PapaJ
Smash Journeyman
- Joined
- May 13, 2015
- Messages
- 252
- NNID
- SolidSnake1443
- 3DS FC
- 3282-3281-5746
Hey Snake Players, and people interested in playing Snake. I went through a bit of footage trying to find out some of Snake's frame data, Im kinda bad as finding actual frame data, since all the videos are phone videos basically. So for right now I'm trying to find Snake's Damage values.
Thanks to erico9001 for having a good table setup in the Shulk forums.
If anyone has any questions, or has any corrections please let me know.
Some things to note:
All videos should be in the 1 V 1 Format since damage does change when there are more than 2 fighters.
There is probably gonna be some variance in damage due to freshness/staleness/Sweet and sourspots. Try to use moves that were either Fresh or only used once in the Queue. (Assume 10 moves like Smash 4 for right now)
Info on stale move negation
Multihit moves are hard to track since you can only glimpse the enemies percent for a brief second before the next move comes out. So these may be off
Notable changes:
1. Snake seems to get a little hop after doing Dair.
2. Snake's C4 has a red light on it. Making it easier to see
3. Snake can place C4 on an enemy even if they're in shield
4. Snake can still tech chase. It's arguably buffed since you can now drag downed enemies by simply walking forward
5.Snake can seemingly combo Dthrow -> utilt. Im not sure if it's because the enemy just didnt move, or if it's a genuine combo. It is
**Note: multihit notes will be denoted with parenthesis for each individual hit and than the total. So (3)(4)(5)(6): Total: 18
**Note: (?) denotes when the info is uncertain. In the case of frame data its not knowing when the FAF is of jabs and such, and for damage it's because its hard to read the changes.
**Note: ~ denotes an approximation
Kurogane Hammer has finalized the data. Ill be moving it over to here to keep it consolidated but here is the link. God bless this man for his work.
Ground Moves
Move | Hitbox Start | Hitbox Duration | FAF | Damage
Jab 1|3|2|16| 2.3
Jab 2|4 |2 |25 | 3.0
Jab 3|8 |2 | 47| 6.2
U-Tilt |6 |7 |38 | 15.2
D-Tilt |6 |2 | 31| 12.6
F-Tilt 1|4 |1 |34 | 3.8
F-Tilt 2|8 |1 |39 | 10.9
U-Smash (Mortar: Placement) |11 |2 | 51 | 4.2
U-Smash (Mortar: projectile)|36 | till landing | 51 | 14.7
F-Smash |41 |2 | 74 | 23.1
D-Smash 1 | 8| 2| 45| 10 |
D-Smash 2 | 20 | 2 | 45 |
Dash Attack | 5 | 7 |56 | 11.5 |
Specials
Move | Hitbox Start | Hitbox Duration | FAF | Damage |
Nikita Missile |41 | |35 after ending | 8/16 |
Cipher |7 |87 | |
C4 Placement (ground) |9|NA |25 | N/A
C4 Placement (air) | | | | N/A |
C4 activation |25 |2 |33 | 20.8 |
Grenade |1 | 150 | 22 | 10
Aerials
Move | Hitbox Start | Hitbox Duration | FAF | Damage | Landing Lag
NAir| (10)(18)(26)(36) |(2)(2)(2)(2) |60 | (2.8)()()(10.8) | 16
FAir |23 |3 |70 | 14.7| 20
BAir |7 |19 | 48| 14.6 | 19-20
UAir |10 |13 | 60 | 10.5(Sour) 13(Sweet) 14.6 (Fresh?) | 15
DAir |(3)(10)(17)(25) |(2)(2)(2)(2) | 60 | (3.1)(5.8)()(10.5): 21 (All hits) | 20
Grabs
Move | Hitbox Start | Hitbox Duration | FAF | Damage
Grab| 8 | 2 | 35 | N/A
Dash Grab | 11 | 2 | 43 | N/A
Pivot grab | 9 | 2 | 38 | N/A
U-throw| | | | 14.7
F-throw| | | | 9.5
D-throw| | | | 6.2
B-throw| | | | 9.5
Pummel| | | | 1.4
Attacks on Shield
Move | Frame Advantage (in frames)
Jab 1| -9
Jab 2 | -16
Jab 3 | -21
Ftilt 1 | -22
FTilt 2| -22
Utilt | -18
Dtilt | -25
Fair| -27
Bair| -23
Bair (Fast Fall) | -22
Uair | -32
Dair (All) | -39
Dair (all. Fastfall) | - 33
Nair 1-3 | -6 frames (for any of the three)
Nair 4| -13
Dsmash 1| -28
Dsmash 2 | -14
Fsmash | -18
Usmash Placement 1| -35
Usmash Mortar | +20 (Shieldstun is 20 frames)
Nikita | -23
Nikita (Release) | +11 (This is if it hits enemy shield and snake can move)
C4 | +18
Grenade Explosion | +12
Notes: I tested this by counting the number of frames after shield disappeared.
For Out of shield punishes add 2 frames since jumpsquat is 3 and I already took that into account
For Shield drop punishes add 10 frames since shield drop is 11 frames and I already took that into account
Example: To punish Snakes Jab (-9) with an OoS aerial the enemy has to hit us with a frame 5 aerial.
9 (Enemy Advantage) - 2(remaining jumpsquat frames) = 6. If they hit us with a frame 6 move we can be in shield.
Example: To punish Snakes Jab 2 (-16) with a shield drop attack the enemy needs to hit us with a frame 6 move.
16( Enemy advantage) - 9 (The enemies remaining frames of inaction) = 7.
Grenades
Grenades are gonna be useful for us. They detonate on enemy attacks, we can shield drop them, soft toss them right in front of us, toss them harder,etc. There are also some other tricks we can do.
Grenade Rushdown: What we do with this is get a grenade out and we have to either shield drop it, or soft toss it. After that we can pick it up and depending on how you launched the grenade we can re-grab it and run to the enemy, or perform an aerial. At that point we can shield right before the explosion and possibly hit the opponent. At mid percents this can lead into Aerials or a c4 stick.
Z-Nading - This guide goes into detail on what Z-Nading is, and it's applications. Credit to Jon in the Snake discord for posting this. Essentially this gives snake more options to place/grab grenades as well as different cooking methods. This will make it hard to for the enemy to realize when the grenade is going off, and allow us to create openings on their attacks, shields, and movement.
As you can see grenades are very vital for snakes gameplay so it's important you get the basics of it going, otherwise matches will becomes harder and rushdown character will give you an issue.
Nikita
Nikita's speed and power have been buffed since brawl. This is excellent for us since it can kill Mario at 100% near the ledge of FD, and the killing power only gets better the further offstage they are.
The trick to Nikita is that the missile has to be live for 30 frames for it to do 16 damage, and the higher KB. Offstage this isn't a problem, and onstage all we need to do is just slow it down by manipulating it.
Honestly the best time to use Nikita is if the enemy is offstage or if you have significant stage control and can react to something incoming.
Keep in mind that while Nikita can eat projectiles it will be deflected and have to be re-guided to the enemy. Same things for for physical attacks like jabs, tilts and smashes. It also seems when it does clank with hitboxes it can delay/prevent explosions on a hurtbox
Nikita drop: When we shield with Nikita out the missile will launch itself a bit forward and drop down. This drops the damage to 8 no matter how long the projectile was live. I can see using this as another form of trap near the ledge by launching it high up, dropping it and using mortars and c4 to lock the enemy down. Outside of that we can attempt to bait the enemy by launching Nikita and canceling it ASAP when they're off ledge since they might try and get up immediately to handle the attack.
Nikita Edgeguard: Similar to what I said above we can rotate nikita in a circle. This keeps the projectile in one spot. By doing this near the ledge we can cause enemies to hit the Nikita and make it troublesome for them to recover low. Characters that have a hitbox on their recovery, like Krool, have to be hit from the side or the bottom for them to be hit. Overall a good method of learning how the player reacts to edge guarding attempts that hit low.
C4
C4 Is snake's remote controlled explosive. The C4 can be placed when snake is on the ground or in the air. Typically it's safer in the air, and can cause the opponent to be be more wary if they're trying to juggle snake from the ground. C4 will detonate in 1600 frames, or 26 seconds.
C4 can be placed on the enemy this will cause it stick to them. They can transfer it to us by touching their hurtbox with ours, and we can transfer it back. The cooldown on a switch is 3 seconds. When Stickied the C4 will come off after 12 seconds, and sometimes by a strong attack.
Due to the Airdodge changes, if we happen to have a C4 on the enemy and can force an airdodge we can quickly press down b to punish. No matter where they airdodge.
C4 Bait: in Jtail's video you can see the C4 here. He Short hops to place C4, than double jumps away and detonates. Due to snakes laggy aerials and size some enemies will want to try and go in and punish snake if he jumps. By doing this you can avoid most attacks and punish. This move can be used somewhat liberally just watch out for faster characters that can avoid and punish.
C4 Combo: Because of hitstun we can actually combo enemies until c4 without relying on sticky C4. Our main moves for this type of combo are
C4 Stick: As the name implies this is where we stick our C4 on the enemy. The best time to do this is when the enemy is shield since C4 stick ignores shields. Enemies will typically shield when they are on a platform and are afraid of snakes Uair or utilt. Landing this should be a primary goal when you get an enemy on a platform since it will bypass shield, and can lead to kill combos.
Rising/Falling C4: This is typically an out of shield option when we jump out of shield we can negate the shield drop frames, which allows us to act faster. Nor for larger characters, such as Bowser, we can stick C4 as we jump out of shield, and for smaller characters we can stick c4 as we hit the floor. This is just another option to get C4 on the enemy and will take some time to get used to, and when to use it.
C4 Recovery: This is simple. When snake loses his recovery, either it being destroyed or due to it running out. Simply release C4 and detonate it ASAP. You will hit yourself for 20 damage, launch yourself up, and gain another recovery. This is vital to learn especially with the fact Snake's recovery can be destroyed. It's not an entire loss since we also gain some rage, and Snake is decently heavy.
As you can see C4 is arguably just as important as Snake's grenades and makes his stage control that much better. It also gives him some pretty strong combos, and a chance to come back to the stage. Practice using C4 as much as you can and detonating it if you want to replace it, such as the ledge if you knocked the enemy offstage.
Cypher
Cypher is Snake's recovery it has a hurtbox that can absorb up 15%-20% of damage at which point it will explode and Snake will start tumbling down. It has some benefits as it gives snake some very light armor, had a decent effective range, can act as projectile when let go. However, because it leaves snake's sides exposed as well as underneath him it can make recovery very difficult against enemies with strong aerials. This is why you want to try and recovery high and rely on C4 and B-reverse grenades to get you to safety. Outside of there isn't really any strategies to cypher.
Neutral Air
Neutral Air gets a spot due to its unique properties. First and foremost it's pretty good to throw out if you suspect the enemy is going to recover high offledge or approach you with an aerial. It does a solid amount of damage and knockback if all hits connect, and, as long as you have enough airtime, all 4 hit will reliably connect. However there is anought useful trait of N-air. As I mentioned above Nair has 4 hits, with the last hit being the strongest, but Nair's first 3 hits all seem to have set knockback which can reliably combo into Utilt, C4 Stick, or a throw. However the timing must be on point otherwise it wont be a true combo. The rule is the lower the hit, the more time you have to combo.
Utilt Combo: As I mentioned if you land any of the first three hits of N-air on an enemy. and the timing is right, we can land a Utilt. This is important because Utilt is a move that can kill reliably at 110% or so so instead of fishing for Utilts we can attempt to combo into our kill move.
Throw Combo/Chain grab: We can also land a grab on an enemy we have hit Nair 1-3 on. Although none of Snake's throws by themself are anything to write home about there is Dthrow. This forces the enemy to either roll left, roll right, or get up neutrally or attack. Now while Dthrow by itself has some benefits, such as reading the roll into utilt or another move we can also Dthrow > read the roll > Nair 1 or 2 or 3 > Dthrow. This essentially gives Snake his chain grab capability from Brawl back. Although it is harder to pull it off since we need to commit to the Nair if we mess up, which is around 16 frames. Still if you manage to get this a few times the damage can rack up, and is certainly something to try and get on the enemy when you can.
C4 Stick: Finally we have sticking C4 on an enemy. This is pretty straightforward. After landing one of the first three Nairs you will want to hit the C4 button to try and stick the enemy. After that use the C4 to your advantage either to extend a combo or punish.
StrengthsControl
Snake has great control due to his grenades, Mortar, C4, and Dtilt and Utilt Spacing. This forces faster enemies to make sure they can advance, or even attack Snake, and bigger enemies to be more susceptible to traps due to their hurtbox size.
General Rule of thumb is that you always have something on the floor. Either a grenade, C4, Mortar anything that makes the enemy think twice about directly attacking Snake, and at the same time you want to analyze how the enemy is reacting to your projectiles and figure out counter plays to how they are fighting.
KO Power
Snakes go to kill moves are Nikita, Utilt, Dsmash, Bair, C4, Usmash. All have their own uses. because Snake's fastest kill move is Utilt, and it has a disjointed hitbox and decent range, you want to try and land this whenever you can. Avoid staling this move towards the end of the stock to get as much of an early kill as possible.
While Fsmash is very strong the startup is too much, and the range is pathetic. If you can land this move with a shield break or hard read it could be worth it since it does kill ridiculously early. But overall this is a move that should seldom be used.
Crouching
Snake Crouch is pretty damn good. It can low profile moves like Megaman's Jab, aerials, and other attacks. On top of that we can low profile a move and counter with any of our attacks such as Dtilt, Utilt, Ftilt, Aerials, etc. We also gain KB resistance if we are hit during crouch which can extend our stock even more. It will take sometime to get used to try and crouch/crawl over some attacks but it is something that is very useful Since Snake goes very low to the ground making some aerials, like Marth Nair to miss.
Although Snake does have a good aerials part of the issue is none of them are disjointed are have any somer of invulnerability on his feet/legs. This means more often than not you're gonna trade or lose due to the startup of some of his moves. Avoid trying to clash in the air unless you can get an out of shield Dair, RAR Bair, or you're sharking a platform with Uair.
This also extends to his jumps. Snake cannot land on the first platform on Battlefield unless he uses Dair, Bair or an airdodge, and due to his low air speed it makes fading back with neutrals tough, and given his endlag on aerials you shouldn't be throwing them out unless you see a good reason to, such as contesting/trading.
FInally his recovery is below average if only due to how fragile cypher is, and how little armor snake gets. While it isn't fatal to lose cypher, due to the C4 trick, it does mean we have to be very cautious if we go over the ledge.
Size
Snake is very tall, and somewhat large. This means that while he gets decent range on some of his attacks, it will make it easier for enemies to hit snake and get combos off him. We do have a work around with his grenades since any attacks that hit that will set them off, which will typically trap the enemy in the explosion but be prepared to be comboed and having a rough time with some faster/more acrobatic characters.
Set-up
Even though Snake's main appeal and goal is setting up a danger zone this can also be considered a weakness. Without his grenades, C4, Mortar, Nikita it can be trivial to approach and overwhelm Snake. So faster characters, or characters with reflect, can trivialize alot of Snake's defenses. The only work around is stepping up your approach and being more aggressive with physical attacks and putting out physical hitboxes to try and deter approaches. Once they're offstage you can go back to applying pressure with explosives but in neutral it can be a pain to get it started up.
SL Ultimate #1 - Ally (Snake) vs Holy (ROB) - Winners Finals
SL Ultimate #1 - Smokk (Ganon) vs Ally (Snake) - Grand Finals
ESAM vs MVD | Singles - Grand Finals | Don't Park On The Grass 2018 | Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
ESAM vs MVD | Singles - From Winners | Don't Park On The Grass 2018 | Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
Credits:
Papaj
Ffamran
kurogane hammer
The Snake Discord
Credit to Jon in the Snake discord for posting the Z-nade guide. Twitter: https://twitter.com/LITERALLYPATHET
Jtails
Side Note: If this formatting is weird or wonk please let me know. IF there's any suggestions for cleaning it up I'll gladly take it.
Thanks to erico9001 for having a good table setup in the Shulk forums.
If anyone has any questions, or has any corrections please let me know.
Some things to note:
All videos should be in the 1 V 1 Format since damage does change when there are more than 2 fighters.
There is probably gonna be some variance in damage due to freshness/staleness/Sweet and sourspots. Try to use moves that were either Fresh or only used once in the Queue. (Assume 10 moves like Smash 4 for right now)
Info on stale move negation
Multihit moves are hard to track since you can only glimpse the enemies percent for a brief second before the next move comes out. So these may be off
Notable changes:
1. Snake seems to get a little hop after doing Dair.
2. Snake's C4 has a red light on it. Making it easier to see
3. Snake can place C4 on an enemy even if they're in shield
4. Snake can still tech chase. It's arguably buffed since you can now drag downed enemies by simply walking forward
5.
**Note: multihit notes will be denoted with parenthesis for each individual hit and than the total. So (3)(4)(5)(6): Total: 18
**Note: (?) denotes when the info is uncertain. In the case of frame data its not knowing when the FAF is of jabs and such, and for damage it's because its hard to read the changes.
**Note: ~ denotes an approximation
Kurogane Hammer has finalized the data. Ill be moving it over to here to keep it consolidated but here is the link. God bless this man for his work.
Ground Moves
Jab 1|3|2|16| 2.3
Jab 2|4 |2 |25 | 3.0
Jab 3|8 |2 | 47| 6.2
U-Tilt |6 |7 |38 | 15.2
D-Tilt |6 |2 | 31| 12.6
F-Tilt 1|4 |1 |34 | 3.8
F-Tilt 2|8 |1 |39 | 10.9
U-Smash (Mortar: Placement) |11 |2 | 51 | 4.2
U-Smash (Mortar: projectile)|36 | till landing | 51 | 14.7
F-Smash |41 |2 | 74 | 23.1
D-Smash 1 | 8| 2| 45| 10 |
D-Smash 2 | 20 | 2 | 45 |
Dash Attack | 5 | 7 |56 | 11.5 |
Specials
Nikita Missile |41 | |35 after ending | 8/16 |
Cipher |7 |87 | |
C4 Placement (ground) |9|NA |25 | N/A
C4 Placement (air) | | | | N/A |
C4 activation |25 |2 |33 | 20.8 |
Grenade |1 | 150 | 22 | 10
Aerials
NAir| (10)(18)(26)(36) |(2)(2)(2)(2) |60 | (2.8)()()(10.8) | 16
FAir |23 |3 |70 | 14.7| 20
BAir |7 |19 | 48| 14.6 | 19-20
UAir |10 |13 | 60 | 10.5(Sour) 13(Sweet) 14.6 (Fresh?) | 15
DAir |(3)(10)(17)(25) |(2)(2)(2)(2) | 60 | (3.1)(5.8)()(10.5): 21 (All hits) | 20
Grabs
Grab| 8 | 2 | 35 | N/A
Dash Grab | 11 | 2 | 43 | N/A
Pivot grab | 9 | 2 | 38 | N/A
U-throw| | | | 14.7
F-throw| | | | 9.5
D-throw| | | | 6.2
B-throw| | | | 9.5
Pummel| | | | 1.4
Attacks on Shield
Jab 1| -9
Jab 2 | -16
Jab 3 | -21
Ftilt 1 | -22
FTilt 2| -22
Utilt | -18
Dtilt | -25
Fair| -27
Bair| -23
Bair (Fast Fall) | -22
Uair | -32
Dair (All) | -39
Dair (all. Fastfall) | - 33
Nair 1-3 | -6 frames (for any of the three)
Nair 4| -13
Dsmash 1| -28
Dsmash 2 | -14
Fsmash | -18
Usmash Placement 1| -35
Usmash Mortar | +20 (Shieldstun is 20 frames)
Nikita | -23
Nikita (Release) | +11 (This is if it hits enemy shield and snake can move)
C4 | +18
Grenade Explosion | +12
Notes: I tested this by counting the number of frames after shield disappeared.
For Out of shield punishes add 2 frames since jumpsquat is 3 and I already took that into account
For Shield drop punishes add 10 frames since shield drop is 11 frames and I already took that into account
Example: To punish Snakes Jab (-9) with an OoS aerial the enemy has to hit us with a frame 5 aerial.
9 (Enemy Advantage) - 2(remaining jumpsquat frames) = 6. If they hit us with a frame 6 move we can be in shield.
Example: To punish Snakes Jab 2 (-16) with a shield drop attack the enemy needs to hit us with a frame 6 move.
16( Enemy advantage) - 9 (The enemies remaining frames of inaction) = 7.
Meta-Game
Grenades
Grenades are gonna be useful for us. They detonate on enemy attacks, we can shield drop them, soft toss them right in front of us, toss them harder,etc. There are also some other tricks we can do.
Grenade Rushdown: What we do with this is get a grenade out and we have to either shield drop it, or soft toss it. After that we can pick it up and depending on how you launched the grenade we can re-grab it and run to the enemy, or perform an aerial. At that point we can shield right before the explosion and possibly hit the opponent. At mid percents this can lead into Aerials or a c4 stick.
- If you shield drop the nade and wait for the nade to bounce once you should be able to dash 5 times. After the 5th one you should shield and let go and most of the time you should also get a parry. Which would prevent shield damage and allow for the same follow ups/
- If you do the soft toss you can use nair, dair or fair to approach the enemy. Now this tricky because we dont really want to hit the enemy since the extra hitstun would make the grenade go off. This honestly seems better as a bait than anything else.
Z-Nading - This guide goes into detail on what Z-Nading is, and it's applications. Credit to Jon in the Snake discord for posting this. Essentially this gives snake more options to place/grab grenades as well as different cooking methods. This will make it hard to for the enemy to realize when the grenade is going off, and allow us to create openings on their attacks, shields, and movement.
As you can see grenades are very vital for snakes gameplay so it's important you get the basics of it going, otherwise matches will becomes harder and rushdown character will give you an issue.
Nikita
Nikita's speed and power have been buffed since brawl. This is excellent for us since it can kill Mario at 100% near the ledge of FD, and the killing power only gets better the further offstage they are.
The trick to Nikita is that the missile has to be live for 30 frames for it to do 16 damage, and the higher KB. Offstage this isn't a problem, and onstage all we need to do is just slow it down by manipulating it.
Honestly the best time to use Nikita is if the enemy is offstage or if you have significant stage control and can react to something incoming.
Keep in mind that while Nikita can eat projectiles it will be deflected and have to be re-guided to the enemy. Same things for for physical attacks like jabs, tilts and smashes. It also seems when it does clank with hitboxes it can delay/prevent explosions on a hurtbox
Nikita drop: When we shield with Nikita out the missile will launch itself a bit forward and drop down. This drops the damage to 8 no matter how long the projectile was live. I can see using this as another form of trap near the ledge by launching it high up, dropping it and using mortars and c4 to lock the enemy down. Outside of that we can attempt to bait the enemy by launching Nikita and canceling it ASAP when they're off ledge since they might try and get up immediately to handle the attack.
Nikita Edgeguard: Similar to what I said above we can rotate nikita in a circle. This keeps the projectile in one spot. By doing this near the ledge we can cause enemies to hit the Nikita and make it troublesome for them to recover low. Characters that have a hitbox on their recovery, like Krool, have to be hit from the side or the bottom for them to be hit. Overall a good method of learning how the player reacts to edge guarding attempts that hit low.
C4
C4 Is snake's remote controlled explosive. The C4 can be placed when snake is on the ground or in the air. Typically it's safer in the air, and can cause the opponent to be be more wary if they're trying to juggle snake from the ground. C4 will detonate in 1600 frames, or 26 seconds.
C4 can be placed on the enemy this will cause it stick to them. They can transfer it to us by touching their hurtbox with ours, and we can transfer it back. The cooldown on a switch is 3 seconds. When Stickied the C4 will come off after 12 seconds, and sometimes by a strong attack.
Due to the Airdodge changes, if we happen to have a C4 on the enemy and can force an airdodge we can quickly press down b to punish. No matter where they airdodge.
C4 Bait: in Jtail's video you can see the C4 here. He Short hops to place C4, than double jumps away and detonates. Due to snakes laggy aerials and size some enemies will want to try and go in and punish snake if he jumps. By doing this you can avoid most attacks and punish. This move can be used somewhat liberally just watch out for faster characters that can avoid and punish.
C4 Combo: Because of hitstun we can actually combo enemies until c4 without relying on sticky C4. Our main moves for this type of combo are
- Uthrow (if the C4 is on platform above us)
- Utilt (If the C4 is on a platform above us)
- Dthrow (on a small platform)
- Bthrow (our best move for this)
C4 Stick: As the name implies this is where we stick our C4 on the enemy. The best time to do this is when the enemy is shield since C4 stick ignores shields. Enemies will typically shield when they are on a platform and are afraid of snakes Uair or utilt. Landing this should be a primary goal when you get an enemy on a platform since it will bypass shield, and can lead to kill combos.
Rising/Falling C4: This is typically an out of shield option when we jump out of shield we can negate the shield drop frames, which allows us to act faster. Nor for larger characters, such as Bowser, we can stick C4 as we jump out of shield, and for smaller characters we can stick c4 as we hit the floor. This is just another option to get C4 on the enemy and will take some time to get used to, and when to use it.
C4 Recovery: This is simple. When snake loses his recovery, either it being destroyed or due to it running out. Simply release C4 and detonate it ASAP. You will hit yourself for 20 damage, launch yourself up, and gain another recovery. This is vital to learn especially with the fact Snake's recovery can be destroyed. It's not an entire loss since we also gain some rage, and Snake is decently heavy.
As you can see C4 is arguably just as important as Snake's grenades and makes his stage control that much better. It also gives him some pretty strong combos, and a chance to come back to the stage. Practice using C4 as much as you can and detonating it if you want to replace it, such as the ledge if you knocked the enemy offstage.
Cypher
Cypher is Snake's recovery it has a hurtbox that can absorb up 15%-20% of damage at which point it will explode and Snake will start tumbling down. It has some benefits as it gives snake some very light armor, had a decent effective range, can act as projectile when let go. However, because it leaves snake's sides exposed as well as underneath him it can make recovery very difficult against enemies with strong aerials. This is why you want to try and recovery high and rely on C4 and B-reverse grenades to get you to safety. Outside of there isn't really any strategies to cypher.
Neutral Air
Neutral Air gets a spot due to its unique properties. First and foremost it's pretty good to throw out if you suspect the enemy is going to recover high offledge or approach you with an aerial. It does a solid amount of damage and knockback if all hits connect, and, as long as you have enough airtime, all 4 hit will reliably connect. However there is anought useful trait of N-air. As I mentioned above Nair has 4 hits, with the last hit being the strongest, but Nair's first 3 hits all seem to have set knockback which can reliably combo into Utilt, C4 Stick, or a throw. However the timing must be on point otherwise it wont be a true combo. The rule is the lower the hit, the more time you have to combo.
Utilt Combo: As I mentioned if you land any of the first three hits of N-air on an enemy. and the timing is right, we can land a Utilt. This is important because Utilt is a move that can kill reliably at 110% or so so instead of fishing for Utilts we can attempt to combo into our kill move.
Throw Combo/Chain grab: We can also land a grab on an enemy we have hit Nair 1-3 on. Although none of Snake's throws by themself are anything to write home about there is Dthrow. This forces the enemy to either roll left, roll right, or get up neutrally or attack. Now while Dthrow by itself has some benefits, such as reading the roll into utilt or another move we can also Dthrow > read the roll > Nair 1 or 2 or 3 > Dthrow. This essentially gives Snake his chain grab capability from Brawl back. Although it is harder to pull it off since we need to commit to the Nair if we mess up, which is around 16 frames. Still if you manage to get this a few times the damage can rack up, and is certainly something to try and get on the enemy when you can.
C4 Stick: Finally we have sticking C4 on an enemy. This is pretty straightforward. After landing one of the first three Nairs you will want to hit the C4 button to try and stick the enemy. After that use the C4 to your advantage either to extend a combo or punish.
Strengths
Snake has great control due to his grenades, Mortar, C4, and Dtilt and Utilt Spacing. This forces faster enemies to make sure they can advance, or even attack Snake, and bigger enemies to be more susceptible to traps due to their hurtbox size.
General Rule of thumb is that you always have something on the floor. Either a grenade, C4, Mortar anything that makes the enemy think twice about directly attacking Snake, and at the same time you want to analyze how the enemy is reacting to your projectiles and figure out counter plays to how they are fighting.
KO Power
Snakes go to kill moves are Nikita, Utilt, Dsmash, Bair, C4, Usmash. All have their own uses. because Snake's fastest kill move is Utilt, and it has a disjointed hitbox and decent range, you want to try and land this whenever you can. Avoid staling this move towards the end of the stock to get as much of an early kill as possible.
While Fsmash is very strong the startup is too much, and the range is pathetic. If you can land this move with a shield break or hard read it could be worth it since it does kill ridiculously early. But overall this is a move that should seldom be used.
Crouching
Snake Crouch is pretty damn good. It can low profile moves like Megaman's Jab, aerials, and other attacks. On top of that we can low profile a move and counter with any of our attacks such as Dtilt, Utilt, Ftilt, Aerials, etc. We also gain KB resistance if we are hit during crouch which can extend our stock even more. It will take sometime to get used to try and crouch/crawl over some attacks but it is something that is very useful Since Snake goes very low to the ground making some aerials, like Marth Nair to miss.
Weaknesses
Aerial GameAlthough Snake does have a good aerials part of the issue is none of them are disjointed are have any somer of invulnerability on his feet/legs. This means more often than not you're gonna trade or lose due to the startup of some of his moves. Avoid trying to clash in the air unless you can get an out of shield Dair, RAR Bair, or you're sharking a platform with Uair.
This also extends to his jumps. Snake cannot land on the first platform on Battlefield unless he uses Dair, Bair or an airdodge, and due to his low air speed it makes fading back with neutrals tough, and given his endlag on aerials you shouldn't be throwing them out unless you see a good reason to, such as contesting/trading.
FInally his recovery is below average if only due to how fragile cypher is, and how little armor snake gets. While it isn't fatal to lose cypher, due to the C4 trick, it does mean we have to be very cautious if we go over the ledge.
Size
Snake is very tall, and somewhat large. This means that while he gets decent range on some of his attacks, it will make it easier for enemies to hit snake and get combos off him. We do have a work around with his grenades since any attacks that hit that will set them off, which will typically trap the enemy in the explosion but be prepared to be comboed and having a rough time with some faster/more acrobatic characters.
Set-up
Even though Snake's main appeal and goal is setting up a danger zone this can also be considered a weakness. Without his grenades, C4, Mortar, Nikita it can be trivial to approach and overwhelm Snake. So faster characters, or characters with reflect, can trivialize alot of Snake's defenses. The only work around is stepping up your approach and being more aggressive with physical attacks and putting out physical hitboxes to try and deter approaches. Once they're offstage you can go back to applying pressure with explosives but in neutral it can be a pain to get it started up.
Notable Videos
This Section will have videos of High level tournament snake play so you can familiarize yourself with how Snake should be played as well as something to learn on.
SL Ultimate #1 - Ally (Snake) vs Holy (ROB) - Winners Finals
SL Ultimate #1 - Smokk (Ganon) vs Ally (Snake) - Grand Finals
ESAM vs MVD | Singles - Grand Finals | Don't Park On The Grass 2018 | Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
ESAM vs MVD | Singles - From Winners | Don't Park On The Grass 2018 | Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
Credits:
Papaj
Ffamran
kurogane hammer
The Snake Discord
Credit to Jon in the Snake discord for posting the Z-nade guide. Twitter: https://twitter.com/LITERALLYPATHET
Jtails
Side Note: If this formatting is weird or wonk please let me know. IF there's any suggestions for cleaning it up I'll gladly take it.
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Snake
