Social General Ice Climber Chat

[OddishGuy]

I believe that perfect waveland causes you to desynch because Popo moves out of Nana's range of control before she would receive the command to airdodge.

For the others, I have no idea. There are two things I can imagine happening:

1. Popo's gravitational pull somehow influences Nana to land a frame earlier or later than she would have normally. Perhaps the strength of his "pull" is stronger on the ground than in the air, so when he lands, Nana begins to fall faster. Or perhaps it has something to do with the orientation of his hurtbox changing when he hits the ground.

2. The event of Popo landing changes some characteristic of Nana, such as the orientation of her collision box, or how the game reads her inputs.

I don't really have the tools to test this out either; however, I did notice that for the "lag/auto-cancel" desynch (where Popo lands in his aerial animation, but Nana lands normally), Nana seems to land a frame earlier than she's supposed to. I suspect the same thing happens when you successfully L-cancel desynch--if Nana hits the ground one frame earlier than normal, and you input L-cancel on the last possible frame, then she'll land before receiving the input, and Popo will act first. Alternatively, if you input the L-cancel a frame too early (so that Popo doesn't L-cancel), Nana will land on the last L-cancel frame, allowing her to act first.

Nana landing a frame early would also explain why the Ice Block desynch works (she lands before receiving the input), but I'm not sure about the "empty landing desynch" (where she fails to jump/wd/run immediately after landing). Another interesting test would be to see if both ICs jump the same height, or if Nana jumps slightly higher or lower due to Popo's gravitational pull.

;_; MFW
Sometimes Nana does land a frame early, it depends on jump height and FF timing. you were right about why all these desyncs work.

However, even if Nana doesn't land a frame early, the waveland desync works. Even if it's a miserable, minimum distance waveland. IDK why Nana doesn't do the waveland but she isn't feeling it.

I tried the AC stuff a bit, on SH AC Upair Nana lands a frame early, causing her to miss the AC while Popo gets it. SH FF AC Bair can get Nana to land a frame early depending on the FF timing.

Landing a Frame early is why the landing desync and iceblock desync work as well.

But.... WHY does Nana land one frame early?!? Falling time doesn't seem to matter, falling speed doesn't seem to matter... WTF =[

I retried the L-cancel desync, Nana doesn't land a frame early here. She does exactly what Popo does frame-wise, but she misses the L-cancel. Something else is at work for this one =/

I just want to understand the character I play V_V'

 

[DerfMidWest]

None of us completely understand this character (or this game, for that matter) yet.
Melee has a lot of depth and is still very undeveloped.

 

[OddishGuy]

One day Derf... One day we'll understand.


I ended up checking out collision boxes. Everything looks the exact same between Popo and Nana, but since I can't keep the melee camera from moving, I can't observe any differences between the interaction with the ground. However, their collision boxes are completely even on the Z coordinate, so any 3rd dimension interaction theories are disproven at least.


Alrighty... I understand enough to go to bed and never question this again.
Call it a push, or a pull, or the force, whatever. The game forces Nana to seek to be 6 frames behind Popo always. This means that if Nana is more than 6 frames away from you, she'll move up, this has been talked a lot about before but I never put a lot of weight into it. However, after some testing, I found that Nana can slow back down which I hadn't heard of before (pretty sure everyone just implied it and I never thought about it).

I also found the extent of this force. As long as you are within influnce range, and are given enough time, Nana will always make it to that 6 frame gap. She's like the dude from Taken or whatever, just seeking that distance like a madman.

I tested this by having Popo jump on the same frame as Nana, and gave it enough fall time. Nana slowed down her fall and landed 6 frames behind Popo, as if I had done a normal jump. I found this super weird.

But I'm somewhat satisfied. I think I can stop questioning stuff for a while and work on gameplay again. I'd still like to get video to compare the ground to collision box interactions/positioning, but I'll leave that for another day.

 

[Smog]

So what is the frame window for only L-cancelling with Popo. 2 frames?

 

[OddishGuy]

So what is the frame window for only L-cancelling with Popo. 2 frames?

2-1 frames for Fair and Bair depending on FF/landing timing. 1-0 frames for Nair, Upair, and Dair depending on FF/landing timing.

 

[IC-Rambler]

What are your opinions on:

Grab-release -> Nana-regrab

Roll to edge -> buffer nana jump -> Nana edgehog

Popo Downthrow -> late nana blizzard -> regrab into guaranteed wobble
(How do you deal with FFs who DI away from dthrow?)

Offstage Nanapult (this is like my favorite ever)

Tips on effectively blizzard-desync camping? (specifics in using this against marth?)

 

[OddishGuy]

Do we know why Nana taunts? It feels like it happens after respawn while you have a lead but IDK much about it/when else she is likely to do it. Nana Taunted while I was offstage and needed her for belay twice while I was practicing yesterday ;_;

What are your opinions on:

Grab-release -> Nana-regrab

Roll to edge -> buffer nana jump -> Nana edgehog

Popo Downthrow -> late nana blizzard -> regrab into guaranteed wobble
(How do you deal with FFs who DI away from dthrow?)

Offstage Nanapult (this is like my favorite ever)

Tips on effectively blizzard-desync camping? (specifics in using this against marth?)

Why is this better than F-throw Nana regrab?

It's used a bit from what I've seen. You can also Nana Dair to dealy her ledge-grab.

...

Offstage Nanapult to reverse Up-B cancel is really fun, but super situational.

Nana->Popo->Nana blizzard in the same direction is a cute option. I don't play this matchup a lot TBH =[

 

[DerfMidWest]

What are your opinions on:

Grab-release -> Nana-regrab

I mean it works if they do a grounded release, if they do an air release you can really regrab.
I used to playa around with grab release combos, since they are a thing with ICs, but they require really specific position and in general, there are way better things you can do.
Honestly, you should probably just handoff in these situations.

Roll to edge -> buffer nana jump -> Nana edgehog

This is one of my go to things when edgeguarding.
You can also bair or uair with nana before she grabs ledge, but I usually don't.
In general, I really like having nana on the ledge for edgeguarding because then I'm free to cover more options with popo, but sometimes it's better to put popo on the ledge (like against sheik or falcon) because you can't control when nana gets off (usually instantly).
A little trick I sometimes use against marth and luigi is roll back->nana edgehog->popo marth slayer.
In a lot of the situations this works in, some other ICs (I notice nintendude doing it a ton) will have nana shoot an iceblock to stop marth's momentum then edgehog with popo. Usually this is a better option.

Popo Downthrow -> late nana blizzard -> regrab into guaranteed wobble
(How do you deal with FFs who DI away from dthrow?)

I strongly dislike it and don't feel like the non-guaranteed CGs should ever really be used if wobbling is legal, even as wobble setups.

Offstage Nanapult (this is like my favorite ever)

rofl. uuuuuuhm I admit, I have not played around with this too much... it might be ok in a couple situations... maybe...
but in general I would stick to not doing that.
Feel free to prove me wrong about this one though, iunno.

Tips on effectively blizzard-desync camping? (specifics in using this against marth?)

Marth is irritating because he can poke through the holes in blizzard walls.
In general, against marth I use dd->nana blizzard->popo shield.
Then I just keep doing that (you can dd again at the end of blizzard then make nana blizzard again).

Ice blocks are excellent when marth is away from you because they interrupt his movement or force him into the air, but you cannot safely iceblock if he gets closer because he can just dtilt through it (dtilt will also just beat out iceblock, so this is a huge hole he can exploit)
I don't like smash attacks here for the same reason.
If marth runs in when blizzard is cooling down, I usually try to mix up dash in->shield->grab or sh fair.
You can also sometimes do a down angled ftilt to keep you safe, but I don't like it too much.

 

[Kyu Puff]

Do we know why Nana taunts? It feels like it happens after respawn while you have a lead but IDK much about it/when else she is likely to do it. Nana Taunted while I was offstage and needed her for belay twice while I was practicing yesterday ;_;

Yes, I made a whole thread about it:

http://smashboards.com/threads/decoding-why-nana-taunts.395478/

I only dealt with taunting after respawn, but I have a feeling that the decision tree for taunting when you get separated looks similar. I've never seen her taunt more than once per stock.

Also, I can't test this atm, but I'm pretty sure that Belay cancels Nana's action any time she doesn't have a hitbox out (or possibly any time she's not in hitstun/hitlag/tumble). So Nana taunting shouldn't mess up your recovery (although it would give the opponent an easy opportunity to kill her). Is it possible you were just outside of Nana's range of control?

 

[OddishGuy]

Yes, I made a whole thread about it:

http://smashboards.com/threads/decoding-why-nana-taunts.395478/

I only dealt with taunting after respawn, but I have a feeling that the decision tree for taunting when you get separated looks similar. I've never seen her taunt more than once per stock.

Also, I can't test this atm, but I'm pretty sure that Belay cancels Nana's action any time she doesn't have a hitbox out (or possibly any time she's not in hitstun/hitlag/tumble). So Nana taunting shouldn't mess up your recovery (although it would give the opponent an easy opportunity to kill her). Is it possible you were just outside of Nana's range of control?

I can't fully elaborate how much I love you right now. It's possible I was just out of range, I can try to test it later, but it was kind of weird so IDK if I'll be able to reenact it.

Basically I was on stadium both times, respawned/hit opponent off stage, and went for an offstage edgeguard. Nana ran after me, got to the ledge, and taunted. I think I was close enough to get back with a solo squall if I had reacted soon enough.

Honestly, I got so mad I probably am not remembering this accurately. I was probably just out of range and scapegoating Nana AI like a scrub. It's still humiliating to have Nana taunt while I SD ;_;

I can at least test the belay thing today.

 

[DerfMidWest]

I'm like 99% sure you can belay nana out of taunt.

 

[S2rulL]

congrats to @ Fly_Amanita for placing 2nd at Press Start Irvine!!!

 

[Fly_Amanita]

Thanks. As is typical on the rare occasions I play Mango, he busts out something I've never had to deal with before and I wasn't able to adequately respond to it. In this case, it was mostly stuffing my bair with nair. I've been conditioned over the years to think bair is a sensible response to that sort of approach on account of it being a well disjointed and decently fast move in terms of overall animation length, but Fox is still notably faster than ICs and his nair is active 4 frames before ICs' bair is, and Mango consistently managed to capitalize on that small advantage in the circumstances in which he was able to close the gap quickly enough. His ability to recognize the precise range at which he could do that was also pretty crazy and I wasn't able to make that judgment nearly as well.

I've brainstormed some possible responses to this sort of thing on my own and with DruggedFox. We both think studying CC punishes more is the most promising thing to look at on account of the nair being a very early one, as opposed to the late ones that are good against CC, but slow enough for ICs to beat by throwing out a move. CC grab, ftilt, dtilt, jab, and dsmash are the main options I plan on looking into. If we can get some harsh punishments on the nair, then that can force Fox to be a little less willing to throw that sort of thing out; he'd probably dair more, too, but that's something that we actually can often beat with bair on account of the more notable range difference.

 

[ArcDawn]

I posted this in the desync thread but ig this thread is more active so hopefully I'll get a response here.
(If this is against the rules pls delete this post ig )
I was wondering if there's much use the "run away smash" desync as I like to call it (input dash away from direction ur facing and buffer a smash w/ the C-stick. Upsmash and downsmash frees up Nana and forward smash frees up Popo) A few things I found were u can do the f-smash varient to set up a wobble via dashdance grab and u can protect yourself with blizzard after a downsmash or have nana grab them with the downsmash/upsmash varient if they shield. I just haven't seen these things used in the vods I've watched so I was curious why people don't use this more. Sorry if this turns out that it's a common technique and that I just didn't notice, I'm kinda new to the ice climbers

 

[RazeriaN]

Whats the region with the best IC's players? MD/VA? I'm looking for VODs of Mid-high level IC's players.
Are there any good matches that I should watch?
Any under rated IC player I should look out for?

 

[Fly_Amanita]

MD/VA has the highest quantity of very high level ICs player with a whopping two of them.

There are various respectable ICs players who don't get much attention. Socal has Leeland and Kobayashi, both of whom can do pretty impressive things on a good day, although Kobayashi is relatively inactive and often out of practice due to university work while Leeland is fairly inactive for reasons I don't know; I wouldn't be surprised if it's because he's from an incredibly insular part of the Socal Melee scene.

 

[Theftz22]

Frycook has been turning heads in NJ. Beat Ghatzu at SKTAR, Fuzzyness at the break, Zhu and Raynex at Supernebs, double eliminated Ciz at Jersey Japes. Don't hear anybody talking about it. Shoutouts to Frycook.

 

[S2rulL]

Frycook has been turning heads in NJ. Beat Ghatzu at SKTAR, Fuzzyness at the break, Zhu and Raynex at Supernebs, double eliminated Ciz at Jersey Japes. Don't hear anybody talking about it. Shoutouts to Frycook.

as someone from the uk i'll john for him, fuzzyness never trains. but yeah, gz to frycook.

also, juggleguy unbanned wobbling. welcome to the #IceAge

 

[Samwisely]

Looks like S2rulL beat me to it, but in case anyone wants to read the article: http://www.meleeitonme.com/wobbling-then-and-now/

He's still annoying about it, but at least he's unbanning wobbling.

 

[R.I.P.]

Got totally wrecked by a Ganondorf today, awkward.

 

[RazeriaN]

Got totally wrecked by a Ganondorf today, awkward.

Yeah, its like FAir, and there goes Nana xDD

 

[Blue2ez]

What do you guys do against Foxes who are always in your face with decently tight pressure?

 

[VegiLohrd]

What do you guys do against Foxes who are always in your face with decently tight pressure?

mostly I cry.

But honestly it depends on how he's pressuring you. If he's coming in from above with a drill shine you can uptilt it and get something going. If he's just going in for the straight shines on the ground then you might just have to eat it and try to create some space. Just stay synced and don't get separated

 

[Smasher89]

What do you guys do against Foxes who are always in your face with decently tight pressure?

Practice daily for a couple of weeks before the tournament to really be on point when the tournament are happening, for me its often the difference between getting a 3-0 and getting 0-3d. BUt thats to be expected for a strong glasscannon as ICs :D

 

[Cervidae]

What do you guys do against Foxes who are always in your face with decently tight pressure?

Carefully apply pressure and force him into an undesirable position (i.e. the ledge) and try to catch his escape when he attempts to break out. Up air is very good in this match up, but not for trying to meet Fox while he is above you. Rather, try to use it to deny him air space; call out his aerials with it. Also, when Fox is on the left or right platform, it's a safe bet that he's going to try to run off towards the center and bair you if you're right below the edge of the platform, this is an opportune moment to deny his escape by up airing just to the left or right of the edge of the platform to catch him running off. When you manage to catch Fox with a hit, it's critical that you punish well, as there aren't a lot of openings if the Fox is pressuring you constantly.

On an unrelated note, I played a fair amount of matches against my local Puff yesterday. I won most of the matches, but all of them felt extremely difficult because each match felt like I was playing five. Playing Puff is mentally fatiguing for me because I feel the matchup requires an intense presence of mind and a keen attention to detail in the micro game. I'm constantly having to visualize Nana's effective range, Popo's effective range, and Puff's effective range whenever I'm trying to wall her out, and constantly making tiny adjustments to keep the Climbers in a safe range. I don't know if I only feel this way during the Puff matchup because it's generally slower and gives me more time to think/question my decisions, but is there any advice you guys could offer on increasing mental fortitude outside of just playing the matchup more?

 

[Smasher89]

Find situations where you can trade efficiently, dair against bair for example when going in can sometimes be great. I remember there were something about the OOS game thats putting tons of good pressure against puff, just cant remember what it is since i used it before i had my 18 months break a long time ago. If I had remembered it I would definitly not lost to 2 puffs like i did last tournament lol.

 

[Cervidae]

Finding situations where trades are efficient are rather few and far between outside of a stock lead. Puff just benefits too much from trades I think, so to remedy that I personally play a defensive style against her with blizzard walls and biding time to find an opening. This is a matchup where I think limiting their options is crucial and sitting in shield is not a good idea. OOS options are really important because you inevitably have to shield her bair walls once she starts going or else you risk giving up stage position (which I also think is also super important in this matchup), but I can't think of any that cover the front of the Climbers.

 

[DerfMidWest]

I look for openings with either dair on shield (unless 1.0) or early nair.
With dair you can shield DI out and grab fox. You can shield grab a high nair, and you can buffer roll if he comits to jumping (it's hard to react to, but you can usually identify patterns.
In general fox's pressure on shield is irritating af tho.

Definitely my personal least favorite mu right now. **** fox.

 

[Cervidae]

Yeah, if you're being pressured in shield there really isn't a whole lot you can do. Just watch for misplaced aerials and buffer rolls. Sometimes I like to throw out an up angled forward tilt after rolling to maybe intercept Fox if he reacts quickly, but otherwise I'd just wave dash away and reset to neutral if the opportunity presented itself. Usually it doesn't though; Fox is pretty good.

And I agree, Fox is probably tied for my least favorite mu with Falcon; I still can't seem to figure that match up out.

 

[DerfMidWest]

you can play around with different shield angles, light/double shield, and shield smash DI to really help pop you out of there, but fox can actually just respond to those accordingly depending on what he's doing, although responding on reaction isn't super easy all the time, so that's what I try to do.
I don't think ICs hard shield is that fantastic after the first few hits it takes though, you end up getting poked a lot when the shield starts to drain.

 

[Cervidae]

Shield angling seems really important for ICs. A lot of their problematic match ups typically have moves that easily poke them through shield. Fox and Falco shield pressure and Peach down smash on a not-full shield come to mind. I should probably grind out a few sessions of focusing solely on angling my shield appropriately, considering how mediocre IC's shield is.

 

[OddishGuy]

So with shield angling, only the first hit is affected right? Like, if I angle my shield up and get hit by Fox's drill, my shield resets to neutral and from that moment on joystick movement only affects shield DI, right? Shield angling can't be used to avoid shield pokes on multihit moves then?

For example, with the aforementioned Peach Dsmash, you could initially to angle low, but then after the first hit smash outwards to get the shield DI.

Just trying to make sure I'm understanding how these things work with multihits.
Shield DI is pretty new to me since I typically have never been able to use it with my subpar reaction time.



In other news, after not practicing wobbling for a ridiculously long time, I can now only consistently wobble if I stare at my hands. My thumb just doesn't listen when it's unsupervised XD

 

[Smog]

How do I know when I can shield with Nana and grab if Popo gets grabbed? Sometimes I have no control over Nana, sometimes I can get her to shield and then grab afterwards.

 

[OddishGuy]

So I "found" a somewhat odd desync/ desync application. Building off the roll/spotdodge/grab desync, if you buffer an action using Shield + C-stick, Nana will never do it (but she will perform the C-stick action, sometimes she won't if you buffer a roll in certain directions).

This seems like something people would have thought of, but I can't recall ever really seeing it used, and I think it has some decent applications (mostly Sopo jumping).

I'm bad with words, so here are examples.

This is the main one I like. It could be used to escape pressure and quickly set up for camping.

Link in case gfy doesn't load http://gfycat.com/LightheartedAstonishingGlowworm

This is a really aggressive but also pretty unsafe grounded approach with the desync. I can't see it being used like this all too often, but IDK, it looks cool.

Link in case gfy doesn't load http://gfycat.com/RealisticCalculatingAfricanwilddog

The other notable usage of this is rolling towards something and dragging Nana along with her F-smash. I think it could be used for a weird edge-guard setup. Roll towards edge-> Buffer roll to the edge with Nana F-smashing.

Anyhow, this was my first time seeing this odd thing. If it's already well-known, how is it used typically? Or why isn't it used?

How do I know when I can shield with Nana and grab if Popo gets grabbed? Sometimes I have no control over Nana, sometimes I can get her to shield and then grab afterwards.

From what I understand, while you are grabbed Nana is not synced. If Nana does something stupid while desynced you won't be able to get her to shield/grab when you are synced.

You also may not be able to get her to do anything if you are thrown out of range too quickly (not super sure on this)

 

[Smasher89]

I would say rolling towards the opponent to set up a desynch is something you wont get time to do. Desynching from autocanceled backair is more flexible and faster in that situation you want to apply pressure fast and desynch to keep it up.

 

[Smog]

So how do you perform the desync exactly? Just roll?

 

[OddishGuy]

I would say rolling towards the opponent to set up a desynch is something you wont get time to do. Desynching from autocanceled backair is more flexible and faster in that situation you want to apply pressure fast and desynch to keep it up.

Very good point. Typically I don't have a lot of room to approach with, or a lot of time to get something going. I guess this as an approach is unrealistic. Thanks for the feedback!
That being said, I hate AC Bair desync, haha. Being frame perfect twice in half a second has me like ;_;

So how do you perform the desync exactly? Just roll?

You can desync from roll/spotdodge/grab, while you are doing these actions, if you buffer a roll/spot dodge/jump by holding down a trigger and pressing the C-stick in a direction, only Popo will perform the buffered action.
Typically the roll/spotdodge/grab desync allows Nana to perform an action without Popo, but since she doesn't seem to like buffered stuff, Popo actually acts first out of this desync with whatever the buffered action is.

Inputs for the following gfy are: Stick right + L (initiates roll) -> Keep L pressed, hold C-stick right (Popo rolls, Nana F-smashes while sliding) -> Y+L+Stick right down (Popo edgehogs, Nana is stuck in F-smash lag)

You can also look at this super duper top notch handcam XP

Link in case Gfy doesn't load: http://gfycat.com/MellowDesertedAphid

 

[Revolution6 aka alterego]

So how do you perform the desync exactly? Just roll?

Do the roll then during the roll's animation do and hold the command you want to input (like blizzard or a smash attack(reccommend the C stick for this)

 

[DerfMidWest]

I like the lil nana fsmash->wd edgehog one.

 

[Smasher89]

That being said, I hate AC Bair desync, haha. Being frame perfect twice in half a second has me like ;_;

For me its kinda easy to do, just fastfall and buffer a ftilt backwards on the landing, done right nana will jab in the other direction and the desynch is up. Howerver its the pivotdesynch i use which doesnt require the odd 1 missed 1 hit lcanceltiming which of course is ideal, learning that on approaching fair can make some interesting pressuregame work, if someone is able to do that consistently.