What makes Armada's Peach great
The reason I'm making this post is that commentators and players alike seem to have a much better understanding of players like PPMD, Mango, Leffen, but when Armada wins neutral or gets a combo, people seem absolutely clueless as to how he came out on top.
Especially now that Armada has left the scene, I think it's important that newer players/ whoever else understand the level of depth and precision this game contains.
Although Armada's greatness comes from his mastery of every part of the game, the main things I will be talking about are his precise use of spacing and timing, and using certain states in animations, or positions relative to stage and/or the opponent to win neutral exchanges, or get crazy frame precise combos.
I'll be specifically talking about Armada's Peach, but the concepts can be applied to any character.
Many things Armada does are special to Armada, because Peach excels at things like precise spacings more than other characters. Given her slow air and ground speed, finding the exact places where you can get hit or not get hit are vital for regaining stage control, recovering, and turning Peach from some dainty queen into an Amazonian Giantess who throws you around the living room.
What makes Armada's neutral different from other players, is his exact knowledge of spacings and timings. Not only for moves and animations, but float heights that are right above the highest point that the other character can hit at a given moment.
Here's an example of Armada using said float height to make Marth swing. (This whole analysis is great if you're up for it, Armada always drops bombs.)
You can do this not only with float heights, but moves like dash attack as well.
via Gfycat
Notice that where peach ends her dash attack is pixels away from the shine hitbox. In addition, how Peach leans forward at the very end of her dash attack, and then leans back by the time fox is actionable.
Here's another example of Armada using animations to bait people into swinging.
via Gfycat
Peach also pulls back at the end of her jab, and gets very small during the early frames of her downtilt. He baits with a jab, and by the time sheik can grab peach, she is too small and far away.
This is one of Armada's most classic tricks. Armada has done this versus every falco player in existence and it always works.
Another amazing bait:
This one is by far my favorite. Seeing how armada jumps ONLY to make Swedish throw out another bair, then punish it perfectly is just so amazing to watch.
Armada jabbing Drephen's dash attack to get a downsmash.
via Gfycat
Another example of armada using extreme game knowledge and timing reads to win a situation.
I could really add every Armada combo here but I'll keep it short.
There's a reason that basically no one has every gotten this combo before. Pause the video when Armada hits the nair, and you'll see he is right inside of falco. A few more pixels to the right and it would've been a reverse nair.
If you've ever seen Armada's Fox platform techchase, you know it's almost impossible to tell with which side of the upair he'll hit you, and makes it that much harder to DI correctly.
Armada finds a way to make them jump with respawn invincibility, then uses Peach's double jump/ float to reposition her outside of her opponents aerial range. Then he uses the data on how they responded to his evasion to figure out how to evade respawn invincibility on your next stock.
"The Armada" is definitely floating at exactly the right height, drifting in slowly, then drifting away as they come in before dropping from float, and either getting back to the ground or whiff punishing their aerial. You can do the same thing with Parasol but your intent is more to get back on the ground before the other player so you can shield their aerial.
-eatthischair
also: If you find the clip where Armada does a full waveland on a dreamland side platform and uses the waveland velocity to pull an edge-cancelled turnip please lmk so I can add it here
Especially now that Armada has left the scene, I think it's important that newer players/ whoever else understand the level of depth and precision this game contains.
Although Armada's greatness comes from his mastery of every part of the game, the main things I will be talking about are his precise use of spacing and timing, and using certain states in animations, or positions relative to stage and/or the opponent to win neutral exchanges, or get crazy frame precise combos.
I'll be specifically talking about Armada's Peach, but the concepts can be applied to any character.
Armada's Playstyle in Respect to Peach's Strengths and Weaknesses.
Many things Armada does are special to Armada, because Peach excels at things like precise spacings more than other characters. Given her slow air and ground speed, finding the exact places where you can get hit or not get hit are vital for regaining stage control, recovering, and turning Peach from some dainty queen into an Amazonian Giantess who throws you around the living room.
Armada's Precision in Neutral
What makes Armada's neutral different from other players, is his exact knowledge of spacings and timings. Not only for moves and animations, but float heights that are right above the highest point that the other character can hit at a given moment.
Here's an example of Armada using said float height to make Marth swing. (This whole analysis is great if you're up for it, Armada always drops bombs.)
You can do this not only with float heights, but moves like dash attack as well.
Notice that where peach ends her dash attack is pixels away from the shine hitbox. In addition, how Peach leans forward at the very end of her dash attack, and then leans back by the time fox is actionable.
Here's another example of Armada using animations to bait people into swinging.
Peach also pulls back at the end of her jab, and gets very small during the early frames of her downtilt. He baits with a jab, and by the time sheik can grab peach, she is too small and far away.
Another amazing bait:
This one is by far my favorite. Seeing how armada jumps ONLY to make Swedish throw out another bair, then punish it perfectly is just so amazing to watch.
Armada jabbing Drephen's dash attack to get a downsmash.
Another example of armada using extreme game knowledge and timing reads to win a situation.
Armada's Precision in Combos
I could really add every Armada combo here but I'll keep it short.
There's a reason that basically no one has every gotten this combo before. Pause the video when Armada hits the nair, and you'll see he is right inside of falco. A few more pixels to the right and it would've been a reverse nair.
If you've ever seen Armada's Fox platform techchase, you know it's almost impossible to tell with which side of the upair he'll hit you, and makes it that much harder to DI correctly.
Dealing with Respawn Invincibility
Recovering
Armada's Use of Psychology
As everyone knows, a big draw of smash is your ability to express yourself through your play style. Mango is the same in person as he is in game, PPMD is the same person, same with M2k.
But when you play Armada? He's a sociopath in game and an extremely respectable community figure in person, and I think this added to his dominance a lot. He doesn't care about his ego or how other people see him, only about absolutely crushing you when he's playing, and that allows him to do things other people would restrict themselves from doing for the sake of self expression.
That's it!
There are a lot of things I didn't cover, but I wanted to keep it short.
I hope you have a better understanding of the precision in Armada's playstyle, and/or found something neat you can apply to your own game/ life
-eatthischair
also: If you find the clip where Armada does a full waveland on a dreamland side platform and uses the waveland velocity to pull an edge-cancelled turnip please lmk so I can add it here
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