Kill moves?

[Encephalon Decay]

So I play a friend a lot (he likes mario/peach/rob) and I've noticed that, while I seem to have no trouble racking up percent on him, I seem to have trouble getting that final killshot in, and I suspect it has to do with my choice of moves used in most situations. So quite simply what I'm asking here is, which moves would you consider squirtles "kill moves", and what could be considered an optimal way to use it (EX: Enemy offstage and below, x combo's into y for kill, etc).

 

[didds]

grabs will net you the most kills, get used to switching up fthrow and dthrow. If they DI to survive dthrow, an fthow will land you a killing fair, and vice versa. Usmash kills are tough to get, but you can occasionally get a random kill off of it. A dtilt will lead to fair or uair and a downsmash leads into pretty much whatever.

You can also sometimes lead a crawl tilt into an upsmash but i dont use this much so dont take my word for it.

I personally like to fish for bubble > missed tech/grab > to throw mixup and sometimes ill try the water gun > grab approach as well.

 

[Daftatt]

most of my kills are offstage nairs, offstage bairs, edgehogs, and u-smash. Since u-smash is an amazing landing punish if you reverse hydroplane it.

 

[didds]

most of my kills are offstage nairs, offstage bairs, edgehogs, and u-smash. Since u-smash is an amazing landing punish if you reverse hydroplane it.

I forgot to mention that offstage kills will be your go to, if you can't creatively gimp, then squirtle may not be for you.

 

[Burnsy]

Most Squirtle players I see need to use more aerials to kill. Set-ups into offstage fair/nair/bair (all of these kill, their strength goes in decending order, other than nair sourspot.) would be good. Nair has medium armor at the start during the sweetspot and light armor during the sourspot. It may be helpful to know at what % the armor break threshold is met by the opponents' recovery moves, so you can choose the best times to gimp them with an armored nair though their attack.

Also, a lot of Squirtle mains miss opportunity to combo into the kill off the top with uair. Uair is particuarly useful against floaties, its my main way of killing Samus. Don't forget a well spaced waterfall (up-b) can kill as well, but be careful with that one, it's very risky.

Surprised nobody's mentioned using bubble and watergun to stuff recoveries like different versions of Sheik needles. Requires some tight timing but if done right this can be really effective.

 

[Daftatt]

Most Squirtle players I see need to use more aerials to kill. Set-ups into offstage fair/nair/bair (all of these kill, their strength goes in decending order,

Remember that even though nair isn't as strong as Fair it has a far better trajectory, since if you DI fair up it will usually not kill and they have an easier recovery. Nair can semispike which is IMO more usefull against good players.

 

[Burnsy]

Yea I forgot to mention that about nair, thanks

I think fair kills at a very reasonable percentage if you tag them offstage with it regardless of DI, actually. Its a very strong and a very reliable kill move. It can kill REALLY early on certain stages and positionings. Plus if you've already launched them towards the corner of the screen before fairing, then they dont really have much extra distance they can make themselves fly with their DI.

Nair is great too but I think I don't agree that nair is "more useful" against good opponents. They are both better options than eachother when used in the proper situations (and fair is useful in a good number of situations). That is how Smash Brothers works.

 

[~Dad~]

The best way to kill with Squirtle is the following sequence.

fthrow > fair > uptaunt for glasses > hydro pivot side taunt > turbo crawl cross up > bubble > bubble > second pair of glasses > super slide upsmash


or just fthrow fair that one is good too

 

[Burnsy]

Fthrow fair is particuarly free if they expect the dthrow and they DI for that instead of the fthrow. Try it at percents where dthrow with good DI won't kill, kids. With your parents permission of course.

 

[~Dad~]

Fthrow fair is particuarly free if they expect the dthrow and they DI for that instead of the fthrow. Try it at percents where dthrow wont kill, kids. With your parents permission of course.

You all have my permission.

 

[Encephalon Decay]

This is some good stuff. Before I was primarily using uair/dthrow to kill (especially uair vs his peach). Knowing that there's many more options than those and learning to apply them should help a lot. I also definitely need to work on my edgeguard game. Thanks guys!

 

[Teravolt]

Everyone pretty much covered most of the bases, but I also find that in rare cases, I can get away with throwing out side-B's when they're at high percent - the knockback scaling is actually pretty sweet, and if you can condition them into thinking you'll side-B for kills, you might even be able to catch some grabs off shielding opponents :D

just be careful b/c side-B is still very punishable, haha

 

[Mr. Fabulous]

Don't forget that Aqua Jet can be used for some surprise kills at higher percents. It can be pretty risky, but as long as you don't abuse it, a lot of opponents won't see it coming.