Dealing with rushdown pressure and crossups.

[Rango the Mercenary]

One concern I have against certain characters is dealing with them staying inside of your hitbox as much as they can. Mario, Dr. Mario, Luigi, and Pikachu are prime examples. Since you don't have a fast, reliable, and hard-to-punish DSmash, y ou have limited options to get people off of you. As I call them "inside-hitbox" attacks, they can hit you if you're inside their hitbox (Utilts for all three characters are a prime example).

Yet Ike can only hit outside of his. You have Nair, but the amount of time it takes to get that out can get you hit with a Fair. Trying to monitor their roll involves precision. If they roll into you, they have full advantage. They're not big enough to reliably hit with a short-hop Bair. They're "in" you and you can shake them, but they can do whatever they want, like grab or start a chain.

How do you deal with rushdown pressure when characters stay on you the entire time and you try to maintain your spacing?

 

[GhostUrsa]

One thing I keep forgetting when fighting, and am trying to incorporate more, is using u-tilt. It starts surprisingly low, has good range, great knockback for some space, and some of it's hurtbox overlaps with our hitbox. Unless your opponent is overlapping our hitbox from behind, it will usually do the trick. It does have a little bit of startup time, so it can't be used reflexively.

Since Ike needs some spacing to make most of his attacks work the best, the best thing to do for rushdown characters is to prevent them from getting that close in the first place. I've been having quite a bit of trouble against Captain Falcons of late, since this is what they excel at. Sometimes, a good well placed jab will do wonders in preventing them from getting too close for comfort. If you know they like to rush you all the time, you can go for a jab 1 to your favorite moves against grabbers or shield and punish the chargers. Our defense needs to be more focused on the ground against them, which feels weird since most opponents that give us trouble are characters that force us into the air. A stronger focus on jabs and perfect shields is key. (Picked up this tidbit looking at the Bowser Jr threads. Since most of his best smashes don't work against overlapping targets, they've had to focus on keeping people at a good space.)

Ike's biggest problem in this case isn't that he has no overlapping attacks, but in my opinion, that most of the ones that do are just slow enough where the characters that excel at such tactics give us trouble. I've haven't had a target with overlap not get hit with a Fsmash or U smash when practicing, but the startup time does allow a fast character to easily dodge a predictable Ike.

 

[Mario766]

If they are that close to you, your best option most of the time is gonna be either jab or turn around jab.

It's frame 4, and their landing lag gives you an advantage due to shield drop mechanics in this game.

 

[Big-Cat]

The name of the game is to be patient, read, and evade. So far, I've seen that Quick Draw can be a useful whiff punish.

 

[GhostUrsa]

The name of the game is to be patient, read, and evade. So far, I've seen that Quick Draw can be a useful whiff punish.

Depends on the character and the circumstances. I'd not do it to a Sheik that whiffs in most cases, but I've done it to DeDeDe, Captain Falcon and pretty much anyone that has a move that requires them to commit when they want to do a hard read.

 

[Big-Cat]

Come to think of it, can't you use Eruption and Aether as OOS options. Both have super armor.

 

[LordShade67]

Come to think of it, can't you use Eruption and Aether as OOS options. Both have super armor.

Only problem with Eruption is in Smash 4, it takes longer for the armor frames to actually come out now.

 

[GhostUrsa]

Come to think of it, can't you use Eruption and Aether as OOS options. Both have super armor.

Using Aether out of shield is a good mix-up until your opponent is at higher %. You'd almost never want to use Eruption though, as LordShade67 pointed out. (That and it's speed is too slow. They dodge it easily enough, unless you catch them completely by surprise.) Eruptions super armor is more ideal for edge-guarding against characters that usually go over the ledge before snapping during recovery.

 

[Rango the Mercenary]

Come to think of it, can't you use Eruption and Aether as OOS options. Both have super armor.

Aether has tons of startup frames and is punishable. Not practical.

 

[GhostUrsa]

Aether has tons of startup frames and is punishable. Not practical.

You do have super armor during the startup frames, so the trick is to slip it in maybe once or twice during a match with the rushdown character after shielding an attack. They'll be expecting you to use a fast attack, and it can catch them off guard. Especially usefully after you've taken a stock of theirs, as their lower % will make comboing with it easier. It is punishable if they expect it, but so are all of Ike's OoS options that aren't a grab. Hell, if they try to roll out and come back in from your OoS Aether but are using muscle memory for it they'll get hit with the downward strike since they'd have been expecting something else instead.

It's all about the mind games.

 

[Arrei]

True, but I don't know if it's really worth going for. They'll "expect" a fast attack, yes, but the reason for going for a fast option OoS is to punish your opponent before they can do anything about it regardless of whether they're expecting it or not, no? I'd only do it if you're by the edge with your back facing it so you can cancel the landing by grabbing it if you miss.