Which character takes the most mental skill to play?

[Coney]

The answer is DDD.

DDD takes the most mental skill to play.

 

[Red Arremer]

The answer is DDD.

DDD takes the most mental skill to play.

Of course, you have to be mentally stable and enduring to be as gay as using chaingrabs. ^_^

 

[POKE40]

Captain Falcon

your morale is going to be soooooo freakn low that you must have mental skill not to become depressed when you lose the battles.

At lease you can say that Captain Falcon is Top Tier for Manliness

 

[Ray_Kalm]

Captain Falcon

your morale is going to be soooooo freakn low that you must have mental skill not to become depressed when you lose the battles.

At lease you can say that Captain Falcon is Top Tier for Manliness

You do know that Falcon being the manliness is only a on-going joke, right?

 

[dancingfrogman]

Playing the low of the low

You know they are terrible, and that opponents laugh at your pick of character, making absurd and witty comments before you even go to the stage select screen. You have a headache, you're pissed off at your opponent and can't concentrate properly. You just been Real life mindgamed.

Come prepared, you might need that paracetomel for ya head.

 

[Nitrix]

For that reason, I'd say that the question asked isn't really interesting or useful, a better question would be, "what character requires more mental and/or physical conditioning to play reasonably close to the top of the metagame"?

To me, these are the characters that stand out


Wario: When playing as a Wario your moves have bad range, so you must be able to consistently get inside your oponents defense. This requires constand mindgames and thus alot of control.

Diddy Kong: When Diddy is played well he looks really easy to control but in fact Diddy Kong requires an awful lot of concentration and mindgames to play. Generally I find that Diddy Kong is alot like Snake, only that Snake has more to fall back on when he messes up his stage-control game (F-Tilt, etc). Thus, Diddy requires alot of skill because messing up has big consequences.

Ice Climbers: Getting the grab is tough against oponents that know how to space well, and keeping Nana alive is even tougher. Thus, Ice Climbers need alot of skill to succeed in both achieving the grab against skillful oponents, and in recovering from possibly fatal seperations.

 

[POKE40]

You do know that Falcon being the manliness is only a on-going joke, right?

you do know I was doing the joke right? :D

 

[redgreenblue]

snake? are you kidding? there is no way he is in the upper echelon of characters with high learning curves. he has a medium learning curve, at the most.

 

[Kips]

I believe that ROB has a learning curve that starts out fairly low, and then rises sharply when you hit real competition. This is because the cute little tricks of offstage F-Airs, and other gimps that you could pull off easily at the casual level will not be happening at the tournament level, and in addition, I believe ROB takes a great deal of patience. He's not the hardest- but he's certainly not too easy.

 

[Lezard]

very accurate Fatmanonice

 

[EdreesesPieces]

captain falcon definitely. It takes a lot of mental skill not to be too tempted to keep trying to knee and falcon punch everybody in sight and actually use his moves. Everytime I play him I can't but try 5-9 falcon punches per match, and I imagine it takes a ton of mental skill to force yourself not to because i just can't help myself.

 

[ZettaKuma]

snake? are you kidding? there is no way he is in the upper echelon of characters with high learning curves. he has a medium no learning curve, at the most.

That's better!
Have you heard of a "sliding up-smash"?

Peach & Jigglypuff:
Now there are characters that you really need to learn to use.

 

[Kamikaze*]

Why do people underrate MKs learning curve so much? Yeah, he's one of the easiest to pick up and play at a basic level, but to actually play effectively, he's much harder than everyone gives him credit for (lolspacing).

Agreed. Don't forget the fact that at higher levels, everyone and their mother knows this matchup.

 

[Kamikaze*]

Snake so high learning curve? I don't understand. Snake has no "hard to learn" advanced techniques though they are many.

Mindgames son.

 

[Fatmanonice]

snake? are you kidding? there is no way he is in the upper echelon of characters with high learning curves. he has a medium learning curve, at the most.

I personally say that Snake has a very high learning curve because of the enormous difference between those that know proper stage control and those that don't. From my experience both playing as him and playing against him, that is the key to playing a genuinely good Snake. The mines, C4, grenades, and nikitias can be used in a different number of ways both offensively and defensively to control your opponents' actions. There's also his tech chase to consider too.

Also, if you really want to have a good idea of the huge difference between someone who plays as Snake straight forward and someone who actually knows all the techs, just watch a level 9 computer Snake play. Not the best example, granted, but it gives you an idea of how a techless Snake is comparable to a chain grabless Ice Climbers.

I believe that ROB has a learning curve that starts out fairly low, and then rises sharply when you hit real competition. This is because the cute little tricks of offstage F-Airs, and other gimps that you could pull off easily at the casual level will not be happening at the tournament level, and in addition, I believe ROB takes a great deal of patience. He's not the hardest- but he's certainly not too easy.

I personally put him on the lower side for several reasons:

1. ROB has very easy set ups. For example, all his throws give him a decent number of options, his dtilt and ftilt can trip, it's very easy to juggle with utilt, and, aside from dair, all his aerials have very little landing lag and can be done into other things.

2. ROB's recovery and offstage game are amazing. It doesn't take too much know how to chase someone offstage with fairs or edgeguard with bair, for example. Also, aside from Metaknight, ROB has the most reasonable ledge options in the game.

3. ROB pretty much only has one tech, glide tossing the gyro, and but it's not all that important to his game.

4. Two very easy to use projectiles. It can also be argued that they are among the best projectiles in the game to edgeguard with too.

5. ROB has a decent number of kill options both on and offstage so you don't have to learn to work around having "low KO potential" like in the case of Sonic, Lucario, or Shiek.

With this being said, I think the only characters that have lower learning curves than ROB are Mr. Game and Watch and Metaknight.

 

[UncleSam]

That's better!
Have you heard of a "sliding up-smash"?

every character can do it, it just requires different timing, you dash and then up smash that's it
I'd say TL just because he has about a billion(maybe not a billion) AT's that are effective and being able to both utilize these and space perfectly because of the fact TL is an easy kill

now Yoshi is one that takes loads of mental skill just watch Bwett

 

[goodkid]

I'm sure the characters that require zoning/stage control like Snake/TL require a lot of mental skill. G&W & Marth are pretty straight-forward. Sonic takes skill because he has many tricks and low KO power. Oh & Olimar as well because each pikmin has a different trait.

 

[Fatmanonice]

I'm sure the characters that require zoning/stage control like Snake/TL require a lot of mental skill. G&W & Marth are pretty straight-forward. Sonic takes skill because he has many tricks and low KO power. Oh & Olimar as well because each pikmin has a different trait.

I used to think the same about Olimar too around this time last year and, overtime, I realized that it's really not that big of deal since all except the White Pikmin have decent KO potential, whether by regular attacks or throws. For example, the red ones can negate fire attacks but, in a sense, they all can do that except the others actually get hurt by them and can die from the attacks. Your pikmin dying really isn't that big of a deal on stage unless you're high up in percentage since Olimar can quickly spawn new ones as it is. The only thing that keeps me from saying that Olimar has a very easy learning curve like Metaknight is the fact that his offstage game is garbage in comparison to how's he's a genuine Haus on stage.

 

[Mecakoto]

Oh & Olimar as well because each pikmin has a different trait.

I have to disagree with this. Olimar's pikmin aren't hard to memorize. Just look at what each one does once and keep a mental note. Also, the color of them is self-explanatory:

Fat and Purple? It will hit harder with Smashing and the Up/Down throw because the fat-*** falls on your opponent.

White? Throw the ******* or at least grab and pummel. If you have 2 in a row and you think you can re-grab after the release, go for it.

Yellow? Electric and proud. Spike with it if you are daring. It also has more of an ark and greater range. (Like Olimar needs that)

Blue? Use it for throws. Back throw is as awesome as Ness's is.

Red? Fire. Kill it with fire. Kill it in the air with fire.


Na. Not hard to remember. And after playing Olimar for a while, you get to know the smaller things. The hard thing with Olimar is avoiding getting gimped at 20% and using the Whistle to cancel strings and to order your pikmin.

 

[Moozle]

I think people significantly overrate Diddy's learning curve. The bananas aren't that hard to get down.

I very much agree. I personally think ZSS and ICs takes the most.

 

[rathy Aro]

Are people really claiming that snake's DACUS is any way remotely difficult. >.> Spend 30 minutes on it. Its easier then wave dashing.... I think its actually less strict than b-reversing too and possibly glide tossing. I don't think snake mains gripe much about the difficulty of DACUS.

You know who does have an insanely hard DACUS? Sheik. Sheik has one of the hardest techs to master in this game that is viable (don't pull that ISJR **** on me). I'm not going to go into the precision it takes to play her or other stuff about how playing her is hard, because every character has something that makes life hard. I will talk about ftilt-> usmash. To get this combo down you have to keep in mind decay (learn about decay and you'll see why this is insanely hard to do during a match), the enemy's weight, and the enemy's damage. Ftilt->usmash is pretty much essential along with DACUS to keep sheik from being midtier trash as she is at mid tier for difficulty with killing.

Let me summarize: sheik could be the hardest, because DACUS is a hard move (for brawl) to perform and possibly the hardest. Decayed ftilt->usmash requires you calculate mentally 3 different factors 1 of which is nearly impossible to keep track of during a real match. Who else requires more thought?
/end character bias

Now thinking of it objectively toon link has always appeared to take a lot of physical and mental effort. His mains can vouch for him better than I can.

and ICs makes sense too. The cg is apparently very hard to master on every character.

 

[UncleSam]

You know who does have an insanely hard DACUS? Sheik.

I call your Sheik's DACUS and raise you a Dragonic Reverse
Even though I personally think wavedashing was easier DACUS is still nothing to boast about

Now thinking of it objectively toon link has always appeared to take a lot of physical and mental effort. His mains can vouch for him better than I can.

y' know I wouldn't mind doing that:
with the fact that TL has horrible range, horrible grab, and is not too powerful you have to not only learn how to effectively use his moveset but to also, plan out every projectile camp, before you do it. Try doing that in a heated match, wave his little sword around, it's not going to do much look how much work we've done!http://www.smashboards.com/showpost.php?p=7088045&postcount=1 and we're still not done, we put so much mental effort into exploiting our specials and turning our weaknesses into advantages we look over every%,analyze every move, and have to stay 3 steps ahead in a regular match to win

These are the Toon Link boards.
We have no noobs.

get it straight
/end character bias

 

[adumbrodeus]

I call your Sheik's DACUS and raise you a Dragonic Reverse
Even though I personally think wavedashing was easier DACUS is still nothing to boast about

Sheik's Dacus is amazingly strict in timing, I still haven't got it down and I have no problem performing it with Snake. BTW, I secondary Sheik and I've practiced it, a lot. It's just f'ing difficult.

Need to try dragonic reverse, never got a chance to pick up yoshi really.

 

[UncleSam]

Sheik's Dacus is amazingly strict in timing, I still haven't got it down and I have no problem performing it with Snake. BTW, I secondary Sheik and I've practiced it, a lot. It's just f'ing difficult.

Need to try dragonic reverse, never got a chance to pick up yoshi really.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_s0EDOH7MAM if you need help trying to do it

 

[adumbrodeus]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_s0EDOH7MAM if you need help trying to do it

Thanks, but I always knew where to find the information, it's more a matter of time to actually practice the AT, same story with DACAS and the innumerable melee fox techniques I've been putting off.

 

[UncleSam]

Thanks, but I always knew where to find the information, it's more a matter of time to actually practice the AT, same story with DACAS and the innumerable melee fox techniques I've been putting off.

oh wow, that reminds me I haven't played melee in sooooooo long, I say that takes mental skill, but this is a brawl thread sooooooo,
I'm starting to think more mid tier characters.
Take pit ppl say
"oooh arrow spam" they have more than that you know
and Diddykong he wouldn't be so high if the Diddy mains didn't work so hard

 

[Moozle]

I think the thing that makes Snake take a lot of mental skill (that WAS the question after all, not the hardest learning curve) is not his DACUS, but more of the fact that you have to plan so far in advance.
I gave up on draconic reverse after like 20 minutes lol. Yoshi makes me sad

 

[NinjaLAW1234]

why do you all think zss is hard to play? I'm not ignorant or anything I know she's very tough but I would like to know why you all think so.

 

[adumbrodeus]

oh wow, that reminds me I haven't played melee in sooooooo long, I say that takes mental skill, but this is a brawl thread sooooooo,
I'm starting to think more mid tier characters.
Take pit ppl say
"oooh arrow spam" they have more than that you know
and Diddykong he wouldn't be so high if the Diddy mains didn't work so hard

Melee is difficult, I wish the ATs weren't so difficult, but the depth's there, so it's an amazing game for competitive play IMO. Fox especially is so difficult, but he's so much fun to play, IMO the most fun character in the game to play, but I still suck at him unfortunately.

But what the heck, every character's fun to play in melee, IMO even Sheik and Peach are mad fun to play.


Diddy is again difficult.

Pit is REALLY tech-heavy, early in the game... well EL sort of sumerized my feelings in regards to the Pit community, and a lot of other Marths as well...

Pit's biggest weakness is that character's can zone him with greater range so he can't safely use arrows or try to attack since he is outranged. How does Pit work around this? As a community THIS is the type of **** you guys should be working on.

Not Arrow Ballerina Waste-of-your-motherf*ckin-time Dance.

Basically, they developed a ton of interesting ATs early in the game, but didn't really spend much time developing the basics.


However, the Pit community has improved significantly since then, however they were left with all those interesting ATs which they could incorporate into their game. Since Pit is a naturally tech-heavy character, it left a very technical Pit metagame, but also made him difficult to learn.


Diddy, really we gotta thank Ninjalink for breaking the ice, Alphazealot was telling us this already but Ninjalink got a revelation, and then Diddy's game just exploded from there. He's really difficult to play, I'm just happy that my Marth counters him.

 

[Hylian]

Not much in brawl is really hard in my opinion tech wise. Ice climbers chaingrabs are by far the hardest thing to do in the game. There is a different timing for every character, and being able to consistantly 0-death every characters takes countless hours of practice.

I don't really think dragonic reverse is hard at all. Someone at FAST told me it wasn't useful because it was too hard to do consistantly, so I went and practiced it for litterally not even 5 minutes and I could do it on command. It's a pretty simple input lol, especially for someone who played Fox in melee.


When I was first picking up melee it took me SIX months to get waveshining down consistantly(keep in mind this was 2003 lol). Nothing in brawl has required near that amount of practice for me, and most things I can do after just watching someone else.

If you are having trouble with something in this game that requires tech skill, you seriously just need to practice more. The inputs in the majority of other fighters that are standard are much harder then some of the hardest things in brawl.

This isn't a brawl bashing post at all, I love brawl . It's just easy tech-wise lol.

 

[The Sauce Boss]

Asking "which character takes the most mental skill to play" is a ridiculous question and anyone who thinks they can answer it with anything more than a totally biased opinion is an idiot.

 

[Fatmanonice]

why do you all think zss is hard to play? I'm not ignorant or anything I know she's very tough but I would like to know why you all think so.

Glad you asked. These are the main reasons why I would say that ZSS is hard to learn:

1. Lack of attacks that have genuine KO potential. She pretty much has two: her tazer whip (B forward) and her bair. The tazer whip needs proper spacing to hit and ZSS's bair has a small hit box. To give you an idea of how small it is, it's probably about 1/3 the size of Donkey Kong's and half the size of Mario's. A majority of ZSS's kills come from edgeguarding and even then she only has a few attacks that help with that.

2. Lack of priority in a lot of her attacks. It doesn't help that a lot of her attacks have small hit boxes too.

3. The nature of her grab. Her grab is important to her game but it leaves her wide open if she misses. Overall, it's the most cost heavy grab in the game so she has to be very careful with it.

4. Because of points 1-3, spacing is really important to her game. I would go as far as to say that compared to the whole cast, spacing is the most important aspect of her game.

5. Being good with ZSS is all about landing small hits and quickly following up with those that actually land. Individually, her attacks are kind of pitful but when stringed together, they can be very effective.

6. Because of points 1-5, learning how to properly use her paralyzer and dsmash is very important too .

7. The different aspects of her recovery are interesting as well. She has the standard tether recovery but she also has the down B double jump that can be used in different ways like setting up footstools.

I think that just about sums it up.

 

[NinjaLAW1234]

thanks for the response

 

[TEECO]

Falco, ICs, and Snake imo.

 

[Sosuke]

Because DOLPHIN SLASH IS NOT MARTH'S ONLY OOS OPTION!

If it was, you'd be right, but he has Dancing Blade, those two options alone push him ahead of the VAST majority of the cast.

Then he has shieldgrab (he has a long grab range and a good grab game now), and he has dtilt (possible frametrap), and has retreating fair/nair/bair.

Finally he has his less abusable options that are still effective when the opponent is in lag for a long time, aka, f-smash, downsmash, up-smash, etc. Those are mostly his kill options.


Now, I haven't really explored this yet because I figured that it was known, but Marth's dolphin slash is so amazing because, in addition to being a kill move, it has a frame 0 activation. That means that unless Marth is in hitstun the entire time, he cannot be combo'd, chaingrabbed, whatever.

As far as OOS options go, this means that he can do it through means that have lasting or repeated hitboxes (for example, jab combos). MK can SOMETIMES get through, but that's only if his hurtbox happens to miss the move's hitbox. Yes, he has invincibility too, and the hitbox comes out at frame 5 too, but MK has invincibility at frame 5, Marth has invincibility on frames 1-4, meaning an effective frame 1 activation.


There are only a few moves in the game with this feature (Bowser's fortress and Ivysaur's bullet seed are a few examples) and you KNOW how crucial Fortress is to Bowser. For the same reason, Dolphin Slash is amazing.


And yes, Marth does use Dolphin Slash to kill. Actually, most of Marth's kills or gimp set-ups come from OOS because that's the way the character is played. All his kill options (except nair, and nair only works against tall characters inherently) are punishment, or usable only for edge-guarding.


Really, this seems like a misunderstanding of Marth's character theory, unlike the vast majority of the cast, Marth should be getting almost all of his outright kills OOS. If you're not, except in specific match-ups, you're doing it wrong.

I understand your whole post completely
I actually took the time to write a well thought out response
You know, addressing every issue individually like a normal post
but I thought it over and decided this was a better alternative

This is just debating theory. You can go at this all day,and still not get a clear answer. It seems to be more preference oriented and opinion based if you look at the statistics are situations and not numbers.
If I were to get my Shield Fair'd by, lets say, a Squirtle, which would I pick? MK's options or Marth's options? It really comes down to whichever feels more comfortable to the player.

For example:
Marth getting most of his from OoS stuff? Idk about you, but if I'm in a tournement match and I get killed by a DS OoS, I stay away from his shield at high percents.
Know what I mean?
Theres no point in it.
"MK's sucks against multiple hits"
"Marth's can get ***** by my smash if he misses"
It's all preference. There are so many factors you can put in this, so many specifics.
Like, if the opponents at 0% and I use Marth's OoS, The guy can still get back and punish, right?
But with MK, he probably can't.
Whereas If the opponents at higher percentages and it connects, Marth's DS will kill faster then MK's SL.
Preference.

I honestly don't see this going anywhere.

Spend a good amount of time in the MK ban thread, you will never be able to judge what to take seriously about MK again.

It's the ACTUAL BELIEFS of a large portion of smashboards, yes it's pathetic, but true.

Then you shouldn't pay attention to people who know anything about this game.
Thats what the parenthesis part meant. That isn't how they learn.
They get ***** in tournaments by good MKs. THATS how the learn.

Mindgames son.

No ones character's metagame is mindgames.

That doesn't make sense haha
They're two separate things.

 

[Supermodel From Paris]

Glad you asked. These are the main reasons why I would say that ZSS is hard to learn:

1. Lack of attacks that have genuine KO potential. She pretty much has two: her tazer whip (B forward) and her bair. The tazer whip needs proper spacing to hit and ZSS's bair has a small hit box. To give you an idea of how small it is, it's probably about 1/3 the size of Donkey Kong's and half the size of Mario's. A majority of ZSS's kills come from edgeguarding and even then she only has a few attacks that help with that.

You forgot Uair, which is probably our best KO move. You also forgot Fair; the second hit of fair has a lot of kill potential but is harder to land. Still, we use it a lot. ZSS actually has some of the strongest kill potential in the game, it's just about setups. You can't just walk up to them and smack them with a uair, it doesn't work that way. That leads to the idea that ZSS 'doesn't have kill potential' which isn't true at all.

2. Lack of priority in a lot of her attacks. It doesn't help that a lot of her attacks have small hit boxes too.

Of the few attacks we use on the ground, ZSS attacks have extraordinary priority. I don't know where you got this information. Side-b, down-b kick, dsmash, and usmash all have ridiculously high priority. Her tilts do, as well, which you didn't even mention (tilts are very very important). Her uair, the most potent and easily landed killing move, has a disjointed hitbox, and all her aerials will win out against most attacks in the game.

3. The nature of her grab. Her grab is important to her game but it leaves her wide open if she misses. Overall, it's the most cost heavy grab in the game so she has to be very careful with it.

What? The grab isn't important at all. Some players (Snakeee most notably) don't even grab very often at all, except to chain grab. Would we grab more often if it didn't leave us so open? Probably.

4. Because of points 1-3, spacing is really important to her game. I would go as far as to say that compared to the whole cast, spacing is the most important aspect of her game.

Sure, spacing is really important. You've got to be all but a spacing god to play ZSS.

5. Being good with ZSS is all about landing small hits and quickly following up with those that actually land. Individually, her attacks are kind of pitful but when stringed together, they can be very effective.

ZSS' hits actually deal very respectable damage alone and ZSS builds damage faster than most characters in the cast. And we don't have to worry about them "actually landing," especially at low percents; ZSS has more true combos than anyone in the entire cast.

6. Because of points 1-5, learning how to properly use her paralyzer and dsmash is very important too .

Paralyzer is very very low on the list of moves to learn to use correctly, even though really you should be able to use them all correctly. Dsmash is great, yeah.

7. The different aspects of her recovery are interesting as well. She has the standard tether recovery but she also has the down B double jump that can be used in different ways like setting up footstools.

Her tether isn't really standard. It connects to the side of the stage nearly from the blast zone and horizontally gets quite a distance as well (with side-b). She can use it multiple times, it spikes edgehoggers, etc. It's a very powerful tether move and leaps and bounds above other tethers in brawl.

I think that just about sums it up.

No. ZSS is hard to use because her style of dealing damage isn't at all straightforward. She doesn't just space and smash, as so many other characters in this game do. Connecting with a move can be very difficult, but once you do you are generally rewarded with 40-50% damage, depending on who you're playing. Some moves that many other characters rely on for finishing kills (dair, fsmash, for instance) are borderline worthless and ZSS really suffers out of shield against strong characters. Her recovery is also very versatile and powerful but requires a lot of practice. You won't gimp a good ZSS, but a bad one is absolutely hogtastic. There you go.

 

[gallax]

im gonna have to say snake takes a lot of mental skill to play on a high level. there are so many things that you must do as snake to paly at a high level and win.

 

[SpongeBathBill]

and Diddykong he wouldn't be so high if the Diddy mains didn't work so hard

True that, the Diddy community is so dedicated.

why do you all think zss is hard to play? I'm not ignorant or anything I know she's very tough but I would like to know why you all think so.

I had some commentary to offer but Supermodel pretty much covered it. It has to do with her non-obvious style and, as I said earlier, her lack of anything that's reliable and abuseable on a constant basis.

Sorry I can't articulate it any better ><

 

[NinjaLAW1234]

True that, the Diddy community is so dedicated.



I had some commentary to offer but Supermodel pretty much covered it. It has to do with her non-obvious style and, as I said earlier, her lack of anything that's reliable and abuseable on a constant basis.

Sorry I can't articulate it any better ><

no problem, supermodels response was great

 

[AnDaLe]

Olimar, Ivysaur, ZSS, Snake, Diddy, ICs (sorta0