Q&A Smash Ultimate "Mains Advice" Thread

[earthboundspacefree]

I can never seem to actually get kills and I always get combos hard

Someone with good killconfirms/kill power and either someone who doesn’t get juggled hard or has a good get off me move would help with those. Off the top of my head:

Luigi
Wario
DK (doesn’t help with juggled by he gets comboed hard)
Lucina
Roy/chrom
Yoshi

Not an exhaustive list by any means, but some ideas at least.

Ultimately, what matters most is who you like. You can be good with any character.

 

[Daer]

Someone with good killconfirms/kill power and either someone who doesn’t get juggled hard or has a good get off me move would help with those. Off the top of my head:

Luigi
Wario
DK (doesn’t help with juggled by he gets comboed hard)
Lucina
Roy/chrom
Yoshi

Not an exhaustive list by any means, but some ideas at least.

Ultimately, what matters most is who you like. You can be good with any character.

Would you be able to play a few friendlies at some point?

 

[Heracr055]

I think Wolf and Snake are good at satisfying your requirements. Wolf controls space & encourages unsafe approaches with his blaster (which can be intercepted with forward air and starts your combo tree from there). And provided you don't die you will kill eventually with his many great stock-sealing options. Snake controls the match too with his grenades, C4 and other goodies, and he has great killpower as well (such as his up tilt). Provided you keep a cool head you should be able to protect yourself from bad disadvantage situations. Don't get me wrong, as Snake you will get beat up, but he's also a heavy with pretty great recovery tools so he'll stick around a long time

 

[earthboundspacefree]

I think Wolf and Snake are good at satisfying your requirements. Wolf controls space & encourages unsafe approaches with his blaster. And provided you don't die you will kill eventually with his many great stock-sealing options. Snake controls the match too with his grenades, C4 and other goodies, and he has great killpower as well (such as his up tilt).

Only problem with snake is disadvantage sucks hard

 

[Daer]

I think one of my biggest issues is the game mechanics and movement

 

[earthboundspacefree]

I think one of my biggest issues is the game mechanics and movement

Okay, this is just something you’ll get better at if you consistently practice it. Characters won’t help much if you struggle with the movement and mechanics

Would you be able to play a few friendlies at some point?

Maybe later tonight or tomorrow yeah

 

[Daer]

Okay, this is just something you’ll get better at if you consistently practice it. Characters won’t help much if you struggle with the movement and mechanics


Maybe later tonight or tomorrow yeah

My friend code is SW-0033-7210-7455 and we can try and play sometime

 

[Heracr055]

Going forward, let's not flood this thread with requests to play later or share friend codes here please. You can always do that in private messages.
Good luck with improving your knowledge of the game & finding a main

 

[earthboundspacefree]

Going forward, let's not flood this thread with requests to play later or share friend codes here please. You can always do that in private messages.
Good luck with improving your knowledge of the game & finding a main

I mean fair enough but it was 2 posts, not a flood.

 

[Luigifan18]

When you struggle, what are your biggest struggles?

I can't combo worth half a damn.

 

[Daer]

I can't combo worth half a damn.

Neither can I my guy, still trying to get that down

 

[Dochs]

I have been trying to find a main since ultimate came out, but have not been successful. I am a passive-aggressive player and am looking for a character with a strong aerial game (This is most important to me), decent kill confirms (also important), at least average speed (not as important), and some sort of projectile/ranged attack (preferably). I also do not want to play zero suit or Diddy kong as I have mained them in the past.

 

[Luigifan18]

I have been trying to find a main since ultimate came out, but have not been successful. I am a passive-aggressive player and am looking for a character with a strong aerial game (This is most important to me), decent kill confirms (also important), at least average speed (not as important), and some sort of projectile/ranged attack (preferably). I also do not want to play zero suit or Diddy kong as I have mained them in the past.

I think you're looking for Jigglypuff. Sure, its ground speed is terrible, but its air speed is amazing, its aerials put its opponent in a catch-22 crisis if it gets them offstage, and its Rest is devastating as always. If having a ranged attack is absolutely crucial, I believe Bayonetta is your pick; her playstyle is similar to Jigglypuff’s in that it revolves around being a complete pest spending most of her time battering the opponent in the air, but from what I've heard, she doesn't have anything remotely resembling a kill confirm in Ultimate.

 

[Dochs]

I think you're looking for Jigglypuff. Sure, its ground speed is terrible, but its air speed is amazing, its aerials put its opponent in a catch-22 crisis if it gets them offstage, and its Rest is devastating as always. If having a ranged attack is absolutely crucial, I believe Bayonetta is your pick; her playstyle is similar to Jigglypuff’s in that it revolves around being a complete pest spending most of her time battering the opponent in the air, but from what I've heard, she doesn't have anything remotely resembling a kill confirm in Ultimate.

What charecters have a strong juggle game then, since I tried puff and she didn't feel right and bayo felt worse.

 

[VodkaHaze]

What charecters have a strong juggle game then, since I tried puff and she didn't feel right and bayo felt worse.

Donkey Kong has a good juggle game. He doesn't have a projectile, but he's still very good in neutral, as well as has early kill confirms.

 

[Michael the Spikester]

Been gone nearly all day. Slept in rather pretty late due to having the chills from the cold weather lately. What I been missing?

 

[channel_KYX]

[new challenger approaching: wall of text]

Hi all,
Still unsure who to main; maybe you can give me some pointers, I want to settle down. History:
Melee: Young Link
Brawl: Lucas
SSB4: Ganondorf, Bayonetta

Short recap:
Melee:
Just played with friends after school – pretty much daily for years straight. One guy was a Zelda nut, he mained Link, I also liked Zelda, so I played Young Link a lot. However, turned out all my experience was not that useless; on my very first friendly tournament years after Melee came out, I actually got some decent results and compliments from veterans. To this day I like Young Link’s ability to combo with his projectiles, dash attack semi-spike and dtilt meteor.
Brawl:
Never got deep into it, but after experiencing with some newcomers, I discovered Lucas for me. Good zoning, good answers to spam with magnet and fsmash reflector and that juicy bair spike. Also liked some ROB every now and then.
SSB4:
Played it quite extensively in the evenings after work and experimented more. Met with a friend every now and then for more serious smashing. Started off with Mega Man because I just liked him and mixing his zoning game felt nice. Played also Ness to get some of the feeling I got from Lucas in Brawl, even though the two are completely different – but it worked out and the combo game got me hooked for a while. When the first LDC came out, I made the switch to Lucas for a short while. However, when Bayonetta was released, I played her a lot, simply because I love her home games. Still, I only played for glory in SSB4 and as such I had no clue just how good Bayonetta was, even after the nerfs (until I read about it).
Whenever I had some spare time or wanted to have some fun in any of the games, I would go Ganondorf. There is something about him that just appeals to me – and the satisfaction when hitting someone with sparta or predicted fsmash. He was also my go-to when people complained about DLC.

Moving on to SSBU. Let me quickly outline what I like and then talk about some chars.
In general, I am a bait/predict and punish type of player. Usually, my opponents lead in stocks during beginning of matches, but I can catch up over time when I can start reading my opponents. My mechanical skill is not exceptional, so chars with heavy and long combo chains like Fox, Greninja, Diddy are totally out of my league. Also, I am not too fond of item and toss techs, so Diddy, Mega Man I would rather avoid.

Who I experimented with so far:
Young Link:
I was thrilled to have him back in the game, and he is no longer a clone of Link. I like him a lot, though I struggle at killing sometimes, though this is in Young Link’s nature I guess. Two things I do not like: a) Apparently, he is all about the bomb play, which I do not prefer and b) they changed his fire arrow to fly much farther uncharged, which removed one of my favourite follow-up and edgeguarding options.
Ganondorf:
Still as cool as ever, they changed his appearance to OoT, which is nice. Overall, he feels similar and I hear he is not as bad as in the past. I will always play him, but I might get bored over time.
Ness:
Tried him, he is nice and not unlike his SSB4 self, but he does not click.
Lucas:
Strong, his PK Freeze is a force to be reckoned with. My current go-to.
Bayonetta:
I understand she had to be nerfed, but now she feels she does something everyone else can (due to general speed increase). Thing is, they nerfed her by giving her increased endlag in almost all moves. In the end, she just feels sluggish and awful to play. If you want to convince me back, I might give her another try, but I’d rather not.
Inkling:
Needed to try the squid. Cool feeling overall, struggles with killing at times. I noticed that I usually dominate or get annihilated with no middle ground. Resource mechanic bugs me, after dozens of games I still try to hit down b to recharge every now and then. Shield + b just feels wrong.
Incineroar:
Another heavyweight that can punish well. I feel it has potential, but as with Inkling I usually either win by a landslide or lose by one.
Belmont:
Thought all the zoning would be my thing. I was wrong.
Piranha Plant:
For some reason, it clicked. Might need more experience, but so far, it’s solid. I am afraid the plant might get nerfed quickly, though.

Who I consider:
Zelda:
Always wanted to play her, but forever she has been the bottom of the barrel. Her new look gives her a fresh vibe and I really liked that up b could be used as a realistic kill option in SSB4. Feels very magic-y. From what I hear, she is not as bad as in the past. My strongest contender for actually trying something new.
Isabelle:
She is just so damn cute. I can fare with her much better than villager, but I do not know if she could be something in the long run.
Ridley:
My biggest wish for a smash addition since Brawl was announced. He does not seem bad; his recovery is surprisingly meh, though.

I will not bother you with even more text as a closing statement. Thanks for reading.

 

[GreatKnightEcho]

I'm struggling to find a real main. I want to find a character who has a strong air game and is more focused on landing precise hits rather than stringing together combos (not saying that they can't have a combo game, I just prefer characters who don't put too much emphasis on combos). Any suggestions?

 

[channel_KYX]

I'm struggling to find a real main. I want to find a character who has a strong air game and is more focused on landing precise hits rather than stringing together combos (not saying that they can't have a combo game, I just prefer characters who don't put too much emphasis on combos). Any suggestions?

Strong air game: Ness, Lucas
Both also need a bit more precision than a swordfighter and have some combos.

Precision hit: Belmont (weak air game though)

Inkling fits all criteria; not too heavy on combo-ing afaik

Bayonetta is all about precision air game, though very combo-heavy

Those are the ones I can speak for.

 

[GreatKnightEcho]

channel_KYX Thanks! I've had a decent amount of fun with Simon/Richter, though I'm thinking Inkling because I love Splatoon.

 

[Lunardog15]

so if I want some one that plays like kirby but is (slightly) better who would that be?

 

[Heracr055]

What traits of Kirby are you looking for? Multiple jumps? The sort of brawler thing he has going on? Getting a clearer picture of what you like will help us narrow in on a good candidate for you

 

[Lunardog15]

The jumps and can duck lots of attacks thing

 

[Heracr055]

Perhaps Puff in that case. She has those qualities too

 

[ToonTwink101]

The jumps and can duck lots of attacks thing

Meta Knight might be good for you.

 

[DJ3DS]

Piranha Plant:
For some reason, it clicked. Might need more experience, but so far, it’s solid. I am afraid the plant might get nerfed quickly, though.

This stuck out to me. If you're enjoying plant, keep playing him. You shouldn't base your decision on whether the character will be nerfed or not, especially when the character is pretty much unanimously agreed to be pretty bad anyway, and is far more likely to see buffs than nerfs happen.

 

[channel_KYX]

This stuck out to me. If you're enjoying plant, keep playing him. You shouldn't base your decision on whether the character will be nerfed or not, especially when the character is pretty much unanimously agreed to be pretty bad anyway, and is far more likely to see buffs than nerfs happen.

Thanks for reading all my text
If you say so... I will give the plant a few more tries.
I'm just afraid people will be hating and scapegoating on DLC again...

 

[Keeshu]

I should probably mention that I don't plan to go to any tournaments. Would be nice, but realistically I know I will not actually go to one because of nervousness and absolutely no reason to want to go to one besides getting better at the game. I'm basically just trying to pick a main so I can get better at the game, and hopefully I can have an easier time giving tips to friends so they can improve. If there's something else I should mention feel free to tell me to say it as I have no idea where to start.

So with that said, I've been trying to narrow down the characters I play since it's been a few months. Usually in most games there's one character that I cling to, but I could do that with any character in Smash which is why I love it. Usually people say "just go with a character that fits your playstyle". Problem is, I have no idea what kind of playstyle I have. I've played so many video games throughout life so there have been times where I've been forced into every type of role so I've been able to enjoy every role and do well in any role. The aggressive speedy character, the character that attacks from afar, the character that patiently waits until the right moment to deal massive damage, the character that has a weird unique style, etc..



As for characters I've been considering:
Meta Knight - The only character I've forced myself to try to main so far because Meta Knight being my favorite character from the Kirby series and I have a bit of history with the character. Loving a character and having memories with them sure does help with trying to stick with them through everything. His gameplay has a lot of things I love. Multiple jumps, sword, and he's very fast.
As for the bad things about Meta Knight. Lack of a projectile is a big problem because I do love projectiles and he's one of the few characters that doesn't have one. In Smash 4 he was always my worst character if I didn't consistently play him for weeks/months. Every other character I played in Smash 4 I could kick butt with them without having to warm up much even after taking a break with that characters for a year. It was incredibly discouraging to pick Meta Knight back up because of that since he was the only one in the roster like that. However for some reason in Smash Ultimate I haven't had this problem, but I partially blame this on his buffs and on no one playing Meta Knight. I've only fought one other Meta Knight so far, and that's only because it was a friend that was like "you keep playing Meta Knight, let me give him a shot" since I play Meta Knight so much. I got burnt out on Meta Knight for a while because I did the bad thing and played too much at once with Meta Knight so I've been character hopping about trying to be more solid in my character picks until I wanted to play Meta Knight again.
Lucario - Lucario and Meta Knight are the two characters I love most in the whole roster even outside of smash, so I've definitely had to put some effort into Lucario. Another similarity with Meta Knight is that I feel like I am bad with him if I've taken a break that's too long. It can be discouraging when that happens, but not to the extremes of smash 4 Meta Knight. However, when I am warmed up with him, everything feels so fluid, and I have a very easier time reading opponents compared to when I play other characters for some reason. His aura mechanic is like a double edged sword. On one side, whether you are playing as or against Lucario, if he has high aura, the match gets very intense and I love those moments and it's unlike any other character in the game. Unfortunately on the other side, there is a stigma against Lucario's aura mechanic. Also I can doubt myself sometimes because since it only takes 2-4 hits to KO someone with Lucario at high aura, making it feel like I'm abusing a character's gimick. Also sometimes I start off some matches absolutely tearing someone apart with low% Lucario, only to realize I've barely done any %, making it feel like I didn't actually do anything. Of course, this is just a mindset thing to think about Lucario's aura this way, and I should think about it in a more positive way. Like low % Lucario being the combo heavy phase and high% Lucario being the tense power house phase, and just constantly adapting to the %s throughout the match. Though it'll take time to get into that mentality, but I'm not sure if I can fully remove the previous more negative idea of his aura mechanic.
Ridley - In a lot of ways he's the Meta Knight of the Metroid series. Funnily enough his gameplay feels a lot like a bigger and simpler Meta Knight with a little bit of Ganondorf mixed in (Ganondorf is good for stupid fun, but not really main material me). So I really love playing Ridley. At the moment his gameplay does feel a bit awkward though. I usually do pretty well with Ridley despite not putting a lot of time into him, but I blame that on people's lack of matchup experience against the character. My worries about Ridley is that he feels a bit too awkward and a bit too simple. However I'd have to play for a hundred hours to really know whether or not I should try to invest time into him and I only have so much time to play.
Wolf - My favorite of the spacies. His absolutely abysmal recovery is a huge problem. Though everything else feels really good. Funnily enough my Wolf seems to be very divisive with people. Either they love fighting him, or they just hate his blaster.
ROB - Played him a bunch in Smash 4 but because of the mindset I had, getting combo'd like crazy and feeling helpless to escape combos compared to most characters in the cast made me get turned off to ROB for the rest of Smash 4. However in Smash Ultimate that doesn't bother me anymore and I've been having some pretty good results with ROB. I've grown to love him in Ultimate and I feel like I always have multiple options to attack which is very important.
Mewtwo - The most inconsistent and also least played of the top 6 of my current favorites. I either do very well or absolutely terrible with Mewtwo. Just one of those characters I'd need to spend more time with to not feel awkward with because Mewtwo feels very weird. He feels good and the characters is cool so I'm thinking about putting more time into him.


Other characters that interest me and could easily become my main in Ultimate if given the time.

Spoiler

Ike - One of those "Too simple to main" characters like Charizard and Ganondorf. I actually tried to main Charizard in Smash 4, but his simplicity made it hard to really feel like I was making any improvements and every game felt the same so it was hard to stick with Charizard. Ike is in a similar situation. However Ike is the character I go-to if I'm focusing too much on myself as whenever I play Ike it forces me to pay attention to the opponent, thus making me playing better with all other characters. He's basically a warm-up character. However sometimes I wonder what would happen if I tried to train with him for a while.
Links - Link was tied with Marth for my Main in Melee for the longest time, and he was my reliable character for the longest time in Smash 4. As for each Link individually. Young Link feels like old Link on steroids, but with shorter range and he feels pretty good. BOTW Link feels really good but it's going to take some time to learn how to use the remote bombs efficiently and get used to not having the hookshot. Toon Link I just do terrible with because what he goes for is incredibly different compared to what normal Link wants. Link's shorter hop and 90% fall speed increase makes him have a much easier time doing aerials near the ground and swapping up aerial/ground pressure. Whereas Toon Link floats in the are for such a long time by comparison that I feel so helpless especially since his down air and nair is a lot less safe. I feel like with enough time Toon Link could be my new default Link because I love being in the air and I love projectiles.
Samus - I love projectiles, and Samus is a very very weird character in Smash. Since Smash 4 Samus has been a rather reliable character to beat opponents with. Bad part is that she has always felt a little awkward to use and sometimes I wonder if it'll ever stop feeling awkward to play Samus despite doing well with Samus. Other problem is that I feel a bit helpless against very fast characters when I play samus, or characters that are good at keeping Samus off the ground.
Pichu - Pichu's character rides that fine like between being the most adorable things I like, if it was anymore adorable I would probably hate it (Isabelle is like this too). Everytime I play Pichu I just feel this overwhelming joy because of how adorable it is, and because I love the fast combo type gameplay Pichu has. Also, very coincidentally close sounding name to my online name. The only things going against Pichu is that outside of smash I don't really care about Pichu, which while not a reason not to play a character, it's not exactly helping me want to play it more like Meta Knight/Lucario. Also Pichu looks like it has a very steep learning curve where you need to lab out things constantly to get combos right, and learning how to use your small size seems to be a bit more important than other characters since Pichu is uniquely small enough to avoid some things that most characters cannot avoid.
Inkling - Another fast combo type character and I love Splatoon. I just haven't spent enough time with Inkling yet, so for now they are a bit too weird for me to really see what I could love about them in Smash.
Sheik - Sheik helped me get into the mindset of fast combo characters in smash. I struggled with Meta Knight until I picked up Sheik, then I learned stuff with Meta Knight significantly faster because of it. Sheik is so cool and amazing to play in Smash (Too bad she's just so boring in Ocarina of Time). The few times I ever pick Sheik some friends and I will always joke about how I hit them at least 5 times more than they hit me in neutral, yet get absolutely nothing done in terms of damage so the matches are close despite them hardly ever touching me. It's a little bit of a problem, but not a big one.
Pits - Multiple jumps, projectile, swordlike weapon, and just an overall moveset that feels good. Theoretically they'd be amazing to play despite being a smidge on the slow side. The only real problem is forcing myself to play them to know whether or not I like them. There's only so much time to play and there's so many other characters I usually prefer to play.
Roy - Marth was my main in Melee for a long time because of his long fast safe range. Then his range got nerfed in Brawl and Marth has had shorter range ever since, and I was too distracted by other characters to get used to the new range, so whenever I play marth it usually ends up in constant whiffs. Marth felt like he had perfect gameplay, but because of his range nerf, and extremely boring character, I just don't play Marth despite his gameplay being so good. With that said though, if I were to pick a Marth clone nowadays Roy would be the one I'd choose. With the time I've played with Roy in Ultimate, I really love his gameplay.

Other mentions that aren't so likely:

Spoiler

Fox+Falco - I love their gameplay, but problem is I generally will have the mindset of if I'm going to play a spacie it's probably going to be Wolf. So because of that these two don't get anytime to shine. If they were able to, they might be able to surpass Wolf
Robin - Projectiles and Swords. Link does it quite well, so Robin should be able to right? Doesn't feel like it when I try Robin, but sometimes I wonder if it's because I haven't played them enough to know what to go for like I do with Link.
Cloud - Looks cool with his advent children costume, and he's so fast and has a sword. He just feels so good to play. However, in Smash 4 he was the easiest character tied with Charizard for me to learn and wreck people with so I took a break to learn other characters. Then I never had the urge to play Cloud ever again, so I'm not sure if I actually find Cloud fun to play despite doing well with him which is a huge problem. Not caring about Cloud outside of Smash isn't helping his case either.
Mii Fighters - All 3 of them have absolutely amazing gameplay that's super fun to play. Problem being is that I don't care for Miis as a character, and a lot of people really really hate miis. I would have to play more of the Miis to really know what I prefer for specials.
Shulk - One of the characters I was considering for Smash 4 and they fixed the main issue I had with him in Ultimate. I want to play him since he's basically a long range sword user, which will remind me of Melee Marth, except Shulk has Monado arts to go with it. Problem with Shulk is that his Monado Arts makes him very difficult to learn. However if I were able to play Smash Ultimate enough with Shulk I could probably get over that and he would feel amazing. I don't not think I will have the time to put into Shulk to get to that point, same problem with Greninja as well.
Mario - Mario felt amazing in Smash 4, Ultimate should be the same. His gameplay is so good, too bad I don't care for Mario. So the biggest problem would be that I feel like I'm just meta gaming if I try to play Mario.
Little Mac - Can mostly blame Sol for this one. Little Mac is just so terrifying to fight when they know what they are doing. The problem with Little Mac is that he seems to require more patience than anyone else in the cast, while simultaneously having to attack suddenly very quickly at the perfect moment. While I love that because that's why I love Meta Knight in the Kirby games. I'm not exactly the most patient player like that. Usually I get stuck in two modes of being either aggressive or passive and it can be hard to swap between them. Little Mac seems to require you to do that in an instant. I'm trying to get better at that though since every character needs to be able to swap between different styles on the fly, but Little Mac seems to absolutely require it.
Captain Falcon - Crazy fast, can combo and do hard hits in style. He's a blast to play, but for some reason I just never want to play him. The few times I do, I generally have a bit too much fun trying to see if I can defeat the opponent with Falcon punches only (which is a bit more successful than it should be), so I don't focus hard enough with him. Same problem happens with Mr Game and Watch's 9s, despite mr game and watch having good gameplay too.

 

[channel_KYX]

So with that said, I've been trying to narrow down the characters I play since it's been a few months. Usually in most games there's one character that I cling to, but I could do that with any character in Smash which is why I love it. Usually people say "just go with a character that fits your playstyle". Problem is, I have no idea what kind of playstyle I have. I've played so many video games throughout life so there have been times where I've been forced into every type of role so I've been able to enjoy every role and do well in any role. The aggressive speedy character, the character that attacks from afar, the character that patiently waits until the right moment to deal massive damage, the character that has a weird unique style, etc..

I will try to tackle your post; here we go.

First and foremost: I will ignore the other characters you mentioned in your spoilers. You already wrote so much about your top 6 that I find it pointless to go even deeper into details.


However, I will start at step zero before I go into the characters:

I noticed that you seem to like smash for what it is – a huge amalgamation of different universes, character types and endless possibilities. You mentioned 32 characters in your post, which is close to 50 % of the roster. Think about that: almost half of the roster made a strong enough impact to you that you considered playing (maining?) them.

You also say that you do not necessarily want to go to tournaments, but you like the game – which means that you love the party aspect of it. As such, let me tell you the first thing here: Don’t overthink your choice. You want to get better, but only because (I assume) it would bring more fun to you and your friends when playing. So, focus on that: having fun in RL company. Which brings me to the second critical point: Don’t feel bad for switching around. Fun seems to be your top priority and if you feel you get bored with one char (MK?), just switch. You will not become a 10 leagues worse player overnight. In fact, I switched my main around in SSB4 at least 4 times. But all was fun, so what’s to lose? In fact, by investigating different styles in depth, you also become a better player – not on a mechanical level with your main, but in game experience and understanding.



With that out of the way, let me get to your characters:

You remind me a lot of myself. For Lucario, I had the 100% exact feelings: I love him as a character (Lucario & the mystery of Mew is to blame here) and I so wanted to learn him. However, the aura was too volatile for me, low-aura felt unimpactful, high-aura was too intense. After long considerations, I dropped him. Thus, I recommend that you do the same. I see too many similarities between us that I do not think you will be happy in the long run.

MK I can understand as well. I played the crap out of Mega Man when SSB4 came out. It got so bad that I simply lost interest; I got bored. But as I understood from your text at the beginning, you like the variety and party aspect. So, what do you lose by leaving him a bit on the sidelines for a while? Maybe this is even what you need: Maybe you can – instead of feeling powerless the first few times – enjoy the power surge once you get back into the groove with him. Remember, you obviously play for fun. Leave MK rest a bit, then pick him back up and breathe up the feeling when you get back into the moves.

I re-read your post a few times while typing. I get the feeling that actually Wolf might be your thing. You will understand that no character is flawless, so see it as a challenge to work around the bad recovery. People hate his blaster? You play with friends with the ultimate goal to have fun, right? Challenge yourself (or even make it public) and play some matches without blaster. Getting too hard? Ask your friends for a bo3 match in which both of you give 110% and no Johns after the match. Also this can be fun.



This is what I will close the post with:

I get the impression that ultimately, you look for fun. However, you seem to be restricting yourself to only look for fun in certain places. It looks to me like you do not necessarily need a main, you need to open up your mind for new tasks, challenges and ways to have fun. And if that means throwing in an all-Pokéball-match every now and then… so be it.

 

[dom47]

Hello!

I made an account just to create this post. I have played melee for years and struggling to get a feel for the movement and selecting a main in Ultimate.

I was wondering if anyone could help me out or give any advice. I am consistently shielding and air dodging things as they happen and continue to not improve. I feel like I have some old habits that aren't letting go of how I played Falco in Melee.

I have found some success with Samus, Mario and Bowser, been trying out Lucina and Roy but no one is really being consistent for me. This is probably because I keep switching around.

I suppose I want a stronger combo game than bowser and faster than samus. I know a lot of characters fall into that category but falco in this game just isn't doing it for me.

Any suggestions?

Thank you!

 

[channel_KYX]

I suppose I want a stronger combo game than bowser and faster than samus. I know a lot of characters fall into that category but falco in this game just isn't doing it for me.

Any suggestions?

Thank you!

Fast and combo?
Inkling, Fox, Bayonetta (not AS fast), Mario, Pi(ka)chu, Sheik, Zero Suit Samus
I am sure I forgot at least 10 chars.

Also I hear that Fox play pretty similar to his Melee self.

Apart from choosing a main, you might want to try to adjust a bit more to this game's mechanics. Try shielding less, use attacks more often to defend.

 

[Keeshu]

You also say that you do not necessarily want to go to tournaments, but you like the game – which means that you love the party aspect of it. As such, let me tell you the first thing here: Don’t overthink your choice. You want to get better, but only because (I assume) it would bring more fun to you and your friends when playing. So, focus on that: having fun in RL company. Which brings me to the second critical point: Don’t feel bad for switching around. Fun seems to be your top priority and if you feel you get bored with one char (MK?), just switch. You will not become a 10 leagues worse player overnight. In fact, I switched my main around in SSB4 at least 4 times. But all was fun, so what’s to lose? In fact, by investigating different styles in depth, you also become a better player – not on a mechanical level with your main, but in game experience and understanding.



With that out of the way, let me get to your characters:

You remind me a lot of myself. For Lucario, I had the 100% exact feelings: I love him as a character (Lucario & the mystery of Mew is to blame here) and I so wanted to learn him. However, the aura was too volatile for me, low-aura felt unimpactful, high-aura was too intense. After long considerations, I dropped him. Thus, I recommend that you do the same. I see too many similarities between us that I do not think you will be happy in the long run.


I re-read your post a few times while typing. I get the feeling that actually Wolf might be your thing. You will understand that no character is flawless, so see it as a challenge to work around the bad recovery. People hate his blaster? You play with friends with the ultimate goal to have fun, right? Challenge yourself (or even make it public) and play some matches without blaster. Getting too hard? Ask your friends for a bo3 match in which both of you give 110% and no Johns after the match. Also this can be fun.

This is what I will close the post with:

I get the impression that ultimately, you look for fun. However, you seem to be restricting yourself to only look for fun in certain places. It looks to me like you do not necessarily need a main, you need to open up your mind for new tasks, challenges and ways to have fun. And if that means throwing in an all-Pokéball-match every now and then… so be it.

I always overthink everything all the time, so overthinking my main is inevitable. So thanks for just making me realizing I was doing that.

Also yes, I want to get better because I want to give my friends better fights. It's fun to watch tournament matches and it would be nice to have the same control over a character like that. One of my favorite things in games is to have an evenly matched fight, especially when both people are very skilled. Though even if I get someone that lives and breathes smash, I feel good because I can give it my all and learn things in the process and it's nice to lose every now and then because I'm used to winning in most video games. Losing every now and then makes those victories feel all the more satisfying and also so you know there's still more things to learn and it's fun to learn new things.

However, with that said, sometimes I feel like I don't have much to learn through just playing random matches. I do know I need to rewatch replays of myself a bit more, but more importantly I never spend time in the lab because it kinda kills my love for the game just doing the same mistakes over and over for hours on end in the white boxed training area with no fighting going on. That's one of the reasons why I thought I needed a main, so I can get mechanically good with one character, and hope that would significantly increase the speed that I get mechanically good with other characters. With that said perhaps Wolf would be be a good pick for that. Which is nice because it's also the character you suggested as well. It's one of the reasons why I was doubting Meta Knight because sometimes when I play Meta Knight I feel like I'm just abusing his crazy good speed and offstage game to cheese my opponents. So I feel like I'm actually playing poorly and just getting carried by Meta Knight being so good. After all, due to Meta Knight's lowish jump and fast fall speed, he's usually fast enough to not have to bother with short hopping, whereas some other characters like Lucario or Samus it's basically mandatory to be able to short hop. So because of that I'm bad at short hopping, luckily the 2 jump button press for short hopping makes it a lot more accessible to me I just need to practice it. This is just one thing I realized because I used to never use tilts until I played Samus and Snake because their tilts are just so dang important as opposed to Link's tilts which are basically slightly faster versions of his Smash attacks with slightly less endlag that only hit once. Also Little Mac forcing me to get a better ground game because I like staying up in the air a bit too much with other characters but with Little Mac that will get you killed really quick. Ike for forcing me to watch the opponent constantly because he's so bland and basic so you can't really mess up controlling him leading the mind to get bored unless you watch the opponent. Wolf is probably the most well rounded and "normal" character of the top 6. Should make me get better at short hops, offstage game because he won't be so mindlessly easy like Meta Knight is offstage, b-reverses and probably other general stuff.


As for Lucario, yeah I love him because of the Lucario movie too. His little character arc reminded how I felt for a large chunk of my life when I was younger so there's a few quotes from him that hit me pretty hard when I saw the movie since they were things I once said. Also, being a badass ninja aura master helps as well. As for dropping Lucario, it's complicated but I will probably play him less since you said it's probably a good idea to drop him. I do have this mindset of "must master everything" because when I was younger I didn't have many games so I wanted to master everything in all games I had. So him being a bit difficult to use at first and loving his character so much gives me a tremendous amount of determination to get good with him and I might force myself to play him enough to the point where he feels perfect, which is exactly what happened with Meta Knight because Meta Knight didnt feel good to play with until 500 matches in with him. Also I've already gotten to the point where everything feels like it connects perfectly for a while with Lucario so I know that can be the case with Lucario. My opinion on aura has fluxuated a few times, and like I said before sometimes it feels underwhelming when low % and gimmicky when high %, and sometimes it feels like low % aura is the aggressive combo phase and high % is the more defensive damage dealing phase. I feel that with enough time with him I will stop changing how I feel about the aura and only love the aura. The only problem at that point is that I might not want to play him because of people complaining about his Aura mechanic, and it makes me not want to play the character because of that. That's what caused me to stop playing ROB initially because people hated his projectiles (later on I hated being combod so much in Smash 4 and feeling helpless, later on I got over that mentality though). Of course, I know I shouldn't let other people being annoyed by fighting my character stop me from having fun with a character since that will happen with every character no matter who you pick. It's a mentality thing I gotta work on but it might hurt Lucario until that happens.... if it happens. It hurts Lucario more than other characters because of how divisive his aura is.
Edit: After making this post I realized something about Lucario. One of my biggest weaknesses is that I have a tendency to be underwhelmed by the opponent and it often leads to my downfall because I'm not taking them seriously. However with Lucario I always have to try 24/7 because at low to mid % I have to beat the opponent up constantly so I can be able to KO. At higher % any hit can KO me so I have to pay close attention to every movement the opponent makes. So if I played Lucario it would always make me try my best. Of course, it would probably be good better to remove that mentality to begin with but how exactly can you remove that kind of mentality?

I will absolutely try to do a blaster-less challenge. I used to do things like that all the time in games because many games are too easy and I wanted to change things up. Also it's always fun when people go "you are trying to do that? that's impossible get out of here" and then see their reactions when I do the best in the game by using that bizarrely weird gameplay style that no one uses. I've also definitely been relying on the blaster too much since it's so easy to bait people into attacking me and punishing with something else, or to just hit them in general, so I haven't fully understood how his attacks combine with each other because of that.

I have been experimenting with other modes a little just to say I've tried them. I'm surprised I like playing with spirits on, it's a bit more balanced than I thought it'd be. Still super unbalanced of course. Pokeball matches and similar item craziness is funny for a few matches but it gets boring really fast. Then it just kinda turns off my brain so I stop caring and makes it hard to want to keep playing Smash. I love the 1v1 stuff too much. If I want chaos I'll probably go 2v2s. Sometimes I feel that I should do 2v2s more because I'll probably more inclined to try my hardest when someone is counting on me to do my best because I don't want to let anyone down along with it sometimes feeling good to hear someone say "holy crap dude you're awesome". A major problem I have is trying my best when the opponent feels very underwhelming, and sometimes that causes me to lose matches.

I just want to say, I know I needed an outside opinion for a while, but I didn't know I needed it this bad. Just needed someone to pull me back for a minute to look at stuff. So now my mind feels much clearer on who to use. So thank a bunch for that!

 

[Team Orchid]

So people on the Zelda discord have been mentioning that having a secondary is good to avoid burnout/ruts so I was wondering if someone could help me find one.

There's two big things I'm looking for in a secondary. First I want them to be good/even at dealing with a good portion of Zelda's bad MUs (preferably the super speedsters like and but I'll also take a swordie counter.) Second I want them to be someone that's good for teaching me how to reverse aerial rush. I want to get good at RAR Phantom but first I need to get good at general RAR and Zelda's kicks are kind of samey looking.

Other attributes that I'd appreciate but aren't mandatory include the ability to force approaches, a projectile that doesn't suck, gameplay that doesn't rely on getting long combo strings, general slipperiness, and most of all a recovery that doesn't suck.

 

[Justin Allen Goldschmidt]

I've been playing basically all of my old favorites from throughout Smash history, especially old cut veterans like Pokemon Trainer and Wolf (I feel a little bad that Wolf is now getting a bit of bandwagon hate, but whatever), Ridley is my favorite newcomer thus far (Inkling is lit but sometimes I win too easily against friends and they blame characters, not skill), and of course I still play Roy the best, with Lucina as a hold-over from Smash 4 as well. Outside of that, I play basically whoever I feel like whenever I feel like it, and don't stress too much about a "main". I guess Roy would be that "one", but I don't think I'm going to limit myself like I used to. The dev team made pretty much everyone feel fun and usable, and I still know who I'm best with when I feel the need to win, so yeah. Not really a crisis for me, I guess I just love this game. As an aside, my dad reminded me that the very first game he and I played together (when I was 3 or so) happened to be Dr. Mario on the NES, so I picked him up about a month ago and it's like I'm playing with my dad again. The feels

 

[Soyaccino]

There’s so many of them!
I’m still struggling.

Though I have learnt that I’m not great at reading what combos are suitable based on my opponent etc.
This makes me think I’m more defensive or looking for a zoner?
Suggestions welcomed.

 

[JackSSBU]

hello, uh. I'm not very good at the game. in the previous games I played flaco and lucina, and I want to know which one I should dedicate too. Falco is more fun in my opinion but lucina is far more practical and y'know, viable. so I'd like advice.

​

 

[Idon]

hello, uh. I'm not very good at the game. in the previous games I played flaco and lucina, and I want to know which one I should dedicate too. Falco is more fun in my opinion but lucina is far more practical and y'know, viable. so I'd like advice.

​

Play whomever you enjoy more.
Learning the game with a character you actually like will make progress feel far more meaningful and expedient as opposed to being too much of a chore.
Only at higher levels should you consider picking a character solely off of their competitive viability, and even at that point, by then your fundamentals should be strong enough to switch to most any other character anyways.

 

[Justin Allen Goldschmidt]

hello, uh. I'm not very good at the game. in the previous games I played flaco and lucina, and I want to know which one I should dedicate too. Falco is more fun in my opinion but lucina is far more practical and y'know, viable. so I'd like advice.

​

I absolutely advocate for having more fun, personally. Plus at the very least Falco isn't bad in this game, so even once you do get better, he isn't really holding you back.

 

[JackSSBU]

I absolutely advocate for having more fun, personally. Plus at the very least Falco isn't bad in this game, so even once you do get better, he isn't really holding you back.

okay then, I appreciate you helping me on this matter. I will try to get better with falco for an upcoming school tournament on the 19th and tell you how it goes. thank you.

 

[BlueGoblin]

Yo!

So, I've been banging my head looking for a main since day 1, so hopefully some new input will help me getting near the solution.

Historically, I'm a Ness main, but lately I've noticed that I play pretty brainless thanks to Ness amazing neutral. Every match is pretty much the same (pk fire, fair, fair, rinse and repeat) until I find myself against someone with more range on their aerials and I get my ass handed, because in 10+ years I've learned nothing.

So basically here's my wishlist for my next main (I understand I can't have everything, but it would be nice):
- flexible playstyle that changes based on the opponent (bonus points for mind-games with tech chases and traps)
- not over-reliant on the same stale setplays. On the opposite I'd like someone who can get pretty "freestyle"
- various kill option: not over-reliant on some crazy unlikely setups or a single kill-move

Nice to haves:
- being able to work well (or at least decently) both in close combat and at distance
- counter/reflector
- good edgeguard game
- ways to shield break
- simple to pick up
- high damage: I prefer landing hard blows thanks to a good timing/spacing than to go after difficult combos that end up raking 15%

Until now I played a lot of Link, which I find fun but sometimes I have a little difficulties in using his kit without ending up being That Guy from For Glory who keeps spamming projectiles, and Ganon: he has a lot of the things I search for but I'm kinda put off by the absolute nightmare time I have when I end up against projectile heavy characters and people who know how to edgeguard.