Editor’s note: this is a user-contributed guide. Special thanks to Isla for writing this up! If you’d like to join her Spirit-focused amiibo server for more information on how they work, please follow this link.
Hello I’m Isla, I’ve been in the amiibo scene for over a year now and over the past few months I’ve been testing out this Spirit hoping to find some level of success. Impact run is interesting because much in the same vein as the Instadrop Spirit effect, Impact run puts a hitbox over your dash. Unlike Instadrop, Impact run does not affect your move speed (kind of like how Instadrop greatly boosts your falling speed when fast-falling). I do want to preface this guide with a small warning: this Spirit hasn’t seen any notable tournament placings, and is only just now getting proper experimentation. That doesn’t mean this Spirit is hopeless, though!
Why it works
Impact run is a finicky Spirit. It was recently discovered that Figure Players (as of the current patch) are able to recognize true follow-ups after hitting with Impact run. The most notable of these follow-ups are from fighters whose forward air attacks have KO potential. Samus, Greninja, and Toon Link are just a few of them, and they can all score kills off of landing an Impact run into forward air combo.
But forward air isn’t the only move that can be landed out of Impact run! In fact, one of the main ways amiibo build up damage is through Impact run itself, and it can usually combo into an up smash afterward depending on the character. It can even leave the opponent vulnerable to an aerial move!
As good as Impact run sounds, there are quite a few reasons why it hasn’t seen any use over the past three years of competitive amiibo training in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. The main reason is that it takes more than it gives. You see, FPs don’t always use functional follow-ups after hitting a foe with Impact run; they often spam tilts, jabs, and grabs after Impact run and most of these never hit. This means you can’t use those moves during training because then they won’t use their actual Impact run combos (into aerials or an up smash). This, in turn, strips down most characters in a way that really doesn’t justify using Impact run. You’re generally better off running power-boosting Spirit effects instead.
Another issue is that Impact run FPs have a hard time taking stocks. The Spirit can give you incredibly early kills if your FP decides to use several consecutive combos, though this is rare and it’ll often take an Impact run a long time to score a KO. And if the opponent’s damage percentage becomes too high for Impact run combos to work… good luck taking that stock.
Best Impact Run Characters
- Samus and Dark Samus were the first fighters I trained with this Spirit, and it’s how we found out what Impact run can do. Samus is able to use up smash out of Impact run up until about 100%, and if it hits near the very top of its range it has the possibility to land a kill. Samus can also use forward air out of Impact run, which nets kills in the 90% to 120% range if hit near the ledge. One thing Samus has that makes all the difference when training an Impact run FP is a quick projectile. Since you can’t use tilts while training an Impact run FP, you need something else to rely on — and Samus’ side special can help keep FPs away from her when she’s not running toward them to start a combo.
- Inkling as a whole hasn’t seen much results in Spirits, but Inkling has a ton of combos out of Impact run. Up smash is a notable move, as always, and it works at low percentages too. The moves I really want to talk about here are down air and up air, though. Inkling is able to combo Impact run into down air shockingly early, and is even able to gimp someone like Mario at 60% if used near the ledge. Up air, although not as strong, is a true combo up until about 180%. That might not seem like a big deal, but it is — it’s a consistent combo and up air kills at later percentages.
- Toon Link with Impact run is able to use both forward air and up air out of the move to either rack on damage or KO outright. Toon Link also has a fast projectile for his side special. You may notice I mentioned Toon Link and not Young Link, and that’s for a few reasons. Toon Link is faster and able to combo more moves out of Impact run for longer and he also has a bigger up smash. Young Link’s up smash will still connect, but its multi-hit nature means that aerial FPs will occasionally fall out. Toon Link’s up smash is a single-hit smack, which winds up being much more consistent.
The best Impact run characters are already fast, but the best Spirits to use on them in addition to Impact run are Trade-Off Ability ↑ and Move Speed ↑. The extra speed these provide lets your FP use combos out of Impact run for longer. Helping fix your FP’s kill power helps too, so dropping a move speed bonus for a generic boosting Spirit like Weapon Attack ↑, Physical Attack ↑, Magic Attack ↑, or even Air Attack ↑ works too.
As you might expect, Impact run FPs are trained much differently than what Exion’s own training guides might suggest. If you’d like more help training an Impact run amiibo of your own, feel free to join both the Exion Discord server and the S.A.M. Discord server — the latter of which focuses specifically on Spirited amiibo!
If you would like to read more amiibo training guides, please follow this link.
