shoud i main doc or not?

[Dark Pie 1001]

i REALLY don't know if doc is one i want to go for i mean i use G&W and mewtwo i just dont know if i shoud drop doc or not.

 

[GoblinGamerKid]

Well sure I dont see why not. I mained doc for awhile and he is good but your probably gonna need a good secondary.

 

[Papa+Stone]

Yes doc is not only unqiue and fun but is also the best mid tier and actually does about equal in all of his high tier matchups so if you want to use doc against one top tier you might as well use him against the others. Doc has more potential to win tournaments than the other two and doesnt require a secondary.

 

[SMOE]

Long story short, G&W and Mewtwo suck. Just play Doc.

 

[Dark Pie 1001]

o rly? lol

 

[Comatose]

If youre looking to play really competitively (do well in tournaments, especially nationals) basically I'd recommend picking fox, falco, sheik, jiggs, marth, peach, falcon, ICs, and a stretch but Docs pretty much the competitive cutoff. People can do really well with others (ace's pika, Kage's Gannon, etc.), but its an uphill battle playing someone after doc on the tier list.

Edit: just remembered a bit of G&W info. He can't even L cancel some of his aerials, even worse for a new player, since you'll probably fall into the bad habit of not lcanceling regularly or just neglect to learn it altogether

 

[SMOE]

^This. Competitive Melee's hard enough as is for a beginner, especially given how developed the metagame is. Don't make it any harder than it needs to be by maining an unviable character.

 

[Papa+Stone]

LIke the other guys here have said already, its probably better to play a top tier character as your main. They teach ebtter fundamentals from the get go along with many other things, they have tons of options allowing for alot of freedom and diversity in your matches, they have a pretty good skill:reward ratio, and as you get better youll probably find yourself liking them even more.

This is not to say that you cant play the other characters though. Every smasher plays more than 1 character in friendlies or when they play by themselves. If you like mewtwo and gdubs you could always play them in these scenarios. Characters like doc however do work but youll be at a disadvantage, and the gap only grows bigger and bigger as you go further down the tier list. Even top tier mains complain about bad match ups, such as falcon mains or even marth mains. Wether or not you want to stick with a mid-low tier character is entirely your own decision. However remember that youll have to work especially hard on your mental game and other areas, and you wont have as good results generally as players who use higher tiers. another thing to take note of is that many low tiers have fewer reliable options than top tiers giving them very gimicky play styles which some people can find stale in the long run.

 

[Dark Pie 1001]

i see well hmm..i guess ill main doc

 

[Scidadle]

I mean if those are your three options Doc is by far the best.

If you REALLY wanna win though you should main fox

 

[Dark Pie 1001]

i ..cant use fox..

 

[MasterExocuter]

This will convince you mehehehe

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7Ma8rR9wBA

 

[Comatose]

Fox is tough. Honestly, if you want to do well in tournament but dont have the technical skill for a spacie, marth, sheik, puff, peach, ICs are great options. I used to play doc (still do, but not as much) but he just stopped being fun for me, and my tech skill advanced to the point where I could physically play more characters.

Spend some time playing with all the top 10 characters or so, decide then who to main. Don't try to rush the choice

 

[Max?]

If your intention is to win and be a competitive threat in your region/area, you should probably pick a Top Tier. If you like Doc, I'd suggest using Sheik or Marth as they function pretty similar to Doc and are a lot better without the daunting technical barrier of a Space Animal (although it's harder to use Marth/Sheik at top level). Doc is just not good, only use him if your intention is to have fun and play with your friends. GnW and M2 are also awful.

 

[Thor]

Doc is fine [not terrible], but it's going to be tougher to win against high-tiers (I believe Marth in particular can be annoying). I myself am trying to find a better main (see below profile pic) among Doc, Pikachu, Falco, and Captain Falcon, but at this point I'm still working on basics (and I has bombs with my current main). I do agree with Max that Marth and Sheik require less tech than Space Animals (though all characters have fairly high technical barriers - I'd argue Link's are slightly lower given his pathetic wavedash but it's an uphill climb to win).

However, there's absolutely nothing wrong with choosing Doc now, improving, and re-evaluating at some point (a month, 4 months, year) where you stand and who you want to play. You might well find out Doc is really sweet for you, or you might think you could do even better picking Fox/Sheik/Marth/other character.

G&W and Mewtwo are awful though - Mewtwo relies on like 3 or 4 gimmicks (one of those gimmicks being recklessly unsafe approaches) and G&W can probably be shield broken with like 3 shines and 2 dairs by Falco or something silly like that. G&W also can't L-cancel some stuff and both are very light = Fox usmash at ~80% will KO every time (except MAYBE Dreamland/FoD with very very good DI [or if it's been used 3 times already]). So avoid those two unless you want to have fun and play with friends (like Max? said), or unless you want to make one of them a backup and try to punk various people who don't know the MU (but that kind of thing rarely works at the very highest levels - Taj is probably the closest someone has come to doing so).

------Short version

Main Doc for now, he's not terrible (not necessarily good), revisit in a month or so and see if you want to move up on the tier list.

 

[milligraham]

Choose whoever you want as long as you truly enjoy playing as the character. A high tier would be helpful to have as a back up. If you really want to stay out of S tier then Doc would be one of the better options.

Doc isn't my main, but he is one of my top 3 favorite characters.

 

[Frisbie]

DO WHAT YOUR HEART DESIRES

Also, Mewtwo was the first character I ever played and Doc and G&W were my mains for a while (now it's just Doc).

 

[7dogguy]

i ..cant use fox..

dude do what ever you want do you realize how hype it would be if you could compete against shroomed doc in the long run? lol if you think you have what it takes to use a mid tier character go for it just dont expect to win much until you get amazing hopefully you do

 

[KirbyKaze]

Play whoever the hell you want as your first character. If you decide they're not competitive enough after a while and want to switch, then do so then.

So if you like Doc (it sounds like you don't tbh) then play him. If you don't, then don't.

Very few people stick to the very first character they decide to learn.

 

[SmashMac]

I'd say learn Doc and main him. It's well worth it and 100% doable, but in order to become very good with him and place well you will need to understand everything about Doc. The best way to improve your overall skill is to play everyone and learn every character and their pros and cons vs. Doc so when you are faced against a match-up that you do not understand, at the very least you will have a blueprint to follow. Also you must master every aspect of your character. I do recommend having a very strong secondary that you can pull out when necessary as well. When I first picked up Doc as my main I had just come from maining Falco for years so I was fed up with the high tiers already. That was not a good mindset because now looking back I honestly think that if I would have started to build my secondary (Fox) since then I would have become a much better overall smasher and potentially even a pro smasher as opposed to a professional Doc player. I recommend finding videos of the best Doc mains out right now and from the past and study them, and also just watching videos of all the pros at SSBM in general. Play the observer and ask yourself questions like "why did he choose this move here" and try to point out reasons why a situation perhaps led to the opponent or the Doc getting 100% damage or dieing or how they took advantage of a situation and either capitalized it to it's fullest or not.

 

[ZaXXoR]

well, prsonally i first leraned advanced techs with g&w and mained him first, hes really bad, has no shield, doc is good cuz hes in the upper-mid tiers so hes not overplayed o the point where u need to play him a certain way, watch smashmac's vids

 

[Shibbypod]

Hmm, should you main doc or not? Actually this is a good question. As a long term doc main, instantly I want to say yes. HOWEVER when you MAIN a character that is not high on the tier list, it is inevitable that in order for you to compete with high players in your region, you are going to have to do a lot of work. A falcon player who beat me 20 some times in a row told me that playing falcon against higher tier was difficult, and that the lower you go on the list, the further ahead you have to think.

I don't know if that is necessarily true, but one thing for sure is you have to space really well. You will have to space for every offensive option that the OTHER player has, and with fewer slip ups than the other character. I feel like this little blip of advice goes for every character, but it magnifies in importance the lower you get on the tier list.

By all means, Doc is a very viable character in the right hands. The right hands is someone who is a smart player with a deep understanding of the movement of this character, the pill tricks, spacing, HARD READS, and some really balls to the wall edge guarding.

Go for it.

 

[DanlulZ]

always felt every character is viable if you enjoy playing them you'll always have fun. i love doc always will main him

 

[Aidoony]

i ..cant use fox..

Fox is a uphill battle I highly reccomend doc

 

[WumpaWolfy]

I'd say learn Doc and main him. It's well worth it and 100% doable, but in order to become very good with him and place well you will need to understand everything about Doc. The best way to improve your overall skill is to play everyone and learn every character and their pros and cons vs. Doc so when you are faced against a match-up that you do not understand, at the very least you will have a blueprint to follow. Also you must master every aspect of your character. I do recommend having a very strong secondary that you can pull out when necessary as well. When I first picked up Doc as my main I had just come from maining Falco for years so I was fed up with the high tiers already. That was not a good mindset because now looking back I honestly think that if I would have started to build my secondary (Fox) since then I would have become a much better overall smasher and potentially even a pro smasher as opposed to a professional Doc player. I recommend finding videos of the best Doc mains out right now and from the past and study them, and also just watching videos of all the pros at SSBM in general. Play the observer and ask yourself questions like "why did he choose this move here" and try to point out reasons why a situation perhaps led to the opponent or the Doc getting 100% damage or dieing or how they took advantage of a situation and either capitalized it to it's fullest or not.

How important do you think it is to have a secondary as a Doc main and when do you use them? When I play with my friends I tend to play Fox and lately Marth almost as much as Doc, but when I attend tournaments I tend to play Doc exclusively. I'm just way more familiar with his match ups (and people are less familiar with his) not to mention I feel like my Doc would develop slower if I divided my matches between different characters. How much of using a secondary has to do with avoiding a bad match up or getting out of a psychological slump with your main?

 

[Aidoony]

True but there are still other characters though I still recommend the good doctor

 

[SmashMac]

How important do you think it is to have a secondary as a Doc main and when do you use them? When I play with my friends I tend to play Fox and lately Marth almost as much as Doc, but when I attend tournaments I tend to play Doc exclusively. I'm just way more familiar with his match ups (and people are less familiar with his) not to mention I feel like my Doc would develop slower if I divided my matches between different characters. How much of using a secondary has to do with avoiding a bad match up or getting out of a psychological slump with your main?

I feel it's very important to have a secondary. I've been a Doc. main for several years now since early 2007, only pulling out any of my top-tiers when I truly am torn in a match-up or opponent with my Doc., which nearly never happens, but has happened in the past. Honestly though, after pondering for the past year or two, I think Doc. could be more utilized as a secondary or clutch match-up character, since he is an odd-ball. Having a very strong Fox/Falco/Marth/Shiek/CF or any of those higher tier characters that is close or just as good as your Doc. will prove very helpful.