Smash 4, Character Discussion Revised (#35 Pikachu)

[Zera]

Remember, playing Ganondorf isn't about winning. It's about being seeing how much you can intimidate your opponent. If you're really good, you can literally scare them to run off the stage so far that they can't recover. That's what being an evil king is all about.

[Ken Masters]

Remember, playing Ganondorf isn't about winning. It's about being seeing how much you can intimidate your opponent. If you're really good, you can literally scare them to run off the stage so far that they can't recover. That's what being an evil king is all about.

Jokes aside, ZeRo himself said he was legitimately scared when playing against Ganondorf main Ray Kalm (who you guys should watch, because it's amazing).

[Comet]

ganon is terrible. my favorite way to kill him is to tech his up b and knee him.

[Ken Masters]

ganon is terrible. my favorite way to kill him is to tech his up b and knee him.

Pffff, Captain Falcon is just a filthy clone of Ganondorf anyways

[Jedi]

Flame Choke can get some crazy mileage if Dorf keeps reading your get up options, I've been caught by it quite a number of times in a row.

[euklyd]

I feel like the best thing about flame choke chains is that they often rattle your opponent a lot. If you can get those sorts of consistent reads, then there are probably better options damage- / KO-wise.

[Jedi]

(Image from Kurogane)

Frame Data and such

Greninja, the Frog Ninja Pokemon, made quite a splash in the scene, and has been throughout the run of Smash 4, despite nerfs at first, he has gotten fairly good buffs, he's tricky, he can apply tons of pressure, he has really good aerial stuff going for him, his neutral game is fairly good, his grab game is pretty legit, he has all the makings of a great character in the scene, however I know very little of him myself, so I'm not really knowledgeable about his strengths and weaknesses, I'll leave that to Knife to go over.

Take the floor! Also the rest of you, what are your opinions on the frog wonder?

[euklyd]

Steals all the best Link mains smh.

That being said while I have very little MU experience, I've always found the Link / Greninja matchup fun.

[Zera]

Why would Greninja steal Link mains?

[euklyd]

Why would Greninja steal Link mains?

idk man but he did it to knife and almost did it to scizor[/scizor]

[Batter the Beast]

Greninja has a lot of setups to fair, like charged shuriken and nair. He also has some crazy footstool combos that no one has really pulled out in a major tourney yet so everyone thinks Greninja is like mid tier, including myself, which will most likely change if some super technical player pulls off crazy stuff in a major.

[shadowofchaos]

Also ganon has 2 One Hit kill moves; Ganoncide, obviously, and offstage dair. It kills most of the roster at 0% at stage level, and at 5% on recovery monsters like Villager.

Now that's some badass power

The dair is also the easiest spike to tech in the entire game.

[General Horace]

greninja is part of the "IM GOING FOR THE SUICIDE DAIR CREW" when I random them and I regret nothing. He has some really cool footstool stuff and he's pretty fun to watch though. I wish he was more common, I think he's a pretty good character.

[Comet]

he has crazy combos. i won't bother to list them since a few searches on youtube will do him more justice than i can. hydro pump gimps are incredibly fun. i hate when i get hit by his stage spike bairs online since i usually miss the tech.

[Falaflame]

The Number 1 thing I enjoy seeing Greninja do is all of the gimping he can do with Hydro Pump.

It's unreliable as hell in Pokemon, but it's sure as hell a good move in Smash.

Glad to see Greninja is very good in Smash. Poor guy needs something to do after he's been banned to Ubers in Smogon, and gets like 0 usage.

[Shin]

I always saw him as a discount Sheik that nobody played. I've played a few decent frogs though, he's definitely got some stuff though, it's just rare that I see people play him.

[Knife]

idk man but he did it to knife and almost did it to scizor[/scizor]

Loyality is nice and all, but I'm trying to win and Nintendo designed Link bad in competitive Smash unfortunately. Maybe Smash 5 is his time?

(Image from Kurogane)

Frame Data and such

Greninja, the Frog Ninja Pokemon, made quite a splash in the scene, and has been throughout the run of Smash 4, despite nerfs at first, he has gotten fairly good buffs, he's tricky, he can apply tons of pressure, he has really good aerial stuff going for him, his neutral game is fairly good, his grab game is pretty legit, he has all the makings of a great character in the scene, however I know very little of him myself, so I'm not really knowledgeable about his strengths and weaknesses, I'll leave that to Knife to go over.

Take the floor! Also the rest of you, what are your opinions on the frog wonder?

I already detailed some stuff about Greninja's MU spread from my AMA thread. Here it is:

A. I'm pretty active among the Greninja community and most agree he has a ton of even MUs and slightly loses to Sheik, Sonic, Fox, and Diddy. He doesn't outright demolish a lot of the lower tiers like a top tier would either. Losing MUs against common top tiers (albeit slight disadvantages) and not that many heavily winning MUs (his winning MUs are probably only slightly in his favor, unless it's like Ganondorf or Jigglypuff) put him in upper mid tier, somewhere around 15th to 25th place. Basically a pretty balanced spread, kinda like Pit.

So I talked about who he loses to. I haven't really touched on who he does well against, but according to me and a lot of the Greninja community, we have slight to medium advantages over the following relevant/semi-relevant characters:

-ZSS (We make it really hard for her to grab us, Shadow Sneak escapes lots of kill confirms like Boost Kick, Paralyzer, and Fsmash. Being short also makes it hard to hit us with Bair or Nair.)

-Luigi (We destroy almost all of his approach options and force him to approach. Probably one of his worst MUs.)

-Marth (Force approaches well, and Greninja is one of the few characters that can edgeguard Marth consistently.)

-Yoshi (Gets caught very easily by Usmash and footstool combos. Can wall out with Fairs and shurikens.)

-Bayonetta (Escape Witch Twist and Jab with Shadow Sneak, dash grab is really good at punishing everything.)

-Metaknight (Escape his Shuttle Loop kill with good DI and Shadow Sneak, and in general outneutral him really hard.)

-Donkey Kong (Most comboable character for Greninja, easy to footstool and outneutral. Just don't let him grab you, though Greninja is hard to grab if you know what you're doing.)

He's otherwise pretty evenish with the rest. Be sure to look at his mobility and frame data stats from the link Jedi put up. Moving onto theory and his strengths/weaknesses:

+Very good run speed (6th best) and excellent walk speed (4th best) give him pretty potent burst and punish options.

+Air speed is very good (8th best) and his jump height is second highest in the game (only behind Falco) making him able to exert good aerial pressure. This is also a notable difference between him and Fox considering their similar Fall speeds.

+Jumpsquat is frame 4, meaning he'll be able to get in the air faster than a lot of the cast.

+3rd best dash grab overall, only behind Captain Falcon and Sonic meaning he can punish shields from further away.

+Jab 1 is active for 4 frames (3, 4, 5, and 6) which is actually a bigger deal than you might think seeing as its great for clanking with projectiles and tilts that do 10% or less (look up Priority if you don't understand what I mean). If you ever thought Greninja's Jab was dumb, this is why.

+Shuriken is a very good projectile, probably top 5 in the game due to its speed, low endlag, and range (even without charging though uncharged shurikens are generally better).

+Very high damaging true combos, though the execution barrier is kind of rough. Many good kill confirms.

=Very good recovery length when factoring in Shadow Sneak and Hydro Pump, though both can be readable.

=Fast fall speed can be both good (for tomahawking and resetting pressure) and bad (for offstage edgeguarding and being comboed).

-Poor startup on his aerials except for Bair and Uair.

-Slow standing grab (Frame 11) makes beating up close shielding difficult.

-Poor OoS options with a slow grab. Fastest option is shield drop Jab which comes out on frame 10.

-Substitute is a really bad counter, probably one of the worst since it has no invincibility frames on appearance (so you can jab a Substitute even if you whiff a low lag move) and can be shielded. Still has situational uses.

Results wise, he's slightly above average. He's ranked 21st in patch 1.16 so far (Source) which is pretty good considering his learning curve. His results have definitely improved over time from their low in the beginning of the Wii U release. Despite how uncommon he might seem, he is actually more prominent in Europe and Japan where he gets a lot of his results. I think results will only get better with strong contenders like Istudying, Elexiao, Shiki, Some, and Venia.

I covered MU spread, theory, and results. Any more questions?

[Comet]

kurugane lists jumpsquat as the total frames of the animation + the first airborne frame btw. a lot of sources do that and it's rather irritating.

tell me about the sheik vs greninja MU?

[euklyd]

Loyality is nice and all, but I'm trying to win and Nintendo designed Link bad in competitive Smash unfortunately. Maybe Smash 5 is his time?

I mean yeah, being real it's Link that's the reason Link players switch from Link.

Also WOW thanks for the infodump. What are the good kill confirms you spoke of? I'm curious.

[Knife]

kurugane lists jumpsquat as the total frames of the animation + the first airborne frame btw. a lot of sources do that and it's rather irritating.

tell me about the sheik vs greninja MU?

Sheik vs Greninja is in Sheik's favor, mostly because Sheik can outneutral Greninja very hard and combo him to oblivion. It's not so bad after the nerf, Greninja evades a lot of her kill confirms. 55:45 IMO.

I mean yeah, being real it's Link that's the reason Link players switch from Link.

Also WOW thanks for the infodump. What are the good kill confirms you spoke of? I'm curious.

He has utilt>uair, dtilt>usmash> dthrow>fair (50/50 at certain percents), soft nair>usmash, and dair>fair. Some more extended kill combos could be made like uair spike>utilt/dtilt>uair/usmash and footstool>dair lock>charged fsmash. If they live past when your kill confirms work, you can just upthrow them as a kill throw.

[Jedi]

If you have any more Greninja questions ask, but we'll move on.

(Image from Kurogane)

Frame Data and Other things

Ike the main protagonist of FE's 9 and 10 had a very rough start coming into Smash 4, where he was arguably the worst character at launch, however after several buffs and I do mean several he was able to start making a more significant splash in the competitive scene, in the west anyways, he's barely used in Japan, actually I don't think there is a single notable Ike in Japan, actually wait there is Nojinko, but I haven't seen too much of him. As an Ike player myself I do have quite a bit to say.

Ike's strengths are well, his surprisingly good grab game, his powerful spacing (Ragnell is gigantic) and his fairly swift moves to compensate for his overly laggy moves that you'll see like once in a blue moon. His jab is one of the best in the game, allowing various mixups at different parts of the chain, allowing more grabs, or a read into a tilt, Ike's bread and butter is his up throw into fair combo, which is guaranteed into the higher %'s you're eating a fairly heavy chunk of damage, add onto the fact that Ike's aerials are all fairly safe and powerful enough to the point that most of them are kill moves at higher % and you have one nasty dude to deal with.

His Tilts are all solid, dtilt is really good for sweeping opponents up, and has good range, ftilt is a good move when spaced properly or pivoted, utilt is situational but very powerful, it could seal a stock when used properly, his fsmash is really unwieldy, it has huge range but bad startup and bad lag prevent it from being anything other than situational, usmash covers a good bit of ground but also has slow end lag, good for roll reads though, dsmash is quick and powerful, probably the best smash in a tight battle, but still situational as you'll be left open, but not as long as during his other smash attacks.

His aerials are all really good as said earlier, neutral air is a fairly decent reaching attack and depending on where you land it, and where you land its either a really good approach tool, combo starter or just a spacing attack, fair is super quick, strong, long range and safe, bair is quick, powerful shorter range but it kills really well, uair is laggy but can bait air dodges but its the laggiest of his aerials.

Ike's specials are eruption, which is a charge attack that explodes around and above him, the hitbox is stupidly huge and janky, making it a solid edge guard option, but its really laggy so don't do it in the open, side B is quick draw which you also can charge and you go to the side, be it in the air or on the ground, however I find this move largely useless outside of recovery, Up b is Aether, a recovery move that goes straight up, (side note if you swing at someone with quick draw in mid air you have about a few frames to activate Aether, you usually go into freefall from both moves), Aether can throw Ike's Sword through the stage making him somewhat hard to edgeguard for some but incredibly easy for others (I.E Marth if he counters). He has a few frames of super armor when he jumps, which helps him not get gimped, which its quite honestly easy to do, down B is counter, and its very situational, powerful but very situational, it can gimp Ike's in a ditto though so thats hilarious at least.

Dash attack is also really solid, as it kills, but it also leaves you wide the heck open so use it sparingly but, did I mention it kills.

Ike's weaknesses are that he has only below average speed, he doesn't go particularly fast in the air either unless you use quick draw, and he's easy to juggle thanks to his weight class, he also has issues against characters with a projectile game or a way to lame out his playstyle (I.E Sonic, Mewtwo, Sheik). He's overall a solid character, but his flaws really strike him down in the highest level of play, however he still does fairly well, and can get the edge on some of the top tiers on a good day. Ike requires patience, persistence and reads, he's a heavy fighter that relies on your fundamentals of the game itself to succeed and is great for learning how to use a heavier character. He has good tools to play on the defense and offense, pressing an advantage is rewarding with your great range and power, but knowing when to curb that is also important.

Ike is a really good grappler/swordie mix, with a good mixup game thanks to his really great jab, he can turn the tides of a match in very short order, but due to his flaws the tides could very well shift back on him, his best legal tournament stage is probably Dreamland, thanks to the platforms and just how the stage is setup, Battlefield being another good one, you do not want to be on Final Destination usually because you can get sniped super easily by projectiles

He also has some really tough to pull off footstool combos which can destroy mostly any character it goes off on, but as I said its fairly difficult to pull off.

So what do you all feel about Ike?

Edited June 24, 2016 by Glorious Nippon Steel

[Shin]

I liked Ike better when he sucked.

Ike's pretty swag, he's got good reach and some handy strings. He lasts a while and has a few buff finishers. His main problems are that his recovery's incredibly predictable and his attacks aren't as fast as they could be. Still, he functions pretty well, maybe somewhere near the top of mid. I think there's a ceiling to Ike, I don't really see him rising by very much.

[Jedi]

I liked Ike better when he sucked.

Ike's pretty swag, he's got good reach and some handy strings. He lasts a while and has a few buff finishers. His main problems are that his recovery's incredibly predictable and his attacks aren't as fast as they could be. Still, he functions pretty well, maybe somewhere near the top of mid. I think there's a ceiling to Ike, I don't really see him rising by very much.

I can agree with that, I don't see him rising too much unless something really wild is found or footstools become more commonplace among his players, which I myself am still learning.

Or of course the ye old Sakurai patch improvement happening again.

Edited June 24, 2016 by Glorious Nippon Steel

[shadowofchaos]

I wonder if the thread title will attract a certain member.

Moving on, Marths give me trouble, but oooh boy, patient Ike players are scary.

My Reflet can't really force them to approach all that much. Elthunders and Arcfires on shield pressure can only do so much.

Most of the time, I'm right up in their face. And that's what they want.

It's not the reach or the power that scares me... it's both together.

Any mistimed move can lead to a tilt or hell, even a forward or up smash at 45% killing you.

And to get to 45 percent and up, Ike has reliable throws/dtilt options compared to his Brawl counterpart.

"Tekagen shite yaru hodo, ore wa amakuwanai" (Holding back just wouldn't be me) that gets localized to "No sympathy" indeed.

The main flaw is his recovery.

If you get through that Aether super armor... you can gimp him.

There's a small window of that just past the super armor pose.

[Elieson]

I really like Tempest.

Ike's are pretty threatening to me since Ragnell eats Samus projectiles like oreos. Characters that can dashdance in and out of Ike's range tend to do better vs him (Mac, Sheik, Falcon, Sonic), because they capitalize on his endlag for JabJabJab, pretty much any Smash attack and grab. His tilts are deceptively fast to come out, and shorthop fair approaches are annoying to deal with. When properly used, it lets him approach and pressure your space really safely.

I match Ikes regularly as Mac and really capitalize on punishing with my Ftilts more than SuperArmor smashes. He punishes really hard with Dtilts into fair/nair and if you're not careful, you can get easily combo'd across the stage. Sucks for me in particular, and other fast fallers.

overall 6/10 I don't like fighting Ikes unless they're good Ikes.