Deciding on a Main

[Epidemic]

I have been playing Project M for a few months now and I have been considering taking my gameplay to a tournament level recently, one of the problems I'm having with this is quite obviously, choosing a main. The three characters I have played a lot of in the past are Marth, Lucario and Mario, and all of them are fun, but I have a really hard time just focusing on one. I started playing a little bit of Fox and he is mad fun, but would take a skill and work ethic I am not entirely positive I have. The biggest problem is that I just can't seem to find a character I can stick with and not get bored of. So, fans of Project M, Who is a fun character to main and how do I start?

 

[Y-L]

Lucario is a really underappreciated character with tons of potential. Just going to leave this here.

 

[Kes]

If you like all three, use all three. There are benefits to having more than one main, alternate match ups and such. I don't know the match ups in PM well enough to tell if those 3 cover each others weaknesses well enough, but should be ok I think.

 

[Epidemic]

I'm still definitely using all three depending on matches, but having a solid main is important to taking it to the next level, I would just like to focus on getting really good at one character, and than still having others as backups

 

[broliftic]

Alright, here goes. As someone who's seen you play a of this, I'm going to tell you what I HONESTLY see when you play.

Mario - Your weakest in my opinion. The automatic combos are crazy fun and the fireball spam is okay, but this is the character I see you default to when you get bored, so he's clearly your (at least subconsciously) least favorite. 15% skill left for pro.

Marth - There's been more time put into your Marth than maybe any other character, including brawl shenanigans. You play with Marth when you feel mean or really focused, because honestly he's not hard to play "good" and win, but fairly difficult to be "amazing" and pull that 0-death crap I hate. You're good with him, and you like that. 30% skill left for pro, you gotta learn the mind games and wavedash.

Lucario - I like watching you play freakin good with this guy, even if he feels like he's breaking the game in your favor. He's got such a long way to go, though, and not even a developed meta for you to draw from, so you're going to have to learn the tech and make your own play style. Hard, but worth it. 60% left for pro, because there's so much potential in that guy.

Fox - Don't worry about your dedication and work ethic and crap, you'll get it down fine just with the normal amount of training you typically do (and did with marth). If you want to play him play him, you have years of data and guides from the pros no matter how far you want to go. Also I'm reading a guide on how to DI uthrow-uair btw. 80% left for pro, still gotta scratch the surface.

 

[G13_Flux]

if you dont know how to apply pressure with shine using SHFFLd aerials i would automatically say scratch fox. as far as the other two go, try to think of who you can kill the most efficiently with. which character makes it easier for you to get in on your opponent, and get them past the blast lines.

 

[Nuttre]

forget all of those,
play puff :3

but in all seriousness I found marth really fun to learn, although I did get a little bored.
Fox is fun to play as.
Mario is fun to watch and punch with.
Lucario is probably your best bet imo, he is fun and requires a little bit of learning to get the basics, then a lot of learning to get the rest.

 

[Scuba Steve]

You don't choose your main, your main chooses you... Then you whine about your character being bad.

 

[OldManDyl (OMD)]

You don't choose your main, your main chooses you... Then you whine about your character being bad.

For real. I fought for a solid month on who my main was and then all the sudden, out of picking him as a joke, I beat one of my sparing partners 9 straight times with Dedede. Sometimes it takes something like that for your main to come into the light.

 

[Epidemic]

Wow, I did not expect this much great feedback, it seems like Lucario is a favorite but it still is hard for me to work with just one character. How many of you play a secondary, and how much do you play that character?


Edit: It's decided, I'm maining Jiggs. No turning back now

 

[Y-L]

I haven't secondary pocket characters which you can see in my siggy. But I only play them every once in awhile or if I have a really bad matchups.

The way I see it is that I would rather be an expert at one character than above average at two or three.

 

[9bit]

I struggled for a long time with something similar. I would always get bored of a character, so I had a huge roster of characters I played. Like, over half the cast.

Unfortunately I can't give you advice on how I turned it around and was able to start focusing on one character, because I don't really know what happened that caused me to finally be able to do so. But I can tell you what I think happened, and when I recognized it.

Over the years I've watched a lot of really high level players do amazing things with their characters. When you watch one of the best players in the world do something incredibly hype it can be very inspiring. This is how I chose my "mains" in the past, like I think a lot of people did. Back in Melee my favorite characters were Marth, Sheik, Falco, and Captain Falcon because of all the things the top players were able to do -- stuff that just blew my mind and made me go "OK that's it, I'm playing that character, I want to do that kinda stuff."

I think it's really important to be able to see some of the stuff a character is capable of, especially if you aren't very good at that character yet. For example, I suck at playing Yoshi. I do not gel with the character at all and have therefore never put any time into him. So if I pick up Yoshi, at first he will seem very clunky to me and frustrating and I might quit right away. But if I see someone like aMSa or Vectorman tear things up, that might inspire me to learn how they did the things they did, and then I'll have direction. I'll have goals and my Yoshi training will be more focused and ultimately more fruitful.

But the truth is while I have been very impressed with some of the stuff Yoshi players have done, the character simply isn't for me. And I found that out by playing him.

In my opinion the best thing to do is follow that strategy with every character you're remotely interested in. Find the highest caliber / most creative hype play you can find on YouTube or Twitch or whatever, and invest some time into that character and see if it works out for you. It may be a character you don't expect at all. Or it may be multiple characters. But the important part of this step is to narrow the field down to characters that you might actually end up fully maining later. To find out for sure if those 3 characters you listed in your OP are the right 3 to have narrowed down at this point. Because it might not be them.

Then when you're down to around 3 you can start trying to pick just 1 to focus on. For me this stage took the longest. And truthfully it just happened naturally, but I think both having a really good small roster and letting it happen naturally were the two key factors in why I'm so happy with the character I eventually settled on. I didn't try to force it, but I set up the conditions as best I could to expedite the process.

You could make a list of the things about the characters you like and dislike, or the stuff you find easy or hard. If you see a high level technique for your character and you're worried you might not be able to ever pull that off consistently, make that a factor. You don't have to necessarily make an actual list of all this stuff, but keep it in your head while you play. Pay attention to your thoughts and feelings as you play a character.

Then, with any luck, eventually you'll start playing one day and it will just click. If you feel the spark to play one character much more than any other character, go with it. If you feel yourself starting to get bored of the character, make a mental note of why you might think that and then maybe just stop playing for a while, or play the character in a totally different way you're not used to playing it. Don't switch right away to a fallback. Try to be as creative as you can with your character, discover weird stuff, explore. Go in the lab and just play around with 1 move, etc.

Good luck.

 

[Epidemic]

Thanks 9Bit and all, that was really good advice. I have just been having a hard time not getting bored, I just like all of the characters and its hard to settle down and get good, my brother is a Lucas main and he can play him for hours on end for weeks. That kind of play is what is in the end will make him a great player. That kind of character is what I'm looking for and I don't know who to look for it in. How did you guys find a "soul character?"

 

[9bit]

Thanks 9Bit and all, that was really good advice. I have just been having a hard time not getting bored, I just like all of the characters and its hard to settle down and get good, my brother is a Lucas main and he can play him for hours on end for weeks. That kind of play is what is in the end will make him a great player. That kind of character is what I'm looking for and I don't know who to look for it in. How did you guys find a "soul character?"

I actually just wrote up a blog post inspired by my post up there, but going a bit more in depth.

I used to switch characters constantly. I almost didn't want to play the same character 2 games in a row, it got that bad. What I said in the blog post about boredom was an interesting idea to me and I'm not sure if it's even true, but here it is.

I recommend taking your small roster of potential mains and playing each one exactly when and only when you want to. If you get the itch to play one of them, play that one until you don’t want to anymore. While doing this, you can make a list of the things about the characters you like and dislike, or the stuff you find easy or hard. If you see a high level technique for your character and you’re worried you might not be able to ever pull that off consistently, make that a factor. Like the waveshine / AGT bomb example in the previous step, but with more of a focus on your future ability to do the technique (and whether you would even want to), not necessarily your gut reaction to it. You don’t have to necessarily make an actual list of all this stuff, but keep it in your head while you play. Pay attention to your thoughts and feelings as you play a character.

I did this until my main revealed itself to me. I can’t promise that this will happen to you, but one day it just clicked for me. One day I just said to myself, wow OK I main X now. The doubt I had previously experienced from choosing my main wasn’t there. It just made sense that this was the character I would main, and it was sitting in front of my nose the whole time, but perhaps I wasn’t ready yet. That’s why I think this step can take the longest. I had played the character before and even considered choosing it as my main, but it never really worked out until I was ready. The character didn’t change. I did.

With any luck, eventually you’ll start playing one day and it will just click like that. If you feel the spark to play one character much more than any other character, go with it. Just let it flow through you. Try to play that character 80% or more of the time all the time. If you feel yourself starting to get bored of the character, make a mental note of why you might think that and then maybe just stop playing for a while, or play the character in a totally different way you’re not used to playing it. Don’t switch right away to a fallback. Try to be as creative as you can with your character, discover weird stuff, explore. Go in the lab and just play around with 1 move, etc.

I think a big factor in finally settling down with a main is a change within yourself. But I don't know how that change really came about in me, besides the "advice" I wrote in the blog post , or how to incite that change in others. It's a process and maybe if someone follows the steps I used they'll get just as lucky as I did. Good luck.