what does 3.5 mean for us?

[Anuran]

*Just a place to discuss changes to Ivy's kit in pm 3.5. Honestly im not sure how I feel yet. As a duo Ivy/samus main tether recoveries are personally very important to my play and this new limit will hurt. What are your thoughts on the matter?
Also I see no changes to downtilt but it feels like the 2nd hit comes after the 1st a lot faster than it did in 3.2. Am I just imagining things or did they just update the sound effect?

Here is Ivy's changelist so graciously provided to us by the PMBR <3

Spoiler

Tilts
-Forward Tilt multi-hit SDI multipliers set to a consistent 0.80x from 0.75x and 1.05x. Rear send off hit now matches angle/BKB/KBG of front send off hits but is 4 instead of 7 DMG.
-Up Tilt BKB 60 -> 40. KBG 78 -> 105.

Aerials
-Neutral Aerial Auto-cancel pushed back from frame 27 -> 38
-Forward Aerial Vine range reduced 10-20% during frames 17-19.
-Back Aerial DMG inside-to-outside 8/7/5/5 -> 5/5/7/8. Angle inside-to-outside 38/38/30/30 -> 30/30/45/45. Second swing's active frames begin on frame 16 instead of 15.
-Down Aerial Initial vertical boost reduced significantly. Staled vertical boost reduced slightly.

Grabs/Throws
-Standing Grab Grab-box duration 4 -> 2 frames. Body box moved forward 4 units
-Dash Grab Grab-box duration 5->3 frames. Body box moved forward 4 units. IASA 33->35.
-Forward Throw DMG 11 -> 10. KBG 45 -> 60
-Back Throw DMG 10 -> 11. BKB 70 -> 40. KBG 70 -> 82
-Up Throw Now a bulb attack that Heals / Charges 3%. Now has an outer hit-box that hits non-thrown opponents for 5%. Release frame 14 -> 19. DMG 10 -> 6. Angle 100 -> 90. BKB 70 -> 50. KBG 61 -> 120. IASA 28 -> 43

Specials
-Neutral Special (Synthesis/Solar Beam)
--Solar Beam charge requirement 18 -> 22 points of charge
-Side Special (Razor Leaf)
--Removed ability to smash-throw
-Up Special (Power Whip)
--DMG inside-to-outside 13/13/13/18/18 -> 11/11/11/13/14
--BKB inside-to-outside 40/40/40/80/80 -> 40/40/40/60/80
--Landing during up-b goes into heavy landing instead of special landing.
--Fixed the glitch where up special does not go into special fall.

Others
-Can no longer heal or gain charge off of inanimate objects.
-Final Smash added - Sunny Day
--Ivysaur heals 66% and is granted 3 solar beam charges.

 

[TreK]

Ivy now has one of the worst recoveries in the game. It still allows her to go fish for gimps very deep and still be ok, but recovering against an opponent is now very difficult. You can't recover high anymore because of the dair nerf, so you can only recover with upB, which leads to a forced 80 frames long lag that you litterally can't do anything about. It could be M2K or darkjoe95, if they know how to waveland, it's a guaranteed punish. Ivy litterally only has one recovery option now. You can cover your descent with dair, fair, DJ and RL, but it is very braindead to edgeguard Ivysaur. She probably doesn't have the worst recovery (I'd say that title goes to CF), but she definitely has the worst tether now.

Her kill power has been extremely nerfed because her two main setups, utilt and the throw mixup, both are not in 3.5. Ivy doesn't kill early anymore so you will have to get those edgeguards if you want to win. That may not actually be so bad since everyone's recovery (except for the Melee top tiers) got hit hard.
The thing is, the dair nerf actually makes it harder for Ivy to edgeguard. One of her common tricks in all previous versions was to jump offstage too early, let the opponent over commit, and then delay your trajectory with a dair so that you're just at the right spot for a bair gimp. With such a low bump, the delay on your trajectory is not nearly as noticeable. The new bair also seems to be worse at gimping because of the higher angle, but I'm not familiar enough with it yet to judge it.

The uthrow change is welcome I think. One of Ivy's most polarizing traits was that in order to charge her solar beam, she had to combo into a sweetspot. On characters she could combo, she got twice-thrice as many solar beams as on characters she wasn't able to combo as well (floaties). Giving her a strong heal that you don't have to combo into evens things out and makes it possible to charge solar beams against everyone. You might very well get two solar beams consistently against floaties now.

Shield ASDI hurts Ivy a lot because of the extremely high amount of multihit moves she's got. I'm not familiar with this mechanic, coming from a Brawl background, so I can't see the full extent of the implications, but it's definitely a nerf to Ivy. If Ivy's less effective against shields (that plus the removal of footstool guardbreaks), it's going to be one heck of a struggle to approach. I wouldn't be surprised to see Ivy lose most of her matchups against projectile heavy characters, since that was already one of her secondary problems.

As far as matchups go, it's hard to tell because of the incredible quantity of changes everyone has been through. But Marth has not been changed at all so that's most likely Ivy's worst matchup now. Kirby got his dthrow fixed so we don't get infinited anymore, but he still gets free solar beams everytime he lands a swallow. It may still be a bad matchup, time will tell.

The Marth matchup means I'll drop her. There's no way I'm playing a character that can't win against the third most popular character in the game at top level. There's no point.

Overall I'd say Ivy's a better designed character, with many of her polarizing traits gone, but she suffers from characters who are not as well designed *cough* melee top tiers *cough*
The only two things I'd tweak (besides Marth) would be that I'd give her her old dair because edgeguarding her is wayyy too brainless, and I'd give her a standard grab, instead of a tether, because I believe defensive characters should have a reliable shield.

 

[WickedWarlock]

I'm a little less pessimistic about the update, but I agree with alot of your points. While she definitely got a slight nerf, I think all of it was good game design and that there are many characters who had it much worse. I'm most concerned about the meta surrounding her ledge game. I agree with the dair stalling nerf but I would have preferred 3 special tethers and the ability to cancel it. The laggy auto hop is also pretty rough but it's not as bad as it was originally slated to be. It'll be interesting to so how that aspect of her meta develops.

Most other changes were somewhat janky quirks she had, like healing off a balloon or the ridiculous length on her fair. Her vinewhip and bair got minimal changes which shouldn't change much. I still think she'll be above mid-high tier overall. Though I agree that Marth matchup just got worse than it already was.

 

[kevinw0w]

Ivy now has one of the worst recoveries in the game. It still allows her to go fish for gimps very deep and still be ok, but recovering against an opponent is now very difficult. You can't recover high anymore because of the dair nerf, so you can only recover with upB, which leads to a forced 80 frames long lag that you litterally can't do anything about. It could be M2K or darkjoe95, if they know how to waveland, it's a guaranteed punish. Ivy litterally only has one recovery option now. You can cover your descent with dair, fair, DJ and RL, but it is very braindead to edgeguard Ivysaur. She probably doesn't have the worst recovery (I'd say that title goes to CF), but she definitely has the worst tether now.

Her kill power has been extremely nerfed because her two main setups, utilt and the throw mixup, both are not in 3.5. Ivy doesn't kill early anymore so you will have to get those edgeguards if you want to win. That may not actually be so bad since everyone's recovery (except for the Melee top tiers) got hit hard.
The thing is, the dair nerf actually makes it harder for Ivy to edgeguard. One of her common tricks in all previous versions was to jump offstage too early, let the opponent over commit, and then delay your trajectory with a dair so that you're just at the right spot for a bair gimp. With such a low bump, the delay on your trajectory is not nearly as noticeable. The new bair also seems to be worse at gimping because of the higher angle, but I'm not familiar enough with it yet to judge it.

The uthrow change is welcome I think. One of Ivy's most polarizing traits was that in order to charge her solar beam, she had to combo into a sweetspot. On characters she could combo, she got twice-thrice as many solar beams as on characters she wasn't able to combo as well (floaties). Giving her a strong heal that you don't have to combo into evens things out and makes it possible to charge solar beams against everyone. You might very well get two solar beams consistently against floaties now.

Shield ASDI hurts Ivy a lot because of the extremely high amount of multihit moves she's got. I'm not familiar with this mechanic, coming from a Brawl background, so I can't see the full extent of the implications, but it's definitely a nerf to Ivy. If Ivy's less effective against shields (that plus the removal of footstool guardbreaks), it's going to be one heck of a struggle to approach. I wouldn't be surprised to see Ivy lose most of her matchups against projectile heavy characters, since that was already one of her secondary problems.

As far as matchups go, it's hard to tell because of the incredible quantity of changes everyone has been through. But Marth has not been changed at all so that's most likely Ivy's worst matchup now. Kirby got his dthrow fixed so we don't get infinited anymore, but he still gets free solar beams everytime he lands a swallow. It may still be a bad matchup, time will tell.

The Marth matchup means I'll drop her. There's no way I'm playing a character that can't win against the third most popular character in the game at top level. There's no point.

Overall I'd say Ivy's a better designed character, with many of her polarizing traits gone, but she suffers from characters who are not as well designed *cough* melee top tiers *cough*
The only two things I'd tweak (besides Marth) would be that I'd give her her old dair because edgeguarding her is wayyy too brainless, and I'd give her a standard grab, instead of a tether, because I believe defensive characters should have a reliable shield.

I don't think her recovery is as bad as you make it out to be. The dair nerf is a pretty big deal though, when both offstage or on. What makes you think her tether is now the worst in the game? I completely agree with what you in saying that edgeguarding her is braindead. 3 --> 2 tethers per airtime and inability inability them, as well as the super punishable forced getup in which we can't even drift during makes being edgeguarded really limits meaningful interaction.

I think we all saw the up-b nerf coming for a long time, although I wish our setups hadn't been scrapped. I didn't think Ivy had a particular good grab in 3.0, so I'm pretty frustrated that it's even harder to get grabs while having followups off of them being severely reduced. I personally detest the new upthrow but maybe I can find usefulness out of it over time - it's too early to say.

I think the Kirby matchup is in our favor now. His sidecutter has more endlag and his dashattack has been rightfully nerfed as well, which really limit his approach options against us. He's also much easier to edgeguard now.

Btw, how am I supposed to tag you now? lol. Teneban was a pretty cool name!

 

[TreK]

I don't think her recovery is as bad as you make it out to be. The dair nerf is a pretty big deal though, when both offstage or on. What makes you think her tether is now the worst in the game? I completely agree with what you in saying that edgeguarding her is braindead. 3 --> 2 tethers per airtime and inability inability them, as well as the super punishable forced getup in which we can't even drift during makes being edgeguarded really limits meaningful interaction.

I think we all saw the up-b nerf coming for a long time, although I wish our setups hadn't been scrapped. I didn't think Ivy had a particular good grab in 3.0, so I'm pretty frustrated that it's even harder to get grabs while having followups off of them being severely reduced. I personally detest the new upthrow but maybe I can find usefulness out of it over time - it's too early to say.

I think the Kirby matchup is in our favor now. His sidecutter has more endlag and his dashattack has been rightfully nerfed as well, which really limit his approach options against us. He's also much easier to edgeguard now.

Btw, how am I supposed to tag you now? lol. Teneban was a pretty cool name!

Oh boy you have no idea how hard it is for me to settle on a tag. My previous one, Kiros, was used pretty much everywhere because it happens to be a very popular Spanish last name, and the name of a FF8 character. So I pressed random letters and sometimes it sounded good, like it did for Teneban, but most often it sounded terrible. I ended up being called Nako and Couger sometimes, to give you an idea of how bad it could get. So I decided to just change names and settled for ¤TreK, something I was sure nobody could steal from me. Except I couldn't put a ¤ everywhere, so sometimes I was forced to use Trekiros instead.
So yeah. Just quote me and copy/paste it. Everyone just calls me TreK irl since that's the one I've been using most often for the past 5 years. I may remove the ¤ in the future, it does look a bit silly.
tl;dr : please help me I dont know how to username

But I like TreK so I don't think I'm going to change it. There are so many puns with it : when I land a combo, it's a trekombo and the victim gets trekt, when we carpool, we use the trekmobile, when I host a smashfest, it's at the trekavern, and you better keep track of trek's tricks if you don't want to be rolled over by the trek truck !

So yeah back to Ivy's recovery. Let's take a look at the other tethers :
-ZSS can do a down B and can make her DJ higher by doing an upB as she jumps. The distance she gets allows her to recover high, unlike Ivy
-Olimar can stall with his neutral B as well as Ivy used to in the last update, so he can recover high sometimes (although not as reliably as ZSS), and his tether has an hitbox so you can't just hold the ledge and wait, you actually need to time your edgehog.
-Link, TL, Lucas, and Samus have an upB that's supposedly their main recovery option.
-Ivysaur... can upB and pray. No recovering high because of the dair nerf, no hitbox (well she can still fair/RL I guess), so she's stuck with her upB that you can now stuff even more brainlessly than before.
-other characters have an upB that lets them choose between a sweetspot and overshooting, Ivy doesn't, it's the opponent that decides for her.

Ivysaur has awesome distance and speed, but she only has one way to recover and that one way happens to have a 80 frames long lag. A ledgedash takes about 20 frames so you get a good 60 frames to punish Ivy for recovering. Every. Single. Time.
I agree that the 3.0 recovery would've been OP in 3.5, but this is not an interesting solution imho.

 

[Kaoak]

How exactly do you punish Ivy's tether? I'm a Melee Marth player so I don't really know how to deal with them, since I'm not used to them. This is off topic obviously but I was just wondering, since you say Ivy's recovery is so bad. I want to figure out how to capitalize on this matchup since it is so severely skewed in my favor.

 

[Alteffor]

How exactly do you punish Ivy's tether? I'm a Melee Marth player so I don't really know how to deal with them, since I'm not used to them. This is off topic obviously but I was just wondering, since you say Ivy's recovery is so bad.

Either hit her while reeling in or grab the ledge, wait for the full second of forced jump and hit her there.

 

[OrrA]

How exactly do you punish Ivy's tether? I'm a Melee Marth player so I don't really know how to deal with them, since I'm not used to them. This is off topic obviously but I was just wondering, since you say Ivy's recovery is so bad. I want to figure out how to capitalize on this matchup since it is so severely skewed in my favor.

grab ledge, force auto jump, waveland from ledge, turn around fsmash.

 

[kevinw0w]

Oh boy you have no idea how hard it is for me to settle on a tag. My previous one, Kiros, was used pretty much everywhere because it happens to be a very popular Spanish last name, and the name of a FF8 character. So I pressed random letters and sometimes it sounded good, like it did for Teneban, but most often it sounded terrible. I ended up being called Nako and Couger sometimes, to give you an idea of how bad it could get. So I decided to just change names and settled for ¤TreK, something I was sure nobody could steal from me. Except I couldn't put a ¤ everywhere, so sometimes I was forced to use Trekiros instead.
So yeah. Just quote me and copy/paste it. Everyone just calls me TreK irl since that's the one I've been using most often for the past 5 years. I may remove the ¤ in the future, it does look a bit silly.
tl;dr : please help me I dont know how to username

But I like TreK so I don't think I'm going to change it. There are so many puns with it : when I land a combo, it's a trekombo and the victim gets trekt, when we carpool, we use the trekmobile, when I host a smashfest, it's at the trekavern, and you better keep track of trek's tricks if you don't want to be rolled over by the trek truck !

So yeah back to Ivy's recovery. Let's take a look at the other tethers :
-ZSS can do a down B and can make her DJ higher by doing an upB as she jumps. The distance she gets allows her to recover high, unlike Ivy
-Olimar can stall with his neutral B as well as Ivy used to in the last update, so he can recover high sometimes (although not as reliably as ZSS), and his tether has an hitbox so you can't just hold the ledge and wait, you actually need to time your edgehog.
-Link, TL, Lucas, and Samus have an upB that's supposedly their main recovery option.
-Ivysaur... can upB and pray. No recovering high because of the dair nerf, no hitbox (well she can still fair/RL I guess), so she's stuck with her upB that you can now stuff even more brainlessly than before.
-other characters have an upB that lets them choose between a sweetspot and overshooting, Ivy doesn't, it's the opponent that decides for her.

Ivysaur has awesome distance and speed, but she only has one way to recover and that one way happens to have a 80 frames long lag. A ledgedash takes about 20 frames so you get a good 60 frames to punish Ivy for recovering. Every. Single. Time.
I agree that the 3.0 recovery would've been OP in 3.5, but this is not an interesting solution imho.

Haha ok, very cool!

Ok, thanks for explaining. Do we still have the quickest reel-in though? Whenever I get hit offstage I usually elect to just immediately up-b and reel-in, hopefully beating out any of their ledgegrab options. Yeah, I just think it's very mindless edgeguarding tethers now.

 

[Swann]

Olimar's tether does not have a hitbox. It's easily the worst and he probably has the worst recovery in the game right now if you keep in mind that the tether length is linked to how many pikmin HAPPEN to be near him after he's gotten hit (sometimes they go flying, although it was mitigated somewhat in this patch. They can still die, though). Both Olimar and Ivy can put hitboxes at or near the ledge to force the opponent to hop off (a la melee marth/sheik fair), and Ivy can even from distance (leaf). But yes, tether is not amazing any more.

Ivy still has the fastest reel-in (2f).

----

Honestly, the inability to drop and retether was probably the most unnecessary and most painful change when coupled with the other changes to tether recoveries. Traditional up b tethers really do need that extra utility, and I personally am not looking forward to being unable to dodge sonic's spring or other gimp attempts by retethering horizontally to stall, or to use it to make the opponent vacate the ledge early.

Ftilt received a HUGE buff with its consistent SDI multiplier of .8, making it useful once more.

Uthrow heals are a welcome addition. I noticed that although uthrow->whip is gone, you can set up a solarbeam pretty easily from this throw. Dthrow->vine whip still works at low% against many and on bad DI against everyone

Vine whip's kill power seems to have been reduced DRASTICALLY. It seems that we may have to rely more heavily on uair, usmash, and bair, which is worrying. Usmash kills stupidly early, which is nice. EDIT: nair->usmash seems to link at mid/high% against some characters.

Leaf's trajectory was normalized, which is IMO a good thing.

Dtilt hits much faster and is less susceptible to CC it seems.

Everything else is pretty much the same. I took third at a local yesterday, dropping sets to GW and Sonic. I feel Ivy can likely compete against Sonic, which is a marked improvement from 3.02 in my book. GW though... hahahaha wow that character. Had much less trouble against previously terrible matchups, such at Pit, MK, and Link. As always, YMMV.

EDIT: I can't seem to gatling combo any more. Can someone else (hopefully a Brawl player that actually understands how DACUS/gatling timings work) confirm??

 

[OrrA]

im not 100% sure on the previous settings but i think i read in a thread earlier that all characters now have the potential to DACUS in a 2 frame window whereas before some characters couldnt do it at all and some characters had larger windows, now its a more advanced globally available tech

 

[Swann]

Right. I can confirm that we have a useless dacus (dash attack is interrupted by usmash), but I can't seem to get the gatling to connect (when dash attack is interrupted AFTER the hitbox comes out).

 

[Streetwize]

I thought only certain characters could gatling combo. I never read that everybody could perform it.

 

[WhinoTheRhino]

I also noticed that I couldn't get the gatling combo to work anymore in 3.5, although I didn't really use it extensively in 3.02 so the timing may just be a bit different.

 

[Alteffor]

Vine whip's kill power seems to have been reduced DRASTICALLY. It seems that we may have to rely more heavily on uair, usmash, and bair, which is worrying. Usmash kills stupidly early, which is nice.

Only the semi-sweet spot knockback has been reduced (40/40/40/80->60/80). With the exception of the tiny bit it loses because of the 4 damage it lost, the sweet spot should still kill about the same time.

I also noticed that I couldn't get the gatling combo to work anymore in 3.5, although I didn't really use it extensively in 3.02 so the timing may just be a bit different.

Neither dash attack nor Usmash has been changed. Might just be a placebo?

 

[Anuran]

I played a whole bunch of friendlies today with ( DK main) and Doppelganger ( link main). I can confirm that up smash and back air are for sure our most reliable kill options. I also really missed fair length and dair stalling. We have like no ledge options now :/
This being said I have decided to stick it out with Ivy/samus regardless of the changes. It just wouldn't feel right maining anyone else.

Another thing I noticed is that grab -> a couple pummels -> up through (which finishes fully charging solar beam) directly into that solar beam is hilarious.

 

[TreK]

Only the semi-sweet spot knockback has been reduced (40/40/40/80->60/80). With the exception of the tiny bit it loses because of the 4 damage it lost, the sweet spot should still kill about the same time

http://www.ssbwiki.com/Knockback
Actually, look at the knockback formula, you'll see that the damage the move deals is taken into account. That means that if two moves have the same angle, bkb and kbg, the one that deals less damage will kill later

 

[Alteffor]

http://www.ssbwiki.com/Knockback
Actually, look at the knockback formula, you'll see that the damage the move deals is taken into account. That means that if two moves have the same angle, bkb and kbg, the one that deals less damage will kill later

I knew it was taken into account, I just didn't think it was that dramatic. Everyone has always told me it was negligible, the formula however show that its pretty significant actually :-/

 

[Anuran]

Was nair -> triple uptilt at low percents a thing in 3.2?

 

[WhinoTheRhino]

It was possible, but very rare I think. Nair to single or double Utilt was a thing though (in 3.02).

 

[TheGravyTrain]

Back to the tether discussion, I would say Olimars recovery is SIGNIFICANTLY worse than Ivy's. They removed the hitbox. The stall isn't to significant. What's worse though is half the time pikmin don't respond and you only get half the length. Or, because you used your projectile (pikmin health nerf), you have less to begin with. Also, anything less than 3 pikmin's grab box does not grab the ledge where it visibly should.

While your recovery got nerfed, Olimars saving grace (the hitbox) is gone. His tether length is dependant on the number of pikmin which has many glitches/reliability issues. I comment on his stall because I don't know how much your guys's got nerfed, but it doesn't seem to give him much.

 

[Anuran]

Well It is very real now
I'm really liking new upthrow. I feel like it ties Ivy's kit together in a way it had not really before I know we lost some kill set ups with Power-whip but honestly with this broken ass up smash and back-air its not like we are lacking in kill potential department.

 

[Anuran]

Back to the tether discussion, I would say Olimars recovery is SIGNIFICANTLY worse than Ivy's. They removed the hitbox. The stall isn't to significant. What's worse though is half the time pikmin don't respond and you only get half the length. Or, because you used your projectile (pikmin health nerf), you have less to begin with. Also, anything less than 3 pikmin's grab box does not grab the ledge where it visibly should.

While your recovery got nerfed, Olimars saving grace (the hitbox) is gone. His tether length is dependant on the number of pikmin which has many glitches/reliability issues. I comment on his stall because I don't know how much your guys's got nerfed, but it doesn't seem to give him much.

it got nerfed probably about 50% on the 1st and 75% less vertical boost thereafter once it is stale.

 

[BananaBolts]

I got a nice zero-to-death on Charizard today. I managed to land the sweet-spots with upsmash -> uair -> uair -> solarbeam

I had just used my solarbeam on Charizard's previous stock and the three healing hits charged my solarbeam for that last hit.

 

[OrrA]

theres nothing like being empty on solar power and comboing 3 sweet spots in to solar beam, on fast fallers im like a mini falco doing columns with uptilts, dairs, and uairs. works a lot better if you can cancel the dair which is now 80% easier to do than in 3.02 (which i worked so hard on practicing my movement for so i could be the only ivy who cancels dair approaches :[ )

 

[Blank Mauser]

Ivy's tether is fine. She can still drift back towards the ledge for a mix-up when recovering, and then fast fall back to the ledge. The amount of frames to punish her for drifting back to the ledge are roughly the same if not less, simply because you can fast fall it now. Tested in debug mode around 27-30. Yes its easy to get free damage on her but compared to people who straight up die/get gimped, thats honestly not a bad trade off for having a move that can refresh your ledge invul from yonder outside the stage almost immediately.

Ivy is still super frustrating to play against.

 

[Swann]

Okay I have no idea what you're talking about when you say

The amount of frames to punish her for drifting back to the ledge are roughly the same if not less, simply because you can fast fall it now.

Can you explain what you mean?

not a bad trade off for having a move that can refresh your ledge invul from yonder outside the stage almost immediately.

Tether does not refresh ledge invincibility unless the ledge is vacant. Look how absolutely braindead it is to edgeguard tether characters right now (Ivy, ZSS, Olimar). You can edgeguard them normally like you would anyone else until they are forced to recover low, you grab the ledge, then you do literally whatever you want once they are forced into their awful laggy ledgehop animation.

Aside: guys please start doing this

 

[Blank Mauser]

Can you explain what you mean?

If someone is occupying the ledge, press A and hold away from the ledge then immediately fast fall. They'll get up to punish you and you'll drift back and grab the ledge. Being able to fast fall makes this a viable option compared to her ledge hop in 3.02, as in similar if not less amount of frames you're vulnerable. You can still be attacked but its a mix-up option. Some characters can waveland and attack you regardless, but they won't always get an optimal punish. Usually just an aerial that can sometimes be DI'ed so you can recover high. Wavelanded to try and Fsmash the drift back, but instead I did the regular hop? Well now you can only get a grab and refresh my double jumps. This is all considering the opponent reacts/guesses your timing of the pull in the first place. Yes it has tons of counterplay, but her recovery is really not that awful.

Tether does not refresh ledge invincibility unless the ledge is vacant. Look how absolutely braindead it is to edgeguard tether characters right now (Ivy, ZSS, Olimar). You can edgeguard them normally like you would anyone else until they are forced to recover low, you grab the ledge, then you do literally whatever you want once they are forced into their awful laggy ledgehop animation.

I'd like to point out the words I've bolded in your quote as applying to...a lot of other good melee characters. Marth and Sheik for example. What exactly is wrong with edgegaurding Ivy like "anyone else." Is that not the goal? Not to mention if other characters are trying to recover, or edgegaurd her because she IS recovering high (Dair is still good guys, its just not INCREDIBLY spammable) she'll just snap to the ledge before them and then kill them. So having that "average" recovery that doesn't even get her immediately gimped is her trade-off for being able to "braindead edgegaurd" half the cast. I still expect great things from Ivy if people don't drop her. I personally see her as one of the best characters in 3.5.

 

[Swann]

I have no problem with being easy to edgeguard, but you were arguing that Ivy is easy to edgeguard but also that she has options, which seemed contradictory given your closing statement. Thank you for clarifying. I was unaware that our drift back-FF might be quick enough to avoid some followups. I worry that it'll catch some Ivy players in really bad DI but it's worth knowing and should definitely get around a hard commit like waveland->dsmash. I, for one, will be making use of this.

Science:
I just tested this in debug mode. Results...

• Holding away from the ledge yields this position (frame 22, 23, 24)
• Holding toward the stage yields this position (frame 22, 23, 24)

Stats:

• Ivy has 23 uninterruptible frames until FF (FF occurs ON frame 24)
• If we drift offstage, and the ledge is vacant, the earliest possible frame to snap to ledge and gain ledge invincibility after retethering is frame 70 after doing our edgehog hop.
• The earliest possible frame we can land onstage is frame 27, and we have to wait another 30 frames after landing to act (shield comes out frame 58)

 

[Sweet™]

What does 3.5 mean for us? It means we should all look for other characters that don't get nerfed every single update.

 

[Sweet™]

Double post.

My last comment was meant as a joke, but after working with Ivysaur since 3.5, I can't do it. She's just awful now; they destroyed her, imo. Time to cop out and play Fox.

 

[TreK]

It's funny how nobody dropped her in 3.0 but everyone's dropping her in 3.5

Or sad, it depends.

 

[EmLeingod]

She went from having hard MUs with the Melee s-tiers (other than Peach, icys, and jiggs) to having near unwinnable MUs with them. Even I'm looking to find some sort of counter for the Melee top-tiers. Unfortunately, to no avail. I think I'm just gonna have to cave and pick up fox. *sigh*

She's completely fine with the rest of the cast, but those tether nerfs man. She still doesn't have a good neutral (can be DD camped hard) and doesn't have any good kill options other than back air and uair at high percents. If she can get you offstage, she's golden, but good luck getting people there.

She's still just barely viable I think, but pretty low down on the tierlist now.

 

[Sixonesix]

I don't really see it. Only character I would definitely seek a secondary against as a result of the changes in 3.5 is Fox (if they play ultra campy and cheesy like they probably should against Ivy). Marth and Sheik got a lot harder for sure without throw -> vine whip to keep up in stocks but I still don't think either is unwinnable. Falco and Falcon are mostly the same matchup as in 3.0.

And this is in exchange for not getting absolutely destroyed by: Mewtwo, Lucas, Pit, Kirby, and Link anymore. I think in terms of matchup spreads we're definitely still one of the better characters in the game.

Really, the only thing we need going forward is a better designed vine whip. I could (and probably will) write up a whole post about how overdone the vine whip nerf was...

 

[EmLeingod]

With vine whip, the hitbox should have NEVER been as big as it was in 3.0, and the 50/50 DI mix up off her throws for a move that kills at 70%ish was bad design. But now it's just an okay kill move that's really hard to hit. They really should have given it 2.6's knock back since the hitbox is now a reasonable size.

 

[Sixonesix]

I agree with that but I think the way the hitboxes are arranged on vine whip could use some more work. There have been a ton of times when I got the flub hit on what looked like an obvious tipper and times where it feels like I randomly got a sweetspot on pure stem. It's that lack of consistency I don't like, especially now that vine whip isn't even in our top 3 best KO moves anymore.

 

[L. Ambrosia]

I'm pretty disappointed / confused with the 3.5 changes. Just with tether changes alone it was going to be rough, it was obviously going to affect Ivysaur and Olimar a lot harder than the other tether characters who aren't FORCED to use theirs. That alone might not have been so bad but they had to go ahead and pile on the nerfs to other moves too. Ok maybe Up-B deserved some toning down, but to nerf fair? Side-B? Solarbeam charge? Ivy wasn't even a top 10 character in 3.0, it's perplexing to see how she got butchered anyway, just because she's "annoying to play against" (which is apparently more of a pressing issue than being actually good). Ivy was the only character I really wanted to play in PM, but with her state now I'll probably just go give Smash 4 a shot.

 

[Dng3]

Not enough was given in exchange for the nerfs. Heal 3% with new up throw? Great, let's up the charge requirements as well. Yea, I don't see what the mindset was with this patch. Up B and Bair warranted toning down, but everything else? Someone from the team please provide an explanation.

 

[kevinw0w]

Not enough was given in exchange for the nerfs. Heal 3% with new up throw

And watch your opponent touch the ground before you can even act out of the throw animation

 

[EmLeingod]

And watch your opponent touch the ground before you can even act out of the throw animation

I get follow ups off it all the time lmao. Like several times, off of good opponents. Seed bomb is particularity good past low percents(or up-b off of bad DI), and re-grabs are possible at lower percents. I love her new u-throw personally. Sure it isn't the magic win button it used to be, but it's still good in its own right.