Squirtle Squad (General Disc.)

[Burnsy]

Bubble>dsmash all day erryday

I'm with Bones, withdraw turnaround jumps will be missed. Withdraw is a far more linear and predictable option without it.

 

[Nausicaa]

I find it a lot more difficult to combo into Side-B + A (I think it's called Aqua Jet)
Anyone still use this to kill/finish combos? It seems like it would be easier given U-Air is beefier, etc, but the timing/hix-boxes are tricky... yet the patch update I thought said they prioritize the sweet-spot more. :/

What would Squirtle's tilted Down tilt be used for and does it have armor frames?

It's for being Shiek.

 

[RaphaelRobo]

I used to use it, but can't anymore.

Really, I can't use any of the kill setups I used to use. I'm pretty sure I'm done with Squirtle after this update. I can't play him the way I want to anymore, so he just isn't fun. Here's hoping Kirby gets released next.

 

[Nausicaa]

Understandable. Shield WD F-Tilt was my personal BnB with him for everything, and it died.
Though with all the things that happened to him, he's definitely a much better character for 'Smash' itself. More dynamic and flexible, less linear and polarizing.

 

[QraQ]

I find it a lot more difficult to combo into Side-B + A (I think it's called Aqua Jet)
Anyone still use this to kill/finish combos? It seems like it would be easier given U-Air is beefier, etc, but the timing/hix-boxes are tricky... yet the patch update I thought said they prioritize the sweet-spot more. :/


It's for being Shiek.

I think you get a lot more control out of it actually. It allows you to press A immediately after the end animation to allow for easy <80% follow-ups.
It also allows you to hit the ground and tech chase with shell shuffle or WD bubbles for carry.
I do feel like it is not as automatic as it was before to Aqua Jet, but the newly inherent control it provides now makes up for it and then some IMO

 

[Burnsy]

Idk what people are talking about. I think squirtle is incredible now. Its easier to get that first hit, combos go for longer, and killing is much easier than characters like Pit or Sonic, imo.

 

[Bones0]

Can't wait to play 2.6 Squirtle at Xanadu (VGBootCamp streaming) tomorrow. Haven't got to play humans with 2.6 so I'll see if I'm able to catch up to speed and hopefully enter.

 

[Squartle]

I'm not good enough at Squirtle for my game to be significantly affected by the update. I'm having blast with that crawl attack, though.

 

[QraQ]

I'm not good enough at Squirtle for my game to be significantly affected by the update. I'm having blast with that crawl attack, though.

Crouch "walk" attack is the BEST underutilized tool on Squirtle!. It's a nearly perfect move with a horrible button configuration.
Well played developers....

 

[Squartle]

Crouch "walk" attack is the BEST underutilized tool on Squirtle!. It's a nearly perfect move with a horrible button configuration.
Well played developers....

I honestly would not mind if it got mapped to ftilt and the old ftilt was scrapped completely. It has its uses, but the crawl attack has so many more.

 

[Pwnz0rz Man]

I wouldn't mind seeing Crawl attack set to the Z button or if it were possible, Cstick forward while crouching. Crawling forward is so awkward while trying not to move too much and still land the hit.

 

[SpiderMad]

Still better than having it be a gruesome smash input

 

[Pwnz0rz Man]

Is there a way to make Aqua Jet not go into special fall when Squirtle does it on-stage? Anytime I attempt to get tricky with it and throw it out unexpectedly, even when I manage to hit, Squirtle goes flying off the side of the stage afterwards. (Unless it's a large stage)

At the moment, even though it's easier to perform and you can reliably do it on stage with it functioning with the A button, it's a risky move even when it manages to successfully kill someone. Just a thought.

 

[QraQ]

Is there a way to make Aqua Jet not go into special fall when Squirtle does it on-stage? Anytime I attempt to get tricky with it and throw it out unexpectedly, even when I manage to hit, Squirtle goes flying off the side of the stage afterwards. (Unless it's a large stage)

At the moment, even though it's easier to perform and you can reliably do it on stage with it functioning with the A button, it's a risky move even when it manages to successfully kill someone. Just a thought.

Yeah I hate this now. Aqua Jet seems so hard to throttle back on now. And you also lose so much DI during the first couple seconds of special fall. Aqua Jet play seems so much more dangerous now...

 

[cmart]

Reverse the aquajet and you won't go as far. Otherwise, no.

 

[TheReflexWonder]

Aqua Jet used to be horribly abusable because of its low landing lag and the ability to steer it during the attack. Or, at least, it would have been if the input needed weren't so precise in 2.5.

 

[IhaveSonar]

What was the reasoning behind the nerf to waterfall's killing ability? It was his aerial finisher in 2.5; considering how bad many considered Squirtle to be, I'm surprised that it was nerfed at all :/

 

[GunBlaze]

Waterfall can still KO =/

 

[Bones0]

What was the reasoning behind the nerf to waterfall's killing ability? It was his aerial finisher in 2.5; considering how bad many considered Squirtle to be, I'm surprised that it was nerfed at all :/

I guess they figured he had plenty of other options for KOing like usmash and... ummm... wait a sec, I know there's more... fair?

What's funny is I don't even necessarily disagree with the change that was made. The only problem is every other character has maintained their bogus combos into reliable KO moves (as far as I can tell, I haven't played much 2.6). As a result, what would have been an amazing KO tool in Melee is only mediocre by comparison. Just imagine Marth's up-B working like Squirtle's, and you can see how it'd be really scary to have Marth designed with a decent finisher.

 

[Zwarm]

Am I the only one who loves 2.6 Squirtle? All I see is complaints...

That being said, I will have videos of myself up eventually. I'm going places with this character.

 

[Burnsy]

I love 2.6 Squirtle. He's become my side character, I play him pretty much 50/50 with Lucas these days. I'll post some links in the video thread tomorrow morning

 

[Bones0]

Am I the only one who loves 2.6 Squirtle? All I see is complaints...

That being said, I will have videos of myself up eventually. I'm going places with this character.

I haven't full experimented with "slingshot" SHFFLs with his new aerial momentum and his dair and dsmash are better. Unfortunately, I used Waterfall to KO the majority of the time and it is now much worse, and my goto plan B after an opponent dodged a withdraw was to jump turnaround which was removed completely. Just looking at these few core portions of my playstyle with him (and apparently other peoples' playstyles as well), he essentially got nerfed. Overall, he is probably better, but a lot of stuff that people used was removed, and the stuff he gained seems to be much more subtle or is not easily applied (aerial momentum in particular).

 

[Zwarm]

I dunno, I played PT a lot in Brawl, so 2.5 Squirtle felt horrible to me and I didn't end up playing him at all. 2.6 Squirtle, to me, feels exactly how I wanted him to transition over from Brawl. All of his momentum tricks, shell shift tricks, everything.

I know a lot of people here probably didn't play PT in Brawl, or played Brawl at all, but everything I learned in Brawl was easy to carry over to 2.6 Squirtle, so I guess the high learning curve he has was already over for me when I started. I just need to stop suiciding all the time.

Slingshot SHFFL's are not the only thing 2.6 Squirtle has at his disposal, though they are incredibly useful. Almost every time Waterfall could be used to KO, a sweet spot UAir can do the same thing, not to say I don't try to Waterfall when they're too high for a UAir myself, but yeah.

I almost never approach with Withdraw, honestly. I tend to approach with slingshot SHFFL's (really useful to learn, and not very difficult imo. You have the shell shift option, or the RAR option to get the momentum), Bubble (wavebouncing can mix it up and keep you safe) Water Gun can lead to grabs at low percents, crawl tilt if they are in that range (which is honestly the best thing they could've given him, it has armor, goes through or under projectiles, and pops them up for an easy combo even at lower percents), wavedash in or shell shift dsmash is huge, especially because it is + on shield, so you can either keep the pressure on after the attack, or it makes for an easy get away. Also he has tail invulnerability, so ftilt and dtilt are very useful for approaching as well, and can both be comboed out of at low-mid to high percents.

Rat gave me a tip for using Withdraw last night, though. It's good when you know your opponent will be throwing out attacks, because its so quick. The example he gave me was it's really good in the Ike MU. I need to find more uses for the attack though, I mainly use it to recover and to stop my momentum when pushed by attacks like Wolf's up B when botching a gimp. I don't feel like Squirtle even needs it to be a good character, but the more options, the better.

One last thing, I know they took the Withdraw jump turnaround out, but you can still turn around on the ground and jump while still in your shell. Obviously not as quick as before, but it's not technically removed from the game.

 

[Bones0]

Slingshot SHFFL's are not the only thing 2.6 Squirtle has at his disposal, though they are incredibly useful. Almost every time Waterfall could be used to KO, a sweet spot UAir can do the same thing, not to say I don't try to Waterfall when they're too high for a UAir myself, but yeah.

One last thing, I know they took the Withdraw jump turnaround out, but you can still turn around on the ground and jump while still in your shell. Obviously not as quick as before, but it's not technically removed from the game.

Sure, you can sweetspot uair in 2.6, but in 2.5 you were able to sweetspot uair, DJ uair again, AND add a Waterfall onto the end to get KOs much sooner than with a simple uair (which also doesn't KO as early as Waterfall afaik).

Regular turnaround is so slow that it's almost useless. I have been able to get away with it because people suck at dealing with withdraw, but as soon as people realize Squirtle takes forever to turn around they'll just counterattack.

Again, I'm just trying to explain why players disliked the changes from 2.5 to 2.6 so much.

 

[Zwarm]

And I'm trying to give people less reason to hate 2.6 Squirtle :3

 

[SpiderMad]

Squirtles really good. Squirtles also a little gay, most matches take long and are sometimes boring to watch. I became more than fine camping people out with Diddy but Squirtles a little different.

I've also been wondering what his Strong side-b input is compared to others. Is it closer to Link's easy to trigger Strong side-b or harder but not as hard as Diddy's? Also why would someone want to use weak Side-b when Strong side-b is faster (besides some weird situation you want to go slow?). Time to ping Cmart.

Haha I'll try to be at Xanadu tomorrow just for that.

 

[Kyu Puff]

dsmash are better.

Is d-smash better? I can't find any use for it with the increased startup lag...

 

[Zwarm]

It's literally plus on block and you can do anything out of it and not get punished for the most part. Just don't use it short range or you will get hit.

 

[Bones0]

Is d-smash better? I can't find any use for it with the increased startup lag...

You can combo out of it now which to me is way more important than a bit of extra startup. It wasn't a KO move and wasn't a combo move, so it really only had a few gimmicky instances where it was the best option.

If it's really advantageous on block, then that's crazier than I thought.

 

[Nausicaa]

D-Smash > F-air, what more do you want from that move?

 

[Kyu Puff]

You can combo out of it now which to me is way more important than a bit of extra startup. It wasn't a KO move and wasn't a combo move, so it really only had a few gimmicky instances where it was the best option.

If it's really advantageous on block, then that's crazier than I thought.

Agreed that it was gimmicky in 2.5. I just got access to 2.6 a couple days ago, and wasn't aware that it could actually set things up now. Guess I just need to experiment more.

 

[cmart]

Squirtles really good. Squirtles also a little gay, most matches take long and are sometimes boring to watch. I became more than fine camping people out with Diddy but Squirtles a little different.

I've also been wondering what his Strong side-b input is compared to others. Is it closer to Link's easy to trigger Strong side-b or harder but not as hard as Diddy's? Also why would someone want to use weak Side-b when Strong side-b is faster (besides some weird situation you want to go slow?). Time to ping Cmart.

Slow side B does a few more points of damage, and thus has more knockback. I'll admit it's probably not very useful, but hey if you want to trade speed for power it's there.

Also if you're going to ping me, I'd request that you not capitalize my name - it's all lower case (or all upper case if you REALLY can't stand not capitalizing names).

 

[Zwarm]

Dsmash -> anything really

You can even dsmash -> dsmash on fast fallers

It's his best move by far now imo, you can surprise them with a quick tilt while they think they can punish you for hitting their shield, grab them, or even just run away and reset the situation

And that's only on when they block it, if it hits, go crazy

 

[Oro?!]

cmart might have to capitalize on your mistakes.

 

[McNinja]

Ha. 1000th message on the Squirtle boards!

 

[QraQ]

Squirtle's pursuit game is pretty tight, amirite?

 

[Kyu Puff]

Didn't know squirtle could learn that move...

After further experimentation I've come to the conclusion that 2.6 Squirtle is quite viable. I don't really mind the changes to withdraw because he received so many other buffs. Loving the slingshot aerials, as well as the changes to n-air/d-air/u-throw/d-smash. The one thing I'm still not finding a lot of use for is neutral-b. It's slightly better now, but it seems like in almost any situation there's something better you could do. Am I missing something?

 

[Nausicaa]

It's pretty bad, but it's something to charge when you have time. So yay!

I still WD-F-Tilt like it's good, but it's not nearly as good. D-Tilt/Grab mixing is a decent replacement I guess...

 

[Bones0]

Didn't know squirtle could learn that move...

After further experimentation I've come to the conclusion that 2.6 Squirtle is quite viable. I don't really mind the changes to withdraw because he received so many other buffs. Loving the slingshot aerials, as well as the changes to n-air/d-air/u-throw/d-smash. The one thing I'm still not finding a lot of use for is neutral-b. It's slightly better now, but it seems like in almost any situation there's something better you could do. Am I missing something?

No, Water Gun just blows (pun intended).

 

[Zwarm]

I found a new use for Water Gun this weekend, actually. If they don't perfectly sweetspot the ledge, it pushes them right back down, which on some characters could mean a stock right then and there, but it could still lead into a kill offstage just grabbing the ledge or punishing their next recovery attempt

And I mean the weak Water Gun, so you can just stand semi-close to the edge and shoot it over and over again, it also lessens their options to get back onstage, and you can be far enough away that their getup attack won't reach you. Unless you're facing Bowser...

And it can still lead to grabs or setups onstage. I think Water Gun is great, actually. I don't have much of a use for the charged version besides making landing on the stage safer in some situations, but the quick one is actually quite useful.