Dealing with pressure/dash dancing

[webshooter]

Hi guys,

I've been really interested in Zelda and have been doing generally well with her and I love her playstyle. I can typically go even in most of my matches until a fox/falco comes along and easily 3-4 stocks me. A thing I noticed is that even though Zelda is generally a defensive character, she has a terrible time dealing with people constantly approaching her or characters that are just really fast. I especially have a hard time dealing with people who dash dance right in front of me. Pretty much all of my moves are risky or unsafe, and I feel like I have no other choice than to commit. What do you guys do against heavy pressure or really good dash dancing?

 

[LonVoen]

*pre-emptive apology for ramble/lack of formatting*

Zelda is a bit more commitment heavy than characters like fox, so this is definitely a rough situation.
I find that establishing a deterrent early on will give you some breathing time. By this I mean SHOW the opponent that you can control farther than they think. Things like wavedash fsmash/ftilt when properly spaced are fairly safe but hit a huge area/a respectable area. Suddenly the opponent, even subconsciously, will dashdance a little farther or a little wider. This breathing room gives you the little Yomi decision of either 1)them committing and you playing defensively (zelda's defense is GREAT) or 2)them not committing and you placing a din.
If they commit wrecklessly, opting for USmash OoS (hits on frame 2. FRAME 2), drift back fair/nair, wavedash back + ftilt, fsmash, even uptilt if you really read their approach (thanks intangible arm!) all work wonders. Remember that a large portion of your ftilt sets them behind you and, for most the cast, in a beautiful position to eat more sparklemagic. This makes Zelda at the ledge somewhat less of a trouble. If you are losing space frequently in the fight, remembering this option can put them exactly where they don't want to be (offstage) with a din in front of them to deal with as well. Also if you're getting pressured don't forget teledashing to the middle of the stage! It's pretty safe if used sparingly and can be used as on Oos option when you're really feeling the pressure. Another defensive option is a drift back din.
If they don't commit or dash back a bit to far, SET THAT DIN. RIGHT NOW. That thing is your life blood and gives Zelda what she needs to make up for her *ahem* lackluster normals. The din is all about controlling the pace of the game and tempo reversal. Anytime you can safely set a din, it's probably worth it as it makes her able to pressure her opponent much more safely. It doesn't even have to hit. It just needs to be a scary looming fireball and, what do you know, the opponent jumped to avoid it and can no longer dash or use any ground moves and is subject to their probably-not-great air control speed (which tends to be the case for the super speedy dashers!) Their options are limited and that just makes you stronger. Plus zelda loooooves people above her. Uair and Usmash make quick work of mostly-vertical approaches and utilt stuffs basically everything if you read it right.

Also, for both offense and defense dont forget your wavelands. I have some more testing to do, but all of Zelda's aerials barring uair finish in time to waveland. Fair and bair might require some interesting fast fall timings, but it works! And just for offense, don't forget the potency of your nayru. It can cover your unsafe SHFFL approaches by making them think twice about shield-grabbing. Once they get used to shielding nayru, toss in some grabs :]

Happy Sparkling! (hope this helped at all haha)

 

[Only a NOOB]

While Zelda does have a lot of risky, high-commitment moves, she also has some good interruption tools. I mostly use NAir and her dash attack, and occasionally a neutral B or UTilt (though these are more easily punished if you miss, so don't use them constantly). If you mix things up and throw these moves out in the right situations, you can totally stop them in their tracks and even set up a combo, no matter how fast or high priority they are.

 

[Rizner]

Mind game wins this. You gotta outplay them hard and get them into habits. Start with dash attack if their doing it close, and pay attention to their punish. They wavedash back and fsmash? Next time go a little farther in before committing an option. They shield it? Grab them. They just dance farther away? Maybe foxtrot, wavedash back, wavedash in ftilt, etc. You have to eat some punishes while you're low percent to figure out their style and start to get an edge in the neutral.

 

[4tlas]

Everything said so far are good suggestions, but I haven't seen what I do yet (which may mean I'm bad lol)

If I can't get in their head, I resort to foxtrots into dash attack if they are dash dancing perfectly and not committing, jab to cover myself for when they do finally approach, or Dins if they are dash dancing but I don't think they'll approach unless I do something risky. I don't like new Dins at all and I don't find it to work very well anymore, but maybe I'm just using it wrong in this situation.

Dash attack is easily shielded and Zelda is quite slow, so sometimes I foxtrot and jab to slowly push them off the stage like I would when fencing. This is my favorite option because it makes me feel so good when it works. Wavedashing in/out and doing this is probably strictly better, but I can't do technical things to save my life, so executing this makes me feel competent.

 

[Magus420]

With dash dancing, her wavelanding ability was specifically improved by a lot for 3.5 with some animation adjustments on jumps/fall/airdodge (similar to Bowser), so you can horizontal waveland out of just about any air animation if timed right (don't need to dodge at a downward angle like when wavedashing and can go full left/right). It's especially lenient to time out of kicks with the way those animations position her sideways, and goes great with the usual empty/single/double/slow/FF defensive kick mixups. A horizontal waveland into an attack covers about a Jigglypuff width or so extra distance than she's able to cover by dashing into an attack in the same amount of time and you aren't limited to dash moves. If you use them well you can extend her immediate threat range a good amount so they need to respect more space to stay at a safe distance, reducing their ability to punish her on reaction. With the much faster Din's placement you can kinda squeeze a retreating one in safely but that may depend on their reaction speed/character/how deep they are. Jab is a good safe ground option with its range and extremely short endlag. If you want to jab more than once in a row for whatever reason you can do that significantly faster by jab canceling by holding diagonally down+behind while pressing A.

 

[Deleted member]

Mind game wins this. You gotta outplay them hard and get them into habits. Start with dash attack if their doing it close, and pay attention to their punish. They wavedash back and fsmash? Next time go a little farther in before committing an option. They shield it? Grab them. They just dance farther away? Maybe foxtrot, wavedash back, wavedash in ftilt, etc. You have to eat some punishes while you're low percent to figure out their style and start to get an edge in the neutral.

this is a pretty bad answer and i would discourage this kind of feedback. trying to accurately read opponents is hard even for good players against lower level opponents on more linear characters. trying to rely on reads vs better opponents on extremely unpredictable characters as a lower level player only further mystifies the game and makes learning a simple MU into an unnecessarily complicated task that is almost guaranteed to make the player worse off.

to answer the question posed by the original poster, you will have to learn to finesse out conversions on things that don't look immediately obvious. this is because fox and falco have inherently broken designs that allow them to choose when to attack, which is exacerbated by zelda's generally slow movement. fox and falco are broken regardless of which character you are, and this trait is not specific to you as a zelda. that said, your main conversions are likely to be dash attack, dashgrab, and upsmash out of shield. you trypically want to connect with dash attack in the 10 frames of lag from a wavedash, so always spend as much time on the ground as possible so that you can adjust your position as best as possible to be ready and reactive to the wavedash itself. with experience, you will get used to this. the same goes for dashgrab, although dash attack usually beats fox/falco non-disjointed moves outright so if you're waiting for something reliable you may find yourself doing more dash attacks overall. upsmash out of shield is best done after a an aerial > shine and you want to input the upsmash at the same time the fox/falco would jump out of shine.

if fox/falco shoot you a lot to prevent dash attacks, just try to stay close, grounded and reactive and be willing to block a lot. it's a net win for you to be able to threaten the opponent more than it is for them to shoot you, so stick to more aggressive forms of movement while waiting for the appropriate conversion. after all this, there MUs arent that bad but you may still lose anyway. again, fox and falco are both broken and zelda is decidedly not.

 

[Kaeldiar]

USmash OoS (hits on frame 2. FRAME 2)

This is incorrect. Sartron formats his data a little bit differently than others. Up-smash hits on the second frame AFTER the charging window. It's actually a frame 5 move. Still very fast, though!

 

[LonVoen]

This is incorrect. Sartron formats his data a little bit differently than others. Up-smash hits on the second frame AFTER the charging window. It's actually a frame 5 move. Still very fast, though!

Well damn! Thanks for the correction. That'll save me some headaches down the road.

magus snip

THANK YOU. I didnt know much of this and the fair/bair to sideways waveland being simpler due to hiw ger orientation shifts sounds so ridiculously potent.

 

[WhiteCrow]

Until a fox/falco comes along and easily 3-4 stocks me. A thing I noticed is that even though Zelda is generally a defensive character, she has a terrible time dealing with people constantly approaching her or characters that are just really fast. I especially have a hard time dealing with people who dash dance right in front of me. Pretty much all of my moves are risky or unsafe, and I feel like I have no other choice than to commit. What do you guys do against heavy pressure or really good dash dancing?

Know your OoS options: Wave dash, Up Smash, Farore's Wind, Aerial OoS, Nayru's Love, buffered roll, and Shield Grab. Buffered rolls, while still being unsafe rolls, can get you out of near perfect drill/nair shine pressure, and it's something to always have in your OoS hat of tricks. Retreating fair OoS is also a sound way to bait approaches, especially if you wave land out of it. Forward tilt can really clip dash dancers but you have to be careful. I like baiting dash dance approaches with b-reversed and wave-bounced Nayru's Love, but bait isn't much if no one is biting. Solid dash dancers like Fox, Marth, Roy, and Sonic can give Zelda a lot of trouble. When you're being dash dance camped make sure you aren't standing still, and try to watch your opponent's character while keeping your movement and neutral safe and consistent. When Zelda can't approach she has to rely on punishing her opponent's.

 

[G13_Flux]

With dash dancing, her wavelanding ability was specifically improved by a lot for 3.5 with some animation adjustments on jumps/fall/airdodge (similar to Bowser), so you can horizontal waveland out of just about any air animation if timed right (don't need to dodge at a downward angle like when wavedashing and can go full left/right). It's especially lenient to time out of kicks with the way those animations position her sideways, and goes great with the usual empty/single/double/slow/FF defensive kick mixups. A horizontal waveland into an attack covers about a Jigglypuff width or so extra distance than she's able to cover by dashing into an attack in the same amount of time and you aren't limited to dash moves. If you use them well you can extend her immediate threat range a good amount so they need to respect more space to stay at a safe distance, reducing their ability to punish her on reaction. With the much faster Din's placement you can kinda squeeze a retreating one in safely but that may depend on their reaction speed/character/how deep they are. Jab is a good safe ground option with its range and extremely short endlag. If you want to jab more than once in a row for whatever reason you can do that significantly faster by jab canceling by holding diagonally down+behind while pressing A.

Could you explain jab canceling to me please? Like, what affect does this have on the FAF, can it make an attack/additional jab come out quicker than limits placed by the FAF, and why does it exist? In a lot of my testing with jabs and jab combos, I found that I never noticed a difference when attempting to jab cancel, and the quickest way to get a follow up was to just wait it out until the FAF of whatever jab sequence you were on. Then again I never knew about holding diagonally down, and just tried to hold down instead. Nonetheless, I've never noticed anything quicker by attempting a jab cancel.

Tldr; why does holding diagonally down benefit you versus waiting for the FAF to act normally?

 

[Magus420]

You can't restart the jab action directly during the jab's IASA. By interrupting with crouch you both go into an action you can start a jab out of as well as cancel the global input window for the next jab if they have one (which applies even after the jab ends and you're in wait). It only applies to re-jabbing during jab, not other attacks/actions out of jab. If you mash A by itself you'll do Jab -> (end of animation) -> Wait -> Jab, and down/back you do Jab -> (IASA) -> Crouch -> Jab.

 

[G13_Flux]

alright that makes sense. why down + behind though? why not just down?

 

[Magus420]

Down+Attack does a d-tilt, DownBack+Attack does a jab. Easier and faster than tapping and releasing down since it can be held.