Source
r/CrazyHand•
-cyan

The strongest edge guarders in Ultimate

Ultimate

Hey all,

I was checking out some old footage of KoreanDJ playing Melee in his heyday. I have always been impressed with his ability to go incredibly deep off stage to secure a kill, particularly with Sheik.

That said, which characters do you all think are the best for guarding the ledge in Ultimate? On my list right now are Inkling and Pika/Pichu, who have amazing frame data and recovery ability.

I would love to hear what you guys think.

Posted Feb 6, 2019, 8:02 PM UTC

1521
SwitchSpyder•

Check out this video Leffen made, ranking characters with their ability to edge guard or ledge trap/guard.

19
-cyanOP•

This is sick. Thank you!

2
9001mg•

Dedede is pretty solid is terms of ledge trapping. Not that he’s high tier but it’s a huge part of his play style. He has like four different gordo options that cover almost everything. Some tech has come to light and is goin around with his cstick gordo throws that only leave one option for ledge grab recoveries, which is easy to read, it’s nasty. He also has good off stage options. His nair’s hitbox is out for a long time. He can go super deep and recover easily.

8
GreenOnBothSides•

C-stick Gordo throws? Any chance you could explain this or point me in the direction of some resources? It sounds cool and I haven't heard of it. Thanks in advance!

2
9001mg•

No problemo! https://youtu.be/FzyFWQ1UnOA

3
darkseadrake•

Meta knight is a great choice. His recovery options are endless and he can do some gimpy stuff.

4
XinEhop•

Link's and Zelda's edgeguarding are really good. Link's nair and fair are good at that, bomb, boomerang and aerial Up-B are really good. There's also dair to spike. For Zelda, Din's can force a reaction, phantom is good off stage, at ledge trapping as well. Nayru's is also fantastic for recoveries with hitboxes. You can also combo the first hit of FW into phantom. You can also combo nayru's into phantom. And there's obviously dair

3
BogeyT15•

I like to go deep with pit

3
Stratos1000•

Pac-Man is actually quite good at edgeguarding IMO. You can drop his Hydrant to get people who are recovering vertically, and his fruit can be used to attack people recovering at other angles (use the cherry, strawberry, or apple to get people recovering diagonally, and orange, melon, or key to hit people recovering horizontally). His aerials also come out pretty fast, and he can stage spike if you hit your bair on someone next to the stage.

Unfortunately, even though his recovery is arguably the best in the game in terms of sheer distance (Side B + Up B goes a ridiculously long distance), his recovery is precictable and if someone jumps on your trampoline when you're trying to get back on stage it could gimp you. So it's not that great of an idea to chase someone off stage unless you know for sure you can kill then.

3
tom641Mains: Bowz, Villabelle Sides: Most heavies, Inkling•

right now Ivysaur can make it literally impossible to grab the ledge for some characters so that's fun and interactive

3
[deleted]•

[deleted]

1
BebopFlow•

Greninja has some great edge guarding tools. If he drops off stage with a bair it will stage spike, his side b (shadow sneak) is invisible in the air (though tricky to time) and is a kill move, he has a counter that can be used against a lot of recoveries with practice (you need to play with the angle for moving targets), he can wall cling on stages where it's possible, his neutral b projectile has good range and will kill off stage easily when full charged, and he has a great recovery allowing him to go pretty deep.

Edit: I forgot to mention that his up B, hydropump, pushes enemies away. It can be tricky to aim and doesn't push super hard but it can gimp a lot of weaker/vertical recoveries like Cloud, Samus, most swordies, DK etc.

1
Zumbug13•

Zelda is really good at edgeguarding

1
Dark-Roast_Coffee•

Shulk is definitely a strong edgeguarder and ledgetrapper.

Shulk has the range so to not to have to go far to gimp. Another thing is that Smash and Jump art make this better. Smash kills offstage at ridiculously early percents and Jump can give you deep edgeguards and you can still make it back.

Buster and Speed are great for ledgetrapping. Buster nair covers almost every option, does good damage, and you can be at low risk in Speed because well... You're fast.

1
Lightning6475•

Mario has a pretty strong edge guard game

FLUDD, Fireball, Cape, Back air and Forward air

1
bonelessbeanNerf Little Mac•

Lucas with PK thunder

-2
BenSomeone•

For edge guarding, ness, although very different from Lucas, is better. He has yo-yo, sh pk fire, magnet cancels to do easy back airs/nairs, and a better PKT for guarding.

6
Dr_Golduck•

I’ve been struggling deciding between ness and Lucas. I got Lucas to Elite online a little while back and have since stayed just below elite level since. I’m leaning toward ness, bc at the higher levels it’s becoming increasingly hard to land a lethal PK Freeze and tough to land other lethals (example: dashing bair while edgeguarding).

What is a magnet cancel? I’d love to be able to do easier Bairs off stage sides.

2
BenSomeone•

I’ll give you the best run down I can, but I’m a ness main, so a little biased.

Ness and Lucas seem similar, but they both have very different play styles because they want different things. Ness wants to carry them offstage with long strings, frametraps, and an incredible edgeguarding toolkit. Lucas wants to zone them out and stop them from accomplishing their goals, getting stage control before battering them in a tough position to get the kill.

Because of these differences in goals, neutral will be played differently. Ness players will try to threaten and space with short hop fairs, empty jumps, and often different types of DJC magnets (double jump cancel magnet. If you down b in the middle of a dj animation, you go forward and preserve height.) and go in when the opponent makes a mistake. Lucas tends to play neutral by slowly approaching and stopping approaches with PK fire, ranged grabs, and dash dance camping.

Because ness is more up close oriented, more aggressive, it can be easier to land a kill on many opponents. There are ways to DJC magnet that turn you around in midair, allowing you to catch the opponent off guard with a back air. Between this, yo-yo at the ledge, great edgeguards with PKT1, fair, and magnet, and the second best killthrow in the game, he can reliably land kills. Lucas often needs to turn to camping and zoning with dash dances or PK fire to close out stocks, making it harder to kill at high percents.

PS: IIRC Lucas doesn’t retain momentum through DJC magnet. Watch a ness player (Awestin, FOW, BestNess) to see how they use magnet. When Lucas does it, he stops his momentum and goes up a little. This isn’t nearly as useful, as ness can cancel his momentum with it as well by doing an dash attack, cancelled into jump, cancelled into magnet.

4
Dr_Golduck•

Thanks a bunch for the in depth answer. I definitely have some things to practice. I also just learned what wavedashing is and I think that will up my game considerably too.

My first main was duck hunt and it became frustrating not being able to land lethals above 150%. Part of why I picked Lucas, bc the PK freeze can kill so quick. Once I got to higher GSPs it became much harder to land those freezes and getting those kills at high percents were tough just like you mentioned.

Although my playstyle is a bit different for Lucas, for my neutral game I played Lucas similar to a rush down char.Dash SH F/n/dairs until I could get around 20% in order to do a SH Dair utilt nair combo. Then I play the typical zoner/turtle and edgeguard style.

I’ve only been playing ness seriously for a couple days. Your advice was excellent thanks a lot.

1