Pokemon Trainer is a unique fighter in that he (for convenience I use the indefinite he throughout this guide) is really three fighters in one. It is my opinion that anyone who wishes to main pokemon trainer should first log considerable hours maining each pokemon individually. In this guide I will be focusing on the smallest of the trio: Squirtle. Squirtle is not a remarkable fighter in many respects. He is light, does not possess much in terms of kill power and is not as fast as plenty of other fighters. Why then should one main Squirtle then? Because he is genuinely fun to play imo. By himself, his is a low tier character; Probably not the worst, but certainly not the best, but he possesses many attributes that make him unique and lovable character to master. So, without further ado let's get into the detail of Squirtle.
Move Set
Neutral Special: Water gun behaves similarly to Mario's F.L.U.D.D. and is used for pretty much the same purpose. Which is pushing recovering fighters away from the stage. It doesn't last very long making it hard to use and not 100% effective.
Side Special: Withdraw? Squirtle tucks into his shell making himself immune to damage and launching the first enemy hit.
Up Special: Waterfall use mostly to recover, but take care to make sure you are facing the right direction when you use it.
In addition to Squirte also has the usual assortment of jabs (a three jab combo), tilts, aerials, and smash attacks. Worth noting here is his up smash which hits twice in its entire range making it difficult to properly parry as there is little visual indication of the second hit.
Squirtle doesn't have a lot of kill power. to show this here is a brief table of kill percents for selected moves when they are fresh.
Move Squirtle % Ivysaur % Charizard %
Up Smash 95% 115% 125%
Bthrow 105% 120% 135%
Fsmash 90% 105% 120%
Uair 135% 160% 180%
Side B 125% 160% 180%
These are the kill percents of squirtles moves against an opposing Squirtle (representing light weights), Ivysaur(mid weights), and Charizard (heavy weights). Up samsh was measured from the ground of Battlefield, Bthrow from the edge of the stage, Fsmash from the center of the stage, Uair from the top platform, and side B from the center of the stage. As you can see, Squirtle is easily out classed in terms of kill potential from single moves. This means he relies on edge guarding to secure many of his kills (or racking up lots of damage), but be careful of this as while he has decent air mobility squirtle does not possess the greatest recovery and if you make a mistake of the edge you could very easily be the one dying instead of your opponent. Also be weary of using his side b too much because while it does make you invincible for a brief period of time. It leaves you vulnerable at the beginning and end of the animation and if your opponent successfully jumps on top of you while you are sliding you will flip over and be helpless for what feels like forever.
We've talked a lot about squirtle's weaknesses, but what about his strengths? Unfortunately there seems much to be had in this area. Squirtle does not have a lot of true combos meaning he has to rely on stringing together non-comboing hits to rack up damage. He is relatively good at this, but comboing characters simply out class squirtle in the rack up damage department. Somethings to try: down throw into aerial. up throw into Uair. backair into side tilt. None of these are true, but they do string together into a make a situation that can be difficult to avoid.
So Squirtle isn't a best in class character at anything, but he does comprise a useful part of pokemon trainer as a whole. I don't know if you've noticed but Ivysaur and Charizard are both significantly slower than Squirtle, so he's useful in helping set them up for the kill.
Move Set
Neutral Special: Water gun behaves similarly to Mario's F.L.U.D.D. and is used for pretty much the same purpose. Which is pushing recovering fighters away from the stage. It doesn't last very long making it hard to use and not 100% effective.
Side Special: Withdraw? Squirtle tucks into his shell making himself immune to damage and launching the first enemy hit.
Up Special: Waterfall use mostly to recover, but take care to make sure you are facing the right direction when you use it.
In addition to Squirte also has the usual assortment of jabs (a three jab combo), tilts, aerials, and smash attacks. Worth noting here is his up smash which hits twice in its entire range making it difficult to properly parry as there is little visual indication of the second hit.
Squirtle doesn't have a lot of kill power. to show this here is a brief table of kill percents for selected moves when they are fresh.
Move Squirtle % Ivysaur % Charizard %
Up Smash 95% 115% 125%
Bthrow 105% 120% 135%
Fsmash 90% 105% 120%
Uair 135% 160% 180%
Side B 125% 160% 180%
These are the kill percents of squirtles moves against an opposing Squirtle (representing light weights), Ivysaur(mid weights), and Charizard (heavy weights). Up samsh was measured from the ground of Battlefield, Bthrow from the edge of the stage, Fsmash from the center of the stage, Uair from the top platform, and side B from the center of the stage. As you can see, Squirtle is easily out classed in terms of kill potential from single moves. This means he relies on edge guarding to secure many of his kills (or racking up lots of damage), but be careful of this as while he has decent air mobility squirtle does not possess the greatest recovery and if you make a mistake of the edge you could very easily be the one dying instead of your opponent. Also be weary of using his side b too much because while it does make you invincible for a brief period of time. It leaves you vulnerable at the beginning and end of the animation and if your opponent successfully jumps on top of you while you are sliding you will flip over and be helpless for what feels like forever.
We've talked a lot about squirtle's weaknesses, but what about his strengths? Unfortunately there seems much to be had in this area. Squirtle does not have a lot of true combos meaning he has to rely on stringing together non-comboing hits to rack up damage. He is relatively good at this, but comboing characters simply out class squirtle in the rack up damage department. Somethings to try: down throw into aerial. up throw into Uair. backair into side tilt. None of these are true, but they do string together into a make a situation that can be difficult to avoid.
So Squirtle isn't a best in class character at anything, but he does comprise a useful part of pokemon trainer as a whole. I don't know if you've noticed but Ivysaur and Charizard are both significantly slower than Squirtle, so he's useful in helping set them up for the kill.
