Hardest character to play?

[Deleted member]

Who is exactly the hardest character to play at a top level? Referring to viable characters only, however.

I'd have to say Fox/Falco/Falcon. They have very strict requirements in order to play them at a top level, and everything beyond their basic fundelmentals is something hard to learn and constantly perform.

With the easiest in my opinion, being Peach and Sheik.

 

[Oskurito]

I think Fox is the hardest to be consistent with. Most of the combos that put on a ton of damage are quite difficult to pull off. But there are still things that are easy to do with fox and that are very effective, like upsmash, chaingrabing, shine spking (ok, I know this may not be as easy as it looks I know it, but its execution is easier than say drillshine + upsmash), upthrow + uair. In my opinion, falco requires more technical skill than fox to be truly effective, shuffling has to be on point, as well as waveshining and SHL. Falcon requires pretty fast hands as well, you have to shuffle fast, dash dance, wavedash here and there to adjust your spacing, maybe moonwalk too.

In my opinion, the easiest are marth, sheik and peach (in that order). I guess my list would be something like this:

1. Falco
2. Fox
3. Falcon
4. Peach
5. Sheik
6. Marth

This doesn't mean is easy to play top level marth, hell no. It means the technical skill gap required to play marth is easier to achieve compared to the characters above him. You need more than just technical skill to play top level Marth. I would also say jigglypuff is in a similar case.

 

[victra♥]

Falcon, Fox, and Falco, by a significant margin

 

[Crawfiish]

Fox and Falco easily
Ice Climbers and Falcon however give the spacies a run for their money.

 

[xbombr]

Not sure what a "viable" character actually is, but whatever the worst character you consider viable is the hardest to play at a top level. They have less options and are generally less effective, meaning you have to outplay your opponents by a greater margin to be successful with them.

Tech skill wise, the hardest to pick up and play at a top level is probably Fox because he has more or less an infinite skill cap. Falco is up there too, but it's easier to control distance with him and his combos are much easier to pull off, imo.

 

[EddyBearr]

In my opinion, of all the truly viable* characters, regarding how technically hard it is to play them at a semi-competitively viable level (consistently top 8 in 32+ person locals).

1. Fox (no explanation)
2. Ice Climbers (Desyncs, throw sequences, wavedash expertise required, mashing recovery, etc.)
3. Falco (You have to push a lot of buttons, but it's very easy once you get the hang of it.)
4. Peach (float canceling, shield dropping is important for her, etc.)
5. Samus (she requires tight timing in neutral play and using tech skill to improve movement is crucial.)
6. Doctor Mario (combo game is a diverse mix of everything, movement game is a mix of everything.)
7. Captain Falcon (You have to push buttons faster than normal, but nothing truly out of the ordinary.)
8. Marth (gotta think a lot but his tech skill isn't too difficult, though you need the basics.)
9. Luigi (wavedashing is all you really need.)
10. Sheik (Borp-style play)
11. Jigglypuff (no explanation)

*I think Young Link and some other characters are viable in specific matchups but not as true mains for any significant ambitions. Al

 

[victra♥]

Speaking with bias i'm sure, but falcon is insanely hard to play at high level of play because he is inconsistent and glass-cannon.

Falcon requires good tech skill that i would argue is right below both the spacies, and because of the way Falcon's kit works, a lot of his moves (aerials) need to be used preemptively, and a lot of his combos (especially against spacies) require insane levels of reaction time to follow up on tech chases and di for the proper option selects. As well, because he is a fast faller that doesn't have as many tools as the spacies, mistakes are incredibly costly.

 

[EddyBearr]

Speaking with bias i'm sure, but falcon is insanely hard to play at high level of play because he is inconsistent and glass-cannon.

Falcon requires good tech skill that i would argue is right below both the spacies, and because of the way Falcon's kit works, a lot of his moves (aerials) need to be used preemptively, and a lot of his combos (especially against spacies) require insane levels of reaction time to follow up on tech chases and di for the proper option selects. As well, because he is a fast faller that doesn't have as many tools as the spacies, mistakes are incredibly costly.

I was only speaking in terms of difficulty in pressing buttons (and getting used to it.) If I was taking other things into consideration, then Luigi wouldn't be among the easiest. If we took everything into consideration, then among the 11 characters I consider viable, I would probably put Falcon at around 4th, behind Doc, ICs, and Fox.

 

[1MachGO]

These types of threads are made all too often and the OP always fails to specify what they mean by "difficult".

IMO, "difficult" can mean several things. Are you referring to technical difficulty or just raw difficulty? If you are referring to the latter, a lower tiered character will always be harder to play than a higher one just by virtue of the fact that character has less options/worse MUs. Yeah, sure, Fox and Falco have a lot of APM, but playing Falcon is wayyyy harder at top level because he has a terrible recovery, less neutral game options, some terrible MUs, etc.

If you are talking about technical difficulty, then again, this could mean several different things. Some characters have high tech floors (necessary tech skill to compete) while other characters have a higher tech ceiling (potential tech skill). For instance, Fox/Falco/Yoshi probably have the highest tech floor; your movement, shield pressure, and character specific techs require a lot of APM and consistency at top level. However, if we are talking about tech ceiling, the Ice Climbers totally eclipse every character in the game since desyncing has inconceivable implications.

And yet again, you could be referring to combination of technical/raw difficulty; an overall difficulty if you will. This would probably consist of your character's tech floor, options, and MUs. This approach would probably be the most informative, which, if that is the case, the list would probably look like this:

Overall difficulty when looking at "viable" characters:

1. Ice Climbers (These characters are very overlooked in terms of difficulty. Yeah, wobbling might be a rhythm, but these characters are not intuitive to play in relation to the rest of the cast. Desync tech has a lot of depth and while shine stuff might have more overall APM, desyncs are far more situational and require more awareness from the player. Furthermore, ICs suffer from a lot of bad MUs. Peach, Falcon, Samus, Ganon, Marth, Fox, can all counter them to some degree so going up against knowledgeable players are top level will be extremely difficult)

*2. Falcon (High APM, tough MUs, polarizing flaws, etc. You have to be on your A game and use reads to find success at top level)

3. Fox (Has a very high APM and high tech ceiling which makes him difficult to be consistent with. With that said, he has a lot of great MUs and I don't think he would be harder than the two characters listed above him.

4. Falco (Self explanatory, he has less APM than Fox and a simpler neutral game)

5. Pikachu (Doesn't have a lot of character specific techs but pretty high APM overall. Some bad MUs)

6. Samus (ugly MUs despite very low APM)

**7. Marth (Pretty overlooked in regards to difficulty, IMO. He doesn't have a lot of APM but he is very reliant on spacing and situational awareness. Pretty hard at top level)

8. Peach (Pretty low APM but she does have some hard MUs)

9. Sheik (Good MUs, lower APM, great options, still hard to play at top level like any character but relatively easier than the aforementioned ones)

*If you consider Yoshi viable, put him here and bump everyone down.

**If you consider Doc/Mario viable, put him here and bump everyone down.

 

[Oskurito]

These types of threads are made all too often and the OP always fails to specify what they mean by "difficult".

So true, I assumed he was talking about technical skill only.

Good post, I will rep+ you if that thing still existed.

 

[Willcop]

Spaicies are hard but falcon ICs and yoshi are the hardest at top level imo

 

[A Scrub]

I would definitely have to say Wii Fit Trainer.

 

[Crooked Crow]

I would definitely have to say Wii Fit Trainer.

You mean I've been playing this game for 15 years and haven't unlocked Wii Fit Trainer yet?

 

[Milky2Milk]

I think are the hardest character to play



The have tones of throw combos and stuff the master, that means lots of time practicing. They also don't have the best range so they have to play smart and go in when they have the chance. Keeping both of the climbers alive is very hard, expecially when against a character like or who can split them up easily. They also have a terrible air game, so it can be hard for them to fight players who camp on platforms or play .

 

[Milky2Milk]

I would definitely have to say Wii Fit Trainer.

This is Melee lol...
Or is it?



Then I choose a tree because it has terrible matchups with most of the cast.

 

[EmptyNess]

yoshi is objectively the hardest character in melee. more technically demanding than any of the fastfallers and getting very little for free.

the hardest characters to start out with are definitely yoshi, pika, fox, falco, and falcon.

ness is ****ing difficult too

 

[Milky2Milk]

yoshi is objectively the hardest character in melee. more technically demanding than any of the fastfallers and getting very little for free.

the hardest characters to start out with are definitely yoshi, pika, fox, falco, and falcon.

ness is ****ing difficult too

Ness is only hard to play because he is a low tier and it is hard to win with him.



He isn't too technical compared to other characters.

 

[EmptyNess]

Ness is only hard to play because he is a low tier and it is hard to win with him.



He isn't too technical compared to other characters.

his tech barrier is a lot higher than other low tiers when you have to play him optimally. yyg, psidash, his movement in general, they're all really demanding and tight and that's on top of being trash

 

[KEYLIME SSB]

I actually think that Luigi requires an incredible amount of technical skill to nail his movement, which is a combination of wavedash, dashdance and frame perfect pivoting.

 

[Applebutter61]

Fox...

 

[Synnett]

Fundamentals are much harder to develop than techskill, you can't grind fundamentals for two weeks and plow through the bracket.

That said, I believe Fox is very easy to play, as he's very lenient in his options; you have shine and spotdodge -> shine to escape most of the bad situations. Fox players tend to cap early tho as they keep doing the same mistakes. Falco is easy to play in theory but every player falls into the same traps, which are laser -> shield pressure or lots of full hop dair into shield. Shiek is easy, so is Peach but it gets harder as people starts to get used to her cheese; dsmash is not that safe all the time. Falcon has a bad neutral but its speed and combos carry hard at low level.

I think the hardest characters to play are Marth and Pikachu. For Marth you really need to have good fundamentals, as if you keep doing the same thing you'll get punished hard - there is no safe pressure with him. If you short hop fair to try to cover something Fox has enough time to come upsmash you. (That along with a few other things...) For Pikachu it's lots of mixups, and setting up a kill can be pretty difficult, much harder than Falcon.

Yoshi and Ice Climbers can't really be compared, they are much different characters and the learning process doesn't have the same dynamic.

Also ayy 1500th post

 

[R3D3MON]

I would definitely have to say Wii Fit Trainer.

Ew lmao XD

 

[wgod]

Yoshi, his techniques like parry and ledge eggs need to be near frame perfect, dropping a ledge egg will get you killed, DJC can be difficult for some and he has limited recovery. he also relies alot on doing moves quickly out of shield drop which is pretty technical. It is pretty difficult to obtain a consistent spacies though, some of the tiniest mistakes will net you a SD. SDing off a running shine which turns into a side b or a missed ledgedash is what I call spacies tax.

 

[tsmfoxmaster]

No doubt believe me I played him for 11 months and he is so fast. His tech skill ceiling is so high you have to be so precise with your movement or you will die.

 

[KEYLIME SSB]

I actually think that captain falcon is a very tough character to play. With other fastfallers, there's a lot more room for play style change to fit in, but having no projectiles, fast ground speed, and amazing dashdance kind of clear cuts any given falcon players style. Also, you must be incredibly precise and well spaced to nail the very punish heavy gameplay required by C. Falcon.