Social General Ice Climber Chat

[Tres]

Fly, one thing I found really useful vs. Falcon is something I've assigned through slang as "shieldsmashing." The smash attack can be performed with either climber, but I prefer Popo personally. This is the gist of it if someone doesn't know what I'm talking about:

Desync > Hold A (Nana will jab alone) > C-Stick your smash (still hold A to charge it) > jab cancel Nana into light shield

I find this extremely useful actually, now that I think about it! ^.^ Especially when controlling center stage, I find myself using this when I feel pressured by CF's approach or can't find a decent approach myself (like when he's on a side platform). If it doesn't bait him, there's not really much of a downside to it: the ICs are still synced for grab potential.

But if it does bait him, it covers a lot of options. If he SHFFLs an aerial, Usmash or Fsmash tend to connect the most. But if he doesn't get hit, and if the lightshield doesn't put the ICs out of grab/jab range, I'll try following up with Nana. But if she happens to be in shield stun on imput, your second option is Popo (Blizzard, WD > jab, etc.) who would be still covered by lightshield, btw.

There's probably a ton more i didn't mention here, but I have to switch classes here soon. Let me know of any flaws my friend's CF hasn't found out yet!

 

[VirtualVoid]

Falcon is the matchup I have the most practice with, so here are some insights:

- Uair is incredible. Falcon obviously likes being in the air, and using SH uairs (Usually not fastfalled) intercepts a lot of his approaches and sets up for great follow ups like dash attack or grab. It's also incredibly useful when being shield pressured by dairs - just do OOS SH uair (But watch out when he is far enough to switch to knee).

- Like you said, avoid the sides except when edgeguarding. If you are forced to the side try getting back to the center with running sh nair while Nana blizzards. If it is too dangerous to desync because falcon is too close a timed dash attack or wavejab is a good choice if you time it well so you dont get kneed. If you can do the popo dashattack/nana fsmash initial dash desync, thats also a good option.

- About grabs: I assume wobbling is banned/You don't like it? Because if not you can usually do a single dthrow-dair and wobble. Anyway, at very low % dthrow>usmash leads to another grab assuming no platforms. You can also dthrow chain rather easily on reaction.

- Oh yeah, and shield a lot. Sometimes it's hard to find an opening, when being pressured at close range it's sometimes better to keep shielding than trying to punish or WDing backwards (Which falcon can punish with dash sh aerial).

I probably have more, will update when they come

 

[Fly_Amanita]

Thanks.

I know uair is really good, although I tend not to short hop since that doesn't actually lead to anything the vast majority of the time. It's easy for Falcon, and most other characters, to jump out before you can follow it up, unless you hit him when he's near the ground, in which case you have better options anyways. It also doesn't actually work well against stomp pressure from platforms since the stomp pushes you to the side a little bit and since Falcon's dair has more horizontal range than ICs' uair, so it isn't reliable unless the Falcon isn't careful. But yeah, it's a fast move with good a hitbox, so it is very useful.

There usually isn't enough time to do any weird desynchs at the edges. I wouldn't want to do many in any case because of how fragile most of them are anyways. The only one I typically can throw out in time at the edge is belay OoS -> blizzard, but that naturally doesn't help much in getting back to the center of the stage unless Falcon jumps into it.

I do waveland -> jab pretty often; it's good.

I'm actually pretty good at getting back to the center; the issue is just that it's not a good position and I put myself in it more than I need to.


At the particular tourney I was at yesterday, wobbling was banned. I have no qualms with using it when it's legal.

I do shield a lot; if anything, I shield too much and forfeit control of the match to the Falcon too often, since he can pressure ICs' shields very well.



@Tres: I don't like doing desynchs like that much against Falcon since it makes you commit to a particular spot on the stage while he's very maneuverable. Of course, if your opponent falls for it, then feel free to use it, but be aware that many good players will only approach a desynched ICs if they're confident they can squeeze through and land a hit, which they often can do.

 

[VirtualVoid]

With uairs vs dairs I find that it is possible most of the time to move a bit in the air and still hit the falcon, a weak uair usually combos better anyway. When approaching with SH uair what you are trying to do is get falcon to SH into it when it is already out, because his shorthop is higher/his aerials hit higher (I dunno, it works for me... It's not a spamable approach but I do think it's one of the better ones against falcon).

Usually there is indeed no time to desync at the edge but for the dash-smash one all you need is to face backwards and do a dashattack, there is no startup delay.

When I said shield a lot I meant that sometimes you should just wait in your shield when under pressure, not that you should shield a lot in general which will cause you to be under pressure in the first place (If that made any sense...).

Maybe it just depends on the falcon, and these ideas only work for me because I use them mostly against a falcon I know VERY well because we play a ton.

 

[Smasher89]

I have major trouble against falcon(might be that I try to approach too much), since I think that he wins the campingame(got beaten by hax doing this, so I feel I need to beat that kind of game, or it might just be brought up when needed, just see chu vs azen final match on BF).
That said would be more then happy to see someone convincingly beat falcons with ICs though!

Jiggs has atleast a 10 frame advantage over CF when he hits with a Lcanceled dair and puff meteorcancels at last possible MC frame(hi rest). I´ll try using as a step to break the Puff vs CF matchup(on platform/ledgestages), and it might help ICs to.


Some things I´ve noticed Falcons do very much, might be that I dont have a really good answer to it, but atleast it is patterns and they should get abused.

When falcon edgeguards, they try to edgeguard with retreating bair onstage, or retreating nair, probably often % dependant.

They try much to link nair/stomp into things on low %, I think the first nairhit can be smashDI'd(up?) and maybe lead to something from ICs instead.

Regular DI is up/none.

Alot of Falcons assume your going for dthrow dair(will try to smashDI), better use another CG, or maybe using that smashDI to get some terrible DI>edgeguard.

Fthrow, Nana jumps after, iceblock(hits)>belay to save Nana kinda works against Fox, maybe even falcon to get a suprise gimp, better test it out first though.

EDIT:
Virtualvoid- When/how to get out of shield?

 

[VirtualVoid]

Sometimes you can uair out of combos when the falcon tries to follow up something he shouldn't.

There isn't a particularly good and safe way to get out of shield. If he does a retreating shorthop (With our without aerial) you can safely roll backwards if you react fast enough. If the position allows it you can jump OOS and waveland on a platform in order to slide above him and bair as you fall. SH Fair OOS is risky and defiantly not spamable but It has good followups and should be tried at least once.

 

[Fly_Amanita]

Does anybody know if ICs are invulnerable during any parts of any of their throws? This wouldn't be applicable much outside of the doubles and the ditto, but it's something I want to know.

 

[Vts]

to my knowledge it's d-throw for like 1-3 frames when you are throwing the character down, f-throw i believe it's just as when the hammer is swinging not before it starts swinging.

i'll have to do real frame data later.

 

[PokemonMasterIRL]

None of the ICys throws have hit boxes either right?
wait maybe upthrow

edit


good **** Chu on top 8!

 

[Smasher89]

To me it really feels that every throw in the game has some invisibility in the beginning, it´s something I regularly use in doubles since there is sometimes the only answer when it´s 2vs1 in a situation(to time throw exacly when gvetting hit, to avoid the knockback so I wont get hit again/KOd.
Not sure if its invisibility since I havent looked at the % but it should at the least be some kind of super armor if it´s not invisibility.

 

[choknater]

bthrow has a hitbox. this is very applicable in ic dittos

 

[PEEF!]

To me it really feels that every throw in the game has some invisibility in the beginning, it´s something I regularly use in doubles since there is sometimes the only answer when it´s 2vs1 in a situation(to time throw exacly when gvetting hit, to avoid the knockback so I wont get hit again/KOd.
Not sure if its invisibility since I havent looked at the % but it should at the least be some kind of super armor if it´s not invisibility.

Every throw does have invincibility. Frames 1-8 if I'm not mistaken, and all throws are the same.

 

[Smasher89]

Did anyone see the Chudat vs Hax set at the tournament this weekend, I dont know if it was livestreamed neither if it was recorded, just saw the bracketimage where Chu won...

 

[Fly_Amanita]

I saw most of it. IIRC, Hax won game 1, Chu 3-stocked him 2nd round, and in the 3rd round, Hax had a solid lead, but Chu made a comeback.

 

[PokemonMasterIRL]

Fly I laughed pretty hard when you used Uair into Solo Side B vs Zhu.

 

[Fly_Amanita]

Ha, I really wanted to follow up the uair and that was the only thing that I thought I could actually connect with. Good times.

 

[Smasher89]

Lol, was that SopO backthrow>uair>side b gimp?, did one of those in friendlies last weekend against a Fox, it KOd XD.

Was 2 of the matches on DL64 and battlefield?

 

[PokemonMasterIRL]

-So has anyone else been trying charged Upsmash and backthrow? It really *****. It is pretty easy to to do Samus for all you non believers.

-IC's Upair is hella hard to auto cancel. I can do Bairs all day, but dayuuum that Upair its soo good but soo hard.


-So I was practicing today and I ran off the level and immediately up b-ed this caused me to grab the ledge very quickly and send Nana nana rocketing into the air. trying to replicate it but all that happens is I like auto grab the edge and nana falls to her doom.

EDIT

after fooling around with it some more, I found out that in the starting frames of the up B you can turn it around, like its very noticeable, you will be facing one way and then when you turn it around you grab the edge and nana falls staright down and dies. now i just have the find the right timing so that she flys up and I grab the edge.

Edit again

So I have been able to replicate it. I edge canceled a fair or upair while facing the level and then up Up-ed when you would normally slide off and grab the edge = the result was Popo snaps onto the edge and nana Nanarockets. Also when you edge cancel any aerial into any of your B moves their are really interesting results (movement wise) edge cancel into a side b to see what I mean, it also does really weird things to your ice blocks (such as both Ice Climbers facing left in the air but the blocks both go right?!lol)
-speaking of Replicate I am going to tap him at the next tourney. Cheaayaahh boi. ( Joe Replicate) Name search that! MM$ whyuuuutt?

 

[Smasher89]

if she falls down to death, you should be able to have time to use the up-b trick that wobbles had in a tech vid video that a few ICs have implemented into their game(Yea, doing it imidiatly is probably better though).

 

[Wobbles]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fV3QNpesRYo#t=2m59s

Get with it bro!

 

[VirtualVoid]

Wobbles is stalking us :O

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgRLeND1sPo
Mine was up earlier

 

[Wobbles]

U NO USE EDGE CANCEL FIRST

U BAD

And et cetera.

 

[PokemonMasterIRL]

Rob would you mind breaking it down for me, are you like just doing a pivot and then walking off?

 

[Binx]

Rob is there anything in the match up guide that you feel is outdated or should be added to? I've spent 2years or so on writing it and I want to keep it current enough to help people even if they are at a high level already.

 

[choknater]

i got a lot of matches recorded vs KFC's fox and marth

 

[PokemonMasterIRL]

cool i want to see dem andrea

 

[Wobbles]

PokemonMasterIRL:

I just hit up right before running off the edge, as falling off the level will cancel the jump animation. Then hit B right afterwards, and turn to face the edge. That way you don't actually jump and fall to the ledge for the cancel.

Binx: Ughhhhhh....... I'm sure I have a lot of useful stuff to say about the Falcon matchup thanks to Darkrain. And my Peach game continues to elevate slowly. Most of my latest improvements have been in my use of b-air and n-air, which are FLIPPING BALLER. I love jab->n-air->jab->n-air shield pressure. Even though obviously if they're just gonna shield you should grab, it's still fun to just bombard their shield with hammers.

I just don't want to write stuff out anymore. I'm working as hard as I can to internalize all my current knowledge for Genesis so I can play in my flow-state as much as possible. When I stop to think about the matchups for too long it makes me worse at them. But recently I've been focused purely on how I feel while I play and staying in the best emotional state I can, and every aspect of my game has improved drastically, from reflexes to tech consistency.

 

[Binx]

Glad to hear it rob, maybe after genesis =D I'd rather see you do well than get nuggets of wisdom slightly earlier.

 

[Wobbles]

I will say this much.

B-air is the best.

 

[PokemonMasterIRL]

Nair has been the solution to main of my current situations/problems.

Also watching Chu play is really interestingly different from Fly and Wobby.


If only they could all make a love child.

That would be the craziest IC player ever.


Triple Popo on Popo on Popo action.

Popo X Popo X Popo

 

[VirtualVoid]

For me uair and fair are currently the solutions to the situations I end up in

 

[Ch3s]

Watup guys! I'm new to the IC boards, and just decided I would like to second/dual-main them along with luigi. That being said, I have had a chance to practice them against some players in my area (i live in AZ, i played you a couple times mr. wobbles) and am having a few problems.

First of all, i am having the obvious problem of recovering, especially when both IC's are knocked off together i would like to know if it is possible to re-synch them with a squall, because it just seems like alot of times its better than up-b, because nana tends to get killed after up-bs super easily. Besides recovery, I have been having some approaching dilemmas. Im *decent* at defensive de-synchs, and i am working on learning the proper timing and situations for roll/spot dodge->nana blizzard->popo WD-grab. However, i am at a complete loss for how to approach when desynched, and equally as importantly, what some of the best ways to initiate that desynch are, aside from the obvious spot dodge and roll desynchs.

The fact that I main luigi gives me a strong base for learning WD-> anything approaches, though jab mixes and dsmashes remain my most common approaches. The most important match-ups for me to know are falco (who i imagine most of you play defensively against, and with the double shields and such i can see this as a succesful strategy), and shiek who is the main reason i would want to be offensive. I am also considering using my ic's for puff, and for players who are worse than me to gain a more decisive advantage (something my luigi has trouble with sometimes). Ultimately I want to play a more offensive game with the IC's, partially because people in AZ (im looking at you, TAI) like to destroy my nana while im trying to play defensively. I wish i could give videos, but i dont have any.

Tl;Dr- What are some good approaches and IC specific offensive strategies that i should begin by learning.

Also, when I am playing, I have been having trouble with two general mind-set problems. One is the amount of focus I should be spending on each of the characters on screen. Typically, I spend 90% of the time looking at the opponent, because i always know where i am. But now, i sometimes completely lose nana, so i have to watch her, and try to get her inside the "box" in order to re-synch, while avoiding my opponent. Secondly, is it a good idea to grab less in friendlies to work on the other aspects of the game, or will that condition me poorly for tournament play and ultimately hurt my game.

 

[Binx]

Its hard to explain the basics of ICs as far as being aggressive, basically just read the match up guide and use your own style to look for openings and use the moves that are best in those situations.

As far as approaches vs Falco wd ftilt angled upwards is really well, sometimes jumping into a lazer and doing a blizzard can open up some opportunitys to be more aggressive, other than that I find the best way to be aggressive is just to encroach on their space and wait for attacks to counter, if they are really patient you can start mixing in blind grabs or uairs if you read a jump.

 

[choknater]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVFar7tdoJk&feature=feedu

our set. we played a lot more friendlies too and i played better in those.. i needa get better under pressure cuz i dont take as many cool chok-risks. also i think kfc played a little more seriously in this set too. i'm about to watch it myself, so i'd like some IC boards advice to add on to my own advice to myself lol

kfc: "I did a lot of theorybros in this matchup since last time we played. I don't think I'll lose to another ic's"

 

[Smasher89]

At 18 30 or something, when you desynch iceblocks below the PS platform, he actually shields, which is probably the best position to do the iceblock in. Do it on the platform and it will bounce on the shield to shieldstab and give you an oppoturnity to grab.
Kinda like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSDJIAc8paE#t=3m57s but just a little slower.

Also dont let his work with the fair spacing pay off, you get more/better information by shielding it then he gets when hitting your shield, just let him get frustrated (will take away this comment due to how it works) when not getting any % on you, and also when he edgeguards to bait him into bairing until really high %, being "over easy to read", and then mix up. Lol some of this could be read in wobbles old post on the matchup, but as long as it works it´s good =)

EDIT: I think you also need to work on something I know I need also to work on, when you have a real punish, and also being able to see through baits more.

 

[Binx]

You jump into a lot of fairs, I think you can beat some of that with belay blizzard and just let it tap him, he will already be DIing out of it so you usually wont be able to punish but you can mix it up every now and again and catch him with stuff that shouldnt work. That or you can just camp that way doing 2% at a time until he does something stupid you can actually punish.

Thats only with the full hop double fairs, I guess that would still be a bad option vs the short hopped approaching fairs he does. I suppose your guessing either way.

 

[choknater]

thanks guys. smasher i'll use your advice about the shield, but the problem is, even if i waveshield well, i still really can't do anything about the fair is marth's spacing is good enough even for the waveshield. if i shield, eventually my shield will get whittled down enough so that a dtilt or another fair could shield poke me. also he was good at seeing my shields and grabbing me to fthrow whenever i did it too much.

tough stuff! most of my random approaches seem to hit other marths, but not him. i need to be more careful, since wavesmashes dont work vs a marth that is really jump happy.

 

[Fly_Amanita]

Andre, I watched the first couple rounds and it looks like you play the match-up pretty well, but there are some little things here and there that you could definitely be doing better.

First of all, the way you camp with ice blocks and blizzard is fine, but could use a little refinement. A lot of the time, you shoot ice blocks longer than you should and KFC gets in because of it. Something that's really good for dealing with the way he likes to get around it is having Nana do a full-hop Nanapult forward. It will generally eat through Marth's efforts to get at you in the air and will typically lead to a short, but good string like uair -> bair/uair with Sopo. If Marth is staying near the ground when he tries to approach, short hop Nanapult works similarly. Along similar lines, think about what you can accomplish with ice blocks and what you can accomplish with blizzards with desynch. I often see you use blizzard when it doesn't really benefit you in any way and I often see you shoot ice blocks when doing so leaves yourself a little open, as I've already mentioned. You're a good player, so I'm sure you can get the gist of this pretty quickly. Another minor note: if Marth is jumping around and you don't feel that you can get out a leaping full-hop Nanapult out in time, a stationary short hop Nana blizzard is pretty good. You do a lot of standing blizzards in this situation, but the short hop is slightly better since the hitbox reaches higher which makes Marth need to get a little closer to be able to cleanly beat the blizzard from above.

Oh yeah, I was glad to see you start incorporating belay OoS blizzard in the second game. Your use of that is also solid, but there are some times when you didn't use it that you could. The main time I recommend using it is when Marth is pressuring you with fairs, but pushes you slightly outside of his own range; belay OoS -> blizzard will typically prevent him from continuing the pressure and will occasionally grant you some momentum of your own. You can sometimes use it at other times, since being able to quickly get out a big, disjointed hitbox while shielding is very nice, but it does carry risks.

More generally speaking: against a lot of characters, it's tempting to shield a lot and try to catch the player's errors. Marth, by virtue of being Marth, is very resistant to this. Compared to other characters, Marth has much more leeway for error and sloppiness when pressuring you and hence trying to get close to him in your shield tends to not work well in your favor in the long run. While Marth can often convince you to shield, try not to put yourself in a situation where you need to shield too often, because it typically won't work out well in the long run.

You try to bum rush Marth the way you can rush into other characters, but you really need to use caution when judging when you can actually approach. KFC isn't that campy, so you can probably count on him coming to you most of the time.

Some other tiny things:

KFC likes to do that weird short hop fair -> double jump pressure, Brawl Marth style. The easiest way of dealing with that if you're confident it's coming is a short wavedash OoS forward to full jump uair; if you space the wavedash well, there isn't a lot he can do avoid getting punished pretty badly for that.

You really don't want to approach with dsmash all that often. It's a move with a hitbox that's near the ground and while it may come out in six frames in the back, it takes significantly longer to reach the front and doesn't reach all that far. All of these are not good characteristics against Marth. Of course, it's fine if Marth's already close to you and on the ground, but it's very hard to force dsmash opportunities.

 

[john!]

don't go in the air vs. marth lol, it's never worth it!

my favorite approach vs. marth is wd -> shield. wd -> jab or wd -> ftilt are nice too. just **** with his spacing by WDing around with your shield.

once i get myself recorded i'll post vids here for critique

 

[choknater]

thanks so much fly. i knew i could count on you haha

i want to internalize and practice all of these things. gotta react to situations the right way hehe. i never thought of using the high nanapult, so i'll try that out whenever i play a marth again. also gotta react to that fair double jump. if i can punish that with uair, i wanna do it more often. ganons like to do that too with empty shorthops to double jump, so it should be a similar concept.

another thing i noticed myself doing is getting too close/challenging marth too much when he is near the ledge. i should just stay in the mid and shoot stuff at him, because he has too many solid ways to get back on stage.

i have some good friendlies with his marth and his fox. hopefully you guys can help me with my fox game too (though there are some better foxes in the matchup than him. i think i won more matches vs fox but i'm not sure. i hope nick will put em up though)