in that it can be buffered and is not recognizable to the opponent before-hand. ASDI does not require the precision of an SDI input. You just need to be pressing a direction on either stick on the last frame of hitlag. It doesn’t matter if you pressed down before or during hitlag. This means that you can habitually press down during the startup and endlag of your moves and simply mash Z if you get hit out of them. Because you can buffer ASDI with the C stick, you can maintain your full mobility while preemptively buffering ASDI down just in case. This is very easy and non-intrusive, especially if you claw. (Theoretically you could even plug your controller in with the C stick pressed up lol).
Many players impulsively throw out a quick jab or tilt after making a lightly unsafe decision in an effort to beat out a potential whiff punish. This is highly effective but only to a point. Habitual ASDI will net you at least a grab off of these counterpokes, rendering them completely fraudulent.
Once you start looking you will see this technique with very high frequency in high-level matches. I would go so far as to say it is one of the biggest mechanical differences between top and mid-level players.
Crouch Cancelling is one of the stronger techniques in SSBM. By cutting KB by 1/3rd, CCing a move can frequently allow you to counterattack from a grounded position before your opponent can follow up. With CCing, “Don’t Get Hit” is incomplete. In the right situation, getting hit can have a massive reward.
The inherent weakness of CCing is that it requires you to crouch. Crouching is conspicuous. This makes CCing somewhat telegraphed and easy to recognize and punish with a multi-hit move or grab. Crouching also severely limits your mobility. You might recognize that Dash Dance heavy characters CC with far less frequency than others. A Falcon player is less willing to surrender his capacity to dash back than a Sheik main.
But Melee offers us a compromise in the form of ASDI down.
ASDI down results in a sort of pseudo-CC. At %s that do not trigger tumble, landing will interrupt hitstun with a normal, 4f landing animation. ASDI will move your model a small amount downward. Additionally, ASDI triggers a ground collision. In game, if you are hit with a low-mid KB move at low %s and then ASDI down then your character will go straight from hitlag to 4f of landing lag, leaving you with frame advantage comparable to CCing. This will work to great effect up until the trajectory of f1 after hitlag exceeds the ASDI unit of distance at mid-high %s.
But the real beauty of ASDI lies in that it can be buffered and is not recognizable to the opponent before-hand. ASDI does not require the precision of an SDI input. You just need to be pressing a direction on either stick on the last frame of hitlag. It doesn’t matter if you pressed down before or during hitlag. This means that you can habitually press down during the startup and endlag of your moves and simply mash Z if you get hit out of them. Because you can buffer ASDI with the C stick, you can maintain your full mobility while preemptively buffering ASDI down just in case. This is very easy and non-intrusive, especially if you claw. (Theoretically you could even plug your controller in with the C stick pressed up lol).
Many players impulsively throw out a quick jab or tilt after making a lightly unsafe decision in an effort to beat out a potential whiff punish. This is highly effective but only to a point. Habitual ASDI will net you at least a grab off of these counterpokes, rendering them completely fraudulent.
Once you start looking you will see this technique with very high frequency in high-level matches. I would go so far as to say it is one of the biggest mechanical differences between top and mid-level players.
Tuesday, March 1, 2016
Analysis for Anytime
Anytime vs Strawhat
http://www.twitch.tv/smashunited/v/46927545
Game 3 DL
Notation by in game timer
normally FoD is better vs falcon but I agree with the pick based on how previous games went
8:00 non neutral start, you jump away from his jump but WD was enough
he stomps your roll, can’t tell if read or reaction, could have just crouched
remember that a huggggge thing in the MU is that falcon has 0 tools to punish puff’s crouch without jumping. That means that you can WD and crouch around the stage for free and don’t have to worry about anything but reacting if he jumps. If you don’t practice/abuse that then the MU is way more fair than it needs to be.
7:56 whiff punish was late because of missed tech. For some reason jigglypuff mains are the worst about going for punishes that they are clearly way too late to get.
you are backing away too much to threaten him. The further you fade back the more leeway he has.
ok he does a crossup which forces shield
you fair high though so no frame adv and the knee is safe
another missed tech so extended combo
7:49 bad fair. Fairing that high doesn’t do anything but limit your options.
you barely whiff a bair. You would get those if you play the game a tiny bit closer to him than you are.
7:47 good jump back. Jump back on reaction to him jumping forward is a strong tactic.
high nair won’t combo but he messes up and gets uptilt rested
the crossup nair that you did is generally the best in those situations because it’s a higher execution demand for them to punish
however in that case you needed (and would have easily gotten) a second uptilt in order to kill
7:39 WD away was a little premature, you didn’t need to give him the whole stage that early
7:37 bair whiff punish is late, you almost eat a knee counterpoke
7:35 fair should have probably been dair grab but you get the read
there was no reason not to grab ledge. If he gets on stage after just bair him off again.
7:30 bad pound, should have been stomped on reaction
7:27 don’t know why your jump was empty
he SDs so you get back for free, haha
7:19 can’t grab an inv falcon
DI down and away
if you want to mix it up (not sure if good or not) mix between that and up
7:14 descending fair forces you to land and eats into your inv time
you have time to react to falcon moving before you do an aerial
7:13 same thing, would have been able to react with upair
7:11 he tries to trick you but you’re ready
you can try to empty land grab in this position, uptilt has less reward at 0
7:08 unnecessary jump
weird crossup after but it works out
7:05 SH bair would have connected. On the way up SH bair has more range than FH bair.
7:03 don’t uptilt after an upair, the success % is in like the single digits
do one or the other
7:01 greedy fsmash. When you bair at low %s just try to punish what they habitually do out of hitstun
7:00 needed to react to the jump and shield the second knee
of CC upsmash? lol what an option
6:56 good spacing around the upair
no reaction, culd have jab reset
really good spacing afterward until you get kneed. I think a WD forward was better than a FH fair.
6:50 unsafe nair. If you want to protect your land use bair, it’s better at that job.
miss the punish on the stomp because you WD away out of nervousness.
6:48 that bair couldn’t have done much of anything, WD into him and crouch in front of his shield
6:43 unsafe jump
6:42 needed to shield
there is a mixup where he can empty land grab if you shield but it’s not a good risk reward because crouch beats grab and aerial (CC grab) at low-mid %s.
6:40 bad pound. Don’t do that it’s so predictable and so easy to get killed for. He should start FHing over it and kneeing you.
6:22 you run to ledge vs falcon inv which is better than jumping. I’m not sure what the best plan is but ideally you want to cross him up at the last moment for stage control. However he knows that so he tends to make it difficult. Probably just watch where hbox goes lol.
6:31 upair was good but a tiny bit late
6:27 he overextends so you get a good dair
won’t combo to grab but a lot of players will spotdodge, roll, or jab out of it so crouching is good
6:25 rest
practice that, the reaction is very doable
6:24 he catches you jumping preemptively.
6:19 he baits you into swinging so that he can run through
you don’t have to snatch him right away
6:18 his punish is too early, you get a grab
upthrow upair upair upair, ran out of jumps. Need to WL off of side plats in the middle if possible
6:12 no need for that jump, gets you punished. In general falcon wants you above him so don’t go there.
6:10 no reaction to stomp
haha, you can’t CC grab that move
ok good maneuvering to get ledge
good shield after the fair
don’t need to jump, WD forward if you’re afraid
5:56 same thing. He goes to the corner and waits for you to whiff an aerial, then goes around you
5:55 spaced too far away to punish the land
he misjudges the spacing, gets fsmashed
5:51 dsmash or dash attack or fair
5:50 you had time to turn around and SH bair instead of FH fair
5:46 bad spacing, could have beat it out horizontally as well as punished landing lag
5:45 shield grab was a weird guess that he would stay in shield after seeing you shield
5:41 Reallllly scary FH
it’s ok to just wait a heartbeat before you jump
I guess it’s a little bit weird for a jigglypuff player but being in teh air in front of falcon is not always a good idea. In fact if he is free to move then it is probably a bad position. You want to attack him with tempo. You want to swing second. And because it’s easy to protect yourself from him swinging first that is not overly difficult to arrange.
5:40 dash input was too early
5:36 because of bair’s horizontal range it is suppppppper hard for falcon to get that grab. When you land after a bair and crouch you want to react to him either jumping (WD away or shield) or running toward you (get ready to press downB or in this case because of your % probably fsmash)
bair out of crouch is suboptimal because it is sooo slow and actually not very safe after crossup on shield
5:33 hmmmm, speaking of which, part of the reason it is hard for you to land these whiff punishes is that rising bair is at its fastest frame 13
5:32 oh that fsmash is neat. falcon can’t get a hitbox out fast enough to punish before it can come out, that’s am interesting high risk high reward.
5:27 nair is too early and not good vs 0% falcon anyway
5:27 you get baited. Remember your goal is to recover, not to hit falcon
5:13 oh boy money grab
I would have ran forward and shielded to make him do that aerial
5:07 yeah high risk high reward options in the corner are actually very predictable. People feel like they need to land a high reward hit when they’re down so it’s easy to hang back and wait for them to whiff.
Stocks
Falcon SDs
Falcon jumps off stage and gets edgeguarded
fsmash at high %
Stocks Lost
tries to grab inv falcon, downthrow knee
caught jumping under falcons FH knee
preemptive jump OoS
whiffed pound, downthrow upair
I really like the tag Anytime lol.
You space a little bit further away from falcon than you need to so it is harder for you to get direct punishes and easier for him to outmaneuver you.
You jump preemptively in positions were you could just wait and react to how he moves. Play more patient. Patient =/= campy. Patient = make sure you’re ready to take the free stuff.
You need to flowchart what to do off of initial hits because you keep dropping punishes by guessing.
This is really good though because if you fix those three things then you will get even more opportunities and start winning off of the ones that you get.
http://www.twitch.tv/smashunited/v/46927545
Game 3 DL
Notation by in game timer
normally FoD is better vs falcon but I agree with the pick based on how previous games went
8:00 non neutral start, you jump away from his jump but WD was enough
he stomps your roll, can’t tell if read or reaction, could have just crouched
remember that a huggggge thing in the MU is that falcon has 0 tools to punish puff’s crouch without jumping. That means that you can WD and crouch around the stage for free and don’t have to worry about anything but reacting if he jumps. If you don’t practice/abuse that then the MU is way more fair than it needs to be.
7:56 whiff punish was late because of missed tech. For some reason jigglypuff mains are the worst about going for punishes that they are clearly way too late to get.
you are backing away too much to threaten him. The further you fade back the more leeway he has.
ok he does a crossup which forces shield
you fair high though so no frame adv and the knee is safe
another missed tech so extended combo
7:49 bad fair. Fairing that high doesn’t do anything but limit your options.
you barely whiff a bair. You would get those if you play the game a tiny bit closer to him than you are.
7:47 good jump back. Jump back on reaction to him jumping forward is a strong tactic.
high nair won’t combo but he messes up and gets uptilt rested
the crossup nair that you did is generally the best in those situations because it’s a higher execution demand for them to punish
however in that case you needed (and would have easily gotten) a second uptilt in order to kill
7:39 WD away was a little premature, you didn’t need to give him the whole stage that early
7:37 bair whiff punish is late, you almost eat a knee counterpoke
7:35 fair should have probably been dair grab but you get the read
there was no reason not to grab ledge. If he gets on stage after just bair him off again.
7:30 bad pound, should have been stomped on reaction
7:27 don’t know why your jump was empty
he SDs so you get back for free, haha
7:19 can’t grab an inv falcon
DI down and away
if you want to mix it up (not sure if good or not) mix between that and up
7:14 descending fair forces you to land and eats into your inv time
you have time to react to falcon moving before you do an aerial
7:13 same thing, would have been able to react with upair
7:11 he tries to trick you but you’re ready
you can try to empty land grab in this position, uptilt has less reward at 0
7:08 unnecessary jump
weird crossup after but it works out
7:05 SH bair would have connected. On the way up SH bair has more range than FH bair.
7:03 don’t uptilt after an upair, the success % is in like the single digits
do one or the other
7:01 greedy fsmash. When you bair at low %s just try to punish what they habitually do out of hitstun
7:00 needed to react to the jump and shield the second knee
of CC upsmash? lol what an option
6:56 good spacing around the upair
no reaction, culd have jab reset
really good spacing afterward until you get kneed. I think a WD forward was better than a FH fair.
6:50 unsafe nair. If you want to protect your land use bair, it’s better at that job.
miss the punish on the stomp because you WD away out of nervousness.
6:48 that bair couldn’t have done much of anything, WD into him and crouch in front of his shield
6:43 unsafe jump
6:42 needed to shield
there is a mixup where he can empty land grab if you shield but it’s not a good risk reward because crouch beats grab and aerial (CC grab) at low-mid %s.
6:40 bad pound. Don’t do that it’s so predictable and so easy to get killed for. He should start FHing over it and kneeing you.
6:22 you run to ledge vs falcon inv which is better than jumping. I’m not sure what the best plan is but ideally you want to cross him up at the last moment for stage control. However he knows that so he tends to make it difficult. Probably just watch where hbox goes lol.
6:31 upair was good but a tiny bit late
6:27 he overextends so you get a good dair
won’t combo to grab but a lot of players will spotdodge, roll, or jab out of it so crouching is good
6:25 rest
practice that, the reaction is very doable
6:24 he catches you jumping preemptively.
6:19 he baits you into swinging so that he can run through
you don’t have to snatch him right away
6:18 his punish is too early, you get a grab
upthrow upair upair upair, ran out of jumps. Need to WL off of side plats in the middle if possible
6:12 no need for that jump, gets you punished. In general falcon wants you above him so don’t go there.
6:10 no reaction to stomp
haha, you can’t CC grab that move
ok good maneuvering to get ledge
good shield after the fair
don’t need to jump, WD forward if you’re afraid
5:56 same thing. He goes to the corner and waits for you to whiff an aerial, then goes around you
5:55 spaced too far away to punish the land
he misjudges the spacing, gets fsmashed
5:51 dsmash or dash attack or fair
5:50 you had time to turn around and SH bair instead of FH fair
5:46 bad spacing, could have beat it out horizontally as well as punished landing lag
5:45 shield grab was a weird guess that he would stay in shield after seeing you shield
5:41 Reallllly scary FH
it’s ok to just wait a heartbeat before you jump
I guess it’s a little bit weird for a jigglypuff player but being in teh air in front of falcon is not always a good idea. In fact if he is free to move then it is probably a bad position. You want to attack him with tempo. You want to swing second. And because it’s easy to protect yourself from him swinging first that is not overly difficult to arrange.
5:40 dash input was too early
5:36 because of bair’s horizontal range it is suppppppper hard for falcon to get that grab. When you land after a bair and crouch you want to react to him either jumping (WD away or shield) or running toward you (get ready to press downB or in this case because of your % probably fsmash)
bair out of crouch is suboptimal because it is sooo slow and actually not very safe after crossup on shield
5:33 hmmmm, speaking of which, part of the reason it is hard for you to land these whiff punishes is that rising bair is at its fastest frame 13
5:32 oh that fsmash is neat. falcon can’t get a hitbox out fast enough to punish before it can come out, that’s am interesting high risk high reward.
5:27 nair is too early and not good vs 0% falcon anyway
5:27 you get baited. Remember your goal is to recover, not to hit falcon
5:13 oh boy money grab
I would have ran forward and shielded to make him do that aerial
5:07 yeah high risk high reward options in the corner are actually very predictable. People feel like they need to land a high reward hit when they’re down so it’s easy to hang back and wait for them to whiff.
Stocks
Falcon SDs
Falcon jumps off stage and gets edgeguarded
fsmash at high %
Stocks Lost
tries to grab inv falcon, downthrow knee
caught jumping under falcons FH knee
preemptive jump OoS
whiffed pound, downthrow upair
I really like the tag Anytime lol.
You space a little bit further away from falcon than you need to so it is harder for you to get direct punishes and easier for him to outmaneuver you.
You jump preemptively in positions were you could just wait and react to how he moves. Play more patient. Patient =/= campy. Patient = make sure you’re ready to take the free stuff.
You need to flowchart what to do off of initial hits because you keep dropping punishes by guessing.
This is really good though because if you fix those three things then you will get even more opportunities and start winning off of the ones that you get.
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