Punishing tech options in the Super Smash Bros. series is an integral part of high level play. If you can successfully read your opponent’s tech following a knockdown, you can oftentimes continue a combo or guarantee a kill. However, due to the four different tech options in Super Smash Bros. for Wii U–tech in place, no tech, tech towards and tech away–it can be hard to anticipate which option your opponent will pick in a tournament setting.
Going into the lab to research how to tech chase effectively, VGBootCamp’s GimR has made quite a significant discovery regarding reading tech options. For a large variety of the cast, they make an audible cue upon teching in place, usually a grunt or some type of exertion sound. Combine this with the fact that every character makes the same sound when they miss a tech–it’s a thudding sound–you have an easier time of narrowing down how to punish a tech.
When you combine this with the fact that the audio cue comes on out the first frame of a tech and that your audio reaction time is a third quicker than your visual reaction time, you will always have enough time to punish the two static tech options with a hard punish, like Fox’s up smash or Cloud’s Limit Cross Slash.
The rolling tech options both take 40 frames to complete, compared to the 26 frames of both no tech and tech in place, meaning you have almost double the time to react to those options. Once you commit those tech in place audio cues to memory, you pretty much have the answer for every single tech option for a decent portion of the viable cast. All you need to do now is make sure you play on a setup with headphones.
Source: GimR The VG Scientist