Ike Changes

[NWRL]

Hey guys,

I'm starting this thread to encourage some dialogue on how the Ike community feels about the character as of 3.6, and what changes Ike may (or may not) need in future versions. Use this thread to brainstorm ideas and discuss changes that would improve Ike as a character or make him more enjoyable for you personally!

 

[King of Hoboz]

Here's some stuff that I and the Ike Skype Chat have been talking about.

Hoboz Suggested Changes for Ike in the Next Patch:

- Revert aspects of Ike's tool kit to 3.5 states, namely:
* Ike's U-Throw being reverted to the 3.5 release point.
* Ike's QD Attack (and maybe the endlag if that effects QD Attack) being reverted to 3.5.
- Ike's Nair changed to be 1 frame faster by removing 1 frame of start-up (active Frame 6 then)
- Lower Ike's Dash Grab to land on crouching opponents (such as Jigglypuff and Kirby)
- Give Ike either his Japanese Voice or a new Voice Actor (as manly as ****ing possible)

What does these changes solve in Ike's defects?

1. QD Attack and U-Throw check Dash Dance abusive characters better by allowing for more potent conversions at ranges where Dash Dancing is most effective. Ike won't be hopelessly swinging for openings, allowing for a more interactive match.
2. QD Attack and Dash Grab changes help check Crouch Cancels and Low Profiling. Ike currently has no tools to interact with these strategies at most percents (or ever), leading to a lot of frustration.
3. Nair provides some very mild defensive spacing against approaches, which he generally lacks due to his extremely slow disjoints.
4. Makes him feel more badass and fun when he bends you side ways with signature punishes, heavy sounding sword swings, and less cheesy sounding lines.
5. Overall, these changes provide more reliable conversions which he generally lost from 3.5 to 3.6 while not really affecting his relative power level. His current conversion tools make the game slower and less fun in general. All of these changes would allow him to have a combo game against the entire cast.

How do these changes affect Ike and the rest of the cast?

- Most of Ike's generally even or good match-ups will remain unchanged in how they are played.
- Ike's bad match-ups will likely continue to be his bad match-ups, but will be more fun for the players by preventing singular options (such as Crouch Canceling, Low Profiling, Dash Dancing, and Air Camp) from exclusively dictating how the match is played, while still keeping them as potent options in the MU.
- His punish game will be more normalized and consistent across the cast with an U-Throw that doesn't send well past the top of BF's platforms at 0%.

Yes, these might look like some might powerful changes, but I want to point out I would generally go with these changes if they would be granted across the cast. I definitely think Pit, Bowser, D3, and other possible characters would benefit greatly from having improved tools to also mildly correct their defects and add consistency to their punish games.

Lastly, seriously, after seeing Umbreon and Ripple do their own postings on this, I highly recommend -every character forum- post one of these and try to come up with ideas.

 

[NWRL]

I've been testing the nair changes using PSA

So far this change doesn't really make Ike oppressive in any sort of way, he covers a little more of his body with the hitbox, making him a little harder to jump in on, and it helps quite a bit with juggling and covering platforms. This doesn't improve his ability to space directly in front of him, as the hitbox for nair doesn't hit directly in front of him until frame 12, which is just 5 frames slower than fair

The uthrow changes are honestly the biggest change that needs to happen right now, not so much for balance concerns as just for overall satisfaction. Uthrow just feels really awful to use in 3.6, the 3.5 uthrow actually makes his throw worse on Wolf and Captain Falcon, as their weight allows them to fall out of the chaingrab much earlier. 3.5 uthrow allows him to get some decent follow ups on floaties, which are some of Ike's more frustrating matchups.

 

[Deleted member]

i think what we should go for is to remove a frame off of nair startup rather than just making it have an active hitbox from frame 6. if your goal is to buff conversions, its best to consider how they are applied.

i think if you applied similar buffs across the cast, this could be very good. good work guys

 

[King of Hoboz]

My mistake on the write up, I changed it to be phrased better.

 

[NWRL]

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-m5cJsUTznlUHd0R3NqRkhubUU/view?usp=sharing

Just delete your Ike folder and replace it with this if you feel like testing the suggested changes!

EDIT: It was suggested that I use 3.6 as a base, this build has the buff to nair, lowered dash grab hitboxes, and 3.5 QD attack

I am still learning how to change throws so it does not have the suggested throw changes... yet

Exact changes are:

Nair: Animation sped up 1 frame, added frame speed modifier of 1.17, active frames 6-17 instead of 7-18

QD Attack:
--Endlag -3 (IASA 32 from 35)
--BKB 50 from 40
--KBG 120 from 130

Dash Grab
Lowered catch collision by 1 unit, this allows Ike to grab all low profile characters with a dash grab.

 

[Frakture]

After some trial and error I have successfully removed a frame off of start up off of nair, and removed armor on Aether. Nair is now active from frames 6-17 instead of 7-18

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-m5cJsUTznlekdlX3NoTWRZdFU/view?usp=sharing

Just delete your Ike folder and replace it with this if you feel like testing the suggested changes!

Is the endlag also shortened by one frame? Also, what do you mean when you say you removed the armor on Aether? The armor on Aether was already removed in 3.6b.

 

[NWRL]

Is the endlag also shortened by one frame? Also, what do you mean when you say you removed the armor on Aether? The armor on Aether was already removed in 3.6b.

Because most of the changes suggested are reverts back to 3.5, I just took 3.5 Ike, added a frame speed modifier to nair to speed up the entire animation by 1 frame, and removed the armor from Aether.

Most of this stuff can be done to 3.6 Ike, but the uthrow change is something that requires a lot of PSA knowledge, and I'm not too proficient with it yet, so I just took a simpler method of approach.

 

[NWRL]

I was playing around with the build using the 3.5 base and the rest of the suggested changes, punishes overall seem way more consistent and slightly safer. Conversions versus spacies are once again brutal, and makes getting a grab very rewarding for Ike. We lose the chaingrab on Captain Falcon and Wolf, but more than make up for it with some added follow ups out of uthrow.

The changes to quickdraw work as intended, it's pretty useful to catch someone out of a DD and get some follow ups out of that.

I haven't had a chance to play a main who can low profile Ike's grab currently, but I'd imagine that it makes those matchups a little more bearable if you can manage to get a dash grab to land.

One thing I noticed as well, was that the changes to Ike weren't really noticeable from the opposing players side, but to me, the changes were pretty obvious and noticeable. Which leads me to believe that they're pretty healthy overall

 

[Commander]

I don't think the start up time for Quick Draw should be reverted to 3.5. The longer start up time in 3.6 forces it to be more of a commitment and it shouldn't feel like a move totally free of any commitment both to force Ike players to not rely on the move and so those that fight against Ike don't feel like Ike doesn't have to commit to anything when using Quick Draw.

I feel the attack should be reverted to the 3.5 version because as it is now it is pretty much always the worst option out of QD and doesn't lead to anything interesting. I don't think characters should be designed with moves that are always suboptimal. Somewhat related, the attack should not be activated by the attack command just like how it wasn't in 3.5. It is strange that it was activated by the attack command in 3.6b and is still activated that way in the full release. It messes things up on netplay when I try to go for a grab and a little bit of lag causes it to be an attack instead.

I've seen quite a few people complain about Ike's recovery. I don't think the wall jump from QD is a big issue and can easily be solved with better stage lists so Ike doesn't always recover from the blast zone. One issue is related to Aether though. Aether has 2 hit boxes that have 100 base knock back. The first is at the start of the move and is necessary to make it combo with the rest, but the second is right where the sword reaches its peak before Ike grabs i. I have used it to knock away DKs and other heavy weights crouching at the ledge while they were at low percents. The knockback is so great that it makes sure the ledge is free, It is a pretty rare occurrence and I don't think many Ikes are aware of that hit box but it is something that should be looked into by the dev team.

 

[Deleted member]

im okay with the lower startup, its still clearly worse than a real dashdance, which huge chunks of the cast has.

really impressive how you've kept up with this idea zach

 

[Thane of Blue Flames]

The 3.5 -> 3.6 nerf to QD attack was ****ing awful.

It actually wrecks Ike's gameplan a lot more than you'd expect initially. His combos lose a ton of potency, QD attack in neutral was never viable as a mix-up because it's so awful on shield, and getting juggles started is absurdly harder. Combined with the new release point, juggles got way too hard to start out of throws. Funnily, this is most evident v/s GaW - it's so much harder for us to juggle him than the reverse.

 

[NWRL]

If you guys have any suggested changes, feel free to post them and I can try to get them into a PSA for you guys to test out at your locals.

I've tested the suggested changes at my locals and no one really notices the Ike changes on the receiving end, even the faster nair. So even with a bigger sample size, it's not really noticeable, at least in my region.

 

[Deleted member]

If you guys have any suggested changes, feel free to post them and I can try to get them into a PSA for you guys to test out at your locals.

I've tested the suggested changes at my locals and no one really notices the Ike changes on the receiving end, even the faster nair. So even with a bigger sample size, it's not really noticeable, at least in my region.

you should try what i do- tell your test group that you have altered ike but dont want to tell them what the changes are to avoid placebo effect, then play for a while and let them guess the changes. if you get a lot of wrong answers, it is a fair assumption that the changes are more or less fine. afterwards tell them the problems you see with the character currently, what your changes actually were, and how you think those changes solve the aforementioned problems while being minimally intrusive to the rest of the character. also ask them for other possible ideas. this is fair for both you and your opponents, because you get honest feedback, while they get the chance to check your thought process. you can then pool your answers to possibly improve on what you already have.

 

[NWRL]

you should try what i do- tell your test group that you have altered ike but dont want to tell them what the changes are to avoid placebo effect, then play for a while and let them guess the changes. if you get a lot of wrong answers, it is a fair assumption that the changes are more or less fine. afterwards tell them the problems you see with the character currently, what your changes actually were, and how you think those changes solve the aforementioned problems while being minimally intrusive to the rest of the character. also ask them for other possible ideas. this is fair for both you and your opponents, because you get honest feedback, while they get the chance to check your thought process. you can then pool your answers to possibly improve on what you already have.

That's an awesome idea, I'll definitely give that a try with a new group of testers, results will be posted back here.

 

[Sylarius]

To add on to this, I think Ike's utilt should have 1 frame less startup and 1 frame less endlag, not being able to combo with it at low %s on some characters is annoying (falcon comes to mind). And very light armor on aether so stuff like pika's uair doesn't kill but he doesn't get out of marth's dair either (ex. strongbad vs dizzy, he armors dizzy's dair, but pika's drop down uair is super free on ike). Anyone else agree? I think the armor change on up b weakened it more than it needed.

 

[Robert Rodriguez]

I actually consider Ike to be quite the contender in Project M, with a very high skill cap and tools for just about any changes. The nerfs he was given between 3.5 and 3.6 were small and hardly affected my playstyle, personally.

 

[NWRL]

To add on to this, I think Ike's utilt should have 1 frame less startup and 1 frame less endlag, not being able to combo with it at low %s on some characters is annoying (falcon comes to mind). And very light armor on aether so stuff like pika's uair doesn't kill but he doesn't get out of marth's dair either (ex. strongbad vs dizzy, he armors dizzy's dair, but pika's drop down uair is super free on ike). Anyone else agree? I think the armor change on up b weakened it more than it needed.

I'll bring it up in the Ike group and get the general consensus about the uptilt, I don't really see that being a harmful change, but at the same time I think his uptilt is fine as is.

I disagree about the up B armor, it's definitely fine as is.

 

[Thane of Blue Flames]

Ike's Up-B fits very well into his kit and should never have had any armor, honestly.

 

[King of Hoboz]

Yeah, in response to the current suggestions from Syl.

For Up-B armor, I'd rather keep it as is, Ike's design doesn't really have much need to arbitrarily have armor, and light armor didn't solve much to begin with.

For U-Tilt, it's an interesting suggestion but I think what's important to realize is that any moment where you're close enough to U-Tilt, but not fast enough to throw it out before they tech floor, a re-grab would normally work; making the U-Throw buff that much more valuable since it'll be a more viable follow-up for mid-percent combos.

 

[MLGF]

I just kinda want to throw out my thoughts on some of these more popular ideas...

1) On QD Attack Holy ****, people actually used QD attack outside of recovery mixups? There was always a better option imho. But please, let's bring back 3.5 QD on the basis it'll never matter lmao.
2) On Nair Buffs Shortening startup on nair would make shield drop nair even more absurd. There's a delicate balance there, buffing unexplored options brings out some horrible consequences. Tread lightly on this idea. That's not to say I'm against buffing some of Ike's OoS options but... it's a careful balance.
3) On Ike's Old Aether Light armor was my favorite thing ever against spacies/springs/whatever. But it also made Ike's recovery too intimidating to guard I suppose. Taking it out really rounded out Ike's weaknesses in his recovery, but I do miss it.
4) On Ike's Up throw Ike's old u-throw I can do with or without. F-Throw and B-Throw are still amazing mixups, but I do understand how taking out U-throw's mid percent combo potential is a really kick in the ****ter for people who liked that move
5) On Dash Grab **** yes, buff his dash grab.

Overall, a lot of these buffs are modest. I can't really see these doing much for Ike in making him polarizing for his advantageous better, nor do I really think it'd make his hard matchups better.

Outside of sped up nair, holy ****. I'm super wary on this idea. Nair drops already get me out of absurd options (and can end up leading to death combos on certain character), I don't know if I in good conscious would ever support buffing it.

 

[Sylarius]

After reviewing videos and playing more pm I'd still appreciate a small utilt buff. And I definitely think shield drop nair is not absurd at all.

 

[Soylent]

Personally, I just want his up throw reverted to the lower release point. I'm not sure that he really needs anything else.

 

[Cox Box]

Of course right after I show these proposed changes to the tier list speculation thread, the PMDT announces that there won't be any updates. Sorry team.

 

[Sol0ke]

Guess the only thing to do is to fully develop his meta.

 

[metroid1117]

To be entirely honest, IMHO the only changes I would've wanted to see would've been nerfs on Aether to make it less flexible and slightly easier to hit out of. 3.6 Ike seems fine to me otherwise.

 

[Cox Box]

To be entirely honest, IMHO the only changes I would've wanted to see would've been nerfs on Aether to make it less flexible and slightly easier to hit out of. 3.6 Ike seems fine to me otherwise.

Do you think that Ike is viable as a solo main, or are there matchups (Kirby, Sheik, DDD, etc.) that are bad enough to necessitate switching to another character?

 

[metroid1117]

Do you think that Ike is viable as a solo main, or are there matchups (Kirby, Sheik, DDD, etc.) that are bad enough to necessitate switching to another character?

IMHO Sheik is hard, but Ike's punish game is so good on her that I don't think the match-up makes him unviable. As for Kirby and D3, those are matches I would consider switching based off of my own personal preference and not necessarily because the match-up is just that bad/unwinnable.

Speaking as someone who's mained Ike since even before Demo 2.0 was publicly released (I got a leaked Wi-fi copy lol), I think he's a good example of a PM character who has plenty of good options but isn't overpowered, and the characters that do well against him don't make him inviable. Since PM's metagame is still relatively young (and more people are inclined to fully explore characters now that future changes won't happen), I think it's too early to say that there are certain match-ups that "necessitate" switching characters; there may be personal preferences based on the player, but I'd like to think that Ike, when played at the highest level, is viable as a solo main even though some of his match-ups may be difficult (not necessarily "unwinnable").

 

[King of Hoboz]

Yeah man, regardless of my suggestions (which honestly only half were needed and it was under the assumption of a generally stronger cast in future patches), Ike's pretty fine. I think the only match-ups worth considering switching will end up be 2 to 3 MUs. I call that Solo-Mainable in PM imo.

 

[Deleted member]

IMHO Sheik is hard, but Ike's punish game is so good on her that I don't think the match-up makes him unviable. As for Kirby and D3, those are matches I would consider switching based off of my own personal preference and not necessarily because the match-up is just that bad/unwinnable.

Speaking as someone who's mained Ike since even before Demo 2.0 was publicly released (I got a leaked Wi-fi copy lol), I think he's a good example of a PM character who has plenty of good options but isn't overpowered, and the characters that do well against him don't make him inviable. Since PM's metagame is still relatively young (and more people are inclined to fully explore characters now that future changes won't happen), I think it's too early to say that there are certain match-ups that "necessitate" switching characters; there may be personal preferences based on the player, but I'd like to think that Ike, when played at the highest level, is viable as a solo main even though some of his match-ups may be difficult (not necessarily "unwinnable").

the point of the suggested changes is mostly to make the game less bland, in this case through ike, but i had suggested similar revisions across the cast. at that point though, if you're going to suggest buffs, you might as well do so in ways that round out MUs, which generally means having ways to check extreme attributes since those tend to be the ones that create MU heavy characters.in ike's case, he has little in the way of checking low crouches or DD abuse, so we opted to buff his conversions in such a way that it addresses those issue while minimally affecting other parts of the character. i agree with you that ike is "more" solo-mainable than a lot of characters, but A it was never really established that this was a goal or even ideal, and B you're still going to fold to a marth or jigglypuff that plays the game correctly, and then the nuance between a bad MU or it being unwinnable becomes an exercise in semantics. of course this is all hindsight at this point, and i don't think the sheik MU is that bad either (i often play ike against other sheiks heh) but the base premise was a good one imo

 

[metroid1117]

the point of the suggested changes is mostly to make the game less bland, in this case through ike, but i had suggested similar revisions across the cast. at that point though, if you're going to suggest buffs, you might as well do so in ways that round out MUs, which generally means having ways to check extreme attributes since those tend to be the ones that create MU heavy characters.in ike's case, he has little in the way of checking low crouches or DD abuse, so we opted to buff his conversions in such a way that it addresses those issue while minimally affecting other parts of the character. i agree with you that ike is "more" solo-mainable than a lot of characters, but A it was never really established that this was a goal or even ideal, and B you're still going to fold to a marth or jigglypuff that plays the game correctly, and then the nuance between a bad MU or it being unwinnable becomes an exercise in semantics. of course this is all hindsight at this point, and i don't think the sheik MU is that bad either (i often play ike against other sheiks heh) but the base premise was a good one imo

Yeah I agree entirely; if revisions were made across the cast then there are some things about Ike that are worth examining, notably, like you said, his susceptibility to good dashdance play and low crouches. I would definitely agree with a lower standing grab, but I'm not sure how I'd address counterplay to dashdancing; I'm not entirely satisfied with the solution of reverting QD attack since it gives QD even more utility than it already has, but I'm also dissatisfied with the simple alternative of giving Ike a better dashdance (something that I've contemplated) since that entails an "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" philosophy.

 

[WhinoTheRhino]

I'd agree that Ike is more "solo mainable" than most other characters, but there will be a couple MUs that are bad enough to warrant a secondary, such as Kirby.

 

[MLGF]

Let's be real, Kirby can't really force Ike to approach.

We my have to play lame as **** but it's not unwinnable by any means.

 

[Deleted member]

Yeah I agree entirely; if revisions were made across the cast then there are some things about Ike that are worth examining, notably, like you said, his susceptibility to good dashdance play and low crouches. I would definitely agree with a lower standing grab, but I'm not sure how I'd address counterplay to dashdancing; I'm not entirely satisfied with the solution of reverting QD attack since it gives QD even more utility than it already has, but I'm also dissatisfied with the simple alternative of giving Ike a better dashdance (something that I've contemplated) since that entails an "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" philosophy.

we tested 3.5 QDA and didn't like the feel of it as a conversion tool. instead we opted for the cooldown -3 frames of endlag but kept the 3.6 knockback values. the file was finished, so you probably have it saved. if not you can PM me your email address and i'll send it. my ike build feels marvelous to actually play and i had zero complaints during testing with many people.

 

[metroid1117]

we tested 3.5 QDA and didn't like the feel of it as a conversion tool. instead we opted for the cooldown -3 frames of endlag but kept the 3.6 knockback values. the file was finished, so you probably have it saved. if not you can PM me your email address and i'll send it. my ike build feels marvelous to actually play and i had zero complaints during testing with many people.

I was a terrible PMDT member and rarely updated my SVN folder, so I might not have the build lol. The nearest people to Smash with are 45 minutes away and we usually play Melee, so I probably won't get a chance to really try out the build against competent players =/.

 

[Deleted member]

I was a terrible PMDT member and rarely updated my SVN folder, so I might not have the build lol. The nearest people to Smash with are 45 minutes away and we usually play Melee, so I probably won't get a chance to really try out the build against competent players =/.

the only thing terrible you did was nerf QDA from comboing into itself 4 times

;_;

 

[metroid1117]

the only thing terrible you did was nerf QDA from comboing into itself 4 times

;_;

Ahh the good ol' days.

(Holy crap that video is more than three years old lol.)

 

[Quaza]

I know I'm kind of late to the party but the change I would make is to remove the armor on neutral B and to reduce the KBG on u-air. Eruption is just kind of dumb imo. I've had some idiotic interactions with it that I don't think should ever happen. As for u-air the BKB is fine and great for conversions but it just kills so insanely early. It just isn't necessary for the character especially considering the priority the move has.