Not to be Taken Anally, a Doc Discussion

Not too many players are seen out there blipping out pills and caping their way to victory. I'm no master myself, but I know enough about our good Doctor to aid in this discussion.

Simply stated the pills are what make or break Doc. Not only are they a precious projectile, they aid in approach and defense in his game. He has a quick wavedash that is perfect for his height and plenty of KO moves. His aerial game is good and his smashes have the power needed. He has quick and slow moves, but also short-reached and long stretching moves, such as his forward tilt.

I'll start with explaining recovery, then any questions can be filtered in.

Doc's recovery is said to be one of the worst in the game. If hit out too far it is. But his verticle recovery isn't that bad. First thing to do is cape. This not only stop your from moving backwards, it helps you move up and forward slightly. Then use a second jump. It is important to keep your second jump until after the cape in certain situations where you might be hit out again. If you have hands that can handle it, hitting b rapidly during his tornado while tilting in a direction can aid in your horizontal recovery very slightly. Finally his Up + B. This move hits a bit above his fist, making it an awsome move is someone is edgehogging or just close to the edge. His grab-reach for the edge is very good. Try to use his move so you grab onto the edge instead of over-shooting it, as the lag after it is abusable.

Caping more than once is rarely a good idea. It does send you a TINY bit forward but at the cost of a good bit of height. Use it when you are at stage level and someone fires a projectile at you. This can give you the proper time to recover while they deal with the problem. It is a very situational move.

Any comments and questions are appreciated. ;o

http://img14.exs.cx/img14/4156/MikeB_Master_Of_The_Obvious.jpg

Then again, I suppose it may not be obvious here...

Nope, especially since alot of 'good moves' here are just the B moves or jabs... x.x So I thought why not try and help with a topic I can handle from basics down to pretty competitive levels..

And I started with something simple. ;o

Also, the cape is really good for edgeguarding. Many recoveries can be caped (the most notable of which are Fox's and Falco's). In fact, all recoveries except those of Link, YL, Samus, Sheik, Zelda, Mewtwo, Bowser, DK, Pikachu, and Pichu can be caped. (although some don't do as much, like caping Peach or Luigi's recovery)

I'm pretty sure Pika/Pichu's can be caped effectively during the second movement. Other ones, like caping DK or Bowser's can lead to them missing the sweetspot or setting up for a better counter. Samus' or Link's grapple/hookshot can be disrupted with a cape. Using the cape on Falco/Foxes forward b moves just pop them up into the air, and they still get a chance to do up + b. The cape isn't his only edgeguarding tool though.

Pills can pop low fastfallers, but mainly his back air can be devistating to anyone recovering. Grab the ledge and wait for them to approach and jump off into a back air. You can hit them 2-3 times and still recover if you get used to it. Keep hanging onto that ledge and back airing and you can get some KOs like that.

you can pretty much cape anyone who can't grab the stage backwards or have vulnerable recoveries(fox flaco etc.)

Yup, but caping some recoveries can be difficult to do properly. Back air is a better alternative against alot of characters. Also if they overshoot the ledge because you are edge-hogging (say Pika) and you know you can't get that back air in, try to grab them as they land and go for a back throw. Of course this should be a gimme, but I'll say it anyways.

So, what exactly is the pill rush? I know Pills can be L-canceled, which makes them one of the best projectiles in the game, but I don't know what exactly that means. I try two L cancel a pill into another Pill, but it doesn't work.

Or, am I just completely wrong?

Pills can't be L-cancelled. No B button move can be L-cancelled. Pill rushing is generally running into a shorthop, pill, fastfall then immediately follow up with a move.

Pills are good because of their bounce, damage, stun, and especially because of their priority. They can be spammed easily and you shooting them in the air reduces lag. Some consider the best way to spam pills is the double pill jump, which is jump pill jump pill fastfall. You can fastfall into a wavedash or such. The great thing about pills is even if they don't get past most moves, they stop them. Tobias hates this because a pill will stop Lui's tornado dead in it's tracks.

Their bounce is all relative to your distance from the ground, so good Doc players can 'aim' pills. So on and so on.

Yea seriously. When you break priority, you're taking away all that Luigi has. It's a real wrench trying to approach.

Wow, sounds cool. Makes me invision dr. mario as shin akuma

lp, lp, right, lk, hp

Shungokusatsu!

sorry, its just I find it funny that all the mario brothers are shotoclones.

Er, what? o.0;

Street fighter stuff, nevermind.

Mario's B moves from ssb were almost directly taken from street fighter. Mario was ryu(hadouken=fireball, hurricane kick=hurricane punc, shuryuken=jump punch) and luigi was ken(hadouken=fireball, hurricane kick=hurricane punc, shuryuken=jump punch), and no, not the all powerful marth. The b-moves don't really matter as much as the a moves, I just find it funny that almost every fighting game has a clone of ryu.

omg shin akuma=ultimate spammage with double aerial hakokens and such... >_>

back to smash bros. now

Er, most of Mario's B moves already existed in other games. The fireball and jump punch was around before Ryu existed and the tornado was from Super Mario 64...

pillrushing isnt always a short hop pill, actually, I dont short hop pill very often (or I used to, I dropped doc for mario).

Pill rushing, is generall best doen with a rising pill, then a midair jump to another pill. Short hop pills can be useful sometimes, and its best to kind of mix it up.

But pills do no make or break Doc, generally, its up to you to decide whether or not you want to work pills into your game.

But totally disregarding pills is stupid, you should use them at least some of the time, but doc has other things...

The aerial neutral has decent priority, and is a nice approach to most characters, if doen correctly, it can lead to many things at low percents. A grab, up tilt, another shffl... whatever. Aerial up a is another pretty good attack, but doesnt have the usefullness that mario's has. It can help with combo's, yes, but not extensively. One thing to remember is that Doc's up tilt does not lauch up unless you got the very top of his fist in the attack, which is why if you want to combo with it, you should d throw to up tilt first. Otherwise, it can be used to outprioritize oncoming attacks, as it has really good priority.

Learn how to use f smash. It may be inferior to the fist, but it is godly good still. d throw to f smash on fast fallers at 90% is generally a death, an isanely easy death at that.

As for the fist (aerial forward a)... Alot of things can lead into a fist. neutral aerial, up aerial, up tilt, d/u throw... Anything that launches up, or not far from doc can end in a fist.

Edge guarding. mainly, you wanna camp out on the edge and wait for the right moments to aerial back a, as its pretty strong and sends them pretty much straight horizontally. Unless you're playing someone like fox, falco, CF, or g-dorf... then you want to cape. Cape can get you some insanely low percent kills...

Sidenote: dont try to play Doc like a mario. That was eventually my downfall of doc. I tried to hard to be like brown mario, when quite simply doc cannot handle the some things as mario, one main thing being the up tilt.

thats all for now... someone wanna link to my doc faq?

I can't quite remember...but if you sh pill then full jump pill. they will hit at the same time? if so...


That annoys the hell out of my friends...not that I ever play doc. >_>

The lag on a shorthop pill doesn't give you time to jump again, you will hit the ground...

And XiF, a few things...

-Generally, as said before, pill rushing is shorthopping a pill into another move because its the quickest way to follow up on a pill. Its seen frequently to sex kick after this pill because if they somehow powershield it or reflect it you eat right through the pill into them.

-Pills make or break Doc as a character. He would NOT be viewed as good if he had say, Lui's fireball. In terms of how you actually play him they don't have to, no.

-Up tilt always launches up, just at the angle of hit, THIS is why its not as useful. It also is one of the key reasons Doc's uair isn't seen quite as much. I know this is what you probably meant, I'm just clearing it up. I'm fond of stringing bairs myself.

-I agree about the fsmash, but it can kill at ALOT lower than 90%. It is extremely powerful from anywhere it hits and it comes out fast. All it takes is one screw up to get it in. The main thing is learning the range on it.

-One of the most useful ways to use fair is to rotate the stick in a quarter-circle fashion so you fast fall into them. It should be obvious to fast fall this, but a quarter-circle movement makes you start fastfalling as soon as possible. Just remember to L-cancel. It does have lag on it and you should NOT attempt it over an edge without being at least half a jump high without risking suicide.

Yeah, you seem better suited to Mario XiF. I dunno why, you just do.

whether you short hop or not doesnt matter, because you still have the same lag, Its generally better to stay in the air because you can still drift. Short hop pills are only really good if you want to change your pill trajectory.

As for up tilt... if you hit with the side, it'll send far more horizontally than vertically, and generally makes follow ups impossible.

And as for the fist... its up to you how you want to shffl it <_< quarter circle works for you, and for me...

I dont even pay attention really, I just do it.

Generally most people have an easier time with the quartercircle because they don't have to go back to nuetral position. Instead of making a 90 degree angle you are sliding along the edge in an arc. You probably do this and not realize it.

Uptilt, yeah thats what I meant by angle of hit...

Shorthopped pills are good not only for trajectory, but because you can approach under the pill you just shot.