Is specializing an advantage or a disadvantage?

[GanonFreak]

If you specialize in one character....
Does that mean that you will suck with everyone else?

 

[Jumpfreak]

lol...

Of course not.

Sticking to one or two primary characters is a good idea if you really want to get good. But there is nothing wrong with putting time into multiple characters. In tournament play, it can actually help you because you will oftentimes have an option to counterpick a character.

 

[blaargh198]

Depends. specializing is sometimes a big help to make you improve, and with people like fox who are so demanding with combos it's practically imperative. But people who like low tiers like yoshi and pikachu will want to main several to get past counters in the top tier.

 

[Corigames]

It is good to have a main and a primary if you want to stop someone from doing a move or combo in chain to one of your characters that you know the other could block. I use Samus and Roy, completely opposite ends of the spectrum. (I think I should pick up Marth instead of Roy, but Roy is just too cool)

 

[Tera253]

Specializing in two different characters is a smart idea. after all, there are no rules that say: "You can't use the same 1 or 2 characters again and again" .

However, do not specialize in two similar characters, like Marth/Roy, Mario/Doc, Fox/Falco (actually that one ain't too bad), C.Falcon/Ganondorf, for there are some character that are just made better than both clones.

as for Tera, she specializes with Pikachu and Falco--relatively different.
Pika-slower faller
Falco-fastfaller
Speed-about the same
Falco-damage racker
Pika-hardcor KOer

the list just "keeps going... and going... and going..." (~Energizer~)

~Tera253~

 

[Chitose]

I would say 2 characters is good aswell. You need to be able to cover your bad matchups or sub-optimal stages with characters that can at least perform average against/on. I personally play falco and ice climbers. Falco because he is a top tier character, but ice climbers because its a surprise match up which not many people experience playing with or against.

 

[Wayland]

The more characters you can effectively play, the better. My buddy Yang isn't amazing with any one charachter, but since he can play almost all of them, he's got a huge counterpick advantage that has gotten him some very nice tourney placings.

Personally, I'm working on being good with 2 people. If you're going to use 2, make sure that they don't share weaknesses. For instance, if you main Luigi (who gets ***** by shiek), it's not a good idea to choose Ganon as your secondary. You'll find shieks, and you'll have to be incredible to beat them.

Personally, I'm currently maining with Luigi, and developing a stronger Falco and Young Link game.

 

[Zink]

Falco, Fox, CF, Sheik, Marth, Jiggs, ICs, Gannondorf, Kirby, Samus, and Link.
I like variety.
I only have trouble when playing Fox and Falco- they are subtly different, and it really messes me up.

 

[blindhobo]

Well, I find that as long as you know about the advanced techs. and have a slight idea how each character utilizes them, you can play pretty much every character to a certain degree.

I'd say 1 main, 1-3 secondaries is good..

 

[Ryuker Reo]

You don't suck with everyone else if you use them once in a while too.

 

[FireBomb]

I thought I'd suck when using other characters for a time, too. No matter who you are, you should know the basics and be able to perform decently, even if you don't always play that character. You just have to be familiar with their moves and capabilities.

 

[Frozenserpent]

Sticking to one char doesn't mean you don't play other chars. In friendlies, you'd be playing a variety of chars (whichever you find fun). You don't need to play to win, in friendlies, so you can play chars you're not bad with, but not confident enough yet to take to a tourney.

 

[ximrekcuf]

Hey aslong as you have some versatility just to cover up some obvious disadvantages. But surely it cannot hurt to frequent many characters or to stick with a select few.

 

[Endless Nightmares]

I believe that it helps to play multiple characters, because you get to learn how to fight against that character as well. You learn their pros and cons, and what to take advantage of. The more you play them, the more you learn.

I play 14 characters, and I consider myself to be "good" with half of them. I main and use four characters in tournament play (Game & Watch, Peach, Samus, and Ice Climbers), while Ness, Luigi, and Yoshi are solid secondaries.

I practice with each character, even if I'm not actually good with that character. By doing their moves, short hops, wavedashes, etc., you get to find out what they're capable of, and what they're not capable of. For example, my Fox, Falco, and Marth are absolutely terrible. However, I still take time to practice them so I know what they can do and how they play. You get to learn their physics and how their moves work. It has proved to be very beneficial in my tournament play, and playing against these characters in general.

 

[Pneuma]

I highly suggest playing EVERYONE but only because I've done it myself. After you take every character to tournament, you'll have a good grasp on what you can and can't do in every single matchup.

 

[Miharu]

Having 1 or 2 secondaries in addition to your main is very helpful.

For example, I save my Fox for Marth/Peach/Jiggly, pretty much any floaty character that Falco doesn't do that well against.

I main Falco, so I use that in general for everything else.

It's also nice having a few side characters that are just played for fun; in my case, they're Ganon and quite a bit of low tiers. I like spending my spare time finding random stuff to do with low tier. Frozenserpent and I are going double Bowser for teams at a tournament Monday.

Double Boozer = Instawin!

 

[iankobe]

Of course its better if you know how to use everyone. Obviously its better if you know how to use at least more than one character.

The thing is that, if you are not even good with the first character, or your main character and you start using other ones, that's a bad thing to do. I suggest you to at least master one character first before using other characters. (it doesn't really matter in friendlies, though)

 

[tarheeljks]

You are better off being very good w/one character than being okay w/two.

 

[Courtofdoom]

I'd rather just be Azen. 25 mains ftw!

Or a more practical suggestion would be to play all high tier characters (plus maybe C. Falcon).

 

[Eaode]

I main falco, and i do decently, but whenever i come to a matchup that's a bit harder (Peach, grrr), out comes captain falcon. Its good, because the characters that do well against CF, i just go back to falco for, aswell.

 

[Wilhelmsan]

It's good to be able to play all the top 5 characters well, IMO.

 

[FireBomb]

As long as you have a couple of characters who are very different in their own ways, you should be able to learn the basic knowledge you need... You can prepare yourself for a variety of situations.

 

[BrTarolg]

ofc you can just specialise in one character.

you can perfectly get away with using marth, and no other character, and *never* experience any problems.

 

[UFO Hawk]

Azen and Captain Jack are great with so many characters! Maybe you over use one character.

 

[GanonFreak]

For those that are extremely experienced with Ice Climbers,
How difficult is it to fully master the unpredictable pair?

 

[WiseLugia]

I'd consider myself far from extremely experienced with IC, but I've played them plenty. The technical IC doesn't have the best results, so it's mostly about the mental game. They're a hard character, no doubt, but you're hands aren't moving as fast as Fox at any time, really...

 

[cowboyardee]

In my experience, it seems like choosing whether to play either one/few characters or playing many characters changes the learning curve a bit but works out roughly same in the end.

Playing one character, you quickly learn offensive tricks and character-specific strategies. Most people who play one character seem to get better quicker right at the beginning of their competitive smash careers.

Playing several characters, you learn more about matchups and a lot about positional play (Azen is absolutely amazing at positional play, from what I've seen) and mindgames. So it might take a little bit longer to learn more character-specific techniques and concepts, but by the time you do, you have a bit of an advantage in your matchups and mindgames that single-character players will need some time to develop.

It works out about the same in the end, IMO. Just do whatever suits your personality more.

 

[Xeno-Z]

I go by mood with the characters I play with.
Right now I main with Peach, second might be Falco and I'm not sure who would be the third yet.

 

[FairSheik]

id say specializing is more advantageous I would use Ken as an example...he just knows Marth so well and i really want to be able to know a character that well...I think that it is one of the reasons he is so dominant

 

[mood4food77]

stick to three characters at most, learning too many isn't good, remember, it's better to have one great character than 5 alright characters, just choose who you think you're good with

one tip of advice, stay away from ICs, unless you've used them since pretty much the beginning, you will most likely not go anywhere with them, too much to learn with them