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If you want to go beyond simple punches and swords, here are 3 advanced playing techniques to get you started in the big leagues.
We have already seen the basics of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate in one of our previous guides, but maybe you want to go further. If its principle is easy to learn, the game nevertheless has very complex and difficult to master mechanics that will make the difference between a good player and an average player. To help you take this new step, here are three advanced techniques that you absolutely need to know and master to claim to be a good Smash Bros player.
The DI
If you watch Smash Bros. videos or live streams, you've probably heard of the DI but didn't know what it was. The DI (pronounced di-aie) refers to Directional Influence. When you have taken damage, enemy attacks will quickly throw you in a certain direction and at a certain angle. The DI is a technique that allows you to influence this angle and get out of deadly situations.
In concrete terms, to perform a DI, all you have to do is hold the stick perpendicular to your expulsion trajectory. If you are sent perfectly horizontal to the right, holding the stick up or down will allow you to perform a small diagonal. It doesn't sound like much, put like that, but by adjusting this angle, you'll sometimes get just far enough from the edges of the screen to survive.
In the following diagram, the three colored arrows are exactly the same size, but you can see on the DI up to escape death.
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DI is not limited to these risky situations. You must constantly use this technique, in order to keep some control of your character and trajectories. Even if you are not sent far enough to die, it is always useful to do a high DI to ensure an easier return to the platform, or a low DI to dodge the opponent's shots, before moving on. attach to the edge of the platform with a Top B.
Finally, by constantly adjusting your trajectories, your opponent will no longer be able to rely on his automatisms. It will become much more complicated for him to predict your trajectories, which will prevent him from performing some of his combos. It is therefore a technique to use, everywhere, all the time, even sent only 2 meters in the air.
The Perfect Parry
Smash Bros Ultimate is the franchise's most aggressive game since Melee. As such, the usefulness of defensive options has been reduced to encourage more explosive combat. This is the case with the shield, which is now slow to be removed, leaving you vulnerable for a while after using it. But that's without counting on the Perfect Parry.
The Perfect Parry is a technique that is activated if you remove your shield at the exact moment the opponent was going to hit inside. The shield penalties will then be transferred to your opponent. This means that it is no longer you who will be immobilized for a moment by releasing your guard, but your opponent. He then becomes vulnerable to your counterattack.
During a Perfect Parry, your character turns white while the opponent freezes.
This technique requires a good knowledge of the attacks and abilities of your opponent's character, as well as an excellent reading of the latter's behavior. If you miss your Perfect Parry, you will suffer the full brunt of the enemy attack. On the other hand, if you succeed, you will be able to turn the tide and go from the status of the persecuted player to that of the persecutor.
Le Edge-guarding
Edge-guarding encompasses every possible method imaginable to prevent an opponent from returning to the field after he left her. It's not a technique per se, there are no buttons to press or release at the right time for it to work. Edge-guarding is always situational and will require an excellent reading of the game and a lot of imagination.
Most newbie players will just KO a player by kicking them out with a single, very powerful attack, once their damage meter is very high. The problem with this way of doing things is that it requires you to cause a lot of damage beforehand and that it makes you more of a spectator of the fight once you have expelled your opponent a little. Edge-quarding allows you to knock out an opponent much earlier in a fight, which decreases the opponent's chances of gaining an advantage.
There are mainly two types of edge-guarding:
- The first is to prevent the opponent from returning to the field while keeping their feet on the ground. When the opponent is in the air, it is generally the characters who have projectiles that lend themselves best to the exercise. Using arrows, missiles or bombs, it is possible to complicate the opponent's return and interrupt his double jumps to see them fall like stones down the screen.
If the opponent manages to hang on to the ledge, you still have options to make him let go and fall. Grenades and drop attacks are usually the best ways to literally protect the ledge. You can also hang yourself after an opponent to steal his place and knock him down.
- The second type of edge-guarding is that which allows to really recognize the excellent players since it is about a very aggressive and risky method, but which ensures a KO in the event of success. Rather than staying quietly on the platform shooting at your enemy while he tries to come back, it's up to you to go get him by voluntarily throwing yourself into the void, with the plan to intercept and send flying again further your enemy, before returning to the platform.
A particularly risky edge-guard from Falco, in Smash Melee
It's a very complicated technique, because it requires you to read the opponent's game perfectly, but also to perform your attacks with excellent timing. In addition, you must throw yourself in the air using only a tiny part of your abilities, otherwise you will not have enough energy or skills to return to the field. There is no miracle method to achieve this type of edge-guard since everything is situational.
Don't be too intimidated by the idea of attempting this aggressive edge-guard, or you'll never learn how to pull them off. Maybe you will often miss your shot at first, even commit suicide, but it is by trying that you learn.
All of this is just an infamous part of the technicality of Super Smash Bros Ultimate. If you really want to dive into the most advanced and complex techniques, we advise you to read our glossary. We will not only teach you all the vocabulary of the pros, but you will also discover detailed descriptions of each of the techniques used by the competitive scene.
Consult the Smash Bros Lexicon
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