Brawler Arsenal

Grounded Attacks

Neutral Attack

Neutral Attacks

Ike sticks out a jab to the midsection, followed by a straight leg kick. He finishes this three-hit sequence with a heavy overhead sword swing, knocking away foes. Neutral attack is mainly used as your quick out-of-shield option for punishing your opponent’s mistakes. However, as a poke, you can set up traps if you can read your foe’s retaliation habits. For instance, a common response after shielding an attack is to shield-grab. You can go for neutral attack, then a slightly delayed neutral attack 2, beating out the opponent’s grab attempt and rewarding yourself with a knockdown combo you can capitalize on.

Dash Attack

Ike performs a running uppercut swing with an incredible amount of weight and might behind it, launching foes up and away into the air. Ike’s dash attack is a high-impact, high-risk maneuver. It inflicts a considerable amount of shield-stun when shielded, so it’s usually only punishable by neutral attacks and extremely quick tilt attacks. However, whiffing it leaves you exposed to reprisal.

Defensive Attacks

Tilts

Side Tilt

Ike delivers a horizontal slash directly in front of him, knocking back foes. This ground attack is a good middle-of-the-road option for punishing certain recoveries and laggy attacks. You can also use it to punish maneuvers like on-the-spot dodges and ledge rolls without having to commit to your slower smash attacks.

Up Tilt

Ike raises Ragnell over his head and performs a short hop into the air with blade extended, defending himself from aerial aggression. Ike’s up tilt is a remarkably powerful anti-air attack, thanks to its persistent hitbox as he raises Ragnell.

While a true combo follow-up after hitting with up tilt is rare, up tilt puts the enemy into a prime juggle-trap situation, giving you a strong advantage state, as you can begin mixing up your follow-up anti-air attacks and forcing your opponent to double-jump or air-dodge.

Down Tilt

Ike crouches low and performs a swift sweeping attack with his sword. Down tilt is a low-profile attack with excellent combo-starting potential, as it pops up foes on hit. It has very little lag and is best used to condition and test your opponent’s reactions. If you connect with down tilt, keep an eye on how your foe responds while in their disadvantage state, and adjust your game plan accordingly.

If your attack is shielded from range, you can follow up with more aggression or another down tilt poke, since it’s largely safe on shield.

Smashes

Side Smash

With a two-handed grip and considerable windup, Ike smashes Ragnell down over his head, obliterating foes in front of him. You’re not likely to hit with this attack without setting it up. The most likely scenario where you can KO an enemy with Ike’s side smash is if you can make a hard read on an opponent’s defensive reaction, such as off of an air dodge after a down tilt pop-up. You can also go for a predictive side smash attempt on an opponent’s ledge roll or ledge climb.

Up Smash

Ike launches an incredibly powerful upward slash over his head, blasting away nearby foes. While it’s a considerably slow-starting attack, the arc of this smash covers Ike’s front, head, and rear. However, it leaves him highly vulnerable if shielded or avoided.

Down Smash

Ike crouches down and performs two heavy sweeping attacks with Ragnell: one in front, followed by one behind. The rear hit deals more damage and launches farther than the frontal hitbox. Down smash is mainly used to clear out multiple foes (in free-for-all and team play, for instance). Otherwise, it’s extremely unsafe to use in a standard neutral game.

Grabs

Grabs

Ike grabs his foe with his left hand. Ike grabs with okay speed, not the quickest but not heavyweight speed either, with moderate reach. Forward and back throws are mainly used for tech setups, as they force the opponent to respond with a tech get-up option, from which you have a strong advantage state. For enemies at roughly medium-damage percentages, up throw into forward air attack is a true combo. At higher percentages, it’s no longer guaranteed, but turns into mix-up and juggle-combo opportunities instead.

While up throw can lead into a true combo follow-up, down throw is your best option for dishing out damage in most situations. The timing for linking a follow-up up air or forward air is a bit more lenient. However, the direct vertical launching effect of up air makes it better for finishing off enemies near the top blast zone.

Aerial Attacks

Aerials

Neutral Air Attack

Ike leaps into the air and performs a spinning sword attack, covering almost every angle around him with Ragnell’s impressive reach.

This is your main aerial poking and spacing attack for both air-to-ground and air-to-air neutral game. While forward air attack fulfills a similar role due to its similar hitbox coverage, neutral air attack has an advantage when it comes to starting combos, as it pops up enemies for potential combo follow-ups off of most grounded hits.

Like most attacks, the height and time at which you connect with the attack largely determine your advantage, and this is particularly true of Ike’s aerial attacks, as they have considerable landing lag.

Your main goal with neutral and forward air attack is to connect with them late in their swing animations or right before you hit the ground. Once you master the timing, you can begin applying follow-up pressure based on how you’re reading your opponent’s responses. Go for more offense with a down tilt or neutral attack, or grab them if they’re playing defensively. With precision, you can even use a deep neutral air attack to set up a footstool.

Forward Air Attack

While wielding Ragnell with both hands, Ike delivers a heavy downward swing as he plummets down from the air. Like neutral air attack, forward air covers an incredibly large area. Ike begins the swing above him and covers his entire front before ending the swing near his feet. Unlike neutral air attack, forward air doesn’t extend a rear hitbox, but can be easier to use as a fast fall attack directly onto an enemy’s head.

Because its knockback effect is a pronounced horizontal one, it’s not a great combo-starter. However, it’s much better than neutral air attack for KO’ing high-percentage opponents, especially near ledges.

It’s important to space your forward air attempts, particularly against shielding enemies. In many situations, it’s recommended that you control your aerial trajectory by holding back after the forward air input (sequence is made easier by using the C-stick to perform the forward air attack).

Back Air Attack

While airborne, Ike quickly turns and lashes out with his sword, striking enemies behind him and knocking them down. This is Ike’s fastest-starting aerial attack by a mile. What it lacks in range, it makes up for in speed.

Back air attack is one of your main edge-guarding attacks, both as an air-to-air to deal with airborne recovering opponents and as an anti-ledge-hanging tool, for punishing ledge-rolling and ledge-climbing.

Back air can also be used as a low-altitude attack against grounded opponents in the neutral game. On hit, it can knock down (or force a tech get-up, allowing for a potential mix-up).

Up Air Attack

While airborne, Ike slashes up into the air in a wide-angle crescent arc, clearing out enemies above him. Up air attack is a quintessential anti-air attack with a superb hitbox-to-hurtbox ratio. Up air’s attack window isn’t as wide as neutral air attack’s, but boasts remarkable vertical and horizontal reach.

Naturally, up air and up tilt are your primary anti-airs for combo-juggling purposes.

Down Air Attack

Ike descends upon his foe with a weighty downward thrust, smashing them down. Down air attack is a relatively slow downthrust-type attack, with a meteor smash effect when connecting with the tip. It’s mainly used for finishing off foes over a pit or as a follow-up to knocking down an enemy.

Special Moves

Special Moves

Neutral Special: Eruption

Ike plunges his sword into the ground, triggering a fiery burst. The longer you charge this special, the more pillars you unleash (up to a maximum of three). At maximum charge, Ike deals 10% damage to himself.

At around halfway charge, Eruption causes a vertical launching effect, while at max charge, it causes a horizontal knockback effect. The vertical launching effect generally has a higher chance of knocking out enemies, depending on the situation.

Eruption is an effective edge-guarding attack since its reach extends above and below, as well as in front and behind, making it great for punishing recovering challengers with expert timing, just as they grasp the ledge.

Its best attribute is that its hitbox persists for a decent amount of time.

Side Special: Quick Draw

Ike lunges forward and slashes at foes in his path. Quick Draw is an attack that doubles as a recovery option. It has a unique mechanic: if you successfully hit an enemy with it while airborne, you don’t suffer from a helpless free-fall. Otherwise, if you whiff Quick Draw, your trajectory and descent are locked and you have to land on a platform to survive.

Quick Draw has a relatively high amount of landing lag, depending on when you land after executing it. But there’s a sweet spot where you can act much earlier than normal. At around full jump height, Ike is free to act from Quick Draw much earlier than if he lands from double jump or short hop height. Getting a feel for the correct height takes practice and experience.

Up Special: Aether

Ike throws his sword high, launching the enemy into the air, then leaps to catch his blade and completes the sequence by crashing down on his victim. Ike is briefly invulnerable (has super armor) to flinching before the active attack portion. The first few frames of its descending hitbox cause meteor smash.

It’s important to note that Aether allows for only a slight horizontal trajectory drift, so you have to train your spacing with this recovery attack, particularly when it comes to aggressive edge-guarding. It’s also punishable in most cases, so use it sparingly.

Down Special: Counter

Ike blocks an enemy’s attack and then returns the favor with a powerful reprisal blow. The stronger the blocked attack, the more vicious his reprisal.

As with most parry and reprisal attacks, Counter is a high-risk maneuver, and its use is advised against in most situations. But if you have a good read on your opponent’s attack patterns, you can totally demoralize them with repeated Counters.

Final Smash: Great Aether

Ike knocks his foes into the air and then strikes them repeatedly. Finally, he slams them down to the ground with a single powerful blow. The first strike lacks reach, but it can hit multiple opponents.