Is FSmash useful ?

[ReroRero]

I pretty much find all Ike's moves useful at some points except this one. Yes the range and the power is great but it's way too slow and the endlag is making Ike wide open for heavy punishement. So is there a way to use this move decently ?

(Besides it's extremely frustating when I push my stick a little bit too fast and do a Fsmash instead of Ftilt)

 

[Conn1496]

It's a move based entirely on reads. Way I see it, I treat it similarly to his Neutral-B, Eruption. Learn the timing on it to guarantee hits, and anticipate movements. Its hitbox is wide and pretty good for catching people who are falling towards you, making it a pretty good edgeguarding tool, filling a couple of the blind spots that Eruption, another good edgeguard, doesn't hit.

 

[Nidtendofreak]

Its useful for an onstage edgeguarding mix up option. And the hypest of all reads.

That's about it.

 

[san.]

It is good to use under the platforms on BF or an air dodge read after throws, Nair, and dtilt.

 

[ReroRero]

So it's good for read and that's about it, i'm not great with reads unfortunately :'(

 

[Arrei]

If your opponent gets ledge trumped or lets go of the ledge to attack you from off stage, but fails and takes his time getting back to the stage, the tip of the FSmash will hit and likely kill them when they regrab the ledge. That's the only practical use I've found for it. I also did once manage to land the tip strike on the ledge vulnerability frame, which happened pretty much by accident.

It's also specifically useful for the Little Mac matchup, as he can't get rid of Mac offstage as easily as other characters, but can slam Mac away as he recovers.

 

[PyroTakun]

Pivot F-Smash is a pretty good mixup if used sparingly. Other than that it's for reads and punishes for moves with a lot of endlag.

 

[Mario766]

Hard to find moves that f smash punishes. Its the slowest starting smash in the game or close to it.

 

[Banjobeast158]

I miss brawl Fsmash lol, but in this game I believe it is more of a landing trap; kinda like Usmash.

 

[mimicmatter]

I have a quite usefull strategy involving the Side Smash.

When I'm thrown quite far up in the air out of the platform, I start charging Quick Draw. Instead of releasing it at the ledge or on the opponent. I release it over the opponent, I will fly over the opponent and past behind him on the platform. When I touch the ground, I do a side smash in the direction of the opponent.

The idea behind this is to set a trap to the opponent. Especially if he is near the ledge, when I side B behind him, his first reflexe would be to run toward me, making him totally vulnerable to a side smash especially if he don't see it coming.

I don't know if Quick Draw happen to auto-cancel at this height, but doing a side smash when you touch the ground after Quick Draw, happen really fast.

The idea behind this trick is to put a trap at the opponent, letting him think that I'm vulnerable when I'm actually preparing a side smash and if the opponent bait for it, it's too late. All in all, it's a hard read, trying to force the opponent to do what you want him to do.

I need more pratice to get this trick done correctly and it's very situational, but each time I put it on, I always got my target. It's really more usefull at the end of a match, that's when people get their guard down.

I have a video of it, I will be able to show my technique other than in word, it might help figure it out.

 

[Casval]

something i've done a few times with fsmash is when an opponent is on the ledge, i position myself in a spot that's actually just a tad bit too far for fsmash to reach the ledge or the spot the opponent will stand up from a regular getup. but once my opponent sees me ready the fsmash, they'll try to quickly jump over me so they can punish me from behind.

they would succeed, but i charge the fsmash and release it so that the opening of the hitbox coincides with them being right where the hitbox opens, diagonally above and behind me, then they fly off to the other side of the stage.

it isn't particularly useful since you're throwing them into neutral (or even past it again) but at high percentages you'll be able to make it to the other side of the stage and set up another edgeguard before they get back, and at even higher percentages it can kill off the opposite side of the screen.

 

[Trueblade]

One thing I've found to work on occasion is throwing one out immediately after you've autocancelled an on-stage Quick Draw recovery. Might catch your opponent off guard if they don't know about QD autocancelling from full hop height and try to chase.

Wouldn't really recommend it, but sometimes bad options are good options.

 

[GhostUrsa]

So it's good for read and that's about it, i'm not great with reads unfortunately :'(

Ike is a defensive focused character that is all about reads. He doesn't have the staying power to tank like Bowser or Ganondorf, and he doesn't have the speed for safe combos like quite a few of the other cast. He's all about being able to hit like a truck, and knowing when to make that one swing. It's why the largest guaranteed combos (as in it's not dependent on your opponent's DI or stupidity) for him are about 3 hits.

This applies to all of his smashes, not just Fsmash. Dsmash and Usmash all have some windup for them that requires knowing your foe's habits to land without fishing. It's why when you see the best Ike players fighting they rarely use smashes until they have to. Ike's tilts and aerials have more versatility for racking up damage, so the smashes are best as a surprise attack when your opponent doesn't think you'll do one.

Luckily, learning to read an opponent is a matter of time. You need knowledge of different MU to see patterns your opponent will be using fast enough to adapt for Ike. If you like playing Ike, you'll get there eventually with practice and learning how to use your character to his full potential.

 

[gByron]

It comes out so slow that even if I read a roll then immediately smash they perfect shield it. Your reads must be godlike. Ive seen ryo getting kills with pivot fsmashes and fsmashing on the ledge though. What I never use is down smash. I go for other options oos and use utilt and usmash to deal with rollers

 

[Deleted member 269706]

It's good for reading rolls and punishing floaters who are hovering around you. With that said, there are generally better options to deal with both of these scenarios. Though I'm pretty sure this is Ike's most powerful move (other than fully charged Eruption).

 

[GhostUrsa]

It comes out so slow that even if I read a roll then immediately smash they perfect shield it. Your reads must be godlike. Ive seen ryo getting kills with pivot fsmashes and fsmashing on the ledge though. What I never use is down smash. I go for other options oos and use utilt and usmash to deal with rollers

Personally, I find Usmash to be good against slow rollers (or characters with more distance to their rolls) and Dsmash to be good against fast ones. Usmash is slightly slower than dsmash, and the starting positions of the hit boxes make it so they favor a specific roll style. (Usmash starts in front of Ike and ends behind while Dsmash starts behind and ends in front.)

 

[Mario766]

Usmash is a LOT slower than Dsmash (14 frames).

It's hard to Usmash a roll without a hard read or they don't buffer their shield in time.

 

[Arrei]

Personally, I find Usmash to be good against slow rollers (or characters with more distance to their rolls) and Dsmash to be good against fast ones. Usmash is slightly slower than dsmash, and the starting positions of the hit boxes make it so they favor a specific roll style. (Usmash starts in front of Ike and ends behind while Dsmash starts behind and ends in front.)

Wait, you sure about that? Pretty sure DSmash starts in front too.

I don't know what it is about today, but I've been landing a lot of FSmashes as landing traps today against overly aggressive opponents.

 

[Mario766]

I've landed some F-Smash traps on platforms if people miss the tech or tech in place. It's not very common so people don't see it coming.

 

[GhostUrsa]

Wait, you sure about that? Pretty sure DSmash starts in front too.

I don't know what it is about today, but I've been landing a lot of FSmashes as landing traps today against overly aggressive opponents.

God, I thought so but now I'm not sure if my memory is playing tricks on me! Can't seem to find any videos right now to confirm it, and it will be a bit before I'm able to play and check personally.

I should really get more sleep....

 

[Mario766]

D-Smash and U-Smash both hit up front first.

D Smash hits on frame 11. U Smash hits on frame 25.

 

[GhostUrsa]

D-Smash and U-Smash both hit up front first.

D Smash hits on frame 11. U Smash hits on frame 25.

Thank you for clarifying. I'm going to claim mental exhaustion as my defense.

Though my advice on one working better for faster/slower rollers is still pretty sound. Personally I've caught rollers with Usmash mostly by accident, as I'm anticipating a jump-over recovery from the ledge and they try to roll past instead. I'm usually holding Usmash to get the timing down for the aerial, so catching the roll isn't too bad. (As long as they don't surprise you anyway.)

Edit: Accident isn't the right term. More capitalizing on my unexpected fortune.

 

[A2ZOMG]

U-smash is generally the most practical one for land trap situations. I'll sometimes use pivot F-smash however to catch people who are being overaggressive. It's not actually that unsafe to throw out here and there as long as you don't position in a way that leaves you open to being killed, and it can cover a decent amount of space.

I once did Jab -> D-smash on a Ness player when he missed the ledge with his Up-B and was trying to drift towards it. It was pretty awesome. Other than that I don't think D-smash has a lot of uses outside of raw punish situations, but it competes a lot with U-tilt for that, given U-tilt is faster and does the same damage on the first hit.

D-Smash and U-Smash both hit up front first.

D Smash hits on frame 11. U Smash hits on frame 25.

D-smash is frame 13.

 

[Mario766]

Ah. I read the frame chart wrong.

 

[Zegend]

honestly in my experience a lot of people get caught off guard by the insane range, after getting hit running in to punish. it's hilarious when you actually get a hit with it.
By the way, great avatar, ReroRero. Missile a best

 

[Banjobeast158]

I kinda find its range eh. i was messing around in training and it doesn't seem to have much outside of a tip hitbox like it did in brawl. it has just as much range as Ftilt i believe, but i could be wrong.

 

[Zegend]

Same here, but some people just really underestimate it if they haven't played against Ike much before.

 

[Banjobeast158]

Just hit an opponent with a fully charged Fsmash at the tip in the air and it hardly sent them anywhere. Is it weaker if you hit someone with the beginning of the move, like in the air?

 

[Mario766]

The tip has a weaker hitbox, but not as much as Up Smash, which has a backwards hitbox that does 10 damage and has a minimal knockback. I dunno what kind of percentage the opponent had but it should have sent them at least somewhere.

 

[Banjobeast158]

Right afterwards I landed that Usmash sour spot. I was sad, they were at 40 and he flew behind me not very far.

 

[Arrei]

FSmash just doesn't kill anywhere near like how it used to. It doesn't have much more base knockback than most smashes and while it still kills earlier than numerous smashes its knockback scaling just doesn't feel like it justifies being so gorrang slow.

 

[Mario766]

Slowest smash in the game.

Still not the strongest F-Smash in the game. RIP

 

[Banjobeast158]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26d1J53Jq5M

I finally figured out a use for Fsmash: use it on Falcons greedy for the kill lol

 

[Tino]

It may be the slowest smash attack in the game but it is still a reliable kill move even though it no longer has that same kill power like in Brawl. Damn, I miss that one a lot.

 

[Mario766]

It's actually the second slowest, but DDD's has a massive hitbox and the shockwave. They got rid of the backwards hitbox that caused so many fun moments in Brawl. It also doesn't kill at 30 like it could with bad DI.

 

[Arrei]

I just wonder what they were thinking when nerfing it. Clearly, an attack that kills so early has a problem, but then why reduce that and not fix the main weaknesses it was given to compensate for that power? It's both slow to start AND horrifically punishable.

 

[AN(M)ist]

I kinda see the fsmash as ganon's wizard punch. You rarely use it as a mixup, and more as a heavy punish. Though tbh the wizard punch is better since it has super armor during startup and less endlag.

 

[dahuterschuter]

In Roll Glory I get half my KO's as Ike just tossing a forward smash in behind me knowing my opponent is going to roll into it.

 

[waddicto]

I think it's a great air dodge punish if you time it right. The move comes out in 31 frames, air dodges have 22 frames of landing lag for most characters, just fsmash during the air dodge a few inches before they hit the ground. It's probably the most satisfying way of killing as Ike.