So, it’s been almost a month since my last blog post, I’ve been really busy with non- Smash stuff. But I wanted to review what was my last two big weeks of Smash.
First, I attended my first local. It was a bit of drive, but not too far. Everyone was nice, though I was super old compared to everyone else. Got some friendlies in before the tournament started. I had been practicing all Joker the week before. And I never switched off of him during actual tournament matches. Lost my first match to a pretty good Donkey Kong. But they didn’t get the Ding Dong combo in on me! Then in Loser’s I played a Pokemon Trainer. I barely won 2-1, and mainly because they SD’d twice, but a win is a win. Then in the next round I got destroyed by a Captain Falcon.
I was planning to stay just to watch the Grand Finals but then they started a Doubles Bracket and I didn’t have a partner. So, there was nothing to play and nothing to watch. So, I left, but I wasn’t upset about it.
One thing that was refreshing about going to a local tournament was the character diversity. It wasn’t all Jokers, Peachs, and Lucinas. There were people doing very well who never switched off Richter, Donkey Kong, and Villager.Just a good reminder that if you enjoy playing a character, have fun and make that character good.
Then the next day I participated in the Super Smash Ultimate NA Spring Online Open. It did not run as smoothly as the February one. For multiple reasons. First I was having laptop issues. Then once I got that up and running the match-making wasn’t working great. I was only able to play eight matches this time and only won two of them. Which is two less matches played and two less matches won than in February. I think this was all more serious players since this was so close to the previous tournament. In February there were two matches were I was confident the whole time I was going to win. In this tournament I barely squeaked by with the wins I got. And I was 0-2’d in all but one of my losses. I only switched off Joker once in all eight sets. I switched to Ness against one Pichu player. It didn’t help, they were really good. But honestly one of the fun parts of this game is playing against someone really good and just marveling at what they can do.
So then, the week after the tournaments I spent the whole week working on my Rosalina & Luma. Why Rosalina? I don’t know, I played as her during one of my Smash marathons against my friend. I won, but hated every minute of it. I also lose to her on Quickplay nearly every time, even though she’s universally considered a bottom-tier character. I guess I wanted to see if I put a lot of time into her, if I would stay hating her character so much. I wanted to see if my hate-hate relationship would turn into a love-hate relationship. There was also something appealing about seeing how far I could take a terrible character. I may be turning into a bit of a low-tier hero.
So, I learned her bread and butter and kill confirms. Every day that week I watched videos from the top Rosalina & Luma player Dabuz. I also found that another Youtuber NickLeoSmash had some very informative tutorials. I started every night off with Rosalina in Training. I also continued to work on ledgetrumping, 2-framing, tomahawk grabs, and resets. Every day I added a little more advanced Rosalina tech from the Youtube tutorials. Then I would go and play the CPU for more warm-up and to firm up the techniques. And then I would go to Online Quickplay and play two or three sets.
So after a week of prety in-depth character study how do I feel about Rosalina & Luma? I still think she’s one of the worst characters in the game. She is super tall but also lightweight and floaty. If she gets hit it’s a chore to return to the stage. With Luma and her various aerials she’s actually very good in neutral. But once your Luma is desynched she’s not very effective and it takes a long time to recall Luma. Most of the time after I desynced Luma, Luma would die before I could get it back. She requires so much additional prep and additional thinking during matches. And that’s not to make her the best character in the game, that’s just to make her middle of the pack at best! She’s weak against so many character types. Sword characters, Rushdown characters, combo-heavy characters, and projectile characters with multiple projectiles range all have huge advantages over her. Falco and Fox are her worst nightmare The only favorable match-ups are slow heavies and Ness and Lucas( since she can interrupt their PKThunder recoveries). There were multiple times during this week when I went on full Tilt. She can be such a frustrating character.
But there was a reason I kept playing her and learning her more advanced techniques. Beating someone with Rosalina is so fun. When you’re continually walling your opponent out with Luma you can just feel their frustration some time. And there’s something so satisfying when you catch someone recovering with a fully charged Luma shot and take an early stock. I guess most people don’t know she can do that? It’s also fun when you’re taking stocks with a desynched Luma offstage, you’ve got someone caught between Luma and Rosalina, or you’re juggling someone with her “NairPlane” combo.
Honestly, I’m going to keep her in my back-pocket for friendlies and Online play. She is fun to play, just have to walk away from her when I start losing.
Something I really enjoy about pretty much all the Smash games is the depth of the characters. Pick nearly any character in Ultimate and you can do a deep dive for more than a week. Not just combos and kill confirms and how to best apply moves; also things like priority of moves against other character moves, best way to play neutral, scores of frame data and cooldown data, and knowing when certain moves kill. And a few characters like Ness, Rosalina, and Robin have advanced techniques that you wouldn’t even know if you didn’t research. I’ve never really gotten into a a traditional fighting game. I’ve tried a few different Street Fighters but learning those characters just felt more like learning certain button presses than actuality learning different techniques.
But really should I have spent a whole week learning Rosalina & Luma? If I’m thinking in terms of actual improvement at Smash, probably not. I spent a few hours this week learning advanced Rosalina tech I’m never going to use competitively. I could have spent that time working on my bread and butters and kill confirms for Joker and Young Link. Or learning Reverse Aerial Rush or other fundamental techniques I don’t have down yet, that I need to if I’m playing any character. I did finally learn how to attack cancel but I don’t think that’s going to be very relevant for most characters.
But really I play Smash more to have fun than to improve. Improving is part of the fun, but I don’t want grinding skill to every become more pressing than just using Smash to relax. Look, I know I’m never going to be very good at Smash and I’m never even going to make it to Elite Smash. But what I enjoy is improving and seeing proof of my skillset getting better.
And I know, even if I’m just thinking about improving I know I should be approaching this differently. I should be setting up matches on Discords or Anther’s Ladder. I should be spending an hour every day drilling techniques. I should be sticking with Joker and Young Link and getting and perfecting their flowcharts, combos, and edge-guards. But I’d rather be playing a few matches in QuickPlay every night. Yes, it’s not ideal, but I get to play more characters and I get to go in and out quickly. And I feel like I get to see more of the game. The appeal is the vast character roster, not just the improvement.
So, what’s next? More character tryouts I think. Up next I want to try Robin and then Luigi. Then I want to go down my list of Mains to try out. Then I want to play each character at least one day. After all that, I’ll have my lockdown main and maybe will work on improving that character. Or maybe I’ll be down with Smash at that point, I don’t know.