Recommended Secondaries?

[Afro Smash]

Just wondering if there's any good Secondaries to pick up to try and patch up any of Samus' worse match ups, I currently have Marth as a kind of Secondary though I haven't put much work in to him, and I don't think he fares much better Vs. Samus bad match ups than Samus does

 

[Fluidityt]

Kind of hard to go wrong with ZS (or any of the other upper tiers, Shiek, Diddy, Pikachu...)

I play Lucina for fun, but wouldn't put her / Marth as a lot better than Samus, whereas with ZS its extremely obvious.

I think anyone with a counter would be good against Samus' poor MUs like the speedy chars, or a speedy char yourself (like ZS).

 

[-_ellipsis_-]

I second pika. Good projectile to stop fast character's momentum, good speed, awesome aerials, awesome mind game potential, and it just feels right since pika and samus were supsbace buddies in Brawl

 

[Xygonn]

I really like villager as a secondary. He's got some great options and still has a zoning mentality. Great recovery. Good KO options. Is a bit laggy like our lady, so you already know how to deal with it. Has a bthrow that can kill near the edge. Pocketing countered lloids then sending two lloids at once is always fun. Admittedly, dash attack, smash attack, fair and bair are all reflectable. It's all about the axe!

If I were to recommend one more generally, I think I'd recommend Luigi. He's floaty like samus and just has a really good set of basic moves (grab, aerials, jab, tilts, and smashes).

 

[Boney]

The best way to go about it would be to identify Samus worst match ups. I think olimar, rosalina and falco are bad ones but that's just off the top of my head.

Personally I second pit because I wasn't seeing many of him and he's pretty good. He's not up to my Samus level but I do bring him out against villager which is a pretty favorable match up I believe.

 

[Fluidityt]

The best way to go about it would be to identify Samus worst match ups. I think olimar, rosalina and falco are bad ones but that's just off the top of my head.

Personally I second pit because I wasn't seeing many of him and he's pretty good. He's not up to my Samus level but I do bring him out against villager which is a pretty favorable match up I believe.

This. But who the hell plays falco over fox?


Then again, who is actually *good* vs Rosa and Olimar? (Besides diddy...)

I still think ZS covers Samus' weaknesses pretty well. And see, I think that we should pick characters who *don't* play like Samus. Though Samus can be played many different ways, least effectively as a rush down. This is why I think having a rushdown capable char works with her best.

 

[Highgarden]

I go with Shulk. People still tend to stay overly aggressive if you switch off Samus, so I take advantage with Shulk. Changing up the play style every buff duration, having a Nairplane to space/control, and fairs to gimp or actually KO. He has a bit of start up on a lot of moves, but if you play Samus you're already used to that.

 

[warturtle16]

I go for a pocket Mega Man. However, I never really play Mega Man against people because I just feel like it is better to change the mindset against whatever MU you are against.

 

[E.Lopez]

I still can't decide who I want to use as my secondary. I thought it was Zelda for a while but now I'm not so sure. Also tried hard to get into Palutena, but I might abandon that one.

When considering someone more on the upper tier that I might enjoy using, I play a little bit with Sonic sometimes but haven't committed to him fully yet.

Obviously from my user name you can guess Bowser Jr. was someone I was excited to play with (as Roy) but I don't feel he fits my playstyle.

Other characters I like to use for fun:

Charizard
Greninja
Ike
Little Mac
Luigi
Mega Man
ROB
Shulk

From that list, I'm leaning toward Greninja but I admit he's a bit difficult to use skillfully. I would need a lot more practice on that one.

So basically: undecided.

 

[Squaddle]

Ganondorf works pretty well for me. The only characters I have horrible issues with when playing as samus are the short ones like pikachu, most of which are light as heck and get KO'd at very low percentages with dorf.

 

[Grambles]

The Samus and Yoshi combo has been working pretty well for me. He's still a little floaty, but his rushdown nature can throw off your opponent's momentum. He covers a lot of Samus' harder match-ups, except maybe for good Links.

 

[3swag5u]

My secondary character is Donkey Kong, he's considered worse than Samus tier-wise but he's too fun to use

 

[The_Woebegone_Jackal]

I like my man Link. His projectile wall is honestly better than ours anyway, so that feeds right into our playstile, but hes a much better character up close. His up-b oos punishes hard like ours if not harder, and with him having a real nair he can keep the top tiers off him a little better. His disjoints cut through a lot of the problems we have as well, like Rosalina.

 

[Dream Cancel]

Hmmm, I'm not a Samus main, but I think would make a good secondary. His match-ups against common, "high-tier" characters are good, and his match-ups against uncommon characters are actually somewhat rough according to Luigi mains. This is where Samus comes in and mops the floor with them.

, , and would be interesting secondaries as well, I'm surprised I haven't seen them yet.

 

[Afro Smash]

That's good suggestion actually, Luigi bodies Fox and Pikachu which are nightmares for Samus, and he probably goes even with Mario, thanks

 

[Kugelhagelfisch]

If it's Sheik and Rosalina you're worried about you might want to consider King Dedede.

Sheik has a very hard time KOing him, while she herself is relatively easy to hit with smash attacks. By the time her combos don't work anymore you've got so much rage that one good read or trap will close out the stock for you.

Rosalina is easy mode. Luma is dead all the time, without him she can only kill you if she's right below you, she's very easy to hit and floaty. Never use Gordos for the two seconds Luma is present unless you'll be in the air when she deflects it, though.

Just be smart about Gordos. Basically, you don't want to ever use side and down Gordos in medium range neutral because you can't deflect them back at that distance.
If your opponent is on the ground, always expect them to deflect it. You want to either be far enough away to downtilt it back (6 frames startup and active relatively long) or in the air for a nair (7 frames, lasts forever, re-deflects it right back at them).

TL;DR: Clobba dat dere high tier!

 

[Hark17ball]

FERobin and Peach are my secondaries. Robin is the magic version of Samus and Peach....well she really really annoyed my brothers and friends back in Melee so ive stuck with her ever since.

 

[E.Lopez]

Well I'm still trying to figure out who I should try to play better with for my secondary.

First of all, big thanks to this awesome community for helping me improve my Samus in every way. Even though I'm nowhere near the skill level of some of you guys, I've definitely advanced a lot more with Samus than I could have imagined compared to where I was at when I first signed up on Smashboards earlier this year.

Having said that, I still can't seem to find my secondary, as in, no other character do I find myself wanting to really want to master or have a strong desire to do so. Also, when I'm playing FG, I have trouble securing wins with just about any character, then I have no problem defeating the same opponent when I switch to Samus.

Earlier I posted:

I still can't decide who I want to use as my secondary. I thought it was Zelda for a while but now I'm not so sure. Also tried hard to get into Palutena, but I might abandon that one.

When considering someone more on the upper tier that I might enjoy using, I play a little bit with Sonic sometimes but haven't committed to him fully yet.

Other characters I like to use for fun:

Charizard
Greninja
Ike
Little Mac
Luigi
Mega Man
ROB
Shulk

From that list, I'm leaning toward Greninja but I admit he's a bit difficult to use skillfully. I would need a lot more practice on that one.

So basically: undecided.

Based on this thread and some of the secondaries mentioned by Samus mains in this community, I now might to try to narrow my secondary from this list:

Falco
Link (Izaw makes Link look sooo good, I must say)
Luigi
Mega Man

Maybe I'll pick one character and spend a week on each?

Mewtwo also seems like a fun character to use, anyone have an opinion on him?

 

[Kugelhagelfisch]

I would hold out on Mewtwo, unless you already have him. I have played him excessively since release and am overall a bit disappointed.
Mewtwo has no practical combo game to speak of.
Confusion doesn't combo from or into anything. In fact, you can even get hit by many characters after it before you can shield. It's also too slow to use on reaction as a reflector if you're not rather far away.

Disable is completely useless. It takes as long as a smash attack, does only 1% damage, only does knockback on airborne characters, isn't worth using before you've already dealt at least 60% so it's predictable and has as much endlag as a smash attack. It also does almost no shield damage or pushback and can be reflected. You're far better off just using a smash attack.

Small characters won't be shield grabbed a lot of the time.

Teleport is plain awful and easily the worst teleport in the game. If you don't sweetspot the ledge you're likely to bounce off the stage like a billard ball and SD.

You have absolutely nothing against crossups. Uptilt is too slow and often misses characters behind you, downsmash hits only the direction you're facing, downtilt doesn't hit behind you, his prejectile doesn't damage when charging anymore either and confusion is the slowest move since sliced bread.

On top of that you have up and back air having stupid hitboxes that don't reach where you'd expect them to and very light weight.

I fully expect him to get buffed with the next patch. I really want to like Mewtwo and love his moveset otherwise but just about everything is either a tad too slow (including himself) or has weird hitboxes to his disadvantage.
Right now, competitively speaking, he's bottom tier.

 

[Saigon]

I would advise you pick up a rush down character, who is also a fast faller. This is because it is the polar opposite to Samus who is kinda slow and floaty. This is why I strongly recommend fox.

 

[Xygonn]

I have completely changed my mind on Olimar. He was nerfed from brawl, so I got pissed and discounted him. I've finally come around. Olimar is freaking amazing, and he does great against some of our tough matchups. I'm gonna be training Olimar almost exclusively for the next few weeks (sorry guys). Also, he is one of the few characters left with a really broken hoo haa if you have a red then purple in your line.

So, I think he is a pretty good secondary.

 

[E.Lopez]

For now I've settled on Luigi as my secondary. For fun, I do want to have one of the Smash 4 newcomers be a secondary as well. Rosalina is an obvious choice (because high tier), but I like some of the other newcomers too like Shulk and Mega Man. I practiced a little with Robin and Wii Fit Trainer, no strong opinion on them yet.

I have completely changed my mind on Olimar. He was nerfed from brawl, so I got pissed and discounted him. I've finally come around. Olimar is freaking amazing, and he does great against some of our tough matchups. I'm gonna be training Olimar almost exclusively for the next few weeks (sorry guys). Also, he is one of the few characters left with a really broken hoo haa if you have a red then purple in your line.

So, I think he is a pretty good secondary.

Olimar is fun to use. It seems to really master him you have to really know your Pikmin color types and use them effectively (like the red to purple you mentioned).

 

[Emerlad_Element]

I personally secondary Ness, he's helpful in bad match ups for Samus. I'd honestly say your only problem with Ness is Rosalina (because she's a problem for everyone at least in my expierence.) He has an amazing aerial game and can combo characters like Fox and Captain Falcon easily. I've also tried Robin but he suffers some of the same problems as Samus, he does have his upsides however, so long as you know how to use him of course. Though after reading some of the suggestions here I might try Luigi.

 

[Depth_]

Although I'm a Samus optimist, I fully acknowledge her weaknesses. Against very aggressive and reactive play, she is reliant on Screw Attack, her primary defensive option in close combat. Although Samus has very long hitboxes, they are slender or thin and come out at linear trajectories. Attacks such as F-tilt, D-tilt, N-air, B-air, U-air, F-smash lack the easiness or utility of the sweeping motions on Sheik's F-air or Diddy's U-air. Unlike most other mains that focus on their normals, we are reliant on b moves to combat defensive and offensive options. When those specials are taken away from us via reflectors, our options are limited. Our character becomes more static and easy to predict.

So, my suggestion is that you second a character that has a stronger rushdown, a wider variety on defensive optoins, a small or nimble hurtbox, and very consistent hitboxes for smaller and nimble characters. Here or some characters I think fit all if not one of those categories.

• Sheik - Nimble, great hitboxes, long active frames
• Mario - Small hurtbox, long active frames, powerful defensive options
• Luigi - Small hurtbox, long active frames, powerful defensive options
• Diddy - Great hitboxes
• Pit - Great hitboxes, powerful defensive options
• Yoshi - Great hitboxes, slippery
• Pikachu - Small hurtbox
• Rosalina - Great hitboxes, long active frames
• Marth - Great hitboxes, powerful defensive options

I wouldn't suggest characters like Zero Suit Samus or Mewtwo. Although I believe Samus functions similarly to those characters, they have their own problems. For example, ZSS has to commit hard against defensive play due to her terrible grab and negligible shield damage. She also has very thin hitboxes.

 

[H man]

Rosalina is a pretty good second main along with Samus. She can deal with rush downs which is exactly what Samus has problem with.

They are both floaty and zoning/defensive characters, not to mention that Rosalina is just in general a much better character.

Sheik and Fox are some of the biggest threats to my Samus, and can definitely be dealt with by Rosalina.

 

[Xygonn]

I'm starting to dig Ryu. I think he is a great secondary because he has good MUs against several of our bad MUs. I guess the same could be said about Sheik, but I hate slapping people around with her fair.

 

[Tonetta]

I secondary jiggly puff, sheik, captain falcon, fox, and ryu

jiggly puff was by far the easiest to learn because of their floaty nature.

 

[White_Pointer]

The Samus and Yoshi combo has been working pretty well for me. He's still a little floaty, but his rushdown nature can throw off your opponent's momentum. He covers a lot of Samus' harder match-ups, except maybe for good Links.

Same, I keep Yoshi as a secondary and he tends to cover most of my bad Samus matchups...except maybe Rosa, she's still a struggle.

It helps that despite the fact I've changed my mains from game to game I've always kept Yoshi as a secondary so I've always kept up the practice with him as he hasn't drastically fundamentally changed a whole lot.

 

[JAZZ_]

For my secondaries I've been experimenting with a bunch of characters. Though none of which I'm comfortable with in FG yet so Im still training.
Here is what ive been using and why:
I used to play with puff here against my friends constantly waaaay back when. But back in those days I sucked Uber bad compared to now. So relearning her has been fun. Switching my C-stick to special has helped me get tricky Rests off on my friends and now when I play them with Jiggly they Squirm because they know Ill get them. Im not perfect and in no way comfortable with her completely but its nice to play with her again.
Now heres someone I wanted to master ever since I saw her trailer waaaay back when. And after learning her side B spikes and a diagonal angle and her Fair spikes too I had to use her more. She gets less playtime than Puff but I think when the training dust settles she and Puff will be permanent secondaries.
this little guy has been one of my go to's in all the Smash games. So not a lot to relearn and his shield breaking ability with Down B is a great thing to get off.
I've been familiarizing myself with a few top tiers. Rosalina here has been surprisingly fun to use against my friends. I spent even less time on her than Wii Fit but I will add her into a permanent option slot.
Another top tier I've been using. Im no where close to being good with her but in time I'll become a moderate level Sheik.
Reason.. its trollin time. Seriously though for a while my two secondaries used to be kirby and Villager. so even though I'm pushing new characters at the moment doesnt mean I havent stopped using villager.

Characters I will practice with in the Future:


Abandoned Secondaries:



Looking at my current roster aside from kirby I tend to swing towards the Femme fatales... not sure why