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Doc in Teams

DRD

Smash Lord
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I know a bit about Doc in singles cause that's all we talk about


But what about Doc as a team player?

I was thinking of him being more of a supporting character, using pills to disrupt enemny attack flow and edgegaurding

But then, he can also hold his own as a main offensive character

I need to build up my knowledge because me and my cousin are going to be going to some tournaments this summer and I'll of course be playing Doc, him probably Marth, Falcon or Fox, maybe Falco



I just don't have enough teams experience. I need to start playing them when I go to tournies instead of just waiting for singles I guess
 

SpruceTengu

Smash Journeyman
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Hey man,


I've been working on a teams Doc for a good year now, though because I'm switching back and forth between home and school (out of state) I rarely have a consistant partner to practice with. I've competed in a couple CT tournies though never with incredible success : P. Anyway, my perception of Doc in teams, as with anyone's, I suppose, is that it depends on the character you're partnered with.

Here are a couple main points that I feel are important to consider in teams with Doc

Pills are dangerous-- as a player who's heavy on pillgame, whether it be fancy movement or rapid spam, i found having a teammate took some real getting used to. It's surprisingly difficult to avoid hitting your partner, and one needs to make much more careful decisions when it comes to "getting creative" with pills. Defensive pilling, or spam pilling whenever there's an opening, is alot less recommendable, being that you can bean your partner and get them screwed up pretty bad. My practice (depending on the character) has usually been to fulljump over my partner if they're too close, and read the pill's trajectory so that I'm shooting over my partner for support. You have to make this clear and practice it a bit so your partner wont go running straight into the pills. Because FJ gives you better mobility and timing, I'd recommend using it more than SH in teams, because it's easier to avoid nailing your buddy. There's also some awesome team related stuff you can do with pills, for example pillsaving your partner, whether this be hitting them with a pill off the stage to help them get another Up-B or shooting pills toward your partner when they're at really high damage and fighting an opponent with low damage. This is kind of a last-ditch effort, but from time to time I've had a pill cancel their momentum after they would have been killed by a smash attack. If the opponent isn't ready to punish, it can work. Generally, though, too hard to really be feasible. Use pills less than you would as singles; just be more conservative.

Doc is a great "deal-sealer"-- In the majority of the doubles matches I play, I'm usually with a more heavy offensive character, and my main purpose as doc (especially because my pillgame is restricted) becomes as a gimper. Doc's cape, bair, nair, and pills make him great at screwing with folks when they've been hit off the ledge. I've noticed it's pretty helpful to get movement down with doc (especially wavedashing) and keeping an eye on the rest of the screen, so that if need be, you can detach yourself from whatever squabble you're in and finish things off with your partner's opponent. For example, one of my more coordinated teams is with a Link, who does alot more projectile spamming than I do, but as an aggressive player usually manages to skrah people off the edge, throw them, or by whatever other means knock them off. If timing permits, it's incredibly effective for me to be as aggressive as possible here, and leave the edge to gimp the opponent before he gets back. My teammate, meanwhile, can guard the edge to ensure I get back, or, in his case, bomb/skrah save me if I'm an idiot and go out too far.

Fair/Dsmash are a whole lot better-- In teams, most players tend to lose some of their speed and judgment; it's hard to keep track of so much going on, and smart players are always being cautious not to juice their teammate in the face. Because of this, though, people are often less capable of moving fast or avoiding what they might usually be able to escape. Especially on stages with platforms where there is even more of a crowding sensation, i've noticed that Doc's fair and dsmash (the latter, especially wavedashed or CC'd) can really hit hard (well, duh) and often. These make for fairly good crowd control, but since you can't be incredibly clean or precise with them, they should be used sparingly.

Jabs, grabs, tilts, Uair, Dair (nair) --- These more cautious moves are super important in my book. With Doc i can get in, smack an opponent around a bit, give them some damage for either you or your opponent to finish off. I tend to use these more often than pills in teams as opposed to singles, mainly because you have more control over where the damage goes. F-tilt, Uair, uptilt, and Forward/up-throw are really great for setting your partner of for combos, since you can get them off fairly easily and they often put your opponent in a precarious position. Again, you and your partner should practice/coordinate enough that you know how to set each other up for combos and how to tell if either one of you can or can't do it in a certain situation. For example, against heavier characters, doc has better luck setting up combos with his Upsmash at low percentages, etc. With regard to the nair, i'd use it a bit more sparingly. It can't really murk people or anything, but flying around with tons of nairs has never really done me a ton of good in teams. It can be a precise move if you're careful, but you can hit your partner and it can suck if you catch them at a bad time, so don't be too gung-ho with it.

Doc's other moves are obviously usable (namely F-smash), but not necessarily, in my opinion, outstandingly useful for teams.


Err..

So i hope that helps. : D
 

DRD

Smash Lord
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Oh wow

Uhhh

I don't really have much to say to that
Except thanks a ton
*saves*

I was definitely not expecting a text wall on this, I thought, seldom discussed subject
 

otg

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On my 5th 4 Loko and still ****** you.
funny story. This same thread developed into this due to general disinterest in the topic lol. Doc in teams is a mixed bag, he def isn't great there but when is he great at anything? If you're comfortable with him and your partner knows your style well than Doc can be very useful. He can edgeguard real well, cape in particular is quite useful and can also stock tank somewhat as long as you have good DI. He needs a good partner, preferably someone who is fast and has a good recovery; KO power is nice, but Doc can net in some pretty nice kos and edgeguards so it's not a necessity.
 

DRD

Smash Lord
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How about some discussion on specific strategies with specific characters?

I guess the most common ones would be the most important

Problem is specific strategies like that kind of assume its 2 on 1, and you can't really have specific strats for 2v2 when the other 2 characters could be anyone, and one could save the other, etc


gah I need to play more teams

No more skipping teams in tournaments
 

SpruceTengu

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I have to say I enjoy teams alot more than singles in some ways; especially the added variability. I'll have alot more to say on this soon, but to be fair I haven't teamed consistently with alot of character's yet to the extent that I'd be able to describe tactics for them.

A really good general tactic is to have a good offensive-heavy partner who either has great range with their heavy-hitter attacks or fast movement. Fox is DEFINITELY a great partner choice, especially given the precision of his finishers and the way doc can pillsave him. Doc is also pretty sick at setting up for fox's upair and upsmash (though who isn't :p )

Jigglypuff is an amazing partner, and the one I've played with most in tournies. Jiggs can save doc pretty extensively, but doc can't really return the favor all that well. The biggest problem with teaming with jiggs is that pills can really ruin her game, and you should be wicked careful if you're going to team with a jiggs that way. The Jiggs/doc combo is incredible for edgeguards; and in teams I often ended up sharing the edge with my jiggs friend and making a pretty impenetrable barrier.

Anyway, I need to run to class, but when i get more time I'll rant further about some teams ideas. : P
 

Dogysamich

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Doc in teams. I know we've talked about this before. XD

Yeah, doc in teams is aight. He's not the best at anything, but he's aight at everything, so he's pretty much an inferior jack-of-all-trades. Doc's worst stats imo is getting 2v1'd saving partners. It's not that he cant do them, it's just they're ridiulously hard compared to others.

The thing he is one of the best at is edgeguarding, so you want to try to milk that for all it's worth.

You got some kill moves, so if your partner lands a grab on something at a killable %, you better be looking for the $5 footlong or the KOBE!

In general, you can play however you want to with doc in teams. The only exception is you cant be spam heavy unless your partner can deal with your pills.

___

As for specific strats, it depends on your partner and your partner's character. Long story short, you can have any combination as long as both of you dont wind up playing defensively. On paper, it's nice to have somebody who can get people off the stage real quick and set you up for edgeguards.

___

As for characters to team with, I still stand by the best character to team with is whatever your partner's best character is.

___

**looks up at spruce**

Yeah fox is a good partner, he's good for anybody. He's the best teams character. XD
 

SpruceTengu

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**looks up at spruce**

Yeah fox is a good partner, he's good for anybody. He's the best teams character. XD
Truf, son. Truf.

Continuing with characters I've played with...

I'd have to add i think Ganon is a great partner; at least one of my best teams with my usual teams partner has been the Doc+Ganon combo. Ganon's got alot of awesome power and can knock people off the edge fairly nicely. If you're responsive enough as a Doc and can keep an eye out for opportunities, bair/cape gimps come WAY too easily with a Ganon pal, this has worked amazingly with my friend and I.

Link is kind of an iffy partner. He can similarly whack people around off the edge with scrah and such, from which Doc can edgeguard beautifully, but having such an incredibly projectile heavy team can sometimes be a little risky. If anything, try to convince your partner to lay off the bombs. The boomerang is easier to deal with (doc can cape it no problem) and won't leave you quite as vulnerable if you get beaned by accident. Also, I've noticed Doc and link can set each other up nicely for certain combos; Links uthrow is nice for this, as is docs, and doc's uair/utilt allow link to come in from all sorts of angles. Link's grab is an awesome asset in teams, especially with a doc, who can usually pin someone down with pills/jabs/tilts and mess up their play enough that Link can get a hookshot in, leading to some 2v1 ownage (quoth Dogy "KOBE"!).
 

otg

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Two of my crewmates team up with Doc/Jiggly and they are evil. Jiggs WoPs you out, if you even TRY to make it back get ready for a cape. Only problem is Fox will probably end up touching your team in places they don't like being touched in.
 

SpruceTengu

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Two of my crewmates team up with Doc/Jiggly and they are evil. Jiggs WoPs you out, if you even TRY to make it back get ready for a cape. Only problem is Fox will probably end up touching your team in places they don't like being touched in.
lawl @ fox comment

Yea, I've teamed with Jesse alot (his Jiggz is :eek: ) and have found it works pretty well. Again, pilling has always been an issue, and I've had to seriously take it easy with the spam. Over'n that, it comes down to gimping with cape/bair, CCing dsmash, and coming in with fair when necessary. Jiggz is definitely a hardcore awesome partner, though; Jesse and I had some awesome teams matches at the last STICLE in CT.
 

ranmaru

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I will keep these things in mind. I was playing with a captain falcon, and I wasn't spam heavy, but I hit him with pills a few times, but I mostly did full jump pill over him. :3 Only bad thing was that I caped him by accident when he side-B'd! How can I do that and I mess up with timing sometimes, lol?

I wish I had a permanent partner or something. sigh. ^^; Teams are very fun though. : D
 

isthattim?

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I play a lot of teams with a really good Samus, it seems to work really well except for the fact that i spend half the time avoiding missiles

On FD and pokestade we can create a really decent wall of spam if we can coordinate properly from the same side of the stage

of course the "holy **** i just avoided that missile how'd i get hit" factor is always hilarious
 

Bob Money

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Don't worry so much about avoiding missiles, feel free to F tilt them and sex kick /biar or whatever through them. In teams with Doc you should keep double jumping to a minimum, it's usually the quickest way to get caught off the level quickly.

Using Short hopped pills isn't a bad way to approach in teams either...basically Doc's ground game is where you wanna be...no need to get fancy or over zealous when Doc has 3-5 Good killing moves as well as a dash attack that's ALOT harder to punish in teams and quite useful to tech chase with and tack some damage on. As Doc you wanna kill players effiecently even more so when you're with a teammate that lacks finishing moves.
 

isthattim?

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Don't worry so much about avoiding missiles, feel free to F tilt them and sex kick /biar or whatever through them. .
I know there are other viable options to avoiding missiles, and i sure as hell don't wanna avoid a missile into a ken combo or sheiks Fair but i really prefer to keep the game as chaotic as possible in teams.

an unexpected missile can lead to some easy gimps esp. against the starfox crowd. a couple easy bairs off the edge and they're not coming back (except into a cape)

i cant remember who first used that tho...
;)

what i've been wanting to try recently tho is a doc capfalcon team, i guess i just really wanna land a pillstun knee or maybe even a dtilt knee lol
 

ranmaru

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Its hard to deal with that. I have a partner sometimes who is really random, and much better than me at the game, so thats a bad combination. xD Although recently he hasn't killed me, and if I have seen a punch coming, I'd try to cape and if it was too late I'd just BLOCK. I guess with cap'n around you shouldn't throw the cape out as much as you would want. :3

How about Doc with Doc? Does that work?
 

St. Viers

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Hmm, doc in teams, what can I add?

I dunno, I play very supporting, and it seem to do well--keep my teammate from being double teamed, keep him alive through pill/ d-air when he gets smashed, and edgeguarding. Most of my teamwork stuff isn't doc specific--it's more just basics: feinting edgeguards to draw the person over, and then double teaming the person still on the stage, grab combos, and and letting myself get grabbed simply to get them in the right position for teammate to punish, etc.

The best thing is just to play with the same person ALOT, and then you'll find it easy to pill around them, and just know how them move.


EDIT: double doc is meh--the point is that he's average, and having two average chars on a team isn't as useful as having one person with good strengths, and doc to prevent the weaknesses to be exploited. Two docs are just kinda sub-par all over the place, except in edgeguarding, where they just get inthe way of each other.
 

Shroomed

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my experience with doc in teams is jus doc/fox

it's not bad i got second in a tourney with it =) but doc has to be careful about his pilling/nairing/dsmashing, it can **** ur teammate which made us lose grand finals

although i wasnt a stranger to upsmash in the finals =(

someone should make a team doc vid compilation
i have some tourney matches

1. Shroomed+Julian vs Falcomist+SS
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_Vt8-Bd6Kc

2. Shroomed+Julian vs Falcomist+SS
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nc4eWFItH34

3. Shroomed+Julian vs Falcomist+SS
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVGTVNMV9rE

there's more but im goin to bed lol
 

Dogysamich

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Ima watch those vids in a sec, but come on.

Everything works good with a fox.

I mean ****, the only thing in the game that doesnt work good with a fox is a pichu, because pichu doesnt work.
 

Gorn.

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I wish I had more expertise on the matter, but for now I'll have to confine my comments to experiences I've had playing with Spruce.

While some games I feel like I make a great partner (especially as characters with incredible knockback or killing moves... my particular fancy for teams being Ganon, although I always want to try Bowser), I'm afraid to say I can sometimes lead to his early death by miscalculated attacks -- it seems particularly easy to gimp Doc (and on bad days... I miscalculate frequently, haha).

The other biggest danger we seem to face (this time from the Doc end) is that while his pilling may be well placed and certainly well intentioned, I find the stun on them can be (on the occasion) fatal -- and if not certainly jarring. I suppose that's what I get for being larger characters. I might recommend a more conservative, or at least a highly intelligent pill-game (certainly works for us).

Past that, as said above, Doc seems to be the better edge-guarded on the team. It usually benefits us greatly if I can try to play a more power-oriented character and knock an opponent off stage and allow Spruce to mop up as necessary. Not that this is his only purpose -- on the contrary I tend to be a bit more specialized, and as I agree with the earlier "jack of all trades" comment, Doc seems to be able to contribute in just about all facets of the game.

And doooooooood, make sure you keep an eye out for your partner if he is getting edgeguarded and you have a moment to breathe. I have been saved by many a masterful pill or strike.

I don't even know if that answered the question -- but you've got my two cents. Word.
 

SpruceTengu

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I wish I had more expertise on the matter, but for now I'll have to confine my comments to experiences I've had playing with Spruce.

While some games I feel like I make a great partner (especially as characters with incredible knockback or killing moves... my particular fancy for teams being Ganon, although I always want to try Bowser), I'm afraid to say I can sometimes lead to his early death by miscalculated attacks -- it seems particularly easy to gimp Doc (and on bad days... I miscalculate frequently, haha).

The other biggest danger we seem to face (this time from the Doc end) is that while his pilling may be well placed and certainly well intentioned, I find the stun on them can be (on the occasion) fatal -- and if not certainly jarring. I suppose that's what I get for being larger characters. I might recommend a more conservative, or at least a highly intelligent pill-game (certainly works for us).

Past that, as said above, Doc seems to be the better edge-guarded on the team. It usually benefits us greatly if I can try to play a more power-oriented character and knock an opponent off stage and allow Spruce to mop up as necessary. Not that this is his only purpose -- on the contrary I tend to be a bit more specialized, and as I agree with the earlier "jack of all trades" comment, Doc seems to be able to contribute in just about all facets of the game.

And doooooooood, make sure you keep an eye out for your partner if he is getting edgeguarded and you have a moment to breathe. I have been saved by many a masterful pill or strike.

I don't even know if that answered the question -- but you've got my two cents. Word.
<3

Gorn is bringing out a good point here, one I think I only sort addressed. But yeah, we know Doc's recovery is kinda crappy; and in teams this is a HUGE problem. So I'd agree that the number one thing to think about in getting a partner is getting someone who's conservative enough not to keep murking you. Saving a partner is too much of a hassle sometimes, anyway. At the same time, as my main man also said, it really helps to get a powerhouse off of whom doc can work with his edeguards and lighter team game. It comes to a nice compromise there; you want some power, but you want it in the right place. I've also played with some Ganons who Team-KO'd me like crazy; it depends on the playstyle.
 

ranmaru

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Well, me and DRD teamed, against Uuaa and legion first [Fox and Peach], and then finch and Fearless [Ice Climbers and Falco {I think}]. Turns out Doc with Doc didn't work out for us (we were both trying to survive rofl), but we did fairly well against a team of marios. :]

I also played him, pretty good doc. : D I didn't mind what color to choose though, although usually I'd pick Pink or Blue.
 
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