Data Prepare Yourself (Ike Match-up thread)

[Rango the Mercenary]

Got some punish data for Meta-Knight. Kill percents are coming.

Spoiler

Vs. Meta-Knight

Neutral jabs

-Max range punishable by DTilt if he does not hop over it after last hit
-Better to punish with dash grab if possible.
-Clanks with DTilt
-Beaten by Ftilt at close to max range.

Ftilt
-Not punishable on shield by DTilt at max range
-Punishable on shield by buffered Ftilt

DTilt
-Punishable on shield by jabs

USmash

-Not punishable by USmash on shield
-Punishable by DTilt
-Punishable by UTilt

FSmash
-Not punishable by DTilt on shield
-Outranges the low end of Fair. Do not approach with aerials.
-DTilt outranges it with proper spacing
-Has a back hitbox. Punishes rolls behind him.
-Overall, a free move if shielded. Needs to be punished on spot dodge, directly above MK, or avoided altogether.

DSmash
-Not punishable by DTilt on shield (first hit)
-Punishable by Ftilt on shield (first hit)
-Punishable by dash grab on shield (second hit)

Dash attack
-Beats out jab nearly every time. No clank unless timed perfectly.
-Punishable by UTilt on shield if hit in front
-May be punishable by dash grab on shield if crossed up
-Punishable by turn jab if crossed up.
-Not punishable by turn around DTilt

Mach Tornado
-Punishable by dash attack on shield if he retreats

Drill Tornado
-Punishable by dash USmash if he retreats it
-Punishable by UTilt, grab, or turn around grab if he stops.

Dimension Cape
-Has a back hitbox
-Has a below hitbox
-Punishable by UTilt on shield up close
-Punishable by USmash on shield, unless at max range
-Punishable by Ftilt at max range

Kill percents on Final Destination. Minimum only, no DI factored.

Spoiler

Ike kill percents on Meta-Knight (FD)

USmash
84%

FSmash
Ledge - 45%
Roll - 55%
Midscreen - 68%

UTilt
98%

FTilt
Ledge - 93%
Roll - 107%
Midscreen - 126%

Dash attack
Ledge - 86%
Roll - 104%
Midscreen - 128%

Uair
Ike's max jump height - 86%

Bair
Ledge trump - 65%
Ledge - 78%
Roll - 91%
Midscreen - 107%

Fair
Ledge - 93%
Roll - 108%
Midscreen - 127%

DThrow
171% (DI)

Misc. strategies

Spoiler

trategies to avoid early combo kill percents.

-Be mindful of your percent (30% -55%)
-Stay near the ledge. He has to buffer a dash grab to get you accurately. At the ledge he has no room to do that.
-Crouch to "dead weight" his dash attack. You can mix shields and Dtilts here.
-Pick Duck Hunt. At the tree branches, you may land on one and can tech to end his combo. The Ducks also have a chance at ruining MK's Up B. Meta-Knight also does not benefit from wall jump here.

 

[Cereal Bawks]

What are your guys' thoughts on Ike's placement on the official tier list?

 

[Rango the Mercenary]

What are your guys' thoughts on Ike's placement on the official tier list?

Three Ike mains place Top 32 at TBH5.

Ryo takes Top 8 at MLG and #SmashTheRecord.

Yeah I can definitely say Ike is too low.

 

[Cereal Bawks]

That's what I was thinking, too. Most tier lists I've seen also had him upper mid, so I didn't really expect his placement to be that low.

 

[PyroTakun]

Upper-mid is the general consensus. I think the official tier list has the top 10 characters correct, but after that it gets debatable on the placements.

 

[WorstGanonWorld]

Would´ve put Ike next to Peach/R.O.B tbh
Maybe he´s that "low" because he´s not doing well in the japanese scene

Atleast we have something official now

 

[-m0]

I think Ike's a good character, good grabs, good disjoint, okay frame data, I'd put him around high/upper mid tier myself.

 

[MasterExocuter]

She has tools to get in, but everyone seems to believe she loses hard to disjoints. My Jigglypuff strategy is basically "Move like they do". As one might expect, with such good air speed and such poor ground speed, the overwhelming majority of her approaches will be aerial, so shields are an invaluable tool against her. After getting Wall of Pained a few too many times way back when, I adopted a shield-heavy mindset. However, camping in a shield alone won't accomplish much, with her air speed it's much too easy for her to drift out of harm's way after an approach. (She also has Pound, but it has so much endlag it's a free punish so she'll want to surprise you with it when your shield's already weakened enough to shatter)

So, I watch her habits and attempt to emulate her movements - if she tries the front of my shield I go for fairly straight jumps and try to hit her with FF Nair/Fair, if she likes to try to land on me or go behind me, I jump backward for the aerial. I tend to prefer full hops, which give me more time to position myself but are more telegraphed, short hops require me to let her get closer before moving, which can get dangerous. Her attacks last quite a long time, which serves her well in hand-to-hand (hand-to-foot? Hand-to-stump?) altercations but keeps her in harm's way against disjoints. As long as I don't let her drag me offstage or hit me with Bair, I've got plenty of time to watch for my chance. I want to work more Bair spacing in there too, but it's quite difficult to aim that hitbox at her.

As for edgeguarding, I... don't. Maybe that's wrong, but in this matchup offstage is Jigglypuff's element and Ike's Kryptonite. Jigglypuff is super mobile and can screw with recoveries almost laughably easy, and if you're out there wasting air jumps and getting yourself in a bad spot, you're throwing away a stock for a super low chance of getting a kill. Better to try and catch her with a tilt or aerial as she floats onstage.

yes, RAR Fair could also work when dealing with approaching jiggs. I like to do pivot ftilts (upward angled) to catch jiggs out of an approach. another thing to watch out for are those pound mixups

 

[MasterExocuter]

I think Ike's a good character, good grabs, good disjoint, okay frame data, I'd put him around high/upper mid tier myself.

Same, I feel like he should be around #20 or 21, so maybe move a couple spots up. He has results, and even M2k thinks Ike is good

 

[-m0]

Same, I feel like he should be around #20 or 21, so maybe move a couple spots up. He has results, and even M2k thinks Ike is good

M2K doesn't even play Smash 4 anymore...
ZeRo isn't exactly a great example either. The way he sees it, if you want to win, you should use a good character. As somebody who makes a living off of winning tournaments it makes perfect sense to him that you should just use Shiek if you want to do well. That's why his YouTube channel is really not a good source of information on chars other than Shiek. It's unfortunate, because his channel is where a lot of competitive beginners get their information and opinions from.

 

[MasterExocuter]

M2K doesn't even play Smash 4 anymore...
ZeRo isn't exactly a great example either. The way he sees it, if you want to win, you should use a good character. As somebody who makes a living off of winning tournaments it makes perfect sense to him that you should just use Shiek if you want to do well. That's why his YouTube channel is really not a good source of information on chars other than Shiek. It's unfortunate, because his channel is where a lot of competitive beginners get their information and opinions from.

Really? Haven't you seen M2k playing on MVG stream recently? Also I'm pretty sure that after M2k said that he would start playing more Smash 4 after Genesis.

On his wiki, look under the Smash 4 category:
http://www.ssbwiki.com/Smasher:Mew2King

"On Twitter, he said after GENESIS 3 he would be playing a lot more Smash 4 and would be streaming it on Most Valuable Gaming's Twitch channel."

and, "He said because Melee causes his hands to hurt, he has chosen to play mostly Smash 4 for the majority of 2016."

I'm pretty M2k will be playing more Smash 4 this year.

 

[-m0]

Really? Haven't you seen M2k playing on MVG stream recently? Also I'm pretty sure that after M2k said that he would start playing more Smash 4 after Genesis.

On his wiki, look under the Smash 4 category:
http://www.ssbwiki.com/Smasher:Mew2King

"On Twitter, he said after GENESIS 3 he would be playing a lot more Smash 4 and would be streaming it on Most Valuable Gaming's Twitch channel."

and, "He said because Melee causes his hands to hurt, he has chosen to play mostly Smash 4 for the majority of 2016."

I'm pretty M2k will be playing more Smash 4 this year.

Well then, maybe we'll get some more competitive opinion for people to quote everywhere lol

Who do you think he'll be using? He dropped Diddy after the nerfs. Please not Cloud...

 

[Cereal Bawks]

Probably Cloud lol

 

[-m0]

Probably Cloud lol

Yaaaaay...

Now we can have all the fanboys coming over to our board and becoming Cloud mains and being all like ZOMG lol I herd cloud is like mad gud and he goes even with sheik lel did you kno that cloud can do down aerial attack into limit break down b tornado attack?!!11! You remember when Leo the MK started making waves? The MK boards got like 7-8 new members in like a week, most of them never posted on the boards again...
M2K's Cloud is basic af too

On Ike's tier placement, there's something I've been thinking about. If you ask somebody about almost any char that isn't Shiek, Samus, or Zelda, they'll be like "Oh, they can do this into this, solid mid tier character" (just like ZeRo in his character analysis videos, but that's besides the point) If all these character are solid mid tier characters, then where are the low tiers? You know what I mean? We have to have chars that are worse than others, but everybody just says ZOMG mid tier they're underrated (which admittedly some chars are). There's even a guys on these boards that mains Lucina because she's underrated.

 

[Arrei]

It's hard to get people to admit some characters are low tier, but that's just because the power gap between high and low tier is much smaller in 4 than it used to be. Maybe you won't win any big tourneys using only your preferred character, but you're not outright crippling yourself either. That said, everyone accepts there are still some characters that are low tier even in this environment - Ganon, Zelda, and King Dedede are the usual suspects there, because they all have very poor neutral games against someone playing footsies or keepaway.

 

[MasterExocuter]

It's hard to get people to admit some characters are low tier, but that's just because the power gap between high and low tier is much smaller in 4 than it used to be. Maybe you won't win any big tourneys using only your preferred character, but you're not outright crippling yourself either. That said, everyone accepts there are still some characters that are low tier even in this environment - Ganon, Zelda, and King Dedede are the usual suspects there, because they all have very poor neutral games against someone playing footsies or keepaway.

Right. Eventually people will have to come to terms with their character. The metagame hasn't been fully fleshed out, and for all we know, it could be completely changed with the addition of Bayonetta and Corrin. That being said, I believe that when it comes down to comparing all of the mid tiers and deciding which ones are better or worse, it all comes down to who has better matchups against top tiers (and not just a decision from some match between say Ryo and some rando new shiek main), frame data, grab combos, and tournament results. Once the final balance patch is implemented, people will stop talking about future potential in hopes of another balance patch

 

[AbelCor]

Say, do we know if Bayonetta can Witch Time our Aether? I just had a scary thought...

 

[Rango the Mercenary]

Say, do we know if Bayonetta can Witch Time our Aether? I just had a scary thought...

Yes. However, it needs to be within the first few frames. But you will need to mixup your recovery. It might even be worth going high on this one.

Remember not to recover high every time unless you want her to jump up and chain a Smash on you while landing.

 

[Arrei]

Yup, tested in Training, Bayonetta can trigger Witch Time off Aether and punish with a smash, Fsmash if you peek over the edge and Dsmash for an easy spike if you tried to aim for the lowest point. You should rarely be forced to go low against her due to her attacks' trajectories, but it's definitely looking dangerous. The good news is that the timing for Witch Time is much more strict than the usual ledge counter shenanigans.

 

[PyroTakun]

Good news: Ike buffs
Bad news: We'll have to start from scratch on the MUs. There's enough changes on Ike and some of the cast to justify it.

 

[Arrei]

Are the changes really so significant? The buff to Nair and Fair may have given us an extra kill confirm or two, and a few characters got changes like Marthcina getting more damage and thus killing earlier, or Bowser's Uthrow combo no longer working for such a long time, but nothing really radically changes the way the matches are played. We still need to play major footsies with Marth and Bowser, preferring closer quarters against Marth and max range against Bowser, the top tiers' weight nerf makes them die slightly earlier and get tossed a little farther by heavy hits but the game plan doesn't change any, and so on. Little Mac's smashes got even more stupidly strong, so maybe that's changed something there.


I, for one, still can't figure out how to deal with Diddy Kong. His neutral is so safe, I just have no idea how I can get in, what I should watch for, and what I can do that's safe. Does anyone have any more strategies to share against this damned chimp? I certainly live a long time with judicious use of shield, but I'm too unfamiliar with movement patterns that'll work against his moves and bananas and what I can punish.

 

[PyroTakun]

https://www.reddit.com/r/smashbros/comments/445l6l/psa_how_relevant_can_a_1_damage_buff_be/

This combined with the weight changes looks pretty significant. The overall style in how we play the MUs might not be too different though, I could see your point there.

 

[Cereal Bawks]

So after the Marth range buffs, does Ike still outrange Marth on his aerials? I can't test it out right now.

 

[Deleted member]

This is something I've been very curious about, since I play both characters myself.

How does everyone here feel about the matchup? I'd say it's even or a +1 advantage for Ike.

 

[MasterExocuter]

Did you guys see San's post on the 1.1.4 patch notes thread? It involves buffs to Eruption flame frames, Fsmash sourspot damage, and fair reach range buffs. Hopefully this is a little something that will help Ike. If not? Eh, Ike is pretty damn good anyways

 

[-m0]

So after the Marth range buffs, does Ike still outrange Marth on his aerials? I can't test it out right now.

I think so just because of the huge size difference between Ragnell and the Falchion lol. If he does then thats kinda dumb, the sword is so much smaller

 

[Cereal Bawks]

Yeah, I just checked. His fair and bair still reach further than Morth's.

 

[Arrei]

This is something I've been very curious about, since I play both characters myself.

How does everyone here feel about the matchup? I'd say it's even or a +1 advantage for Ike.

I feel like Ike has a small advantage, if only because Dedede's frame data is pretty bad. Both have pretty damaging combos on the other, and a defensive Dedede can give Ike trouble with his aerials and Ftilt keeping Ike out, but Dedede has serious trouble landing the kill, whereas Ike turns almost every move into a kill move at some point, lessening the value of Dedede's high weight.

 

[Treveen]

How does Ike do against captain falcon?

 

[MasterExocuter]

How does Ike do against captain falcon?

Cfal has to approach Ike, which isn't that hard because of his dash grab. Gotta have good movement to stay off the ground when Cfal goes in for those grabs. Falcon can get away with doing a lot of stupid things just because his moves come out a lot quicker than Ike's, so a lot of the matchup is Ike trying to win footsies against grab hungry falcons. Pivot Ftilt and Pivot grab are your best friend. B/c Falcon falls fast, he is combo food, so use that Uthrow Fair. good punishes to missed grabs/raptor boosts, is nair to pop them up. Overall, I think It is equal matchup if not slightly in Falcon's favor. Dunno how to edgeguard falcon, but I do know that his recovery is bad.

 

[constable lemon]

Eruption edgegaurd on Falcon is easy stuff. Or even just drop down + fair.

 

[Rango the Mercenary]

Are the changes really so significant? The buff to Nair and Fair may have given us an extra kill confirm or two, and a few characters got changes like Marthcina getting more damage and thus killing earlier, or Bowser's Uthrow combo no longer working for such a long time, but nothing really radically changes the way the matches are played. We still need to play major footsies with Marth and Bowser, preferring closer quarters against Marth and max range against Bowser, the top tiers' weight nerf makes them die slightly earlier and get tossed a little farther by heavy hits but the game plan doesn't change any, and so on. Little Mac's smashes got even more stupidly strong, so maybe that's changed something there.


I, for one, still can't figure out how to deal with Diddy Kong. His neutral is so safe, I just have no idea how I can get in, what I should watch for, and what I can do that's safe. Does anyone have any more strategies to share against this damned chimp? I certainly live a long time with judicious use of shield, but I'm too unfamiliar with movement patterns that'll work against his moves and bananas and what I can punish.

Fair is very much a killing option now. That it's an ender makes it a differencemaker at this point.

Diddy is just dumb. When he has the banana, let him have the banana. However, with Fair's range change, it will crucial to see if he can even get in with his own Fair at this point. Much like Sonic, it really comes down to punishing his approaches and Side B with Nair and shield and work from there, rinse and repeat. Dash attacks from out of nowhere help as well if he's just dash dancing with the banana.

 

[Ark of Silence101]

So after playing against Corrin for a while, I can conclude judging by the little I was able to understand, that here maintaining close distance is crucial as his fsmash easily outranges any of you moves, and his aerials sans bair, can punish you, I said sans bair, because Ike overall has a better back air, that being said, his recovery is almost as exploitable as Roy's and Eruption is your best friend if you edgeguard from the edge.

 

[Arrei]

As far as theorycrafting goes, Draconic Ascent should be one of the easier recoveries to hit with Eruption once you've got the timing down. On top of Corrin having a fairly large hitbox during the move, it comes with both visible and audible tells during the startup, originally meant for Corrin to be able to choose their trajectory but just as useful for us to tell when to release our fiery rage.

That said, I've been on the dealing and receiving ends of some sharking at the ledge from the attack's hitboxes despite it not appearing to be a sharky move, so there's that to keep in mind. Also make sure Corrin has been sent quite far out first - don't get too excited about using Eruption if Corrin still has high recovery as an option, because we don't want to eat a tipper Dragon Lunge while we were busy standing there like a putz. Furthermore, Corrin can stall for time by Dragon Lunging into the stage if it has a wall.

 

[GhostUrsa]

Yeah, the range of Corrin's smash for edge guarding seems pretty good. I've tried to use rolls, jumps and standard getup to shield. All 3 have been punished by the range and speed of his Fsmash so far. Aether really can't be used to get him to respect our getup like others, so currently I'm at a loss as to what to do to recover low. I need more experimentation there.

One thing I have had issues getting around is his neutral B, as the larger projectiles seem to charge fairly fast and have a melee follow up that I haven't been able to outspace with Ragnell yet. A successful tomahowk requires us to be pretty far away, which makes dash grabs hard to get off. (I haven't succeeded yet, as the ending of his attack seems too fast for me to run in afterward.) I have had good luck with using QD after jumping over the charged shot though. Jump over, make sure I'm out of range for his followup attack and do a partial charged QD (or a quick one to spice things up, as long as the timing is good for the ending lag of his attack) to zip in during the ending animation to smack some fear into him and prevent spam. I find that if you are quick, you can easily punish his Dragon Lunge as long as you dodge the first spear (so you don't get rooted). Have to be a little pro-active with your motion, but the landing lag is enough to get a grab in.

I agree with Arrei that a key to a KO against Corrin that I can see right now is get him deep for an Eruption. It has to be deep offstage though, as he's got that Ganondorf style extra hitbox with his Ascend when near the height of the ascension that can knock us out of our charge. He becomes another Eruption fodder at the deeper angles though.

 

[Arrei]

As far as recovery goes Corrin's probably another matchup where using Aether is a bad idea - not only does he have his Fsmash, but he's got a counter and a RAR Bair is his only attack that won't send you in an upwards trajectory, making jumping and Quick Draw recoveries easier.

I've faced most Corrins while using Corrin myself, so I don't have as much experience fighting him as Ike yet, but if he's committing to DFS he should be easy pickings for an Fair. I can't remember if it gets beat out by jab like Hadouken does but any aerial will destroy a full shot and it gives you a lot of time to see if he tends to full charge the bite in order to set up that counter kill described above. In fact, I've had a lot more success netting KOs using a point-blank uncharged shot followed by a full bite for the kill, so I don't think most Corrins will want to blindly use charged shots against you.

 

[GhostUrsa]

I'll have to practice more against directly attacking the shots with Aerials, as I only had success beating out the uncharged shots and not the charged ones. Could be my timing is off there due to the speed difference, though I'm not sure it's as easy to full hop to Fair over the charged shots to hit him since that afterbite appears to out space Ike currently. (Which is why I've had better luck using QD to punish ending lag of the bite than to challenge his attack with fair) I'll see if I can experiment more and get around it.

 

[Arrei]

Well, if Corrin decides to not charge the bite, Fair would be the optimal punish in the time window available to you, and if he does charge the bite you could counter it. Might also be one of the rare times where using Dair is a good idea.

That's all assuming he decides to use the move in unsafe distance to begin with, which I personally avoid except to fish for the kill with the uncharged shot, so grain of salt and all that.

 

[Deleted member 269706]

The corrin match-up is pretty weird, and I don't have a lot of experience in it, but I know a few things about it. For one, our fair out ranges the majority of his attacks. I've also heard rumors that his side B and fsmash aren't 100% disjointed so punishing him with our disjoint is easier than you would think. I haven't done enough testing to know if fsmash is punishable, but side B definitely is. Another great tactic to use against the neutral B is to jump over the shot, bait the bite, and then counter. There's really nothing he can do in this situation that results in his safety. Speaking of counter, it's pretty great at wrecking his recovery.

At low percents, make sure to space him out as much as possible. Failure to do so can result in several dtilts > utilt > fair strings. Ike can be comboed hard, so be very careful with that. And since his counter is so strong, Ike needs to be careful at higher percents cause Ike doesn't have many hits that don't hit hard. Empty hops and baits will be your best friend at this point.

 

[Arrei]

I'm pretty sure Corrin's spear is disjointed, but at least in the case of Fsmash, it's also super low priority. "Item priority", someone at the Corrin board referred to it as. Like Bayonetta's Wicked Weave smashes, it's prone to simply having the hitbox eaten by colliding with another move, especially aerials.

Also of note in Corrin's counter is that it sacrifices horizontal reach for vertical - at max distance Ike should be able to trigger Counter Surge with things like Fair and Ftilt without getting himself killed. Although it'll keep you safe, I don't think it opens up many punish opportunities because Corrin is intangible for almost the entirety of the animation and triggering it with a melee attack slows you down for the duration. The counter's main purpose is to discourage aerial pursuit, so keep your eyes peeled if you're hungry for an Uair kill.