What Happened to Ike In Smash Ultimate? Competitive History of Ike (Brawl, Wii U, Ultimate)

[@ryang.2907]

The problem is that other characters can kill like him. So now he's not the slow and powerful swordfighter, he's just the slow swordfighter.

[@kitsune6363]

Yep they overtuned all their favorite characters and of course DLC

[@Jinju___]

It’s honestly more because he’s too one note. He can nair and then mix you up by not nairing. Only having two real options in neutral is rough

[@BananaHace]

hard to have sympathy when his og gameplan was braindead as hell, but yeah it's rough

[@yobin3711]

Fr, Roy kills just as easily if not better than him and gets to be one of the fastest characters in the game. Ike being slow doesn't feel like a character archetype, it just feels like he's bad.

[@kitsune6363]

@@yobin3711 It's almost like sakurai and devs are bad at their own game and don't know how to balance it

[@CipherKnighto]

We still like Ike

[@gleen9843]

I feel like everything Ike does, likes of Cloud, Corrin and Pyra does it better, and so there’s really no point in using Ike over them, especially considering they’re significantly less linear and thus much less predictable

[@MerryBlind]

Whenever I play Ike vs a Cloud, I’m always annoyed at how much faster Cloud gets to be compared to Ike. Cloud can just throw out whatever he wants with barely any lag despite having great range and fast movement/air speed. Meanwhile Ike has N-Air and Down-Tilt…

[@kitsune6363]

​@@MerryBlindIke is better in casual play which the devs unfortunately care about too much

[@LoadedKlip]

I would say specifically Corrin. Corrin is what Ike is suppose to be but just flat out better. Corrin even has Ikes old Nair into Uair bair or whatever confirm at almost all %

[@MerryBlind]

@@LoadedKlip True Corrin’s N-Air is basically the same as Ike’s but better in nearly every way. Slightly more landing lag but everything else is better on it. Better combo potential, better startup, and covers both the front and the back simultaneously. Actually usable OoS as well unlike Ike’s.

[@faded9581]

@@MerryBlind Yeah I think the only thing Ike has over Corrin is raw killpower, which doesn't even matter bc they nerfed Ike's kill confirm

[@lpatel_41]

The problem is that Ike doesn’t have a coconut gun that can fire in spurts.

[@Zx30]

and if he shoots you, it's gonna hurt.

[@strifeup2]

He's not bigger and faster and stronger too

[@dripfoe_3307]

Pretty much 😂

[@Zx30]

@@strifeup2 he's the worst member not in the DK crew.

[@strifeup2]

@@Zx30 HUAH!

[@LoadedKlip]

One thing though ... while he seems to be just as low as he was previous games ... the gap between top tiers in bottom tiers in Smash Ultimate is much much smaller than in previous Smash games.

[@soufitron]

True, but the tier he is in is just as significant, because thanks to dlc, he is the so-many-th swordfighter and happens to be the worst out of the bunch. Before, there weren't as many swordies to compete with

[@Aaron-l2w5p]

@@soufitron Mii Swordfighter would like to say hello in terms of the worst lol

[@soufitron]

@@Aaron-l2w5p damnyou're right 💀 are they even on anyone's radar HAHA

[@Aaron-l2w5p]

@@soufitron Both of them dropped so hard after early major promise really

[@Krona-fb4dn]

@LoadedKlip Never understood why people say this as if it really matters/is different in Ultimate. "The gap in tiers is the smallest guyz!" You still will not see them win in top level play and get results and there area still plenty of "woe is me" characters like Kirby and Dedede compared to top tiers that have at worst, one weakness that usually isn't that big of a deal like with Rob.

[@MrGameguyC]

Many point and blame at the Nair nerf for Ike's decline, but there's more to it then that. MKleo stopped playing him, and due to natural meta developments, people just found out Nair was fairly easy to parry. (The patches had nothing to do with that) Nair is still Ike's crutch, watch any high level/confident Ike set and it's his go-to move despite the other decent buffs he got failing to diversify his kit. But I do believe the nerf did scare players away from him, along with the combo of DLC and no good players whiling to pick him up again currently. Still a decent character, just overshadowed like many other characters. (Mewtwo, Wii Fit, Lucas, Tink, etc)

[@LoadedKlip]

Parry being more abused today definitely hurts but that nerf hurt more. An Ike made it to top 24 or so in BOBC6. So there are ways around the parry. Truly more damaging is someone like Leo dropping Ike ... that hurt even more as u said.

[@AzureAetherXx]

Yeah the abundance of parries on Ike's nair would certainly cool him off in the metagame but nerfing the move and removing the reward that he got if he DID manage to get a clean hit on it certainly hurt and shouldn't be ignored. Even if players started parrying old Nair more the fact that he can't just get a clean kill off of a successful read with it as consistently is a big nerf to the character. Looking back with hindsight that nerf was really unwarranted given the DLC characters that came out afterwards.

[@faded9581]

I mean parrying is just an option that can be exploited like any other. He can mix up the timing of the nair, tomahawk, dtilt, etc. Taking that kill confirm away really messed him up though. Because pre patch Ike is on par with what most meta developed characters are now. Post Patch Ike is slower and lacking a kill confirm

[@kitsune6363]

​@@AzureAetherXxThey really removed his grab game and jab cancels for a braindead nair only to remove it too for a braindead up b

[@AzureAetherXx]

@@kitsune6363 that was in Smash 4. Just about every character lost jab cancels and a kill confirm off throw going from Smash 4 to Ultimate.

[@MerryBlind]

8:40 The Knockback was increased for the whole move, not just the front/early hit. Late hit combos better because it deals a bit less damage, but it still combos worse than it used to.

[@ShinOrashi]

Ike was ALWAYS mid tier from the jump, but no one knew how to deal with NAIR back then (and NAIR > UAIR/BAIR killed most of the cast pretty reliably at 90%) But after his NAIR nerf (even though, FAIR, DTILT, FTILT, JAB, and Aether were buffed) in a game where aerials are a huge part of neutral, it just isn’t worth the investment in pushing the character any further at high levels (unless you’ve been maining Ike since Brawl/PM and just love him lol) Even though he’s no longer relevant, I’ll always main him though ♥️

[@kitsune6363]

They should have gave his jab cancels and grab range and throw setups back 😭

[@strayorion2031]

tbh what wass true then and it still true now is that how well you do with ike 100% depends on how good your neutral is, now you can't just spam nair and just overwhelm the opponent to win, you actually have be mindful of how you play the bad part is that the dlc have stupid strong advantages on neutral

[@ShikanRaider]

The best part about Brawl Ike were the sound effects his sword made. It had weight behind it, like you hit someone with a washing machine, while in Smash 4 and Ultimate it sounds like ripping paper.

[@rank2859]

A washing machine 😂

[@PizzaBagels589]

@@rank2859 Ike is a Looney Tunes character confirmed

[@fuyutsuki3041]

he became dr corrin

[@gameboyn64]

More like dr cloud imo

[@CipherKnighto]

Dr Cloud makes infinitely more sense

[@Darockam]

Also I feel like Aegis alone hurt him a lot. Why would you pick Ike when you can just play Pyra, who's basically the same character but better and can switch to Mythra? The only aspect where Ike could be better maaaaay be his slightly less exploitable recovery.

[@TheSharkAnt]

I imagine Aegis is a horrible matchup for Ike.

[@tenenbaummark]

Pre-patch nair was disgustingly good. If we had that Ike still, I think he would be much higher in the tier list

[@hugodecroix294]

Not sure because he got a better jab and up b so he overall better. So if his nair was pre patch and the rest was like now I think yes he would be close to high tier

[@shnitzel9052]

I think it's pretty clear that when pros started utilizing parry, he was almost completely dead in the water. I think he's still under rated (imo a mid tier not low) but he's understandably far from top now.

[@kitsune6363]

​@@shnitzel9052They really removed his grab game and jab cancels for a braindead nair only to later remove most of it too

[@_NiKoB_]

Imo, the biggest problem with pre-patch nair was that it was so good, and the rest ... pretty underwhelming it made Ike unidimensionnal ; In at least 75% of case, the anwser was nair ... Which is kinda lame. Lowering nair power but buffing others options (especially upb, i find now insane) offered him more option, making him more interesting (imo at least ... It's not my main so I might be in the wrong).

[@Tater8q3f]

​@@hugodecroix294 They could have buffed those moves without nerfing nair and he would still just be alright. Once people know to edge guard you and parry the nair, even his good MUs have a clear and consistent path to victory. Saying this as an Ike main for the past few years

[@StepBaum]

rly nice rundown and video structure :)

[@elmaionesosexo]

Ike's issue is just being overshadowed by many characters that can execute his gameplan better or are stright up better than him. If you ask me Ike is still really good, but Ultimate has many characters that go above good.

[@runaway74]

Yep well said, Ike shouldn't be bad on paper but when everyone's broken, nobody is

[@elmaionesosexo]

@@runaway74 Just like Syndrome said

[@SpartanRithimus]

I really liked this video, it struck a chord with me especially since i've been an Ike main since he debuted. Makes me wonder in what ways he could be a better character while still making sense. The side special wall jump from Project M would be pretty cool. Thanks for the amazing content Larry!

[@shanegiorgio4713]

I think I've seen a least somewhere the idea of changing neutral b into a sword beam projectile (like in his games) but that might be a bit too drastic of a change. Another idea I think I've seen was making it so that his Down Smash could 2-frame, which is more reasonable.

[@tumultoustortellini]

When the slow, simplistic and straight-forward neutral, low damage swordie with an easily edgeguardable and 2-frameable recovery goes up against a faster (most of the cast), projectile having (rarer, but they super-win), higher dmg (most of the cast), or good 2-framing (the rest of the cast) character:

[@tumultoustortellini]

A friend of mine has thought they were bottom 3 since last year, and I haven't found a reason to disagree w/ him.

[@quinn7427]

It's actually rarer to not have a projectile than to have one

[@ianthewarriorgamer8180]

He’s not low damage… either you don’t play Smash Bros at all or you didn’t understand anything the video said. Probably both honestly

[@tumultoustortellini]

@@ianthewarriorgamer8180 He has 3 hitters at most. In a game where most characters can reliably rack on 30% at any time, and mid-40 (as a combo) to 60s (as a string) at zero, he's closer to nickle and diming, than really comboing. He is low dmg, you can accept that or not, but if you want to be correct, you'll change your mind.

[@strayorion2031]

​@@tumultoustortellini most of ike's attacks do around 15% so any 2-attack combo easily does 30% and while he can't string like 6 different moves on a combo to rack up 60%, you can easily get there by winning a few interactions, if we talk about damage with combos ike obviously loses, but acting like every interaction that you loose agaisnt ike is an easy 15% of damage is crazy + upb kills most of the characters and it can easily punish attacks on shield

[@justjohns2004]

I love the music indicators for background tracks, keep up the good work

[@TlocRevelc]

I remember 6 months after ultimate launched, I had a hunch he would have the biggest falloff ever. In a vacuum, Ike was mid tier at best and Sakurai had the gall to nerf him and if we go with the parade of canon characteristics the dlc fighters seem to have, why is Ike weaker and slower than Roy?

[@kitsune6363]

Because sakurai and devs don't know how to balance their own game and care about casual play too much

[@jenks_TV]

Excellent video, content like this is really helpful and interesting. Thanks!

[@TuesdayTastic]

I recently mained Ike as part of my Character Crisis series. At first I found him really frustrating because of all the bad qualities you mentioned in the video. But as I got better with him I realized that even though Ike has fallen out of favor I still think he's good enough. Tora is an Ike main from Japan that people should be paying attention to. She has wins on Gackt, Umeki, and Rizeasu. I hope we get to see her at majors outside of Japan soon!

[@kingdomworker2615]

I actually just watched your video yesterday! Very well done

[@strayorion2031]

the thing is you can't play ike if you can't play neutral, he doesn't have the tools to compensate lacking neutral like other characters

[@493HZ]

Larry Lurr is the epitome of that funny video about the guy who you know is gonna rock you at smash lol

[@Topham_]

thanks for making a video on Ike

[@lazerman3686]

the issue with Ike is half the roster, if the opponent knows the MU, can edge guard him so hard, if you're off stage once you're dead. This is heavily emphasized by knowing the MU, I've played so many people online that just don't know MU and don't win but my area has tons of ikes and can counter him hard. The other main issue is despite looking simple, he has lots of nuances. the issue with this is the reason he looks simple is that his neutral is literally just nair and d-tilt, with a bonus of bair and fair for quick hits but no combos off them, and he is nuanced because the follow ups vary so much and we have to change up into back end nair at high percents which is even slower. nair on shield is super punishable by most of the cast and d-tilt is just meh, and since ike isn't necessarily fast he just cant win neutral often if your opponent keeps their distance. then we have his more niche data. grab is tiny, air dodge is slow, OOS sucks with aether being the only option but it doesn't work on 99% of common neutral moves, dash attack is our only way to kill on the ground and its slow and can be punished hard. The only half decent thing abt ike is his MU spread to a degree. we have even match-ups vs kazuya and steve slight minus against G&W, making the most annoying chars (outside of sonic) playable and then go even against random high tiers. outside of those MUs tho, every other top/high tier SCREWS US UP. Overall the amount of effort that goes into playing ike just ends up not being worth it once you get to a high enough level. We're not allowed to recover against half the roster and if we are its usually a 50/50 on random mix ups we HAVE to do and neutral is just way too projected and then has difficulty with follow ups. I love ike and I've wanted him to be good for years but after so long I cant deny this character is kinda shit.

[@MedhaosFEH]

I think a big part of it is that Ike is really predictable. Because of how basic he is, you can see Ike and go “I know what this guy’s gonna do” and go from there

[@SeriousStriker]

Tbf I think there's top tier characters that have a basic gameplan too. G&W is gonna hit you with nair and juggle you in advantage state, and then find a way to ledgetrap or edgeguard you. That doesn't make the gameplan any less stupid.

[@ayoraster2970]

i think ike lacks any mixups as well. if you just shield and parry there's not much he can do. Most of his other attacks are unsafe. He can try doing grabs but it can't carry his neutral.

[@tumultoustortellini]

@@SeriousStriker Fair enough. Gmw nair is -4, the size of texas, and does your taxes. He does at least have to switch it up on block or when ledge-trapping. Ike can never let go of the a button

[@MedhaosFEH]

@@SeriousStrikerYou’ve got no real mixups with it though. Like, you can’t really cross up without being unsafe, you’re going to go for the same stuff because you have nothing else and you’re always going to start from that. Game and Watch still has stuff he can do that isn’t just jump -> Nair and isn’t horrifically suboptimal. Ike doesn’t

[@kitsune6363]

​@@ayoraster2970They really removed his only 2 mixups which were jab and grab 😭

[@michaelstringfellow6754]

I've been an Ike main since the game came out. I won't ever drop him. 14.2 mil GSP going strong. He is the only character in the game whose movement, speed, and spacing comes totally natural to me. I am still gutted at the 8.0 nerf to this day, though. It's completely unwarranted. MkLeo's success with the character is the main reason for the nerf. It completely killed his viability. It's completely unfair when you consider how utterly broken some of the cast is. (Especially DLC). Like EWGF can exist, but my fucking nair can no longer combo?? LMFAO. I just hope that they make him viable again in Smash 6.

[@michaelstringfellow6754]

I'm going to continue bitching here lmfao... He has an unjustifiably abysmal grab range (one of the worst in the game.) His F-Smash and Up-Smash both have worse frame data than GANON, yet does less damage and knockback. Characters can fall out of his Up-B. Not to mention, it makes zero sense why he goes into freefall after his quick draw recovery, yet broken-ass Fox and even fucking LITTLE MAC don't😂. Any character with a counter completely invalidates his recovery and its pointless to even try. Yet, his counter is completely inconsistent and unreliable. And to put the icing on the cake, he has no out-of-shield option other than Up-B which gets you hard punished if you are wrong. The only way to even have a chance at success is to have immaculate spacing and execute your kill confirms. And then they go and fucking nerf that. It just makes NO SENSE.... The whole point of Ike is to be a heavy, slow swordie. Yet, his kill power and survivability compared to other heavies is laughable. HE DOENST EVEN HAVE ANY CHEESE. So there is literally NO reason to use him competitively over the other swordies. Pyra, Cloud, Shulk, and Corrin all do what Ike does but infinitely better. Okay, rant over.

[@MerryBlind]

I think the N-Air nerf was somewhat warranted, BUT they overdid it way too much. Went from 105 to 130 Knockback Scaling. That’s a huuuge increase. They could have increased it to like 115 just to nerf it a tiny bit.

[@MerryBlind]

@@michaelstringfellow6754His grab range is definitely annoying, especially his running grab, but I think the reasoning is that his throw game is great (if you do get the grab you’re basically guaranteed a follow-up at wide window of percentage) and animation-wise he barely extends his hand, especially his standing grab. Would have still loved a small increase to his range for sure.

[@michaelstringfellow6754]

​@MerryBlind his down-throw only combos until like 50 percent, then you have to resort to up-throw to get a read on an air dodge, or jump. I can understand the nerf to nair, but when you put it into perspective... when kazuya, min min, aegis, arsine, Steve, and game and watch exist... come on bro let me keep my nair 😭😭😭

[@MrGameguyC]

I knew a comment like this was gonna show up. lol Pre-Patch Nair is poor character design since he relied so much on one move to carry him. The nerf was more then needed. Honestly, good Ike players still spam it like there's no tomorrow. (until they get parried and have to fall back on his other niche normals) Issue was like many of the patches in Smash Ult was they didn't buff the rest of his kit enough to make up for it. Maybe the balance team didn't think he needed it at the time, but he would have like it now.

[@benji6325]

He we brutally murdered. May he rest in peace 🙏

[@Aego384]

Ike would benefit from a projectile. Give him his canonical two range projectile from PoR and RD!

[@DuyuCoyote]

I am interested in this being done for Ridley. Great job on this.

[@lagspike7763]

The most messed up part about all of this is that Ike is not slow in EITHER of his games. He’s quite fast in Path of Radiance and his starting speed is also very high in Radiant Dawn. I unironically think that because of smash, IntSys has started acting like Ike is a slow character in modern FE game references

[@dave9515]

I don't know man cause hardmode of his games made the game very defensive and enemy phase based. Ike was always a turtler. He is always really broken in FE as well usually maybe not his first game though.

[@lagspike7763]

@@dave9515 I mean just because the games have a lot of enemy phase doesn’t mean Ike himself is slow. His growth is a little low in RD but he has one of the best speed bases in the entire army so regardless he’s one of the only people both doubling and dealing good damage immediately

[@dave9515]

@@lagspike7763 Thats fair. I was just saying he is more known as a defensive king so him being made as more slow helps him much more usually at least in the fe games. Engage is my new favorite FE game for modern FE and its also heavily enemy phased based and i think enemy phase focused or something like Fates Conquest is where we get the best FE gameplay for the games.

[@Athorment]

Give him Sm4sh Grab game and suddenly he has a niche. He tries to be the Slow and Strong swordfighter when you are just better off picking Corrin as the "Slow but strong" swordfighter... That or go with Roy as the "Fast but ALSO Strong" one.

[@quesalupalord7463]

Thank you for talking about this. They just can't let my boy be good.

[@kevton1397]

I remembered seeing a video on why no one plays him anymore is because there are swordies that pack similar power to Ike but are also faster and may be better in recovery, something that Ike suffers in.

[@stuckinabucket6873]

Ive played ike since launch and with 1000+ hours in the game and reaching 14.2 mil GSP I am going to explain all the things that make ike suck aside from the obvious things of being slow and having a poor recovery. To start Ike has a very hard time applying pressure or dealing with pressure when he is grounded which forces him to jump to do almost anything. However being forced to jump all the time creates problems when you only have one decent aerial to land with being Nair which larry stated in his video is easy to play around especially when ike has to use it all the time. But why does ike spam Nair so much why not approach on the ground? why not land with other aerials? ill explain why. Lets start with why ike has a bad ground game. Ike only has 2 ways of starting combos while grounded that being down tilt or a grab, this is an issue because ikes Dtilt is small and unsafe. Ike has an insultingly small hitbox on Dtilt being shorter then every other sword fighters and even non sword fighters like falco making it hard to land. The move is also not safe being -13 on shield creating an issue where ikes only way to start combos on the ground is to either land your small and unsafe Dtilt or try to run in and land a grab but ike is slow on the ground and has a very small grab (the grab hitbox doesnt even extend past his wrist). This is why ikes have to jump in so much because they have very limited ground options. Next up is ikes aerial game. As i previously mentioned ikes ground game is kinda bad which forces him to constantly jump in with nair to approach but why only nair? To start ikes bair and dair are not good landing options as bair has a skinny hitbox that doesnt cover below him and dair is also a terrible landing option only being active for 2 frames at frame 16-17 and not being safe on landing either at -9 on sheild. This leaves ike with 2 options to land with in Nair and Fair so why do ikes almost only use nair? CAUSE FAIR SUCKS thats why. Fair seems like it should be a good move but it has a lot of small issues that make it bad from its frame data and animation. For one the animation on ikes fair sticks his leg out for the ENTIRE duration of the move and his leg is not intangible when he does this. The moves animation also starts above his head so despite fair coming out on frame 11 the hitbox does not cover in front of ike until frame 13. This leads to ikes fair being very easily anti aired as it does not cover below him on top of his leg poking out making it even easier to hit him while the sword swing is still above his head. Ikes fair is so bad at covering below him you can actually short hop fair over a lot of characters and it just whiffs entirely. The only reason Ike would ever land with Fair is to try and intercept an incoming attack that nair cant reach horizontally. This is yet another reason why ike has to use nair all the time cause forward air cannot reliably pressure shield on landing or start combos. To point out how bad ikes fair is Pyras fair also comes out on frame 11 but covers below and in front of her immediately without extending her hurtbox. Marth and lucinas Fair comes out FRAME 6 thats twice as fast and again doesnt extend the hurtbox so you can actually use it to land and beat other moves in the air, Corrins Fair comes out frame 9 covers below her better then ikes does and even starts combos. Anti Airs and Shield Pressure. Ike has 3 ways to deal with jump ins with up tilt, aether or trying to meet the opponent in the air. To start Ike has one of the worst if not the worst up tilt in the game. With an animation that sticks his hand STRAIGHT UP with no intangibility the move comes out on frame 11 but the hitbox doesnt actually cover above ikes head until FRAME 13-14. The moves hitbox is also a straight line that only covers in front of him so if you get attacked from behind your only option is Aether. So why not use Aether? Aether is very high risk as it has 60 some frames of end lag if you miss or the opponent happens to fall out of the multi hits and Aether will miss a lot of things up tilt would have hit as Aethers launching hitbox does not reach as high as uptilt and only covers in front of ike leaving above him open making it a useless anti air if the opponent lands directly on top of you. This leads to a lot of moments where ike just has to hold shield in scenarios many other characters could deal with using better anti airs or out of shield options. Both aether and up tilt are just too slow and have massive blind spots to work as anti airs, ikes only anti air that covers a full 180 degree arc above him is upsmash which has a lot of end lag and again is slow to try and react with as an anti air. So with all that being said why not just try to meet them in air instead of letting them land on your shield? Well as previously stated Ikes fair is bad as its slow, starts way above his head and he sticks his leg out during the whole move. This makes trying to air to air people with fair extremely difficult as ikes leg will get hit by whatever move you were trying to outspace while ikes sword is still above his head. THIS HAPPENS ALL THE TIME especially against many common things like wolf nair or falco fair that stretch far horizontally hitting ikes extended leg while the fair hitbox is still above the head. Compare this to literally ANY OTHER SWORD CHARACTER that has a somewhat fast uptilt that covers a full 180 degree arc above them such as marth/lucina, cloud, hero, and even mii swordfighter. Conclusion Due to all of ikes shortcomings in other important moves like his Fair and Dtilt he is forced to approach using almost only jump in nair as nothing else he does except grabs can safetly start his combos. He also cant deal with pressure very well due to his awful anti airs and slow movement speed. This creates a very limited and predictable game plan where ike has very few ways to pressure opponents with no way of answering what the opponent pressures him with in return on top of the bad recovery and mobility. To really fix ike you would have to massively buff up tilt, down tilt, and forward air but with the patches being done they will just be bad forever and even then he would most likely be mid tier at best. (fun extra just to dunk more on up tilt its not even good at killing if you can even hit it as it doesnt kill most characters until the 120-130 range making it a slower weaker and unsafer anti air then wolf)

[@san3711]

Interesting analysis. What you're describing to fix him are essentially his Smash 4 moves, funnily enough. Copy + pasting smash 4 Ike with landing lag updates probably would've ended up being better.

[@girandidilone5226]

Fun thing I like to do with Ike to approach easier I’ll do a couple empty hops from a safe distance and catch opponents who camp with side b. It works a lot of the time.

[@stuckinabucket6873]

@@girandidilone5226 running away and catching stuff with quickdraw is pretty fun but quickdraws also not safe doesnt lead into anything. Ike can land stray hits all day but that doesnt matter when he cant string them into anything like other characters can.

[@girandidilone5226]

@@stuckinabucket6873 yea I get annoyed when my up airs don’t connect but killing someone with f tilt or dash attack after racking up damage is so satisfying.

[@lordturtle5680]

Anything on fast fall up air(at great height not just short or full hop)? I find it extremely helpful in catching people spending too much time in the air. It is relatively safe in a 1v1 because if it didn't connect, they weren't near you to begin with. Then it leads into a juggle if it does connect, or just straight up kills. It covers a huge area on the way down.

[@vipermoon_]

My favorite ike is brawl like. That original moveset so cool

[@MLmaster135]

the one thing I always liked using with Brawl ike was the Punch kick from his A+A. it was an excellent fake-out/mix up tool despite him being really slow in brawl, and aside from it being a bit busted due to corner carrying against chars that aren't marth, mario, meta knight ect. it also had such good hitstun that it had great fake-out potential even against those chars that could swat him out of it. Brawl Ike could do almost anything after pressing A+A, most deff due to the hitstun of the Punch+Kick of his jab giving time for him to hit with something else or the enemy to hopefully slip up, which they usually can. smash 4 nerfed his jab hitstun so mashers could just escape easily and it stayed the same for smash ult, so thats pretty sad very ironically gave that A+A punch+kick jab hitstun to Shulk and you can definitely see this in Shulk's jab's hitstun and animation. like when you manually press A+A with Shulk in a set rhythm, as long as the enemy isn't too light or starts double jumping(say marth for example), they'll be caught in Shulk's Punch+Kick for quite awhile. if its a heavy then they're basically unable to escape it til Shulk messes up. essentially Shulk basically legit had this Pseudo Brawl-Ike like Jab in smash 4, which helped him quite a bit. its a shame that smash ult nerfed Shulk's Jab so it can't have the hitstun it had in smash 4, so we can't have nice jabs again- but hey the A+A for Ike and shulk in smash ult, while they don't work on hit as good anymore cuz of A button mashers and jab hitstun bad, they can still work pretty good as fake-outs of some sort so I'm at least happy about that. Shulk's A+A jab actually can work on hit to fake out vision, but that's hard when the enemy may just Mash A. the worse part of Smash 4+Ult Ike is most deff that this Aether can't regrab ledges anymore. but especially his counter, it was a fast counter animation in brawl and reliable in brawl, esp with A+A shenanigans. but in ult its kind of gutted, as its noticeably laggier on successful counter, most deff because of the Titular "Blue Flames" effect, thats really noticeable. so that can be a problem even if you fake out(A+A) counter, dash counter, or crouch counter. but at least Shulk's version, the crouching vision(ie waiting til they throw an attack) and dashing vision(purposefully running into the attack, usually an aerial), works very well, since it almost always catches people off-guard every-time. and even when they expect it, it still works. I'll always love usin them both tho 🤲

[@dogyX3]

Biggest issue with Ike is that nair and tomahawk grabs are the only things you have to worry about. He has no confirms outside nair, so its easy to avoid getting hit and killed (apart from stray ariels, just keep your distance)

[@WindLigerUniversity]

You forgot to mention how overpowered his out of shield aether kill option is after the latest buff

[@xenodo597]

As someone who loved Ike in every smash game, I can also say this. Not just dlc characters, as we progress through the smash series, the things Ike does like strong kill power and surviving longer and having long range, other characters that are added can do that and better. Like if you want safe kill power, you can just pick cloud. If you dislike the exploitable recovery, you'd pick someone like Diddy who has mix ups. Etc. There's just practically no reason to pick Ike over most characters other than devotion. He's just too simple.

[@Nemesis0729]

"What Happened to Inklings In Smash Ultimate?" next?

[@JAMllostthegame]

It's kinda wild that besides the nair nerf (or rather rework since a side effect of the increased knockback now kinda made it a KO move lol), Ike has gotten nothing else but buffs and he's still not that strong of a character anymore.

[@Evello37]

Most of his buffs were just irrelevant. Like buffing the damage of grounded sideB. As if anyone is ever going to use that move grounded. Or adding killpower to jab at extremely high percents. Why? The impactful buffs were almost all given to risky call-out moves like Aether and dash attack. But characters like Ganondorf demonstrate perfectly that big scary call-outs aren't actually valuable if you can't pressure opponents into situations where you can force reads. Ike barely got any buffs to his safe tools, so he's still just stuck spamming nair like before, with worse payoff. Ike needed safe shit to use in neutral, not a bunch more risky call-outs. But his only real neutral improvement was slightly more consistent dtilt combos.

[@Strawbert94]

I've been saying this for years now, but finally a pro came out with a video about it. Been an Ike main since Brawl's debut, but didnt use him competitively until the tail end of Sm4sh & all throughout Ult. Biggest fall from grace & now is positioned exactly where he was in the previous 2 games. Sad reality, but fuck the meta. He's my boy 'til I die!

[@salvatore_slate]

good video larwold

[@TreadingLight8]

Ike is my secondary character, but I have so much more fun with him than my main. I get gypped off stage here and there but landing a forward smash with Ike feels better than any other character I've played lol

[@armorbearer9702]

I wish Ike had an option of using throwing axes like the Belmonts.

[@kookeekwisp]

Man, rip ike, he was my main man for every generation of smash since brawl.

[@lordturtle5680]

Unless you play in tournaments, Ike is still really fun to play and does well online. If you're like me at all, he is the only character you pick up and be reliably effective every time.

[@ivandariogye]

Larry Lurr, the Smash historian.

[@sagemode6]

i used to main Ike in 4. not so much now lol

[@natecallon9755]

He used to be my secondary but I kinda just switched to minmin for that lol (they have kinda the same nair anyways)

[@bearzdlc2172]

well ike was handsome and had jason adkins amazing voice on him in 4 and was actually hard hitting and not a no skill up b spamming tard in 4. ultimate butchered his look and voice beyond belief

[@matteoschiro7710]

Sinmple characters that hit hard always are strong at first but then fall off as the game gets optimized.

[@BlazinBobs1]

I've been an Ike main since brawl to this day and forever. These are the changes/buffs I'd like to see for Ike to make him relevant. - Restore his Brawl range and damage and knockback power - Make his up B snap ledge and the whole execution move faster. The fact that the moves takes like 2 seconds from start to finish is abhorrent when most characters have an instant up B. - Make side B like Diddy's Side B where it can be used and not go into freefall (not like Pikachu or Luigi as that can be abusive). - Make neutral B fully super armor from any charge as soon as the button is released. - Make his smash attacks frame data better. They are both weaker in damage/knockback, have less range, and are slower than Ganondorf's. Adjust the starting frames to faster than Ganondorf but slower than the other swordies. It has no business being worse than Ganondorf's smashes in every way. With these, his status of slow hard hitting swordsman can make him distinct and actually accurate.

[@gojiboy69]

Still my main despite Patch 8.0 and players understanding the game more nowadays. I couldn't put him down since brawl and it ain't changing anytime soon.

[@milesoverheaven]

high floor low ceiling character in a game where most top tiers have a higher floor and an even higher ceiling. pretty much sums it up right there

[@tumultoustortellini]

most top tiers have a low floor, gmw, pythra, steve as examples. Only snake and kaz are decently difficult

[@DropTheGrace0694]

I wish Ike was more like he is in his games. Just more well rounded. I think he should really have stats more like Marth and Lucina. That plus keeping his strength the same would make him a lot better. We like Ike.

[@gameboyn64]

At the very least they should give him his ragnell shockwave range attack and give him a very good jump & double jump

[@dagoodboy6424]

I picked him up recently cuz i got good at mii sword n he feels simular too. But unlike him ik doesnt have alot of mixups. U allways know what he gonna do. And hes easy to hit, slow, poor recovery, and has no real way to avoid projectiles.

[@mortezz1268]

That first week tuer list is cursed how was Ganon two tiers above Palu and Wario?

[@amaura7247]

A lot of us Ike players still think that he’s a high-mid tier to a low-high tier. The problem is that all of the top players simply dropped him in favor of other characters, and we still have a few good players maining him, such as Tora, Mega, Black_Screen, etc., but even still, Ike has his own strengths and flaws.

[@sdtrawick]

Ike is still my 3rd best character (After Cloud & Aegis).

[@Vevevenom]

Rip ike

[@RazKat_2023]

Ike was my main for a while.

[@amoblack9845]

More vids like this please

[@michaelpohl9077]

I like Ike. The nair nerf was necessary for casual play and thus a good choice making him a more balanced character in this environment (which refers to the majority of the player base).

[@borp9173]

I think what happened to Ike is a combination of a few things. A, he's easy. People got good at Ike way faster than other characters, so people could focus on just playing better. 2, he wasn't really buffed. 3, people learned how to fight him. As people got better at ultimate, Ike (who is definitely a character that punishes lack of matchup knowledge) got worse.

[@paulgrewal587]

I like these kind of videos

[@SeriousStriker]

I think Ike was always mid in Ultimate tbh, he was only doing well at events because the GOAT played him. That's literally it.

[@ShaunMoore]

Which Version of Ike do you think is the Worst?

[@axelnilsson2031]

His bair being angled up making it hard to land on grounded opponents and impossible to hit pancakers, shorties is so annoying. If his bair hit slightly downwards instead he'd jump a tier.

[@dil7508]

Hate to say it, cloud killed it i like cloud but cloud is basically the stronger version as him, but i have hope someone will figure out to make him viable ike is underrated as hell bro so it gives more oppurtunities to find out more ultimate is already 6 YEARS OLD?! Wow okay. Still can find some stuff out i guess despite it being old people still find weird techs in melee and brawl still.

[@MatteBlack333]

I have been playing Ike for a couple months now because I liked his playstyle at first, but man I hate how much he sucks. Ike doesn't even feel like he has that much range anymore compared to DLC characters, not to mention the DLC can kill way easier. All anyone has to do is just run away and shield, and Ike has no good grab setups at high percent so he can't do crap. He gets camped so easily because all of his moves are so slow... 9/10 times I get hit despite guessing correctly because my opponents are just faster. And recovering is just depressing, I think it would be worst in the game if it weren't for side b.

[@saam7737]

Ike officially goes on my list of characters whose nerfs should be reverted because people realized how good some base game characters are (GNW, Sonic, Fox, Pacman, Snake) and with how busted some DLC is, they would be just fine with their good moves back. He sits alongside ZSS, Palu, and Pichu.

[@kitsune6363]

Unfortunately sakurai and devs don't know how to balance their own game and care about casual play too much

[@blazefactor6849]

Nah, I'd have to disagree with that. Reverting Ike's nair would definitely make him better, but it would also revert him back to the mindless nair-spammer he was early on. There's significantly more counterplay to nair now, but having it do your taxes on hit oversimplifies the character, and he would benefit from a more diverse kit, not a more centralized one.

[@kitsune6363]

@@blazefactor6849 Exactly they should just give his grab game and jab cancel back to give him a decent neutral

[@saam7737]

@@blazefactor6849 Yeah i definitely agree, he would just need a LOT of reworking in order for his playstyle to change in any meaningful way. I was just mentioning characters that i feel got over nerfed IMO. I love Ike, but yeah, my boy is probably the worst FE character.

[@jerry3115]

He's still a menace you can't lie to me

[@TheRealBitterbub]

People who play PM / P+ Ike: *-Cough cough-*

[@RoseFielden]

The nerf to nair Upair kill confirm didn't help his case either. Sure Aether was buffed but that nair was what made him a good character

[@ponderingfox]

Ike is why I started following Leo.

[@melikmourali2072]

From the title I was expecting a more in-depth video about how Ike evolved through the DLCs instead of a quick overview of the character through the last 3 Smash games. Still I really enjoyed it. I hope to see more videos like this from this channel :)

[@sayzar9474]

Post 8.0 Ike is better just because of the Aether buff. It may have made him less viable competitively but it made Aether an actually good kill move which is more accurate to the source material and that’s more important to me lol

[@Trattt]

I feel like he's in a relatively similar spot to the other games too, yeah But ultimate being the game it is, he's better than the other games too

[@itsrottweiler9545]

Why are the characters in this game so limited to where u nerf 1 move and now the character is borderline unplayable?

[@dave9515]

Balloon Knockback and smaller hitstun along with no microspacing and movement options is why. This game made combos cookie cutter basic and basically neutered and heavily buffed defensive play without giving incentives to not camp as well as making punish games terrible except for characters that were given the privelidge to vortex and 0-death others. The balance of ultimate's cast is mad wack and platforms are awful to be stuck on.

[@MerryBlind]

He would have fallen off even if N-Air hadn’t been nerfed. Day 1 literally everyone who is familiar with Smash expected this. Ike is one of those simple but solid characters who work well at first but fall off as people learn the match-up.

[@N12015]

@@MerryBlind Indeed, he would been at best seen as a character as viable as Lucas, aka still not really viable outside locals. But I'll be honest, the patch seems mostly neutral to him due to Down Tilt being a much better combo starter and Dash attack a better kill move. Also, no matter how good N-air is it's still easy to parry if you're only using one move.

[@atari_hmb]

I think Ike is still good, but more so a Solid Mid-tier, wouldn't say Low. Granted he doesn't hit as hard as DLC, now EVERYONE hits hard

[@jamesd1586]

At least they made his up b insanely strong in 8.0 lol

[@cullenhutchison6528]

The problem is that all the good players dropped him but lots of not-so-good players still play him, so pretty much all you see is Ike losing. Ike is a solid character but requires you to outplay your opponent for that to be the case, and given his current player base being either bad or carried by being the better player while not playing the character correctly, this leads to the illusion that the character is just bad. I won't provide a thorough argument because nobody will listen to me anyway, but Ike does have a number of things going for him and has certain unique advantages over other swordies.

[@tumultoustortellini]

I'll listen. But let me fight me first: This game is filled w/ too many characters with high ease of use for an, "outplay" character to function at most levels of play. If the character that doesn't have to think starts thinking vs a char that has to think all the time, the math says ike is losing. Also, his weakness are a really low bar of entry. All you need is avg airspeed, moderate dmg output (by modern standard, I would say 0-40s, and strings from 0-60) and/or a solid 2-frame tool. If you have any of those, you probably win the mu (especially the first and last one), and go at least go even.

[@Evello37]

If your character requires you to constantly outplay your opponent in every interaction, then they are de facto a bad character. The whole point of a good character is that they set up advantageous situations that provide you high reward for low risk.

[@rojobalob]

I think the nair nerf might be the most unnecessary nerf in all of ultimate, he's so linear that even if they didn't nerf the move Ike would probably still be a mid tier in at this point in the meta.

[@Kami_Chaos]

Honestly that Nair nerf was so unnecessary, Ike finally had a chance to shine, but one too many people got blinded, the snuffed him out. It's a shame.

[@ChaseBranson]

I miss Sm4sh Ike up air

[@titus2832]

We have 2 top ikes in our region lol they do just fine

[@nikkobird590]

Do more of these

[@Bionitech]

I know it's not relevant to competitive but I've enjoyed playing Ike in doubles with the wife. She's on Byleth and we can apply consistent pressure even win frequently but then team attack being off and inviting degenerate cheese there's more bullshit than 1on1. Explains why not many people play co op doubles or even make content of it. No meta and no GSP, doubles is kinda zombified rather than dead. Sadly there's only cheesers playing majority of the time like double k rool and other shit combos (double dk). Those can just go ahead and uninstall the game for everyone's sake. Leave the game for the people who still want to play and enjoy it.

[@hugodecroix294]

Funny how in recent Japanese tournament tora make top 8

[@rickprovost8362]

People learned that they can play a better Ike with spells aka Hero

[@dave9515]

I can give a like but no point in subbing again when i really don't like ultimate much anymore and i hardly watch smash content vids nowadays. Also its a shame how Ike ended up being bad again but thats the curse of predictability. project m and modded Ike is peak ike with all that said and if nintendo and bamco weren't so stubborn Quikdraw cancel could be his gimmick going forward that really shakes up his gameplay in a fun way.

[@michaelstringfellow6754]

YES why can you not cancel it? Im even okay with that. but what is comlete bullshit is that he goes into freefall after using it. every other character can recover after a side-B. even fucking little mac. its bullshit 😂

[@jerry9904]

te amo larry capija

[@gabrieltouron2323]

Corrin is the late game Ike

[@TramiNguyen-oi3kp]

How old is Ike?

[@benross9174]

Depends on the game. Its 17 in the first one and 20 in the second one

[@TramiNguyen-oi3kp]

@@benross9174 awesome age!

[@BirdieSenpai]

My dad really liked Ike back in '56, and I've really liked Ike in Smash, having made so many good memories playing him, so I just bring myself to give up on him.

[@JadeYoRHa]

SweatSlayer the goat

[@TheSweatSlayer]

Yooooooooooo it's Jade 😲😲😲

[@Zach_Atom]

as an ike main its really frustrating his startup is too much and predictable and his upb is tpp exploitable and hes such an epic character and its impossible to play him well because everyone clobbers him

[@Zach_Atom]

also dedede can cancel his upb going down, why cant ike do that

[@Rho1-3374]

He may not be a top tier, but he is the only member of the cast who fights for his friends.

[@ohmygoddiosmio9138]

the bullshit balance of ultimate happened

[@cadetsparklez3300]

"hes oooh peeee" *whines* nerfs incoming

[@acheronXcomplex]

Ike is still great in doubles.

[@_V.Va_]

Problem is they got rid of Jason Adkins.

[@Chris-gx1ei]

The thing I hate about Ike is that his Great Ether Scream isn't this epic