Working on a guide for choosing a main and need your help!

[WispBae]

Hello there!

With the Smash scene growing and many more new players still to come, I though I would make a little guide highlighting each characters strengths and specialties, to help anyone take their first step into competitive Smash, or for anyone contemplating picking up another to their personal roster!

The main dilemma I have is I don't main EVERYONE in P:M, nor am I a self-proclaimed Smash genius. So, I thought I'd ask you guys, the experts to your respective mains! If you could help me out by filling out a few lines of info for me, I'll be collecting the data and responses during the week and compiling them. Once it's all collected, I'll release the guide (somewhere on the boards, not sure yet...). So if you could take a few minutes to help, I would really appreciate it!

Character Name: The character's... wait for it... NAME!

Pros: Strengths and advantages of this character!

Cons: Weaknesses and disadvantages!

Character Specifics to Learn: Techniques exclusive to only this character (example: Squirtle's shell abilities)

Similar To: Characters that play similar to this one or have a similar strategy.

Secondaries that Compliment: A secondary character that covers certain weaknesses the main has.

(Optional) Best video example of this character in action.

Cheers!

(Sorry if you see this thread posted in multiple character forums, I find the best way to gather info is to ask directly!)

 

[SamSun]

Character name: Mewtwo
Pros: Huge ****ing tail, free combos, free pass from the ledge to the stage, ability to camp, ability to approach, easy to play.
Cons:
Character Specific Techs: Teleport Auto Cancels, Hovering, Hover Cancels.
Similar to: Meta Knight and Peach
Secondaries that compliment: MK and Fox are good to have, probably.

 

[GeZ]

I'd recommend consulting character specialists for this poll. See if you can find authorities on the characters, like Hungry Headcrab or Scuba Steve for Ganon, and ez, or deadjames for Mario.

 

[BigHairyFart]

Link
Pros: Great with projectiles; His unholy boomerang can lead to combos that last for days; One of the best recoveries in the game
Cons: No OoS options, has a hard time dealing with pressure; Basically gets rekt by any kind of rushdown character.
Specific techs: Mastering the AGT, bombjumping, and various other bomb tricks.
Similar characters: Toon Link, obviously, though TL is more focused on being very mobile and having a balance of projectiles and sword attacks, with less bomb tricks, while Link is usually one-sided towards either projectiles or bombs.
Good secondaries: Someone that can deal with pressure/fast characters well. My first thoughts would be Marth or Kirby. Sig may reveal better secondaries, but I haven't put a lot of thought into it.

 

[himemiya]

See a character you like? Well pick them.

 

[Zujx]

This is a cool idea good luck with this ive always wanted someone to make a guide like this
When I have more free time I'll do my best to contribute

 

[QuickRat]

Character Name: Ness

Pros: good attacks at performing combos, lots of powerful attacks, a pretty good meteor Smash, awesome midair jump...

Cons: PK Thunder (recovery move) is difficult to control, very easy to spoil and won't help in most of situations, bad range...

Character Specifics to Learn: double jump cancel (DJC), DJC + wavedash, reversing mechanics...

Similar To: I would say Lucas... but he's actually pretty differenced in Project M... so I think Ness is as unique as he was in the original game and in Melee.

Secondaries that Compliment: I'd reccomend Link because of the range.

Videos: I recommend this list of videos.

 

[Choice Scarf]

Probably not the right person for this but I'll give it a shot:



Pros: Good speed, low lag on most attacks, great mobility, reliable kill set-ups, can kill early through gimps and Up smash, top tier recovery, great edgeguarding tactics including being able to go deep for kills

Cons: Lightweight, very poor range and disjoint on most normals that make spacing difficult, effective tech skill and game speed are high, and I guess low raw damage but Pika has enough DPS to make up for it

Character Specifics: Quick Attack angles, Uair hitboxes, and all forms of Quick Attack Cancelling in that order

Similar to: Aggro Fox that trades shield pressure for recovery

Secondaries that compliment: Personal opinion but I like Ivysaur for greater range against Pika's trouble MUs

 

[9bit]

Character: Meta Knight

Pros:

• Fast ground speed -- great dash dancing, baiting, tech chasing
• Disjointed hitbox (sword) with transcendent priority
• Solid recovery with many options / mixups if you are smart about it
• Top-notch edgeguard / gimp / offstage game

Cons:

• Light weight, dies off the sides relatively easily (not so much off the top because of his fast fall-speed)
• Dealing with projectiles is hard but not impossible
• Weak to crouch cancelling if you aren't ready for it

Character Specifics to Learn:

• Dimensional Cape (Down-B) stuff, it's a complex and powerful move
• Shuttle Loop (Up-B) cancelling / sliding
• D-air edge cancelling
• Down-throw tech chasing

Similar To:

• Marth, Sheik, Fox, and Jigglypuff all mooshed together

Secondaries that Compliment:

• I like to compliment MK with a character that has a solid projectile game
  • Link / Toon Link
  • Falco / Fox / Wolf
  • Diddy

 

[SupremoRemo]

Can never go wrong with Captain Falcon

 

[Phaiyte]

Character name: Mewtwo
Pros: Huge ****ing tail, free combos, free pass from the ledge to the stage, ability to camp, ability to approach, easy to play.
Cons:
Character Specific Techs: Teleport Auto Cancels, Hovering, Hover Cancels.
Similar to: Meta Knight and Peach
Secondaries that compliment: MK and Fox are good to have, probably.

I can't tell if you actually think Mewtwo has no cons or just don't know them.

 

[Raijinken]

Character Name: Marth

Pros: Well-rounded stats, moderate range, disjointed hitboxes on attacks, long grab range, easy to learn.

Cons: No projectiles, sweetspot-sensitive, throws lack finisher potential, Counter extremely niche move, difficult to master (thanks @ BigHairyFart )

Character Specifics to Learn: Counter (specific to FE characters)

Similar To: Roy

Secondaries that Compliment: Dr Mario

 

[BigHairyFart]

...easy to learn...

I feel like it should be noted that Marth is easy to learn, but quite difficult to master, whereas a character like Link has TONS of different projectile, tools, and other attacks, he could be considered hard to learn, but easy to master once he is learned.

 

[Marthmario]

I'll be contributing soon, just when I get the time.

 

[Phaiyte]

Character Name: Ganondorf

Pros: All normals hit like a truck, fairly exceptional range on anything that involves his legs, 3 grabs (grabs go through shields), god-like aerials, relatively easy follow-ups on almost any hit confirm, easy to learn in general, exceptional tech chase and punish game, very good at crouch cancelling, exceptionally good offstage / edge guarding potential, APM requirement isn't very high at top level play compared to every other character in the game.

Cons: Extremely small standing grab range, regular movespeed is abysmally slow with no good movement options, most attacks are relatively slow and easy to punish on whiff, one of the easiest characters in the game to combo/kill, have to be exceptionally good at reading your opponents at all times because none of your offensive options are very safe.

Character Specifics to Learn: Wavelanding via perfectly horizontal airdodge

Similar to: Captain Falcon, Mewtwo without teleports, and probably a little Bowser.

Complimentary Secondaries: Marth, Mewtwo, Mario.

 

[SamSun]

I can't tell if you actually think Mewtwo has no cons or just don't know them.

I don't think he has many cons if any. if you don't make any mistakes, you should win lol.

 

[guedes the brawler]

it might be a good idea to gather information, more specialized information, on the character sub-forums, no?

 

[Phaiyte]

I don't think he has many cons if any. if you don't make any mistakes, you should win lol.

You're wrong. Very wrong.

 

[SamSun]

Feel free to enlighten me if you want.

 

[MrMikhael]

*I refer to waddledees as his boys*

Name: DeDeDe

Strengths - Huge range, heavy character that is hard kill, unique projectile with the boys, powerful, aerials and pokes, good grab with potential setups, great recovery

Cons - Lacks combo potential, slow, large hotbox, poor stage control, predictable recovery, limited movepool

Character Specific Traits - The boys dash ( Wavedashing near the boys to both use a projectile and position), Grab setups, Wall of pain

Similar to - no one, no one is even remotely close to DeDeDe, very unique character

Complimentary - Faster more combo reliant characters. Fox, Metaknight, Mario, Marty, etc

 

[leekslap]

OLIBABIES

Pros
- pikmin
- great at juggling
- purple pikmin throw
- white pikmin throw racks up a lot of damage
- blue pikmin grabs
- good combos
- pikmin throw baits
- special passive aggressive playstyle
Cons
- light and floaty
- easy to combo
- options don't flow very well
- takes way too much time to set up
- easy to gimp
- up b is broken because it never grabs the ledge and is really short
- low priority
- pikmin throw is very unsafe
- range defeats him
- can't afford to trade because of pikmin survival
- very weak if his pikmin have not flowered
- overall bad MU spread
- luck based
- horrible approach
- was nerfed in basically every way

WALF

Pros
- is a spacie
- crazy(energem) combos
- fantastic pressure
- shine
- excellent at juggling
- great CC
- lives long
- can kill really early with an energem
- pretty fast and has great mobility
- mega balls to the wall aggresive
- good range
- kinda safe on shield
- good priority
- good MU spread and pretty great character overall
Cons
- can't approach easily
- projectile is slow and easily clankable
- easy to combo
- range can be problematic
- can self destruct easily
- CCable
- VERY technical

It's too many techniques to list but Ike, Marth, and MK are great secondaries for Wolf.

 

[Blitzus]

Lucario

Powerful reward system if you deal enough damage to superpower one of your specials. Your dash attacks cancel the animation into tilt attacks into smashes into aerials, into specials. He also has an excellent juggle game.

Lucario suffers from being fairly light, and neutral in speed, if you're not using his combos. so if you can't use his combo system effectively, you're in for a loss.
The most significant combo with Lucario is dash attack, up tilt, up smash, neutral aerial, over-special.

Lucario does not feel like anyone in smash, but will feel like you're playing on turbo mode if you're using his combos to maximum efficiency. Think of him as being someone from a traditional fighting game snaking himself into smash.

A good backup for Lucario is anyone from Fire Emblem. The huge range of their swords and their excellent aerial games fill in for Lucario's dependence on his combos and super powered specials.

For the best Lucario, look up Bec vs. Woodoo.
(Need ten posts to post a link lol)

Id really like to stress how much Lucario's combos are a blessing, not a curse. It sounds like he's absolutely useless unless played correctly, and it's true. But he moves faster than light and hits like a truck when you pull off those combos.

 

[Boomhound]

Looking forward to a finished version of this guide!

Perhaps add extra details to your character templates such as:

Movement- eg. Fox has great movement via high movement speed, great wave-dash and fox-trot.

Recovery- eg. Marth has an ok horizontal recovery via his sideB but it is mix-up and skill dependant. It may require you to vary your timing, hide your 2nd jump and sometimes even air-dodge on stage as to avoid being predictable.

I know these fit in the pros and cons section but describing Fox as a light fastfaller in a weight section is much better than simply stating ''he's easy to combo'' in a cons section imo as it provides facts that the viewer can base their opinion upon- as not all players or characters are adept at comboing the spacies.

 

[leekslap]

FLACO ( means "skinny" in spanish lol )

Pros
- insance combo game
- projectile is lagless, transcendent, fast, and fantastic for combos, walling opponents, and approaches so its really godlike
- shine
- awesome pressure
- great moveset overall
- very big jumps
- great SHFFL
- very versatile with a lot of options for all situations
- has REALLY REALLY REALLY fast moves
- great power overall
- really fun and likeable
- one of the best spikes in the game is his dair and his side b is a meteor too
Cons
- easy to combo
- very vulnerable to chaingrabs
- super easy to gimp
- bad recovery
- has trouble killing sometimes
- can't go deep for edgeguards
- worst spacie behind Fox, Wolf, and Lucas in a 3, 2, 1order with Lucas being the best
- mediocre air speed
- VERY technical requiring mindgames, minimal mistakes because he gets punished HARD, and pure button pressing tech skill
- can't keep up with the improved cast as well as he did in Melee

EDIT: forgot to put some stuff

Techniques
Short hop laser(SHL)- short hop then laser and fast fall it for a lagless neutral b; very bread and butter
Shine- jump cancel your down b; butter with bread
Pillar- shine combo even though it's a whole lot more complex than that
Waveshine- wavedash OoShine
Grab OoShine- jump cancel your grab to cancel your shine
Walljump- press away as you touch a wall to jump off, improving your recovery
Side b shorten- pressing b at the right time the right amount of times to move the right amount of distance; good for mingames and mix ups
SHFFL- short hop fast falled l canceled aerial; super bread and butter
Full Hop Double/Triple Laser (FHDL)- jumping and lasering twice near the peak of your jump and third around the same distance as if you did a SHL
Ledge Double Laser- tap away when holding on the ledge and immediately jump onto the stage while immediately lasering twice with different heights that are very useful
Gatling combo- canceling your dash attack midway with up smash; from Brawl
Bombsoldier- spiking with dair offstage usually SDing
Laser lock- it was a Brawl tech, not sure if it's still a thing but it basically jab resets indefinetly from a distance
Dash attack cancel up smash(DACUS)- I don't even know how to do it but basically, you slide while up smashing; from Brawl

Of course he's very similar to other spacies.

Characters with good defense like floaties, swordfighters, multi jumpers, and good recovery are great at covering weaknesses

 

[Vandire]

Marth

Pros: a literal combo god. Good damage, getting tippers or any sort of combo off stage is almost GUARANTEED a kill.

Cons: if you miss a grab or a Fmash for example, you'll get combo'd back. Pretty simple.

 

[steelguttey]

Olimar

Pros:
rng makes combos hype
cute

Cons:
everything else

real talk tho

Olimar

Pros:
probably the best control above head of any character in the game
one of the best jugglers in the game
really good pivot grab
like really good pivot grab
purple side b is a really good projectile
can stall forl ong amounts of time if opponent lets him because of flowering mechanism
purple kills very early
one of the best kill throws in the game
does very well against heavy characters
good recovery that lets him go in deep for edgeguards and come back if you have 4 pikmin
white pikmin latched onto the enemy is a huge mindgame that forces enemies to throw out an aerial
can get kills pretty early
down taunt

Cons:
rng based
really rng ****ing sucks **** that ****
pikmin are subpar when theyre leafs
bad oos game because usmash has a weird hitbox
prone to projectile campers like falco and fox
spacies destroy him
anyone with a sword destroys him
stubby limbs
when you lose a stock you cant take full advantage of invincibility
losing pikmin sucks

 

[Foo]

Zero Suit Samus

ZSS is a very quick and tricky combo oriented character that accels at constantly being on the offensive, whether the opponent is near or far. One solid hit and lead into a long string for massive damage. This character is perfect those of use who love being on the offensive, who have a fast playstyle, and who love comboing. However, due to weak defensive options and very slow smash attacks/grabs, a slow, methodical player will not be suited for her. If like to wait for your opponent to make the first move, this is not the character for you.

Pros:
- Very Fast
- Good neutral game
- Good Combo game
- Strong projectile
- Very good offensive tools
- Has both long, slower moves and closer ranged, faster moves.
- Back air is very useful for spacing, shield pressure AND killing
- Good shield pressure (frame traps FTW)
- Strong gimp/ledgeguarding game
- Good mixups
- Incredible aerials, except for fair
- Not very popular, so most people don't know her matchups
- Very long and safe (albeit slightly linear) recovery
- Dominates fatties
- Short landing lag on aerials

QOL Pros:
- Fun Tier
- Feels really fluid
- Rewarding if you put the time in
- Extremely stylish

Cons:
- VERY laggy smashes (except dsmash, sort of)
- Abysmal out of shields options, and poor defense in general.
- One of the, if not the, worst grabs in the game.
- Struggles immensely against spacies, particularly fox.
- Very limited ability to combo fast-fallers
- Laggy aerials (not the landing lag, the regular lag)
- Gets punished heavily for making mistakes
- No reliable combo breaker
- Suffers against crouch canceling and fast combo-breakers.

QOL Cons:
- VERY technical
- Plays very differently than the average character
- Lacks a "theme" for her moves. (alternate between spacing-pressure, straight up pressure and zoning)
- Low margin of error.


Techs:
- Shffling
- Movement
- Shffling
- B-reversing
- Shffling
- dash/jump canceling moves
- Movement
- Walljumps
- Shffling
- Crouch cancel (out of dash) into downsmash
- MORE MOVEMENT
- RARing
- MORE SHFFLING

Did I mention shffling and movement enough? I don't think I did, because shffling and movement are 90% of the tech for ZSS. Personally, my playstyle is "hot and cold" (which I think is her strongest playstyle). That means I am constantly dash dancing, wavedashing, platform canceling etc. I apply pressure until I either land a solid hit, or feel I am at disadvantage. When dashing away, I shorthop b-reverse(or sometimes wavebounce) a neutral b to setup another approach. At that point, I may dash at you and wavedash back to shoot another laser, or I may go back to pressuring. All of this heavily depends on being able to fluidly move both in and out of combat, so get really good at shffling, movement and b-reversing. (BTW, if you want to look me up to find videos of me doing this, don't. All vids of me playing are from when I was MUCH MUCH worse. I've been improving rapidly over the past few months.)

ZSS is similar to... Uh... This is a hard one. I'd say the closet is probably lucas, but it's very loose.

As for secondaries, you'll pretty much have to pick up a character to deal with spacies (fox in particular) All of her other matchups are reasonable. I personally use Roy to take them out, but it's up to preference. From what I've seen, G&W, Ivysaur, Mario, and any top tier.



Don't be intimidated by Zero Suit's tech skill requirements if you are a newer player. She's certainly no Fox (the character that is, huehuehue) and it is VERY rewarding to master what tech skill she does require. I honestly have fun just moving around the map alone.