Changing control schemes based on ATs

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The Smash Lab recently released their Standard Terms List 2.0, and it got me to thinking about how we control our characters from the perspective of the button configurations we use. Here's a short list of Brawl (advanced?) techniques, as well as the buttons to press to perform these moves, taken from the full list:

Of these, a fair few are entirely the work of a single button (counting both the cstick's direction+attack and grab's shield+attack as one button), usually in conjunction with the control stick. This means that they do not need to be taken into consideration when designing a control scheme, because they can be easily done regardless of which button must be pressed. The difficulty comes with the techniques that require one to press two different buttons with the same finger in quick succession - of course it's possible to do, and of course people made do with much harder techs and no button mapping in Melee, but if you have the option to change that, why not use it?

Going back to the tech list and ignoring the techs that don't involve more than one button, one can see a small number of common themes:

What does this mean for control schemes? An ideal control scheme would spread out the work required to perform each technique, which translates in GCC and CC terms to placing the most commonly pressed actions on shoulder buttons. Among the basic actions of move, jump, attack, special, and shield, both move and shield already have their own dedicated fingers. Jump and attack can be pressed in quick succession, as can jump and special, whereas attack and special usualy aren't. Thus, jump should be moved to a shoulder button, probably Z/Zr. If you use tap jump for all your needs, you don't even have to change anything for basic movement.

However, if you don't have fast fingers you still might have to make a few changes to get some techniques down. Moving jump to a shoulder button covers Jump Cancel Item Throw as well as the majority of air-based techniques (and even provides greater precision for things like instant short hop aerials). Dash attack- and grab-centric maneuvers are more complicated, especially when both commands are involved in the same technique (see: boost pivot grabbing). Buffered DACUS, for instance becomes much easier when a shoulder button (say, R) is set to attack, making its command list "forward > c-stick down > up+R". You can't really perform "forward > R > c-stick up" because doing that too fast gives you a stutter-step fsmash, though it does work if you're already dashing.

At this point, if you aren't tap jumping your shoulder buttons look like L - shield, R - attack, Z/Zr - jump. If you're using a gcc then you don't have a Zl to leave as grab, so that goes to either X or Y. This leaves one problem, the lack of a dedicated grab button on the shoulder for z-catching and boost pivot grabbing. However, this problem is mitigated when you remember that shield+attack will get you grab. Thus, "forward > c-stick down > backward > L+R" will give you a boost pivot grab. CC users already have Zl for grab, and tap jumpers can just leave grab as Z/Zr, so this isnt even a problem for them.

Tl;dr: To aid with ATs, change R to attack
If you use a button to jump, make it Z (Zr for classic controllers)
Optionally, change X or Y to grab
And now your control scheme is better than the default

Setting Z to jump helps a lot with spacing.

lol my control scheme has R for attack, z for jump and x for grab. (tap jump off)

For basically all the reasons you've given.

@ghostbone:

Is there any characters specific techs this doesn't work well with? So far, I have not thought of any.

I tried to take character-specific techs into account but i found that for the most part this works great

one that might be considered is easy b-reversals by b-sticking, but i dont really have a problem with b-revesals this way

I just got my TvC fightstick and started using it with smash. I'm having so much fun.

I've actually been on this train of thought

I use the setup:

R - Attack
X & Z - Jump
B & Y - Grab
A - Special

The reason A set to special next to X set to Jump is helpful is for ease of input for frame perfect jump > specials.

For example, the Lucas specific tech of Zap Jumping can be done in one button input-esque stroke by rolling from X > A on input.

Or if you want to Up Special out of shield, jump cancelling is now done with one input.


I have Y set to grab because I actually use my right index finger to pivot grab. So I use a combined input of dash > Cstick > Grab to pivot grab, so I don't accidentally roll cancel things. It's much faster than inputting pivot grab manually with the analogue stick alone.

whoa

thats very helpful

i did not know (but probably shouldve figured) that cstick+shield makes grab

thats nuts


EDIT: lux, you're a smash lab guy right?

can you check in frame advance what different orders of inputs get you what (in terms of trying to grab with the cstick)
like, in initial dash, shield then cstick back 1 frame later, both at the same time, cstick back then shield
and do the same while starting a dash (within the stutter-step window) and while running
and write down what comes out when

cuz i really want to know what causes what lol
i think im doing the same inputs but im getting things like roll, spotdodge, fsmash, pivot grab, and boost pivot grab all off shield and cstick, so iunno

is that too much to ask?

It's not, I have answers off the top of my head saying that you need to cstick reverse first and THEN shield within 3 frames ( or be frame perfect with the cstick and shield ) for it to initiate grab. If you shield, then cstick first from an initial dash, you'll roll cancel the dash input because you hit shield first without an attack input according to the game.

The way to get boost pivot grab is to Dash > [ Cstick down > Reverse control sick > shield ]. The bracketed area done in a 3 frame span.

Cstick down would cause spot dodge and wouldn't read as a grab input

I'll confirm this all later, but this is from testing I remember doing like a year ago lol


Checking Cstick in frame advance is hard lol

Mr.Jackpot said:

I just got my TvC fightstick and started using it with smash. I'm having so much fun.

Click to expand...

That works with Smash?!?! SICK

thanks lux

Just to clarify what I wrote, Cstick down before the shield input would cause a boost grab

Cstick down during/after the shield input would cause a spot dodge

so theres basically 3 lengths of pivot grab, right? the 'normal' sliding length (pivot then grab), the shortened length (grab then pivot), and the boosted length (dash attack, pivot, grab).

Using only the cstick and shield:
Normal: cstick back then shield
Short: cstick back and shield at the same time? I was getting this inconsistently by shielding first
Boosted: ctsick down, control stick back, shield

Yes?

Doing some checking with another labby or two, will edit this post to correct the info I put out

The pivot grab sliding is usually determined by two things: First whether it's a boost/dash attack cancelling grab. Second how much momentum is being carried into the grab. Pivot grab out of run will go farther than out of dash.

If you use the cstick and shield to grab, shield and cstick must be hit at the same time. You can use the grab button for the most part within 3 frames of csticking to cancel the cstick action to grab. However, shield and cstick must be hit at the same time. So that being said, to cover Boost grab, one must hit the cstick and THEN hit a grab button (sorry, I got confused between grab and shield when recalling this from a long time ago)

Using only the cstick and shield, you'd be able to hold shield between the dash cancelling roll frames and the end of dash and then input the cstick as you which in order to input a grab. So you can Shield > Cstick to grab. If you do it frame perfect, you don't have to wait for the dash cancelling roll frames to pass.



TLDR:

Shield + cstick only:

Normal Grab: Dash > Cstick up + Shield
Pivot Grab: Dash > Shield + Cstick reverse direction
Boost Grab: Dash > cstick down > Shield + Attack (yay shoulder button)
Boost Pivot Grab: Dash > Attack button > Cstick Reverse + shield

Cstick + Grab:
Normal Grab: Dash > Grab
Pivot Grab: Dash > Cstick Reverse > Grab
Boost Grab: Dash > Cstick Down > Grab
Boost Pivot Grab: Dash > Cstick down > Reverse Control stick + Grab (the advantage here being that you don't have to worry about accidentally inputting an fsmash when hitting attack out of dash)

cool info, thanks

though i coulda sworn that i was pressing sheild and the cstick at different times and grabs were coming out
is there any possibility that the inputs are different for gcc and cc?

and what happened to short pivot grab vs regular pivot grab? i know that those two arent just the same inputs with different initial momentum
idk which character you were testing with (ics?) but try testing with fox, he's got easily noticeable differences between his normal and short pivot grabs

and i did mention in the op that i was getting boost pivot grabs by doing Dash > cstick down > Reverse > Shield + Attack

Yikarur, name search this thread and answer everything please

My suscipicion for the short vs. long pivot grab might be that you're inputting a frame perfect reverse boost pivot grab compared to a less frame perfect boost pivot grab.

lol the short pivot grab isnt anywhere near boost pivot grab range rofl

1) select fox
2) dash > grab > reverse
3) dash > reverse > grab
4) compare lengths
5) ???
6) Profit!