KingK
Smash Apprentice
Well, I've had Brawl for a while - since March - and I've played around a fair amount with pretty much every character. Yet, somehow, I still just haven't been able to decide on one particular character to main. Now, this is by no means an uncommon problem - I've seen many people posting with a similar dilemma. Most of them have given a list of characters they like, or simply told people to tell them who to main.
I'm not going to do that with this post. Not exactly. I'm going to list 5 criteria I have for a character that I want to main, and I'd like people to tell me which characters they feel meet the criteria.
For anybody thinking about posting something along the lines of "just play whoever you have the most fun with," I would like to respond ahead of time: I know. I've already given a lot of thought to which characters I like most. I've already sat down and tried to figure out which characters fall into my 5 criteria. I just thought it'd be interesting and perhaps enlightening to see what others thought, and see how their conclusions differ from mine.
Here are the 5 criteria, listed (more or less) in order of importance:
1. I don't want to play an overplayed character. I mean this in two senses; I don't want to play a character that is very popular among Brawl players in general, but I also don't want to play a character that is very popular on the tournament scene (i.e. you see at least a handful at every single tourny), among more serious Brawl players, even if that character isn't generally speaking a really popular character. Ideally the character would not be obviously overpowered (in the top 5-7 or so); I want to play a character that has the potential to be good (high mid / upper tier) but that isn't super dominant already.
2. I want to play a character that can reasonably expect to compete (and hopefully win) in almost any matchup. Ideally I never want to feel like a particular matchup is impossible, particularly because of something like a chain grab or gimp that the opponent can pull off without much trouble. Obviously this is within reason; every character has some bad matchups (that will be true as long as Meta Knight is in the game), but I want to play a character that can expect to compete with the vast majority of the cast; not every matchup needs to be good, but there shouldn't be any impossible ones.
3. I want to play a character with solid (doesn't have to be amazing) recovery and a good off-stage game. This is a personal preference, because I really hate feeling confined to the stage; I like edgehogging, chasing off the edge, and fighting in the air. As such I'd rather not play a character that is easily edgehogged or gimped, or that has particularly bad horizontal or vertical recovery.
4. I want to play a character that has some depth to their metagame. I like having character-specific advanced techniques that I can work on and hope to eventually master. That doesn't mean they have to be AT heavy (though I wouldn't mind if they were), but there should be a fair amount of subtle things to master. Depth is the important word here.
5. This is by no means make-or-break, but I like characters with at least one or two moves that spike and / or sweetspot. I really like the challenge of trying to kill somebody with a well timed meteor smash that spikes them to their death or a perfectly sweetspotted attack that rockets them off into the distance.
Okay, that's it. I'll add any more criteria if I think of any good ones, but I think those should be sufficient.
Also, if you wouldn't mind, could you list which characters you eliminate as you go through each criteria? I think it'd be interesting.
P.S. If this is just totally the wrong kind of post for the Tactics forum, then by all means move it to the General Discussion. I know it's kind of bad form, but I purposefully posted here because the General forum tends to have less intelligent discussion.
I'm not going to do that with this post. Not exactly. I'm going to list 5 criteria I have for a character that I want to main, and I'd like people to tell me which characters they feel meet the criteria.
For anybody thinking about posting something along the lines of "just play whoever you have the most fun with," I would like to respond ahead of time: I know. I've already given a lot of thought to which characters I like most. I've already sat down and tried to figure out which characters fall into my 5 criteria. I just thought it'd be interesting and perhaps enlightening to see what others thought, and see how their conclusions differ from mine.
Here are the 5 criteria, listed (more or less) in order of importance:
1. I don't want to play an overplayed character. I mean this in two senses; I don't want to play a character that is very popular among Brawl players in general, but I also don't want to play a character that is very popular on the tournament scene (i.e. you see at least a handful at every single tourny), among more serious Brawl players, even if that character isn't generally speaking a really popular character. Ideally the character would not be obviously overpowered (in the top 5-7 or so); I want to play a character that has the potential to be good (high mid / upper tier) but that isn't super dominant already.
2. I want to play a character that can reasonably expect to compete (and hopefully win) in almost any matchup. Ideally I never want to feel like a particular matchup is impossible, particularly because of something like a chain grab or gimp that the opponent can pull off without much trouble. Obviously this is within reason; every character has some bad matchups (that will be true as long as Meta Knight is in the game), but I want to play a character that can expect to compete with the vast majority of the cast; not every matchup needs to be good, but there shouldn't be any impossible ones.
3. I want to play a character with solid (doesn't have to be amazing) recovery and a good off-stage game. This is a personal preference, because I really hate feeling confined to the stage; I like edgehogging, chasing off the edge, and fighting in the air. As such I'd rather not play a character that is easily edgehogged or gimped, or that has particularly bad horizontal or vertical recovery.
4. I want to play a character that has some depth to their metagame. I like having character-specific advanced techniques that I can work on and hope to eventually master. That doesn't mean they have to be AT heavy (though I wouldn't mind if they were), but there should be a fair amount of subtle things to master. Depth is the important word here.
5. This is by no means make-or-break, but I like characters with at least one or two moves that spike and / or sweetspot. I really like the challenge of trying to kill somebody with a well timed meteor smash that spikes them to their death or a perfectly sweetspotted attack that rockets them off into the distance.
Okay, that's it. I'll add any more criteria if I think of any good ones, but I think those should be sufficient.
Also, if you wouldn't mind, could you list which characters you eliminate as you go through each criteria? I think it'd be interesting.
P.S. If this is just totally the wrong kind of post for the Tactics forum, then by all means move it to the General Discussion. I know it's kind of bad form, but I purposefully posted here because the General forum tends to have less intelligent discussion.
