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Kirk's Everything Ike Guide **New** Update: New Wifi Matches Added

Kirk

Smash Champion
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Few extra Qs for ya Kirk


- Do you think we've seen the limit of Eruptions potential? I don't see it much from you in videos. If one anticipates interruption, why isn't air eruption an effective move? Sure you will take damage, but if timed so they attack the SA frames wont they probably die at 80% or higher? Same with ground usage, why the lack of eruption use?

- IMO down smash is his best smash attack overall. Do you think it lacks KO power? I don't see you use it much. It's definitely one of his faster moves.

Thanks again.
First of all, thanks for the comments from everybody :D

Your questions:

1. In my latest matches, they have been against an Ike mostly. Eruption edgeguard against an Ike using Aether to recover doesn't work out too well. As for using it on the ground...I suppose it can be used for some tech chasing or while your opponent uses a getup attack. I refrain from it simply because of the lag. If you;re opponent is good, they can notice and punish you big time for it.

As for in the air, I use eruption more often. When you get the timing down, its great for saving yourself. But the main point is, if you overuse it, your opponent catches on, then he just sits and waits to punish you when you finally have to relese it.

2. Down smash is fast yes. I don't use it because, well, there are other things I could do :p
It has less range and power than other attacks, and it has a decent amount of lag after wards. I usually opt for a tilt or a grab if they get behind me or somethin like that.

It's just my preference...maybe one day i'll get around to incorporating it into my game. I myself finally found a good use of the ftilt, thanks to some help from other Ike users. Learn something new everyday, eh?

Hope that helps.
 

AlphaDragoon2002

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According to Emblem Lord, it seems that Ike can do Down Smashes out of his AAA combo via jab canceling. You may wanna try it out a bit, it sounds like it could be used for a sure kill or at least a good chance at one since they can't escape/block before it comes out.
 

Fizz-sama

Smash Ace
Joined
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849
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It was actually done a few times by someone who posted a few videos against someone playing as Ganon. The match took place on the Bridge of Eldin...Not sure what thread it was though.
 

NyTeStRiDeR

Smash Apprentice
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For your next matches, I'd like to make a request if for some character matches if i may. I would like to see your ike vs ZodiakLucien's wolf, or a diddy kong player, or both. Much appreciated if you could
 

VersatileBJN

Smash Ace
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Nov 10, 2003
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Good stuff Kirk, but what about my question about using A,A,A to cancel out recovery. Is it because of online lag that you are able to do this?
 

Kirk

Smash Champion
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Arlington Heights, IL
Good stuff Kirk, but what about my question about using A,A,A to cancel out recovery. Is it because of online lag that you are able to do this?
The online lag does help in this. After a missed FSmash, for example, your opponent will try and punish you for it. So, using an AAA combo right after can disrupt your opponent if they don't time it right. You can either go with that or just shield/spot dodge. It can work offline as well, but your opponent can probably time it right more often than not.

EDIT: Me and Elliot FINALLY got around to having some matches against each other :D

We had some 1v1s and some team matches with us and our friends. I'll be uploading some of these later on today hopefully.
 

Cups

Smash Ace
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Sep 11, 2006
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Hey I played Ike in a tournament in Kansas City this weekend and I thought I'd add some things I noticed to the cause. Your guide is great btw and I hope I'm not stepping on any toes.

You can just hold a down and Ike will infinitely jab until he hits something, then he'll finish the three hit combo.

A dair out of a shield is a good tool to use if they attack behind you, this pops them up for further comboing and has good ko potential. Just make sure you DI behind them so they don't shield grab you if they block it.

On stages with platforms, I would utilt or dthrow them onto the platform and then charge upsmash. It has a very big hitbox so it covered most of the platform. Then you wait for them to get up then hit, this worked very well for me, and I was playing against people who had the game for a while.

Since Ike's grab range is kind of small, sometimes I surprised the enemy with an upb out of shield. Don't spam this, but it's an idea.

A good mindgame: since it's hard to shield grab Ike b/c of his knockback and range, a lot of people were doing air attacks out of their shield. So then I started empty shorthopping in, then immediately jumping backwards with a fair. It also worked very well. Empty shorthops are a big part of Ike's game right now.

I noticed that Ike is a lot of predicting people's rolls, A LOT. I started playing a lot better once I started noticing their roll patterns and capitalizing off of them. I charged an usmash a lot, b/c they'd roll behind or spotdodge, since it hits behind, I got a lot of faster characters like this.

From what I can see, since Ike is very slow but punishes very well, he is a very mindgame based character. Once you start noticing people's tendencies and capitalizing off of their predictibility, then your Ike game will be turned up significantly. Don't get me wrong, mindgames are important for everyone, but Ike seems to benefit greatly from it right now.

My hardest matchups were against Olimar and Diddy Kong. Olimar just seems to have the right tools against Ike and punishes his speed very well with Pikmin, especially the red ones, which do a sort of DPS thing (damage per second). Diddy combos Ike very well and can use numerous projectiles to his advantage. My opponent, for example, would toss bananas between me and him so that my quick draw game lost a good amount of affect. Also, his peanuts kind of kept me out of the air, so Ike's approach is hurting against Diddy, for me at least. Basically what it was consisted of 0-60 percent combos on both sides and then tacking damage on until a kill. Diddy and Olimar were very very hard to play against for me, but that may be that they were more experienced, seeing as it was their set ups and have had it for awhile (no johns, I won). I didn't play one, but I can only imagine Marth would be a nightmare, help us Kirk!

I hope this helps, thanks again and good luck!
 

VersatileBJN

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Kirk how do you feel Ike will fair in competitive play. It seems some reputable competitors think Ike is total **** and won't lose to anyone within 2 weeks of people truly learning the game.
 

Kirk

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Hey kirk.. howcome you don't use counter more often?
To me, its too punishable of a move...if you miss your screwed. I've yet to practice the usage and timing enough to incorporate it into my game. Best used if your opponent is predictable.

Kirk how do you feel Ike will fair in competitive play. It seems some reputable competitors think Ike is total **** and won't lose to anyone within 2 weeks of people truly learning the game.
Hmmm...I need to like...play more competitive :D

Ike has just as good of a chance as most characters, IMO. Although, I can't say anything for certain, as I've yet to play more characters at a competitive skill level.

But yeah...Ike is cool. :D
 

The Mediator

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Just a quick request... could you do some battles against Dedede? Maybe to test the counter-pick rumors, and to see how Ike does against an opponent of possibly even greater strength.
 

Mike Hawk

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yo Cups, against olimar just keep shorthopping Nairing to keep the pikmin off you while you get an opening on olimar.
 

Doval

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Just a quick request... could you do some battles against Dedede? Maybe to test the counter-pick rumors, and to see how Ike does against an opponent of possibly even greater strength.
Speaking from experience, it's a very hard match-up. Dedede is very hard to approach because of his Waddle Dee spam, he has a lot of range/priority on many moves which means Ike's range advantage is greatly diminished, Ike can't get out of Dedede's chaingrab, and Dedede edgeguards Ike pretty easily for the most part. Stopping Dedede from coming back is also very hard, especially for a character that can't really chase him off the stage in the first place.
 

Hellbeing

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Speaking from experience, it's a very hard match-up. Dedede is very hard to approach because of his Waddle Dee spam, he has a lot of range/priority on many moves which means Ike's range advantage is greatly diminished, Ike can't get out of Dedede's chaingrab, and Dedede edgeguards Ike pretty easily for the most part. Stopping Dedede from coming back is also very hard, especially for a character that can't really chase him off the stage in the first place.
That stuff does not matter!!! Ike is too leet for edgegauding, he kills dedede just by staring at him1!!!!11:chuckle:
 

AlphaDragoon2002

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Kirk how do you feel Ike will fair in competitive play. It seems some reputable competitors think Ike is total **** and won't lose to anyone within 2 weeks of people truly learning the game.
Who is saying this, if you don't mind my asking?

Because I've heard several reports from some of the best competitive Melee players who have Brawl such as Mew2King that Ike's actually really good and a LOT better than people think he is simply because he's slow.
 

VersatileBJN

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Hugs said that. He also said "unless Azen is using him" which is somewhat annoying. M2k was also referring to Azen actually.

I know Azen is a great player and he's actually my idol as far as smash goes, but acting like he's the only person in the world who can make Ike competent when most of the country doesn't even have the game yet is wack sauce.
 

SCOTU

Smash Hero
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The TGM combo. It's a pretty easy combo that works in a variety of situations w/ most (if not all) characters in melee. Humarized and coined by TGM (originally with marth).

For the vids section, you should list who plays the characters (like the wifi section), because it doesn't usually help to watch matches between people who aren't good, so people tend to look only for matches of skilled players.
 

Hostility

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Speaking from experience, it's a very hard match-up. Dedede is very hard to approach because of his Waddle Dee spam, he has a lot of range/priority on many moves which means Ike's range advantage is greatly diminished, Ike can't get out of Dedede's chaingrab, and Dedede edgeguards Ike pretty easily for the most part. Stopping Dedede from coming back is also very hard, especially for a character that can't really chase him off the stage in the first place.
Dedede can be hard to approach, but I don't think this is a terrible matchup for ike. The chainthrowing isn't that big of a deal on most stages because the platform ends. And powersheilding the waddledees isn't that hard either. Plus, ike can easily edgeguard dedede's recovery, so essentially, every time dedede uses up B, Ike should take a stock. That and ike has a lot of priority over dedede's moves in general.
 

Hokkaido

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Feb 8, 2008
Messages
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Honestly, I'm a bit lazy to read all these past pages, but has anything been mentioned about the "Grand Viper" aside from on that one separate thread I remember? I find that it works pretty well against computers regardless of their levels, but that it seems pretty difficult to land on human opponents (even though I'm pretty familiar with his Quick Draw distances).

On the other hand, I found that the jab combo after Quick Draw almost always seems to land on my opponents without fail... perhaps that bare difference in speed makes all the difference?

EDIT:

Also, personally I find the Down Smash's quick execution and swing-around hit to be very useful when I'm locked with my friend in a side-dodge (or rolling dodge) => attack whiff cycle; a C-sticked Down Smash is usually more than enough to either catch him off-guard from in front of me or after his roll behind me... but that's all I've really used it for so far.
 

Kirk

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As always, thank you for all the comments everyone :D

I wanted to provide a little update here. I altered the setup of my video section. I removed all the direct links to my 1v1s and team matches. I will still have the demonstration and miscellaneous videos with direct links, however. In lieu of this, I have provided links Captain Sa10's "Power of Ragnell" Ike video thread, where you can find direct links to most of my Ike matches, and to my Youtube Channel, where you can find everything I've ever uploaded.

I would also like to mention I will be uploading my fights vs. Azen to my Youtube Channel within the hour. Out of the 13 matches we had, I won 6 and Azen won 7. I believe I did MUCH better this time around, probably the best Ike fights I've ever had. I'm very pleased with the results and I thank Azen for his time and permission to record the matches.

Once again, thank you all and I hope you enjoy my fights vs. Azen :D
 

A2ZOMG

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Wow! You and Azen! You're both really good! Those were fun matches to watch.
 

Hokkaido

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Messages
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As always, thank you for all the comments everyone :D

I wanted to provide a little update here. I altered the setup of my video section. I removed all the direct links to my 1v1s and team matches. I will still have the demonstration and miscellaneous videos with direct links, however. In lieu of this, I have provided links Captain Sa10's "Power of Ragnell" Ike video thread, where you can find direct links to most of my Ike matches, and to my Youtube Channel, where you can find everything I've ever uploaded.

I would also like to mention I will be uploading my fights vs. Azen to my Youtube Channel within the hour. Out of the 13 matches we had, I won 6 and Azen won 7. I believe I did MUCH better this time around, probably the best Ike fights I've ever had. I'm very pleased with the results and I thank Azen for his time and permission to record the matches.

Once again, thank you all and I hope you enjoy my fights vs. Azen :D
I would LOVE to play either of you (I don't have access to the Japanese Brawl anymore for the majority of break, so I'll have to wait until March 8th/9th when I can get a US copy) as Ike or Kirby.
 

Drums

Smash Rookie
Joined
Feb 28, 2008
Messages
8
Kirk, I think you're my new idol. Holding your own against a player like Azen...new game or not, that's really impressive. Your Ike guide rocks too; you put forth a lot of great strategies, and I think I speak for everyone when I say you've given us future Ike mainers a TON of ideas on how to develop our game.

Props to you, man, and keep on kicking *** with Ike.
 

The Mediator

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Where I feel like...
I would answer that...but I'm afraid we would end up straying off topic by a smidge... XD
That means yes =D.

Can't wait to see the new fights!

Edit: K, I watched 'em. Those fights were great! Nice job Kirk, über props for you.
You guys fight really similarly... but I saw some differences:

You used Neutral B (I didn't see Azen use it at all...), you used Nair a lot more than him, and he used Dsmash.

This isn't criticism--just some things I noticed =)
 

Marthgreil

Smash Journeyman
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Oct 18, 2007
Messages
246
Good Job Kirk. You seem to have met your match with Azen. You need one more fight to break the tie. Your first match with Ghey was just funny.
 

blizzard138

Smash Apprentice
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Mar 6, 2008
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85
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St. Louis, Missouri
i have a question for anyone, is short hoping that important with Ike? most heavy characters ive seen it isnt too important but now Ike also has a sword so that changes a bit... dont call me a noob i realize this :)
 

ama(m/t)

Smash Lord
Joined
Dec 30, 2007
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shorthopping makes for quick, mobile attacks
tell me, who doesn't need that
especially heavy, slow characters
 
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