So what can Shadow Sneak do?

[Guybrush20X6]

Is it entirley a fake-out mechanism or does it figure into any combos?

 

[Chiroz]

Is it entirley a fake-out mechanism or does it figure into any combos?

You can counter missile spammers with the ability. You can dodge the missile and hit back your opponent all at the same time.

You can also use it as a punish for a whiffed attack. Shadow Sneak is Greninja's highest range ability, it has more range than Side-Tilt. And I don't mean the moving shadow, I mean the kick itself.

I am writing a thread about things like this but it's been going kind of slow because I am trying to get some more experience with Greninja but I haven't been able to visit my friend. I'll see if I can visit my friend today.

 

[Blade Knight]

I may be wrong, but I think I've seen a few Greninja players cancel lag from Down Air early with it by beginning to move the shadow in mid air, divekick onto the ground or an enemy, and then releasing Shadow Sneak. That seems like an immensely powerful hit and run option if true and depending on what Greninja can cancel out of.

Take this with a grain of salt though, I'm really not sure if that's what happened at all.

 

[Chiroz]

I may be wrong, but I think I've seen a few Greninja players cancel lag from Down Air early with it by beginning to move the shadow in mid air, divekick onto the ground or an enemy, and then releasing Shadow Sneak. That seems like an immensely powerful hit and run option if true and depending on what Greninja can cancel out of.

Take this with a grain of salt though, I'm really not sure if that's what happened at all.

Greninja can't attack while moving his shadow. He can only jump or run. He also can't move the shadow while attacking, so you must wait until hitlag ends before you can start the move.



I don't know if SS can cancel the lag of Down-Air though, never tried that.

 

[Blade Knight]

Hmmm, that's a lot more limited than I thought, sorry. Still I'd say it's worth experimenting to see if you can cancel any actions early by using Shadow Sneak, it could help make Greninja's game way less punishable to make use of it to get away.

 

[Chiroz]

Hmmm, that's a lot more limited than I thought, sorry. Still I'd say it's worth experimenting to see if you can cancel any actions early by using Shadow Sneak, it could help make Greninja's game way less punishable to make use of it to get away.

In stages like Pictochat though it's impossible to see the shadow and as such it's completely impossible to know if Greninja is performing SS.

 

[Spirst]

In stages like Pictochat though it's impossible to see the shadow and as such it's completely impossible to know if Greninja is performing SS.

I had completely forgotten about Pictochat and its black floor. Going to be choosing that stage now for Omega mode.

 

[Strong Badam]

In my experience Shadow Sneak might be Greninja's worst move, up there with Substitute.

 

[Chiroz]

In my experience Shadow Sneak might be Greninja's worst move, up there with Substitute.

Well, I haven't been able to go back to my friends house but I will tomorrow (already asked him and he said yes). I feel like Shadow Sneak is being judged incorrectly. I feel that you can do some correct spacing to bait a move from your opponent and then hit him with a Shadow Sneak.

I mean, imagine this scenario. You run up to Marth just outside of his F-Smash range, he F-Smashes you, it missed. You instantly retaliate with Shadow Sneak, you don't even need to move your shadow, the kick has higher range than Marth's F-Smash.



Also I believe it might be a great counter to Rosalina. As soon as she charges Luma, you charge Shadow Sneak. Now you're both "locked" charging. As soon as she releases Luma you release Shadow Sneak. I don't know if this actually works or not, but I feel like it might.

 

[Strong Badam]

Greninja has better punishes than Shadow Sneak, though, like dash Usmash and grab.

The main issue with Shadow Sneak is that it has two uses, both of which have issues:
As an actual punish, in which case Greninja can punish better with other attacks.
To preemptively punish an action that hasn't occurred, which is FUNDAMENTALLY a poor thing to do in high level Smash bros., particularly with such little reward that Shadow Sneak grants.

Doing weird things to bait out an option and then preemptively charging up a Shadow Sneak only to be punished out of shield because your opponent decided to use his best neutral option (which is doing nothing/empty movement 90% of the time) is going to happen when people use this move in tournament against people who understand how the move works.

 

[Sosuke]

you can also use it to cancel the landing lag of aerials so the set-distance short shadow sneak is pretty good imo

 

[Chiroz]

you can also use it to cancel the landing lag of aerials so the set-distance short shadow sneak is pretty good imo

Is this actually confirmed?

Greninja has better punishes than Shadow Sneak, though, like dash Usmash and grab.

The main issue with Shadow Sneak is that it has two uses, both of which have issues:
As an actual punish, in which case Greninja can punish better with other attacks.
To preemptively punish an action that hasn't occurred, which is FUNDAMENTALLY a poor thing to do in high level Smash bros., particularly with such little reward that Shadow Sneak grants.

Doing weird things to bait out an option and then preemptively charging up a Shadow Sneak only to be punished out of shield because your opponent decided to use his best neutral option (which is doing nothing/empty movement 90% of the time) is going to happen when people use this move in tournament against people who understand how the move works.

Shadow Sneak is one of Greninja's best kill moves. Greninja's custom Shadow Sneak is probably his best kill move (Maybe his custom counter is stronger).

I'll have to test it out further.



Also I wasn't talking about "charging" Shadow Sneak, I was talking about just doing it. It has more range than you would think. 0 charge Shadow Sneak is Greninja's highest range move (except for Hydro Pump and Water Shuriken).

 

[Sosuke]

yeah, it's totes a thing. makes Dair possibly safer and stuff

 

[Chiroz]

yeah, it's totes a thing. makes Dair possibly safer and stuff

Where is the confirmation though?

 

[Sosuke]

http://smashboards.com/threads/myst...thread-wip-updated-9-23.368764/#post-17648474

NL also showed it off on steam for a bit in the Greninja Skype group

 

[Chiroz]

http://smashboards.com/threads/myst...thread-wip-updated-9-23.368764/#post-17648474

NL also showed it off on steam for a bit in the Greninja Skype group

Thanks. I will try this out tomorrow. I'll see if I can come up with some uses for Shadow Sneak.

 

[Strong Badam]

I'm like 90% sure that custom moves will eventually be banned so I'm considering his vanilla moveset only. His regular Shadow Sneak is very weak.

 

[Indigo Jeans]

Why do you think custom moves will be banned? A lot of them are either inherently worse than their standard variant or just have an added effect with decreased damage/kb. Quick shuriken or whatever is basically Greninja's laser equivalent, while the stationary one isn't particularly powerful because of how difficult it is to justify using over another punishing option. Maybe the Hydro Pump variation that trades the pushing hitbox for ridiculous distance, but being a recovery move I doubt it will get banned.

Other characters don't have crazy customs either. Both of Villager's rocket variations are terrible compared to the standard. Exploding balloon trip is really easy to shut down because of the abundance of projectiles and the fact that its a horizontally recovering move. High jump is literally shield+wait for the Villager to hit the ground while you charge a special/set up your own hazards/punish with absolute safety. Moody sapling is a stationary banana and the tree isn't exceptionally hard to play around. I guess Bowser Jr's sliding custom might be easily spammable, and I don't think Robin's quick Thunder properly scales damage down. Palutena's moving reflector sounds really troublesome I'll admit, especially since it also has a pushing hitbox and it has good vertical coverage. But aside from that most custom moves (mechanically) aren't anything to be really worried about, from a balance perspective.

And if the argument for their ban is that it will make games too unpredictable and preparing for all of the different permutations of a matchup detrimental to competitive play then I don't really know what to say. I just really hope that doesn't end up being a big talking point it would be really pitiable.

 

[Spirst]

Why do you think custom moves will be banned? A lot of them are either inherently worse than their standard variant or just have an added effect with decreased damage/kb. Quick shuriken or whatever is basically Greninja's laser equivalent, while the stationary one isn't particularly powerful because of how difficult it is to justify using over another punishing option. Maybe the Hydro Pump variation that trades the pushing hitbox for ridiculous distance, but being a recovery move I doubt it will get banned.

Other characters don't have crazy customs either. Both of Villager's rocket variations are terrible compared to the standard. Exploding balloon trip is really easy to shut down because of the abundance of projectiles and the fact that its a horizontally recovering move. High jump is literally shield+wait for the Villager to hit the ground while you charge a special/set up your own hazards/punish with absolute safety. Moody sapling is a stationary banana and the tree isn't exceptionally hard to play around. I guess Bowser Jr's sliding custom might be easily spammable, and I don't think Robin's quick Thunder properly scales damage down. Palutena's moving reflector sounds really troublesome I'll admit, especially since it also has a pushing hitbox and it has good vertical coverage. But aside from that most custom moves (mechanically) aren't anything to be really worried about, from a balance perspective.

And if the argument for their ban is that it will make games too unpredictable and preparing for all of the different permutations of a matchup detrimental to competitive play then I don't really know what to say. I just really hope that doesn't end up being a big talking point it would be really pitiable.

The only major annoyance I can see is in setting the custom moves up in tournaments when using a Wii U. That's workable though so it isn't much of a setback.

If anything, it's equipment that's definitely getting banned unless it's somehow heavily moderated and has a strict limit. Initially, I had thought custom moves would be a definite ban, but I find myself leaning slightly towards the other way now. At the very least, I feel like custom moves should be given a chance. It would be an interesting factor in metagame development and would make the game a fair amount less monotonous. Sure, there'd be a lot of research and discussion to be done in a game that spans about 49 characters, and has custom moves for each special, but I feel it'd be all the more deep for it. If it doesn't work out, then that's that. But again, it should be given a fair shot.

 

[Strong Badam]

Yes, they should be given a fair shot. I just think they will eventually be banned, lol.

 

[Chiroz]

I am playing with Greninja right now and I find his Side-B to have many uses. His counter is **** though, can't get that to work.

If you guys want to watch me play you can go into twitch.tv/SoCalSmash. But I am not that great honestly. I'll be the gray Greninja.



Some cool things I was able to do. I killed Bowser at 20% from the very center of FD by Up-Bing his Down B as he was coming down.

I killed a Bowser Jr at 110% by doing a Fast Falled Up-Air into Up-Smash. This combo is definitely character % specific. On fast fallers/heavy weights its a definite kill combo, on other characters it doesn't work at higher % (they bounce too high) but you can probably combo it for more damage.

I killed a Robin at 50% from the top with an Up-B. Basically I grabbed into Up-Throw, Robin double jumped and I Up-Bed upwards and then downwards (pushing her upwards) and it killed her.

 

[Indigo Jeans]

Yes, they should be given a fair shot. I just think they will eventually be banned, lol.

But WHY do you think they're (probably) (eventually) gonna get banned?

 

[Sosuke]

I killed a Robin at 50% from the top with an Up-B. Basically I grabbed into Up-Throw, Robin double jumped and I Up-Bed upwards and then downwards (pushing her upwards) and it killed her.

the heck? that sounds really weird

 

[Chiroz]

the heck? that sounds really weird

Basically Up-B can kill from the top of the stage. I up-threw Robin, she double jumped and I up-Bed instantly (pushing her upwards) and she died from a star KO. He barely died, we didn't realize he died until we saw him being star KOed.

 

[Indigo Jeans]

Oh, so it was the pushing hitbox from Hydro Pump? Cause if so then Hydro Pump has serious gimping capabilities that need to be exploited more.

 

[Chiroz]

Oh, so it was the pushing hitbox from Hydro Pump? Cause if so then Hydro Pump has serious gimping capabilities that need to be exploited more.

Yes, Hydro Pump killed him off the top of the stage. I was able to do it a second time, but that time he was also Up-Bing and died after his second "El Wind". Basically he tried to spike me under the stage and I hit him with both Hydro Pumps upwards and his last "El Wind" kill him off the top (This was from the ledge, he was raised to the very top and then died).

 

[Strong Badam]

But WHY do you think they're (probably) (eventually) gonna get banned?

Unless the unlock requirements are significantly different on the Wii U version, it's entirely unreasonable to expect each Wii U at a tournament to have every custom move unlocked. That already makes it logistically impossible to have them legal.

 

[Indigo Jeans]

Unless the unlock requirements are significantly different on the Wii U version, it's entirely unreasonable to expect each Wii U at a tournament to have every custom move unlocked. That already makes it logistically impossible to have them legal.

Iirc you can save custom movesets and export them, though I don't remember if this requires an amiibo or not. Either way, I really had not thought about that, ha ha. Now I see where you're coming from.

 

[Chiroz]

I have a whole section on what I believe Shadow Sneak can be useful for in my new "mini-guide". I will be updating it in a bit adding the other sections listed at the bottom when I can.

http://smashboards.com/threads/gren...s-tips-tricks-and-advanced-techniques.370197/

Note that my own opinions aren't objective facts and they could be wrong, they are, after all, opinions. You can go ahead and discuss any of my arguments and disagree with any of my opinions on that thread and I will try to respond with how little I know until now.

Hopefully the thread is of use to some of you.

 

[KeithTheGeek]

Iirc you can save custom movesets and export them, though I don't remember if this requires an amiibo or not. Either way, I really had not thought about that, ha ha. Now I see where you're coming from.

There's an option on the menu to connect the 3DS with Wii U, which allows you to transfer over custom movesets. It probably wouldn't be feasible to do this for every set-up but you should be able to connect a 3DS that has unlocked all the custom parts to a Wii U that hasn't and send them over, if I'm not mistaken.

Either way I don't think custom moves should be an issue for 3DS Smash, just because at that point it's up to the player to have unlocked the moves they want to use. I can see it being a problem on the Wii U, which is unfortunate because I feel that it's going to be the main version once it releases.