How Do I Ranno?

[Calamity Heart]

Every time a new character has come out, I play around quite a bit with it in order to get a feel for how they work, knowing that in the foreseeable future, all I'm gonna be fighting online are those characters. And up to now, I think I've gotten a good feel for all of the new ones, even though I, myself play some better than others. Etalus is my spirit animal. :D

Clairen was the same way. After picking her up, I got the hang of using her and what to generally do with her within a few games, how to counter her (The key is PATIENCE.) and she's now my secondary. Ranno's the first new character that I really have no idea what to do with, or where to even begin to learn how he ticks.

Every game I play as Ranno, I find myself button mashing and just hoping that one of his lanky aerials connects and sends my opponent away. When I trap someone in a bubble, I have no idea how to follow up on it half the time. And I never seem to improve no matter how many times I play him.

And since I can't really get a feel for Ranno, it makes it extra frustrating to fight against him, especially a good one, because I don't know where to begin trying to fight against him besides just going through the usual motions (and getting punished for it with an endless stream of poison and bubbles.

Ranno mains! How do you do it? Any sort of tips, hints, advice, general strategies, etc when fighting as or against the frog?

[Xio_the_fluff]

I can offer several tons of stuff as ranno is a secondary for me, and all of my friends claim Im pretty decent at him.

He has one hell of a neutral game. his nair (which will likely be nerfed soon but whatever) is a great start in or combo break. up tilt covers a fairly large amount of area in use. and the first couple of jabs are really good poking tools.

knowing how to special reverse his neutral special is actually really helpfull if you want to mix up approaches and or counters (I'd use it to look like Im going for a forward air, and go for a back air instead.)

Now, though you really shouldnt spam it for obvious reasons. his side and down specials, in all seriousness these are the most powerful parts of his kit, as you can prevent attacks and slow movements by bubbling your opponent. or slingshot yourself around with the tongue by hitting a bubble trap or a collision object (like a wall or platform/floor) you can cancel the grappling varient of the tongue with about any air move or a jump for mixup sake.

And a fairly decent folow up if you can manage the angle is trapping a person in a bubble and using the spin version of his recovery (up special and holding light attack during it.) If angled right you can have all, or most of the darts sent out hit the person for a good several percent and if timed with the bubble popping, up to four stacks of poison.

That at least is when using him. If you want to counter him Id suggest trying to hit him into his own bubble traps at low percent (try to prevent one being out at high percents as he can be saved by it, since it slows knockback to a minimal amount) and if you can: parry his moves, if you have poison stacks at all parry will remove them all at once. As for his varients of recoveries, the spin has no actual hit box outside of the projectiles to protect him, and he enters special fall after its finished.

so either hit him with a long range or disjointed attack to knock him out of it or space it out and go in once he is in special fall. The tongue all I can offer is dont be within the down angle that its air version has when the frog is attempting to recover, its a free recovery for him if you get bubbled.


Sorry if my responce was wordy, but I enjoy offering some form of help on a game Im at least decently knowledgable about. Hope some of this helps!

[saisei11]

Originally posted by Xio.:

knowing how to special reverse his neutral special is actually really helpfull if you want to mix up approaches and or counters (I'd use it to look like Im going for a forward air, and go for a back air instead.)

How? I can't consistenly reverse his darts in the air(like you could with Sheik in melee for example). I sometimes get it, sometimes don't. I've tried tweaking the sensitivities to no avail. Can you break down the input maybe?

[ZeroJanitor]

^B then tap the opposite direction. like how b reverses work in brawl/sm4sh, its basically the inverse of melee turnarounds

[Xio_the_fluff]

When it comes to preforming a special reverse, there is a tutorial within the game itself that will show this games specific timing, however there are instances of videos of smash bro's 4 that will show the timing as well, since the timing for special reverses are similar in both of the games.


However, if you dont want to go through the tutorial, or watch videos, I'd suggest going into the training mode, using the menu to slow the game down, and practice the timing that way. once you get the timing in one level of slowness, up the speed of the game, and continue to do it untill you can do it at the normal speed of the game.

And please note that not all special moves are able to be reversed (moves like ori's neutral, side and up special cannot be reversed as far as I can tell.)

I hope this helps to some extent.