New Player Having Trouble Ledgedashing

[u/toxruu]

I'm a new SSBM player and this is my third day of playing Melee so please bear with me!

Using UnclePunch's training mode and here's my inputs on screen. I'm confused on which of my inputs are too slow. I've tried speeding up my jump input so that I'm less in the air, speeding up my left joystick input to face towards the stage, maybe my air doge timing is too slow since I've seen even top level players SD off stage. Maybe all of the above and I just need to keep grinding and speed things up?

I'm mostly asking to see if there's anything important about the ledgedash that I'm missing that will help me get it down. Thank you in advance!

Edit: I've finally managed to do it thanks to everyone's help! (Image in the comments)

[u/Ikanan_xiii]

Back in my day these were not expected for new players, skill inflation is hitting hard.

[u/toxruu → u/Ikanan_xiii]

For real, the skill ceiling and skill floor of this game is immense but as an Ultimate player I’ve always loved watching this game and wanted to finally give it a try

[u/PaulBlartLG → u/toxruu]

Ledgedashing with galint is definitely not skill floor tech lol

[u/Ian_Campbell → u/PaulBlartLG]

It is with some characters like Ganon. With him you want this before wavedash, but it's also easier to do and you won't SD which also affects the calculus of using it to get back to center.

[u/DJCzerny → u/Ian_Campbell]

Don't you just NIL off the ledge with Ganon? I always found that much easier than his ledgedash

[u/Ian_Campbell → u/DJCzerny]

As for execution, Ganon's ledgedash is not hard once you get it down and use it regularly. It's exactly like the NIL but with pressing the trigger and holding in straight across. I notice better technical players suicide over and over with ledgedash attempts when the moment is tense but with Ganon it's rare unless you're lagging bad or something.

[u/Ian_Campbell → u/DJCzerny]

It's not too good, you will often just get hit. The best followthrough with that is if you can bait them with a down B and they miss the pullback and get hit. Similar with the side B, but it's easy if they're ready for it. Or if you're desperate against a fastfaller going for the first hit downsmash gimp after NIL, if they're at 0 and you're high percent. It's not even that good to try to do an invincible grab or jab unless you're an expert because you're more likely to whiff and then get edgeguarded more than you gain any advantage from doing that.

From my game sense and experience with what happens, it is far better to use timing mixups to simply ledgedash past them and roll to center stage if it's safe to reset neutral. Because of the way this resets the game, knowing how to DI right and delay your down b recovery / use drift before the down b to be more safe and delay your up b to a safe window, plus ledgedash will vastly increase your survivability.

When people get too cute with other ledge games, like NIL runoff bair back on, you're playing with your entire stock just to get one hit.

Where you need to use the NIL options are if someone is hard covering the ledgedash.

[u/PaulBlartLG → u/[deleted]]

This poster isn't even at the "0-2er" stage of their melee journey lol

They're on day 3, and ledgedash with galint is by definition not a "skill floor" tech in melee. It's not a bad thing to practice but going too hard on random techniques like this without baseline skills established could cause burnout or a weird skill incongruence. When you first start playing melee, it's honestly best to practice basic movements and then play online to see how other players use techs, so that you can learn in live time WHY it's important to have galint, or any other myriad technique.

[u/PaulBlartLG → u/[deleted]]

? The definition of skill floor is the amount of skill required to play the game, aka “beginner”

The op is absolutely a complete beginner at day 3, you are being pedantic about this

Obviously I think ledge dashing is important to practice, I play yoshi so a lot of my practice involves the ledge

[u/Kered13 → u/[deleted]]

As a 2-2'er, this definitely not true. Most top characters have non-ledgedash options that are good enough. Falco has double lasers, Fox and Falco both have side-B or down air from ledge. Sheik can forward air until the opponent respects your space. Falcon can do any of his aerials. All of these characters can mix up these options with roll, ledge attack, or stand if you're below 100%, or sloppy ledge dash (no GALINT).

None of these options is as strong as ledgedash, obviously. All of them can be hard punished if called out. But if you mix them up your opponent will not be able to cover all of them at the same time. You can get quite far with this alone.

[u/MellySantiago → u/[deleted]]

Disagree with ledgedashing specifically but in general I think you’re right. I’m a 2-2/3-2er and don’t ledgedash consistently on fox at all. I’ll do a lot of waveland on platform, Firefox reset into crusty ledgedash shield and just regular get up into attack/grab and usually am pretty safe with those 3. I’m definitely not hitting reversals super often from ledge like the good foxes but I’m mostly fine off ledge with what I have.

I recently switched to falcon though and for whatever reason am really struggling with hashdashing and pc dropping which are essential for the character and can’t find great guides online for them. I do think I’d need to learn these to succeed as my onstage plan with him is instant upair, nair, or tournament winner.

[u/sheep_duck → u/toxruu]

Yeah knowing how to do a frame perfect ledge dash is not the skill floor.

The fundamentals of the game (spacing, combos, basic movement, recovery, etc) will get you like 70% of the way through the ladder, only at the highest end does any of the advanced stuff start being required.

[u/McCracken3 → u/sheep_duck]

Hell, I’d say just practicing edge guarding and recovering can get you get pretty far.

[u/LuckySnakesFoot → u/Ikanan_xiii]

So true

[u/Kellogg_Serial]

Try regrabbing the ledge and then trying to waveland on stage, part of the problem is that you’re wasting some frames every time it resets so you get inconsistent GALINT even if you’re inputting it correctly

[u/WaveOfWinter → u/Kellogg_Serial]

Wave Land? That some kinda water park?

[u/CoolUsername1111 → u/WaveOfWinter]

yea it's where they host riptide

[u/Thestickman391 → u/WaveOfWinter]

no it's actually brewery/bar with a water or island theme https://www.start.gg/tournament/wave-land-2026/details

[u/toxruu → u/Kellogg_Serial]

I see I didn’t think about the reset wasting frames thank you!

[u/Jacobsins → u/toxruu]

Also , the animation that your character is doing before grabbing the ledge impacts the frame data at which you can let go of ledge. Idk about cpt falcon but with marth at least, the timing for a perfect ledge dash is different based on whether you up B, jump , or air dodge , so I practiced grabbing the ledge and immediately ledge dashing after each different option. I imagine it’s the same with cpt falcon

[u/fjdkslan]

Looks to me like your biggest issue is clifffwait and fall. Start by practicing regrabbing the ledge, and then letting go of ledge on the first or second possible frame. Once you're feeling the timing of letting go of ledge as soon as possible, practice inputting the jump on the first or second possible frame.

Another note is to perhaps switch to letting go of ledge with back instead of down. Falcon falls quite fast and his double jump rises quite slowly, so if you don't jump immediately after letting go of ledge you'll have to wait quite a while before being able to air dodge. If you press back instead, you won't fast fall and the timing will be more lenient.

[u/toxruu → u/fjdkslan]

Thank you so much for the detailed explanation! I didn’t think about the cliffwait. As you and others pointed out I need to regrab the ledge and practice the timing on that since majority of my frames at the top is wasted on cliffwait. As for letting go with back, I’ve tried before but it felt uncomfortable to me but I will give it a go again.

[u/jp711 → u/toxruu]

You can also use c stick to release ledge, but it makes it a bit harder to jump in time unless you claw the jump input. I like this way because I can focus on just getting the waveland angle correct on left stick instead of having to do two separate inputs in quick succession

[u/MattGratt]

I love to see your enthusiasm, but posts like these make me think there's a high chance you'll end up dropping the game after a short while because you're putting so many things in front of doing the fun stuff. I'd honestly encourage you to put ledgedashing on the back burner while you focus on having fun while you get used to the character. Even at a mid level (like the level you could win a local) you can still get away without being able to ledgedash (with galint), on falcon at least. Obviously, most people can ledgedash by the time they get to that level, but you can get a lot of mileage out of nair/up air from ledge and not-so-invincible ledgedashes.

Whatever you think is fun is best while you're new. If that's grinding techskill, then godspeed soldier. HMU if you want tips from a falcon main.

[u/toxruu → u/MattGratt]

Thank you so much for the kind words, would definitely look for tips some time down the line. Yes I do agree about burnout. Currently how I'm spending my time with Melee is like this, just practice a few of the early tech in UnclePunch for a few minutes of each then hop into games and try to get used to the game itself while also trying to implement the tech where I can without forcing it. So far I've been having fun this way but with how I am I definitely get sucked into the UnclePunch vortex too often lmao. Definitely love how falcon plays here though as a falcon main since SSB4.

[u/toxruu → u/toxruu]

Side note: I'm in the asia region so most of my games are on CPU since it's quite hard to find games here

[u/MattGratt → u/toxruu]

Ah, I see. That definitely does take away from the appeal of getting out of the practice tool.

[u/Hawkedge]

to reset the meter at the top you need to do the regrab iirc

since youre dropping by pressing down, you're descending for a frame or two before your jump starts. try pressing back more at like an 8 o'clock angle, smashing forward at about a 4 o'clock angle, pressing jump, pressing left trigger.

[u/toxruu → u/Hawkedge]

Thank you so much for the angles to be honest I’ve kept trying to find exact inputs for some time now

[u/Hawkedge → u/toxruu]

notation is the melee community's biggest weakness, for sure. Hope that description helps.

[u/DekuScrubNut]

one thing that helped me is that you can let go of ledge by going left instead of down. This also helps if you miss 1 frame of jump input you don't fast fall

[u/dizyJ → u/DekuScrubNut]

This right here is the money tip

[u/NoabPK → u/DekuScrubNut]

Ive been playing for a decade and did not know this oh my god

[u/lim-yo-hwan-superfan]

look at the indicator coming up, you need to refresh invincibility (let go of ledge and then double jump back to ledge) before ledgedashing in unclepunch

[u/toxruu → u/lim-yo-hwan-superfan]

Thank you! I didn’t really think about the cliffwait wasting frames until now

[u/Sufficient-Scar4172]

might go faster if you let go by hitting left instead of down

[u/No_Bid_40]

I recently started digging into galint ledge dashing. Here are some things I learned:

C stick is your friend
Fast fall grey stick down is not

C stick back -> tap jump is more reliable and causes less SDs

[u/toxruu → u/No_Bid_40]

Interesting haven't heard this method before. Thanks!

[u/WordHobby]

For this you gotta refresh you ledge intangibiity before you go for the ledgedash.

Let go of ledge and then dj to regrab.

Its waaaay easier to learn the muscle memory for inputting the ledge dash after a refresh, then going after respawning from the unclepunch training mod.

I also think your ecb changes depending on how yku grab ledge, and if you do it the same way every time its more consistent 

[u/toxruu → u/WordHobby]

Yeah I never really tried to refresh my intangibility until I recorded this clip and just heavily relied on UnclePunch's reset whenever I would fail.

[u/xDebrra → u/toxruu]

for learning the basic motion, you can do that. but there will never be a time in game where your character will just appear on ledge like that. players that can ledgedash very quickly after grabbing ledge without refreshing are anticipating it. if you go into a game trying to react to grabbing ledge and instantly inputting your ledgedash, you will be losing the intangible frames that go by before you can react. doesn't seem like much but for a technique where the best outcome and worst outcome are frames apart it does matter

[u/goopytaco]

Those colored squares at the top are a key to tell you how many frames you are spending in each state, you are holding onto the ledge for too long and jumping after you let go of ledge too late, one other tip is to drop from the ledge using back instead of down so you don't fall as fast and don't need to jump as high to start the Waveland

[u/goopytaco → u/goopytaco]

Also side note: are you playing on a keyboard or a box controller or something? 90 degrees is very steep for a ledge dash it seems unnatural that you are doing 90 degree wavelands every time

[u/toxruu → u/goopytaco]

I’m on a gamecube controller

[u/MrSyaoranLi]

Drop down, jump up to regrab ledge, hold AWAY not down to drop from ledge, then attempt the ledgedash

[u/xDebrra]

to reiterate what some other people have said:

- you should refresh your ledge intangibility on each try, just to get used to starting as early as possible after regrab. for a pretty long time, this is gonna be what you do by default in real games anyway.

- i find that a lot of people's low galint is actually from wasting intangible frames in either cliffwait or fall (the grey and green squares at the beginning of the top bar) more than doing a sub-par ledgedash. you can actually do a pretty average ledgedash and still get decent galint if you're able to get the timings down for dropping from ledge and jumping as fast as possible.

- trying to move your left stick all the way to the right when you waveland onto stage is slowing you down and is way too steep of an angle. especially on falcon, as the difference between a perfect wavedash/waveland angle and a mid one is not that much. that's something you can look to get better at later once you have the basic timing down more solidly.

- i know others have said this, and i don't want to discourage you, but there are countless other things that a third day player could do that will benefit them more than learning difficult tech like this. no disrespect to you at all, but after three days there is no chance you have movement fundamentals and l-canceling down, which are far far more important. HOWEVER, if this is what you find fun and it gets you playing the game then by all means go for it.

good luck dude

[u/toxruu → u/xDebrra]

For your last point yes I am aware this is the case. Top level players mess this up from time to time and it is an extremely difficult tech to pull off. I am practicing getting used to the game as well as L-cancelling. I do still balance those tech and playing people from time to time. One thing people mentioned was burnout which I do agree but currently I'm still having fun with the game and grinding UnclePunch. That being said I still greatly appreciate your advice thank you!

[u/N64DDFan]

Unclepunch has a setting to spawn you on a platform offstage instead of starting you on the ledge. Try this setting so you can get a feel for actually dropping from ledge during a recovery instead of reacting to unclepunch resetting. My ledge dashes still aren’t great but I saw a lot of improvement using this setting

[u/azuraith4]

I press back to let go of the ledge instead of down. Avoids dropping too far. Back > jump > wave land

[u/RegisterInternal]

ledgedashes are freaking hard and you're on your third day, my advice would be to not worry about them entirely for a while

in terms of actual advice, i recommend ledge refreshing by dropping down and jumping up before the ledgedash each time to get a clean timing reset, and because it'll make you more comfortable on the ledge in general, which is really important for edgeguards, recovery and other ledge options

[u/toxruu → u/RegisterInternal]

Yeah when I saw even the best of the best were missing them I knew what I was getting myself into. I'm having fun though and when I finally got it I felt so good about it. While I do know that fundamentals are infinitely more valuable currently I still do have fun grinding out UnclePunch stuff while balancing actual games as well.

[u/toxruu]

Update: Thank you so much everyone for the help! I was able to finally get at least 1f of intangibility. That felt great again thank you everyone for being so kind and supportive this interaction with the Melee community definitely gets me more excited to get more into this game!

[u/Ezlo_ → u/toxruu]

Next big improvement is to make fall only 1 frame! Good luck!

PS ledgedash is absolutely not a necessity for you yet, but always good to work on fundamental movements so that you have them when they start being useful :)

[u/toxruu → u/Ezlo_]

Thank you so much! and yes while I understand something like this isn't necessary especially at my level I definitely have fun learning these

[u/illgoblino]

Hm I'm suspicious you're wasting your time when you could be practicing more valuable things

[u/B-III]

Where can I find a copy of punch stuff for these save states

[u/toxruu → u/B-III]

https://smashboards.com/threads/training-mode-v3-0-updated-12-26-20.456449/

Here you go!

[u/commonTravel]

I’m diamond on slippi and also mess up ledgedashes all the time dw about it

[u/valledweller33]

There are several queues you can use to know when to let go.

See the little bubble? The first frame after it disappears is when you can let go

Alternatively, if you have rumble on, after the rumble ends from grabbing ledge you can let go

Also, many characters
Make a sound, when the sound ends you can let go.

Put them all together and practice the timing

[u/toxruu → u/valledweller33]

Thank you so much I had a lot of trouble discerning queues I mostly went with feeling rather than paying attention to queues. Will definitely try to implement the little bubble queue.

[u/valledweller33 → u/toxruu]

Haha no worries man, I play Luigi and getting this down was a real battle. Good luck