Switching Seamlessly Between Characters

[townes]

How do high level smashers switch between their main and secondary characters without accidentally mixing up mental inputs and slight character differences. For instance, I'm a marth main and marth's time to get airborne is on frame 5 while fox's is on frame 4. I went and practiced fox for a week, and when I went back to marth, I kept full hopping when I was trying to wavedash because fox's wavedash timing is so much different. I've already adjusted and I'm back to normal, but I want to know if there are ways to overcome this character confusion. Would this be considered an innate smasher thing that some people just won't ever completely be able to master or is it just a difficult brain mechanic that I need to iron out by playing both characters for a really long time? I wanna play fox because he's cool, and I'd be interested to see how my best fox would do against my worst marth matchup, sheik. I'm not asking the age old question of whether I should put 100% of my time into one character vs 50-50% on two characters and perhaps have better matchups. I AM asking if there are any tips/tricks or mental stuffs to help me switch between characters without experiencing slight input confusion which will ultimately be devastating in serious play.

Cliffs:
-how do I play a secondary without it f***ing up my main, marth and fox are so different, WDing and DDing, and ledge speeds... help!

 

[Xyzz]

It's practice, I guess... at some point it's just that the speed of the wavedash motion is automatically determined by the character you're playing

 

[Ringedge]

The more you switch between characters the easier it is to do so, just keep at it and you will be able to without a problem soon.

 

[Spak]

Also, if you are transitioning from Martha to Fox in between matches in a tournament, you could play some friendlies before your next match to adjust. If you don't have time to adjust before your match starts, you could ask to do some button checks. Other than that, you just need experience switching.

 

[AirFair]

Yeah, I like to switch from Marth to Falco in a lot of friendly matches.It usually takes a minute or so to get certain timings down decently. It will take more switching to get good with them, as I play Marth 80% of the time.

 

[victra♥]

It definitely takes practice. Very few players can get away with playing multiple characters in the same tournament except for Mango and M2K.

It's definitely easier for a new(er) player to focus on a single character. Every additional character you add really stretches you thin imo, but then again I'm a bit bias and I'm a huge believer in using a single character.

 

[BTmoney]

practice practice

I practiced Marth enough to the point where I don't need to warm him up all that much if I haven't been playing him at all. I don't main Marth though and rarely use him in tournament. But I can always go form fox/any character to Marth at this point (and I can't do that for any other character). It just turns out that I've practiced a ****load of Marth in my room so when it comes time to bring it out it's 90%-85% on point without warming it up.

I had no intention initially but Marth just became my secondary, as fox, cause it's really easy for me to switch to him since I did main the char ~3 years ago (maybe I should go back )

 

[townes]

I went and looked up all the characters airborne on frame to see who would make switching easiest. Turns out characters that share Marth's jump speed are falcon, doc, luigi, Mario, young link, ness, and G&W. Does marth still do better against sheik than the rest of these characters?

 

[gmBottles]

Switching between characters depends heavily on how comfortable you are with the characters. For example, when I was learning Luigi, switching between Jigglypuff and Luigi was very difficult because they play so differently. But eventually I was able to play both and not have to spend too much time adjusting to the changes. It's just a matter of time, patience, and lots and lots of practice.

 

[EPsilon933]

It's better to perfect 1 character than to have multiple not-as-good ones. you can only play 1 character at a time

 

[The Star King]

It's better to perfect 1 character than to have multiple not-as-good ones. you can only play 1 character at a time

yeah that's why m2k and mango are so unsuccessful

 

[gmBottles]

It's better to perfect 1 character than to have multiple not-as-good ones. you can only play 1 character at a time

While it is true that having only one character is technically better, its fun to have multiple characters to switch between. Putting in work with your main most of the time while occasionally practicing other characters for certain MUs can be helpful.

 

[EddyBearr]

I don't have much issue with switching between characters in tournament, but Fox is not among those characters, so it's probably easier for me.

 

[TheHolyRoller]

It's practice. I can switch between my mains and secondaries when playing people. Your mind just realizes the character you're playing and allows you to play them the right way... At least, that's how it works for me. It's great to be diverse in your character selection.

 

[Xyzz]

I went and looked up all the characters airborne on frame to see who would make switching easiest. Turns out characters that share Marth's jump speed are falcon, doc, luigi, Mario, young link, ness, and G&W. Does marth still do better against sheik than the rest of these characters?

Yeah. Not sure about Doc, but his stumpy limbs probably won't be a good look against Sheik's model legs
And Marth vs Sheik is totally fine. Yes she has a slight advantage, but it's nothing serious.

 

[Stride]

I went and looked up all the characters airborne on frame to see who would make switching easiest. Turns out characters that share Marth's jump speed are falcon, doc, luigi, Mario, young link, ness, and G&W. Does marth still do better against sheik than the rest of these characters?

There are many, many more things that affect your ability to switch between characters than jumpsquat frames; it's just that you tend to notice that quite easily because messing up a wavedash is obvious. Please don't choose a secondary based on that.

In Marth's case, Sheik isn't even that bad of a matchup and it's probably his worst; Marth can perform well at the highest level without a secondary. All of the other characters you've listed either have bad matchups against Sheik or are bad characters with really bad matchups against Sheik. Play around with other characters if you want, but don't try to develop a fully fledged secondary when you're playing a such a good and versatile character unless you're at a really high level already.