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

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.

We still like Ike

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

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

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.

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)

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 ♥️

he became dr corrin

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.

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.

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

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.

rly nice rundown and video structure :)

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

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

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!

thanks for making a video on Ike

I love the idea of this video. I would also love to you to compare and contrast the first real first tier list that we had vs the current tier list now and see how and why characters fell off of the top 10. People thought pika and palu were top 3 for so long. O how things changed

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:

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?

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

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

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

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!

He we brutally murdered. May he rest in peace 🙏

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.

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

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.

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

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.

good video larwold

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

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.

More vids like this please

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

I like these kind of videos

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.

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)

Larry Lurr, the Smash historian.

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

Do more of these

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 🤲

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

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

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.

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)

Ike was my main for a while.

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.

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

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

Rip ike

te amo larry capija

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.

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.

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).

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.

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

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.

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

Nice

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.

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!

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.

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

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

Ike is why I started following Leo.

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

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

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.

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

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.

Nair

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.

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

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 :)

Which Version of Ike do you think is the Worst?

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

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.

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.

Funny how in recent Japanese tournament tora make top 8

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

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

Corrin is the late game Ike

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.

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

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

at least he's good in pm...

Ike is still great in doubles.

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

SweatSlayer the goat

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

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.

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.

How old is Ike?

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.

Just goes to show you, you don't know how good a character is until you learn their strengths AND weaknesses. Everyone thought that Ike was Top Tier simply because they had too much respect for him without fully understanding the mechanics of the game.

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

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.

Anyone up for ike ditto

I still like Ike 😢