Stress of playing multiple characters?

[Funkermonster]

Got a poor habit of playing multiple characters, and its kind of bad for me. I main Mega Man (used to be Greninja, but started doing better in tournaments with Mega) and use him for the bulk of the time in tournaments & he's my best character atm. But I second as well and I have various pocket characters: and I am prone to playing all of them a lot too, especially in friendlies. But here's the thing: I don't exactly play these guys to cover Mega Man's bad/annoying matchups (well, except for Mega Man dittos and Captain Falcon, I would rather not engage in dittos cuz they're so janky its painful), as I don't feel he has too many bad matchups and none of them in particular that are instant hell, I do it moreso because I get bored playing just Mega Man and like to play someone else to keep things interesting. But as fun as it is to play these guys, the time I spend playing them could be used to practice my Mega Man and in incorporate more tech into my game so I'd level up faster as a player, especially when I main one of the most technically demanding characters in the game. Not to mention that a lot of the characters I mentioned (except Pit, potentially Lucas) have a higher than average learning curve and take a lot of time and effort to learn themselves, and probably wouldn't make great backup characters for that very reason. I would also add Duck Hunt, Robin, Charizard, & Lucina to my pocket list; although unlike the others I feel that these characters are pretty flawed and don't compliment Mega Man very well at all and lose to the same characters he does + more so it's not good idea to back up any of them and its easier to ignore them, and the only ones of these 4 that I commonly play is & : the former being a character I've already played for a very long time and I consider him to be among my best (even though I don't think he compliments my man all that well, I feel I have come too far with this character to abandon him, although he could be a lot more helpful with customs), and the latter I love to use more a lot for doubles than singles and could potentially become my main in doubles. This also brings me to another question: Is it alright to have a main almost exclusively for doubles?

I know its not a great idea to be playing all these characters and I technically don't need them, but I have too much fun with them to drop them no matter how hard I try.In spite of all this though, I still do relatively well so far in my competitive journey and I usually end up placing on the upper-median side of the rankings in tournaments. I've gained quite a bit of respect among my peers in my region and people have told me I've got a good amount of potential, and people tell me that despite having a big character pool I'm surprisingly good with most of them (besides Pit and Rosalina, who I've just added to my pool awhile ago and am still learning them, though I think I'm starting to get the hang of them) and I still have a good grasp on the basic fundamentals. I've still been doing good anyway, so maybe playing multiple fighters isn't harming me as much as I think it is and I'm just worrying too much. Even so though, sometimes I wonder how much better I could be if I just stuck with my main the whole time. The more I play, the more this habit of mine boggles my mind and the harder it is to get it out of my system.

Anyone got an easy solution for this sort of thing?

 

[Morbi]

I suppose it depends on why you play all of these characters and the game itself. From what I gathered, you play them for fun, correct? If that is the case, you could just dedicate to using one of your characters (and a secondary to cover bad MUs and mirrors) for a tournament. After that, cycle through and use a different character for the next tournament. Perhaps if you focused on one or two of them per event, their usage would not become detrimental to your play. Otherwise, you can play the other characters in friendlies but not tournament.

If you want to win the tournament, dedicating your time and effort to one or two characters would help. But if you just enter for fun and do not expect to win, there is no reason for you to worry about your performance. People play for different reason, if you want to play for the respect, that is completely fine.

As for your question about having a main for doubles. YES. You SHOULD have a main exclusively for doubles (unless you are comfortable with your singles main in doubles). It is an entirely different meta-game.

 

[Pazx]

You already know what it comes down to. Do you value winning or the enjoyment you get out of using multiple characters more?

If you want to improve your game I suggest cutting down your characters. There's nothing wrong with using 17 characters in friendlies or casual matches but when practicing or playing tournament matches, money matches or "seriouslies" using more than 3 characters is (probably) severely detrimental. In regards to your question about doubles, having a character you use specifically in that format is okay and I encourage you to use multiple characters in doubles if you enjoy it. If you have a regular doubles partner you do have to practice against and with them with each of your characters though so keep that in mind.

Given the complexity of your characters I advise you to keep playing Pit if you do decide to drop some. It's a lot easier to focus on fundamentals with him which will hopefully improve the game of whichever other characters you decide to stick with.

 

[LancerStaff]

Well, it's really up to you of course. But just recently I had a friend come to me and say that she was struggling with her main, so whenever she came across a player she couldn't beat she'd switch characters... I told her she was struggling because she was switching too much. She was kinda upset that I had basically told her to stop using her other characters, actually. But she did it anyway. And you know what? She's twice as good now then a month ago.

 

[Fatmanonice]

I don't think playing multiple characters is as much of a hindrance as people imply that it is. At high levels of play, yes, it will start to hurt you but the best players have a general knowledge of the whole cast and can pick just about anyone and reasonably hold their ground. Top level players picking a random character and winning major tournaments is absolutely unheard of but I don't think it's that unusual for lower level tournaments. At lower levels, you can probably get away with regularly using up to 5 characters but you'll want to narrow down who your best characters are.

For example, I play a lot of characters. When I'm just bumming around and having fun on For Glory, I regularly use: and, aside from , I like to play as pretty much the whole cast. So, in my initial list, I put down a whopping 16 characters but I know I'm not competitively competent with all of them. If I wanted to seriously get into tournaments (which is pretty much a laughable proposal in my area), I'd want to narrow this down to five. Who are the five people I'm best with, in my opinion? Okay then... ... now which of these could I realistically win a decent sized tournament with (given their match ups and overall strengths and weaknesses)? . Based on this, these two would be the ones that I focus the most on while the others would be potential secondaries for particular match ups or against less skilled players. Based on my previous list of characters though, characters like would be more useful secondaries if I wanted to be competitively successful. For you, you'd probably be best off if were your mains and and /were your secondaries but, again, it all really depends on what level of play you can realistically aspire to.

 

[DKMJunior]

Got a poor habit of playing multiple characters, and its kind of bad for me. I main Mega Man (used to be Greninja, but started doing better in tournaments with Mega) and use him for the bulk of the time in tournaments & he's my best character atm. But I second as well and I have various pocket characters: and I am prone to playing all of them a lot too, especially in friendlies. But here's the thing: I don't exactly play these guys to cover Mega Man's bad/annoying matchups (well, except for Mega Man dittos and Captain Falcon, I would rather not engage in dittos cuz they're so janky its painful), as I don't feel he has too many bad matchups and none of them in particular that are instant hell, I do it moreso because I get bored playing just Mega Man and like to play someone else to keep things interesting. But as fun as it is to play these guys, the time I spend playing them could be used to practice my Mega Man and in incorporate more tech into my game so I'd level up faster as a player, especially when I main one of the most technically demanding characters in the game. Not to mention that a lot of the characters I mentioned (except Pit, potentially Lucas) have a higher than average learning curve and take a lot of time and effort to learn themselves, and probably wouldn't make great backup characters for that very reason. I would also add Duck Hunt, Robin, Charizard, & Lucina to my pocket list; although unlike the others I feel that these characters are pretty flawed and don't compliment Mega Man very well at all and lose to the same characters he does + more so it's not good idea to back up any of them and its easier to ignore them, and the only ones of these 4 that I commonly play is & : the former being a character I've already played for a very long time and I consider him to be among my best (even though I don't think he compliments my man all that well, I feel I have come too far with this character to abandon him, although he could be a lot more helpful with customs), and the latter I love to use more a lot for doubles than singles and could potentially become my main in doubles. This also brings me to another question: Is it alright to have a main almost exclusively for doubles?

I know its not a great idea to be playing all these characters and I technically don't need them, but I have too much fun with them to drop them no matter how hard I try.In spite of all this though, I still do relatively well so far in my competitive journey and I usually end up placing on the upper-median side of the rankings in tournaments. I've gained quite a bit of respect among my peers in my region and people have told me I've got a good amount of potential, and people tell me that despite having a big character pool I'm surprisingly good with most of them (besides Pit and Rosalina, who I've just added to my pool awhile ago and am still learning them, though I think I'm starting to get the hang of them) and I still have a good grasp on the basic fundamentals. I've still been doing good anyway, so maybe playing multiple fighters isn't harming me as much as I think it is and I'm just worrying too much. Even so though, sometimes I wonder how much better I could be if I just stuck with my main the whole time. The more I play, the more this habit of mine boggles my mind and the harder it is to get it out of my system.

Anyone got an easy solution for this sort of thing?

I've never played in a competitive tourney, so perhaps my perspective is skewed. Nevertheless, perhaps you could improve your secondary characters to be top notch all around? With that being said, it is transparently clear that some characters work better with particular play styles, I.e, some characters are better for particular players. If you know your play style, your tendencies and habits, then focus on the characters that for your style most. Practice makes perfect, but we all have those characters that fit well with our game. One must also weigh the reality of how much they like the character also. For example, I think Marth and Ike have great character styles, but can I work them as well as Roy (my main) - no way. Again, it just depends on the individual player at the end of the day.

 

[Illuminose]

Definitely recommend trying to cut down to 1-3 characters to focus on. Any more than that and you're really spreading yourself thin. Random secondaries/characters you play for fun, sure, go wild, but you really shouldn't have more than 3 mains.

 

[Thecombosetups]

Meh. I dont find playing multiple characters tough. Though i only pick 2 to 4 characters to play at a tournament since I have 11 mains and many secondary characters to go to so drop a few for your playstyle

 

[Staticky]

Got a poor habit of playing multiple characters, and its kind of bad for me. I main Mega Man (used to be Greninja, but started doing better in tournaments with Mega) and use him for the bulk of the time in tournaments & he's my best character atm. But I second as well and I have various pocket characters: and I am prone to playing all of them a lot too, especially in friendlies. But here's the thing: I don't exactly play these guys to cover Mega Man's bad/annoying matchups (well, except for Mega Man dittos and Captain Falcon, I would rather not engage in dittos cuz they're so janky its painful), as I don't feel he has too many bad matchups and none of them in particular that are instant hell, I do it moreso because I get bored playing just Mega Man and like to play someone else to keep things interesting. But as fun as it is to play these guys, the time I spend playing them could be used to practice my Mega Man and in incorporate more tech into my game so I'd level up faster as a player, especially when I main one of the most technically demanding characters in the game. Not to mention that a lot of the characters I mentioned (except Pit, potentially Lucas) have a higher than average learning curve and take a lot of time and effort to learn themselves, and probably wouldn't make great backup characters for that very reason. I would also add Duck Hunt, Robin, Charizard, & Lucina to my pocket list; although unlike the others I feel that these characters are pretty flawed and don't compliment Mega Man very well at all and lose to the same characters he does + more so it's not good idea to back up any of them and its easier to ignore them, and the only ones of these 4 that I commonly play is & : the former being a character I've already played for a very long time and I consider him to be among my best (even though I don't think he compliments my man all that well, I feel I have come too far with this character to abandon him, although he could be a lot more helpful with customs), and the latter I love to use more a lot for doubles than singles and could potentially become my main in doubles. This also brings me to another question: Is it alright to have a main almost exclusively for doubles?

I know its not a great idea to be playing all these characters and I technically don't need them, but I have too much fun with them to drop them no matter how hard I try.In spite of all this though, I still do relatively well so far in my competitive journey and I usually end up placing on the upper-median side of the rankings in tournaments. I've gained quite a bit of respect among my peers in my region and people have told me I've got a good amount of potential, and people tell me that despite having a big character pool I'm surprisingly good with most of them (besides Pit and Rosalina, who I've just added to my pool awhile ago and am still learning them, though I think I'm starting to get the hang of them) and I still have a good grasp on the basic fundamentals. I've still been doing good anyway, so maybe playing multiple fighters isn't harming me as much as I think it is and I'm just worrying too much. Even so though, sometimes I wonder how much better I could be if I just stuck with my main the whole time. The more I play, the more this habit of mine boggles my mind and the harder it is to get it out of my system.

Anyone got an easy solution for this sort of thing?

Lol dude this is Smashboards, everyone mains 17 characters. Definitely find two or three characters and shape them to the best they can be.

 

[BSP]

We've been through this at the Pac-Man boards. You're not alone. I go through the same thoughts as you, but to a lesser extent since I'm only split between and .

Others may disagree, but I believe it is very possible to spread yourself too thin in this game, especially with the wide variety of characters and play styles. No matter who you're playing as, you're going to learn about how the opposing character deals with your character. However, you can only practice 1 character at a time, and one of your characters' methods of dealing with things may vary greatly from the others. For example, vs. , needs to be aware of his fruit priorities vs. 's projectiles, how 's launch hydrant, etc. If you're, none of that applies, and you've got different mobility specs + tools at your disposal. 's strategy against is also probably different from his strategy against . Don't get me started on how has to handle . It requires a significant time investment that doesn't translate to any other character, but this investment is necessary. Otherwise, gets stomped.

That being said, if winning is important to you, I would recommend cutting down your pocket list to 1 - 2 characters. I would make sure the character(s) cover(s) my mains bad MUs and teams if my main is bad in teams.

This also brings me to another question: Is it alright to have a main almost exclusively for doubles?

I had this problem in Brawl, and I did not enjoy it. I used and for singles, but could never stick with a single character for teams. Even if I did end up settling with someone, I figured that it would still leave me behind in singles because my doubles skill would not be helping me in singles any. My problems surfaced in tournament when I would usually do well in singles, but get bopped in doubles because I was either stuck with a bad character or with a bad teams character.

To answer your question, I'll say yes. However, I would still try to avoid it. If your secondary and main are bad in doubles, you picked a bad second IMO.

 

[Funkermonster]

Meh. I dont find playing multiple characters tough. Though i only pick 2 to 4 characters to play at a tournament since I have 11 mains and many secondary characters to go to so drop a few for your playstyle

You use up to 4 characters in a tournament and you have a roster of 29 characters (28 if discounting Marth or Lucina, since they're more or less the same character)? Can I ask how far you usually place in them and you find the time to practice them all? I don't mean to come as being rude or anything, but I'd find it extremely difficult to be competent with all those characters if you try to learn them all, even just the main 11 would push it for most people considering how much time it takes to even master just one.

Also less important, but its technically impossible to have more than 1 main and 1 secondary. The termonologies speak for themsleves: of 1st or 2nd in rank, no more than that. I mean, you can play as many characters as you want to, but you can only play at your best with 1 or 2. Everybody else you play is a pocket, just saying.

We've been through this at the Pac-Man boards. You're not alone. I go through the same thoughts as you, but to a lesser extent since I'm only split between and .

Others may disagree, but I believe it is very possible to spread yourself too thin in this game, especially with the wide variety of characters and play styles. No matter who you're playing as, you're going to learn about how the opposing character deals with your character. However, you can only practice 1 character at a time, and one of your characters' methods of dealing with things may vary greatly from the others. For example, vs. , needs to be aware of his fruit priorities vs. 's projectiles, how 's launch hydrant, etc. If you're, none of that applies, and you've got different mobility specs + tools at your disposal. 's strategy against is also probably different from his strategy against . Don't get me started on how has to handle . It requires a significant time investment that doesn't translate to any other character, but this investment is necessary. Otherwise, gets stomped.

That being said, if winning is important to you, I would recommend cutting down your pocket list to 1 - 2 characters. I would make sure the character(s) cover(s) my mains bad MUs and teams if my main is bad in teams.

Woah, that's a bit to take in but woah. When you put it that way, this problem of mine seems even worse than I thought... I'm kinda shivering in fear the more I think about this kind of thing. But if cutting my pockets down to 2 (plz tell me this excludes my secondary) is what ur recommending, guess I have: , potentially ; as I feel these are the ones I feel can cover my main's bad/annoying MUs the best. I like , , and too, but sadly I'll have to let them go cause I don't think they provide good synergy at all with Mega Man. As much as I love this character, I don't think synergizes well with him either in Singles so that's not a good option either, but I am thinking she could be a lot more helpful in doubles and is easier to use there than my singles main in my experience, as I feel having a partner coveing her would help cover some of the stuff she usually has to deal with in singles while providing great support, so I'm still on the fence on her at least. But when cutting down my initial list, I guess I'm fine with saying goodbye to Sonic but due to my indecisiveness, I'm still unsure of the remaining 3 and would still have 2 too many: . And on another note in the case of , this kind of brings me to a bonus problem: DLC and Patches. To be brief with this one:

• What if another character that I really like ends up getting in the roster sometime in the future, and I get yet another urge to play them? If its someone like Shantae or Rayman, its gonna be real hard for me to resist said urge, personally.
• What if one of my other pockets that I'm not good with ends up getting big buffs and makes me want to switch? What if my main gets nerfed to hell? This one's very unlikely, but it could happen, knowing had bad Nintendo's patches have been.
• The important one here: Lucas, and the other DLCs are all still relatively new and haven't even been out for a month. We don't yet know what they are capable of and even the people playing them are still figuring them out. You never know what happens, but there is a chance someone under the radar can do something great with one of these guys and make others wanna join the party. I could also just join it now if I chose, but stupid ol' me is terrible at making decisions, lol

Luckily though, I barely give a **** about the other DLCs out right now, so it isn't too big a problem I guess.

I had this problem in Brawl, and I did not enjoy it. I used and for singles, but could never stick with a single character for teams. Even if I did end up settling with someone, I figured that it would still leave me behind in singles because my doubles skill would not be helping me in singles any. My problems surfaced in tournament when I would usually do well in singles, but get bopped in doubles because I was either stuck with a bad character or with a bad teams character.

To answer your question, I'll say yes. However, I would still try to avoid it. If your secondary and main are bad in doubles, you picked a bad second IMO.

This I'm completely confused with. Are you saying that if a character isn't great in singles, they're likely to be just as bad in doubles? Having a hard time understanding that one, particularly the part in bold. If its not too much, maybe answering my theorycraft about earlier here might help me understand it better? At least the part about a character being potentially better in doubles than singles?

 

[BSP]

This I'm completely confused with. Are you saying that if a character isn't great in singles, they're likely to be just as bad in doubles? Having a hard time understanding that one, particularly the part in bold. If its not too much, maybe answering my theorycraft about earlier here might help me understand it better? At least the part about a character being potentially better in doubles than singles?

Mario was a bad character in Brawl. Falco was a good singles character in brawl, but pretty bad in doubles. What I meant was when I did teams in Brawl, I was in trouble because of my characters. If I was Mario, I was a bad character. If I used Falco, I was a bad doubles character even though Falco was great in singles.

Singles performance has nothing to do with doubles performance. is still ridiculous in teams in this game, but nowhere near as dominant as he was in brawl in singles. Brawl Wario was alright in singles, but he was arguably the best doubles character in the game.

is probably fine in doubles. It depends on your style. I see Robin as a support / stock tank character. She has a variety of projectiles and hard hitting aerials + smashes, but lacks mobility. I would imagine a mobile teammate that could set up for Robin's hard hitting attacks would be best, but that's just me.

 

[Dr. Bread]

having multiple characters is sometimes an advantage if you can take advantage of matchups, not everyone can handle every character.

Its definitely an advantage if your primary is lucario, little mac, falcon, or something along those lines.

 

[Thecombosetups]

You use up to 4 characters in a tournament and you have a roster of 29 characters (28 if discounting Marth or Lucina, since they're more or less the same character)? Can I ask how far you usually place in them and you find the time to practice them all? I don't mean to come as being rude or anything, but I'd find it extremely difficult to be competent with all those characters if you try to learn them all, even just the main 11 would push it for most people considering how much time it takes to even master just one.

Also less important, but its technically impossible to have more than 1 main and 1 secondary. The termonologies speak for themsleves: of 1st or 2nd in rank, no more than that. I mean, you can play as many characters as you want to, but you can only play at your best with 1 or 2. Everybody else you play is a pocket, just saying.

For how I place with them , , , and place me 5th. While , , , and got me 6th. , and are characters I haven't use in a tournment yet. I just find time whenever I got free time which I play one character 4 times then move on to the next one

 

[Raijinken]

Playing multiple characters actually functions as anti-stress for me. I don't get bored as quickly when practicing, and if I run into a bad matchup I'm capable of swapping to help handle it. I learn character weaknesses and strengths faster, too.

If it's stressing you too much, maybe limit the list to 5 or so. But using a dedicated main is a surefire way to get hard countered. What if your Megaman got matched against a Rosalina?

 

[Funkermonster]

Playing multiple characters actually functions as anti-stress for me. I don't get bored as quickly when practicing, and if I run into a bad matchup I'm capable of swapping to help handle it. I learn character weaknesses and strengths faster, too.

If it's stressing you too much, maybe limit the list to 5 or so. But using a dedicated main is a surefire way to get hard countered. What if your Megaman got matched against a Rosalina?

Um... I'd stay close to her (but not too close) in mid-range, pelt Luma with crash bombers & metal blades, edgeguard her by z-dropping and Bairing her, and grab punishing her GP? Although I personally do find her annoying to fight and lose to her more often than not, I don't think Rosa is a hard counter to Mega Man and I'm not convinced that we lose to her just yet, I think it is 40:60 at worst and only slightly in her favor. Its a tough match, but not so tough that it requires me to have a backup,. With the possible exception of Sheik, I don't really think he's trashed by anybody as of the current meta, and I could probably live without a secondary if I wanted to. As mentioned before I mostly play bonus characters to keep things fun, rather than to cover any bad MUs. I don't think he has that many in the first place; imo the only truly bad MUs for this character are Sheik, Captain Falcon, Fox, Pac-Man, and Roslina to a small extent; and I personally believe Mega Man could be a top 10 character (albeit on the lower end of said 10). I will admit though that there are a lot of matchups that could potentially become negative in the future though: and with customs . Even then, I don't see most any of these becoming worse than 40:60

If my main was a terrible character like that almost everyone trashes, then I probably would be doomed without a backup. I am still taking your advice (as well as everyone else's) into consideration, but just sayin. Limiting to 5 or maybe 6 sounds about right....

 

[Pazx]

If my main was a terrible character like that almost everyone trashes, then I probably would be doomed without a backup. I am still taking your advice (as well as everyone else's) into consideration, but just sayin. Limiting to 5 or maybe 6 sounds about right....

I know I've already answered but this little bit of your post got me thinking. If you mained Brawl!Ganon (or an unnamed trash character in SSB4) then any secondaries you had wouldn't be to cover Ganon's bad matchups as it's incredibly likely that your secondary character would have better matchups across the board than Brawl!Ganon. "I main X but I use Y to cover his bad matchups" doesn't mean much if X has predominantly bad matchups and Y's matchup chart is almost a direct upgrade.

If you do want to use secondaries to improve your performances in tournaments you need characters that complement each other well. If you do decide you use them for fun you can disregard this, but here's a recent example: Larry Lurr at CEO. I was impressed with how well his characters () worked together.

Luigi loses to zoning characters who can keep him out, but has very high reward off a grab and is thus strong against shields.
Fox is a fast, rushdown character who is capable of zone breaking (with a reflector to boot) but gets very little from grabs and thus has few answers to good shielding.

Try and find some combination of characters that aim to cover each other's weaknesses. I would imagine that a few of your more zoning-based characters would have similar weaknesses so be wary.

 

[Wintropy]

First of all, don't get stressed. Stress just makes you anxious and impairs good judgement. Take a deep breath, distance yourself from the exercise if you have to, and return when you feel more at ease.

I have to say I agree with @ Raijinken on this one: while it's definitely beneficial to have a small handful of dedicated characters you can commit to and learn in-depth, it's also good to have a sense of diversity in your roster. If your main has a hard counter and your opponent exploits that, you're gonna want at least one sub to mitigate it. Now that doesn't mean you go overboard and pick up half the roster expecting to cover every possible weakness (unless you're some sort of Smash savant - in which case, good for you): it just means you have a dedicated team that you know you can do well with and whose abilities complement each-other.

You can, of course, just choose to learn every last one of Mega Man's matchups, right down to hard counters, until you're totally undefeatable and can take on anyone. Chances are you'll quickly wear yourself out if you try that, and if you enter a tourney and realise you're just not feeling it with Mega Man, you have no safety net to fall back on. Again, as Raijinken says, having subs helps to keep you interested in the game and can help teach you things that will augment your overall skills.

As with any art or sport, it's about dedication and balance. Know what you can do, work to mitigate what you can't and have fun doing it.

EDIT: Just to note, I main Pit, a character with very few truly good or truly terrible matchups. If you feel Mega Man is the same, then just remember that any matchup will come down to individual skill on your part. There's no shame in choosing a character you know is a good counter-pick to others you think you may encounter. There's a reason top players choose top tier characters when they want to win finals.

 

[Dr. Bread]

dont fear, fear is the mind killer, fear is the little-death that brings total pwnblivion

honestly as long as you're playing your character with enough technology that your opponent isn't like "... man if this guy knew his character better i'd be dead right now" youre in a good spot

 

[NegaNixx]

I can play,

All at about the same level give or take. Realising that that's stretching myself thin I allowed myself to narrow it down.
There are two metas (Customs and Non-Customs) at the moment. I made a conscious decision to have a main and a secondary for each meta. Before the latest DLC My main for Vanilla was Peach with a Dark Pit secondary.
My main for Customs was Marth with a Kirby secondary.

Come the DLC I started to really love how Roy played. But I didn't want to have more than a main and a secondary So I just swapped them around.

Peach and Roy gain the least from customs so I made them my Vanilla Mains.
Marth and Dark Pit cover each other pretty well and are very adaptable in a customs meta so they hold that position.

Kirby is now my Pocket character for Shiek and I also have a decent Fox in my other pocket for whatever I need (When nothing is working I use Fox/Kirby in either Meta because they perform well and have very streamlined game plans. When I can't focus I play those two).

I just based my characters off of what the Meta demanded, Theoretical match up Coverage and who I enjoyed playing as.

Even still I I continue to press counter as Roy, Marth and Dark Pit because I'm trying to pull a turnip by accident. Or I have over reliance on Side B to punish because of Marth, or F throws with Marth because the other three have good ones. So I know I'm still stretching myself but I made a conscious decision to narrow down from 13 to 4/6. Significantly less stressful and I still have the other 9 characters for friendlies.

 

[Raijinken]

dont fear, fear is the mind killer, fear is the little-death that brings total pwnblivion

honestly as long as you're playing your character with enough technology that your opponent isn't like "... man if this guy knew his character better i'd be dead right now" youre in a good spot

I did not expect to find the Litany Against Fear on Smashboards, but it is very appropriate here.

Um... I'd stay close to her (but not too close) in mid-range, pelt Luma with crash bombers & metal blades, edgeguard her by z-dropping and Bairing her, and grab punishing her GP? Although I personally do find her annoying to fight and lose to her more often than not, I don't think Rosa is a hard counter to Mega Man and I'm not convinced that we lose to her just yet, I think it is 40:60 at worst and only slightly in her favor. Its a tough match, but not so tough that it requires me to have a backup,. With the possible exception of Sheik, I don't really think he's trashed by anybody as of the current meta, and I could probably live without a secondary if I wanted to. As mentioned before I mostly play bonus characters to keep things fun, rather than to cover any bad MUs. I don't think he has that many in the first place; imo the only truly bad MUs for this character are Sheik, Captain Falcon, Fox, Pac-Man, and Roslina to a small extent; and I personally believe Mega Man could be a top 10 character (albeit on the lower end of said 10). I will admit though that there are a lot of matchups that could potentially become negative in the future though: and with customs . Even then, I don't see most any of these becoming worse than 40:60

If my main was a terrible character like that almost everyone trashes, then I probably would be doomed without a backup. I am still taking your advice (as well as everyone else's) into consideration, but just sayin. Limiting to 5 or maybe 6 sounds about right....

I'm not actually very versed in the Megaman vs Rosalina matchup, as I'm the only person in my play group that even dabbles in her, and none of my friends can handle even my dabbling Rosalina reliably. She just seemed to me like the most likely character to hard-counter Megaman (aside from Sheik since she has a favorable matchup against virtually everyone). But the idea remains: Unless your skill significantly exceeds that of your opponents, a slightly unfavorable matchup can cause a lot of stress if you don't have fallback characters (Narrowly lose that one round against ___? Good luck making a comeback on the same character).

I can play,

All at about the same level give or take. Realising that that's stretching myself thin I allowed myself to narrow it down.
There are two metas (Customs and Non-Customs) at the moment. I made a conscious decision to have a main and a secondary for each meta. Before the latest DLC My main for Vanilla was Peach with a Dark Pit secondary.
My main for Customs was Marth with a Kirby secondary.

Come the DLC I started to really love how Roy played. But I didn't want to have more than a main and a secondary So I just swapped them around.

Peach and Roy gain the least from customs so I made them my Vanilla Mains.
Marth and Dark Pit cover each other pretty well and are very adaptable in a customs meta so they hold that position.

Kirby is now my Pocket character for Shiek and I also have a decent Fox in my other pocket for whatever I need (When nothing is working I use Fox/Kirby in either Meta because they perform well and have very streamlined game plans. When I can't focus I play those two).

I just based my characters off of what the Meta demanded, Theoretical match up Coverage and who I enjoyed playing as.

Even still I I continue to press counter as Roy, Marth and Dark Pit because I'm trying to pull a turnip by accident. Or I have over reliance on Side B to punish because of Marth, or F throws with Marth because the other three have good ones. So I know I'm still stretching myself but I made a conscious decision to narrow down from 13 to 4/6. Significantly less stressful and I still have the other 9 characters for friendlies.

This (splitting focus based on customs or not) is what I've been working on as well, in addition to picking specifics for singles vs doubles. It makes a pretty big difference, too, especially for the handful of characters that change significantly in customs.