Eliminating Bad Tendencies.

[Ebby56]

Hey guys, I just got into competitive smash a little while ago, and I decided Ike is going to be my main. I've been doing pretty well at getting his basic combos down, and I learned alot from reading the guides to him posted on these forums, great job by the way.


That said, I have a few questions on moves that I believe that I personally use too often, or too little, and would like more info than the basic guides give.

1) Ike's Up-Tilt. I use it as an aerial wall, and it is my anti-aerial move of choice. I also sometimes combo into it out of the first two jabs, or use it straight out of a powershield/spotdodge as it has decent speed and can lead to Nair/Fair combos.

However, while watching videos of Ike players much better than myself, namely Kirk and Ryko, I noticed they use the move sparingly, almost never at all. Why is this?

2) Spiking/Dtilt/Dair. When are the best times to use Dtilt as opposed to Dair, and what's the easiest way to ensure a spike using Dair (and also, what's the easiest way to do a walk-off Dair, button-wise?)

3) Aether. Now, Don't get me wrong, I've read up enough on Aether to know not to noob-spam it, but I find that once a match I can combo into it out of a jab-jab-fthrow on low stock. Is this worth it, or are the other options simply just better?


Thanks a lot to any who respond.

 

[Wyvern-x]

1)It's not really a bad thing to use utilt normally. It's more of a personal preference thing. As for comboing jab to utilt I recommend using only the first hit of jab to utilt so the opponent isn't too far away for the utilt to hit.

2)Dtilt is better for characters whose recovery doesn't sweetspot the edge. Dair is better for characters with predictable recoveries like Fox's firefox. As for walk-off dair you could switch your c-stick to attacks so dair doesn't fastfall. You don't need to do that but it makes it easier.

3)Use aether as you see fit just don't get predictable with it and mix it up with some aerials.

 

[Ebby56]

Okay, cool, anyone else? I play in the Okanagan area in Canada if anyone's curious.

 

[Rykoshet]

I keep telling myself to use utilt more but really the only time I do use it nowadays is to kill someone and maybe here or there to knock someone out of the air. It's more a force of habit for me to not use it and not really because I think the move sucks or anything.

The worst tendencies tend to be using things that get you killed. Offensive tendencies are mostly things that have you in advantageous position that might not be the best idea to use/overlook. For example I used to dtilt like all day and nowadays I flat out forget to, and I could have killed my opponent in ike dittos about 90 different times with the thing and yet every time I kept forgetting to >_>

For some reason though I never forget eruption even though i'll use it maybe once a match at most, it's always there in the back of my head. I use aether pretty much at random.

 

[metroid1117]

1) Ike's Up-Tilt. I use it as an aerial wall, and it is my anti-aerial move of choice. I also sometimes combo into it out of the first two jabs, or use it straight out of a powershield/spotdodge as it has decent speed and can lead to Nair/Fair combos.

However, while watching videos of Ike players much better than myself, namely Kirk and Ryko, I noticed they use the move sparingly, almost never at all. Why is this?

UTilt is a great anti-air attack, but the problem is that it has a substantial amount of lag; if shielded or whiffed, Ike can be easily punished by any character with decent speed. It's also not used very often out of jab, in my opinion, because (1) it doesn't work all of the time and (2) I would personally only save it for killing, since it's impossible to combo out of it unless you read your opponent's reaction and punish accordingly.

2) Spiking/Dtilt/Dair. When are the best times to use Dtilt as opposed to Dair, and what's the easiest way to ensure a spike using Dair (and also, what's the easiest way to do a walk-off Dair, button-wise?)

The best time to use DTilt is when you are "camping" on a place where your opponent has to jump to get up to and it's not over the stage; places like Smashville, the far left/right hand platforms at Japes, or some spots at Rainbow Cruise come to my mind. The best time to use DAir is either when you read their double jump or when you bait them to airdodge; an easy way to do this is to jump out backwards at them when they try to recover. Your opponent will most likely expect either a BAir or UAir; if they airdodge, you can follow their aerial movement and just spike them when the invincibility frames are over (it's sooooo fun to do this to Olimars... they usually won't FAir you if you space properly at first because BAir outranges their FAir).

The easiest way to perform a walk-off DAir is to set your C-stick to Attack; this way, when you use DAir after the peak of your jump, you won't auto-fastfall if you use the C-stick (you can prevent auto-fastfall with the default C-stick settings by tapping down while DAir'ing with the C-stick, but it's much easier to suicide while performing walk-off DAirs). However, changing your C-stick to this configuration means (1) you can't DI with the C-stick and (2) you'll NAir if you press diagonal in any direction while in the air; this makes NAir-ciding much more common when you first learn this configuration, but makes retreating/edgehopped NAirs a breeze. It's your choice whether you want to do this or not, but in my opinion, any time you can gimp an opponent and take off their stock is well-worth spending the time getting used to this configuration.

3) Aether. Now, Don't get me wrong, I've read up enough on Aether to know not to noob-spam it, but I find that once a match I can combo into it out of a jab-jab-fthrow on low stock. Is this worth it, or are the other options simply just better?

If you can read your opponent to the point where you can get an Aether off without getting punished, go ahead; not many people will remember that Ike can reach them from that high if you don't apply it in battle, much like people sometimes forget about Eruption while coming down. It does plenty of damage if you hit with it properly, so I think it would be worth it if you don't get punished. Just make sure you don't make it a crutch, keep it as a "wt*" thing just to make your opponent cautious - you may be able to bait some airdodges this way.

 

[Ebby56]

I seem to have problems with certain characters airdodging when it comes to U-tilting/spiking.

Are there certain characters that Utilt works better against?

 

[Ussi]

utilt sucks... i always miss with it.. needs to be longer than Snake's leg

jab > utilt is a good kill and at times is a true combo

 

[Nidtendofreak]

*jawdrop*

DUDE! I visit Kelowna every summer to visit relatives!

Anyways, the other things seemed to be already covered by others....

 

[metroid1117]

I seem to have problems with certain characters airdodging when it comes to U-tilting/spiking.

Are there certain characters that Utilt works better against?

If people are airdodging through your attacks, start mixing it up with charged USmashes or even FSmashes if they get that predictable.

Generally, characters who are forced to approach from the air and aren't particularly fast are susceptible to UTilt; some characters that come to my mind are Lucas, Ness, and Kirby.