madman3's Smash Guides

[madman3]

Hi guys, I've figured that it'd be fun to do some guides on how to use various characters to a high-professional level across various Smash games (mostly Melee, PM and Smash4, I'll probably have some for 64 in future). These assume that you understand typical advanced techs (wavedashing, l-cancelling, jump cancel grabbing, moves out of shield) and the uses of things like dash dancing, although if there are specific advantages for any of those features for a character I'll go over them. I also don't want to have to explain what individual moves are in the guide, so if you're wondering about how particular moves function, ask in the comments.

Starting with Smash 4, here's a guide for Jigglypuff.

Summary:
Jigglypuff is a character which thrives off an aggressive but considered approach. Puff's very fast aerial speed and quick aerial acceleration allows it to attack at the very edge of a person's shield and then fade out with another aerial, or another jump, evading grabs from shield. Additionally, Puff has very good edgeguarding and tech covering options, allowing her to get big punishes, often leading to a rest or string of aerials. Puff's strong versus taller characters, ones that rely heavily on grabs (Ness, Falcon, Mario), and against characters with slow recoveries (Olimar, Villager, Wario); comparatively, it's bad versus characters with faster aerials and greater mobility, especially Sheik, as well as ones with very strong projectile games (Toon Link, ROB).

Approach:

Whilst not very fast on the ground, it's one of Jigglypuff's better spots for approaching. From the ground Puff can do nair out of shield very quickly to punish moves thrown out against a shield stop (IE-running forward towards an opponent and shielding near them), and if the opponent attempts to retreat from your approach your can do a RAR'd back air, which is highly safe on hit with lots of hit stun. If you get this setup, you can pretty easily follow up: if they DI in, at low percents they'll land on the ground, which you can cover with an up tilt, from which you can do up airs, and from that potentially a rest (although this does not true combo). If they DI out, Puff can cover it with another back air, or running grab (best at lower percents)/dash attack (better at mid percents).

Puff's ground game is assisted by her crouch, which can avoid a lot of grabs. Therefore, you can shield stop and read a dash grab from an opponent, crouch, then punish with an aerial like nair, a forward smash, or, best of all, a rest. You can also use it to avoid high projectiles like lasers, peanuts, Link and Pit's arrows, and Villager's slingshot.

Puff's aerial approach is solid, but you need to pick your spots and be very careful how you land. Puff's aerials do not have that much shield stun, except for back air which is hard to land with. Also, if you are jumping low to the ground, it's very easy to be hit with dash attacks, aerials and so on, without having rolls, shield or long ranging aerials to cover yourself. It's therefore advisable to stay around a height comparable to Fox's full jump, where it's impractical for an opponent to hit you with any aerials or projectiles as you have a lot of reaction time and space to avoid it. From there, you can fall just in front of an opponent's shield with fair or nair, which are both very quick and not too easy to punish. Additionally, at 40%, a weak hit from either will setup a tech chase.

Tech Chasing

Puff has a very strong tech chasing game on the merit of its fast aerial speed and decent reach. Additionally, it has very strong punishes from a tech chase, like back air or rest.
A tech chase is best started as mentioned in the approach section, with a nair or fair. Additionally, an F-tilt out of shield or dash attack should setup a tech chase quickly.  A good idea is to jump just above where they land and hit the ground, then immediately react to a roll option with an aerial from whichever direction you have facing them (IE - if they tech away, hit them with a fair. If they tech in, hit them with a back air), until they are nearing the edge. Try to force them towards it in neutral. Once they're at the ledge, they are more likely to tech in place and spot dodge, or tech in, towards centre stage.

In this situation it's harder to get a big punish from reaction, but you can read them. For example, if they tech in, you can cover it with a nair or fair so they're sent towards the ledge. This will cause them to likely avoid that option the second time, so you can punish a tech in place with a bair (if they spot dodge repeatedly, attempt to read it and possibly rest them out of it). If you see the opponent habitually roll or tech in from the ledge, you can get an easy rest.

Getting kills/edgeguards:

Puff's best kill option is basically always back air. Utilizing it for punishes is simple - move in with the bair so as the hitbox comes out it'll barely hit the opponent, then immediately move away from them as you land. This'll make it quite safe on shield and on hit. If you get the hit, you can try to follow up with another bair, which will often send the opponent off stage. If your opponent recovers high, wait around where they might land and try to punish with a dash attack if they airdodge and punish a short ranging, laggy aerial that they land with with a rest. If they recover at ledge height or slightly above, try to get them with spaced bairs, covering airdodges towards the stage with nairs if they occur. Bair will almost always kill an opponent around 100% if they're offstage, so it's the most reliable outright kill option in the middle of an edgeguard. If they go low, you can fast fall with a nair, which has loads of priority and decent hitstun, so will kill a slower, more vertical recovery, like a spacies', Falcon, Diddy, ZSS, Bowser, DK, Mario, Doc, Duck Hunt, Wii Fit Trainer, ect. If the opponent has a slow moving but strong and far reaching recovery, like Olimar, Villager, Pit, Rosalina, Peach, or another Puff, you can attempt to follow up again with a mid-air turnaround back air, which will almost always kill above 90% if they're a decent way off stage.

On stage, Puff can also kill with a few other moves. As mentioned prior, you can read a tech with a rest, but you can also cover a predictable roll with forward smash, bair, or up smash. An extremely important option is rest out of shield - if an opponent hits your shield and is within rest range, you can hit with it for a free kill on almost any character at around 60%. Versus characters with very fast aerials this is a very bad option, so don't do it versus Sheik!

Puff doesn't have any real combos, but can cover most move whiffs and airdodges with another aerial, so a cool setup is to up-tilt someone,  up air, wait for an airdodge, and then punish with rest, ending the opponents life in the most brutally disrespectful fashion possible. It's also reallllllly cool unlike basically anything else in the game.

Coming from the ledge:

Puff Isn't bad from the ledge, with fair and bair both covering a move onto stage. Also, you can up air an opponent waiting at the edge of the stage, and then move onstage, or combo another up air into rest as seen in the prior section

Overall, Puff is an aggressive character with great option coverage and strong moves, but can be walled out or overwhelmed by fast, projectile heavy characters. If you want to use Puff, keep someone like ROB or Falcon as a counterpick, as they can deal with projectile characters and fast characters respectively.

Feedback, questions and technical suggestions welcome.

[Badnik96]

swiggity swag. my brother mains jiggly, i'll show him this

[Mr. AS]

I dunno, Jiggs still feels really gimped from her melee glory days, especially her rest. Hitbox seems to be a little bit bigger on it as a tradeoff, at least.

Requesting G&W or duck hunt next.

[Naryar]

need more falcon guides

[madman3]

Alright so here's Melee/PM Falcon:

Summary:
Falcon's strengths are his ability to cover various DI and tech options and get a very strong punish out of most situations. His early kill options with his smash attacks and aerials give him a strong chance versus characters of any weight class. However, his poor defensive game and recovery makes him extremely vulnerable once he gets opened up in neutral. His neutral is bolstered by his very fast movement speed, which allows him to space nairs and knees around an opponents shield, cover all tech options on reaction, and easily evade poor approaches. Overall, Falcon is one of the best characters in Smash, and in my opinion is probably the 6th best character in melee (Fox, Falco, Sheik, Marth and Peach ahead).

Approach:

Falcon's neutral game is generally based around waiting for a safe, non-commital aerials to hit with enough hitstun to get a grab, or to put them in knockdown and setup a techchase. Shield stops out of dash dances are useful, as you can short hop nair out of shield, covering any reactive move and covering yourself with shield and hitboxes at the right times to avoid big punishes. Additionally, dash dancing towards someone and wavedashing back away from them is good for testing what their reaction to you threatening their space is. If they spend a lot of time sitting in shield waiting for you to attack, you can grab, or jump, double jump just above the ground, and hit with dair or knee, which should setup a grab or techchase (at high percents knee should send them offstage for an edgeguard, and dair will setup knee).

Nairs just outside of their range are a good option as they normally bait people into trying to get a grab, which you can react to with a jump jump - fast fall - dair. This setup should put them into a combo or tech chase situation. If they crouch cancel your nairs, space them further out or try going for knees instead. Sweetspotted knees on shield are also safe, so if you're wanting to pressure someones shield, repeated knees spaced as far out as possible can damage their shield and force a roll, often in if they're by the edge, which you can punish with dair or knee. 

Tech chasing:

Falcon's tech chase game is probably the best in the game due to having a faster dash speed than Sheik and an easy time reacting with an aerial option to a tech choice. Once your opponent is on the floor, space yourself so that you're next to them, crouching. From here, you can dash to catch techs away and in with a JC grab, and you can shield grab a getup attack or standing getup. If you get a grab, downthrow on most above average speed fallers will setup either a chaingrab or tech chase (on Falcon or spacies upthrow is preferable unless they'll land on the platform) - in the latter scenario, you want to dash wavedash (start a dash and then wavedash, which travels a longer distance) towards where they'll land from the throw, where you can react to whatever tech option they do on reaction if you're quick enough. If you notice your opponent going for predictable tech options (best of all is teching in), you can punish with a stomp or knee for a combo or edgeguard.

The smasher Gravy covers this process very nicely in this video:

Getting kills/edgeguards:

Whilst the above section does give an easy setup for kills, you can normally combo a hit with nair at moderate percentages to up air, knee, or bair, the latter two of which can combo into knee, with the former setting up an edgeguard if they DI out or a knee if they DI in. Knee will reliably kill at high percent wherever you should hit it. You can react to a bad approach with wavedash back f-smash or up-smash, although both these moves are quite laggy so avoid doing this often. Stomp - knee at high percent is a safer kill option and you can do it to react to a bad tech choice.

Edgeguard wise, Falcon wants to grab the edge versus most characters, and then punish their landing on stage with stomp - knee. Versus spacies, he can knee their Fire Fox or Fire Bird attack (where they're moving) and not get hit. He can also usually gimp them with up air if they do those moves too close to the stage. If they're recovering at a height just below the edge, you can cover a low option with knee or up air, and still usually have time to up air their high recovery option if they went for that. Up tilt also is a good option for covering options that poke just above the edge, like Falcon's recovery or a spacy. If the latter uses their illusion above the ledge, just jump and knee them where they land. 

Recovery:

Falcon's recovery is very flexible in terms of where it can recover from directionally, but is extremely easy to gimp. It's advisable therefor to mixup high, low and fade back recoveries: the former you should do if you're against a character with a slow double jump like Peach. The low option is better for avoiding getting hit if your opponent is having to go over to the ledge from the other side of the stage, and you can walljump on some stages, which gives you some invincibility frames and a better chance of either grabbing ledge or landing on stage. You can also often hit someone with an aerial before using your up-b. A fade away high option is good against characters who can usually kill you with a smash attack on stage (IE Fox up smash), and if you went for the high option a lot earlier.

Once at the ledge, you can do what's known as a Hax dash given you have enough space, where you ledgehop into a waveland off the stage back to the ledge. This refreshes your invincibility and makes your getup less predictable. Once you have all your invincibility, a very fast waveland onto the stage, known as the invincible ledge dash, allows you to get on stage safely, where you can grab or run away from the ledge ASAP

Overall Falcon is great once he gets an opening, but his bad combo weight leaves him vulnerable to long combos and tech chases, as well as gimps. He does however live a long time with good DI and can punish very hard once he gets a starting hit.