5 Ways to Optimize Your Greninja

Over the course of these past few years, Smash Ultimate's metagame has evolved drastically. Previously overlooked characters such as Sheik, Ice Climbers, and even Incineroar are now much more considerable threats in a competitive environment than they once were. Through the incorporation of newly discovered techniques, skills, and optimizations, the perception of these characters has changed completely. However, it is not only these select characters that have the ability to evolve alongside Smash Ultimate's competitive metagame. With the amount of diversity that his kit offers, Greninja is more than capable of pushing the boundaries of what was once considered possible and become a more optimized version of himself.
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Twitter: / apolotion
Twitch: / apolotion
My Discord Server: / discord
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Time stamps:
0:00 Intro
1:08 Tomahawks
5:22 Parrying
9:26 Frame Traps
14:56 Hydro Pump
21:53 Autocancel Up Air
26:41 Outro
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Resources:
Greninja Discord Server: / discord
Greninja Frame Data and Hitboxes: ultimateframedata.com/greninj...
Venia on the Hydro Push: / carelesshonestchickpea...
Taking a Second Look at Greninja's Up Throw Combo: • Taking a Second Look a...
Smash Ultimate Calculator: rubendal.github.io/SSBU-Calcu...
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Special Thanks:
@AdumAdumAdum (Interaction simulations)
JJJreact
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Songs Used:
Apolition - Awesome (Original Mix)
ミカヅキBIGWAVE - Aquamarineの恋心
Jorge Ben Jor - Ôba, Lá Vem Ela (Curol, Lebox Remix)
Mewmore - Summer in Undella (Pokémon Black & White 2nd Remix)
KVSH & JØRD - Descobridor dos Sete Mares: Remix
Mo'Horizons - Free and Easy
Mewmore - Driftveil City (Pokémon Black & White Remix)
Shobe - Aso

[@benpost6971]

By the power of Apolotion, I WILL go 2-2 at my next local 🧐

[@chad762]

Just like me fr

[@plabcentral630]

If I can go 5-4 with Ridley you can do it.

[@handsfortoothpicks]

Apolition*

[@spiceboi3795]

It’s actually crazy that one of the most underplayed characters got the most dedicated and informational KZbinr on the platform. Thanks for the guides and continuing to help advance the characters meta

[@Uncreative789]

Yeah, same for Notbae and Mew2

[@GooneyBoy07]

Heck yea! Started playing Greninja like half a year ago and your videos have helped so much so this is exciting!

[@joshford256]

OH GOODNESS IM SO SORRY FOR MISPELLING YOUR NAME LOL. If it makes up for it, hearing the greatest informational smash content creator just say my name out of the blue jump-scared me a little, so maybe we're even. I'm glad you appreciated my comment tho 🙃

[@apolotion]

No worries!! I've accepted that "Apply Lotion" is definitely a bit of a meme at this point lol. Thanks for the kind words as always :)

[@deadCoral]

I started playing Greninja yesterday and never had that much fun playing the game. Your guides really helped me out! Thank you

[@mokatta17]

Hi Apolotion, I changed my main from falco to Greninja over a year ago and i only have smash4 experience with him. But ive been watching your greninja guides and tourney plays by players like iceknight, lea and venia. Im going to get a swotch very soon so i wanna thank you for making these guides and showing the true power of our favorite ninja frog😤🤝

[@Hydun]

I recommend looking for gameplay from french top greninja player Raarchyor

[@johnnewlin6648]

I switched from falco to greninja too.

[@_Payback]

@@Hydunyeah raarchyor is very good. He’s Moroccan tho, not French

[@gabrielescrima9782]

dude the help that you give me every time you upload these videos si absurd. I’m from Italy and I haven’t been missing one single video since like 3 yers. I love what you do the way you do and I hope my support could help you to keep giving us high quality video like this. Unfortunatly I haven’t that many people to play with and I can’t train well as I’d like to do, but every time I watch one of your videos I feel a better player. Keep holding in! P.s. so che sai parlare un po’ di italiano ma ho preferito scrivere in inglese, non si sa mai

[@apolotion]

Grazie mille per le belle parole! È davvero fantastico sapere che ho anche viewers dall'Italia. Sono felice che il video ti sia piaciuto :)

[@Re.tr-02]

I need this now, as soon as this vid comes out imma grab my popcorn, and some softdrink, then shortly soon after get back to the gren grind. Also apo if you’re reading this HOLD IN

[@sebastian.herroncad5663]

Im 18, I’ve been playing greninja in tournaments since i was 15, and even though I’ve stopped playing him various times, now, still as a greninja main and such a fan of the character, you don’t know how excited i get every time you upload, even more now that I’ve been doing better at tournaments in my city, and, now, i just really want to get better and better and better

[@Scarecrow545]

I've been actively going for more parries after watching this. Just got a sick edgeguard against a Cloud where I parried his up b trying to get back on to ledge, then hydropumped immediately to center stage while he was still stunned from the parry to push him away from ledge.

[@vlad_s_lavburavzev4939]

💧💧HOLD IN💧💧

[@legionssb777]

I'm waiting Apo, glad you're back!

[@Spencer-sn8cz]

I'm so ready to watch this at work lmao.

[@xxyoboyasaphxx4645]

Thank you so much! Every one of your videos opens my eyes about things I never would have thought of!

[@megadunsparce3672]

Your videos always makes me wanna try out Greninja again. I still have trouble with anti airing for Greninja but it does make me want to do some of the more simple optimizations

[@Abcde-ob6xj]

i'm not even a regular player of smash (play 1v1v1v1 when friends home) but ur content is so deep/detailled that it is relly interesting to watch even for me. I believe you deserve a lot more of appreciation (visibility/numbers). que du love pour toi!

[@jeremyrosenberg2357]

Dude, always so happy when you post. This one was sick, now i gotta go back to playing greninja.

[@stanleybaty4573]

Absolutely amazing video!

[@averagejoe9229]

I will come back to playing Greninja just because of your videos. Thanks for showcasing how cool he is.

[@PyrexPuffin]

Keep up the great work bro

[@JiiunB]

Missed you! So glad you're back Banger content as always

[@DHS222]

Thanks for the optimization advise Apolotion!

[@donpace8433]

I love greninja and these vids only make me love him more. Excited about your future videos

[@MaadOP]

The amount of effort you put in your videos and crazy man. We notice it brother, keep it up and thanks.

[@strafeae4618]

Awesome video! I like trying to play every character in smash and greninja is just one of those that I could NOT get the hang of. I started trying a bit more with him and watching guides and he's feeling a lot better now. I'm definitely going to try to implement some of this stuff, right after I drop a sub :)

[@nextos]

Great video, subbed

[@autoimmunedefficiencysyndrome]

Wonderful video! The ultimate meta is inevitably moved into the future through theory and application like in this video. Imagine gren but w/ shiek u-air tho 😮

[@pbz7572]

Tip 1 alone got me grinning like Sukuna in episode 1 of JJK

[@harveyharutunyan7360]

As a peach player, slants completely eat your float cancels. It's a HUGE disadvantage for her.

[@jayl.s8886]

Si happy that your back 😊🎉

[@kyallon1213]

Man, I wish I enjoyed playing ultimate more because I LOVE greninja in this game. The fact that you can go this in-depth on just 5 optimizations without even talking about stuff like footstool OOS or his frame 1 parries with shadow sneak just go to show how much more there is to explore with the frog. Also, 20XY was an excellent joke be proud of that

[@ikaros110]

the savior of all Greninja players is back!! Best Smash content on KZbin :D

[@big_axolotl_]

Just started picking up greninja this is so helpful thank you.

[@paille-paille]

Really good vidéo !

[@macky8852]

YAYYYY i just got into smash last week and always wanted to main gren all ur vids are so helpful

[@wildmonkeycar]

While his videos are very helpful, I recommend learning the game with another character, first- I was just like you, I picked up the game and immediately searched for a "how to" guide for Greninja. I think I permanently damaged my mindset and my play style because I didn't learn my fundamentals, first. It's been a long journey getting back into enjoying the game without my mind getting in the way, truthfully

[@macky8852]

@@wildmonkeycarAwesome tip, ill take it in and try other characters thanks man

[@PuertoRicanAsian]

That pop-up book line goes hard

[@The_Acousticat]

Thanks for the lesson sensei

[@DarthLeuan]

The only think I didn't liked much about this video is how when you compared autocancelling uair to landing with it, you compared it with raw landing, not fastfalling, that is what you would realistically do in that situation. Aside from that, awesome video. These are hard stuff to implement, and very punishing in some scenarios, but Im having lots of fun trying to introduce them in my gameplay.

[@BaronBears]

Seriously great stuff! You may want to consider editing this into a series of KZbin shorts, might help you get more recognition for the insanely good content you're putting out "this is known as a frametrap, because you are trapping their frames" 😂😂😂

[@SuperZ13]

At like high percents, you can do up throw into upair to start a frame trap.

[@shnurgle1721]

have you ever played rivals of aether? As a greninja main in smash I feel like rivals is the perfect game for greninja players. It also has the most depth of any platform fighter in my opinion and I think you'd really enjoy it. There's also a character called maypul who plays similarly to greninja and there's also ranno who's a frog (need I say more?). Either way i'd recommend giving it a try :)

[@shnurgle1721]

I forgot to mention that this is a sick guide for the coolest smash character ;)

[@aribanano3342]

Another helpful video from the greninja-teacher. Just one question: what is a tomahawk move?

[@erictang781]

I’ve stopped playing smash for months and this video literally makes me want to pick it up and change my main to greninja

[@alessiofontana8357]

man what can i say... 1st im coming from the ABSOLUTE BANGER of the BLYAT stream you did and have to say it was the best moment i've had in a stream this far so i wanted to thank you from the bottom of my heart for the amazing time i got to spend. other best moment in a stream? well, you won t believe it but it was on the stream where you explained your "how to learn languages tutorial" although i was watching it VOD and not live. I used to be a gren main (2 or so years ago) but i am a joker main now and it actually got me how there could be optimizations even for my character in this video. I'm refering to the perry thing which i think it can be useful to joker because of his lack of Oos game (not as much as greninja, but ill work on that). i even got to understand the importance of footstool Oos on aerials that can be used to get kill confirms with arsene especially. This being said do i even have to mention the INSANE quality of the video and of the content? sure i don t but one thing that really got me is the pacing of this video. it is just SO perfectly fast (not too much for me because im not super fluent in english) that the only "defect" if i can call it like that in the pacing of the video was 'the office' thing. But what can i say. A super minor defect on a video of 30 minutes. Thanks Apo for being the best guy out there, and the best content creator/researcher in the entire smash community, but, to me, the more important one is being the best guy. I wish you THE BEST of luck, from Italy da Ale con tutto il cuore. Keep up with the hard work champ

[@hope7237]

are you burningale ?

[@alessiofontana8357]

@@hope7237 yes i an, who were you?

[@hope7237]

@@alessiofontana8357 TheAdvancingTitan/ShingekiNoKyojin

[@alessiofontana8357]

i remember you

[@hope7237]

@@alessiofontana8357 come non puoi ? Onestamente devo dire che sono abbastanza indimenticabile

[@anonyk1]

My only goal in life is to do well enough in tournaments to get my replays used in one of these videos

[@joshpeppers5061]

Yo that diddy kong solitaire is my boy

[@colors8784]

Thank you frog sensei

[@resetsaffi1379]

THE MAN, THE MYTH, THE LEGEND, IS BACK!

[@richardrobles7000]

i hate that im watching this in the new year

[@derpderp1562]

This is awesome! Everything here is new info to me, time to get into the lab to make our Apolotion A-Politician proud :)

[@Jinju___]

For oos footstool is also an incredible option

[@wattboat]

Love you apolotion. My favorite greninja player ❤

[@atsoca-2294]

we missed you apo

[@MaverickHunterZer0]

I wonder how simple hydro pump canceling is on Phob since you can set the values around the gates! V cool gonna try asap

[@PaniCConquest]

i don't play greninja but i've watched this video and enjoy it a lot !

[@servicecambriolagegrosbg1332]

Trop bien !

[@arnavbhargava1348]

can you do a video specifically on dair

[@ZoroPTD]

Non tilt stick user here, i would swap, but I can't seem to get down tilt up smash consistently, and I've gotten really good with tilt attacking and attack canceling with left stick only

[@coldramen9580]

Stupid question but, could you do dash attack drag down bair down tilt up smash/fair

[@antoinegouffaux9170]

Yoooo i love your videos cuz I ooooonly play greninja but pls can you explain me how to cancel the landing lag of the up air with a coment plsss I’m Belgian and my english isn’t that good to understand how exactly I have to do that cancel Thank you for your videos you’re amazing dude

[@wgamer2.087]

YEAAAAAHH HES BAAAAAACK!!!

[@turtlebeach3116]

2:45 i think armadillo has a problem with this tier list

[@sukanya90]

watching this make me wonders, where venia?

[@driphtwood]

Dair is crazy good but I'm definitely guilty of using it a little too often lol

[@Cadesworth]

The first tip is super solid information- down tilt on shield is VERY good if spaced- but, in my experience, it's a lot harder to implement than it seems. Microspacing a down tilt on shield with Greninja's extremely slippery movement stats is kind of a nightmare. Do you have any tips for circumventing this issue?

[@apolotion]

I know exactly what you mean! Even if you space it as you run into a shield, Gren can slide into a position to get punished. That's the main reason that I recommend using it out of a tomahawk, since you don't hit the floor sliding afterwards. If you're doing it on the ground, here are four options for you: 1) Do it out of a foxtrot. This is different than out of a dash since Greninja doesn't slide with the Dtilt. If you know that the opponent is in foxtrot Dtilt range, you can get the spacing. The homie Manny For Real also has a guide on his channel on how to do something called a "micro dash," letting you shorten the range of the foxtrot in case the opponent is closer. 2) Wait in between releasing the dash and inputting the Dtilt. You can slide forwards and then input the Dtilt after a few frames so that you don't have as much momentum carrying you into the opponent. 3) Find a way to use it out of a walk instead of a dash. Dash walking and empty hop landing are great for this, since you don't have to go through walk acceleration before getting Dtilt out. Walking is also halted by any tilt that Greninja performs. 4) Use Jab 1 instead. Unlike our other tilts, Jab instantly halts Greninja's momentum so that he doesn't slide into the opponent's shield. It also has very little hitstun and is safe when spaced, meaning that the opponent isn't able to react to it without losing their frame advantage. Hope this helps!

[@Scarecrow545]

@@apolotion Your thoughts on down tilt into charging forward smash to shift his hurtbox back?

[@DJDONFAN]

We love apolotion

[@Mewtic1]

the year is 20XY everyone is using a box control and playing greninja

[@Farid_king]

He is A tier

[@HEAVENSNIGHT0]

Les gooooo

[@RandomBoiGo]

the fact greninja can be amazing but the people dont know how to use it right (coming from a former decent greninja main), is just kind of upsetting

[@cacter098]

What are tomahawks?

[@lauragonzales2017]

is a short hop used for baiting shields or attacks

[@argos2895]

Do nada descobridor dos sete mares

[@Capta1nTD]

I love Dabuz and Esam as content creators and players but man I hate how uninformed they are on Greninja. Calling him linear is such a bad misconception that I really want to see broken, the character has so many options that are overlooked. imo Greninja is the character with the most slept on potential in the game. He has all the attributes of a top tier but is held back by his misconceptions and low representation. I think he's a top 10-15 character when given the practice he deserves. If Peach players can do it, so can Greninja.

[@autoimmunedefficiencysyndrome]

Hitting the opponents shield and then parrying their oos is a pretty skill gapped situation between two players imo. If you're hitting parries, why isn't your opponent?

[@N3OJOyTOKYO]

I found it

[@samuellim7318]

Apolotion isnt vernia rite.... LOL imagine Apolotion in the professional stage. I reckon he beats MKLEO :P

[@plabcentral630]

The best way I’ve optimize my greninja is by not playing him and playing piranha plant.