Help! Advice for beating a certain play style

[BleachMan!]

I have been playing online a lot recently, but there's this one person who keeps beating me practically every time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aS7FHaRulU

This person is the Kirby user.

Certain points that I have noticed are that this person doesn't combo, avoids using tilts, rolls then f-smash, d-grabs once opponent touches the ground, and f-smash spams. It really pisses me off that I can notice these but have really nothing to do about it

The character I mainly use are Marth, Lucas, Snake, and ROB. If there's a general or character specific strategy against this guy, please help!

 

[DMK.]

I don't play either Kirby or Lucas extensively, but a couple things I noticed:

You used a lot of laggy attacks that whiffed(by a good distance, too) that gave your opponent a large opening to move in and dashattack you. Try to avoid using those except in very specific situations where you KNOW you're going to score a hit.

When your opponent rolled or dashed in, you were often standing still trying to attack. Try rolling away and throwing a PK fire at him. If you know what he's going to do as you claim, you should be able to predict when he's going to roll. Remember that Kirby has only one projectile(upb) and it's pretty bad. There's no reason he shouldn't get a PK fire in the face every time he tries his upb.

When Kirby does get close, try a SH nair. I saw you hit this at least once in the video, and it works very nicely. Lucas' nair will hit an opponent on either side of him, so it doesn't matter if your opponent used an dash attack or tried to roll behind you.

 

[kamekasu]

He just roll spams and uses ground techniques...

Since Lucas has such great aerial game, you can use ranged attacks and force him to approach in the air, then punish him. Lucas' aerials have disjointed hitboxes. You outrange and outprioritize him.

Or you could just shield grab.

 

[Tien2500]

Rob and Marth may be better choices as they can easily punish him if he rolls near you with their Dsmashes (especially ROB). If you're using Lucas use wavebouncing. Look it up if you don't know what it is but it will enable you to retreat while pelting him with your PK fire. As DMK said don't use your Dsmash unless you're sure its going to hit. He punished that move alot.

Lucas has no good moves to punish rolling (his Usmash will hit both sides but if you miss you're wide open). So if he tries to roll behind you either spot dodge if you're comfortable doing so or roll in the opposite direction.

Also since he's overusing his Smashes so much you can always shieldgrab him. I'm not that familar with Lucas' grab but I'm pretty sure the lag on Kirby's smashes will be enough for you to grab him.

 

[BleachMan!]

Awesome! I'll be sure to keep these in mind next time I face him.

 

[Wuzzy]

Chill dude. The first stock or so it looked like you attacked mindlessly and pulling flashy ****. The Kirby always played coolly and waited for an opportunity, maybe thats why he wins.

 

[BleachMan!]

In case you guys weren't aware, it wasn't actually me playing. But the player is more or less the same skill wise when using lucas

 

[Rapid_Assassin]

In case you guys weren't aware, it wasn't actually me playing. But the player is more or less the same skill wise when using lucas

Why don't you post some videos of yourself playing against him? My brother and I are roughly the same skill level with some characters but have completely different styles of play. It would be useless to point out mistakes he made that i wouldn't have made, and I'd probably make mistakes that he didn't make... Catch my point?

 

[BleachMan!]

Why don't you post some videos of yourself playing against him? My brother and I are roughly the same skill level with some characters but have completely different styles of play. It would be useless to point out mistakes he made that i wouldn't have made, and I'd probably make mistakes that he didn't make... Catch my point?

You know what, good point. I'll see if I can arrange that and get my camera running.

 

[Sagata]

Hey man, I watched the video, all I can say is that, with Lucas, you have to mix his moves up alot. What I have noticed, is that you dont use all his moves to any extent. I would suggest not repeadly using pk fire, its easy to read. What You could try is vs coms, and mixing up his moves. Oh and another thing. Lucas' up smash, makes him a powerhouse and to be careful around. Again, just mix it up and get some practice with him.
Anyway man, keep smashin.

 

[PredictablyStubborn]

Okay I watched the video.

Your opponent plays like this:
He watches you, waits for the opportunity to strike, and strikes you when you are too focused on being aggressive.
He thinks about spacing. He will walk just out of your attack range, and then does a smash attack that can hit you.


You are too aggressive. You keep thinking about attacking. You are short hopping everywhere, doing air moves. Your opponent, seeing this pattern, sees opportunities every time you short hop. He rolls into your character while you whiff an air move, and does a down smash or forward smash.

Sometimes, you become pressured into using an up smash. I'm not sure what goes through your mind, but this is really bad.

STOP rushing with the moves you are being punished with. Stop jumping in with an attack. People can easily walk backwards from this kind of approach, and do a turnaround smash attack. If you MUST jump in, then try landing without from the air doing any moves, with good spacing, and perform some jabs on the ground while your opponent is rolling towards you/coming for a punishing move. If your opponent doesn't roll towards you, stop jabbing.

Don't succumb to pressure and use the Up smash or the Down smash while your opponent is just standing there.


When your character has landed from an attack, and your opponent is going to punish you, you are in the position to defend. Your choices are these:
spot dodge
shield
jab
roll

I list it in this order because if you spot dodge, you will be able to overcome grabs as well. Your opponent seems to rarely grabs because you don't shield enough, but I suspect that he will if you did shield more.

Things you can try:
Spacing. Worry about the space between you and your opponent. Stand well within kirby's rolling range. Use PK fire to stay there. Pressure your opponent into rolling towards you by flaunting your SAFE attacks, such as your tilts. This will cause your opponent to believe "I can't run towards him".

Your opponent might screw up and advance by air or by rolling. If its by air, you should be fine, unless you were using a laggy move. Just shield, and punish.

 

[RednaXale]

Main thing I noticed was lack of defense and grab opportunities.
You seemed to get countered a lot.

 

[uremog]

you could always just grenade camp with snake. shield abuse, ftilt, utilt when close. more shield grab abuse

oh, and be ready to be called a ***

 

[Mazaloth]

I see that you run into him without a solid B plan, don't just run and attack, fade-outs, and strifing in the air to trick the person is a good idea.
He is also using common mind tricks such as dashing and at the last moment strifing.

Watch out of those mind games.

 

[J18]

in my opinion that kirby is the most annoying type of player there is. to me, it's way beyond camping annoying or special move spamming.

the thing that absolutely makes me furious is people who spam rolls and smashes. it's like they only ever use the c stick and their shield button. really bothers me.

 

[really_calm]

you execute way too many unnecessary moves

-space better, especially with your pk fire
-learn to punish his rolling (try bair and grabs)
-practice shield grabbing

 

[RBNuke]

in my opinion that kirby is the most annoying type of player there is. to me, it's way beyond camping annoying or special move spamming.

the thing that absolutely makes me furious is people who spam rolls and smashes. it's like they only ever use the c stick and their shield button. really bothers me.

Remember, there's frames right as any character finishes their roll that you can always hit them in. If you're watching for it and they finish a roll within attack range of you and don't get punished for it, you need to learn the right move or timing to counter, or they just did it to punish an attack they saw coming. Just pay attention to your opponent's patterns and when they try to roll through you treat them to any down smash or continuous(or multi-frame) attack when and where they come out of the roll - pikachu's down and forward smash, lucario's tilts, over half of G&W's attacks, pit's angel ring, rob's down smash or side-b, zelda's side smash, ddd's down smash and side tilt, link and toon links up-b... you know, that sort of thing. A few characters like marth and ike have a harder time dealing with it due to a lack of huge down smashes or continuous attacks, but I don't like them so fine with me!

Now, if they're rolling *away* from you an excessive amount, don't get irritated, just advance at a walk and use projectiles and tilts... eventually they'll run out of room and have to roll towards you - see above - or try and attack you and be on even ground. Unless they are actually capable players and respond with pit arrows or lasers while rolling away... then they're truly campy bastages =(

 

[BAND!T]

dtilt like a monster... or is that ness...

 

[FakeKraid]

This is going to sound kind of arcane, but I guess I'll just throw it out there.

I actually play against a Kirby player who plays exactly like that. He usually loses to me, but I still feel ashamed every time he hits me because it's by the simplest bait-and-punish tactics. But those tactics are very effective against incautious players. Play more conservatively.

Remember that moves are for more than just hitting people. You get into trouble if that's all you use them for. If you only want to hit someone with a move and it whiffs, you have not only left yourself open to attack, you have wasted your effort, and that is always discouraging. Try to play in such a way that even if one of your attacks misses, it helps you out in some other way, such as:

Forcing your opponent to shift his ground, which you can then punish if you leave yourself free to do so.
Pressuring your opponent away from you, which limits his options by lowering his control of the stage.
Faking your opponent into thinking you have missed by accident, and then punishing his attempted punishment.

Those are some pretty basic tactical strategies for moves that go beyond "cause damage to him and knock him off the stage." I call that "playing conservatively" because no single move you do serves only one purpose. And even if it fails in one respect, it will help you in another, so that over the course of the match you are continually in the green, on a tactical level, even if your opponent's damage isn't rising as fast as you want it to.
You only get so many moves before the match is over. Don't waste them.