Social General Ice Climber Chat

[Wobbles]

Just wanted to let all interested folks know, I'm currently messing about with jab-SHFFL d-air-stuff. It's pretty funny as a damage builder and a way to juggle semi-floaties (Marth in particular) across the stage if you want to push them to the edge.

Honestly I think I've underrated sh-d-air as an option for a long while, it's a cute fast option and since the ICs have a quick SHFFL it can be pretty good.

That is to say, assuming your opponent doesn't CC, because I can't think of a single character that can't CC d-air into something painful. But in the event you think they won't you can use this to push them about or interrupt a double jump or something.

I dunno, in all truth it probably doesn't lead very far against experienced opponents. But the dash splits you and Nana horizontally which causes a good difference in the d-air hitboxes connecting, which leads to good frame trapping and potential followup. Regardless of tournament use it's fun to mess around with, so I recommend it :D

 

[choknater]

i have been using sh dair to combo jigglypuff for a while hehe

outside of puff i tend to not use it a lot

 

[shmeargle]

i have been using sh dair to combo jigglypuff for a while hehe

outside of puff i tend to not use it a lot

Hey chok have you finally made that walling vid against puff?

 

[Fly_Amanita]

Identified a few more bad habits today. It's been such a long time since I've beaten s2j and I think it's mostly just because he knows what I won't punish, he knows when I'm not in my shield, he knows when I like to retreat, he knows when I like to leave the ground, and he knows I like to jab -> grab a lot, although I was at least able to fix that last one before the end of our last set.

 

[Binx]

I played in tourney yesterday and placed a lot lower than is typical for me, but I did learn a great deal.

I was able to completely focus on my opponents and ignore myself a good percentage of the time and just focus on reads while naturally avoiding attacks and stuff through good spacing, this allowed me to correctly predict a good percentage of actions, once I learn the correct punishments and timings a little better, and tighten up my grab game to get more stocks or percent out of it, I think I will be doing pretty damn well.

Another piece of the puzzle down =D

 

[Kyu Puff]

wobbles/fly/anyone else: critique my ics? i don't know if it's possible from this match since a lot of it is me messing up/getting wrecked, but even general match-up advice would be nice

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpFnXUE66i8

i was nervous going into the match, so i was pretty shaky at first, but i think i started to do better when i realized i could win. but then i did terribly game three so idk...

note: every time i jumped up from the ledge, i was trying to waveland. i have a bad habit of doing that over and over again until i successfully waveland onto the stage

 

[shmeargle]

I'm pretty sure you were really nervous. I think every time you jumped you got punished really hard. especially in the first match. the second game you stayed a lot more grounded. you could definitely try ftilting more as it might give you more chances to get them in a bad position.

 

[choknater]

hey kyu puff i can help

in game 1, you made some questionable choices in the neutral game. i think there are certain ways to suffocate falcon's movement that are better than jumping in place with aerials. keep in mind that falcon always has to respect ic's grab, so he purposely avoids the ground and tries to use aerials on ic's shield, all of which are safe. a good way to make him question hitting your shield is by getting under him if he full jumps or boards platforms, then he will have to respect your uair pokes. by limiting his movement, you will have more chances to land solid hits that will get him off stage

in game 2 you did fine. i feel like you were playing pretty normal and wes just had a bad game plan for FD.

in game 3, the reason you lost is mainly because the matchup is really different. the same idea applies though. ic's lose to characters with strong mobility, and a really good way to disrupt falco's mobility is by disrupting his rhythm. jumping is very risky vs falco but it can also land you some good hits if he manages to jump into your aerials. i think you could also be much more liberal with ice blocks, since they are really good at stopping him from using too many SHL's and they are actually a pretty good approach if you approach with a full hop or short hop ice block diagonally near his shield. falco's diagonal zone is his weakest because of his very vertical jump angle and his horizontal laser. ic's have a downward diagonal angle with jumping ice blocks, so they are pretty good in the matchup.

there are also a lot of anti-laser tricks that wes might have fallen for, since he was using some close/mid range lasers. these are risky to do, but if you punish a close laser with one of these tricks, it will make falco respect that range too. my favorite ways are by simply dash attacking through the laser and letting nana hit him, using an sh blizzard, or WD fsmash. an SHL actually takes a bit of time to come out, so if you find him lasering at a bad range, you can spot that and punish.

when ic's lose in the mobility game (fox/falco/falcon) it is very easy for the other character to overwhelm us. so we need to carefully choose which options to use in the neutral game to make them fear getting near us. it may make them run away more, but that allows us more breathing room and i'd rather face runaway than somebody rushing me really hard and not messing up.

 

[Binx]

how often do you guys watch videos of yourselfs, and how do you analyze them? do you go through looking for 1 thing at a time or just watch it slow as it goes or what?

 

[choknater]

i usually watch them immediately after because i can clearly remember what i was thinking during those times, then i try to point out mistakes

then i watch them months after to see how i have improved in retrospect, or what i did well. i learn to understand my bad habits, what i can do to improve them, and see other ideas that i didn't think of in the moment

 

[Smasher89]

I usually watch them when they go live and watch them for a couple of times just focusing on player mistakes.

Which is something I can improve alot on, one thing that worked well (turing CF from a very hard matchup to doable) is writing down how i died and why (like certain DIs after certain throws/situation that leads to a kill or major damage), for that matchup the entire tournament.

And also what I do to get kills at which % , the opponents DI and stuff like that. After I´ve done that and noticed a pattern i checks for a better answer(by for example watching you other IC players videos) to see what you do better to maybe implement that in my game. I really need some general gameplans though to be able to play better.

 

[Binx]

I havent been able to get anything recorded for a while now, but last time I played I was focusing on being a lot more patient and making good reads and it was helping out a lot, instead of getting 4 stocked by silent wolf I'd get 2 or 3 stocked =D

 

[Binx]

Any ICs going to NW manifest in WA?

 

[Strong Badam]

Fly: It's hard not to fall into patterns that can be exploited. Esp when you play the same players in finals at most tourneys you go to, they learn your playstyle pretty quickly. I'm currently working on changing up my habits mid-set regardless of if they're punished.

 

[shmeargle]

Well I got back from my first tourney lol. I definitely got wrecked and it's a really interesting experience. Positive things I got is that I was able to punish slightly better but I play really nooby. I watched fly for the first time and I'm amazed to how much controlhe has over his climbers. I experienced many new matchups that I don't normally get to play and I'd have to say peach is definitely the hardest to deal with. Now I just need a training partner to make sure I can test certain things on. There's so much mobility withcertain characters and Idk how to deal with people jumping around too much and I always found myself in bad positions.

 

[Binx]

Yeah learning in a tournament environment is pretty rough, its the best practice you can get though, it's lucky for you that you live near such skilled players.

For people who jump around a lot the key is to predict their double jump and tag them with stuff, even in situations where it doesn't directly lead into anything it will make them hesitate to jump that way.

I've also had a lot of situations where I would read the double jump, hit them right as they pressed their second jump and they would land improperly where I could put on some positional or perhaps shield pressure as they landed. I hate it when someone jumps at me and I go for the attack and they juke me with the dj, I fall for that way too often T.T

 

[shmeargle]

Yeah I have the same problem. I didn't feel like I got the most out ofthe tournament thigh. The skill level gap between me and some other players are too high. I couldn't ask fly anything as he seemed to be in deep thought or was really busy destroying people lol. I've done a better job at waitng to react for some moves. I throw out fsmash too often and it is quite laggy. The mobility of falcon and fox are hard to deal with. Did you guys ever have that big ICs skype discussion?

 

[Fly_Amanita]

No, but we still could. I'm free pretty much all this week.

 

[Kyu Puff]

Thanks chok. I definitely felt suffocated game 3; when someone rushes you down like that, all it takes is one little mistake to lose a stock (like jumping when you meant to wavedash). I feel like I was trying too hard to regain my footing when I should've been relying on my instincts and throwing out hitboxes to stop his momentum. Normally I do use some of those anti-laser tricks (especially sh blizzard) but I never really got the chance because he never gave me any breathing room.

In the first match I noticed I kept getting d-aired through platforms. I probably should have crouched after the first sh u-air, or wavedashed out of the way or something. He shouldn't be at an advantage in that situation.

Also, there were times he was jumping over one of the side platforms and I would u-air at the end of the platform (for no apparent reason, because he was already in the air and clearly not about to jump towards the middle of the stage). I'm starting to focus more on those situations and think about when I should wd through and f-smash, when I should wait and waveland onto the platform, etc.

What do you guys think is the most reliable way to edgeguard Falcon when he's coming from above? Should you go for aggressive b-airs, or is it possible to cover all options by waiting until he lands? I gave up a lot of edgeguards in that set because I hesitated and let him take the ledge, when I probably should have at least forced him to land on the stage...

 

[choknater]

if it's FD, just stand near the ledge and that covers most of the options he can do and you can wait for his landing. just watch where the peak of his up-B is at and he can only move so far from there

when there are platforms, aggressive bairs are pretty good. u just have to react to his up-B though, and watch to see if he's looking for a ledge cancel or if he is looking to fall through a platform or perhaps land on it. if the peak of his up-B is in a range to still land on the edge, gotta make sure u are still in position to punish that.

if he still ends up grabbing the ledge, don't sweat it. it's not really hard from protecting your control of the stage when falcon is hanging on the ledge. just be at a range where ledgehop nair won't reach you, he is forced to ledge waveland, ledge waveland off and double jump, or ledge jump. he can't initiate anything from that position

 

[Smasher89]

Taking the ledge is even better, since it forces him to land on stage, and you´ll have time to react and punish.

Watch old matches vs falcons(pre 07), like Chu to get a hang of it. In general just take the ledge(unless he is going very high where reaction to punish the direction (which they have adapted and often "dashdance" to fake a direction) is neededif they go for the ledge from high, wd fsmash if above ledge, dsmash is preffered since it cover both directions and they might switch DI last second before landing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbEaAnARLJ4 There is probably better examples, but it does have a gimp^^

 

[Kyu Puff]

hmm... i've been watching a lot of ic videos recently and i'm starting to understand the game dynamics more clearly than i used to. i feel like i've plateaued as a smash player for a long time, but now i have the potential to start learning again.

 

[choknater]

hm yea taking the ledge seems to be a decent catch all

but with good DI on an fsmash sub 130% or something, falcon can generally recover really high

 

[Fly_Amanita]

That's why I don't like taking the edge. If he's recovering high, which he almost always should be doing, then if he sees you at the edge, he can just safely land on a platform, or even worse, edge-cancel the up-b on a platform. I'm not very good at edgeguarding Falcon and thus don't have much to say about it. Since he lives forever and can generally just keep DI'ing things high until he can recover pretty safely, I'm thinking it's best to try to find a way to land a grab when he's coming back, since that's the only reliable way of killing him at low-ish percentages (around 100% rather than, say, 150%); if wobbling is legal, you could just do that, and if not, just charge fsmash -> dthrow. Usmash would probably be better in some situations, but not most of them.

 

[KirbyKaze]

As long as you deny him the edgecancel, there's nothing really wrong with waiting for him to land if you have a monster punish on his landing lag a la Sheik, Fox, etc.

 

[shmeargle]

What about edgeguardi g him with platforms? Is it best to be higher up when he's recovering high? Like on a plat? Maybe you could wavedash bair drop if he tries going for the ledge? Just curious.

 

[Fly_Amanita]

It really depends on the precise layout of the stage. Like, you wouldn't need to anything like that on Yoshi's because of how the outer edges of the platforms are right over the edges of the main platform. You could just ftilt/dash attack/etc. him if you see him pulling back. On something like Dreamland, that might be okay.

Also, here's a random thought I had a while ago, but never dabbled with as much as I should have. If Falcon is approaching a platform after his up-B and you're not sure if he's going to land on it or pass through it, do an empty short hop and wait. If he passes through it, just land and grab him. If he lands on it, double jump, waveland, and grab him. This isn't that different from just standing below the platform and waiting, but it should be considerably easier to grab him before he can act if he does land on the platform, partially because you start out closer to him than you would be if you were on the ground, and partially because double jumps are instantaneous and you don't need to wait for jump start to end before you can start rising (not that ICs' jump start is long or anything, it's as fast as anybody's; it's still something, though).

 

[Kyu Puff]

shmeargle: I don't think that's a good position unless you're planning to get off the platform before he lands. Generally it's pretty easy for him to fall through the platform and get out of harm's way before you can punish (or he could just hold back and get the ledge). If you wait under the platform you can usually b-air or waveland -> grab if he lands on the platform, but it takes some good reaction and is easy to mess up.

What if you wait below the platform to scare him into holding back, wd off the stage, fastfall, and press up (to do normal get-up animation) at the last second. If you time it right, you might be able to edgehog and still punish him if he lands on the stage?

Edit: Fly, that's a pretty cool idea--I'll have to try that one out.

 

[choknater]

good idea fly

 

[Nintendude]

Kyu, I watched the match vs. Wes's Falco and noticed a few big things. First of all, a few times you tried to approach Falco from above. That's a big no-no. It just doesn't really work and if you do manage to land a hit it won't lead to anything. Second, it just seemed like you weren't putting any kind of pressure on him and didn't know how to approach. I usually beat Falcos by shielding a lot / using blizzard and ice blocks to slow them down. When you break their rhythm, they make more mistakes that you can capitalize on. Desynching into blizzard during your retreats would have helped a lot imo.

Here's some videos from a recent local that I won rather easily:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_t7Z1fODRyA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pg9PGZ5Q7Yw

I frankly wasn't trying super hard but after watching them I think the take-away message is to be more reactive to when Fox tries for a gimp, and also to stop trying to punish a shielded Fox up-smash (I think it's possible but really hard).

 

[Nintendude]

oooooooops

 

[Kyu Puff]

I think the reason I attacked from above a few times was because I accidentally launched myself into the air (jumped from the ledge or accidental fullhop) and I thought maybe I could surprise him. I agree I needed to put more pressure on him; I was having a hard time because he's a really technical and relentless Falco, and every time I hesitated for a second he would put me on the defensive. Normally I do ice block more and use my shield better, but for some reason I squandered every opportunity I had that game.

On shielded u-smash: If you fullshield, he has a ~21ish frame disadvantage (not sure how Nana's shield affects this number), so you should have time to wd grab. And unless he shines on the very first frame after the u-smash, you probably have a little bit of leeway.

So yeah the timing is strict (wd jab would be easier), but it's probably worth learning because otherwise it's a missed grab opportunity.

 

[Smasher89]

Noted a desynch today that I´ve not used before. Standing iceblock desynch, seems to only be able to do it if I just stand and IB> mash forward b so popo attacks and nana is free to move.

 

[Binx]

can you be more clear? I was trying to do what you said and couldnt get it to work at all.

 

[Smasher89]

can you be more clear? I was trying to do what you said and couldnt get it to work at all.

No problem =D
1. Stand and press b for synched iceblock
2. Control stick forward
3.mash b
Mashing should be done before the end of the animation, since mashing works it must be a quite large window of timing for it.

 

[Binx]

Oh okay I was thinking only 1 climber was gonna ice block.

Anyone here know Action Script? I need to program asteroids and some other stuff but I procrastinated a lot and if anyone could help me out that'd be super.

Also that Ice Climber podcast thing I was talking about a couple weeks ago, totally gonna happen soon, get hype ^_^

 

[Grim Tuesday]

I tried to do Popo SH Bair > Nana SH Bair > Popo SH Bair > etc... as a tech skill warm-up today, but I found that Nana would turn around after my first bair and do a SH fair.

Anyone got an explanation for this?

 

[john!]

explanation: nana is a *****

Spoiler

sorry i couldn't actually be of any help

 

[Kyu Puff]

I tried to do Popo SH Bair > Nana SH Bair > Popo SH Bair > etc... as a tech skill warm-up today, but I found that Nana would turn around after my first bair and do a SH fair.

Anyone got an explanation for this?

nana faces whatever direction you face; the only explanation is that you landed and turned around

 

[Grim Tuesday]

Nah, I can actually see her doing the turning animation while I'm in the middle of the bair.

And I'm using the c-stick to do the aerial