I share a lot of the same sentiments vs. ICs that you described. I guess the biggest thing I would suggest focusing on that I am going to try next time I play ICs is to really focus on separating them to get rid of the wobble threat, but DON'T become to preoccupied with killing Nana. Trying to kill her when Popo is still alive seems too risky to be worth it unless:
1. you can shine/up-B her off the top
2. she's already close to the ledge where you can easily gimp her off the side, and by easily, I mean you have to retain your DJ solely for recovering
3. you have a stock lead and/or high % and are willing to trade for a Nana stock
As far as FD specifically is concerned, I don't think it's really that bad, you just have to play differently. PP has actually gone to FD vs. ICs in the past (vs. Fly at Evo is the most recent iirc). You just have to be more aware of getting trapped by the ledge because you don't have any platforms to retreat to. On the other hand, neither do ICs so once you get them in the air with shine/utilt, you can do some major damage keeping them in juggles and/or pushing them off stage. I don't really feel qualified enough to comment on neutral unfortunately since I'm still super uncomfortable with it. Sometimes it seems like I can SHFFL vs. them, and other times it feels like it never works regardless of how well I'm spaced because of how good their WD is and how far they get pushed in shield. There's a lot of stuff I just haven't tried though.
thanks for your input! when i think back to previous matches, i recall getting really thirsty to kill nana whenever i did happen to land a safe solid hit/grab. a lot of times i end up putting myself in a bad spot when i could avoid that and capitalize on other things. i'll take your advice and try to separate them without overextending the next time I fight them.
and actually your feedback helped me a bunch in regards to learning more things about the neutral vs ICs, even on FD. its all theorycraft, and i dont have answers to all of my problems yet but i got pretty deep into it haha.
like you mentioned, i could focus on separating them to remove the wobble threat without getting myself pinned in a corner. if i set up a scenario that puts nana on one side of me and popo on the other side of me (both with a decent amount of space around me so that I can commit to at least one aerial/laser safely in front of popo), this allows me to put pressure on popo, even if it is for a really brief moment. this is something that can occur quite often through grab set-ups, or if i land any tilt and
then separate them.
to pressure the isolated popo, i can space dairs, nairs, and bairs, to put him in his shield without fear of getting grabbed. i could also laser--> spaced aerial/dashdance. In this brief time popo is kind of like a luigi but worse. unlike luigi, popo has a really slow fair oos, so attempting to counterattack falco with any aerial oos is out of question and falco has answers for all of popo’s other options oos. if they end up doing anything careless, they are going to eat a punish.
the only way for popo to actually directly challenge me here is to make a hard read. he has to predict
when it is safe to wavedash oos forward -->______ and successfully make it through my wall of aerials and/or my feints.
then he gets back with nana/converts off of the hit. it’s totally possible for popo to do it, but it is really risky for him because if he goes in at the wrong time or hesitates for a split second too long, he can eat a hard punish. i may be reaching here, but I would think that the choice that the majority of ICs players would make in this scenario would be skewed towards getting back with nana. i mean, the reason why most ICs players play ICs at all is because of the power that they possess when they are together… so in this situation it would make sense to make a choice that brings popo back to nana in the long run. careful ICs players may see through this and give her up/remain patient but there are ways around this too. i can also make popo afraid to challenge my falco at all and opt for other options (usually ones that feel more “safe”) by showing him how difficult it will be to deal with falco in the neutral and by converting really well off of hits/grabs. so in this scenario I can also commonly expect rolls as well, or popo staying in shield longer.
this whole thing seems so ridiculously simple when summarized:
-if the ICs are significantly separated and I am between them, i can still use my bread and butter tactic:
apply pressure (to popo) -->cover options-->observe behaviour --> anticipate future behaviour patterns and counter them.
-the choices that popo decides to make may initially be biased depending on the type of player they are, and how bad they want to get back with nana in the situation.
-i can influence his future decisions by inflicting a world of hurt on popo whenever he is alone.
-pressuring this way is a useful strategy when it is difficult to knock either popo or nana really far. in this scenario popo has to guess
when it is ok to get back with her, and also
how to get back with her. if he charges forward immediately, he might get stuffed and punished hard. if he waits too long, nana might get hit instead.
-sometimes a confident popo will strike when he thinks i will go for nana. when this happens go after popo. when popo learns about this bait, then switch it up and actually just go after nana.
i just have to account for janky stuff during this short period of time. since nana is controlled by cpu, i dont know if her behaviours are random or not. from what i’ve seen, nana can attack, grab, roll to popo, do nothing, run right by, or wait a brief amount of time before committing to any of the options i just listed. maybe she will do something depending on what actions i take. im gonna go research/test this pretty soon.
