• Welcome to Smashboards, the world's largest Super Smash Brothers community! Over 250,000 Smash Bros. fans from around the world have come to discuss these great games in over 19 million posts!

    You are currently viewing our boards as a visitor. Click here to sign up right now and start on your path in the Smash community!

Resource icon

General tips for getting better

INTRO

Alright so this is the first guide I’ve made in a while so it may not be perfect but I’ll try my best

Anyways if you’re a new player or you’re planning on getting into the competitive smash scene, I have a few tips that could be useful for you

Character

So in Ultimate this is something that very hard to choose at first, but to start out I’d say try to choose the character you like to play the most, you can play other characters, but more than 3 can hurt you in terms of getting better at the game

To start out I’d say use a fairly easy character, some good choices to start with would be the following

Mario, Kirby, Lucina, Pit, and Ike

These character are built on fundamentals, the better your fundamentals are, the easier it is to pick up another character that’s harder to use I would say use them less to main and more to learn, play between 3 of them to start out.

If I could choose my 3 right now I’d go with Mario, Pit, and Ike. Mario because he doesn’t have any sort of weapon, Pit cause nothing about him is really good, but nothing about him is really bad, Ike because he’s a pretty rewarding character if your fundamentals are on point.
The other 2 I’d say no because Kirby from what I’ve seen is outdone by Mario in every way, and while Lucina does the same for Ike, I feel she outdoes Ike too well, she’s seen as top tier by everyone and I fear that you getting results will cause you to keep yourself from playing a character that overall fits you better, and this is coming from a Lucina main.

Playing the Game Against Others

Going to be blunt, Quickplay and Elite Smash suck, if you’re going to play online I’d recommend going to Character discord’s (smashcords.com) because you’ll be playing against others that know what they’re doing and trying to improve with you.

If you don’t have discord, there is another option though, but it definitely isn’t as good as discord.
Anther’s Ladder, think of it like a ranked mode in any other game. As you win or lose your results will go up or down, however it isn’t linked to the game so people simply don’t enter their results and don’t lose their points. So only go to it if you absolutely have to

A lot of discord servers also hold server tournaments, which you can use to track your improvement over time.

Mindset During a Match

During a match, sometimes it can be tricky to do so, but you need to think, you can’t get anywhere without thinking

I’d say a good place to start is if someone’s using the same get up off ledge, airdodges, and rolls

Slowly after that go into things like how often they shield. Do they short hop aerial too often? How do they react when you do certain options? Stuff like that

But also be aware of your own habits and work to fix them constantly, rolling and air dodging are very common ones but take everything I said and apply it to yourself, you’re paying attention to them and yourself at once

Local Tournaments

Go to them as much as possible, online you will have lag, but at locals you’re guaranteed to have minimal amounts of lag along with a mostly good environment. Most of the toxic part of the community is online, there are exceptions but it’s far less likely to run into it at a local.

Plus you meet plenty of cool people that are fun to hang out with.

You can find your local scene also by going to smashcords.com as many regional scenes have theirs on there so people from the area can easily find them.

Have Fun

I mean, it is a game, if you aren’t having fun don’t be afraid to say it to yourself don’t force yourself to play a game you don’t like playing, we understand and wish you the best if you drop the game

Also, your life matters before this game, if you’re having personal issues don’t put the game before them for whatever reason.

Outro

Alright that’s all I really have to say, if you choose to play online be sure to connect your switch to the internet via Ethernet, trust me there’s a difference and we can tell

Connecting to it via WiFi and thinking it’s the same is this the FGC equivalent to Flat Earthers or Anti-Vaxxers. And yes I’ve seen a ton of people say that

If I left anything out let me know, follow me on Twitter VollrathFGC VollrathFGC I also have a sports twitter if you’re into that @VollrathSports it’s mostly just me ****posting on both of them but they’re there if you’d like
Applicable Games
Ultimate
Author
VollrathFGC
Views
1,022
First release
Last update
Rating
3.67 star(s) 3 ratings

Latest reviews

great basic guide for just starting but a more in-depth guide on particular habits and maybe ways to fix them also giving more discords to find match would be better
This guide seems very opinion based tbh and it lacks a lot of need-to-know things for smash ultimate. The characters are all okay for beginning and your right about the fundamentals. However, qp and es don't suck because all they teach is fundamentals. At a starting level it's best to grind those out until you get familiar with controls and game play. Then try taking on tournaments when your comfortable with the game.
VollrathFGC
VollrathFGC
fair enough, however, with Elite Smash and Quick Play (mostly Elite Smash) connections are inconsistent, where with Anthers pretty much everyone there is there to improve and have pretty stable connections, and it puts you in tournament like situations without actually going to said tournaments to prepare yourself for them, i realize this was kind of rushed and i may have forgotten to put in things (because it was kinda rushed tbh and i kinda dozed off in the middle of it) hell i don't even remember half the things i put in it rn, haven't reread it

but yeah, fair points and i'll take them into consideration if i make another, also don't rush it
Top Bottom