Low Level Mistakes and How to Fix Them

In Docs HERE

Low Level Mistakes & How to Fix them

Hello everyone, and welcome to my latest (and most likely final) series of posts pertaining to Smash 4. In the following walls of mundane text, I’m going to be going through the most common low level mistakes that are seen from players in Smash 4, as well as offer my solutions to them to help you improve your game.

First, I should provide a few rebuttals that respond to criticisms I’m bound to see in the comments:

1.“These tips are obvious and you have no place assuming Amino players are at this level.”

I’m not gonna front, there are a lot of players I’ve played on this app who are low level and fail to understand the problems and concepts that I’ll be explaining as we go on. Just because something is obvious to YOU doesn’t mean it’s obvious to others.

2.“This will become irrelevant when Ultimate releases, there’s no point in trying to implement it.”

Thinking this is very short sighted. Smash fundamentals are often universal, and if you get better in Smash 4 while it’s still around I can promise you’ll start with a higher base skill level in Ultimate.

Don’t mind me breaking up the text with random pictures of Oklahoma fields by the way. Pretty place.

{==|==|==}

Table of Contents

I. Rolls/Airdodges

II. Lack of Objective

III. Tunnel Vision

IV. Over-commitments

V. Closing

{==|==|==}

Rolls/Airdodges

Now, this one is no secret so I’m planning on keeping it as short as I can while still hitting the points that matter. A lot of low level players are over reliant on rolls for a lot of purposes, whether it’s a substitute for offensive options, defensive escapes, or movement.

Some players overuse roll as an aggressive approach options, to cross up their opponent and attack quickly right after. This is fine as a mixup to apply pressure but a lot of low level players greatly overuse this option. If your opponent expects it at all it should always be punished, and there are plenty of other options to apply aggressive pressure that are less punishable.

Other players overuse rolls as a defensive option. We’ve all seen it on for glory: Dash attack, roll back over and over and over no matter how much it gets punished. This is often a really deeply rooted habit with low level players, as the invincibility from a roll and the movement backwards perfectly coaxes someone who doesn’t understand neutral to overuse it. Again, these kinds of rolls can be good as mixups to follow up aggressive pressure and keep you safe but should be saved so they don’t get obvious.

The final overuse of roll that’s commonly seen at low levels of play is a roll used for movement. This is what happens at really low levels, when players roll 3-4 times in a row to get to the corner of the stage where they’re more comfortable with their position. Unlike the other types of rolls, this is never appropriate and ties into another issue with low level players, a lack of movement.

If you are a low level player who spends a lot of time rolling, please take my word that it is so integral to integrate other types of movement into your play. Simple things such as short hops, perfect pivots, fox trots, and extended dash dances are all amazing options that can help bring your neutral to the next level, and give you the tools to start being able to your opponent.

Airdodges are also a pretty big problem at low level, and the concept is very simple: airdodges should not be spammed every time the opponent lands a hit. Mix it up with jumps and attacks out of hitstun to keep your opponent guessing and make it easier to get out of disadvantage state.

{==|==|==}

Lack of Objective

Contrary to my last point, which had to do with eliminating something from your play, this section entails adding something to your play that a lot of low level players are not aware of. Objective is the focus that you put onto landing your most important moves, and frequently low level players ignore the concept.

For example, think of Bowser, a character with a simple and easy to understand objective: land a grab. Bowser’s up throw combos lead into so much damage and even kill confirms that it easily becomes bowser’s most efficient way to rack up damage. Using dash attack, up tilt, or up air to punish the opponent is simply not optimal because they won’t earn you as much and are often riskier to go for in neutral.

Every character has an objective. Whether it’s a character like Lucario, Mario, and Luigi looking for a grab, or characters like Marth and Shulk attempting to find stage control and pressure with positional advantage.

Each character also has tools to strategize and create a game plan to make their objective less predictable. For example, Luigi has his fireballs to force shields which can open up his opportunities. This concept of unpredictability very much bleeds into my next topic, tunnel vision.

{==|==|==}

Tunnel Vision

Tunnel vision is kind of the other side of the coin compared to a lack of objective. In contrast to not knowing what moves to focus on, tunnel vision is focusing on one option a character character has entirely too much so that all other options are forgotten about and your mixup game is forfeited.

A term you might be more familiar with, fishing, is essentially a less extreme version of tunnel vision. Very rarely is fishing a good idea, and is only applicable to characters that can’t kill early outside of selective confirms (think of HIKARU and his DK, he’s the only top player I consistently see “fishing” for options with success)

Tunnel vision is usually much less intentional than fishing, which can lead to your play becoming really predictable without you realizing. A lot of low level player will often over-prioritize options that appeal to them more, even if they’re not optimal. An extremely simple example of this is any low level player of a character with great grab confirms (think ZSS, Link, Mario) will often fall into the trap of over-prioritizing and even “spamming” grab during neutral without giving thought to mixups.

To fix this, one simply has to diversify the options they’re using during neutral so they don’t get predictable. For example, Mario should mix up his grabs by using aerials, fireballs, and even fludd to make opponents less sure of when he’ll finally commit to that grab, thus making it more likely to hit.

{==|==|==}

Over-Commitments

This is a much less abstract concept than tunnel vision or a lack of objective, so I’ll try to keep this concise. An over-commitment, at its most basic level, is exactly what it sounds like: when you use an option that isn’t safe and commit too much, risking yourself getting punished.

During neutral, a common over-commitment from low level players is going for an unsafe move without thinking of the risk it involves. Think of a little mac using smash attacks or a dash attack, for example. Those are all an over-commitment because they are almost always unsafe and will leave you open for a punish should they miss or hit a shield. Fixing this will require some patience during neutral, and it will also require good knowledge of spacing. Basically, unless you’re sure that you know what your opponent will do you always need to be attacking safely so that you’re not in a position to be punished.

At low level, over-commitments often take place during disadvantage as well. This can be seen in landings that are way more focused on trying to hit the opponent than just trying to avoid more damage. Toon Link’s dair is a great example of this over-aggressive landing style and you should always be cognizant of prioritizing staying safe over blindly rushing at your opponent from the sky.

Finally, over-commitments can also be seen during advantage state when players get too greedy on extending their combos and punishes, or even on their edgeguards. Swinging with random attacks just because you already hit your opponent is not a sound decision, and it’ll usually lead to them being able to counter-hit you for going ‘too hard in the paint.’

{==|==|==}

Thank you for reading this, I hope if you noticed that any of these mistakes apply to you that me pointing it out will help your game in the future.

I’ll be releasing a ‘Mid Level Mistakes’ post soon following this so keep some :eyes: out.

See ya then