Ike in Smash Ultimate: Complete character breakdown and analysis

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So seeing as I have very flaky internet for now, I figure writing these posts would be a good use of my time!

I'll tackle Kirby later, but for now I wish to tackle Ike first and dispel many of the rumours listed about him. I'm first going to talk about how he fits into the new mechanics, then break down each move, and lastly talk about his overall strength among the rest of the cast.

I will be using both Brawl and Smash4 iterations of Ike for reference, as I've mained him in both games. And if I say something FEELS different, it means I'm not sure and might well be placebo. Also: I believe I might have been among the first group to actually get a chance to play the game with tilt stick, which makes an enormous difference and plays a part in my view of Ike.

---MECHANICAL CHANGES---

Sorry to start this off on a low point, but I'm afraid this new engine actually does the opposite of what I thought it would for Ike. While I expected him to thrive in an engine where people can't freely airdodge his attacks and give him access to running tilts, it's actually gone the other way.

The airdodge mechanic - while giving him a much needed addition to his recovery - makes his advantage stage much weaker, as he's not particularly mobile and as such struggles to chase after an airdodge used to avoid any of his attacks unless it's done as a raw callout. Raw callouts are hard too, as his gigantic hitboxes mean less when the opponent is granted the ability to airdodge away from a situation, in much the same vein as how jump airdodge would cover many of our traps and setups in 4, except with even more directions. While this same thing holds true for all characters, most are fast enough to followup on all but the most stellar of airdodges. We're still too slow in movement and startup to get proper punishes in this situation.

The grounded movement is something I initially thought would make a gigantic difference. While it DOES make a difference, it helps almost everyone else more than it does Ike. Shielding is significantly weaker than in 4/Brawl, which means dash shielding will become less important in our kit, due to the fact we no longer slide while doing so and also our OOS options are weaker, despite the faster jumpsquat, as I'll tackle for those particular moves. Our grounded dash is one of the shortest/slowest out of the currently playable cast (Only really contested by ganon) which meant we were being handily outmanoeuvred by the other characters, who were also far better at using the movement to dance around our already slow attacks and whiff punish (while landing lag is low, it's still higher than most characters and thus we're still left fairly open to attack). We were able to do similar things ourselves, however as most characters have faster poking tilts, swift aerials or the new brand of exceedingly fast moving dash attacks, it meant Ike as a whole was less adept at abusing the movement than others. Which takes me on to the one thing I thought would make Ike insane: Running tilts.

Now for the sake of explaining why tiltstick matters, here's what you can do with cancelling:
-you can cancel run with any attack. In order to cancel a run into a tilt, it was quickest to press down after the run, akin to how one would do running attacks in Melee.
-You can cancel TURNAROUND into any attack too. And this makes you do the attack facing backwards. If you watched the uk Invitational, you might have noticed that I was doing running Reverse utilt with Kirby....a lot. It's incredible for characters with tilts like that.

Herein lies the issue for Ike: while running Dtilt, running Ftilt and running Jab are all good options, they don't majorly add to his toolkit (it's all stuff we could sort of do already, courtesy of foxtrots and PPs) and it gave lots of other characters more to work with than us. And this is the general trend shared by myself and many others who took part: while Ike in a vacuum is a fairly hefty improvement on Smash4 Ike in many areas, when taken compared to the rest of the cast he has MAJOR flaws still present. That said, it's not all doom and gloom, and as no-one really is used to the new Powershield mechanics, lets hope that ends up being a big plus for us! so, lets target each move individually.

--MOVE BREAKDOWN---

-Jab
While this moves animation has changed (and seems less susceptible to low profiling as a result), it's largely unchanged from 4. Same damage, still a strong boxing tool. And use out of a run will be fantastic for stuffing opponent movement. It's utility as a punish is lessened by shield mechanics, but It's still a cornerstone of our kit.

-Dtilt
Likewise, this move is fairly unchanged from 4. We can still combo into it fairly easily, however as mentioned by Skarfelt in his fox TL, DI seems stronger than in 4 so getting the combo after a spaced Dtilt is hard. It's still going to be a core part of our punish game.

-Ftilt
This move has seen a marked improvement in its strength. It seems to do 14%+ with no sourspot and I was able to kill with it sub 100 from centre stage. It's still a bit slow on startup and continues to be easy to low-crush with shorthopped aerials, but ultimately it's seen a buff and I think it's going to be a great option for stage control and scaring a damaged opponent into turtling up.

-Utilt
It's been decimated. Pure and simple. Knockback-wise, the entire move does way less and feels like they homogenised it to all hit the strength of his current utilt sourspot, as I hit a marth with fresh utilt past 130 and he didn't even look like he was going to die. It's also STILL slow on both startup and cooldown. Basically, the move has lost its one big plus point, and now might as well be banished alongside dsmash

-Dsmash
Speaking of the forbidden move: it's still shit. I only really used it when accidentally trying to dtilt (didnt have tilt stick on Saturday) but It STILL has no power, and it's insultingly laggy. I would have hoped being able to do it running would have given it some utility, but alas, this is still a misinput.

-Fsmash
Like Dsmash, its the same old Fsmash. Big slow hitbox of certain death. It's utility seems to have been lowered as we can't exactly airdodge trap all that well anymore thanks to the new airdodge, so it's going to be a very difficult move to use. Still, the disrespectful among us will find a way.

-Usmash
Interestingly enough, the move in Ultimate is actually the Brawl incarnation, and that's only a good thing! The sourspots seems to be gone or at least less noticeable in all areas except for the shockwave which is still less powerful than the swing... but like brawl, the shockwave hits on both sides of him, instead of just behind him. This gives it a bit more utility at the ledge and for trapping in general, which is a welcome alternation.

-Dash Attack
This move is also largely unchanged from Smash 4. It still hits hard, and it still kills, although it seems not at the same obscene percentages it could kill in 4. It's going to see a lot of use regardless though, as it's the only worthwhile move which we can reliably punish retreating airdodges with.

(Before I touch on aerials, I want to mention something that felt weird but important. It seems like Ike 'lands' higher than he used to. What I mean by this is that he registered as hitting the floor earlier than he does in 4 and brawl, and therefore ending the aerials higher up than before. This is mostly important for Bair as it means using it for pressure on grounded opponents is harder and less flexible, and spacing Nair is more difficult too, especially on smaller frames as using the most horizontal segment doesn't work so often. This may just be the altered physics getting to me, but I never felt this with any of the other characters I used.)

-Nair
Now we're getting to the juicy bit. This move FEELS like it's range is shorter. I genuinely don't know if this is the case, but it feels like it. The fact that cstick nair has been removed from the game means spacing this move well has been made significantly harder. It swings around faster but make no mistake it's startup hasn't changed notably. I personally found this to be a nerf or at least a jarring change, as using it to space in neutral now is significantly harder now it's hitbox is in key points for a shorter period of time. This is also the move most harmed by dash dancing as a mechanic, as our meticulous spacing is what made this so good and - by giving almost every character the ability to quickly dash out and back in - it's now going to become a whole lot harder to zone with this. It's still a good move, still safe when spaced (and not powershielded) and combos into fair/bair/uair and low/mid percents (no thanks to the supposed lower landing lag, it's basically unnoticeable and doesn't change the moves functionality). But ultimately it's not as good as it used to be.

-Fair
Ol' reliable. I fucking love this move in all iterations of Smash and that includes Ultimate. It's similar to its Brawl incarnation again, being slower on startup and not being autocancelled in a shorthop, but it's range is gigantic as always and still hits for a decent whack. I think this is the best it's ever been as it's got it's lower landing lag value similar to 4 as well. It IS nerfed a little by the fact moves stale on shield, and boy will this be hitting things a lot, shield or otherwise. Despite being slower, we can still combo into it reliably. Expect this to be permanently stale.

-Dair
Quite literally the exact same as 4. Still got its godforsaken sourspots but still hits obscenely hard. It's utility has possibly...gotten better? Reason being ledgesnap is tiny in this game, and airdodge to lesge has vulnerable frames before snapping too. This means it'll be better for sealing quick stocks with a cheeky spike.

-Bair
Another move that's seen almost no change. The only real change is to due to the games physics, one being the above mentioned higher landing, and the other being the fact we leave the ground faster meaning instant Bair will hit a lot higher than it used to. This is another hit to our OOS game despite the faster jumpsquat. Otherwise, it's got the same deceptively large hitbox and is still a reliable killing tool.

-Uair
Grab your torches and pitchforks, because I actually don't think this move is amazing... infact I don't even think it's good enough to be noteworthy!
Now I know it's a new move so you probably think I'm just not used to it, so let me paint a picture:
Takes Roys Uair,
Make its hitboxes longer (a bit),
Make it the same strength all the way along,
And make it kill at about 110-120.
BUT
Then you give it reactable startup,
a slower swinging arc,
Less ability to hit grounded (courtesy of the higher landing thing)
And a very high amount of endlag.
Now you have Ike's new Uair. It is NOT a bad move. It feels good to hit and it's terrifying to get hit by. But the more I played, the more I realised it lost to airdodge away too. While it's got good range, It hasnt got ENOUGH to catch a directional airdodge without expressly giving up on every other possible options your opponent might pick.
Ultimately, this move has been hyped by hysteria and people who have played only a few hours and haven't yet gotten to grips with the engine. Once the opponent knows the counterplay, it becomes a situational move that loses the luster we were all met with initially. And no-one is sadder to realise that than I am. I'm hoping that we find better uses for it after playing the game extensively and getting used to it as part of Ike's kit.

-Grab
Our grab range remains pitiful for a big boy. The ability to do running standing grab is neat although functionally the same as skid cancelled grab. And it means we should almost never use dash grab which... somehow feels even laggier. Characters no longer slide while pivot grabbing, which isn't particularly helpful nor harmful but still worth noting. Overall, it's about the same.

-Uthrow
Back to being the RedX meme throw. While it still puts them in an unfavorable position, we can't combo off it...at all. I spent longer than I'd like to admit trying to make it work but once again, combos off this only work if the opponent drops their pad, as not only is it possible to AD, but you can also jump out of followups at dangerous percents, almost completely obliterating deadly mixups.

-Dthrow
Back to being out main combo throw. We can combo off this up to 70-80 before they start going too high. I obviously appreciate the fact we still have a combo throw, but sadly it's just damage and positioning...yes I'm a bit broken up over my primary way of securing stocks, if you couldn't tell.

-F/Bthrow
Did these together because they're almost entirely unchanged in function. These still send at a low angle making for fantastic stage positioning throws and will still be great for obscene doubles combos. But otherwise it's same old.

-Eruption
As cool as the new double/triple pillar is... it's not seeing much use. I would love to see footage of eruption being turned around AFTER charging it like I've been told is possible because try as I might, I couldn't make it happen. 2framing feels no longer present on the game, but eruptions utility remains with much smaller ledge magnets, meaning we can simply just...hit the recovery move instead. It's definitely the coolest shield break punish now though.

-Quick Draw
Imagine my absolute sorrow when this move swung at thin air when trying to go over an opponent. Again, it's mostly unchanged and we can still do landing lag cancels atca certain height, and it's only real changed is the fact we can't hold it infinitely anymore, instead forcing us to go as soon as we hit full charge. Ideally this won't matter, but it's still noteworthy.

-Counter
I barely used it. It has a swanky new fire effect when it triggers, it's still got sus startup too and again it feels unchanged functionally

-Aether
I SAVED THE BEST FOR LAST
Ok so aether has - once again - changed a lot in little ways, so I'll list everything.
+Goes ever so slightly faster. It's really a matter of frames though
+Hitboxes are no longer transendant, meaning weak projectiles are less effective for edgeguarding it.
+Armour before he throws the sword, meaning it's less risky in an offstage scramble.
+They don't pop out as easily, unless the sword is forced to move by a ledge.
-Sword now rides up walls rather than going through. This means it's far less effective as covering people near ledge trying to edgeguard it.
-we 100% have to go higher to grab the ledge than we used to. Making us even more vulnerable to onstage edgeguard attempts, and technically giving us less vertical height on our recovery. This now means wind/water/pushboxes will work even better (rigourously labbed, Zeldas phantom pushes us away from the ledge even when at best possible height)
-It hitbox is even smaller and almost nonexistent when spinning, it seems? I was hit out of it by a plethora of moves while their torso was on top of me. I'll wait for hitbox visuals for confirmation though.
Verdict: Aether still sucks. Just more in some places and less in others. Please god use airdodge to ledge if you really can.

---OVERALL VERDICT---

To cut it all short, don't believe the hype. I went in believing and came out wanting to main a different character, despite the fact I had already decided to main Ike regardless of potency. While in a vacuum he's probably better than Smash4 Ike, this is granted by the game mechanics and not much actual character improvement. In the end, I think Ike will once again prove to be a frustrating character who lacks the tools to compete with many of the top tiers and the fact I'm going to hear 'Cloud is just Ike, but good! Heuheuheue' for another X years drives me to tears.

By all means, use Ike if you like the character and think I'm full of shit (Granted while I've probably had the most Ike play of anyone right now, It's still pre-release and it's only been a few days) and I'd LOVE to be wrong about him. But the forecast isn't good from my point of view, and I merely want you to prepare yourselves to be let down by what you get compared to what you've been told.

If you have any questions, please ask me in one of the many discord servers I'm in. I'm going to avoid responding to tweets, as I'm sure I'll get some replies from fanboys who's favourite player said Ike was broken. Also, I get to see who read it all.

-G-P

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