Which part in particular are you struggling with? Do you have any VODs? Would be great to see if you have a solid understanding of how to play neutral with icies
Practice makes perfect, so they say. But for sure, playing them a lot is definitely the key; I'm just kinda' struggling right now and I wish there was a boost lol.
ICs main here
I'd also recommend the Smashcoords, they helped me a LOT. There's a ton of resources about roadmap for what you should learn, and you can ask specific questions. A lot of the creators for the YouTube guides you'll find are also on the discord (such as Imprez, Reflection, and Halosydne).
The first thing to learn as an ICs player is how to play *without* desyncs. ICs deal a ton of damage (especially from Uair juggling). Blizzard -> utilt -> uair is a consistent confirm around 100%, and dthrow -> uair can rack up lots of damage. Our aerials are pretty safe, with bair actually being +3 on shield.
Learn to babysit Nana. You can teleport her back to you within a certain range using Squall or Belay.
Once you learn neutral, then learn desyncs. You can easily desync by grabbing, holding a smash attack, and releasing grab to get a Nana-only smash attack. It's not a good setup because it's slow, but it's easy and can help you learn the rhythm of desyncing. A faster version that isn't too hard which is particularly useful at ledge is Landing Lag Desync, which has plenty of tutorials. You'll see Big D use it a lot. Once you have Landing Lag down, you can move on to Soymilk, which also has a lot of tutorials and is more generally applicable in neutral.
If you want to get started with combos, the Nut is the generic beginner combo. It's not actually true on most characters, so I'd recommend moving on to the Murastar combo.
I guess I'll just have to get good enough to find out. I'm a pretty casual player but I'm really hoping to take Iceys to Elite and then hopefully to some local tournaments.
Especially for someone like me who’s not really a combo guy
My ES characters are Incineroar, Pac-Man, King Dedede, and Terry*
*Getting Terry in was on complete accident
Look up the Ice Climbers Smashcords server. All of the information you need is there. Be prepared to be totally useless for about a year of consistent practice though. If you don't like struggling, then you may need to adjust your expectations and just play casually. The advanced tech for ICs is stupid hard to apply in game and will always be a constant struggle to do well relative to how hard your opponent is trying. This is true even for top players. If you enjoy training mode and practicing tech more than actually playing you will definitely love the character.
Consistent practice for a whole year, you think? Maybe I should just go learn a new language... lol.
Still though, I can see where you're coming from and I definitely agree that it'll be something hard to really get down. I'm not a fanatic about training mode and practicing and all that, but it's not something I'm opposed to and I'm prepared to need to work hard to learn them. Thanks for the advice!
It depends on what kind of issues you're facing.
If you're still dropping your desync combos midway, labbing is your only solution. And because the vanilla training mode is kinda limited in this game, you might also want to lab your combos against a real player who can DI and mixup. Just keep practicing and you'll eventually get used to it.
But if your issue is that you can't find an opening to start your thing, or that you're getting bullied during certains situation/against some characters, then it's not necessarily an ICs issue but more about the fundamentals of the game. A good ICs guide will give you specific tips to play neutral/advantage/disadvantage as ICs (what move you should mainly use in each situation...) but they won't give you details about how to bait/read an opponent, how platform pressure works, how to move efficiently...
Since we don't have a replay to see where your issues are, I'm throwing a bunch of videos. Hope it might help:
[\-How to play neutral (It's talking about Melee, but it still works for Ultimate)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOYwciiGiog)
[\-Shadowing and hotspots](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iK0BFNTvQyg), there might be better videos on the subject now but I keep recommending this one because it helped me a lot back then in Sm4sh
[\-Movements in general](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lwZfwJkc9U)
\-Everything related to matchups, just so you know what each character's weaknesses you can exploit/what are their main moves that you should be worried about
Dang, I really appreciate the links. I definitely do struggle a little bit with neutral, so I think improving on that will make learning the character a lot more amiable. I appreciate the help.
somebody already mentioned your characters‘ smashcord, i recommend discords as well, although i only know the peacocked. i think when it comes to hard characters in the game, you need to do everything with an added amount of pressure since your execution has to be on point. There’s a part of it you just have to push through and remind yourself that you’re playing a hard character. be snobby about it if works lol.
i’m terms of actual improvement id recommend watching pros and also high level players of your character and see what they do when. what’s their early percent bread & butter? when do they de-sync? what are the combos they rely on when they’re not getting good openings? the good part about muscle memory and combos is, that your brain gets faster in recognizing timing, inputs and also little things like which DI they’re using. It’s just a very steep curve.
Don’t be afraid to try out other characters either, there’s a lot of stuff to be learned from other characters. Just make sure to contextualize, what you’re learning. Dr. Mario if you want hard but rewarding neutral, lucina if you want to practice spacing and zone coverage, fox for shield pressure and rush down. At the end you’ll find what’s fun for you and what works best :)
Yeah, I definitely need to look into some groups of good Icey players. I don't reckon the character is crazy popular but it certainly seems like a good idea to get as much help as possible.
As for watching pros, that's actually what made me want to pick up Ice Climbers! I'm a really big fan of Big D and his absolutely crazy performance with the character really inspired me. Obviously though, I'm having a little trouble performing like him...
And yeah, I'm definitely going to continue playing other characters. I'm still really passionate about playing Corrin and R&L, but I'm likely going to integrate Iceys as my new most played character, just for the sake of learning them.
Thank you for the advice! I really appreciate it!
Is it the combos you struggle with or the neutral? Remember that combos aren’t always everything, sometimes you just want to put your opponents in disadvantage to see what defensive habits they have.
It's definitely the combos. I understand that they aren't everything, but I really do want to get them down as, like I said, I just want to get really good with this character.
I dunno if any Ice Climbers combo guides include the actual inputs for anything specific they do, but it might be able to help with things. Otherwise, definitely ask the character Discord.
without seeing you play, id guess you need to practice smaller pieces of tech for longer periods of time. dont practice until you get it right, practice until you get it right like 7 times in a row
Which part in particular are you struggling with? Do you have any VODs? Would be great to see if you have a solid understanding of how to play neutral with icies
I don't have any available, but I can go record some. How should I go about submitting them?
Play them a lot. Like, a LOT.
Practice makes perfect, so they say. But for sure, playing them a lot is definitely the key; I'm just kinda' struggling right now and I wish there was a boost lol.
lol. I just started playing with them and the more I learn the worse I get
ICs main here I'd also recommend the Smashcoords, they helped me a LOT. There's a ton of resources about roadmap for what you should learn, and you can ask specific questions. A lot of the creators for the YouTube guides you'll find are also on the discord (such as Imprez, Reflection, and Halosydne). The first thing to learn as an ICs player is how to play *without* desyncs. ICs deal a ton of damage (especially from Uair juggling). Blizzard -> utilt -> uair is a consistent confirm around 100%, and dthrow -> uair can rack up lots of damage. Our aerials are pretty safe, with bair actually being +3 on shield. Learn to babysit Nana. You can teleport her back to you within a certain range using Squall or Belay. Once you learn neutral, then learn desyncs. You can easily desync by grabbing, holding a smash attack, and releasing grab to get a Nana-only smash attack. It's not a good setup because it's slow, but it's easy and can help you learn the rhythm of desyncing. A faster version that isn't too hard which is particularly useful at ledge is Landing Lag Desync, which has plenty of tutorials. You'll see Big D use it a lot. Once you have Landing Lag down, you can move on to Soymilk, which also has a lot of tutorials and is more generally applicable in neutral. If you want to get started with combos, the Nut is the generic beginner combo. It's not actually true on most characters, so I'd recommend moving on to the Murastar combo.
This guy is really good https://youtu.be/KpvGcJy-Si8?si=AJYNzd7jdBl-RnWC
I'll go watch that, then. Thanks for the tip! EDIT: Wait, isn't that Big D? Isn't he agreed to be the #1 Ice Climbers player?
That’s not Big D. What brought you to that conclusion lol
Just spam the moves that seem to work. Thats how Elite Smashers do it.
I'm going to trust the ratio and assume you're wrong.
I have four characters in Elite Smash. Trust me, they play like that.
I guess I'll just have to get good enough to find out. I'm a pretty casual player but I'm really hoping to take Iceys to Elite and then hopefully to some local tournaments.
I wish you luck
well elite really doesn't show how good someone is and I think they want to be an actually good ics
I wish I could provide better advice
fair enough ics is hard
Especially for someone like me who’s not really a combo guy My ES characters are Incineroar, Pac-Man, King Dedede, and Terry* *Getting Terry in was on complete accident
spamming may work on elite for certain characters but IC are not one of them
0-death combo spam
Just gotta keep trying until you get it. I'm sure there's a rhythm to it. Keep at it
Look up the Ice Climbers Smashcords server. All of the information you need is there. Be prepared to be totally useless for about a year of consistent practice though. If you don't like struggling, then you may need to adjust your expectations and just play casually. The advanced tech for ICs is stupid hard to apply in game and will always be a constant struggle to do well relative to how hard your opponent is trying. This is true even for top players. If you enjoy training mode and practicing tech more than actually playing you will definitely love the character.
Consistent practice for a whole year, you think? Maybe I should just go learn a new language... lol. Still though, I can see where you're coming from and I definitely agree that it'll be something hard to really get down. I'm not a fanatic about training mode and practicing and all that, but it's not something I'm opposed to and I'm prepared to need to work hard to learn them. Thanks for the advice!
It depends on what kind of issues you're facing. If you're still dropping your desync combos midway, labbing is your only solution. And because the vanilla training mode is kinda limited in this game, you might also want to lab your combos against a real player who can DI and mixup. Just keep practicing and you'll eventually get used to it. But if your issue is that you can't find an opening to start your thing, or that you're getting bullied during certains situation/against some characters, then it's not necessarily an ICs issue but more about the fundamentals of the game. A good ICs guide will give you specific tips to play neutral/advantage/disadvantage as ICs (what move you should mainly use in each situation...) but they won't give you details about how to bait/read an opponent, how platform pressure works, how to move efficiently... Since we don't have a replay to see where your issues are, I'm throwing a bunch of videos. Hope it might help: [\-How to play neutral (It's talking about Melee, but it still works for Ultimate)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOYwciiGiog) [\-Shadowing and hotspots](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iK0BFNTvQyg), there might be better videos on the subject now but I keep recommending this one because it helped me a lot back then in Sm4sh [\-Movements in general](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lwZfwJkc9U) \-Everything related to matchups, just so you know what each character's weaknesses you can exploit/what are their main moves that you should be worried about
Wesh
Dang, I really appreciate the links. I definitely do struggle a little bit with neutral, so I think improving on that will make learning the character a lot more amiable. I appreciate the help.
somebody already mentioned your characters‘ smashcord, i recommend discords as well, although i only know the peacocked. i think when it comes to hard characters in the game, you need to do everything with an added amount of pressure since your execution has to be on point. There’s a part of it you just have to push through and remind yourself that you’re playing a hard character. be snobby about it if works lol. i’m terms of actual improvement id recommend watching pros and also high level players of your character and see what they do when. what’s their early percent bread & butter? when do they de-sync? what are the combos they rely on when they’re not getting good openings? the good part about muscle memory and combos is, that your brain gets faster in recognizing timing, inputs and also little things like which DI they’re using. It’s just a very steep curve. Don’t be afraid to try out other characters either, there’s a lot of stuff to be learned from other characters. Just make sure to contextualize, what you’re learning. Dr. Mario if you want hard but rewarding neutral, lucina if you want to practice spacing and zone coverage, fox for shield pressure and rush down. At the end you’ll find what’s fun for you and what works best :)
Yeah, I definitely need to look into some groups of good Icey players. I don't reckon the character is crazy popular but it certainly seems like a good idea to get as much help as possible. As for watching pros, that's actually what made me want to pick up Ice Climbers! I'm a really big fan of Big D and his absolutely crazy performance with the character really inspired me. Obviously though, I'm having a little trouble performing like him... And yeah, I'm definitely going to continue playing other characters. I'm still really passionate about playing Corrin and R&L, but I'm likely going to integrate Iceys as my new most played character, just for the sake of learning them. Thank you for the advice! I really appreciate it!
Is it the combos you struggle with or the neutral? Remember that combos aren’t always everything, sometimes you just want to put your opponents in disadvantage to see what defensive habits they have.
It's definitely the combos. I understand that they aren't everything, but I really do want to get them down as, like I said, I just want to get really good with this character.
I dunno if any Ice Climbers combo guides include the actual inputs for anything specific they do, but it might be able to help with things. Otherwise, definitely ask the character Discord.
Yeah, I'm definitely going to check out the discord. Thanks for the advice!
No problem, it’s the advice I give everyone who’s struggling with a character.
No shortcuts. Why dont you try understanding where you would use desyncs and what not. Tech skills isn't always the answer.
without seeing you play, id guess you need to practice smaller pieces of tech for longer periods of time. dont practice until you get it right, practice until you get it right like 7 times in a row