DISCLAIMER:
This is more a random list of stuff that works out for me when playing and want to share with other Ivy PMers, and not so much really a guide. I am still looking for content that I can include, stuff like combos that frequently work on certain dmg or weight etc. Just every little tricks you tend to use during gameplay, and things that you should keep in mind. Basically anything that might push ivy's meta game forward. I am a medium skilled player so take everything i say with a grain of salt, and the list may contain somethings that are very basic but still might help others improve their game. do tell me (discussion section) if you think something is wrong and ill adjust it
My view on Ivysaur:
It is important to know your characters strong and weak sides. I see ivysaur kinda as a floaty glass cannon, where you have a very strong neutral game and edge guard game (even securing a kill out of neutrals is easy if you make use of your different options), but falls short on his defensive side (you got hit and have to reset to neutrals) since
1. his tech rolls are slow,
2. shield get poked ALL THE TIME!,
3. recovery is easily punishable if opponent gets enough time,
4. it is hard to quickly reset neutrals because of the slow falling speed,
5. not very good out of shield options and
6. overall ivy just dies quickly from a strong attack due to him being light.
The last thing to keep in mind is that a lot of ivy's attacks can be CC-ed, but as long as you take this into account it should not hurt your game all to much.
On another note: ivy can either be played safe and campy or "aggro" applying his safe pressuring options, and mix ups that his toolkit provides. i personally favor the aggro style, but this is a more challenging style to uphold in game. i think that it is probably best to make use of this option and switch the two styles once in a while in game to throw off your opponent.
So things to remember while playing Ivysaur:
1. wave land after all your shorthop rising down airs and Fairs (thus also all the ones out of shield).
2. bait the opponent with land canceling your neutral B into downtilt or down smash, do it right out of their immediate reach.
- you can also bait your aerial approaches by seemingly commit to shorthopping forward (where they will try to punish it), but then suddenly Breverse fast fall your neutral B, into punishing your opponents whiffed attack.
3. wave land jumps where you cannot hit the opponent. when wavelanding down you can start the airdodge early and land faster all the while also mixing up the timing of your landings, since opponents will try to punish your landings a lot against ivy. mix this up with nr. 2 for good baits.
4. your dash attack leads into free solar beams at 50+ dmg, depending on the opponents fast fall speed. (floaties at around 50%, FF-ers around 110%) dmg needs to be higher when opponent DI's down, etc.
- also it leads into upB if the opponent has no DI and a specific percent,just experiment with this one and youll get the timing down (changes per character)
5. (perfect) wavedash back and Dtilt to catch opponents like fox jumping on your shield for the pressure, do it when you see them approach through the air and aim for their landing with the tip of the Dtilt. if they planned to overshoot and land right in front of you go for the jab or ftilt.
-also in neutrals you can (perfect) wave dash forward and sneak in a tipper Dtilt when the opponent is waiting for you.
6. when your opponent is in your head, give yourself some time and space by throwing out your razor leaf (sideB). it is a very long lasting hit box in front of you forcing the opponent to at least slow down. Wave bouncing razor leaf is really good but also hard to do, and remember that throwing out the leaf has a bunch of end lag, it is not as good as it seems. dont spam it.
- also a use of sideB i have yet to test is to catch ppl recovering to stage with it and then hit them out of its hitstun with down smash to send them to a very bad spot while the haven't even landed yet to regain their Djump or Dair them for the meteor gimp. (see nr. 14 & nr. 15).
7. your run cancel (by crouch) is very good as ivysaur, it lets you space and wall out very fast if you follow up immediately with the Dtilt, gives you follow ups you could've missed with a jab out of it, and even gives you kills when the opponent is on high percent and you just cant seem to get the kill. just run in crouch, down smash and bam, they dead.
8. down airs when the opponent has low percent places them on the ground, this kinda fast thus there is a decent chance that they **** up the tech there. when you see that, jab reset into either sweet spot upsmash or another sweet spot down air. get them solar charges on the side for free!
9. your jab is godlike! it does not set up for combos very much but it does come out at frame 2 (which is really early) and has a big hitbox for such a jab. often after landing with a hit on a shielding or CCing enemy, you can jab to safe yourself from most of their punishes, and to keep on applying pressure. do mix up with the timing and the amount of jabs used as the opponent can shield or CC through both your jabs and punish after. you can mix up (delay) the timing of your jabs and do a dash in grab as a mix up to beat out the shield option.
10. your (perfect) wavedashes are faster than running for if you need to get to the other side of the stage for that edge guard, or overall for fast ground movement.
11. When you get the chance to jab reset, go for that sweet spotted up smash or down air, depending on their dmg (up smash on 80%+ kills depending on opponent fast fall speed) and solar charges (up smash gives more solar charges and sets up for solar beam, thus when you can get a fully charged solar beam of the up smash go for it!), else do a down air to continue your combo!
12. also i personally like to fast fall back air so that only the weak hit lands, and then i follow up with a pivot grab if i landed right next to them or a dash grab if i'm a bit further. this is risky since the opponent can CC or get a quick jab in between the weak hit and the follow up grab, but if he shields or just gets caught because he wants to punish your landing (since you are with your back towards him you don't have your jab to quickly defend your space after landing, but this covers that scenario) the grab afterwards is as good as free. its hard to explain but when you try it your self you'll quickly see what i mean.
13. use up air to get back to the stage quickly when your'e hit upwards, denying some juggling combos. make sure that you know the L-cancel timings from every height! i see many Ivysaur players **** up on these. also when you do it from very high up you have no ending lag which could take the opponent by surprise (happens often enough..).
when the opponent likes to crouch cancel you can use the falling hitbox into a ftilt or if the opponent shields afterwards a grab.
14. make use of your down smash when punishing enemies that try to recover, it has ridiculous disjoint that allows you to punish normally hard to punish recoveries and sends them in a very favorable angle.
15. utilize your dair offstage, something i really dont do yet. Get used to timing your dair for the sweet spot meteor when the opponent is offstage, and catch their double jumps by simply running off or shorthop off and time that bair.
here you see a great conversion from dash attack -> jab -> run off Dair: https://youtu.be/GsKjx0_xxh8?t=7m48s
16. when the opponent lands with an aerial on your shield your best option is to to either Nair OOS or Dair, since your grab will be to slow (sigh). use the dair as a hard punish for the slow attacks and the nair for the quicker.
if you choose to go for the dair, weave away and look for the opponents reaction: if he misses the tech waveland from the dair towards him and jab reset, else waveland towards the way he techs to follow up (tech chase the *****).
17. Utilize your fair as a combo move, know that whenever you get a good hit dont weave backwards but continue to float forwards then double jump and follow up. This works amazing for whenever the opponent is not above the stage as you can dair them out of a sweet spot Fair (the sweet spot is in the lower hitboxes) but this works at low percents. so basically when the opponent is high percent you go for that Bair to gimp, else the fair Dair combo seems more legit.
here you can see the fair dair in action: https://youtu.be/6aRIPQ1OVsA?t=9m32s
18. use seed bombs to still get a follow up when you cant seem to reach with an upair. ppl get caught off guard by the breversed ones underneath them, they often double jump into it trying to avoid the normal trajectory it wouldve taken.
19. weakhit upair leads into solar beam. seriously go for that Dtilt into weak up air into solar beam. its easy and satisfying.
20. Full hop fair (it catches defensive SHFFL's and sometimes traps the opponent in place), afterwards if you didnt hit him you can land with a nair or fast fall synthesis. if you did land the attack double jump and continue the combo. it generally just a safe option to throw out. ofcourse you cant over spam it.
21. walk off the edge and press upB for a very safe and quick edge hogging tool. get used to the timing of the reel in so you can make use of them invincibility frames. they can lead into a invincible dair or nair.
22. aside of using your bair as a edge guarding tool use it as well as a retrieving aerial to punish unsafe approaches of the opponent. throwing it out other wise is often a bad idea because it can get punished very easily.
.....more to come
MU specifics in general.
Against a lot of characters you win the match up because of your super disjoint and range on the back air, so use it to your advantage and make them respect it! Spamming the Bair is especially useful against other characters that rely on spacing (and are not very mobile) but that cannot out space your Bair, or quickly punish it, like:
Jiggs
Donkey kong
Peach
Gannon
Wario
(and im guessing, no personal experience)
Roy, Sheik, Mario & Bowser.
Ivysaur struggles mostly against quick characters with powerful kill moves. most of her attacks have a tipper mechanic to them where the inner hitboxes are quite bad (Bair, Fair, Dtilt), which leads into problems if the opponent is mobile and can quickly come into your space. It is also easy to stick on ivy, since he has slow fast fall speed, bad defensive options and no quick get of me attacks (almost every move equals commitment).
Use dash attack against SHFFL approaching enemies that overshoot your shield, like falcon, sonic, pika etc. You have no quick anti air option as ivy and the dash attack takes you out of that bad situation, either it hits them or you go underneath them, both not bad.
do not go for up air follow ups against luigi, his nair breaks it. in general sometimes too floaty enemies can just double jump away from your upair follow ups, use seed bombs or da whip to punish this.
know your options against CC, as every player who knows the ivy MU will spam CC. (also look out for mario, bowser and roy players. they tend to like their CC into punish a lot)
to edgeguard against Ike, ledge grab and when he goes for the upB drop down dair him. against jiggs, punish her rest by pushing her of the stage with you synthesis if you cant get a kill with fully charged upSmash.
MU's:
machiavelli (top ivy player) covered this already in this thread:
http://smashboards.com/threads/super-effective-ivysaur-match-up-thread-updated-for-3-0.337770/
go and check it out. it is very useful since ivy's matchups are very polarized.
This is more a random list of stuff that works out for me when playing and want to share with other Ivy PMers, and not so much really a guide. I am still looking for content that I can include, stuff like combos that frequently work on certain dmg or weight etc. Just every little tricks you tend to use during gameplay, and things that you should keep in mind. Basically anything that might push ivy's meta game forward. I am a medium skilled player so take everything i say with a grain of salt, and the list may contain somethings that are very basic but still might help others improve their game. do tell me (discussion section) if you think something is wrong and ill adjust it
My view on Ivysaur:
It is important to know your characters strong and weak sides. I see ivysaur kinda as a floaty glass cannon, where you have a very strong neutral game and edge guard game (even securing a kill out of neutrals is easy if you make use of your different options), but falls short on his defensive side (you got hit and have to reset to neutrals) since
1. his tech rolls are slow,
2. shield get poked ALL THE TIME!,
3. recovery is easily punishable if opponent gets enough time,
4. it is hard to quickly reset neutrals because of the slow falling speed,
5. not very good out of shield options and
6. overall ivy just dies quickly from a strong attack due to him being light.
The last thing to keep in mind is that a lot of ivy's attacks can be CC-ed, but as long as you take this into account it should not hurt your game all to much.
On another note: ivy can either be played safe and campy or "aggro" applying his safe pressuring options, and mix ups that his toolkit provides. i personally favor the aggro style, but this is a more challenging style to uphold in game. i think that it is probably best to make use of this option and switch the two styles once in a while in game to throw off your opponent.
So things to remember while playing Ivysaur:
1. wave land after all your shorthop rising down airs and Fairs (thus also all the ones out of shield).
2. bait the opponent with land canceling your neutral B into downtilt or down smash, do it right out of their immediate reach.
- you can also bait your aerial approaches by seemingly commit to shorthopping forward (where they will try to punish it), but then suddenly Breverse fast fall your neutral B, into punishing your opponents whiffed attack.
3. wave land jumps where you cannot hit the opponent. when wavelanding down you can start the airdodge early and land faster all the while also mixing up the timing of your landings, since opponents will try to punish your landings a lot against ivy. mix this up with nr. 2 for good baits.
4. your dash attack leads into free solar beams at 50+ dmg, depending on the opponents fast fall speed. (floaties at around 50%, FF-ers around 110%) dmg needs to be higher when opponent DI's down, etc.
- also it leads into upB if the opponent has no DI and a specific percent,just experiment with this one and youll get the timing down (changes per character)
5. (perfect) wavedash back and Dtilt to catch opponents like fox jumping on your shield for the pressure, do it when you see them approach through the air and aim for their landing with the tip of the Dtilt. if they planned to overshoot and land right in front of you go for the jab or ftilt.
-also in neutrals you can (perfect) wave dash forward and sneak in a tipper Dtilt when the opponent is waiting for you.
6. when your opponent is in your head, give yourself some time and space by throwing out your razor leaf (sideB). it is a very long lasting hit box in front of you forcing the opponent to at least slow down. Wave bouncing razor leaf is really good but also hard to do, and remember that throwing out the leaf has a bunch of end lag, it is not as good as it seems. dont spam it.
- also a use of sideB i have yet to test is to catch ppl recovering to stage with it and then hit them out of its hitstun with down smash to send them to a very bad spot while the haven't even landed yet to regain their Djump or Dair them for the meteor gimp. (see nr. 14 & nr. 15).
7. your run cancel (by crouch) is very good as ivysaur, it lets you space and wall out very fast if you follow up immediately with the Dtilt, gives you follow ups you could've missed with a jab out of it, and even gives you kills when the opponent is on high percent and you just cant seem to get the kill. just run in crouch, down smash and bam, they dead.
8. down airs when the opponent has low percent places them on the ground, this kinda fast thus there is a decent chance that they **** up the tech there. when you see that, jab reset into either sweet spot upsmash or another sweet spot down air. get them solar charges on the side for free!
9. your jab is godlike! it does not set up for combos very much but it does come out at frame 2 (which is really early) and has a big hitbox for such a jab. often after landing with a hit on a shielding or CCing enemy, you can jab to safe yourself from most of their punishes, and to keep on applying pressure. do mix up with the timing and the amount of jabs used as the opponent can shield or CC through both your jabs and punish after. you can mix up (delay) the timing of your jabs and do a dash in grab as a mix up to beat out the shield option.
10. your (perfect) wavedashes are faster than running for if you need to get to the other side of the stage for that edge guard, or overall for fast ground movement.
11. When you get the chance to jab reset, go for that sweet spotted up smash or down air, depending on their dmg (up smash on 80%+ kills depending on opponent fast fall speed) and solar charges (up smash gives more solar charges and sets up for solar beam, thus when you can get a fully charged solar beam of the up smash go for it!), else do a down air to continue your combo!
12. also i personally like to fast fall back air so that only the weak hit lands, and then i follow up with a pivot grab if i landed right next to them or a dash grab if i'm a bit further. this is risky since the opponent can CC or get a quick jab in between the weak hit and the follow up grab, but if he shields or just gets caught because he wants to punish your landing (since you are with your back towards him you don't have your jab to quickly defend your space after landing, but this covers that scenario) the grab afterwards is as good as free. its hard to explain but when you try it your self you'll quickly see what i mean.
13. use up air to get back to the stage quickly when your'e hit upwards, denying some juggling combos. make sure that you know the L-cancel timings from every height! i see many Ivysaur players **** up on these. also when you do it from very high up you have no ending lag which could take the opponent by surprise (happens often enough..).
when the opponent likes to crouch cancel you can use the falling hitbox into a ftilt or if the opponent shields afterwards a grab.
14. make use of your down smash when punishing enemies that try to recover, it has ridiculous disjoint that allows you to punish normally hard to punish recoveries and sends them in a very favorable angle.
15. utilize your dair offstage, something i really dont do yet. Get used to timing your dair for the sweet spot meteor when the opponent is offstage, and catch their double jumps by simply running off or shorthop off and time that bair.
here you see a great conversion from dash attack -> jab -> run off Dair: https://youtu.be/GsKjx0_xxh8?t=7m48s
16. when the opponent lands with an aerial on your shield your best option is to to either Nair OOS or Dair, since your grab will be to slow (sigh). use the dair as a hard punish for the slow attacks and the nair for the quicker.
if you choose to go for the dair, weave away and look for the opponents reaction: if he misses the tech waveland from the dair towards him and jab reset, else waveland towards the way he techs to follow up (tech chase the *****).
17. Utilize your fair as a combo move, know that whenever you get a good hit dont weave backwards but continue to float forwards then double jump and follow up. This works amazing for whenever the opponent is not above the stage as you can dair them out of a sweet spot Fair (the sweet spot is in the lower hitboxes) but this works at low percents. so basically when the opponent is high percent you go for that Bair to gimp, else the fair Dair combo seems more legit.
here you can see the fair dair in action: https://youtu.be/6aRIPQ1OVsA?t=9m32s
18. use seed bombs to still get a follow up when you cant seem to reach with an upair. ppl get caught off guard by the breversed ones underneath them, they often double jump into it trying to avoid the normal trajectory it wouldve taken.
19. weakhit upair leads into solar beam. seriously go for that Dtilt into weak up air into solar beam. its easy and satisfying.
20. Full hop fair (it catches defensive SHFFL's and sometimes traps the opponent in place), afterwards if you didnt hit him you can land with a nair or fast fall synthesis. if you did land the attack double jump and continue the combo. it generally just a safe option to throw out. ofcourse you cant over spam it.
21. walk off the edge and press upB for a very safe and quick edge hogging tool. get used to the timing of the reel in so you can make use of them invincibility frames. they can lead into a invincible dair or nair.
22. aside of using your bair as a edge guarding tool use it as well as a retrieving aerial to punish unsafe approaches of the opponent. throwing it out other wise is often a bad idea because it can get punished very easily.
.....more to come
MU specifics in general.
Against a lot of characters you win the match up because of your super disjoint and range on the back air, so use it to your advantage and make them respect it! Spamming the Bair is especially useful against other characters that rely on spacing (and are not very mobile) but that cannot out space your Bair, or quickly punish it, like:
Jiggs
Donkey kong
Peach
Gannon
Wario
(and im guessing, no personal experience)
Roy, Sheik, Mario & Bowser.
Ivysaur struggles mostly against quick characters with powerful kill moves. most of her attacks have a tipper mechanic to them where the inner hitboxes are quite bad (Bair, Fair, Dtilt), which leads into problems if the opponent is mobile and can quickly come into your space. It is also easy to stick on ivy, since he has slow fast fall speed, bad defensive options and no quick get of me attacks (almost every move equals commitment).
Use dash attack against SHFFL approaching enemies that overshoot your shield, like falcon, sonic, pika etc. You have no quick anti air option as ivy and the dash attack takes you out of that bad situation, either it hits them or you go underneath them, both not bad.
do not go for up air follow ups against luigi, his nair breaks it. in general sometimes too floaty enemies can just double jump away from your upair follow ups, use seed bombs or da whip to punish this.
know your options against CC, as every player who knows the ivy MU will spam CC. (also look out for mario, bowser and roy players. they tend to like their CC into punish a lot)
to edgeguard against Ike, ledge grab and when he goes for the upB drop down dair him. against jiggs, punish her rest by pushing her of the stage with you synthesis if you cant get a kill with fully charged upSmash.
MU's:
machiavelli (top ivy player) covered this already in this thread:
http://smashboards.com/threads/super-effective-ivysaur-match-up-thread-updated-for-3-0.337770/
go and check it out. it is very useful since ivy's matchups are very polarized.
