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Squid Thoughts on our Weakest Matchups?

KuroKitt10

Smash Journeyman
Joined
Jan 19, 2009
Messages
233
Location
Oregon
I've been grinding out our lovable little squid-kids since release - as I'm sure we all have - and, as I improve, I find myself thinking more and more about where my weak spots are, and especially where the character's weak spots are. So, I thought it might be good to get discussion going about the matchups that seem most difficult for Inklings, and what strategies, tactics, and techniques can be used to improve them. And, for those of us who like playing more than one character, what are some of the best counter characters to learn for our toughest matchups?

Curious to hear everyone's thoughts and ideas!
 

Zonderion

Smash Ace
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Jun 29, 2007
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903
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Helena, Alabama
NNID
Zonderion
So far, my weakest matchup is against megaman. There could be others, but a good megaman can keep us zoned out. Our splat bombs are only so effective and we have to manage our ink. His fair definitely got buffed which can make approaching easier for him.

I think the best way to beat him is edge guarding, but I struggle with approaching megaman.
 

Your God John

Smash Rookie
Joined
Oct 12, 2014
Messages
8
I just faced a Megaman the other day. It was definitely difficult.

Yet there's a moment where you can approwch as they throw the saw/shoot. It got to the point where I could shorthop the saw into a nAir for maximum punishment. It takes time and adjustment.
 

MERPIS

Smash Lord
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I dont think olimar or chrom will be very good for us. Olimar can wall us out to hell and high water, while chrom is chrom. I think olimar is definitely worse than chrom since chrom gets nuked by being offstage and he gets decimated by combos and ink but olimar won’t let us do a single thing
 
D

Deleted member

Guest
Snake in my experience is very hard to approach with Inkling. Grenades make Roller very hard to land and he also has his Down-B for stage control, which makes playing aggressive in general very hard. You can't zone him out either thanks to the fact we can only throw out limited amounts of Splat Bombs while he can quick toss a grenade and then set-up Down-B and pressure with Side-B.

Probably just me being bad, but Snake is definitely a struggle for me right now.
 
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Gotmilk0112

Smash Apprentice
Joined
Apr 10, 2015
Messages
151
Admittedly I'm a scrub who has only ever played CPUs so far, but I tended to struggle with heavyweight characters the most, notably DDD and Bowser.
 

One Tilt

Smash Apprentice
Joined
Nov 28, 2014
Messages
155
Admittedly I'm a scrub who has only ever played CPUs so far, but I tended to struggle with heavyweight characters the most, notably DDD and Bowser.
Only picked up Inkling as a secondary two weeks after launch, but the key to fighting heavies now, especially Bowser, is remembering that you have to respect their air game and their armor, given that the former has been so massively buffed by fast jumping and low endlag. Don't follow them into the air until they start to fall, ideally, and reverse aerial rush Bairs for the disjoint if you must contest an aerial approach, but the key to these matchups feels like forcing a grounded fight. Grounded combos (be that air to ground, ground to air, or ground to ground) seem to be the key, as air-to-air strings just aren't terribly safe when Bowser can Fair out of anything that's not true. Also, Neutral B is a great B-reversed tool that you should treat like almost like Bowser's flame breath mixed with Fludd, in that it's far better against these slower characters. That, and leaning on splat bombs helps to punish grab or aerial approaches-- particularly the uncharged high throw. Oh, and, this will sound ridiculous, but Fsmash more. Stupid as that sounds, it's your longest-reaching grounded non-special, which is extremely important to punish and read with at every opportunity-- heavies often can't punish it as readily as a quick combo character or such, so it's a bit safer than you might think. Also, Ftilt to punish run-ins is decent. And never jab Bowser. If you can punish with any move, Utilt or grab tend to be as near to optimal as you can get, and use Nair much more than Fair (as the latter is more of a risk against their powerful aerials).

Welp, those notes degenerated into chaos by the end. My bad.

As for Chrom (and, by extension, other swordies), Bair is similarly your only way to contest aerials directly, which works best by dashing back whenever you see an approaching hop, to get space for a RAR. That said, it's not great to contest Chrom's Nair from anything other than the upwards diagonal or directly below, so dashing under tends to work as-well-or-better, unless you can get enough space to jump only after Chrom starts to fall, as that will get a nice angle. Splat bombs work wonders to cover platforms and slow down neutral, but your basic game plan is "stay as low as possible while abusing tricky dash dancing", as Chrom's aerials have a pretty serious blind spot directly below him. Dtilt and Utilt are great, and Up B is your best tool for contesting his recovery (which you need to be very, very careful about and actually should almost always instead go for ledgetraps with splat bombs and whatnot). If he stays grounded (which I rarely see unless I tilt someone by parrying that one dude who only knows how to SH Fair), Fsmash's range is important against Ftilts and such, as trying to dash in or short hop rather than Fsmash is a big mistake when he's likely to either repeat the tilt or react to movement with jab string or whatnot. Careful with that, though, as Chrom's speed makes the commitment pretty relevant... If I'd played more Inkling, I might have gimping setups in mind, but as-is, I just ledgetrap and respect aether, rather than get counter-gimped by the spike.

Personally, I don't feel like Inkling has many terribly weak matchups. Swordies are tricky, but, like Smash 4's Mario, that doesn't necessarily make them terrible matchups if you can respect their sword reach and such. Though, I will agree that Megaman feels incredibly difficult, mainly because he completely removes many of our grounded tools entirely, while still having ways to check air control. Considering Olimar's an even better camp character, I can definitely see him being even harder to deal with than Megaman in some ways-- though, while Olimar is probably harder to approach than Megaman, I feel like MM may control ground space a bit more aggressively? Almost zero experience playing against either though, barring AI and one or two randoms online, though, so much of that's theorycrafting.

Other than that... I'd have to say the times I played Inkling mirrors were the most painful MU, by far. Between not being able to tell who is who and both being so damned nimble, I'm getting lost in a 1v1 as if it were 8 player smash with items on in new pork city, jegus.
 

KuroKitt10

Smash Journeyman
Joined
Jan 19, 2009
Messages
233
Location
Oregon
A friend I scrim with regularly has recently picked up Pichu, and he just spams dodge rolls or dashes into an up throw thunder, and it feels almost inescapable. Has anyone else been having trouble with Pichu? He feels so fast compared to other characters, and I have trouble reacting to what they're doing. Also, is that up throw into thunder inescapable at low percents, or is there something I should be doing to dodge it?
 
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MERPIS

Smash Lord
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Jul 28, 2015
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1,700
Location
Prince Edward Island
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Catboog
A friend I scrim with regularly has recently picked up Pichu, and he just spams dodge rolls or dashes into an up throw thunder, and it feels almost inescapable. Has anyone else been having trouble with Pichu? And, is that up throw into thunder inescapable at low percents, or is there something I should be doing to dodge it?
You can escape it at low percents also DI to left or right as he up throws you
 

Eramef

Smash Rookie
Joined
Jan 2, 2019
Messages
2
I'm not the best player, but the only character I've consistently struggled against is Lucas. His normals seem to just outrange ours and he can absorb ink or use pk fire just out of hitstun range which can make it harder to use in neutral. Not to mention his edgeguard options and kill confirms off d-tilt/dair while it feels impossible to get a kill before 150 since he can dodge roller all day unless we make a super risky read.
 
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EGsmash

Smash Apprentice
Joined
Dec 16, 2018
Messages
121
Ness absolutely destroys Inklings. PSI magnet absorbs ink, mag stallouts into aerial mixups, PK fire, PK thunder gimps...
 

Reila

the true enemy of humanity is anime
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Feb 8, 2014
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Swordies in general, but my most painful match as Inkling so far was against a Ness. Couldn't do anything at all.
 

Opelucid

Smash Lord
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I was about to say how do you guys deal with the Ness/Lucas match up?
 

Tart

Smash Cadet
Joined
Sep 13, 2018
Messages
53
I was about to say how do you guys deal with the Ness/Lucas match up?
Lots of back airs, dashgrabs and moves out of dash on-stage. Once they're off-stage they're not too hard to gimp once you're more confident with the matchup.
 

St0vE

Smash Rookie
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May 16, 2016
Messages
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How do we beat Incineroar?
 

Frostfire_rune

Smash Rookie
Joined
Feb 3, 2019
Messages
1
yea i am with you pep1to i can't seem to deal with yoshi reliable and wolf are the two i have a hard time with.

for incineroar i tend to stay back and force him to come to me and either block his attacks or dodge (down and shield) then punish with either a throw or a tilt attack / smash
 

MG_3989

Smash Lord
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Jan 1, 2019
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I was about to say how do you guys deal with the Ness/Lucas match up?
Edgeguard them hard. Try and rush them down and overwhelm them with your speed and safe aerials. Make sure you land safely and don’t get caught in PK Fire. Don’t use gernade me blaster unless you have a read and you know they won’t magnet. Try to stay on stage and maintain advantage because both of them can juggle well and combo to very high percents and both of them can kill. Mix up your recovery because they both edgeguard well. Remember that Lucas is more of a zoner and Ness more of an aggressive all around rush down character. Respect Ness’s aerials, they’re fast, disjointed and they combo. Don’t use roller on Ness at high percents because you will get shielded and back thrown
 

Rackso

Smash Rookie
Joined
Jun 1, 2015
Messages
5
Location
Mexico City, Mexico
I was about to say how do you guys deal with the Ness/Lucas match up?
I don't know a lot about Lucas but ness is not that hard, you have the edgeguard advantage by a lot, the only problem is his Upsmash on the ledge, you have to mixup the amazing recovery that inkling has to prevent ness from killing you with that. You should use grenade and splattershot to bait the psi magnet and get in with that. The only problem while fighting ness are the nair and the bair, the range on the nair is pretty big and it beats nair OOS and trades pretty well with our Bair OOS so you have to watch out for that stuff. While ness is kind of a rushdown character we have better tools to rush it down just remember to be careful with his nairs and bairs (that kill kind of early to be honest).
 

KuroKitt10

Smash Journeyman
Joined
Jan 19, 2009
Messages
233
Location
Oregon
I don't know a lot about Lucas but ness is not that hard, you have the edgeguard advantage by a lot, the only problem is his Upsmash on the ledge, you have to mixup the amazing recovery that inkling has to prevent ness from killing you with that. You should use grenade and splattershot to bait the psi magnet and get in with that. The only problem while fighting ness are the nair and the bair, the range on the nair is pretty big and it beats nair OOS and trades pretty well with our Bair OOS so you have to watch out for that stuff. While ness is kind of a rushdown character we have better tools to rush it down just remember to be careful with his nairs and bairs (that kill kind of early to be honest).
I'd like to second using Splattershot as a baiting tool. I'll do this with other characters like Game 'n Watch, etc. too. I'll intentionally use a few Splattershots to condition them, and once you see the light bulb go off in their head and they pull out the absorb, now you know you're in. At this point just quick tap Splattershot, and rush in immediately. Chances are good they'll be conditioned to react with the absorb, and you can get a free grab, or roller for a potential kill. Granted, once you do this a time or two they'll start mixing it up as well, but it's a handy tool to have in your back pocket.
 
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