For a post with far more info than this one:
List for almost every technique in SSBM, big or small
I did a search and couldn’t find one, so I figure I’d post a quick list of the most common techniques used in competitive smash. This way the reader can have a small idea on what is going on in videos that have been posted. I know there’s a huge “official” thread but I figure lazy people such as myself wouldn’t wanna go digging through that if they are only slightly curious. And seeing as how SSBM was added to Evo recently, I figure curiousity of the game will be on the rise.
These are not character-specific (except for float-cancel). For more in-depth info for your character of choice, visit smashboard’s character specific forums.
This will serve as an introduction to Smash advanced techniques. I am assuming the reader knows the basic control scheme of SSBM, and knows basic fighting-game terminology.
The current tier list:
Top Tier:
Fox
Falco
High Tier:
Sheik
Marth
Peach
Middle Tier:
Captain Falcon
Ice Climbers
Samus
Doctor Mario
Jigglypuff
Mario
Ganondorf
Low Tier:
Link
Luigi
Donkey Kong
Roy
Young Link
Pikachu
Bottom Tier:
Yoshi
Zelda
Mr. Game and Watch
Ness
Bowser
Kirby
Pichu
Mewtwo
Basic Moves of Competitive Smash:
Wave-dash: Probably the most well known (and maybe the most overrated) competitive technique. Jumping and then immediately air-dodging to the ground before you gain any height causes your character to “glide” along the ground. Usually good as a “juke” move, helping with spacing, or wave-shining.
Example-usage: wave-dashing out of Fox’s shine to follow the opponent as they are stunned by the shine.
Shield-grabbing: While your shield is up, you can tap the A-button to perform a grab (due to R+A being the grab command). This works well for opponents that do not space attacks right - if they’re too close and you block their attack, you can immediately grab them if you time it right.
Example usage: Someone does a jump-in aerial attack on your shield.
L-canceling (Lag-Canceling): If you land while doing an aerial maneuver, your character will lag for a certain number of recovery frames. Lag-canceling halves this delay, allowing your character to more-easily continue an attack or avoid counter-attack if blocked. To pull this off, right before landing in the middle of an aerial maneuver, tap L or R. You can only l-cancel A-button aerial attacks.
Example usage: You do a jump-in aerial attack on your opponents’ shield, and L-cancel to side-step in order to avoid the shield-grab, leaving your opponent open.
Float-canceling: The same idea as L-canceling, but specific to Peach. While floating, do an aerial move, then land while the move is being performed. There will be little landing delay, due to the move having been started while Peach was floating (thus “float-cancel”, or “float cancels the lag”). Float-canceling reduces the landing delay much more than L-canceling does; for this reason, most Peach players rely on float-cancelling and rarely L-cancel.
Short hop: Analogous to short-hopping in many traditional fighting games. Makes aerial attacks quicker and harder to anticipate.
SHFFL: Short-Hop-FastFall L-cancel. Approaching with a short hop attack that is L-canceled. Usually done in sets of SHFFLd attacks.
**Ledge-hogging: **Hanging on to a ledge that your opponent needs to recover. Since only one character at a time can hang on a ledge, your opponent will not be able to recover. If they up+B for the ledge, usually you should tap a block button so that you roll up slowly. During this roll-animation, the ledge is still technically “yours” in the sense that nobody else can grab it.
Ledge-guarding: Basic term given for preventing an opponent from recovering. Usually involves some combination of ledge-hogging or a move whose hitbox goes under the ledge.
Ledge-invincibility: After grabbing a ledge, your character receives about half a second of invincibility. This allows someone to grab the ledge and then immediately attack someone recovering without fear of being punished. It also makes ledge-hogging easier, since you have a grace period of invulnerability.
Ledge-hopping: While hanging on a ledge, tap back on the Control Stick and then hit the jump button while moving forward. Your character will hop back on the stage. Usually done with ledge-invincibility and an attack to bat would-be edge guarders away.
Power-shield: Analogous to MotW “Just Defense” or 3S parry - putting your guard up at the moment an attack reaches your character. You will have no lag and can immediately drop your guard. If you power-shield a projectile, it will be reflected in the other direction, and will hurt whoever fired it.
Example usage: Power-shielding an opponent Falco’s laser approach to mess up the opponent’s rush.
Example powershield: Ken vs Mikael 1/3, Jack’s Garden Tournament in Japan, about 0:20 - 0:21 [media=youtube]duZYUfxDkTI[/media]
Ken power-shields the turnip in a crazy way. No real use, I just like this one.
Dash-dancing: By tapping left and right on the control stick back-and-forth, your character will quickly dash one way and then the other and so on. Useful for making your movements hard to read, as well as spacing your opponent so they cannot approach easily.
Example-usage: As Captain Falcon, quickly changing directions when an opponent jumps in, so that you can dodge it (during the dash-away) and then counter attack (when you dash back in).
Shield-jumping: Guards can be cancelled by jumping. This allows you to guard against an opponents attack, and then counter-attack with an aerial attack of your own.
Ill post more later. (if youre confused about any of these please let me know and Ill try to word it better)
