Mains' Advice Thread?

[Kulty]

Hi guys,

Is there a mains' advice thread for Smash Ultimate? I`ll post this in case if there's no such thread like this for Ultimate. There are some things I want to prepare before starting to play the game, and one of them is picking up the # of fighters.

I have a pretty huge dilemma on how many characters I should focus on and want to play, so I'm gonna give info on my intent and purposes along with concerns (WARNING: this post will be quite long):

I got introduced to competitive Smash since Brawl (but also played some competitive Melee). I do intend to play more ranked matches or go to tournaments for Ultimate more than any game before, but for different purposes than winning. My intent of playing the Smash series is TO BE THE MOST OPTIMAL I could possibly be with my favorite characters, but NOT TO BECOME THE BEST OR TO WIN TOURNAMENTS. I feel like becoming the best at a character puts a lot of stress into Smashers, and I don't want to have to deal with that pressure of constantly getting harassed or blamed for poor performance and results. My goal as a Smasher is just to BECOME REALLY GOOD AND OPTIMAL with my favorite fighters, but not necessarily the best. I prefer to play Smash competitively, and I also like to play for fun by playing multiple fighters (kinda have the best of both worlds), but in order for me to balance both, I don't like to have a lot of characters, which leads to my next point.

In competitive Smash, most people will tell me that it's best to focus on not more than 3 fighters, with 2 being considered (by the majority) to be the most optimal. While I agree myself, I can't help myself to feel like playing three fighters just bc of one mode in Smash Ultimate that might be viable in competitive play: SQUAD STRIKE. At the same time, my goal is to be optimal, which means I tend to focus on less characters as possible. So right now, I'm stuck on a dilemma of playing either 2 or 3 characters (regardless of the option, I'm still gonna focus on one character at a time). So I made a list of pros and cons that I feel of either option:

Having 2 fighters over 3 (Pros): + more time allocated to each, can cover MUs perfectly fine with two (but it depends), optimal, still fine for Squad Strike
Cons: - slightly more redundant, some MUs are bad for both
Having 3 fighters over 2 (Pros): + more character variety, perfect for Squad Strike, can cover more MUs
Cons: - less time for each, tend to spread too much, may be unnecessary

Even with the 3 fighters option, I still plan to focus on just two of them and leave the third one as a secondary for warm-up or fundamentals.

Finally, these are the characters that I'm the most interested in for Ultimate: (and maybe ). I know it's not a lot, but for Ultimate, I wanted to only consider my favorite fighters in Smash history (i.e veterans that I enjoy in every single Smash iteration, and only 3 characters qualify for this for my case) and some newcomers to limit myself while also having options. I tend to get distracted at getting better with my secondaries based on past Smash experience (since I love to play a lot of characters), and I just don`t want this to happen again in Ultimate.


What do you guys think of this? I know it's a lot of text, so sorry about that. But what should I do about this dilemma of either 2 (1 main and 1 secondary) or 3 fighters (like 1 main and two secondaries) to focus on? Thank you for taking the time. I really appreciate it.

 

[maxistrife]

Yeahhhhh I have the attention span of a jar of mayonnaise so I did not read all that, but unless you plan on doing the 5v5 game mode, you can just focus on a couple fighters to become highly skilled with. Personally, the squad strike stuff doesn't interest me, but I will still likely end up mastering 3, being REALLY good with 2 others, and dabbling with another 5 to a decent degree to mix things up. That is usually how I do it.

 

[GhostYB]

going into training and try out every fighter. at least learn their combos and pick out what style works for you. lengthy process maybe but effective.

 

[Veggi]

I think it kind of depends on matchups. If you have one character that can handle pretty much every matchup you may want to go with one. If you have a character you like that suffers in certain matchups you may want to learn more characters. I think that most people would have trouble completely understanding the ins and outs of more than three characters though.

Which is unfortunate for me because I want to main like 6 in the new game lol.

 

[Mogisthelioma]

Get good with as many as possible. You need to be able to choose the right fighter depending on the stage, your opponent, or who your opponent is playing as. You never know which matchups could end up successful or poorly for you.

 

[Orlando BCN]

Go to 0:46.

 

[ZephyrZ]

I think one main with potentially a secondary to cover their bad match ups is usually the way to go. It depends on other factors though, like how technical the characters you're playing are or how much their match ups are skewed. It's better to be a specialist then to spread yourself too thin trying to be a "master of none".

Of course I "mained" two characters in Smash 4 and I'm planning on maining Pokemon Trainer in Ultimate so maybe I'm not one to talk here.

 

[DunnoBro]

It depends.

For a new game like this, it'd likely be best to invest into 3~ characters early on. Both to help develop a feel for the game, cover later bases, become a more valuable training partner for higher level players, and avoid falling into playstyle pratfalls should they be later proven sub-optimal. (Squad strike is another nice bonus)

However, if this were an older game with a more established meta; It'd certainly be more prudent to invest in a single character, and basing your choice and training on information already available at that point. Though even then, Squad strike and potential training partners make 3 seem like a good number. Especially in a game so varied, it may make you a far less appealing training partner if you can only use a niche character.

 

[Kulty]

Thanks guys. Like I said in my initial post, no matter if I plan to pick two or three fighters, I`m going to mainly focus on one character, and my secondaries will be mainly for friendlies at the start of Ultimate`s meta. Even with a more developed meta, I still plan to either solo-main or to duo-main fighters (but that is kinda unlikely).
I always solo-mained in past Smash games (always solo main in the past, but it might change for Ultimate due to interest in other fighters). Regardless, I still plan to main Mario at the very start of the game, but might consider other characters (if I were to pick the other two, it would be). I plan to just play the latter two as friendlies at beg of Ultimate's meta, but I am really interested to take K Rool even further, but I`m just not sure if the Kremling King is a good MU coverage for Mario.
He looks good on theory since K Rool covers two of Mario`s major weaknesses (being the lack of kill setups/hard time KOing and lack of range in which King K Rool seems to fit pretty well in this regard. Shulk also works, but I'm a bit more interested in K Rool). What do you all think of this?

 

[leejaybird]

Shulk looks to be much better this time around. If you want a sword character, Marthcina is looking super good, especially since Nair1 true combos into Fsmash.