How to train properly

So I came about making this blog when I was struggling to make imporvements to my own game, and wanted to help people who are going through the same issue. So chances are if you are here, you aren't the best player, and want to get better. The first thing you should do is find where you are lacking, and see what better players do that you don't. once you can locate some things that you are fundamentally lacking, go practice these things. Many of these could be the neutral game, or spacing. But some of these things include reactions, which aren't possible to train. So the first thing I recommend doing is just taking time to learn your character. Learn the moves that work well together, learn the good combos, learn the max range for each move. Learn what percents moves kill at. After you know everything about your character you need to learn major things about the other characters. These are going to be like things that Ness has a good back throw and to avoid that, or how to avoid bayonetta combos. But just learn the things you need to about the other characters. Next is to practice character specific match ups, and learn just how you are supposed to deal with a character, in a few different situations. These tips will help you. Hopefully you also are going to go to training mode and try out some new combos with characters that you haven't used before.

Clone Characters in SmashBros

So there are an obnoxious amount of clone characters in this game and I felt like ranting about it. There are tons of characters that have so few changes that they could have just been separate skins instead of entirely different characters. So the first and most obnoxious one is Marth and Lucina. They are literally the same character with the same stats, frame data, moves, and practically everything else. There is only one difference and that is the sweet spot sizes and locations on their sword. This was unnecessary and made me rather mad. Lucina is actually objectively worse than Marth and just a copy of him. The next one, Sakuri's favorite, is Pit and Dark Pit. Pit was introduced in Brawl and then in this game he mare a return, and brought with him dark pit, a character with the same stats, skins, damage, and all but 2 of the moves are the same. The main difference is the side special and neutral special. Both are the same except dark pits is slower and stronger. Besides that, the characters are practically interchangable. Another one of the clones we see is between Mario and Dr Mario, where the only thing that is different is they made Dr Mario far worse than mario in smash 4. They have pretty much the same moves, just different speeds and percents. Another one of the clones that we see is only in melee, but with Pichu and Pikachu, where again the added character is just worse than the original character.

So, this rant was pretty much just to point out that every clone of a character is just worse than the original character, and was a waste of dev time.

The best way to play online

Many of you, like myself don't have the best ability to play offline do to the lack of people to play with, means to get there, or time you can play, but for whatever reason, there is a possible solution. Playing online is a fun way to get in some practice, but make sure you are aware it is not great practice. There is some input delay when dealing with wifi, and sometimes some flat out lag. But, it is fun none the less, and if you don't have another way to play smash, it's your best option. So hopefully this guide will be helpful to those of you who need it.

Many of you know For Glory,  but are tired of playing against scrubs, or dealing with people who steal wifi from a kmart and lag awfully. So there are a few solutions. First thing is to go out and buy a lan adapter, this will help remove some of the lag when playing online by connecting you straight to the internet through Ethernet, instead of Wifi. The next thing I suggest doing is making an account on Anthersladder.com This site is great for finding people who want to play any game of smash bros since you are able to play melee, pm, 64, 3ds, wii u, or even brawl. So, this site has it all. Once you are on here there is a chat for the respective game you are playing. There are ranked matches and just friendly matches. But, whichever you do, just have fun. It's online, it's not really that competitive, but it is a way to play. I love playing online and highly recommend it to anyone who does not have many people to play with in real life.

Marth Vs Lucina

There has been a lot of talk about Marth and Lucina recently, and I feel like I wanted to talk about the differences and if one is better than the other or not. So Marth and lucina share the exact same moveset.... not a single move is different. But what differs between the two is the sword that each character uses. Lucina's soword has no weak spots, every part of the sword does the same amount of damage and knock back. This is different from marth, who has a series of weak and sweet spots. Marth's tip of his sword is considered the sweet spot that does more damage and knock back than any of lucinas respective moves, but marth's weak spot does less damage and less knockback. This means that spacing to certain points is crucial for marths game play. Now i'm going to talk about the advantages of each character.

Lucina has the advantage over marth that her combos are easier to land. In her combos the moves just have to land on the opponent, where as in marth's they have to hit certain spaces on his sword to get optimal combos. This is useful when playing the neutral and trying to lead up into a combo. Lucina also has the advantage that any hit from her smash attacks kill, not just the tipper area, which can be difficult to land.

Marth has almost every other advantage. he can do more damage, better combos, kill earlier, and overall is just better than lucina. Unfortunately, I think that they actually just made a worse clone of a character, but to those who play lucina there may be some other special difference keeping them away from playing marth. Hopefully this little bit was helpful for those of you trying to decide between the two of these characters.

Corrin after the nerf

So, in patch 1.1.5 Corrin, of all characters, was slightly nerfed. This was rather unexpected, as she was pretty much unused for the most part and had just been released. So, now that she has had some time after the nerf, I feel like I want to talk about where the character ranks. Now Corrin is a pretty unique swordsman, and has probably the best special attacks of any of the swordsman except maybe worse than cloud. She doesn't see uch play in the competitive scene unfortunately, until recently when Esam revealed at Pound that He himself plays corrin, and pulled it out against Ally in loser semis. Now he didn't win, but he did show off the character quite well, because of this I feel like I really wanted to start the discussion on  where to place corrin in a comepititve  tier list. She seems to have a lot of things going for her; good range, good movement, good combos, and great kill power. Her up throw kills early, she has great reverse edge gaurding tools, and her aerials are godlike. I think overall that corrin actually has a ton of potential in this game, it just needs to be used by the right player. I think that she can abuse her bite to her advantage very well, and if someone is able to do that right they can get kills at like 70%.

How to pick a main character in Super Smash Bros.

For those of you who are just starting to play this game, or are maybe looking to start playing it at a different level, I am going to give you a small comprehensive guide to picking a main character in super smash bros. Now, I don't think this will work for everyone but it something that has worked for myself and thought I would share. So lets get started

Start by playing every character a few times. Just play a few short games with each character and see which ones you were able to be successful with, which ones you liked playing, ones that felt like you were in control, and ones that had a combination of these. If you liked any of these qualities about some of the characters, focus on those characters.

Now that you have found some characters that feel right, start finding out some combos you can do with these characters. If you like some of the combos on a character that feels right, you're on your way to being successful with your new main. I think that you can do this against a CPU or in training / practice mode.

Now that you have some combos down, try these characters out and see which one you are successful with. You want your main to be fun and give you the best chance of winning. It is important that you enjoy playing your character for some reason, and that should help you win.

Now that you are able to win with this character and you enjoy them, start playing this character more and more. You will soon find that they feel natural to you and you like most aspects about them. If this isn't right, pick up a different character you like and learn them for a little bit.

Once you find the character that feels right, you have got yourself a main. Hopefully you are successful with your character, and you find the best one for you. I personally love Ryu, and would never change mains again since his release. He is by far my favorite character in the game, and because of that I am very successful when I play him. Thanks for the read and hopefully I was able to help at least just a few of you who needed inspiration to find some character that they wanted to play whether with a few friends or for a few tournaments.

Fun vs Competitive

Now this argument pretty much has been going on for a long time in the communist, but I wanted to give my two cents on this hot topic. Now I will preface this by saying that I am a competitive person by nature, and that has made me a competitive player, or strive to be one at least. That does not mean that I do not have fun playing this game, but I enjoy winning the games I play and becoming one of the best as I play them. Now obviously there are a lot of limiting factors to the competitiveness of this game, some can't, some don't want to, some don't have the reaction time, and many others. But, I think that this game really isn't meant to be competitive, despite wanting it to be. To start off, Sakuri himself has stated that he did not intend to make Super Smash a competitive game when he set out to make it, it was meant to be something that friends would play casually. Now this game has been taken to some extremes by many players, wanting to always be better and striving to be the best. I think that this game just has too many flaws to try and be a competitive game, because getting to the point of being an eSport would contradict what this game can do. This game is extremely defensive, and most people don't play it as that. Most people like making things "hype" or entertaining, the thing that draw in a crowd for an eSport. But, to completely be the best at this game you have to be extremely defensive. This isn't fun to watch. Now if we were an eSport, we would drive our community away by having not very interesting games as we got more and more competitive. This seems extremely contradictory, and is not something that would be part of a competitive game. No matter how good of combos or flashy things you can pull off, someone can just be more defensive and not let you get in or even attempt to approach. This is probably my main claim that this game is not competitive. I want this game to be as competitive as possible, just as many of you do, but I am worried that that will mean it won't be as fun to play or watch anymore. So overall, what i'm trying to say is, have fun with this game. You only have so much time to play it. Not all of your are going to be the best. But don't let that make you not try and be better than your friends! I think this game is great a friendly competitive level, but wish that it could be so much more than that. This game is an escape for many of you, including myself, and I love it no matter the form it is in. I think that this game is overall extremely fun to play, and that is what makes us want to become better at it. Thanks for reading and I by no way meant to say that we shouldn't be having tournaments, just stated the paradox situation we could create if we don't prevent it.

Thoughts on Ryu's Neutral Game

Ryu is a very scary character. From playing him, to playing against him, trust me that he is probably one of the most terrifying characters for either. Now, Ryu has some insane priority moes such as is true input Shoryuken (TSRK) that make him scary to play against. A 2 frame move can combo into this TSRK and kill the cast starting around 70%, or even earlier depending on platforms/ weight/ and if Ryu is in rage. Also, getting to 70% isn't a problem if you're good at comboing. Two of Ryu's B&B combos will probably put them into kill percent. The problem is, how does Ryu get in to do these combos? Now these are just some of my thoughts and how I've been successful at becoming one of the better Ryu players on Anther's Ladder.  Ryu for sure has one of the best punish games in the entire game, if not the very best. Ryu is able to kill most of the cast completely true from landing a single focus attack, but he struggles in the neutral. Now, I have been able to help myself in the neutral, and it  is all about a very few things. The first thing that is important is spacing. Spacing is an absolute must for Ryu, and the problem with it is, it's not his spacing, it's the spacing that his opponent wants to be at. Ryu can have an amazing bait and punish game. Utilizing techniques such as U-turn tilting, he can move slowly into the range his opponent wants him, bait the opponents moves, and then quickly slide out of reach, and start a punish. This is one of his best ways to win the neutral. Obviously, his next best is being agressive. Ryu is scary up close, and keeping yourself up close can pretty much gaurentee you will win the neutral. People aren't able to spot dodge or roll safely due to his tilts and Tatsu respectively. So shielding is an option, but again Ryu can break shields extremely easily, and has one of the highest damaging throws in the game. So, it's fight back or die, and generally Ryu will beat most characters up close. These were just some ideas I wanted to get out in writing to hopefully help others and help myself analyze his neutral game. He has more options than any other character in the game do to the sheer fact that he has more moves than any other character, but how to utilize them is extremely character dependent and quite overwhelming. Hopefully this has helped you as it has helped myself.

Play to Win... to an extent

I'm going to start off by saying sure, a win is a win, and I won't be able to argue against the tournaments rules, but there are certain limits to which I find this being abused. Wins generally are from one person taking all of the opponent's stocks, but they can also be from timing out the opponent. I think that this method should actually result in some sort of punishment instead of reward for being able to evade your opponent so long. This is a game that we play, and no one wants to watch someone float around the stage avoiding conflict for 6 minutes. It just isn't fun. It's also very unfair. Certain characters are actually able to completely avoid the opponent for extremely long amounts of time. Imagine a Wario, Mewtwo, or Villager, who is able to just entirely avoid coming into contact with a Little Mac. By camping you take away the fun of the game and don't even prove any skill. It is not skillful to win by timing out opponents in most cases. Because of how safe some options are like rolling, people can just waste 6 minutes of other peoples time. This rant was partially brought about by Dabuz, who plays only to win. I saw him play Wario, and completely avoid contatct for about two to three minutes, until his Waft was charged, then go into the fight with an unfair advantage. Then after he got the stock, he just waited around until he won. Sure, he did win, but did he earn it? I argue no. This is just a severe level of trolling, and I don't think our tournaments should reward it. IN tournaments, there should be some limit to time, but not reward someone for taking their opponent to that time limit. They should just both receive a loss if they can't find a winner in the time, or be forced to do sudden death. If we completely remove the time limit, tournaments could run extremely long, and I think that itself calls for a reason to have some time limit with more fair end of game procedures. These are just my thoughts, because I come from another competitive  game, that has completely terrible end of time limit procedures for events other than nationals. What do you think would be fair?

Thoughts on the Bayonetta Drama

As many of you in the community already know, Bayonetta is causing a ton of drama. She is almost without a doubt the best character in the game, and is currently polarizing the community. Many if not most of the community knows she needs to be nerfed and want her to be. But in the mean time, what are we supposed to do with this overpowered character? Some are pushing strong for a ban. Most people hate playing against  Bayonetta  and she causes drama in small scenes where there isn't high level competition. Others are pushing for a more rational approach, learning the match up. Behind this is Zero and Dabuz, who have been pushing hard to learn everything the can about Bayonetta to try and deal with her. They say that people should do their best to try and defeat the beast with knowledge. Many are learning the best ways to escape her combos, best ways to punish her, and character specific punishes. I am completely in favor of this approach. There is actually no reason to  Bayonetta from competitive scenes. She is good, and she has odd mechanics, but she is able to be defeated. I would go as far to say that the majority of the community is overreacting to  Bayonetta  and that she isn't nearly as good as people think she is once they learn more things about her. Her combos are 50/50 options at many points, and that gives you quite a few times to escape. Bayonetta has an absurdly large character model, making her an easy target, which when combined with her weight is deadly for her. She is very light and dies quickly because of it. Her recovery is contestable. If she has to side special, you can easily punish her. After being up in the air, Bayonetta has a 43 frame window of landing lag, meaning she gives you time to almost completely charge a smash attack. Now, she is difficult to play against, but if you play safely, you can easily defeat Bayonetta. That's just my two cents, but I hope that more people start realizing that she is able to be defeated.

The Importance of Hand Health

Your hands let you do lots of things. Obviously your hands are the only reason you can play Smash Bros. However, not much is done to protect our hands. Many of us play multiple hours a day, working the same few muscles to exhaustion when we play using a game cube controller. These controllers weren't meant or designed to be used multiple hours a day for years on end. They will cause severe harm to your hands, it is just a matter of when. Now, as depressing as that may seem, you can help prevent any damage. Let me make it clear, this is preventative, as in it will make sure it won't happen, and once it does happen, you're out of luck. So you may be wondering, why aren't we all doing preventative hand exercises? I think we all should. I do lots of hand stretching every day, and there are many links on sites like Youtube that show you things you should be doing to ensure your hands stay healthy.

This topic is getting a lot of debate recently, especially in the Melee community. One of the best players, PPMD, had to resign because he has injured his hands over years of playing. This is bound to happen to many of the top players after years of abuse without people taking preventative measures. So, if you're here to start, I suggest you go look up videos from the gaming doctor on hand exercise. These are simple and help strengthen your core muscles in your hands you use frequently. Another tip, make sure your hands are warm when you play. Cold hands can cause injuries so make sure you are in a warm room. Second, for those in the sma4sh community, consider switching to the Wii U Pro Controller. The controller is more ergonomic, meaning better designed for your hands. Lastly, take a few minute break every hour. maybe just 5 minutes or so. After playing a lot of games in a row you could cause stress, just let your hands rest at least for 5 minutes, and maybe run your hands under warm water to promote blood flow.

Now, ideally we would all be doing these every day. I do, as do many others, but people forget. I suggest that we make this a ritual in our community. That we take this seriously, and be as healthy as we can to promote the longevity of our game. Thank you for reading and please take care of yourself. Your career might end if you don't, but this injury will follow you the rest of your life. Typing, writing, and other things become extremely difficult after you have a hand injury, so please have your priorities straight.

Character Analysis - Mewtwo - Patch 1.1.5

So, everyone is talking about Mewtwo, and I mean everyone. After Abadango's performance at Pound with his Mewtwo, the secret is out. People are beginning to learn just how amazing M2 is after his buffs. This character was in melee, and regarded as one of the worst in the game. He didn't return to brawl or Smash 4 until later he was released as a downloadable character. He immediately sucked, and has received numerous buffs over the past few patches. Now that 1.1.5 is out, he has become a force to reckon with. Most notably, M2 now has an infinite combo, one that isn't hard to perform either. This was given to him by a movement speed increase which now allows him to footstool someone and then perform a down special and disable them. While being an insane combo, it is also an amazing kill option, as you are able to charge a smash attack and get a kill guaranteed from a foostool, or from a neutral air. So these obviously are amazing for Mewtwo, and are something that you need to learn to do if you plan on playing the character.

Mewtwo plays a sort of campy neutral game. He is able to sit charging shadow ball and wait for an approach and can punish. His combo game is insane. Down tilt is a fast move that combos into lots of things. His forward air is only 6 frames and is extremely powerful and deadly. Mewtwo has lots of range, and because of this he has multiple hit boxes on his moves. Manipulation of these hitboxes makes different things combo very will together. Up tilt can combo into an up smash at kill percents. However, his most important tool is his neutral air. Neutral air is an amazing move that can combo into ridiculous things. The best being a footstool to down special, but even into things like a grab or down tilt.

Overall, Mewtwo has gotten much better than where he started, but still has obvious flaws. He is still a glass cannon, a large hit box, and can struggle to approach safely. Where these things aren't that bad, they do make me think he is a high tier character and not a top tier.

How fair of a mechanic is rage

So many of you who play Smash 4 know of the rage mechanic, and for those of you that don't I will explain it here briefly. Pretty much, as you take more damage, you will begin to deal more damage and knock back. This begins at roughly 35% and increases until you are 150%. Eventually, with rage you deal significantly more knock back once you are maxed out at 150% with rage. Rage is a mechanic exclusive to Smash 4, not being a part of any game before it. Some people don't really get affected by rage, but certain characters are very easily able to abuse it. Characters that are heavy usually get to abuse their rage well, as they can live to high percents most stocks, and generally are already able to deal high knock back. To me, the character that best abuses rage is my favorite, Ryu. Ryu is a fairly beefy guy, he sits in the mid teens in the weight rankings, and besides Captain Falcon, he is one of the most mobile of the heavy weights. Ryu as many of you know, has a tendency to live very long due to his ability to recover from lots of places, and take damage without taking knock back from his Focus Attack. This means that on many stocks, Ryu will get to abuse rage, and abuse it he does. Ryu's aerials all become extremely easy kill moves, along with most of his smash attacks. His true input Shoryuken, when he has max rage, can kill at almost 50%. Ryu, and many other characters with rage, become absolute monstrous threats when they get rage. Now, both characters eventually get rage, so there doesn't seem to be much wrong with it at first glance. However, there are many things that are flawed about the design of the mechanic. Think about this situation. You are a Sheik, playing against me, a Ryu. Sheik generally has no problem racking up damage, but struggles greatly getting kills. Ryu, is going to be able to get a kill as soon as he gets Sheik to the right percent. Now, in this hypothetical, but very possible, situation, Ryu can kill sheik much earlier than Sheik can kill Ryu. This will mean the first stock can go to Ryu, and he is sitting at aroudnm 110%. Now Sheik, struggling to kill reliably, will need to rack up another 40% of damage probably before she tries to kill. However, she can't afford to be touched. Ryu just needs to land a single hit, and continue his combo with his uptilts, down tilts, and nairs, to bring sheik to roughly 45%. A solid combo, but now, Sheik at 45% is alraedy at kill percent. She has to now finish this stock without getting touched. If she loses the neutral twice after losing the first stock, she gets two stocked. Rage makes situations like this very common. Characters that can kill early and live long really abuse this mechanic. In my opinion, the design of this mechanic is backwards. If you lose the first stock, you now lost your rage, making it harder to kill, and gave your opponent rage, making it easier for them to kill. This mechanic promotes games to be run away with after the first stock and it is something that I am still unsure if I like or not. Obviously, I like the mechanic because my character can abuse it, but I don't think the mechanic is good for Smash 4, and if very unfair. There are multiple stocks to give people multiple opportunities to come back and win, but rage severely limits your chances at making comebacks.

Is Footstooling overpowered?

One thing that has generally been considered disrespectful, or in lots of cases just accidental, in Smash 4 has been footstooling. Footstools are where you jump on your opponents head, and it gives you another jump almost in the air, while your opponent experiences some stun from the animation. If you footstool your opponent when you're both in the air, your opponent will be pushed down, and this is a great way that you can make people unable to recover off the stage. However, if you footstool someone above the stage and they fall into the stage, they will go into a state where they are unable to tech against the ground when they hit the stage. This is what is most overpowered about footstools, as they are generally safe to perform, and can lead into some of the most powerful combos in the game. When you make your opponent hit the ground in an "untechable" state, they are very vulnerable. You can create a situation often known as a Jab lock or Jab reset. Both of these refer to the same thing, were your opponent hit the ground, did not perform a tech, and was hit by a move that would not send them moving. These moves include jabs, forward tilts, some special moves, but vary from character to character. Once you perform a Jab reset, the opponent's character will perform a slow, neutral get up, where they just stand up slowly and are very vulnerable to attacks. At high percents you could begin to charge a smash attack and wait for them to stand up into it, or you could prepare for a another combo. This is obviously very powerful when performed correctly and the worst thing is you can't do anything about it once you get footstooled. If you are footstooled you are completely helpless to your opponent, the only tool you can use is trying to directional influence far enough away from your opponent as you free fall to the ground. This limits player interaction which is the main thing that Smash is all about. Limited player interaction leads stupid combos, that are able to kill someone from zero. However, this isn't the only thing that is stupid about footstooling. Some characters, such as Mewtwo and Peach, have infinite combos off of landing a footstool on someone who is standing on the stage. If someone is standing on the stage while footstooled, their character takes some stun from the animation, but usually not enough to do anything since the character who jumped on them is launched high above them. However these two characters- and I'm sure more that I don't know of- are able to perform something known as jump canceling, where they can stop their upward momentum by performing certain actions. These lead to insanely autopilot combos. These combos are coimpletely inescapable. Not even DI will help you survive these, and your only hope for survival is your opponent messing up their infinite combo. These are very bad for the game as as time progresses they are only going to get more and more deadly, and easier for people to perform. Eventually the meta will be all about landing some combo that can lead into a footstool. I think that this could be circumnavigated by removing some or most of the hit stun that comes from being footstooled. This wouldn't make them any less powerful off the stage where they are a viable option, but would get rid of over powered combos that these footstools can lead into. Maybe footstooling could use a nerf before the final version of the game is decided on.

Pound 2016 Discussion

This past weekend we had a large national tournament that had all the forms of smash represented. Pound 2016 was an awesome tournament to watch, with tons of variety among Smash 4 and Melee. Most of you who follow smash 4 have heard about what happened at pound. We had our fourth unique character win a major here in the US. Previously, only Sheik, Zero Suit Samus, and Diddy Kong have won a major national event. Now, Mewtwo joins them. Abadango, an amazing Japanese player, won with Mewtwo, finishing 3-0 in Grand Finals. This was something that was very unexpected, but I will talk about that more in my next post. The more interesting thing that happened is with the rest of the placings. The best player, TSM Zero, wasn't able to come to pound, this gave a lot of other really good players a chance to compete. Ally ended up getting second for Wii U singles, beating Marss. Marss performed extremely well for himself, probably one of his best performances ever, and none the less it was just after his main character Zero Suit Samus was nerfed significantly. He played very well the entire day, making it all the way to losers finals, just a few games away from getting a chance to compete against Abadango a second time for grand finals. Something that wasn't so impressive for Zero Suit Samus was Nairo's placing in the tournament. Nairo performed very poorly for himself, largely being considered the second best in the game yet only getting 49th at pound. He used Zero Suit not very well, not nearly as well as he could before the nerf, and then sometimes he switched to Cloud, which he was fairly inexperienced with. One thing that I loved about the tournament was watching Abadango play. Never before have we been able to see such a high level player play Mewtwo so expertly. The character was largely believed to be one of the bottom 10 characters in the game upon his release, and through balancing of the game he has found himself to now be considered one of the top ten characters in the game. Abadango really brought this to our attention in a "in your face" sort of way. No one was prepared for the Mewtwo match up for their character, and no one really knew exactly what he wanted to do in any situation which made the games very hard for other people to quickly learn. Overall, this tournament wasn't run the best according to many of the players in the tournament, but it was a great one to watch with generally good commentator all around. Hopefully we will get the videos uploaded to Youtube soon because there are so many other games I want to watch still.