Weekly Character Discussion: Ice Climbers

[Overswarm]

That's right. BOTH of them. Double update? I think so.

 

[Deleted member]

There's ****ing 2 of them.

Someone had to say it.

 

[Hylian]

Reserved for massive wall of text.

Edit: I just wrote a ****load of stuff, then accidentally went away from this window. ****.


Gah I will write more in a bit.

 

[Xsyven]

Ice Climbers, now and forever will be, a huge pile of untapped potential. Possibilities are endless, etc, yadda yadda.

 

[Mew2King]

i remember when chu dash attacked chillin at 0% and wobbled him to death at Evo World

chillin was like ****** chu that entire set, but just got unlucky with like 3 0-deaths from wobbles

ROFL

what a homosexual character, at least marth CGs are exciting and random people can't do it well and you have control over DI and stuff, not just like he's got me, imma die if he keeps pressing A with the same timing regardless of anything

 

[Overswarm]

Psst... we're talking about Brawl, M2K.

 

[EdreesesPieces]

Ice Climbers can potentially 0 to death any character in the game. However, it's hard for them to get a grab and let me be bold - if you are smart about it, you CAN indeed "not get grabbed." It's true they can parry and powershield things, and there's less shield stun than Melee, but I do feel the lack of wavedashing gives them a tough time spacing and grabbing people who are really smart about it.

IC's Side B is broken though. That thing has massive priority and is next to nigh impossible to punish!

 

[Xsyven]

The Ice Climbers' only disadvantage is that most of their sexy combos are pretty situational, as in Nana has to be right behind you. A common strategy used against Ice Climbers is 'Kill the Nana, kill their combos', so its not uncommon to be bludgeoning your opponent with your mallet, trying to get Nana right back in sync with you, as they cold heartedly juggle her off the edge.

 

[Deleted member]

IC's Side B is broken though. That thing has massive priority and is next to nigh impossible to punish!

with proper use of shield/dodges, many, many attacks in brawl are nigh impossible to punish.

=/

 

[Hylian]

Ice Climbers can potentially 0 to death any character in the game. However, it's hard for them to get a grab and let me be bold - if you are smart about it, you CAN indeed "not get grabbed." It's true they can parry and powershield things, and there's less shield stun than Melee, but I do feel the lack of wavedashing gives them a tough time spacing and grabbing people who are really smart about it.

IC's Side B is broken though. That thing has massive priority and is next to nigh impossible to punish!

If the ICs are synched then they cannot powershield without Nana being hit.

 

[g-regulate]

ban FD and play defensive on platforms, pick your openings and dont get grabbed. besides their infinites i find them pretty limited and easy to handle, but then again ive never played hylian, and i play snake

 

[Overswarm]

Alternatively, grab the edge and win that way.

 

[Hylian]

Alternatively, grab the edge and win that way.

That's not a problem at all. It's a bad idea even. Ic's can desynch and alternate iceblocks so that they will hit any character doing this. Also, you can alternate Blizzard and iceblocks and it keeps them off the edge. If you hit them off with blizzard(It hits under the stage) then you have enough time to do the floating nana glitch into a spike against most characters.

Not only that, but you can have only nana hug the edge and then have her roll immediatly and have pop hug during this. I like the edgehog characters like this.

 

[Deleted member]

or just split them old fashioned like. Nana is much less evasive in this game.

I prefer Ike's fsmash on her, it just feels so good in my surround sound system lol

 

[Scamp]

The main thing about Ice Climbers is that they require a great amount of patience to play well. It is exceptionally hard to get in on a well-camped Ice Climbers. The thing is that they lack a solid way to approach so they have to wait for their opponent to make a mistake for which they can punish greatly. (Edrees mentioned the side-B which is good but it doesn't exactly lead to any mixups.)

It can be frustrating to do difficult grab combos in the middle of a 5 minute bait-and-camp fest, but that's what it takes to be a successful IC player in Brawl. I don't see a lot of people having the patience and skill set to do well with ICs but once those players emerge I don't see them being stopped either.

 

[Overswarm]

That's not a problem at all. It's a bad idea even. Ic's can desynch and alternate iceblocks so that they will hit any character doing this. Also, you can alternate Blizzard and iceblocks and it keeps them off the edge. If you hit them off with blizzard(It hits under the stage) then you have enough time to do the floating nana glitch into a spike against most characters.

Not only that, but you can have only nana hug the edge and then have her roll immediatly and have pop hug during this. I like the edgehog characters like this.

Yeah, that doesn't work. If your opponent is desynching ice blocks, he's vulnerable. Not only can you just get back on the stage to prevent them from doing this (if they stop, jump and go back to ledge; if they continue, hit them), but most characters can just sweetspot an up+b.

Besides, you don't just hang on the edge lifelessly if ICs are standing right next to the edge. You hit them with things, then grab the edge again.

 

[Zankoku]

Ice Climbers are a pain to mash out of their grabs against.

Expect a full report on either Wednesday or Thursday.

 

[the_suicide_fox]

I'll be honest, I suck with the IC's. But after just messing around with them for a bit in training/brawl modes I can say that they will definately be a breakout character. They are VERY hard to use effectively, but if some super powered smasher can harness their power I believe they could become a top tournament contender.

And that CG of theirs is brutal. Hard to pull off all the time, but man, when it's done right it's like you are eating the enemy's soul with sprinkles and whip cream on top. Best served cold.

 

[Hylian]

Yeah, that doesn't work. If your opponent is desynching ice blocks, he's vulnerable. Not only can you just get back on the stage to prevent them from doing this (if they stop, jump and go back to ledge; if they continue, hit them), but most characters can just sweetspot an up+b.

Besides, you don't just hang on the edge lifelessly if ICs are standing right next to the edge. You hit them with things, then grab the edge again.

How are IC's vulnerable when desynching iceblocks?

And isn't you getting back on the stage the point?

I can blizzard with popo and make nana hug the edge. If any character trys to hit me with anymove, the blizzard will interrupt it. There are several things IC's can do to prevent any character from ledgecamping. And why would IC's need to stand right next to the edge? I can just stand far enough to avoid all attacks and then alternate jumping iceblocks. They fall almost straight down off the ledge and prevent people from just dropping down and grabbing it again. They will be taking damage. If they decide to jump up, then I can just immediatly blizzard. This covers me perfectly and I can then make my other climber just uair if they went above. IC's have sooo many options to wreck characters on the ledge. Most of them just don't realize it.

 

[Overswarm]

I don't really believe that til I see it >_>

ICs are pretty vulnerable when doing blizzard or ice blocks to any character with a projectile, and if they are going to blizzard they have to be close enough to be hit off the ledge...

 

[SamuraiPanda]

Just as an aside, the hint this week is actually talking about the Ice Climber's NES game. Which is why its so weird. Props to Youko for thinking of that and actually pulling it off in a secretive way.

 

[Youko]

As an aside to the aside: It depresses me that someone figured it out so quickly...

 

[Marc]

Hint? What?

I never really liked Ice Climbers and I'm glad they've proven so far to be less than a threat than they were in Melee. The potential for crazy infinites etc is still there though, and it's even easier now to get a grab in. Not much else I can add, I have little experience with them in Brawl.

 

[Mew2King]

lol overswarm i know we're talking about brawl but it's the same thing in melee and brawl, grab=death

the new blizzard is broken and freezes you too long

you can hit people into the ground and do an infinite ice block lock by desynching them; Chu invented this soon after the game's release and used it vs Velocity in tourney, and also CGed to fair spike near the edge. CG into Fair spike leads very well in brawl, just like melee, except dare i say it's better now?

 

[Overswarm]

The infinite ice block lock doesn't work. You can smash DI off the stage or just behind the opponent after only a few ice blocks.

The d-throw to fair also doesn't work if they smash DI it unless you watch where they go and grab correctly or space it veeeery well.

 

[Zankoku]

Since meteor canceling was nerfed (or removed? Who knows..) a fair spike is practically guaranteed death at 70% onward.

Ice Block lock can be SDI'd to cancel it, since enough SDI will take you out of range to make the next one hit you on time to keep the lock. Or you can SDI to push the ICs or yourself off the ledge early.

Blizzard is insane (keeps you stuck in it with hitlag or FREEZES you at around 60-70% and up), Squall Hammer is like a faux Tornado except way slower and easier to punish if done from too far away.

Uhh, wait, you can SDI throws?

 

[Overswarm]

Meteor canceling hasn't been removed or nerfed; it's just as good as before (if not better since most people have awesome recovery moves now). I got dair spiked on frigate at 140% by Falco and survived with ROB just yesterday.


You could SDI Jigg's f-throw in Melee... I dunno if you can do any in Brawl. I was referring to the forward air; you can SDI that.


Blizzard is pretty good. At lower % you can quartercircle DI behind the ICs when they're doing it to hit them, but other than positioning it's almost an even trade. Plus, you can't do that if you're at higher %!

 

[TheBuzzSaw]

I hate hate hate hate ICs staggered, chasing forward-B. ICs indeed have huge untapped potential. ChuDat 2.0, anyone?

 

[Marc]

Meteor canceling isn't nerfed/out? Characters seem to fall really fast whenever something spikes them. o_o

Also, still don't get the whole thing about a "hint" or whatever.

 

[Gimpyfish62]

iceys are ghey.

that about sums it up.

grabs from anywhere and it doesn't even matter which one grabs you and you lose a stock - plus you've got all sorts of priorites from below and those crazy b moves are wicked...

bleh

iceys are ghey.

 

[g-regulate]

good thing no one is good enough with them to dominate

 

[TheBuzzSaw]

good thing no one is good enough with them to dominate

Meta Knight's feelings are extremely sensitive. Must wait.

 

[Cyphus]

iceclimbers get ***** by ROB and MK for free, which is why i think they'll never be top tier in brawl. Not to mention other characters like Snake have a pretty big advantage.

Iceclimbers are gay, but they're not broken. You just have to fight them extremely careful. Poke, camp, punish nana ftw. Its true though, if you really want to avoid their grab in this game, you CAN.
They're easily still high tier material though because of their chaingrabinfinitebull.

 

[Zankoku]

Sorry I'm late.

Ground Movement
This is probably the greatest weakness of the Ice Climbers. A set of characters that can score an instant KO off of a single grab, and they can't run to save their life. Plus they slide a lot.

Aerial Movement
They don't travel very quickly in the air either.

Power
All of the ICs smash attacks are quite potent. Their aerials are average in power, with a decent spike in the fair.

Priority
Hammer.

Attack Speed
The dsmash is quick. Everything else isn't slow, but not spectacular either.

Follow-ups
You follow up a grab by grabbing again. There is absolutely no escape if the ICs player does this properly. Alone, all Popo has is a dthrow chaingrab at low %s on a few characters, and possibly a few tricks involving baiting an airdodge after a throw, but overall he's forced into single hits when Nana is KO'd.

Offense
The Ice Climbers, despite all their gimmicks (desynched Ice Blocks, Blizzard, Squall Hammer, etc.) don't actually have a strong approach game. Combined with poor maneuverability, these traits make the Ice Climbers unable to get their grab setups playing aggressively.

Defense
The Ice Climbers are therefore all about playing carefully and trying to bait into that grab. Since they've got a decent projectile with the Ice Blocks, very disjointed hitboxes using their hammers, and a really annoying Blizzard and Squall Hammer, the Ice Climbers aren't bad at all at fending for themselves... as long as the opponent is the one on the attack. Alone, Popo isn't quite as scary at putting up his walls and traps, especially since he can no longer actually capitalize on them with an instant KO.

Recovery
The Up+B recovery's primary form is actually a tether, but can also launch farther upward to save Popo if the edge is being hogged. Alone, it gives a small boost but is rarely helpful unless the opponent does not edgeguard or edgehog at all. The Side+B recovery goes decently far provided both of the Ice Climbers are alive, and is the best option for Popo solo. It can be rather annoying in interrupting attacks, but it's still quite vulnerable due to its movement speed, especially from above or below.

Conclusion
There's ****ing two of them.
Unless you KO Nana.
Then there's only one of them.

 

[Gimpyfish62]

Conclusion
There's ****ing two of them.
Unless you KO Nana.
Then there's only one of them.

lol this is the best conclusion i've ever seen

 

[SamuraiPanda]

Conclusion
There's ****ing two of them.
Unless you KO Nana.
Then there's only one of them.

This.

As of right now, ICs are not unstoppable by any means because they are separated so easily. Their shield is really easy to poke and Nana is a few frames slower than Popo, so she will often miss shielding attacks. Couple that with an incredibly stupid Nana that can barely dodge attacks, and you have a glaring weakness with the ICs that will ever prevent them from becoming overpowering. However, some of the best stuff I've seen from ICs include their stupid Uair that can rack up crazy damage and has great priority. And people don't realize it, but their Up B is ridiculously powerful.


I've played quite a few ICs, and some of them I'd consider some of the better IC players out there. I lose sometimes, but for the most part I generally win against them. The ICs are nowhere near "banning" like I've seen a few people here and there want to do.

 

[Dastrn]

I'm hearing now that the Fair at the end shouldn't work. If you smash DI towards the stage, nana spikes you into the stage instead of off it.

Can anyone confirm?

 

[Zankoku]

I can. I've pulled it off exactly once. It might be impossible at some kind of positioning, though, so I'm not sure.

 

[LeeHarris]

I'm hearing now that the Fair at the end shouldn't work. If you smash DI towards the stage, nana spikes you into the stage instead of off it.

Can anyone confirm?

Actually I think Hylian found a way to have Nana do the spike differently and you can't DI out. He told be about it one day but I can't remember.

 

[Overswarm]

I looked into the IC infinites, and found there is no such thing. There is an infinite. No infinites.

You can grab, throw, then grab with nana, have her throw, grab again, repeat until you want to smash attack.

The fair chain throw? You can SDI that towards or away and get out of it. You can do the same iwth the fair spike; you can also meteor cancel this spike.

The ice blocks? SDI towards or away and go to the ledge. Sometimes you don't need it, as the timing splits it up. You can also buffer a roll off teh ground so if the IC has timing a few frames off, you auto roll.