- Game Versions
- Smash 3DS, Smash Wii U
Hey guys, I'm finally back and here to talk about some more things pertaining to everyrob's favorite top/gyro/dreidel/beyblade. However this time, I'm not here to teach you about what you can do with the top, or even about the top itself much at all to be honest, but rather about a tech it offers us when we choose not use it. Confused? Well, continue reading my friend. This advanced tech is called Instant Gyro Canceling and will be expounded upon in great detail in this guide.
But first! If you haven't read the first part of this guide, The Five States of the Gyro: Charging, Shooting, Holding, Tossing and Bouncing (part 1/2), then I highly recommend (no bias at all) you do so. There are many useful and insightful things to learn about the gyro that you may not be aware of, even for seasoned ROBs. If you're new to ROB, or even the game itself, then I very highly (still no bias) recommend you read it and the guides I linked to as this guide gets really detailed and assumes you know a lot about the game's mechanics, general smash vocabulary, the top, and of course ROB himself.
IMPORTANT SIDEBAR:
For those that have read part one before, I had to make a significant correction regarding the charge levels of the top that you might want to revisit. The basic run-down is I originally said that an S7 was stronger than an S8. I mistook his flashing charge animation and the eighth charge as one in the same. So really the S8 (before you start flashing) is the strongest fired top and the fully-charged flashing one still stinks on ice. If you've been charging for the strongest top by spinning until the last spark before flashing, then you've been doing it correctly the whole time. If you were trying to charge the strongest top by counting up the sparks and stopping on the seventh charge, sorry for unintentionally misleading you. At least you know now (and it was still stronger than an FC)! I also made numerous other small edits, added a few extra tips, and expanded the Charging Your Gyro section (mainly about how a spark doesn't necessarily mean you've charged your gyro to the next level!). Most of it has been published alongside this part of the guide, so if you wanted to check that out or just brush-up on the gyro's mechanics, now's a good time!
Anyways, hope you enjoy it part 2!
Introduction:
Now I bet you know that you can roll and shield out of charging, you probably know you can spot-dodge by shielding then instantly hitting down and maybe you're slow like me and didn't know until like 2 weeks before starting this guide (sorry it then took a year after that to actually release this half) that you can simply grab out of it. But did you know that you can also jab, tilt, or smash attack out of it too? Did you also know you can start charging that smash? How about that there's a move you can only perform with a certain controls setting? If you did know all that, did you know that there's a FAR easier method to do these attacks than the one typically taught? Well, yeah probably cause it's in the description, but I'll show you how to do it here. And if you actually already know that too, well then you've probably read that thread I just linked including my post in it. Nice.
So really, I'm not here to teach you what you can with the gyro by firing or using it, but rather what you can do by putting away the gyro, known as canceling.
Canceling your Charge:
All in all you have 13 unique options when acting out of the charging animation. These are:
A Quick Word on Bumper Jumping:
If you currently use the common face button setup where Y is jump and X is grab, or vice versa, and are hesitant to give up jump being a face button, consider the following. With Y and X jump, your thumb has to be available to input a jump while also possibly responsible for hitting A, B, X/Y or the C-stick at the same time or in short succession. When you consider that jumping is a primary and frequently necessary movement option, it can be argued that it is vital to have it as an option as much as possible. With bumper jumping, you can always jump on an accessibility level that a face button can never provide. It also makes using aerials with the C-stick far easier and more precise than with Y or X jump and gives you more freedom for fade-back fairs and RARs. If you currently have both L and R set to the default shield, then I strongly recommend that you switch the less frequently used one to jump as it's basically a wasted button otherwise. Even if you don't end up using Easy IGC, I would urge you to switch to bumper jumping for ALL of your characters. Seriously try it. (Okay I'll step down from my podium now.)
EASY Instant Gyro Canceling:
Now that you know how to IGC (or at least know of it), here's how to do it the EASY way (with some controls modification). So as you practice IGC as described in the video, you may find yourself messing it up a lot, particularly grabbing instead of doing attack you wish to perform. This is because you are hitting shield before having pressed your
input (note that you can also do so with ) so the game sees + , which is obviously a grab. The timing on this isn't severely difficult, but for frame-perfectness it can be a tad tricky/inconsistent for you and can seem unnatural at first. If this is the case, then let me introduce you to or shielding! By sliding your thumb from -> -> or , you can very easily and reliably move your thumb at the required speed and timing to almost never fail. It is the easiest way to input many of the moves that I will cover here and is the crux of Easy IGC. If you use an input method other than the GC controller, then it's probably still possible to Easy IGC if you can think out a similar face-button layout.
With + Smash Attack ON (to be referenced as or A+B), you have access to an IGC move that no other control scheme can offer as well as advantages in performing others! If you choose to forgo A+B, you'll find it to have it's own advantages as well. I will cover the useful/notable ones here.
Usefulness of IGC:
So before we get into the nitty-gritty of each move, you must first learn the uses and purpose of using IGC. And well, there's actually quite a few.
Dashing IGC:
In the first video I linked in this guide, it showed the very practical option of dashing into one of your IGC options that comes out 8 frames faster than waiting for the dash animation to stop. Whenever you are dashing and want to do a d-tilt for instance, many times waiting for the dashing animation would take too long so you settle for a dash grab or dash attack. Well, IGC takes care of that for you by giving you many more options out of a dash, a position typically seen as restrictive or possibly disadvantageous. For instance, a run-up IGC d-smash right at the edge beats out a lot of non-disjoint get-up attacks and can even snipe the few vulnerable frames in the neutral get-up before their shield comes up. It can even two-frame some opponents! If you want to get fancy, you can use this to get somewhere faster when you read a missed tech and IGC d-tilt for a jab-lock.
IGC Mix-ups:
Oftentimes opponents underestimate the flexibility ROB actually possesses when charging his gyro and will attack that option by either catching your top with a dash attack/short hop aerial while simultaneously hitting you, calling your shield and dash grabbing, or otherwise approach you aggressively. You can bait this sort of behavior out and punish it by hitting them with some of the attack-oriented IGC options. Sometimes a d-smash or f-tilt will out-range an opponent's dash attack or possibly clank (better than getting hit). An f-smash can punish a misplaced/mistimed aerial or whiffed dash attack (likely when they're going for solely catching the top and then punishing your lag). If you find yourself in close quarters, d-tilts can be incredibly disruptive plus has a high chance to trip, leading to follow-up opportunities. If you find yourself in incredibly close quarters, like where the top doesn't even have a hit-box upon firing, just grab them for a beep-boop or up-throw. You can really go out there and bait them by running away and d-smashing or even reverse f-tilt/d-tilt them. These are just my ideas, get creative!
Gyro-landing:
If you are unfamiliar with A-landing, then you should check out this BeefySmashDoods' video. It's important to note that ROB can't actually A-land in the traditional sense as none of his aerials have an auto-cancel window on start-up. However, you can actually “A”-land with "B" moves, which is nicely demonstrated here. This video also shows how A-landing with a B move, or B-landing, actually ignores the hard landing lag associated with traditional A-landing. By combining IGC with A-landing, you gain an entirely new and powerful option that is unlike many other characters' A-landing options with it's own disadvantages and advantages. Let's break down gyro-landing with other characters' typical A-landing.
For a typical character falling to the ground, when they initiate an A-landing, they must hit their respective auto-cancel window in order to avoid landing lag. This can be as little as a 2 frame window for some characters. Then they encounter 4-5 frames of hard landing lag before their next move can come out. For ROB, when he initiates his gyro-landing, the timing window is not nearly as strict as there isn't really an auto-cancel window for charging your gyro to incur landing lag. If you're a little early, then your gyro is just a bit more charged up. Note that you shouldn't take advantage of that extra leniency too much as being too early can leave you in the air a little too long with no option at all but to wait to hit the ground and get punished or air-dodge and suffer more lag. Since gyro-landing comes with 0 frames of landing lag, the only delay to wait on is the time it takes to cancel the gyro, or 7 frames. Now you may be thinking, “hey that's 2-3 frames slower than other characters” and well, you'd be right. That is a disadvantage to gyro-landing, every normal attack, shield, roll, spot-dodge or grab that will come out 2 or 3 frames slower than other characters and you can't even access your special moves in this state. (Keep in mind that you can also B-land the lazer instead of the gyro, which isn't totally useless.) Also, you only have access to the 13 options mentioned earlier out of charging so the main disadvantage to gyro-canceling would be that you don't have access to your whole kit like other characters are. On top of that, you actually have to have the top available, so you must have the awareness to know that it's not in play. However, it comes with a number of powerful advantages.
The big one is that ROB and ROB alone has the damn top. That's awesome. The top allows you to do what most characters can't while A-landing: throw a good item/projectile while having the mix-up options of canceling it into attacks or charging it. As noted by the linked BeefySmashDood's video, A-landing as a mix-up can be pretty situational unless the opponent is fast enough to actually get to the spot you will land. Some characters just aren't fast enough and some players just won't be that aggressive often. Their last offensive option would be to throw a projectile after A-landing, which would almost certainly take longer to fire or cancel your gyro, considering you've had a 3-4 frame head start to prepare the gyro while they were landing.
When you don't have the top available for charging and you'd like to get on your feet faster than a tech, you can do a “ghetto” A-land with a nair. ROB's nair has the least number of landing frames of his aerials at a reasonable 12F so if the opponent is a safe distance from you, this will get you in position to retaliate faster.
One last important thing to keep in mind while gyro-landing when your back is to the opponent, you can turn-around or B-reverse the landing to re-face the them. I believe only Marth/Lucina are capable of A-landing this way as their bair is the only auto-cancelable aerial that turns it's character around. Sheik can also do it while B-landing with her similar Instant Needle Canceling tech. Make sure to keep this in mind if you'd be facing the wrong way upon gyro-landing.
Now that we've got that out of the way, here are the A+B ON and A+B OFF controls to do every Easy IGC input. I will be using to denote a shield as it's my personal preference, but is interchangeable with if that's what you set to shield. I have included the "normal" inputs where also denotes shield when the difference in difficulty between the two options is about the same.
The Smashes:
IGC F-Smash:
-------A+B must be ON-------
(reset to ) __/ __/
-------delayed-------
(reset to ) -> __/
Okay if that's a little confusing, here's an explanation. Press (continue to hold ) then as you reset the stick to , drag your thumb so you are hitting and simultaneously then slide your thumb to in one quick motion. You can choose to hold to charge it. You can also angle or while holding . An IGC f-smash is exclusively an A+B ON option that is not available to any other control scheme.
Uses: I find this move to be fairly situational but still viable. Use it to punish a whiffed dash attack/grab/aerial while I'm charging or as a mind game after getting people to drop shield when they are guarding against a possible gyro shot. It might be helpful when your opponent is on the ledge as you could start charging gyro at roll-distance away and punish a neutral/attack getup with the IGC f-smash. If they do roll, well then you could grab, d-smash or up-smash.
Random weird thing: You can also perform an IGC up-angled REVERSE f-smash somehow by trying to reverse the direction of the A+B smash command at an angle that has crazy tricky timing that I do not yet fully understand how to perform. It did not seem that this was a result of a turnaround down-B, but rather about how any character change the direction of an-initiated smash with the control stick just after inputting A+B. It may be possible to do it at other angles too, I simply don't know.
IGC D-Smash:
-------A+B ON-------
__/ __/
-------A+B OFF-------
__/ __/ (very quickly)
-------delayed-------
-> ->
An IGC d-smash can be done with any control scheme but becomes easier with A+B. With A+B you can do a and then drag your finger to the button similarly to the IGC f-smash and hit shield. With A+B off, you have to be very very quick between -> -> (which to be fair isn't that difficult) or have to hit twice.
With A+B, you can also be in the air and fast-fall with a and with that same input press for the gyro, slide your thumb while landing to then for an instant d-smash that skips hard landing frames. That's three control stick inputs for the price of one!
Uses: This is a pretty handy one for fake-outs, roll reads, tech chases, and your fastest possible landing d-smashes. When implementing gyro-landing, this should be considered an option that covers a lot of ground and is good damage/kill move on an overly aggressive opponent.
IGC Up-smash:
Here I don't have the inputs for IGC up-smash because it's so completely pointless and needlessly complicated compared to OoS up-smash that you never need/want to know how to do it. Can't even be used to swag on people.
Charging a Smash:
Smashes can be also be charged after being canceled. This isn't difficult at all once you get the timing down on regular IGC smashes. All you have to do is continue holding or (depending on how you initiated the smash) after shield and let go when you want to release it. Use for harder punishes on landings/whiffed moves and such if given the opportunity. Can't been done with initiated smashes when using to shield because you can't press all three buttons simultaneously.
The Tilts:
IGC D-tilt:
-------A+B ON-------
(hold ) -> __/
-------A+B OFF-------
(hold ) __/ __/
-------normal-------
-> ->
With A+B, you must make sure that you let go of entirely then press
__/ otherwise you get a d-smash. As you may have noticed, the controls for an IGC d-smash with A+B are the same for an IGC d-tilt. This is because with A+B OFF, you don't have to worry about pressing the and buttons at the same time.
This means you kind of have a choice at this point whether you want quick, effective, and reliable IGC d-tilt or a quick, effective, and reliable IGC d-smash plus access to IGC f-smash. It's honestly a tough call for me at this point. D-tilt is just about ROB's best IGC move (to be detailed later), so being able to super easily IGC into it can be very very helpful. However, IGC d-smashes are also very nice and the input for IGC d-tilt using tilt stick is not that hard as an alternate method. Plus having the ability to IGC f-smash can really throw off an opponent but is basically only a mix-up at best.
Use: The IGC d-tilt is an interesting case simply because it is so fast. When you shield, you commit to 11F of being locked in shield plus 7F to drop shield where you cannot normally act. That is 18F total. A d-tilt's first actionable frame (FAF) is 15F and is active on frame 3! For comparison there are 2 or 3 attacks in the whole game that finish as fast or faster. These are:
IGC Up-tilt:
------A+B ON------
-> (tilt) -> ->
------A+B OFF------
-> (tilt) __/ ->
------normal w/ tilt stick------
-> ->
Use: U-tilt is a pretty good move on it's own but can be used quite effectively when combined with IGC. When ROB is running, all IGC moves come out 8F faster than waiting for the dashing animation before performing the move. An IGC up-tilt could be used in this way to start a string on a character that's suffering landing lag on a low platform when a smash attack wouldn't kill. Since up-tilt → up-air is a true kill combo at certain percentages, this is the optimal punish in some cases.
IGC F-tilt:
Easy IGC unfortunately doesn't help us much here as the manual input with the control stick and is super finicky and you have to move it SO slowly and into such a specific range past neutral but not so far as to count as a roll that you should probably never bother with. As such, here is the normal input method:
-> ->
Use: F-tilt has always been a pretty mediocre move in ROB's arsenal but it does gain some uses from IGC. Since you can't input an up-angled or down-angled f-tilt with tilt stick, you're confined to the default angle. It can be used as a quicker option than an IGC f-smash situation I explained earlier. It's main function is to hit a character that's trying to catch the top with a dash attack or expecting to get a shield grab but with less risk of a punish. This is highly dependent on how good the characters dash attacks and grabs are though. To be fair, having the IGC f-tilt as a mix-up option in that situation against the right character is pretty okay, but usually not that practical.
I guess at really high percents I have also killed someone with f-tilt, so it's got that going for it I guess, which is nice.
IGC Jab:
-------A+B ON-------
(reset to ) -> __/
-------A+B OFF-------
(reset to ) __/ __/
Use: ROB's jab unfortunately isn't very good. It has short range and doesn't really link into anything. You'd probably rather use a d-tilt, grab or even f-tilt. Jab1 can string/combo into d-tilt, up-smash, d-smash and grab to the unwitting opponent or in a perfect percent range if you're confident in what you're doing. I suppose one time I used it by accident when B-landing which certainly caught them off guard enough to string into an up-smash, but it's really not great.
A Challenger Approaches:
There's one last reason that you should really want to learn IGC. His name is Villager.
I guess here goes my Villager matchup mini-guide. It's no secret that the match-up against Villager is obviously a difficult or at least very annoying and drawn-out endeavor as he can pocket the gyro for like 25 seconds and refresh it indefinitely. However, IGC actually flips that meta on it's head. I now revel in playing Villagers because I know they desperately want to pocket my gyro to gimp my options and that I'm not handing the damn thing over because I don't have to at all. Overall, ROB has far more options other than firing it than he may think. ROB is *considerably* more powerful in this match-up when he has the ability to charge his gyro because:
There we have it. If you managed to bear with me through this absurdly long guide, then I thank you and hope that you got at least a few takeaways from all of this. If you skipped around until the end, well thanks anyways for spending some of your time to look at this.
And so concludes my two part guide on The Five States of the Gyro. Get out there and show 'em what the gyro can do!
But first! If you haven't read the first part of this guide, The Five States of the Gyro: Charging, Shooting, Holding, Tossing and Bouncing (part 1/2), then I highly recommend (no bias at all) you do so. There are many useful and insightful things to learn about the gyro that you may not be aware of, even for seasoned ROBs. If you're new to ROB, or even the game itself, then I very highly (still no bias) recommend you read it and the guides I linked to as this guide gets really detailed and assumes you know a lot about the game's mechanics, general smash vocabulary, the top, and of course ROB himself.
IMPORTANT SIDEBAR:
For those that have read part one before, I had to make a significant correction regarding the charge levels of the top that you might want to revisit. The basic run-down is I originally said that an S7 was stronger than an S8. I mistook his flashing charge animation and the eighth charge as one in the same. So really the S8 (before you start flashing) is the strongest fired top and the fully-charged flashing one still stinks on ice. If you've been charging for the strongest top by spinning until the last spark before flashing, then you've been doing it correctly the whole time. If you were trying to charge the strongest top by counting up the sparks and stopping on the seventh charge, sorry for unintentionally misleading you. At least you know now (and it was still stronger than an FC)! I also made numerous other small edits, added a few extra tips, and expanded the Charging Your Gyro section (mainly about how a spark doesn't necessarily mean you've charged your gyro to the next level!). Most of it has been published alongside this part of the guide, so if you wanted to check that out or just brush-up on the gyro's mechanics, now's a good time!
Anyways, hope you enjoy it part 2!
Introduction:
Now I bet you know that you can roll and shield out of charging, you probably know you can spot-dodge by shielding then instantly hitting down and maybe you're slow like me and didn't know until like 2 weeks before starting this guide (sorry it then took a year after that to actually release this half) that you can simply grab out of it. But did you know that you can also jab, tilt, or smash attack out of it too? Did you also know you can start charging that smash? How about that there's a move you can only perform with a certain controls setting? If you did know all that, did you know that there's a FAR easier method to do these attacks than the one typically taught? Well, yeah probably cause it's in the description, but I'll show you how to do it here. And if you actually already know that too, well then you've probably read that thread I just linked including my post in it. Nice.
So really, I'm not here to teach you what you can with the gyro by firing or using it, but rather what you can do by putting away the gyro, known as canceling.
Canceling your Charge:
All in all you have 13 unique options when acting out of the charging animation. These are:
- shoot the gyro
- shield, and since you can shield you then have instant access to:
- jump
- up-smash OoS
- spot-dodge
- grab
- roll left/right
- up-smash (chargeable)
- f-smash (chargeable)
- d-smash (chargeable)
- jab
- up-tilt
- d-tilt
- f-tilt
A Quick Word on Bumper Jumping:
If you currently use the common face button setup where Y is jump and X is grab, or vice versa, and are hesitant to give up jump being a face button, consider the following. With Y and X jump, your thumb has to be available to input a jump while also possibly responsible for hitting A, B, X/Y or the C-stick at the same time or in short succession. When you consider that jumping is a primary and frequently necessary movement option, it can be argued that it is vital to have it as an option as much as possible. With bumper jumping, you can always jump on an accessibility level that a face button can never provide. It also makes using aerials with the C-stick far easier and more precise than with Y or X jump and gives you more freedom for fade-back fairs and RARs. If you currently have both L and R set to the default shield, then I strongly recommend that you switch the less frequently used one to jump as it's basically a wasted button otherwise. Even if you don't end up using Easy IGC, I would urge you to switch to bumper jumping for ALL of your characters. Seriously try it. (Okay I'll step down from my podium now.)
EASY Instant Gyro Canceling:
Now that you know how to IGC (or at least know of it), here's how to do it the EASY way (with some controls modification). So as you practice IGC as described in the video, you may find yourself messing it up a lot, particularly grabbing instead of doing attack you wish to perform. This is because you are hitting shield before having pressed your
input (note that you can also do so with ) so the game sees + , which is obviously a grab. The timing on this isn't severely difficult, but for frame-perfectness it can be a tad tricky/inconsistent for you and can seem unnatural at first. If this is the case, then let me introduce you to or shielding! By sliding your thumb from -> -> or , you can very easily and reliably move your thumb at the required speed and timing to almost never fail. It is the easiest way to input many of the moves that I will cover here and is the crux of Easy IGC. If you use an input method other than the GC controller, then it's probably still possible to Easy IGC if you can think out a similar face-button layout.With
+ Smash Attack ON (to be referenced as or A+B), you have access to an IGC move that no other control scheme can offer as well as advantages in performing others! If you choose to forgo A+B, you'll find it to have it's own advantages as well. I will cover the useful/notable ones here.Usefulness of IGC:
So before we get into the nitty-gritty of each move, you must first learn the uses and purpose of using IGC. And well, there's actually quite a few.
Dashing IGC:
In the first video I linked in this guide, it showed the very practical option of dashing into one of your IGC options that comes out 8 frames faster than waiting for the dash animation to stop. Whenever you are dashing and want to do a d-tilt for instance, many times waiting for the dashing animation would take too long so you settle for a dash grab or dash attack. Well, IGC takes care of that for you by giving you many more options out of a dash, a position typically seen as restrictive or possibly disadvantageous. For instance, a run-up IGC d-smash right at the edge beats out a lot of non-disjoint get-up attacks and can even snipe the few vulnerable frames in the neutral get-up before their shield comes up. It can even two-frame some opponents! If you want to get fancy, you can use this to get somewhere faster when you read a missed tech and IGC d-tilt for a jab-lock.
IGC Mix-ups:
Oftentimes opponents underestimate the flexibility ROB actually possesses when charging his gyro and will attack that option by either catching your top with a dash attack/short hop aerial while simultaneously hitting you, calling your shield and dash grabbing, or otherwise approach you aggressively. You can bait this sort of behavior out and punish it by hitting them with some of the attack-oriented IGC options. Sometimes a d-smash or f-tilt will out-range an opponent's dash attack or possibly clank (better than getting hit). An f-smash can punish a misplaced/mistimed aerial or whiffed dash attack (likely when they're going for solely catching the top and then punishing your lag). If you find yourself in close quarters, d-tilts can be incredibly disruptive plus has a high chance to trip, leading to follow-up opportunities. If you find yourself in incredibly close quarters, like where the top doesn't even have a hit-box upon firing, just grab them for a beep-boop or up-throw. You can really go out there and bait them by running away and d-smashing or even reverse f-tilt/d-tilt them. These are just my ideas, get creative!
Gyro-landing:
If you are unfamiliar with A-landing, then you should check out this BeefySmashDoods' video. It's important to note that ROB can't actually A-land in the traditional sense as none of his aerials have an auto-cancel window on start-up. However, you can actually “A”-land with "B" moves, which is nicely demonstrated here. This video also shows how A-landing with a B move, or B-landing, actually ignores the hard landing lag associated with traditional A-landing. By combining IGC with A-landing, you gain an entirely new and powerful option that is unlike many other characters' A-landing options with it's own disadvantages and advantages. Let's break down gyro-landing with other characters' typical A-landing.
For a typical character falling to the ground, when they initiate an A-landing, they must hit their respective auto-cancel window in order to avoid landing lag. This can be as little as a 2 frame window for some characters. Then they encounter 4-5 frames of hard landing lag before their next move can come out. For ROB, when he initiates his gyro-landing, the timing window is not nearly as strict as there isn't really an auto-cancel window for charging your gyro to incur landing lag. If you're a little early, then your gyro is just a bit more charged up. Note that you shouldn't take advantage of that extra leniency too much as being too early can leave you in the air a little too long with no option at all but to wait to hit the ground and get punished or air-dodge and suffer more lag. Since gyro-landing comes with 0 frames of landing lag, the only delay to wait on is the time it takes to cancel the gyro, or 7 frames. Now you may be thinking, “hey that's 2-3 frames slower than other characters” and well, you'd be right. That is a disadvantage to gyro-landing, every normal attack, shield, roll, spot-dodge or grab that will come out 2 or 3 frames slower than other characters and you can't even access your special moves in this state. (Keep in mind that you can also B-land the lazer instead of the gyro, which isn't totally useless.) Also, you only have access to the 13 options mentioned earlier out of charging so the main disadvantage to gyro-canceling would be that you don't have access to your whole kit like other characters are. On top of that, you actually have to have the top available, so you must have the awareness to know that it's not in play. However, it comes with a number of powerful advantages.
The big one is that ROB and ROB alone has the damn top. That's awesome. The top allows you to do what most characters can't while A-landing: throw a good item/projectile while having the mix-up options of canceling it into attacks or charging it. As noted by the linked BeefySmashDood's video, A-landing as a mix-up can be pretty situational unless the opponent is fast enough to actually get to the spot you will land. Some characters just aren't fast enough and some players just won't be that aggressive often. Their last offensive option would be to throw a projectile after A-landing, which would almost certainly take longer to fire or cancel your gyro, considering you've had a 3-4 frame head start to prepare the gyro while they were landing.
When you don't have the top available for charging and you'd like to get on your feet faster than a tech, you can do a “ghetto” A-land with a nair. ROB's nair has the least number of landing frames of his aerials at a reasonable 12F so if the opponent is a safe distance from you, this will get you in position to retaliate faster.
One last important thing to keep in mind while gyro-landing when your back is to the opponent, you can turn-around or B-reverse the landing to re-face the them. I believe only Marth/Lucina are capable of A-landing this way as their bair is the only auto-cancelable aerial that turns it's character around. Sheik can also do it while B-landing with her similar Instant Needle Canceling tech. Make sure to keep this in mind if you'd be facing the wrong way upon gyro-landing.
Now that we've got that out of the way, here are the A+B ON and A+B OFF controls to do every Easy IGC input. I will be using
to denote a shield as it's my personal preference, but is interchangeable with if that's what you set to shield. I have included the "normal" inputs where also denotes shield when the difference in difficulty between the two options is about the same.The Smashes:
IGC F-Smash:
-------A+B must be ON-------
(reset to ) __/ __/ -------delayed-------
(reset to ) -> __/ Okay if that's a little confusing, here's an explanation. Press
(continue to hold ) then as you reset the stick to , drag your thumb so you are hitting and simultaneously then slide your thumb to in one quick motion. You can choose to hold to charge it. You can also angle or while holding . An IGC f-smash is exclusively an A+B ON option that is not available to any other control scheme.- It is not possible by smashing and instantly pressing shield because that will always be read by the game as roll.
- You can't use the smash because technically that's a macro for "smash " so you still get the roll.
Uses: I find this move to be fairly situational but still viable. Use it to punish a whiffed dash attack/grab/aerial while I'm charging or as a mind game after getting people to drop shield when they are guarding against a possible gyro shot. It might be helpful when your opponent is on the ledge as you could start charging gyro at roll-distance away and punish a neutral/attack getup with the IGC f-smash. If they do roll, well then you could grab, d-smash or up-smash.
Random weird thing: You can also perform an IGC up-angled REVERSE f-smash somehow by trying to reverse the direction of the A+B smash command at an angle that has crazy tricky timing that I do not yet fully understand how to perform. It did not seem that this was a result of a turnaround down-B, but rather about how any character change the direction of an
-initiated smash with the control stick just after inputting A+B. It may be possible to do it at other angles too, I simply don't know.IGC D-Smash:
-------A+B ON-------
__/ __/ -------A+B OFF-------
__/ __/ (very quickly)-------delayed-------
-> -> An IGC d-smash can be done with any control scheme but becomes easier with A+B. With A+B you can do a
and then drag your finger to the button similarly to the IGC f-smash and hit shield. With A+B off, you have to be very very quick between -> -> (which to be fair isn't that difficult) or have to hit twice. With A+B, you can also be in the air and fast-fall with a
and with that same input press for the gyro, slide your thumb while landing to then for an instant d-smash that skips hard landing frames. That's three control stick inputs for the price of one!Uses: This is a pretty handy one for fake-outs, roll reads, tech chases, and your fastest possible landing d-smashes. When implementing gyro-landing, this should be considered an option that covers a lot of ground and is good damage/kill move on an overly aggressive opponent.
IGC Up-smash:
Here I don't have the inputs for IGC up-smash because it's so completely pointless and needlessly complicated compared to OoS up-smash that you never need/want to know how to do it. Can't even be used to swag on people.
Charging a Smash:
Smashes can be also be charged after being canceled. This isn't difficult at all once you get the timing down on regular IGC smashes. All you have to do is continue holding
or (depending on how you initiated the smash) after shield and let go when you want to release it. Use for harder punishes on landings/whiffed moves and such if given the opportunity. Can't been done with initiated smashes when using to shield because you can't press all three buttons simultaneously.The Tilts:
IGC D-tilt:
-------A+B ON-------
(hold ) -> __/
-------A+B OFF-------
(hold ) __/ __/ -------normal-------
-> -> With A+B, you must make sure that you let go of
entirely then press
__/ otherwise you get a d-smash. As you may have noticed, the controls for an IGC d-smash with A+B are the same for an IGC d-tilt. This is because with A+B OFF, you don't have to worry about pressing the and buttons at the same time.This means you kind of have a choice at this point whether you want quick, effective, and reliable IGC d-tilt or a quick, effective, and reliable IGC d-smash plus access to IGC f-smash. It's honestly a tough call for me at this point. D-tilt is just about ROB's best IGC move (to be detailed later), so being able to super easily IGC into it can be very very helpful. However, IGC d-smashes are also very nice and the input for IGC d-tilt using tilt stick is not that hard as an alternate method. Plus having the ability to IGC f-smash can really throw off an opponent but is basically only a mix-up at best.
Use: The IGC d-tilt is an interesting case simply because it is so fast. When you shield, you commit to 11F of being locked in shield plus 7F to drop shield where you cannot normally act. That is 18F total. A d-tilt's first actionable frame (FAF) is 15F and is active on frame 3! For comparison there are 2 or 3 attacks in the whole game that finish as fast or faster. These are:
- Ryu's light up-tilt at 15F, hits on frames 3-6
- Ness' d-tilt at 14F, hits on frames 3-4 (can d-tilt again on frame 6)
- Greninja's dair at 13F frames but only if it hits and doesn't hit until frames 17-19 anyways so it's rarely that quick a move
- SOC takes 7F to come out, locks you into shield for 11F (assuming you do not use an OoS option), and has 7F more of shield drop for a total of 25F. This compared to an IGC dtilit is 7F to perform the cancel, then 15F for the attack for a total of 22F. That's straight up a 3 frame faster way to get out of charging than your typical shield. USE THIS KNOWLEDGE IF NOTHING ELSE FROM THIS GUIDE!
- A shield can be seen as an easily recognizable form of weakness and opponents will often rush in/tomahawk grab you if you do it too much.
- A d-tilt lowers your profile allowing you to duck certain attacks and projectiles.
- A d-tilt can clank with lesser-projectiles if you'd rather not shield them.
- A d-tilt puts an incredibly fast hit-box on the field that the opponent has to deal with in a different way than a shield.
- A d-tilt also has a decently high chance of tripping that you can easily follow up into smashes/grab combos/tech-chases. Obviously, shields don't trip.
IGC Up-tilt:
------A+B ON------
-> (tilt) -> -> ------A+B OFF------
-> (tilt) __/ -> ------normal w/ tilt stick------
-> -> Use: U-tilt is a pretty good move on it's own but can be used quite effectively when combined with IGC. When ROB is running, all IGC moves come out 8F faster than waiting for the dashing animation before performing the move. An IGC up-tilt could be used in this way to start a string on a character that's suffering landing lag on a low platform when a smash attack wouldn't kill. Since up-tilt → up-air is a true kill combo at certain percentages, this is the optimal punish in some cases.
IGC F-tilt:
Easy IGC unfortunately doesn't help us much here as the manual input with the control stick and
is super finicky and you have to move it SO slowly and into such a specific range past neutral but not so far as to count as a roll that you should probably never bother with. As such, here is the normal input method: -> -> Use: F-tilt has always been a pretty mediocre move in ROB's arsenal but it does gain some uses from IGC. Since you can't input an up-angled or down-angled f-tilt with tilt stick, you're confined to the default angle. It can be used as a quicker option than an IGC f-smash situation I explained earlier. It's main function is to hit a character that's trying to catch the top with a dash attack or expecting to get a shield grab but with less risk of a punish. This is highly dependent on how good the characters dash attacks and grabs are though. To be fair, having the IGC f-tilt as a mix-up option in that situation against the right character is pretty okay, but usually not that practical.
I guess at really high percents I have also killed someone with f-tilt, so it's got that going for it I guess, which is nice.
IGC Jab:
-------A+B ON-------
(reset to ) -> __/ -------A+B OFF-------
(reset to ) __/ __/ Use: ROB's jab unfortunately isn't very good. It has short range and doesn't really link into anything. You'd probably rather use a d-tilt, grab or even f-tilt. Jab1 can string/combo into d-tilt, up-smash, d-smash and grab to the unwitting opponent or in a perfect percent range if you're confident in what you're doing. I suppose one time I used it by accident when B-landing which certainly caught them off guard enough to string into an up-smash, but it's really not great.
A Challenger Approaches:
There's one last reason that you should really want to learn IGC. His name is Villager.
I guess here goes my Villager matchup mini-guide. It's no secret that the match-up against Villager is obviously a difficult or at least very annoying and drawn-out endeavor as he can pocket the gyro for like 25 seconds and refresh it indefinitely. However, IGC actually flips that meta on it's head. I now revel in playing Villagers because I know they desperately want to pocket my gyro to gimp my options and that I'm not handing the damn thing over because I don't have to at all. Overall, ROB has far more options other than firing it than he may think. ROB is *considerably* more powerful in this match-up when he has the ability to charge his gyro because:
- he can IGC.
- he can gyro-land
- he can B-reverse
- he can wavebounce
- he can mind-game like against literally no other character
- Keeping distance with small lazers in neutral for chip damage (if he pockets it, whatever, they're not that strong and might be a rare opportunity to hit him with a low-risk gyro). Your lazer out-ranges his whole kit so this can force himto approach.
- Faking him out by charging the gyro and IGC-ing for when he approaches or even when you approach.
- Using Rotor-arm more often, which reflective properties make it more usable than in most other match-ups, even compared to other projectile characters. Good against low fairs/bairs, ledge-camping fairs (can kill at close range and can cover the roll option if you pull back afterwards), ultra bowling ball call-outs, and of course chopped-down trees.
- Keeping him above you, he has a far better horizontal game than you but barely existent vertical game. Try to stay stay grounded as often as possible, sharking him with up-tilt from under platforms, and using up-air for landings on higher platforms and for kills.
- Taking center stage when they ledge-camp. Jump → lazer can still out-range him, hits non-invincible characters hanging on the ledge and again forces some sort of approach eventually.
- Try to recover high and don't ever recover low near the stage, bowling balls will end you.
- If you know how to B-reverse and wavebounce the gyro, do so in the air to mix-up how you get to the ground. It is very important to stay grounded.
- If he does nab your gyro, again use his lack of verticality to stall him out far above the stage. By using up-b to dair (up to five times), you can stay out of range while his pocket timer runs out. Works well on FD, platform-less Town and City, Smashville, and Lylat. Also viable on other stages with higher platforms as well, just less-so. Get a read on him trying to refresh it and a fast-falling nair can be your opportunity to make him drop it. Just make sure you find time to refuel occasionally!
There we have it. If you managed to bear with me through this absurdly long guide, then I thank you and hope that you got at least a few takeaways from all of this. If you skipped around until the end, well thanks anyways for spending some of your time to look at this.
And so concludes my two part guide on The Five States of the Gyro. Get out there and show 'em what the gyro can do!
