Ike Social Thread

[Y-L]

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Guys, I like to know your opinions, is it bad if I want to train my MK more, but keep Ike as a secondary?

Asking this question here will probably give you a lot of bias. Ike is a kind of character that requires a lot of dedication to play due having to intricately learn his weaknesses and how to react to them properly as well as pretty slow moves requiring knowledge of timing and spacing accompanying his considerable tech skill but hey if you like mk play him. I would say play one character at least twice as much as the other and stick to one character. However in a game like pm you generally need a secondary.

 

[MLGF]

Honestly, I find Meta Knight doesn't need nearly as much practice/maintenance to be useful as Ike. I generally duel main between the two at tournaments, but I honestly find most of my practice to be Ike. Meta Knight is more of dash dances and down b shenanigans. Ike is... well extensive.

 

[metroid1117]

Guys, I like to know your opinions, is it bad if I want to train my MK more, but keep Ike as a secondary?

In addition to the points that others have already made (like how Ike requires a lot of maintenance), keep in mind that the point of having multiple mains/characters is to cover match-ups, whether it be against certain characters or certain players. As someone who double mains Ike and Charizard, here are some questions I ask myself:

- Which match-ups would I feel more comfortable going Ike as instead of Charizard?
- Which match-ups would the opposite be true?
- Does my opponent have a lot of experience against Ikes or Charizards?
- Would I be able to exploit his/her lack of experience by going with one character or the other?
- Do I feel confident about switching characters after I lose a game?

My experience as a double main isn't 100% applicable to your situation since you're thinking of going MK-Ike instead of Ike-Charizard, but you should ask yourself the same questions before seriously committing to learning multiple characters. Before you pick up any new characters on a competitive level though, be sure that your Smash fundamentals are strong enough that you can perform adequately well with most characters simply by playing smartly; if your skill level isn't quite at that level yet, then I would advise solidifying your fundamentals with one character before learning other characters.

 

[WhinoTheRhino]

This is just my opinion so take what you will from it but tbh I don't think MK and Ike is a very good combination at all. Both these characters fall to projectile heavy characters, especially a good samus's missile spam and both links (there's probably other characters too but I forget). Although Ike has tools to deal with projectiles (MK probably does too but idk MK), it requires too much MU knowledge and experience in general to make Ike an effective secondary character, and you're better off just going with another secondary that has more even matchups. Of course if you just want to play Ike and have fun then go ahead and play him, Ike is awesome, but from a MU pov it would be better to either main Ike and find a different secondary (the better option ), or main MK and find a different secondary. But just to restate, by all means if you want to play both characters then do so. After all, it's just a game

Edit: Damnit, I didn't see that there was another page, and I wrote all of this out and I didn't see until after that people already replied. lol.

 

[WhinoTheRhino]

This is just my opinion so take what you will from it but tbh I don't think MK and Ike is a very good combination at all. Both these characters fall to projectile heavy characters, especially a good samus's missile spam and both links (there's probably other characters too but I forget). Although Ike has tools to deal with projectiles (MK probably does too but idk MK), it requires too much MU knowledge and experience in general to make Ike an effective secondary character, and you're better off just going with another secondary that has more even matchups. Of course if you just want to play Ike and have fun then go ahead and play him, Ike is awesome, but from a MU pov it would be better to either main Ike and find a different secondary (the better option ), or main MK and find a different secondary. But just to restate, by all means if you want to play both characters then do so. After all, it's just a game

Edit: And sorry for double post, I messed up and submitted this twice I suppose.

 

[Sol0ke]

Thanks for the responses, guys!
Looks like I'm going to use the hero of the blue flames more now.

 

[WhinoTheRhino]

Now that we're on the topic, what do you guys think is a good secondary for Ike?

 

[grandpappy]

Anybody small/fast with a good projectile/lingering hitboxes. Toon Link or MK are good I think. Or Mario since you don't have to practice with him to do well.

But what you should REALLY do is secondary with a different colored Ike. That's how these guys keep telling me to win.

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Oh, and @ metroid1117 I played with mudkyp (Charles) for like 12 hours just last week and he thinks I've gotten a lot better. I'm coming for your spot as best Ike in Illinois.

 

[RomanCenturionX]

Now that we're on the topic, what do you guys think is a good secondary for Ike?

I like Snake for a dual main/secondary, Snake seems to be able to handle characters like Ivysaur, Pika, Peach, MK, and Puff better than my Ike can at this point. In addition he shares similar weight, jump startup, gravity, and fast fall speed with Ike making him interchangeable with his different timings for wave dashing, wave landing, ledge hopping, DACUSing, etc. Both of them have a heavy emphasis on the mental aspect of the game and they are fun for me to play. So I would recommend Snake but I understand that Snake does not cover all of Ike's weaknesses as well as other characters might so there is that.

 

[metroid1117]

Oh, and @ metroid1117 I played with mudkyp (Charles) for like 12 hours just last week and he thinks I've gotten a lot better. I'm coming for your spot as best Ike in Illinois.

LOL you must've been the one to prompt him to make a salty status on Facebook. I won't be back in Chicago until winter break, but we gotta play at that time .

 

[grandpappy]

LOL you must've been the one to prompt him to make a salty status on Facebook. I won't be back in Chicago until winter break, but we gotta play at that time .

Haha! I definitely was the reason for that. He was salty about Ike's hitboxes after playing with me. For sure. Money Match. I'm ready to get wrecked.

 

[SparkingZero]

Screw that come to TX and take on it's best!
I secondary Squirtle but I honestly have not pulled him out lately. I used to pull out Squirtle for characters like Diddy but lately I've been shifting more towards Ike for that MU. But I guess he's okay for a secondary to those who don't know that MU.

 

[MLGF]

So... any Ike's shppin' off to Guts? I'd love to do some Ike round robin or something

 

[grandpappy]

Ike round robin

I support this. 10 Friends being fought for/10 would be the most hype thing to ever grace anyone's stream.

 

[Deleted member]

so like i started playing ike for fun over the summer since strongbad bodied me with him at apex, and i dont feel like the character is particularly great, and i dont think i play him all that well, but i've been doing really good anyway, can someone explain it?

 

[Player -0]

Ike is balanced?

 

[grandpappy]

^That and it seems to me that a lot of people don't play right against Ike.

 

[metroid1117]

so like i started playing ike for fun over the summer since strongbad bodied me with him at apex, and i dont feel like the character is particularly great, and i dont think i play him all that well, but i've been doing really good anyway, can someone explain it?

IMHO Ike is a character that can perform well with solid fundamentals even without focusing on PM (for example, DJ Nintendo and Ally); although he isn't particularly fast on the ground outside of burst movement from QD, jab and NAir allow him to play footsies with other characters while his throws and Falcon-esque aerial mobility out of a run grant him a solid combo game. In addition, there aren't that many good Ikes around (it was discussed in earlier topics, but IMHO it's because he has a relatively low skill floor but a high skill ceiling) and his recovery is very unorthodox compared to "traditional" recoveries, so people might be lacking match-up experience. Either that, or you're developed all kinds of new technology (which I honestly think would be awesome, not being sarcastic).

 

[MLGF]

Speaking of DJ, I had the honor of getting wrecked by many people at Guts yesterday including him.

But that aside, I didn't expect DJ's Ike to be so... different. He was a lot less reliant on QD then what I usually see and he uses a lot more nair tactics.

It's interesting to something so different from what I've been studying (mostly Metroid's stuff...) and have another top player go in an entirely different direction. Was sorta cool.

Gonna learn both styles now though, I'm excited for the stuff I learned.

And I found out that Ike dittos are common things to hate.

 

[Y-L]

what??? Ike dittos are crazy fun

 

[Deleted member]

Either that, or you're developed all kinds of new technology (which I honestly think would be awesome, not being sarcastic).

after playing the character for like 15 minutes I decided that he's basically 90% upthrow > good thing spam, does that count?

seriously this char's upthrow is SO good. i wish he had a better dashgrab without QD, but tomahawk's are OP so w/e

 

[Y-L]

after playing the character for like 15 minutes I decided that he's basically 90% upthrow > good thing spam, does that count?

seriously this char's upthrow is SO good. i wish he had a better dashgrab without QD, but tomahawk's are OP so w/e

uthrow at low percent is god like, on floaties dthrow is good and it's good for tech chasing, fthrow bthrow can lead to qd fairs depending on di so they're good for kills

 

[metroid1117]

after playing the character for like 15 minutes I decided that he's basically 90% upthrow > good thing spam, does that count?

seriously this char's upthrow is SO good. i wish he had a better dashgrab without QD, but tomahawk's are OP so w/e

At low %s UThrow is generally very good, but at mid/high %s I've found more success using B/FThrow for combos and tech chases rather than positional advantage from UThrow.

By the way, at 0%, you can generally UThrow -> reverse BAir -> regrab non-floaty characters if they DI the UThrow away. It feels so satisfying :x.

 

[Deleted member]

well the way i see smash is i'm a pure fundamentals player, so i obv go to ideas that work on other characters since i'm playing blind. with ike, i tried it like it's marth where you just upthrow because it's a godly conversion that leads to free position and you can do whatever. but its basically any %, i dont even go for a combo if i dont have one, i just try to leverage fair and upair so the opponent never lands and just hold position for as much free % as possible. if i upthrow at 0 and get a sweet 40% combo, cool, if i upthrow at 130 and they cant land because i upair them, also cool. it's like link's upair where it anyways beats everything, except ike's isn't quite like that but close enough? but link also doesnt have ike's upthrow. idk if its optimal but its definitely another direction to look at the character. i'll be honest idk **** about this character i just think hes fun

 

[Sol0ke]

I'm sad.

My Ike grew rusty as I found out in a tourney I went to on Friday. I had to go Meta Knight for most of the tourney.

Any advice on how I can keep maintaining my Ike?

 

[King of Hoboz]

What were you rusty at doing? Just treat it like troubleshooting. If you had trouble avoiding stuff, just work on that in training mode whenever you get the urge.

 

[Sol0ke]

Trying to do anything involving jumping out of QuickDraw
So like wave dashing out of QuickDraw and backwards bair

 

[King of Hoboz]

You might be doing them too fast? Yes, you'll just have to practice that stuff on your own a bit.

 

[MLGF]

I try to do 10ish minutes of maintenance a day, oftentimes a bit more before a day before a tournament. It's not much about playing, but you need the motions down.

Makes you feel better, I do the exact thing with Meta Knight too. I also go Marth when I'm sleepy for some reason. My advice is that Ike is better when extremely caffeinated.

 

[grandpappy]

That's my secret. I'm always angry caffeinated.

 

[Player -0]

Also eat lots of beef.

Am I magically talented because I'm 5? I feel like I don't have to practice tech skill a lot, I just remember the timing for stuff.

 

[SparkingZero]

Not sure if it was already mentioned but if a floaty char is DIing the D throw away, you can chain grab it with QD. If they decide to stop DIing it away, you could just BAir. Feelz good yo.

 

[MLGF]

You can likely Bair regardless of situation honestly, reverse jump back airs out of quick draws feel soooooooo good.

 

[metroid1117]

Not sure if it was already mentioned but if a floaty char is DIing the D throw away, you can chain grab it with QD. If they decide to stop DIing it away, you could just BAir. Feelz good yo.

You can also DThrow -> DACUS them at high %s if they DI away for maximum swag .

 

[MLGF]

I keep forgetting Ike has a DACUS because of QD.

I'm kinda assuming the only reason to DACUS with Ike is to troll and style...
Either way, I'm learning it.

 

[grandpappy]

I actually think that in the situation metroid was talking about, the dthrow would put them too close for QD usmash to work. DACUS is actually pretty useful in that situation I think. I do try to land it on people randomly when I'm up a lot just to troll tho.

 

[Commander]

DACUS comes out faster than QDUS and reaches closer. It makes a lot of followups possible when they don't exist in any other way.

 

[SparkingZero]

Take a stock to OHKO. Then look at them like

 

[metroid1117]

I also use DACUS to punish poorly-spaced aerials, the back hit and sliding crouch make it great for sharking under opponents.

 

[SparkingZero]

I also use DACUS to punish poorly-spaced aerials, the back hit and sliding crouch make it great for sharking under opponents.

Also a good way to use it for those who have a hovering recovery like DK. Punishing the opponent's attempt to hit you with spacing a DACUS.