Pokemon Trainer is a wildly popular character in Ultimate due to it's absence from the previous smash game and link to the nostalgia of the original Pokemon games. Because of this, it is hard to stand out as a good Pokemon Trainer instead of sinking back into crowd of sweaty 12 year olds that like to button mash. To get you up and running with the basics of being a good PKMN Trainer (or just PT as I will be referring to them as from now on), this guide should be all you need.
1. Knowing when to switch
This is the biggest problem most people have when playing PT. Common questions go along these lines:
- "When do I switch Pokemon?"
- "Why do I switch Pokemon there?"
- "How long should I stay as a certain Pokemon for?"
- "What if I like Pokemon x more than Pokemon y?"
I'm going to answer questions 1, 2 and 3 in one sentence here: It depends on the context; However, there is a structure that is usually followed throughout the course of a single match which is 0% to 50% play Squirtle, 50% to 90% play Ivysaur and 90%+ play Charizard. This is to scale with knock back while still keeping your mobility up. There are cases where you want to switch earlier or later though. For instance, almost every game I end up switching to Ivysaur early. This is because Ivysaur is the best at killing of all three of the Pokemon (which we'll talk about later
). And sometimes, I'll switch to Squirtle when i'm at 120% after getting a kill as Charizard because the opponent is a heavy character and I know that I can rack up more damage without getting hit than I could with playing Charizard.
As for question 4, it causes me deep pain to say it but no matter how much I love Squirtle I cannot win a game with Squirtle alone realistically. At high level play you'll get blasted into the nether realm before you can land the finishing blow. Because of this, I always switch between the Pokemon at least once per stock. That doesn't mean however that you can't focus your play around one Pokemon. Playing Squirtle up until you get hit and then switching to Ivysaur could just suit your style of play. But it only really works if you still use each Pokemon once per life anyway so I recommend not doing that.
2. Killing
The age old question of "How do I kill?" is a not so tricky one to answer in reality. The only 2 Pokemon able of realistically killing are Ivysaur or Charizard. Each have their pros and cons of killing but I recommend Ivysaur. I will do a piece on each below though.
IVYSAUR is my preferred Pokemon to kill with because of simple setups like razor-leaf > nair and around 70% to pop them up and then an uair to seal the deal on their way down. If they air-dodge you can just catch them with another nair or uair. Dair is also a strong and disjointed spike with some stupidly high power. Vine whip (while being hard to land) also has a surprising amount of strength and great reach which makes for a good uair mixup. Back throw is a great kill move but it is harder to land the grab with Ivysaur than the other Pokemon however.
CHARIZARD is also very strong because of the large hitboxes and just generally all of his moves killing because of his status as a heavy. RaR bair is my favourite of his kit because of it's ridiculously long reach and speed. U-Smash is sensationally quick and pokes through platforms too but if you miss it is easy to be punished because of the longer end lag. All other aerials except nair can kill too as well as a cheeky flare blitz for a mixup if they are camping with projectiles (think K-Rool, the Links, Samus). However, he is just so damn slow and harder to close in with against normal melee characters. If your flare blitz and they shield it you're gonna eat a fat wad of damage.
Just keep in mind that you need to assess the situation to use the correct Pokemon to kill. Are they camping with projectiles? Then flare blitz. Are they a good melee character with not much to offer in defence? Then leaf blade.
And that is all you need to know for getting the basics of PT. Know when to switch and how to end the switching cycle. This should make a lot of your games less awkward to play.
1. Knowing when to switch
This is the biggest problem most people have when playing PT. Common questions go along these lines:
- "When do I switch Pokemon?"
- "Why do I switch Pokemon there?"
- "How long should I stay as a certain Pokemon for?"
- "What if I like Pokemon x more than Pokemon y?"
I'm going to answer questions 1, 2 and 3 in one sentence here: It depends on the context; However, there is a structure that is usually followed throughout the course of a single match which is 0% to 50% play Squirtle, 50% to 90% play Ivysaur and 90%+ play Charizard. This is to scale with knock back while still keeping your mobility up. There are cases where you want to switch earlier or later though. For instance, almost every game I end up switching to Ivysaur early. This is because Ivysaur is the best at killing of all three of the Pokemon (which we'll talk about later
). And sometimes, I'll switch to Squirtle when i'm at 120% after getting a kill as Charizard because the opponent is a heavy character and I know that I can rack up more damage without getting hit than I could with playing Charizard.As for question 4, it causes me deep pain to say it but no matter how much I love Squirtle I cannot win a game with Squirtle alone realistically. At high level play you'll get blasted into the nether realm before you can land the finishing blow. Because of this, I always switch between the Pokemon at least once per stock. That doesn't mean however that you can't focus your play around one Pokemon. Playing Squirtle up until you get hit and then switching to Ivysaur could just suit your style of play. But it only really works if you still use each Pokemon once per life anyway so I recommend not doing that.
2. Killing
The age old question of "How do I kill?" is a not so tricky one to answer in reality. The only 2 Pokemon able of realistically killing are Ivysaur or Charizard. Each have their pros and cons of killing but I recommend Ivysaur. I will do a piece on each below though.
IVYSAUR is my preferred Pokemon to kill with because of simple setups like razor-leaf > nair and around 70% to pop them up and then an uair to seal the deal on their way down. If they air-dodge you can just catch them with another nair or uair. Dair is also a strong and disjointed spike with some stupidly high power. Vine whip (while being hard to land) also has a surprising amount of strength and great reach which makes for a good uair mixup. Back throw is a great kill move but it is harder to land the grab with Ivysaur than the other Pokemon however.
CHARIZARD is also very strong because of the large hitboxes and just generally all of his moves killing because of his status as a heavy. RaR bair is my favourite of his kit because of it's ridiculously long reach and speed. U-Smash is sensationally quick and pokes through platforms too but if you miss it is easy to be punished because of the longer end lag. All other aerials except nair can kill too as well as a cheeky flare blitz for a mixup if they are camping with projectiles (think K-Rool, the Links, Samus). However, he is just so damn slow and harder to close in with against normal melee characters. If your flare blitz and they shield it you're gonna eat a fat wad of damage.
Just keep in mind that you need to assess the situation to use the correct Pokemon to kill. Are they camping with projectiles? Then flare blitz. Are they a good melee character with not much to offer in defence? Then leaf blade.
And that is all you need to know for getting the basics of PT. Know when to switch and how to end the switching cycle. This should make a lot of your games less awkward to play.