Low learning curve

[darktrickster101]

I was just wondering if someone could compose a list of characters with low learning curves or are easy to master. some of the guys in my smash circle want to play competitively but don't want to invest an enormous amount of time on mastering a character which has a high learning curve. Help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Kurri ★]

Wanting to be competitive and not wanting to invest a lot of time doesn't really lead to a great mix.

But, anyways, I could be wrong, but I think Mario has a low learning curve.

 

[NotAnAdmin]

Kurri is right, playing competitive and not wanting to put the time in isn't going to work. Don't force yourself onto something you don't want.
You miss the point of playing in the first place.

 

[darktrickster101]

Kurri is right, playing competitive and not wanting to put the time in isn't going to work. Don't force yourself onto something you don't want.
You miss the point of playing in the first place.

1. pls don't shoot the messenger. I'm the only one in the group who can get reliable info. what can I say they know little of smashboards
2. I meant not a lot of time as in not a shiek level of investment time. The two guys in question already know their stuff they are just looking for a main.

 

[Kurri ★]

Well I think it'd be a good idea to introduce them to Smashboards or any Smash community, that way you don't have to be the only one getting reliable info. Furthermore, if they're still looking for mains I doubt they know their stuff. At least from what I'm understanding, they never had mains which is completely different than having a main and wanting to swap to a new one.

Anyways, once again, Mario. I think Fox may be good along with Diddy Kong, C. Falcon, and possibly Sonic

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

It's easy to shoot this messenger or to hate the message, but IMO it's a kinda valid question. Some characters are way harder to learn than others, and there's little correlation between difficulty to learn and overall quality. Melee had Jigglypuff and Brawl had Meta Knight for "easy" characters with real long term potential, and it's just not so obvious what to pick in 4 for that kind of character. Pre-patch we'd all just say Diddy, but post patch?

Before I go through characters, I'm going to clarify something important. What constitutes easy or hard depends a lot on the type of player. We all have some strengths and weaknesses as players, and we all have aptitudes for learning various things. I believe it's possible for all players to improve at all things, but every one will find some things harder to improve at than others. What constitutes an easy character for a high tech skill guy with bad decision making is completely different than what constitutes an easy character for the smart guy with 25 frame reaction times. The smartest main picks have overlapping strengths with a player's natural strengths while punishing them less harshly than others for natural weaknesses, but I advise against picking a limited character to mask a weakness completely as it can stunt player growth (like in Brawl, I mained G&W in part because I had poor tech skill and was generally too slow in CQC... and since G&W was low tech skill and had awful CQC tools other than escaping with Fire it prevented me from improving my overall smash game for years even while letting me do better than I deserved to do in actual gameplay).

All that said, here are some characters that people who want to "jump right in" should find high value in:

Diddy: He's not super easy like he was pre-patch, but he has a sensible road for player development. His basic footsies are really strong and at low levels he can just raw fsmash to steal wins all day. He is fast enough not to get boxed out easily but slow enough not to be a high tech skill character. At higher levels he begins to run into kill trouble if he plays basic, but he has banana game set-ups at his disposal. Banana peel set-ups are extremely hard to learn so they don't play into him being beginner friendly, but they are nice to exist for the beginners since a newer player can neglect them at first and, when the time comes where they need them to keep progressing, they exist so the player merely has to learn new tech instead of switch mains and relearn a lot more.

Yoshi: Most of the cast loses the long range game to Egg Toss which requires a few days of dedicated practice angling eggs (and curing yourself of accidental Egg Roll) but is otherwise really easy zoning, and most of the cast in CQC loses to a Yoshi who just jabs a lot. Yoshi has solid kill options, does a lot of damage, and is pretty heavy so he can stretch stocks a bit. Ground Pound is a scrub trap move in the sense that bad players are easily tempted to use the move way too much, but as a "sometimes" option it's a fantastic juggle escape with new players I feel being the ones who have a special need for additional options to get down. Yoshi would pretty much be the easiest character ever (and is blatantly one of the best characters so he's value!) except for the fact that he has a non-traditional grab, and those are a real pain to use properly and can easily leave players feeling stuck in situations where they would otherwise grab but the tether grab is just too slow. Even still, Yoshi is easy to recommend.

Donkey Kong: Heavies are a mixed bag on the road up. If you just want to beat bad players as easily as possible, heavies are really efficient since you can just rely a lot on punishes and collect a lot of bang for your buck. DK is all around the most robust of the bigs in this game, and with Kong Cyclone, you have a very strong basic threat you can apply and force people to deal with. The downside is that when you face the truly strong players using any low speed character makes things really hard, and the better zoners like Villager and Mega Man can easily turn a match into a nightmare. In that I suppose it's a question of ambition. If you want to just do better than you do right now and aren't very good right now, switching to DK will probably produce some fast results. If you're happy being a mid level player (which is a big step up from being a low level player!) DK might even be your permanent home. If you want to aim for the top, DK can work since his fundamentals are solid but he's a hard road and not an easy road, and if you are looking to make that path easier you should avoid DK.

Kirby: Kirby most likely is a bit low on the "value" end of things; few would put him among the high tiers in this game. However, he's really not bad, his toolset is pretty complete, and he's completely devoid of the character attributes that tend to make characters hard to start playing in a reasonable way. Kirby has an easy time off-stage and when trapped in juggles compared to most other characters, Kirby doesn't have particular kill move trouble, and Kirby's attack speed is just high enough that it's pretty hard to just overwhelm a Kirby player with a speed mismatch. Kirby's physics and size in general also mean he's subject to less general shenaniganry than a typical character which is always handy. The character does have several easy pitfalls for weaker players to make (over prioritizing stealing powers, using the rock way too much, using the hammer way too much), he quickly demands that you actually rely substantially on up tilt which is a button a lot of newer/weaker players really hate, and Kirby just doesn't have much in the way of fast easy winning gimmicks. Even still, he's built to be beginner friendly, he works that way, and he's good enough that he's a pretty solid vector to get into competitive.

That being said, a lot of your friends probably already have characters they like and may find it easier to just stick with them. By and large this is reasonable; most of the cast can be made functional in this game and if a character "feels right" that will go a lot further than a guy on the internet posting a lot of words. Just a few notes of warning...

Falcon and ZSS are not as easy as they seem at first. Falcon absolutely demands if you want to do anything in tournament with the character that you are above average at footsies, that you have very strong control of your combo game, and that you just don't mess up when the time comes to go for knee. He's a good character if you can do all of that, but if you're starting from the Falcon level of "run around a lot grabbing, dash attacking, and guessing with power moves" then don't expect an easy road at all to actually win competitively. ZSS has one of the worst grabs in the game (way, way worse than Yoshi's which is more different than bad) which even if you get good with the character will be a constant struggle to compensate for; it takes a real level of skill with ZSS not to just lose to people who sit on shield and wait to punish you which isn't obvious at the super low level where people sometimes forget that there is a shield button (to be clear, she very much can deal with that, but it requires a lot more skill than "just grab" like other characters can do). Every character with a sword is at least twice as hard as your friends think they are to play well. Little Mac is a bad pick for anyone except an expert who knows exactly what they're getting themselves into; any of your friends who main him should be very strongly encouraged to drop him immediately. Lucario is really tempting, but once you get past aura mechanics he's a character who lacks fast options and who has a very awkward gameplay flow which for practical purposes of winning easy against people who can't deal with power characters makes him just plain more difficult than someone like DK or another conventional heavy. All of these characters (other than Little Mac) can still be good picks for them, but you asked for easy and I'm just warning you that these are not actually the easy ones despite what some people seem to think.

Hopefully you can help your group out. Picking a character is a big decision so it's wise to think about it, but at the same time, you'll all be better off if you just make the effort and show up to some locals. Most of you will lose really badly (whoever among you is the best will probably win a few games but still lose relatively early), but it's a good experience and a lot of the decisions you need to make will become more obvious if you just go out and play. It's also pretty fun to jump in the car on the weekend, head out to a tournament, and play smash all day; I'd look at going to tournaments primarily as the best way to get to play quality games first and then look to improve from there just to enhance the experience. That outlook will make everything make more sense for you guys and go easier.

 

[darktrickster101]

@ Kurri ★ they have been more just trying a little bit of everything. but yeah i'll try to get them on smash boards. and thanks for the suggestions
@ Amazing Ampharos thanks for the in depth analysis. I'm sure my mates will love this because I know I did. I'm still in the trial phase of main selecting so this is something that I will also find useful. they don't really have any huge preferences as of yet so their choices can still be flexible. also I've taken note of those little warnings you included. its a little different for everyone because we've got one guy who is starting out, about 3 or 4 that are on my level and one guy that absolutely destroys me with his ZSS. He just decided day one that is what he liked and practiced with her for about 3 months straight (obviously this is not who it is for) and the group may grow more so having this for future reference will be great. As for locals that may not be easy as we live in Penrith which is in Sydney which is in Australia. wouldn't even know where locals would be held.

 

[Pazx]

@ Kurri ★ they have been more just trying a little bit of everything. but yeah i'll try to get them on smash boards. and thanks for the suggestions
@ Amazing Ampharos thanks for the in depth analysis. I'm sure my mates will love this because I know I did. they don't really have any huge preferences as of yet so their choices can still be flexible. as for locals that may not be easy as we live in Penrith which is in Sydney which is in Australia. wouldn't even know where locals would be held.

Sydney has rather large regular tournaments at Club Burwood (I think) and UTS so if you're able to make it out to one do so, it's definitely worth it and beginner friendly. There are probably smaller groups of smashers closer to your area but check out these links for the major Sydney smash scene.

FB Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/145359035665748/
Sydney thread: http://smashboards.com/threads/nsw-...burwood-on-the-25th-april-sgt-may-3rd.366938/
Australia subforum: http://smashboards.com/forums/australia.252/

If you're ever in Canberra, come say hi, we have regular tournies too.

 

[darktrickster101]

Sydney has rather large regular tournaments at Club Burwood (I think) and UTS so if you're able to make it out to one do so, it's definitely worth it and beginner friendly. There are probably smaller groups of smashers closer to your area but check out these links for the major Sydney smash scene.

FB Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/145359035665748/
Sydney thread: http://smashboards.com/threads/nsw-...burwood-on-the-25th-april-sgt-may-3rd.366938/
Australia subforum: http://smashboards.com/forums/australia.252/

If you're ever in Canberra, come say hi, we have regular tournies too.

thanks man i'll try it out. i'll have to wait after I go for my licence after I've finished my HSC but yeah will try ASAP

 

[Scarlet Jile]

Sonic, Sheik, Mario are all pretty braindead. The first two will even net you some solid results for being braindead.

 

[Sean²]

If you have good finger dexterity, pick up Sheik. She's easier to play in this game than ever before.

Kirby's also easy to pick up and play but gaining results is a different story.

 

[Raijinken]

Ampharos hit the nail on the head.

For a bit of elaboration, if your friends are "average" across the board and just looking for ways to get "better" or "good", then it's a different approach than if they're basically new to the game (or to fighting games) and looking for a way to get "anywhere near competent".

Judging by their competitive interest but lack of interest in committing time to a high skillcurve, I'd guess they're probably thoroughly average across the board, and slightly interested in improving without dedicating a part-time job's worth of time to improvement.

Generally speaking, I'd suggest (based on that guess) that they can probably just play whichever characters are their favorites, with a few exceptions. Basically any large character has a pretty notable skill curve at higher level play, since they rely more heavily on reads (which are harder at that skill level) and are very susceptible to combos and harassment due to their size and weight. On the opposite end, characters who are relatively straightforward in their ability, not slow (if not fast), and lack particularly glaring and exploitable weaknesses, would probably be the best choices.

Some that spring to mind (and I could be entirely wrong) are Mario, Diddy, Sheik, ZSS, Kirby, Meta Knight, Fox, Falco, Pikachu, Lucario, Marth, Pit/Dark Pit, Greninja, Lucina (or Marth, but Lucina's easier to use), and Mii Brawler.

 

[Ffamran]

Some that spring to mind (and I could be entirely wrong) are Mario, Diddy, Sheik, ZSS, Kirby, Meta Knight, Fox, Falco, Pikachu, Lucario, Marth, Pit/Dark Pit, Greninja, Lucina (or Marth,

but Lucina's easier to use), and Mii Brawler.

Sheik, ZSS, Meta Knight, Falco, Pikachu, Lucario, Greninja, Lucina and Marth are characters I would argue that are not easy to learn.

Spoiler: My reasoning here

Sheik seems brain dead with the way she can combo, but that's it. She can't combo and kill at the same time like Luigi and Diddy. With Bair being nerfed, she's going to have more trouble killing outside from Vanish, tipper Up Smash, Side Smash, Uair near the ceiling, Fair near the ceiling, Burst Grenade, and Bouncing Fish. You have to know exactly what you're doing to be a good Sheik. Pressuring, when to get in, when to not get in, spacing, what combos, what sets up, everything. You can't get away with a lot of things with Sheik by playing at a basic level like Fox, Mario, Diddy, and Captain Falcon because of her lack of kill options. While she does get a lot and is a relatively safe character, you do need to be on point or risk dealing with characters with strong rage like Lucario, Bowser, Ganondorf, and even Marth along with people outplaying and noticing something's off about that Sheik like fishing for kills.

ZSS is more about dealing with landing her kill moves which even though can be considered easy with Boost Kick, you do have to know when and how to use it since people can DI into it and make it whiff and being predictable and not setting it up makes it not safe. Her poor grab game, but good throw game is something to deal with too. If you get that grab, then people will be at her mercy, but whiffing it means she's likely to be in trouble. You also have to deal with shorter characters who can invalidate a lot of her moves since she attacks sort of high up like in her power suit form, Samus.

Meta Knight is considered to be like Captain Falcon in terms of his incredible Dash Attack and dash grab, but he still has issues with his Ftilt's hitbox which is basically his Jab as his real Jab is meh to say the least, he's light, and he needs to be on point as his range isn't as it seems with pre-patch 1.0.4 being horrific to him. Now, if you can space well with Meta Knight and keep on pressuring, Meta Knight is fantastic and underlooked character with strong representers such as Ito, Katakiri, and Unknown. Mach Tornado is just ludicrous as a punish option and it can rack up 30% if you catch someone while his attacks are all fast in general, but don't have a lot of range and aerials do suffer from average landing lag.

Falco suffers from Fox's problems of not having a lot of safe approach options made worse by poorer horizontal mobility - slow air speed and slower run speed than Ike -, a much worse projectile as he can't get away with it like Fox can by dashing away, average landing lag, poor disadvantage, slow grab - it's slower than Ganondorf's -, and really exploitable recovery. Falco suffers from just bad game design in how he was changed from Brawl to SSB4 and most of the changes to him don't seem to look at him from a whole picture and considering Melee and what changed from Melee, Brawl, and SSB4, especially the lack of wavedashing and how Blaster auto-canceling without the ability to slide wouldn't make him troublesome or the fact if he could only shoot once from a short hop and had little end lag, it wouldn't be a major issue like short hop double laser in Brawl. I could rant on about this, but with Falco you have to space well and have a really strong fundamentals game. You can't get away with anything with Falco, but his rewards are among the highest because of his ability to combo with kill moves; he can combo with a frame 4 Bair which is his second strongest kill move and one of the strongest and the fastest Bair tied with Sheik, Mega Man, and Wii Fit Trainer's. Practically his entire moveset is filled with kill moves, but his slow air speed makes it difficult to get out of getting comboed, juggled, and spiked.

Pikachu's light weight, need to understand techs, especially Quick Attack's, and having good off-stage game is something that makes Pikachu difficult to use, but very rewarding. Pikachu's not exactly pick up and play in my opinion and from seeing people play as him. Pikachu's size annoys people who can't hit him, Pikachu's ability to gimp off-stage and go deep off-stage is phenomenal, and Pikachu's relatively strong with certain moves like Up Smash, Side Smash, Thunder, etc., but Pikachu doesn't have a lot of kill options either and you do need to set them up.

Lucario has to deal with living on the edge to reliably kill which is difficult if you're not used to intense situations. Hit lag on his moves for some reason, slowish moves - dude has like the slowest, but a powerful Bair -, and I'm not really sure on his combo ability, but Lucario does need a strong understanding of how he works and raw skill to use. Sure, he gets labeled as the cheap character who gets stronger as he's getting bodied, but it's sort of their fault for no being able to kill and gimp him early.

Greninja plays like a ninja unlike Sheik for the most part. Hit and run, ambushes, sudden attacks, knowledge of how to edgeguard with Greninja using Shadow Sneak and Hydro Pump, dealing with how Greninja's throws work, DI, and spacing makes Greninja difficult to use, but really fun since not only is Greninja dorky-looking, but the things you can do with Greninja is just plain fun. The only issue is dealing with startup which is a main issue for Greninja even though Greninja does have fast and useful moves like Jab, Dtilt, Utilt, Bair, Uair, and dash grab which is faster than standing grab. Like Meta Knight, Greninja does have a strong representer, aMSa who's been the leading man for Greninja's metagame.

Marth and Lucina (along with Falco, Ganondorf, and Kirby) are the fundamentals characters. They strive off of pure skill and have little to no shenanigans attached to them aside from Crescent Slash and Dark Fists which are all custom moves for Marth/Lucina and Ganondorf. The main issue for these two is that they get less reward than Falco, Ganondorf, and Kirby. Marth's tippers are strong, but require so much precision that it seems like a waste of time when you can use Luigi, grab, D-throw, and slap someone with Fair several times and get 30% easy. Lucina's worse as her lack of tippers which was supposed to make her "beginner-friendly" actually makes her even more difficult to use than Marth as she can't push shields like Marth can with tippers. Unless someone loves them because they're fans of Fire Emblem, die hard fans of Marth from Melee (and Fire Emblem), or just like how the play, Marth and Lucina aren't exactly easy to use.

Characters that I say would be easy to learn and you can get away with even from a basic level includes Diddy, the king of ease of use, Luigi, Mario, Fox, Captain Falcon, the Pits, Yoshi, Wario, and Ness.

Spoiler: My reasoning here

People know about Diddy, Luigi, Mario, Yoshi, and Ness, but why the others? Fox has always been a good character and never has he been considered to be low tier or even bottom like SSB4 Falco and Brawl Wolf due to chaingrabs and poor representation - Brawl Wolf was found to have a good MU against Meta Knight and several other high tiers because of his amazing air speed, combo game, survivability, and fast kill moves with Bair being notorious. This is probably bias, but at the same time, Fox is one of the best designed characters since his conception in 64. Fast attacks, good mobility, especially on the ground, and strong kill moves on a speedster like him just makes him powerful, but somewhat fragile. Fox is a safe character who has a strong hit confirm with his Jab that if timed right, leads into his Up Smash and a guaranteed kill; there's also Nair to Up Smash. Unlike Falco, he can use Bair to pressure shields despite having a slower Bair - frame 9 - because he can land and run unlike Falco. The only issues are his fall speed which makes it easy to juggle him and can lead to SDs off stage, his gimpable recovery, but not as gimpable as he can good deep with his Fire Fox, but it's predictable, and lack of an off-stage game other than Nair gimps and attempting a Fair spike which could lead to him going to deep and SDing.

Captain Falcon's strong neutral and advantage along with his sheer speed and power makes him easy to get away with at a basic level. His major issue is his disadvantage since his fastest attack in the air is Uair and that's frame 6 while Nair is 7. Fast fall speed makes it easy to juggle him even though his air speed is pretty good. At a basic level, you can do a lot with the Capt., but at higher levels, you need to understand his spacing, his setups, and have just pure skill to go far with the Capt. It's kind of why you see a lot of Captain Falcons in tournaments, but you don't see a lot of them win and I don't count ZeRo since he pulls him out from time to time instead of going full on Falcon, but that doesn't mean ZeRo's Captain Falcon is a fraud. His popularity will help with developing his metagame and training.

The Pits feel like jack of all trades. They have good projectiles, good edgeguarding, good speed, fast moves, super armor from their Side Special, a spike, and their recovery is good. I just don't know why they're not used a lot other than yes, Pit's tippers does mean he needs to space well while Dark Pit's lack of tippers on his Ftilt? and Bair? means he still has to space and deal with two weaker moves. That doesn't stop them from being solid characters who suffer from a hitboxless recovery move and landing lag on their aerials. Nairo is one person to watch along with Pink Fresh for your Pit and Dark Pit needs.

Wario is strong, a heavyweight, but he's relatively small compared to other heavyweights. This gross dude packs a punch and his air speed is just stupid. I don't know much about him, but @TheReflexWonder does. He just seems like a strong character who nobody uses for various reasons including bad breath, nasty gas, and disregard for polluting the planet. Dude even proved himself by winning a tournament in Cali. Jeepysol and Reflex are Warios to watch.

The thing is who is easy might just be up to the player. So, some would say that Villager is easy to play as and you can wall people out. Well, I don't understand Villager at all which leads to stupid plays with Villager. At the same time, I'm just not interested; I don't like how Villager plays, I don't care for the Animal Crossing series, though, I will give it a chance if I ever get New Leaf, and I just don't like Villager at all. Compare this to Ganondorf who people say is difficult because he relies on reads and punishing. Maybe it's just because I'm a patient player (with the right character) or something about him clicks with me. Also, because of his ludicrous kill percents and knockback, it's just fun playing as the king of evil. I'd say that you get your friends to just start playing random characters or characters they like because of design, moveset, etc. and see how they feel about those characters. So, someone might think Bowser looks like a cool character to use, but then they end up not liking how he plays, well, move onto someone else. Someone else might have no interest Wii Fit Trainer, but decides to play as her one day and she just clicks with them.

My list of characters that are difficult to learn and includes the ones I gave reasoning for would be: Peach, Rosalina, Pac-Man, Shulk, Duck Hunt, Olimar, Robin, Bowser Jr., and Palutena. All of those characters have to deal with a lot of managing something. Peach needs to manage her Float and Vegetable usage, Rosalina with Luma's positioning, Pac-Man with Trampoline, Hydrant, and Bonus Fruits, Shulk with his Monado Arts, Duck Hunt's projectiles, Olimar's Pikmin, Robin's Tome usage, Bowser Jr.'s Mechakoopa and stage control, and Palutena has to deal with slow tilts and in customs, how long her Lightweight lasts and when and how to use Superspeed. Link and Toon Link are a bit more straightforward with their projectiles, but they do have to manage them. These characters just micromanage along with dealing with universal and individual techniques. At the same time, if they just click or if the player just likes them, then whatever.

Everyone else is pretty much fair game including Little Mac and Dr. Mario who as long as they're on stage, they're fine, but their edgeguards are deadly, well, the Doc's is while Little Mac's is basically disrespectful. Ike just deals with spacing and learning how his moves work, Wii Fit Trainer deals with her shorter range, but is fairly fast, survives well because of her strong recovery, and hits pretty hard, and Sonic needs to master his speed since Spin Dash and Charge only gets him so far.

 

[wedl!!]

easy characters that come to my mind are (if you have decent fundamentals)(super honest, pretty general. has good range so if you're up against bad spacing prepare for ez win)(HOHOHOHO)( )(i know nothing about this character :/)(honest, like the Pits. easier than marth due to not having to care about spacing)(the (arguably) best dthrow in the game, he kills and combos at once)(beginner-friendly combos, good projectile, pretty fast. jack of all trades, master of utilt)(literally zero gimmicks)(**** this guy)(see )(more braindead than ever before. if you have decent reflexes you can play sheik)( easy_money.jpg)( that nair).

on the opposite side of the coin, characters that aren't scrub friendly under any definition of the word are (requires knowledge of proper stage control)(really unorthodox zoning. also can't kill ever)(requires VERY strong fundamentals and spacing so he doesn't get crushed in one throw. me putting him here implies you're playing at a high level, same for all charactes, so no scrubs only)(he's ripped from megaman, so playing alongside smash characters as literal megaman is really mindboggling at first.)(managing fruits, using tricky setups and mindgames to get your way)(really strange playstyle, super technical.)(utilizing tomes/levin properly and conserving charges)(luma is just so ****ing weird)(really jank kit, has zero fast moves and weird hitboxes.)(spacing properly, correct use of Arts is crucial)(like samus, super jank but a lot stronger. is actually mad easy in customs.)(prepare for worst kit in the game).

if i organized this from easiest to hardest it would be . (speaking of which, should we create a community-organized list sorting characters based on difficulty?)

 

[Kangaexe]

Ness is the most simple character in the game. His kill backthrow is the easiest kill move to land in the game, and due to his PKFire. being basically almost as good as Zero Suit's Paralyzer when trying to get a grab I think he can allow for some easier kills then hitting a Bouncing Fish. His PKThunder allows to not having to go off stage for edge guarding and is good for camping. And lastly his disjointed hitboxes add an extra layer of safety to his moves. Going in with Dash Attack or Fair are a common habit to get into and with Ness it isnt such a bad thing.

I picked up Ness when I first started playing, he taught me the basics and got me used to playing at a higher level!
Hope this helps

 

[AnchorTea]

Ness is the most simple character in the game. His kill backthrow is the easiest kill move to land in the game, and due to his PKFire. being basically almost as good as Zero Suit's Paralyzer when trying to get a grab I think he can allow for some easier kills then hitting a Bouncing Fish. His PKThunder allows to not having to go off stage for edge guarding and is good for camping. And lastly his disjointed hitboxes add an extra layer of safety to his moves. Going in with Dash Attack or Fair are a common habit to get into and with Ness it isnt such a bad thing.

I picked up Ness when I first started playing, he taught me the basics and got me used to playing at a higher level!
Hope this helps

His PK fire requires a good read, and his grab is very short. You also have to learn how to recover from all angles with PK Thunder. Also, you need to be patient with Ness in order to win.


Ness isn't simple at all believe it or not.


On topic: If they don't want to spend that much time on competitive Smash, then tell them to just quit. If they don't have the time for that, then they don't have the time for the required 5 hours of practice.

 

[Kangaexe]

His PK fire requires a good read, and his grab is very short. You also have to learn how to recover from all angles with PK Thunder. Also, you need to be patient with Ness in order to win.


Ness isn't simple at all believe it or not.


On topic: If they don't want to spend that much time on competitive Smash, then tell them to just quit. If they don't have the time for that, then they don't have the time for the required 5 hours of practice.

Well, im not giving a Ness guide, just my experience in joining competitive Smash

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

I wouldn't recommend Lucario are easy per say.

Knowing how safe you can or can't be because Aura screws with this a lot and when you can kill/can be killed and learning what can and can't be linked because aura screws with this as well are some things you gotta play him and get used to.

 

[Nekoo]

Sonic, Sheik, Mario are all pretty braindead. The first two will even net you some solid results for being braindead.

Sonic and Sheik braindead ... I laughed

Sonic Look Like braindead because 90% Of his animation is when he roll but on reallity there a LOT Of AT/Variation Of spin That only viable and situational

And It's the same for Sheik ... Sheik have Like all AT Of the game

 

[Kangaexe]

Sonic and Sheik braindead ... I laughed

Sonic Look Like braindead because 90% Of his animation is when he roll but on reallity there a LOT Of AT/Variation Of spin That only viable and situational

And It's the same for Sheik ... Sheik have Like all AT Of the game

Its like ZSS. Looks simple but requires a long time to get decent

 

[RunawayPanda]

Yeah a lot of these characters that were mentioned are definitely not "braindead" *cough* pikachu zss sheik *cough*
I don't really think there are really any brain dead characters to play, BUT I believe Marth/Lucina, Mario and Diddy Kong are pretty good to pick up and play.

Marth/Lucina: Not too many fancy moves, unless you wanna get higher level. Don't rely too much on combos, just poking. Teaches you good spacing if you want to play someone else.

Mario: He's just such a well balanced character, that you could really understand him easily. He has good combos, that aren't too hard to pull off and he's viable for sure in competitive play.

Diddy Kong: He has his hoo ha's and stuff blah blah blah. With the nerf he has become harder of course, since knowing what works at what percent becomes much more important. But to start out, he has a pretty good punish for new players.

 

[Blue Warrior]

Mario has easy to learn and execute combos, pretty good matchups all around, and is well rounded. Diddy likewise.

Ganondorf doesn't require a lot of advanced technique, you just have to be really good at mindgames.

Marth/Lucina/Shulk are all spacing and have a pretty basic toolset (outside of the manado powerup, which is easy to strategize with).

These are characters I would start out with. Definitely experiment with others though, because there are a lot of different playstyles, and you may not want to stick with the character you start out with once you start growing as a player.

 

[Zionaze]

I feel like people that are "new" to smash should use a character with a non spammable B moveset. All of my casual friend get too comfortable with Pikachu spamming B and upB. But if they understand the fundamentals then someone like falco, mario and pit are easier to learn

 

[ReturningFall]

Whatever you do, do NOT pick Little Mac. The problem is that newer/semi-casual players pick him up and meet immediate success with their friends. Which is fine, but then you never get incentive to learn proper air play, edge guarding or thoroughly punished for smash spamming. He also gets destroyed by people who know how to fight him.

A key question here is what does "not put in enormous amounts of time" mean? Do you not want to memorize combos? Not want to have to play lots of different people to get good at reading? Do you just want to jump in and find mid level success?

I personally have no patience for training mode and mastering weird tech but love playing lots of people and varying my play style and picked my main accordingly. I also like dabbling with lots of different characters.

I should warn, a lot of the character suggestions here have very particular gimmicks that require a lot of practice before you'll even look competent (Ness, for example requires lots of practice before you can PK2 to stage reliably under pressure). Many of the suggestions being made are based on peoples experiences against a given character rather than learning to try and play said character. You'll discover there's a huge difference between the two.

Personally, I've always recommended aspiring players to Lucina. She's horrible. But there's not anything funky or subtle to her moves and she'll force you to pick up on spacing, recovery, reading, approaching and trading between options. If Lucina's not your thing, The Pits or the Marios are also good choices as you'll not really be committing yourself to terribly weird gimmicks to do basic things (like recover). Also I believe the Marios and Pits are set to rise in tiers.

Be aware the less gimmicky a character, the harder to "master" as you'll be relying more on developing a strategy for each opponent than playing some preplanned strategy. A low gimmick character would be Pit as you don't really have any "go to" moves or strategies that couldn't be used by someone else. A high gimmick character would be Ness with his odd spacing tools, weak approach but strong throws and odd mindgames than can let him set up lots of damage at a range and close out (or lose) the stock quickly and requires knowledge and practice to get these moves out.

As far as character analysis, Amazing Ampharos' and Raijinkin's posts are pretty accurate, although there's certain high level strategies that are being missed. Do you prefer playing defensively, offensively or both?

 

[SamMalik]

Well I think it'd be a good idea to introduce them to Smashboards or any Smash community, that way you don't have to be the only one getting reliable info. Furthermore, if they're still looking for mains I doubt they know their stuff. At least from what I'm understanding, they never had mains which is completely different than having a main and wanting to swap to a new one.

Anyways, once again, Mario. I think Fox may be good along with Diddy Kong, C. Falcon, and possibly Sonic

What about guys like me? I don't have a main primarily because I have many characters I just simply like.

 

[Luco]

thanks man i'll try it out. i'll have to wait after I go for my licence after I've finished my HSC but yeah will try ASAP

You'll love it, since Smash 4 came out the Sydney scene has been thriving, and if you or your friends decide to stick around in the scene or even travel, Melbourne is the biggest Aus scene and holds annual national-scale tournaments. Sydney's not a bad place to be at all for smash, and you have Canberra peeps only 8 hours away.

 

[Sean²]

This thread is turning into people who like easier-to-play characters defending their skill level.

Ness, Sheik, Diddy.

Probably the 3 easiest characters in the game if you want to gain results as quickly as possible AND have good fundamentals to base your play off of. If you do not, (with the exception for maybe Diddy) they will be a little tougher to pick up and play.

Kirby, Mario, Lucina.

If you are inexperienced, try these. Beginners can really utilize these characters to gain fundamentals and figure out the game mechanics. Especially Kirby. He's extremely easy to pick up and play.

 

[LightLV]

I was just wondering if someone could compose a list of characters with low learning curves or are easy to master. some of the guys in my smash circle want to play competitively but don't want to invest an enormous amount of time on mastering a character which has a high learning curve. Help would be greatly appreciated.

Play top tier. Luigi, Shiek, Sonic, Rosalina, Yoshi, likewise.

Even if they actually have pretty high learning curves ( haha, they dont) you'll at least be using characters that aren't below the curve. I submit, any work you put into any other character that's dumb, like Lucina or Zelda, an equal amount of work will carry you way farther with a good character.

(but people dont wanna hear that, soooo)

(Lucina is passable only because Marth isn't horrible, but there's no reason to pick her.)

 

[Kurri ★]

Play top tier. Luigi, Shiek, Sonic, Rosalina, Yoshi, likewise.

Even if they actually have pretty high learning curves ( haha, they dont) you'll at least be using characters that aren't below the curve. I submit, any work you put into any other character that's dumb, like Lucina or Zelda, an equal amount of work will carry you way farther with a good character.

(but people dont wanna hear that, soooo)

(Lucina is passable only because Marth isn't horrible, but there's no reason to pick her.)

And I'm going to combat that and say play whoever you want. Certainly playing a top tier character may net you better results but playing someone you enjoy will net you far more fun ones.

(But people don't wanna hear that... so...)

(Yeah this is coming from a ZSS main, but I play her because I enjoy her. I also play Palutena and she needs a lot of work to get good, but it's enjoyable.)

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

Play top tier. Luigi, Shiek, Sonic, Rosalina, Yoshi, likewise.

Even if they actually have pretty high learning curves ( haha, they dont) you'll at least be using characters that aren't below the curve. I submit, any work you put into any other character that's dumb, like Lucina or Zelda, an equal amount of work will carry you way farther with a good character.

(but people dont wanna hear that, soooo)

(Lucina is passable only because Marth isn't horrible, but there's no reason to pick her.)

In terms of effort you have a point with where to put your effort.

The learning curve part is bull, especially for Rosalina for Luma's stuff.

I think it is better for him to try and learn the game with some characters before worrying about, "play a top tier" sometimes that doesn't transition for some characters well.

 

[Trifroze]

Considering the question is suggesting characters that are "easy to master", I don't think any of the people who have posted here are able to answer that, although they probably aren't claiming to do so either. Unfortunately the context of this topic attracts shots and misunderstandings.

I see Falcon listed a few times here and I disagree that he has a low learning curve. Catching the opponent off guard with ridiculously quick dash grabs and killing them with rage Raptor Boosts at 80% may look easy and effective but the only way you'll land dash grabs on a competitive level is by reaction, the faster and more aware you are the more things you can punish with it. Raptor Boosts and all the moves that glory Falcons use for killing below 100% require hard reads or conditioning both of which rely on having high level mental capabilities in your play. Same with conditioning the opponent into airdodging with uairs setting them up for knee or dair, and knowing when exactly they will do that based on their habits. Falcon is also one of the fastest characters in the game overall, lacks a projectile and has terrible disadvantage and predictable recovery making mistakes costly and spacing extremely important (and beneficial because of his strong advantage). No other good character requires this kind of knowledge to get the most out of them because they simply lack the moves to get such high rewards off of this, and they lack the weaknesses to get punished as hard for making mistakes. The spacing, timing and DI reads required for some of Falcon's combos are also something most characters will never have to focus on, although there are some like Pikachu, ZSS and Meta Knight.

Now if we talk characters that are easy to use effectively, then I would say almost anyone with a clear gameplan will work for that, although preferably the ones who don't suffer as much for making mistakes. Diddy, Sheik, Sonic, Mario, Luigi, Ness and Yoshi come to mind although Fox, ZSS and Falcon are good choices too. The likes of Rosalina, Pikachu, Villager and Mega Man are too unorthodox and will not teach you much about fundamentals of the game.

I also wouldn't care about characters being called braindead or honest, they're really just terms people use to label characters as cheap or non-cheap without wanting to resort to that word. Generally anyone called "honest" is likely going to be mid or low tier and real talk, you will never find success with those. Staying interested in competitive Smash requires both success and interest in the character you're using.

 

[LightLV]

And I'm going to combat that and say play whoever you want. Certainly playing a top tier character may net you better results but playing someone you enjoy will net you far more fun ones.

(But people don't wanna hear that... so...)

(Yeah this is coming from a ZSS main, but I play her because I enjoy her. I also play Palutena and she needs a lot of work to get good, but it's enjoyable.)

ZSS is above the vast majority of the cast right now. Palu can play better than most people think she can, but she's still pretty bad. And haha, no, people love to hear "play who you want". Being a "character specialist" is a goal for alot of people. I know i sure love it. It just sucks to know that competitively, it isn't really as much of an option as people wish to believe it is.

Tiers have been pretty good indicators of character strength all throughout SSB's lifetime. People hate Tiers because they suggest your winning chance isn't entirely in the hands of your player skill.

In terms of effort you have a point with where to put your effort.

The learning curve part is bull, especially for Rosalina for Luma's stuff.

I think it is better for him to try and learn the game with some characters before worrying about, "play a top tier" sometimes that doesn't transition for some characters well.

Rosalina is not hard to learn, sorry. Many of her best attributes are exploitable by accident. Being top-tier really has nothing to do with the learning curve of the character, you'll put just as much (if not wayyyy more) brainpower into trying to make a subpar character viable enough to even deal with her.

He may be crippling himself by starting with a good character, but that has more to do with his mindset than anything. In the end, this is smash bros, not a traditional fighting game. It is also Smash 4, the least technical smash ever released. There really isn't a difficult learning curve to anything. Just fighting his friends and watching streams should be enough.

I also wouldn't care about characters being called braindead or honest, they're really just terms people use to label characters as cheap or non-cheap without wanting to resort to that word. Generally anyone called "honest" is likely going to be mid or low tier and real talk, you will never find success with those. Staying interested in competitive Smash requires both success and interest in the character you're using.

This x100, as someone who pretty much only enjoys playing characters who happen to be low tier in this game, there is really nothing to gain by sticking to a character you know has odds stacked against it. "Honest" or "non-cheap" are ego-sparing excuses. There's a reason you don't see any big players using crappy characters, and it's because they're playing to win.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

ZSS is above the vast majority of the cast right now. Palu can play better than most people think she can, but she's still pretty bad. And haha, no, people love to hear "play who you want". Being a "character specialist" is a goal for alot of people. I know i sure love it. It just sucks to know that competitively, it isn't really as much of an option as people wish to believe it is.

Tiers have been pretty good indicators of character strength all throughout SSB's lifetime. People hate Tiers because they suggest your winning chance isn't entirely in the hands of your player skill.




Rosalina is not hard to learn, sorry. Many of her best attributes are exploitable by accident. Being top-tier really has nothing to do with the learning curve of the character, you'll put just as much (if not wayyyy more) brainpower into trying to make a subpar character viable enough to even deal with her.

He may be crippling himself by starting with a good character, but that has more to do with his mindset than anything. In the end, this is smash bros, not a traditional fighting game. It is also Smash 4, the least technical smash ever released. There really isn't a difficult learning curve to anything. Just fighting his friends and watching streams should be enough.



This x100, as someone who pretty much only enjoys playing characters who happen to be low tier in this game, there is really nothing to gain by sticking to a character you know has odds stacked against it. "Honest" or "non-cheap" are ego-sparing excuses. There's a reason you don't see any big players using crappy characters, and it's because they're playing to win.

You are still recommending some characters with not easy to pick up right away playstyles.

It's better in the long run to find something that fits that than shoving a top tier at them.

 

[Kurri ★]

ZSS is above the vast majority of the cast right now. Palu can play better than most people think she can, but she's still pretty bad. And haha, no, people love to hear "play who you want". Being a "character specialist" is a goal for alot of people. I know i sure love it. It just sucks to know that competitively, it isn't really as much of an option as people wish to believe it is.

Tiers have been pretty good indicators of character strength all throughout SSB's lifetime. People hate Tiers because they suggest your winning chance isn't entirely in the hands of your player skill.

I was mimicking your post's layout. Besides with the way you're pushing top tiers, perhaps there is some truth to it.

I acknowledge ZSS is better than a majority of others, but I don't play her for that, I play her because of her playstyle. Same reason I play her in PM and she's nowhere near as high tiered there, same reason I play Palutena. "Play who you want" is definitely an option in competitive play, admittedly a harder one, but not impossible. There's a Ganondorf in my scene who's been rising up and took a Pikachu to game five in semis.

Tier list suggest your winning chance, they're not a clear "You're gonna lose," it's probability. As long as you play better, you can still come out on top.

 

[LightLV]

I was mimicking your post's layout. Besides with the way you're pushing top tiers, perhaps there is some truth to it.

I acknowledge ZSS is better than a majority of others, but I don't play her for that, I play her because of her playstyle. Same reason I play her in PM and she's nowhere near as high tiered there, same reason I play Palutena. "Play who you want" is definitely an option in competitive play, admittedly a harder one, but not impossible. There's a Ganondorf in my scene who's been rising up and took a Pikachu to game five in semis.

Tier list suggest your winning chance, they're not a clear "You're gonna lose," it's probability. As long as you play better, you can still come out on top.

I also view Gannondorf as a high-tier character. Seriously. He hits like a truck with some of the most ridiculous frames in the game.

I'm not explicitly telling him to only play top tier and ignore the rest of the cast, I can't even do that. I was very interested in Rosalina, but ultimately lost interest not because she was top-tier, but because she didn't feel fulfilling to play. While I enjoy the more competitive aspects of smash, I value fun more than a focus on competitive winning. Otherwise i'd just play Rosalina or Sheik.

Ultimately i dont think Smash 4's competitive aspects are all that strong TBH, so i'd initially just say pick who you want to begin with. But if you want to beat people, tier lists at the least should be considered.

 

[Kurri ★]

I also view Gannondorf as a high-tier character. Seriously. He hits like a truck with some of the most ridiculous frames in the game.

Well that's a first...

But if you want to beat people, tier lists at the least should be considered.

I agree, I just don't think it should be the be all, end all when choosing mains. In the end it's still all about skill.

 

[Dark Phazon]

Sheik, ZSS, Meta Knight, Falco, Pikachu, Lucario, Greninja, Lucina and Marth are characters I would argue that are not easy to learn.

Spoiler: My reasoning here

Sheik seems brain dead with the way she can combo, but that's it. She can't combo and kill at the same time like Luigi and Diddy. With Bair being nerfed, she's going to have more trouble killing outside from Vanish, tipper Up Smash, Side Smash, Uair near the ceiling, Fair near the ceiling, Burst Grenade, and Bouncing Fish. You have to know exactly what you're doing to be a good Sheik. Pressuring, when to get in, when to not get in, spacing, what combos, what sets up, everything. You can't get away with a lot of things with Sheik by playing at a basic level like Fox, Mario, Diddy, and Captain Falcon because of her lack of kill options. While she does get a lot and is a relatively safe character, you do need to be on point or risk dealing with characters with strong rage like Lucario, Bowser, Ganondorf, and even Marth along with people outplaying and noticing something's off about that Sheik like fishing for kills.

ZSS is more about dealing with landing her kill moves which even though can be considered easy with Boost Kick, you do have to know when and how to use it since people can DI into it and make it whiff and being predictable and not setting it up makes it not safe. Her poor grab game, but good throw game is something to deal with too. If you get that grab, then people will be at her mercy, but whiffing it means she's likely to be in trouble. You also have to deal with shorter characters who can invalidate a lot of her moves since she attacks sort of high up like in her power suit form, Samus.

Meta Knight is considered to be like Captain Falcon in terms of his incredible Dash Attack and dash grab, but he still has issues with his Ftilt's hitbox which is basically his Jab as his real Jab is meh to say the least, he's light, and he needs to be on point as his range isn't as it seems with pre-patch 1.0.4 being horrific to him. Now, if you can space well with Meta Knight and keep on pressuring, Meta Knight is fantastic and underlooked character with strong representers such as Ito, Katakiri, and Unknown. Mach Tornado is just ludicrous as a punish option and it can rack up 30% if you catch someone while his attacks are all fast in general, but don't have a lot of range and aerials do suffer from average landing lag.

Falco suffers from Fox's problems of not having a lot of safe approach options made worse by poorer horizontal mobility - slow air speed and slower run speed than Ike -, a much worse projectile as he can't get away with it like Fox can by dashing away, average landing lag, poor disadvantage, slow grab - it's slower than Ganondorf's -, and really exploitable recovery. Falco suffers from just bad game design in how he was changed from Brawl to SSB4 and most of the changes to him don't seem to look at him from a whole picture and considering Melee and what changed from Melee, Brawl, and SSB4, especially the lack of wavedashing and how Blaster auto-canceling without the ability to slide wouldn't make him troublesome or the fact if he could only shoot once from a short hop and had little end lag, it wouldn't be a major issue like short hop double laser in Brawl. I could rant on about this, but with Falco you have to space well and have a really strong fundamentals game. You can't get away with anything with Falco, but his rewards are among the highest because of his ability to combo with kill moves; he can combo with a frame 4 Bair which is his second strongest kill move and one of the strongest and the fastest Bair tied with Sheik, Mega Man, and Wii Fit Trainer's. Practically his entire moveset is filled with kill moves, but his slow air speed makes it difficult to get out of getting comboed, juggled, and spiked.

Pikachu's light weight, need to understand techs, especially Quick Attack's, and having good off-stage game is something that makes Pikachu difficult to use, but very rewarding. Pikachu's not exactly pick up and play in my opinion and from seeing people play as him. Pikachu's size annoys people who can't hit him, Pikachu's ability to gimp off-stage and go deep off-stage is phenomenal, and Pikachu's relatively strong with certain moves like Up Smash, Side Smash, Thunder, etc., but Pikachu doesn't have a lot of kill options either and you do need to set them up.

Lucario has to deal with living on the edge to reliably kill which is difficult if you're not used to intense situations. Hit lag on his moves for some reason, slowish moves - dude has like the slowest, but a powerful Bair -, and I'm not really sure on his combo ability, but Lucario does need a strong understanding of how he works and raw skill to use. Sure, he gets labeled as the cheap character who gets stronger as he's getting bodied, but it's sort of their fault for no being able to kill and gimp him early.

Greninja plays like a ninja unlike Sheik for the most part. Hit and run, ambushes, sudden attacks, knowledge of how to edgeguard with Greninja using Shadow Sneak and Hydro Pump, dealing with how Greninja's throws work, DI, and spacing makes Greninja difficult to use, but really fun since not only is Greninja dorky-looking, but the things you can do with Greninja is just plain fun. The only issue is dealing with startup which is a main issue for Greninja even though Greninja does have fast and useful moves like Jab, Dtilt, Utilt, Bair, Uair, and dash grab which is faster than standing grab. Like Meta Knight, Greninja does have a strong representer, aMSa who's been the leading man for Greninja's metagame.

Marth and Lucina (along with Falco, Ganondorf, and Kirby) are the fundamentals characters. They strive off of pure skill and have little to no shenanigans attached to them aside from Crescent Slash and Dark Fists which are all custom moves for Marth/Lucina and Ganondorf. The main issue for these two is that they get less reward than Falco, Ganondorf, and Kirby. Marth's tippers are strong, but require so much precision that it seems like a waste of time when you can use Luigi, grab, D-throw, and slap someone with Fair several times and get 30% easy. Lucina's worse as her lack of tippers which was supposed to make her "beginner-friendly" actually makes her even more difficult to use than Marth as she can't push shields like Marth can with tippers. Unless someone loves them because they're fans of Fire Emblem, die hard fans of Marth from Melee (and Fire Emblem), or just like how the play, Marth and Lucina aren't exactly easy to use.

Characters that I say would be easy to learn and you can get away with even from a basic level includes Diddy, the king of ease of use, Luigi, Mario, Fox, Captain Falcon, the Pits, Yoshi, Wario, and Ness.

Spoiler: My reasoning here

People know about Diddy, Luigi, Mario, Yoshi, and Ness, but why the others? Fox has always been a good character and never has he been considered to be low tier or even bottom like SSB4 Falco and Brawl Wolf due to chaingrabs and poor representation - Brawl Wolf was found to have a good MU against Meta Knight and several other high tiers because of his amazing air speed, combo game, survivability, and fast kill moves with Bair being notorious. This is probably bias, but at the same time, Fox is one of the best designed characters since his conception in 64. Fast attacks, good mobility, especially on the ground, and strong kill moves on a speedster like him just makes him powerful, but somewhat fragile. Fox is a safe character who has a strong hit confirm with his Jab that if timed right, leads into his Up Smash and a guaranteed kill; there's also Nair to Up Smash. Unlike Falco, he can use Bair to pressure shields despite having a slower Bair - frame 9 - because he can land and run unlike Falco. The only issues are his fall speed which makes it easy to juggle him and can lead to SDs off stage, his gimpable recovery, but not as gimpable as he can good deep with his Fire Fox, but it's predictable, and lack of an off-stage game other than Nair gimps and attempting a Fair spike which could lead to him going to deep and SDing.

Captain Falcon's strong neutral and advantage along with his sheer speed and power makes him easy to get away with at a basic level. His major issue is his disadvantage since his fastest attack in the air is Uair and that's frame 6 while Nair is 7. Fast fall speed makes it easy to juggle him even though his air speed is pretty good. At a basic level, you can do a lot with the Capt., but at higher levels, you need to understand his spacing, his setups, and have just pure skill to go far with the Capt. It's kind of why you see a lot of Captain Falcons in tournaments, but you don't see a lot of them win and I don't count ZeRo since he pulls him out from time to time instead of going full on Falcon, but that doesn't mean ZeRo's Captain Falcon is a fraud. His popularity will help with developing his metagame and training.

The Pits feel like jack of all trades. They have good projectiles, good edgeguarding, good speed, fast moves, super armor from their Side Special, a spike, and their recovery is good. I just don't know why they're not used a lot other than yes, Pit's tippers does mean he needs to space well while Dark Pit's lack of tippers on his Ftilt? and Bair? means he still has to space and deal with two weaker moves. That doesn't stop them from being solid characters who suffer from a hitboxless recovery move and landing lag on their aerials. Nairo is one person to watch along with Pink Fresh for your Pit and Dark Pit needs.

Wario is strong, a heavyweight, but he's relatively small compared to other heavyweights. This gross dude packs a punch and his air speed is just stupid. I don't know much about him, but @TheReflexWonder does. He just seems like a strong character who nobody uses for various reasons including bad breath, nasty gas, and disregard for polluting the planet. Dude even proved himself by winning a tournament in Cali. Jeepysol and Reflex are Warios to watch.

The thing is who is easy might just be up to the player. So, some would say that Villager is easy to play as and you can wall people out. Well, I don't understand Villager at all which leads to stupid plays with Villager. At the same time, I'm just not interested; I don't like how Villager plays, I don't care for the Animal Crossing series, though, I will give it a chance if I ever get New Leaf, and I just don't like Villager at all. Compare this to Ganondorf who people say is difficult because he relies on reads and punishing. Maybe it's just because I'm a patient player (with the right character) or something about him clicks with me. Also, because of his ludicrous kill percents and knockback, it's just fun playing as the king of evil. I'd say that you get your friends to just start playing random characters or characters they like because of design, moveset, etc. and see how they feel about those characters. So, someone might think Bowser looks like a cool character to use, but then they end up not liking how he plays, well, move onto someone else. Someone else might have no interest Wii Fit Trainer, but decides to play as her one day and she just clicks with them.

My list of characters that are difficult to learn and includes the ones I gave reasoning for would be: Peach, Rosalina, Pac-Man, Shulk, Duck Hunt, Olimar, Robin, Bowser Jr., and Palutena. All of those characters have to deal with a lot of managing something. Peach needs to manage her Float and Vegetable usage, Rosalina with Luma's positioning, Pac-Man with Trampoline, Hydrant, and Bonus Fruits, Shulk with his Monado Arts, Duck Hunt's projectiles, Olimar's Pikmin, Robin's Tome usage, Bowser Jr.'s Mechakoopa and stage control, and Palutena has to deal with slow tilts and in customs, how long her Lightweight lasts and when and how to use Superspeed. Link and Toon Link are a bit more straightforward with their projectiles, but they do have to manage them. These characters just micromanage along with dealing with universal and individual techniques. At the same time, if they just click or if the player just likes them, then whatever.

Everyone else is pretty much fair game including Little Mac and Dr. Mario who as long as they're on stage, they're fine, but their edgeguards are deadly, well, the Doc's is while Little Mac's is basically disrespectful. Ike just deals with spacing and learning how his moves work, Wii Fit Trainer deals with her shorter range, but is fairly fast, survives well because of her strong recovery, and hits pretty hard, and Sonic needs to master his speed since Spin Dash and Charge only gets him so far.

I Approve this Message.

 

[LightLV]

Well that's a first...

Word. Ganon doesnt have the traits of the current top-tiers but he has a few strengths in his own right that i feel people definitely overlook. I would not be at all surprised if someone randomly started winning with him, especially since people are hilariously allowing customs to become tournament legal.