OFFICIAL Sonic rFAQ! New to Sonic? Have a quick question? Ask it here!

[B.A.M.]

does anyone know how to SDI shield grab properly? I need work on that ish. grabbing MK's tilts is too fun.

 

[Tesh]

I remember an 09 research thread that called certain characters "high grabbers" and "low grabbers" which explained forced air releases to some extent.

 

[infomon]

also, b dacus only has two uses.
after a down throw.
after a grab air release.

Do you mean bdacus in particular, or would you apply that to running-upsmash (is that what's called a hyphen smash?) as well?
(funny how the "Standard Terms List" is vacant about this)

wait what's bdacus rather than just dacus?

Anyway, my additional use for running-upsmash: when for whatever reason, your opponent is flung fast enough away that the camera hasn't caught up yet. That is, Sonic can basically outrun the camera to the opponent and get in the usmash before the character can properly see their own character/what they're doing. I mean it's not to that extreme but in certain circumstances if you hit them while the camera's zoomed in close on you both, then you can do this and it almost always lands.

 

[B.A.M.]

on air releases its should be guaranteed and on dthrows unteched i think it might be close to guaranteed i think when buffered.

 

[B_AWAL]

THANX B.A.M

But Idk her dair kept beating out my uair

Also...

@daKID What is Grab air release?

Any advice 4 Trump/Fox players?

 

[SoupaSonic]

for peach you need to space that uair so the tip just barely hits, you might be getting too close too early. and air release is when someone mashes out of the grab and their character jumps away from you, I think. This is how we get gimped for using the spring, we up-b too close to the ledge and people can grab us, not pummel and we jump away in our helpless animation. if they pummel us we get our spring back though. Just mentioning it incase you don't know

 

[B.A.M.]

you have to remember our uair second hit is the one that matters and comes out on frame 13 i believe. Thats why i always try to cross under with uair. you want to space it so by the time you are acutally under the opponent the hit box is out. otherwise you just stick your feet out before the hit box is out and get smashed.

 

[da K.I.D.]

against fox, learn to chain down tilts.

 

[WindMajor]

Heyo, Sonic mains!

I was wondering if you guys could discuss Sonic on Norfair with me, more specifically, how he does on the stage in a general sense and against some characters, as well as what are his safe ways of stalling on this stage? Does the stage complement him? Does he do well against a good amount of the cast? Can he safely stall or run away with little risk of being intercepted? If so, what are the best techniques?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Trent]

Heyo, Sonic mains!

I was wondering if you guys could discuss Sonic on Norfair with me, more specifically, how he does on the stage in a general sense and against some characters, as well as what are his safe ways of stalling on this stage? Does the stage complement him? Does he do well against a good amount of the cast? Can he safely stall or run away with little risk of being intercepted? If so, what are the best techniques?

Thanks in advance.

Watching Speed time out an MK on Norfair at MLG Columbus was pretty lulzy. Spin shotting between the two top ledges is pretty campy.

 

[infomon]

oops nvm 10char

 

[Life]

Heyo, Sonic mains!

I was wondering if you guys could discuss Sonic on Norfair with me, more specifically, how he does on the stage in a general sense and against some characters, as well as what are his safe ways of stalling on this stage? Does the stage complement him? Does he do well against a good amount of the cast? Can he safely stall or run away with little risk of being intercepted? If so, what are the best techniques?

Thanks in advance.

Norfair is one of Sonic's best stages IMO. There's no iSDR, sure, but the lava helps a ton in racking damage and getting kills (one of Sonic's big issues) and spinshot lets you get nearly anywhere on the stage very efficiently.

I would personally counterpick any heavy character here, or anybody with poor mobility.

Off the top of my head, I'd consider counterpicking:

Snake (with so many ways to get from point A to point B, shouldn't be too bad to approach him here)
D3 (little chance to chaingrab, easy wall combos)
Falco (lasers are easy to dodge and phantasm is predictable, just watch the lava floor)
ICs (lava interrupts chaingrabs, generally easy to avoid them)
Bowser, DK (have a hard time catching up)
Olimar (Don't wanna talk about it. )

here, depending on what stage they ban. Take this with a grain of salt obv, I suck.

I'm not sure I'd ban it against anybody, maybe MK if the tournament banned Brinstar (since Sonic also likes RC) or Ganondorf since it's his one good stage. Marth maybe. Possibly Wario, I'm not sure what to ban in that MU (guessing Brinstar). Pikachu, because QA is incredible here.

 

[Tesh]

As Trent said, Norfair is kind of like the 2nd phase on Castle Siege. The layout is just super gay and if we don't want to fight we simply don't have to. Not until the lava covers a side at least and even then, we can abuse the 3 tiers of platforms with spring to STILL avoid combat.

I would consider this to be an "MK safe" CP for Sonic. Unlike how gay he can play on RC/Delfino, MK is just too slow to catch Sonic and he might even be forced to use ledge grabs when evading Sonic.

Norfair is stupid btw.

 

[B_AWAL]

Thanx!!! I'll just start timing my uairs better and O ok the air grab is just how we kill wario.

cool

Any ideas on Fox's? I''m stumped :-/ Although Trump is the only Fox I've lost 2

and NorFair??? What??? now that I think about it Sonic is great on stages that attack chars

 

[Life]

Fox... I've yet to face one in tournament, but since we have M@V here it's bound to happen eventually.

What would I do if I faced one?

Be in his face constantly so he can't safely laser. Get him in the air, bait airdodge, punish landing, repeat. Bair his recovery--phantasm can be easily predicted, and firefox reacted to. Counterpick RC or YI:B? Watch. That. Usmash. Once you hit 90% start playing much more carefully and have your shield finger tense. Also be ready to SDI dair/fair/utilt chains.

That's what I'd try initially. Then go through the whole "what works, what doesn't" process (though you should always be doing that).

 

[SoupaSonic]

I don't have any offline fox experience either but what InCom said sounds good. Also what kid said, if you get off some dtilt chains you could really rack on damage. This goes for the other space animals, fast fallers, and the fatties as well btw

 

[Tesh]

Alot of Sonic mains will tell you to do that stupid dtilt junk, but don't try to force it, because its worth about the same as 2 upthrows if the Fox isn't brain dead.

his side b is laggier than falco's and you can edgehog him and still punish him with ASC if he goes over the ledge.

don't try to hold your shield under him when you expect a dair, he can shine stall and if u get stuck holding your shield waiting its obviously gonna poke. stay close enough to dash grab his landing, but not close enough that he can drift into you with dair/nair/uair/bair (he cant move much)

 

[WindMajor]

Thanks guys!

So to recap on the stalling portion, it's not so much that Sonic has this repetitive pattern that makes him hard to hit, like a scrooging technique or an air camping technique, so much as he can use the general layout of the stage along with Sonic's quick and varied movements to improvise paths and out-speed his opponent on the fly?

Also, do you guys have any videos of Sonic on Norfair, by any chance (since Speed vs. random MK on MLG Columbus doesn't exist :/)?

 

[Kinzer]

Pressing B adds charges to the down-B spindash up to a maximum of I think 5 charges. Yes it makes Sonic go faster -- when the spindash is rolling on the ground (we call that SDR here). The charge amount does nothing when you're in the air. But even if you add charges while in the air + release, then when it lands on the ground it will know how many it has and go at that speed.

iirc the spindash is released once you let go of holding Down. I don't think any button-inputs let the spindash loose. So just let go of down (by pressing forward, presumably).

This is my fault for not putting the blasted info in the guide, but if you're talking about Spni Charge, you're only allowed three different states of "power." Four if you wan to get technical and consider a dead charge worth anyway.

does anyone know how to SDI shield grab properly? I need work on that ish. grabbing MK's tilts is too fun.

You have to do it when you're in shieldstun. It may also help to think of it as platform drop-throughs. Too hard on the input, and you will spotdodge. Too soft and you will not do anything but stay in your shield.

@daKID What is Grab air release?

You basically release your opponent into the air, either from a force jumpbreak or the opponent intentionally jumped out in cases which jumpbreaks cannot be forced.

Thanks guys!

So to recap on the stalling portion, it's not so much that Sonic has this repetitive pattern that makes him hard to hit, like a scrooging technique or an air camping technique, so much as he can use the general layout of the stage along with Sonic's quick and varied movements to improvise paths and out-speed his opponent on the fly?

Also, do you guys have any videos of Sonic on Norfair, by any chance (since Speed vs. random MK on MLG Columbus doesn't exist :/)?

I hope someone else can help you. I have no information regarding this at all.

 

[da K.I.D.]

twinkie, thats exactly it.

 

[Espy Rose]

I have a vid of me vs. Dakpo back at MLG Dallas, but I didn't really abuse the stage in that game.
Not sure if anyone else has much on that stage, since it's banned and all.

You're free to check the video thread though.

 

[Life]

If BRC puts Norfair on the CP list within the next week and a half I could try my hand at /hope... (j/k, I know it's not happening )

 

[Kinzer]

Oh before I forget and while I'm still here.

Does anyone know anything about instant walljumping from ledges? I think Magnum/MagicMarth did a video on that, but I can't recall nor can I find it.

The only thing I know is that it annoys the Hell out of me if I try to do a ledgdrop DJC'd ASC back on stage, only to face the opposite way and ASC to my doom.

I'd like to know how to do it so I can know how to not do it, if that makes sense.

 

[Espy Rose]

I think you have to almost immediately perform a walljump the moment you hit away from the ledge. It's kinda like hitting both away and jump at the same time.

At least, from my experiences, that's how it happened.

When I want to ASC onto the stage from the ledge, I prolong the input on jump to avoid the walljump.

 

[WindMajor]

I have a vid of me vs. Dakpo back at MLG Dallas, but I didn't really abuse the stage in that game.

Don't forget about your game against ESAM.

Anyways, thanks for the input, guys! Much appreciated.
Hold on, I think I have just the thing to thank you guys with.

Spoiler

 

[B.A.M.]

Kinzer, Orochi made a video about it. You have to press jump and back at the same time basically. Its VERY good vs edgehogging meta because if they go for a drill you can beat it with fair. and if you grab the edge at the proper time if they nado you could beat it due to invincibility. Def. needs to be used more. o and if you see urself go the other way just let the charge wear out. I do it on reaction . Im sure you could do the same.



EDIT: Could someone properly explain why Brinstar is good for us?

 

[Life]

Brinstar is terrible for us LOL, who told you otherwise? It's the only "bad" Sonic stage in the game.

 

[Kinzer]

I'm with InCom on this. It'd be easier to explain why it's a bad stage overall. I am having trouble thinking of MUs that'd be neutral or in Sonic's favor here. Though it may not help that I'm kind of tired for some odd reason. I slept well, and didn-

Oh I get it, maybe it's the heat; I can't think of anything else otherwise.

... Also, back and jump huh? Guess I'll have to find the timing/spacing.

 

[Espy Rose]

Sonic vs. Pikachu is practically neutral here.
Both characters suck amazingly hard on that level.

 

[da K.I.D.]

id take a falco to brinstar.

just to hope that one of their side bs to the ledge goes thru the stage and they die.

 

[B.A.M.]

Thank goodness. Iono where I heard it but someone said its a good stage for us. I think that was back in the day, someone said breaking up the stage helps us with killing blah blah blah. And i thought it was freakin stupid. So besides Yoshi's what do you all see as good Sonic stages and why? Ive never been the best in regards to CPs so Im just curious.

 

[da K.I.D.]

tenki used to talk about down throw on the middle of the bubbles on brinstar.

pictochat, ps2, FD, i like frigate.

but most importantly, whatever the other guy is bad at.

 

[kid craft 24/sonic master]

B.A.M. just some advice if you ever play someone using ICs CP PS2 the sliding ice just causes problem for them to initiate CGs and the flying section allows you to camp them out in the air. the treadmills also force them to stay in the center.
IMO RC is a good stage to CP agaisnt some of the higher tiers including to an extent MK depending on how they play. Only because it forces your opponent to keep moving so i'd really only CP it against campy characters like the star fox crew, IC's diddy kong, any Links maybe snake depends. Just figured i throw my 2 cents into the matter. :S

 

[Phantom Gamer]

K, thinking this is the place to ask these questions.

What are the better stages when using Sonic?
What are the worst stages when using Sonic? <- for this it seems that Brinstar is one of them.

 

[Kinzer]

Best stage can be a matter of preference/playstyles. Some people will tell you that it's YI regardless, otherwise it's places with a bit of room to play around with.

If there's any one stage that's bad for Sonic in general, it's Brinstar.

 

[Espy Rose]

Yoshi's Island: Brawl is good for characters who have a difficult time dealing with our iSDR abuse (like Pokemon Trainer, Yoshi, or Wario), or characters that simply don't benefit from the structure of the stage as much as we do (Ganondorf, lol).

Any stage with plenty of room to work around is decent (PS2, Final Destination, Smashville, and Castle Siege's 2nd formation).
Every player has their own preferences though. I tend to think Rainbow Cruise is a decent stage for us as well, and I'm actually becoming more fond of Frigate Orpheon myself.

However, almost everyone will agree that Brinstar just plain sucks for Sonic. Personally, I don't like Lylat Cruise all too much either.

 

[Tesh]

B.A.M. just some advice if you ever play someone using ICs CP PS2 the sliding ice just causes problem for them to initiate CGs and the flying section allows you to camp them out in the air. the treadmills also force them to stay in the center.
IMO RC is a good stage to CP agaisnt some of the higher tiers including to an extent MK depending on how they play. Only because it forces your opponent to keep moving so i'd really only CP it against campy characters like the star fox crew, IC's diddy kong, any Links maybe snake depends. Just figured i throw my 2 cents into the matter. :S

The ice section doesnt make it harder for ICs to grab. They have perfect traction on ice and its the one transformation that is good for them.

 

[Super Mallow]

Not to break up the thread, but I have a quick question. I know I don't post much, but I frequent the boards and SSBWiki multiple times a day.

I did miss something though, hence a question.

What ultimately made the Sonic/Lucario matchup a -3? I remember it being talked about as a 40/60 back in the day (at least from the perceptive of Lucario mains, so 60/40 for them) due to Lucario's jab, FTilt, FAir, etc or possibly a 35/65 matchup, but what has been discovered that makes this match up nearly impossible?

Any help is appreciated!

 

[Tesh]

Sonic is Ganondorf.

 

[Kinzer]

Not to break up the thread, but I have a quick question. I know I don't post much, but I frequent the boards and SSBWiki multiple times a day.

I did miss something though, hence a question.

What ultimately made the Sonic/Lucario matchup a -3? I remember it being talked about as a 40/60 back in the day (at least from the perceptive of Lucario mains, so 60/40 for them) due to Lucario's jab, FTilt, FAir, etc or possibly a 35/65 matchup, but what has been discovered that makes this match up nearly impossible?

Any help is appreciated!

Trying to strictly look at it from an unbiased perspective, it's the fundamentals.

When you take one character whose strength is he gets stronger as he stays alive longer, and another character whose non-arguable weakness is that he has trouble getting the kill, you have serious problems ahead.

Lucario has a very flexible game. When he is at a low percent, he has a couple of strings. His range is constant and it can keep Sonic out. I've already mentioned what happens as Lucario gets stronger.

Besides not being able to kill nearly as easily as other characters, Sonic has short limbs. Anytime he is in attacking range, Lucario can play the same game and better. This is only assuming Sonic is within his attacking range, it's another issue all-together just being able to get in without being sent back or taking (heavy/lethal) damage.

The only saving grace is the multitude of Sonic's options and what little effectiveness they hold (in this matchup). Under capable hands, no one opponent will be able to predict when Sonic will approach, let alone how he'll do it. It's a game where the Sonic (player) has to scare Lucario to committing to an action and counterattacking.

It's pretty much that the margin of error on the Sonic player's end is unforgiving, while Lucario doesn't have to work nearly as hard to take the match.