Small correction. An L-cancel doesnt involve a wavedash at all. It wasnt just known about, it was intentional. Its written into the code that pressing a shoulder button at all within a specific timing window before landing with an attack will speed up its endlag animation. You dont even need to fully press the shoulder button in until when it clicks. If it was pressed enough for a light shield, it was pressed enough for an L-cancel. Solid video though!
Unfortunately, the bit about L-Cancelling coming from wavedashing isn’t the case. L-cancelling is a deliberate mechanic to make shielding after an aerial more intuitive (according to sakurai). L-cancelling happens when you press the shield button 1-7 frames before landing AND while performing an aerial. It cuts the landing animation in half as a result, and can be even faster than a wave dash/land if the animation was already short enough. Although the idea was for it to make landing with aerials safer and easier with shielding, ppl mainly used it to push their offense further, like you’ve said in the vid.
Even with the full sentence the technique isnt correctly explained. L-Cancels have nothing to do with air dodges. Which is best demonstrated by the fact that you can L-Cancel with Z
there's more than one reason to shield drop. it's more consistent than raw platform dropping, it makes you fall faster, and it also allows you to counter hit your opponent significantly easier as you don't have to go through the animation that happens when you release your shield. it's a very good option.
of course there are characters that have good options directly out of shield like Up-B, butt for the characters that don't have good options out of shield, shield dropping is a really useful tactic.
People in the comments already corrected you on L-Canceling, however I would like to add more details on the "faster grab with jump". What's happening is that dash grabs have longer endlag compared to normal grabs. If you jump you go into your character specific prejump (or jumpsquat) frames. You are still considered grounded and these frames can be canceled into grab. So you dash cancel into jump then cancel prejump into grab This is a Jump Cancel Grab or a JC Grab
7:36 The reason shield dropping is so beneficial is because normally, dropping your shield takes time. Time, of course, comes at quite the premium when your opponent is breathing down your neck. There are only 3 ways to mitigate the downtime of dropping shield: 1: Jump 2: Grab 3: Shield drop. Your opponent will try to guess what you will be doing, and having a 3rd option meaningfully improves your defensive play.
Shield dropping is a fast and consistent (depending on some controller stuff but UCF helps with that) way to get down from a platform. Getting good at shield dropping opens up many avenues for using the platforms to your advantage
Nobody's talked about it yet, so I'll do my best to explain why shield dropping matters. In pretty much all smash titles you're given the option to jump out of shield but only after shield stun ends (every move does a certain amount of shield stun when you hit a shield) BUT you must also go through the frames of start-up that your jump has. Shield dropping kind of works like a budget parrying mechanic (watch aMSa, the Yoshi player to see great examples of why shield dropping matters and look out for shield drop -> up-air). Shield dropping gives you an immediate attack, hard reversal option, when someone attacks your shield while you're on platforms.
What you say about L-cancelling being air dodging into the ground isn't exactly true. L-cancelling works with a soft (analog) trigger presses (or Z like Sakurai wrote), and it halfs the length of all landing animations, it doesn't replace the landing animations with an air dodge. Air dodges require full (digital) trigger presses. So the inputs to perform the two techniques aren't even really the same.
2:21 although melee’s survival is impressive, this is not entirely true, and melee is not the only game to accomplish this feat. I say it’s not entirely true because of things like slippi, ucf, frozen stadium, and ofcourse notches and boxes
Sheild dropping is helpful because if you are in sheild you need to release sheild and then drop from the platform. If you press down while in sheild you spot dodge. When you sheild drop you drop from plat while in sheild meaning you didnt have to release sheild and thats like 12 frames or something and you can attack immediately so if someone hits your sheild while on plat they get punished when you wouldnt be able to punish that without it. Look at ultimate that has no sheild drop and when you sre getting pressured on a platform you have little counter play as opposed to melee where tou can punish yhst
Small tidbit, Melee does have many, albeit small, opportunities to buffer inputs. Ranging from small with dash being 2 frames out of lag, to 4 frames for tap jump, to much larger for jumping out of hitstun and teching hard hits, as well as indefininite buffers like select options out of shield and walking out of lag
I thought this video had 302,000 views when I watched it. I complexly believed that because its quality. Until I realized it was 302. Now I'm just confused why you're not more popular
I'm glad I subscribed to this underrated channel. It's always nice to have a channel being ahead of the curve, creating niche videos every now and then. While I'm biased with this take, I think Brawlhalla is quite similar to the mechanics of Melee with brining in new ideas (sad to see only a 4 second clip of D tier Brawlhalla gameplay). Another point to mention is the longevity of Melee is also its biggest burden. Keeping a game updated allows for balance changes or bug fixes, which in the case of Melee might come in handy. At the same time, however, it allows the developers to be a bit more lazy when in the early stages of developement. Not to mention Nintendo's shocking cynicism against this game.
6:15 how could you NOT know that? You explained L-cancelling wrong. You are in endlag so you cannot air dodge downwards. It is hard coded that if L is pressed in a certain time period before hitting the ground while in lag you halve the lag. It's not that the airdodge downwards brings you to the ground faster, you literally cannot airdodge downwards while in lag of an aerial, so of course L-cancelling was put in the game on purpose and Sakurai knew about it. It's different than air dodging, it has actually nothing to do with airdodging at all. It may be a nitpick but it's obvious to those who know some about melee tech. Loving the video so far btw.
64 smash's L cancelling is 100% end lag reduction.. Sakurai consciously decided to nerf it to 50% in melee. it was definitely meant to be there... And I believe you are incorrect that it's an air dodge that allows the L- cancelling; air dodging was not in SSB1 but you could still L-cancel(known as Z-cancelling primarily for that game, but it's the same thing just even more powerful in SSB1)
I honestly believe fully and truly, that Melee was a byproduct of them not only trying to surpass 64, but a result of Iwata jumping on the games dev team late into its development to polish it. I feel like Iwata being the guy he was back then probably saw some mechanics, sought to improve them, and probably spent hours polishing how the game worked alongside a small team. Thats my crazy theory anyways. Because Sakurai's mindset back then and now, being what it was, doesn't mesh well with what Melee is. It's definitely the odd one out. Even 64 is vastly different, and I'd actually go so far as to say 64 competitive being what it is was the beautiful mistake. that hitstun definitely was meant to make the game easier. Dont get it twisted before some 64 defender jumps on me, not hatin. just saying no way that hitstun was intended to make it competitive. Melee if anything was probably meant to be a nerf that backfired.
I'd say that you're being a bit ungenerous to Doctor Mario, Luigi, the Links, and Ganon, they're definitely not amazing characters, but they have been able to get wins on noteworthy players in the past and even if it's impossible for solo mains of them to win majors, they have potential as secondary characters, so I'd consider them far from "unusable" in competitive play. Like Akklo is a Fox main who's in the top 20 Melee players in the world and he has a pocket Link that he uses against Marth mains and has been able to get wins on some of the best Marth mains in the world using him.
Great video, always appreciate when someone gets into the real nitty-gritty of what makes melee different. Also please stop demonizing Leffen the guy gets death threats for stuff like that. Sure he's a heel, but no need to call him other names when its uncalled for at this point.
16:18 you didnt specify who won, so had to go find the video to find out for myself falling for the nefarious trap of supporting other youtubers great vid
yay another melee video essay regurgitating the same information we’ve been hearing for the past 5 years, my favorite. melee is like jazz bro!!!11!!11 so epic!
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Small correction. An L-cancel doesnt involve a wavedash at all. It wasnt just known about, it was intentional. Its written into the code that pressing a shoulder button at all within a specific timing window before landing with an attack will speed up its endlag animation. You dont even need to fully press the shoulder button in until when it clicks. If it was pressed enough for a light shield, it was pressed enough for an L-cancel. Solid video though!
Unfortunately, the bit about L-Cancelling coming from wavedashing isn’t the case. L-cancelling is a deliberate mechanic to make shielding after an aerial more intuitive (according to sakurai). L-cancelling happens when you press the shield button 1-7 frames before landing AND while performing an aerial. It cuts the landing animation in half as a result, and can be even faster than a wave dash/land if the animation was already short enough. Although the idea was for it to make landing with aerials safer and easier with shielding, ppl mainly used it to push their offense further, like you’ve said in the vid.
gg chat should’ve let u finish your sentence u already said half of that
@@ExplodingImplosion Lol all good, I am no expert so if there's anything I said that isn't accurate definitely let me know
Even with the full sentence the technique isnt correctly explained. L-Cancels have nothing to do with air dodges. Which is best demonstrated by the fact that you can L-Cancel with Z
there's more than one reason to shield drop. it's more consistent than raw platform dropping, it makes you fall faster, and it also allows you to counter hit your opponent significantly easier as you don't have to go through the animation that happens when you release your shield. it's a very good option.
of course there are characters that have good options directly out of shield like Up-B, butt for the characters that don't have good options out of shield, shield dropping is a really useful tactic.
People in the comments already corrected you on L-Canceling, however I would like to add more details on the "faster grab with jump". What's happening is that dash grabs have longer endlag compared to normal grabs. If you jump you go into your character specific prejump (or jumpsquat) frames. You are still considered grounded and these frames can be canceled into grab. So you dash cancel into jump then cancel prejump into grab
This is a Jump Cancel Grab or a JC Grab
7:36 The reason shield dropping is so beneficial is because normally, dropping your shield takes time. Time, of course, comes at quite the premium when your opponent is breathing down your neck.
There are only 3 ways to mitigate the downtime of dropping shield:
1: Jump
2: Grab
3: Shield drop.
Your opponent will try to guess what you will be doing, and having a 3rd option meaningfully improves your defensive play.
Shield dropping is a fast and consistent (depending on some controller stuff but UCF helps with that) way to get down from a platform. Getting good at shield dropping opens up many avenues for using the platforms to your advantage
Nobody's talked about it yet, so I'll do my best to explain why shield dropping matters. In pretty much all smash titles you're given the option to jump out of shield but only after shield stun ends (every move does a certain amount of shield stun when you hit a shield) BUT you must also go through the frames of start-up that your jump has. Shield dropping kind of works like a budget parrying mechanic (watch aMSa, the Yoshi player to see great examples of why shield dropping matters and look out for shield drop -> up-air). Shield dropping gives you an immediate attack, hard reversal option, when someone attacks your shield while you're on platforms.
That title and thumbnail scared me i thought you were gonna be hating on melee LMAO. Great video
What you say about L-cancelling being air dodging into the ground isn't exactly true. L-cancelling works with a soft (analog) trigger presses (or Z like Sakurai wrote), and it halfs the length of all landing animations, it doesn't replace the landing animations with an air dodge. Air dodges require full (digital) trigger presses. So the inputs to perform the two techniques aren't even really the same.
@@Masaru_kun this would explain why I feel like my L cancels aren’t working half the time, thanks for the clarification:)
@@Command_B no problem! awesome video btw! melee's mechanics are deep indeed
2:21 although melee’s survival is impressive, this is not entirely true, and melee is not the only game to accomplish this feat. I say it’s not entirely true because of things like slippi, ucf, frozen stadium, and ofcourse notches and boxes
Sheild dropping is helpful because if you are in sheild you need to release sheild and then drop from the platform. If you press down while in sheild you spot dodge. When you sheild drop you drop from plat while in sheild meaning you didnt have to release sheild and thats like 12 frames or something and you can attack immediately so if someone hits your sheild while on plat they get punished when you wouldnt be able to punish that without it. Look at ultimate that has no sheild drop and when you sre getting pressured on a platform you have little counter play as opposed to melee where tou can punish yhst
11:03 also not true, defensive playstyle absolutely exist in melee and in one era even somewhat dominated melee
so excited for rivals 2! love the devs mentality for the game!
Small tidbit, Melee does have many, albeit small, opportunities to buffer inputs. Ranging from small with dash being 2 frames out of lag, to 4 frames for tap jump, to much larger for jumping out of hitstun and teching hard hits, as well as indefininite buffers like select options out of shield and walking out of lag
@@casualcommenter9730 that’s interesting, there have been times while playing I’ve noticed things being buffered but thought that was in my head.
I thought this video had 302,000 views when I watched it. I complexly believed that because its quality. Until I realized it was 302. Now I'm just confused why you're not more popular
Much appreciated :)
I do not think that any of the smash games were made for competitive play. I don’t think even melee was made a competitive game.
forgot i subbed but now i know why
Goated video 🥂
Glad you enjoyed :D
I'm glad I subscribed to this underrated channel. It's always nice to have a channel being ahead of the curve, creating niche videos every now and then.
While I'm biased with this take, I think Brawlhalla is quite similar to the mechanics of Melee with brining in new ideas (sad to see only a 4 second clip of D tier Brawlhalla gameplay).
Another point to mention is the longevity of Melee is also its biggest burden. Keeping a game updated allows for balance changes or bug fixes, which in the case of Melee might come in handy. At the same time, however, it allows the developers to be a bit more lazy when in the early stages of developement. Not to mention Nintendo's shocking cynicism against this game.
6:15 how could you NOT know that? You explained L-cancelling wrong. You are in endlag so you cannot air dodge downwards. It is hard coded that if L is pressed in a certain time period before hitting the ground while in lag you halve the lag. It's not that the airdodge downwards brings you to the ground faster, you literally cannot airdodge downwards while in lag of an aerial, so of course L-cancelling was put in the game on purpose and Sakurai knew about it. It's different than air dodging, it has actually nothing to do with airdodging at all. It may be a nitpick but it's obvious to those who know some about melee tech. Loving the video so far btw.
lmao how did i learn about this microwave story twice in one day??
where was the other place lol
@@Command_B fairly sure it was an Ahoy video
Also Walt has called several sets “the greatest of all time”
64 smash's L cancelling is 100% end lag reduction.. Sakurai consciously decided to nerf it to 50% in melee. it was definitely meant to be there... And I believe you are incorrect that it's an air dodge that allows the L- cancelling; air dodging was not in SSB1 but you could still L-cancel(known as Z-cancelling primarily for that game, but it's the same thing just even more powerful in SSB1)
Subbed immediately. Good content mang
@@anthonygillette glad you enjoyed!
I honestly believe fully and truly, that Melee was a byproduct of them not only trying to surpass 64, but a result of Iwata jumping on the games dev team late into its development to polish it. I feel like Iwata being the guy he was back then probably saw some mechanics, sought to improve them, and probably spent hours polishing how the game worked alongside a small team. Thats my crazy theory anyways. Because Sakurai's mindset back then and now, being what it was, doesn't mesh well with what Melee is. It's definitely the odd one out. Even 64 is vastly different, and I'd actually go so far as to say 64 competitive being what it is was the beautiful mistake. that hitstun definitely was meant to make the game easier. Dont get it twisted before some 64 defender jumps on me, not hatin. just saying no way that hitstun was intended to make it competitive. Melee if anything was probably meant to be a nerf that backfired.
A lot of the best things in life are accidents and unintentional. Melee is definitely one of them. ;)
I'd say that you're being a bit ungenerous to Doctor Mario, Luigi, the Links, and Ganon, they're definitely not amazing characters, but they have been able to get wins on noteworthy players in the past and even if it's impossible for solo mains of them to win majors, they have potential as secondary characters, so I'd consider them far from "unusable" in competitive play. Like Akklo is a Fox main who's in the top 20 Melee players in the world and he has a pocket Link that he uses against Marth mains and has been able to get wins on some of the best Marth mains in the world using him.
Space animals is better, because Samus is a Spacie too.... but not an animal.
Leffen is not “the heel of the Melee community” dude. He’s just an evil person IRL. Right??
W video
Hell yeah dude
Great video, always appreciate when someone gets into the real nitty-gritty of what makes melee different. Also please stop demonizing Leffen the guy gets death threats for stuff like that. Sure he's a heel, but no need to call him other names when its uncalled for at this point.
15:50 also wrong again, watch some summoning salt videos, there are absolutely games with history as rich as melee
Good shit my dude
WoW, FPS, Board games.... I mean, just re-write the script bro.
16:18 you didnt specify who won, so had to go find the video to find out for myself
falling for the nefarious trap of supporting other youtubers
great vid
yay another melee video essay regurgitating the same information we’ve been hearing for the past 5 years, my favorite. melee is like jazz bro!!!11!!11 so epic!