Introduce me to Ivy?

[Cu29]

I'm not necessarily a new PM player, I've played for a few years, but I've been searching for someone to play besides Samus because she's not as nice in PM as she is in Melee. I played around with a lot of the characters, and found the two I enjoyed the most were Ivy and ZSS (I posted in the ZSS forum as well.)

Those of you who play Samus or have played Samus, could you explain the most important differences between Ivy and Samus's playstyles?
Those of you who are experienced Ivy players, please tell me about basic tech skill and playstyle for Ivy.

Thanks

 

[cisyphus]

Read the forums there's lots of information already.

 

[Altanic]

Well I'm not a Samus player, but I have been experimenting with Ivy a lot today, and I have a friends who plays Samus.

I would say the biggest noticeable difference is Ivy's lack of reliance on projectiles, and also inability to throw them out rapidly. Ivy benefits a lot from the reach of the vines, and that's where a lot of your combos will lie.

Razor leaf is multi-hit and travels slowly while being fairly large. This is a useful spacing tool because Ivy can approach behind it and attack while keeping distance with downtilt. You'll do the most damage with the tip of the vines as well, and tippered downtilt will bring them to you, which can usually be followed up with nair or upsmash or uair, or even jab at low percents. 2nd hit of jab is actually quite strong at higher percentages providing more knockback.

The Deku shoot (downspecial) is also really good for killing off the top, and it can be combod into (still figuring out those exact setups).

Also, not sure what percent it starts at,
but downtilt -> fair -> vine whip (up special) is a kill combo that is pretty guaranteed, or at least fair will almost always set up into vine whip for a kill.

Oh! Downsmash can be comboed into, it comes out really fast and creates space between you and your opponent.
Use dair to slow your fall speed which is useful for mixups or recover. Upair can also be used as a body slam which will send people downward in the air and upward on the ground.

This is just stuff I've learned from seriously playing Ivy for the first time today. I like Ivy. She's a really good compliment to Mario in my opinion.