New player: How to practice on my own with minimal experience?

[Ezmar]

The answer is obviously to practice as much as possible against other people, but that's not a feasible option for me most of the time. I can't get out to events often, as they don't happen very close to me, and I don't have any friends who play Melee at all.

So I'm stuck practicing by myself, which doesn't teach me a whole lot. I know that Shadowboxing is supposed to be a good way to practice on your own, but that's not really an option either, since I don't even have enough experience to craft any plausible imaginary scenarios.

So the question is this: I play Puff mostly, but I'm considering picking up Sheik as well. What would be the best way to practice, either on vanilla or 20XX to make best use of my practice time? I've done a little mucking around with Shino Stalls, but not much of anything else, mostly just practicing movement and L cancels in a very disorganized way. My biggest weakness at the moment is doing stupid stuff and getting punished for it, which seems to be hard to work on alone, since CPUs don't punish mistakes well.

Again, nothing is a substitute for actually playing against other folks, but since that's not an option, what's the best way to work on things? Since this is in the sheik boards, I'm mostly looking at what things specific to Sheik I should keep in mind, along with any character specific tech or movement options, particularly how to train up the Dthrow tech chase. Any general pointers are also appreciated, but mostly I want to work on acclimating myself to the new character properly, and feeling comfortable with her.

Thanks,

-Ezmar

 

[mdmfromdaridge]

1) Movement. This is first priority. Go to all the neutral stages and spend AT LEAST 30 minutes a day just practicing your dash dance, wavedash, platform wavelandings, blah blah. Check the threads for movement tech. But practice movement first!

2) Combo game. After movement I prefer to work on combo game next. Practice on CPU's, and eventually on 20XX cpu's and get used to chaining your attacks together.

3) Neutral game. Practice your autocancelled fairs, shffled aerials, needle game, grab game. get used to controlling your spacing at all times. Just becuase youre moving fast by spamming dash dance and wave dash does not mean youre moving effectively. Watch tons of videos of Plup/M2K/KirbyKaze/Shroomed to see how they adjust their spacing without just dashing around the whole time. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT.

4) Ledge game. Practice wavedashing onto ledge, wave landed onto stage. Drop off back airs, wall jumps, ledge stalls, needle turn around ledge grabs. Get SUPER comfortable working on the ledge so you don't SD.

5) Practice specific tech, keep doing research, and see how other people become effective. Practice time needs to be DELIBERATE, AND SPECIFIC. It's not good enough to just run around and bat the cpu every so often. You need to have a plan. Before you sit down decide what youre weakest point is and work on that specifically. Do your research and find out what you could incorporate to get better.


If you learn to master these options (and there are many more) then when you start playing against real players it will just be a matter of adjusting to mind games and start reading.

Which brings me to my final point. (I've been linking this everywhere).
http://sonichurricane.com/?page_id=1702

This guide is completely about neutral game, or as the street fighter community calls it, footsies. I know that it is about a different game, but that guide is about CORE CONCEPTS and the way you should think about playing people. Don't let scrubby players lead you to believe neutral game just means "how do i hit them" or "camp until they mess up". It's all about learning their options, baiting them out and punishing. Move back when they expect you to move forward. Attack when they expect defense. Place yourself ambiguously to cover many options instead of going full ham on just one.

Good luck man! Get some buddies to play with you and I hope you find some success!