School of Smash: Dash, Dashdancing and Wavedash

Learning how to move your character is one of the first things you learned in Smash. Tilting the control stick left or right will make your character walk left or right respectively. Tapping your control stick fast left or right will make your character dash, which is faster than walking. This is all basic information and you can get this information if you watch the tutorial. Beyond walking and dashing, there are more movement options that could give you a competitive edge over your opponent.

Dashdancing doesn't look to hard to do, you dash one way, then you dash the other way. However, it is not as easy as it seems. Every character has a "dash" state, and a "run" state. When you first tap the control stick one way, you are in the dash state. Depending on your character, after 7-18 frames (remember, 60 frames = 1 second), your character is in the run state. If you tilt the control stick the control stick the other the way, you will do a turn-around animation, which can last up to 51 frames. If you tilt the control stick the other way during the dash state, you will be in the dash state, going the other way, while resetting the frame count (so you have another 7-18 to tilt the control stick back). Dashdancing is mostly used for mindgames. You can approach the character then backing out if they try to attack you, then punish them accordingly. Since you can dash-dance in one spot, it is extremely vital for tech chases (another time in the School of Smash).

Wavedash is the bread and butter of competitive Smash. Wavedashing is a technique that was initially discovered by Masahiro Sakurai, the creator of Smash himself. Wavedashing is when you jump (X or Y button, or up on the control stick) and then you immediately air-dodge (L, R, or Z button) to the ground at a sharp angle. Wavedashing is really useful for many different reasons. For certain characters, wavedashing is faster than dashing, thus the character becomes faster, making it do things it cannot do with dashing.

Wavedashing is used mainly for offensive options. You can perform ground attacks while wavedashing. This includes smashes, standing grabs, and jabs, and "tilt-attacks", compared to the offensive options of dashing, which only includes running grabs (very unsafe), and dash attacks (also an unsafe option). You can also shield and side step (shield + down on the control stick), while if you are dashing, you can only roll (an unsafe option sometimes).

Wavedashing is also useful as a defensive option. When an enemy is charging at you and launches an attack, you can wavedash backwards. This option is much better than running away since when you turn around, you will do a turn-around animation, assuming you are in the run state (if you are in the dash state, you will most likely get hit), thus your opponent will get another chance to attack you. Wavedashing backwards will give your character a chance to retaliate with an attack, since most character's wavedash lengths are long/short enough to hit a powerful forward smash if the opponent approaches.

A property about the ledge in Melee is that if one person is holding the ledge, no one else can. When someone is trying to recover by grabbing the ledge, you can wavedash backwards to the ledge killing them. (Anytime you fall off the stage while wavedashing, you will always grab the ledge).

School of Smash is a series that talks about advanced techniques in Melee. This may or may not be continued. Please leave a comment if you want this series to continue.