Hardest/Easiest characters to master?

[ThegreatVaporeon1]

Who do you guys think are the hardest/easiest characters to use in this game? Personally I think Mario and Marth are pretty easy. And the hardest are probably Falco and Fox
(excluding Kirby)
Please post away.

 

[Tails_Glados_Puff]

I believe Sheik and Marth are the easiest. To be honest, a lot of people hype spacies up because they are supposedly amazingly difficult to use in competitive play. Being a spacie main myself It's really not that hard imo. Of course crossing over to a floatie and to a spacie may be difficult. As for the hardest, I think it's Pichu.

 

[rawrimamonster]

Yoshi is probably one of THE hardest. The execution requirement is high, shield drops are a requirement, parry is needed because of the lack of a easier shield jump, and because of his weight and no 3rd jump he can get wrecked in the same way space animals can. He's basically gimmick: The character, but with potential.

 

[cisyphus]

Puff or Sheik seem easiest to me. All about spacing and reads. I've tried getting into space animals and get annoyed by all the shine tech required, but I'm sure they're not that "hard" once you learn those. Seconding Yoshi for hardest. Ice Climbers are up there too I think.

 

[Teczer0]

If we're talking about mastering the character for competitive standards I think Marth is kind of hard.

He's one of those, easy to start with but difficult to master characters. Same with Sheik imo, which is kind of why I think they don't appear as much in high level play as spacies.

Fox/Falco has a technical barrier at the beginning but for me, once I passed that barrier he felt easy to get good with.

 

[Kimimaru]

I also think Yoshi is the hardest character to use. The technical requirement to play him effectively is very high and he has a lot of character-specific tech that is both difficult to perform and necessary for him to succeed. I think the overall easiest character would be Jigglypuff because she doesn't need to be worry about getting gimped or missing techs as much as other characters, and her punishes are very good so one good punish could mean a stock from your opponent.

Every character in this game is hard to play because this game is fast and precise, so these are all just relative.

 

[EPsilon933]

Difficulty is relative to your strengths. Some are better at spacing compared to their other strengths, others are better at technique

However, there might be in game designs that are simply easier/harder. Peach takes 0 skill to get good with. Being good is just being able to make the right predictions, which is what everyone with every character needs to do anyways. She can trade or outprioritize anything. She has hitboxes all over her body and they're even often disjointed. Floated aerials have only 4 frames of lag. You can't punish that. She cheats the neutral game. She's heavy and has a good recovery so she doesn't die

Ice climbers have a lot of intricate things to learn about. There's 2 of them

(I'm only considering the tournament viable 8)

 

[victra♥]

The hardest characters to play due to their technical barrier:

• Fox/Falco: obvious reasons
• Yoshi: parrying, DJC, shield drops, etc are essential mechanics to even play this character competently
• ICs: desyncs, hand offs. Wobbling also doesn't come easy to people who don't have rhythm
• Falcon: needs to play FAST and technical mistakes are incredibly costly
• Peach: fast OoS options, float cancel mechanics

Easiest to play while seeing the most success:
Low Level, equally skilled players who are just learning the basics

• Marth: His sword will beat everything and new players will have a problem dealing with it, especially fsmash
• Sheik: Everything combos into everything.

Mid Level, equally skilled players who understand and implement the fundamentals

• Marth: Easy edgeguards, strong tools (good attack and grab range, and dash dance) for spacing
  
• Sheik: Consistent punishes and combos, easy chain grab
• Fox: Up Throw Up Air, Nair shines, shine kills
• Falco: The pubstomper for players who can't handle SHL pressure and can't DI Falco combos.
• Peach: 3 moves: Dash Attack, Down Smash, Nair
• ICs: Grab

High Level, equally skilled players at top level play:

• Fox: Techskill aside, Fox has all the tools needed in one character
• Falco: Techskill aside, falco has all the tools needed in one character but at a lesser extent compared to Fox
• Sheik: Consistent and strong punishes

Hardest character to master:

• Falcon: Gets wrecked by every top tier not named Marth and Peach. Requires flawless gameplay
• Jiggs: Requires consistent rest punishes, strong spacing, and no shame
• Marth: Punishes aren't consistent, requires good spacing and decision making, weak recovery
• Everyone else who isn't >Top Tier

All in all, Yoshi is probably the hardest to master. A bad character with incredibly difficult mechanics.

 

[HRR2b23]

I think at mid level play ICs are probably the easiest to use. Wobbling is pretty easy to do and getting a grab at mid level play is not that hard, same goes basic desyncs that can throw people off. As far as high level play goes, I think Marth is probably the easiest character to use there.

The hardest character to use in mid level play is probably Fox, because at that level a lot of people have difficulty getting frame perfect moves, but at high level play I'm on board with Yoshi being the hardest.

 

[1MachGO]

So we can say that Fox has a higher execution barrier than Ganon, so that makes Fox harder.

But then we can say that Fox has more tools to compete than Ganon, so that makes Ganon harder.

Difficulty can't be discussed in general terms.

 

[victra♥]

Yoshi requires high execution and is also a trash character. I don't think there is a single character in this game harder to master than Yoshi

 

[Elyssa Xey Hexen]

In a way, the characters with the fewest viable options might be easiest to master due to having to apply very few methods.

 

[Massive]

In a way, the characters with the fewest viable options might be easiest to master due to having to apply very few methods.

This would be my argument as well.

A lot of the mid-low tiers only have 1-2 viable strategies in most matchups. You could literally master everything about them and still lose to characters with more viability or maneuverability.

Puff or Sheik seem easiest to me. All about spacing and reads.

Spacing and reads are basically all that separates mid level players from high level players, dismissing those things is basically ignoring the most complex part of high level smash.
Also try playing puff for a while if it seems easy. After you even trade a stock from a rest for the 100th time or get killed by another random tilt/aerial/usmash at 50% you might change your tune a bit.

 

[cisyphus]

Except I do play Puff and know exactly where you're coming from? I've eaten those KOs often enough anyway. Spacing and reading are necessary for all characters, so the characters that thrive upon something you should have down regardless of who you play and only need that thing in order to thrive (because Sheik's moveset is perfectly fluid or because Puff's hitboxes and air mobility make her impassable at times) are going to be the easiest in that sense. Peach has her tech, Fox and Falco have techs on their techs, ICs have their grab techs, Yoshi's got dead-end techs that only REALLY benefit him. What I'm trying to say is basically what victra's post does: I'm thinking in the technical aspects of these characters because I suck at that aspect, so it's what I find the hardest. I don't like inputting dozens of commands a second, I like landing the right move at the right time for the right reason.