Chapter 8
Combos
Combos are among the most difficult to explain, and among the hardest
to perfect. Even the best players spend countless hours trying the best
moves for any given situation. Unlike games such as Street Fighter and
Mortal Kombat, there's more than just learning a combo or two.
Environment, items, skill levels and even character personalities
change a battle.
Mind you, there's no combo meter or statistic
on combos. A combo is a loose term for successive hits that keep a
player hurting without losing control of the enemy. It's quite easy to
lose control of any player to an evasive move, so the real trick is to
keep the attacks hurting as fast as possible.
The first attack
is the most important one: the piercing attack. This attack must hit
the enemy on contact, preferably on the ground. Even for the most
complicated aerial attacks, good combos always begin on the ground.
The
most common piercing attack occurs while running towards an enemy and
initiating a regular attack. Faster characters will be at a great
advantage for this move, but any character can start a combination by
running into the player. For slower characters, these are best done
while the enemy is looking the other way.
Heavyhitter characters
like Bowser and King Dedede might not be fast enough to start a
combination, but players can manage this piercing attack by evading the
enemy character. That's right: use your evasion to dodge towards the
character, not away. Get as close as possible to ensure the combo keeps
going. The farther away you are from your opponent, the less likely the
combo will continue. Evasion to the other side can surprise your enemy
from behind and open room for some massive damage.
Some
characters such as Meta Knight unleash a fury of hits by rapidly
pressing the attack button. This will be the bulk of your combos, so
stay close to your opponent while dishing out the attacks.
There
are two options here: you can either turn your combo into an aerial
attack, or you can use a special move. The aerial attack can be done by
holding the attack button while holding up on the analog stick, then
releasing for a slightly-to-fully charged attack, depending on how
quickly you want to move. More time will result in a more powerful
attack. A special attack, on the other hand, could knock off more
damage, but the combo will end right there.
An aerial follow-up
attack can be performed while pressing the attack button and up button
in the air. Depending on your environment, you can also hit the enemy
to the left and right sides of the screen. If the enemy's percentage
meter is low, don't aim for the side of the screen just yet. Wait until
it seems possible to score a point.
Some players follow this
aerial follow-up attack with their 'up special' attack. This adds a
great deal of impact to the attack, causing enemies to fly up even
higher than before. The most ideal place to kill a character is
upwards, because most haven't learned good evasion skills and kill
themselves by double jumping at the top of the screen. If the
characters are on their way down, try to hit them with another up
attack, or hit them in a direction that other players can have fun
continuing the combo.
If you don't like aerials, try a
combination on the ground with a projectile finisher. Samus can charge
up her beam to full blast and use that as a finisher, which works
wonders after enough previous attacks.
A good player knows not
only how to perform combos, but avoid them. Whenever you're in the
middle of a combo frenzy, hold the block button down and try evading in
any possible way. The best method of avoiding an attack is dodging away
from the player, not behind them.
For example, let's say that
Link is attacking you with a frenzy of attacks. Chances are, Link will
follow this with his spinning blade attack. Because the attack has such
a long range, dodging behind him will have you caught in his attack. He
can follow that by grabbing you with the hookshot, tossing you into the
air with up and attack. and work out an aerial on you. Not so fun for
you, but great for him. This could all be avoided by moving as far away
from the opponent as possible.
Granted, it's possible that Link
will follow up with his boomerang or arrow. This is why evading twice
is ideal, if not finding the block and down evasion to be useful for
the little that it is. Does double evasion work every time? No,
depending on how well the opponent times the attack against you.
By
having a 2-player CPU versus CPU match set on 20 minutes, you can watch
how the game will strategize attacks against you. The same should be
done with people, as most players only have two or three combos they
reuse over and over. There's a trick to every attack, so study them
carefully. Players can lose themselves to being angry, so stand back
and wait.
This leads us to our final lesson: Practice makes perfect. Tune in tomorrow for the conclusion to the Smash Trainer series!
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