What should I do in terms of my characters...

[karu]

What's good my Sm4sh homies. I am new to Smashboards and... yeah.

A little intro about myself, I have been playing Smash 4 for around a year now, and initially mained Dark Pit/Pit. In that year, I have had bouts of salt due to me seemingly not improving at the game. Yes, I was the biggest "John" at your hangouts, so eventually I went on hiatus and decided to give up on competitive Sm4sh (therefor Sm4sh in general). But eventually I decided every aspect of me not succeding was not improving was all on me, so I picked up the controller and began to train, build up determination, strive for nothing but self improvement on my journey to not even make EVO.

So with all jokes aside, a few weeks ago I came back into Smash 4 and decided to main Mario because 1; he is a solid tourney pick and very friendly to people ACTUALLY learning the game, 2; I have considered playing him in the past, and I really enjoy playing as him, and 3; nostalgia of dying at World 1-1 for 3 days straight in the original Super Mario Bros. It was easy for me to deduct that Mario's biggest weakness is his lack of disjointed range, so I picked up Lucina as a secondary (whom of which I used as secondary alongside Pit, but have finally began to click with in terms of meta, and no not in terms of the body pillow sitting in my closet). I have been playing on Anther's Ladder and occasionally some For Glory for the past 3 weeks and I feel Mario/Lucina is a good pairing for me, however it gets pretty stale only having 2 characters to alternate with online and supposedly in tourney.

When I find the occasional dude who is on par with me in FG or even Smash ladder (which is uncommon but not full on rare, yet more often than not I run into people flat out better than me so it's safe to say I'm still trash, which I will likely always say since I can always perform much better than I did yesterday #mentality) eventually I'll see that my opponent basically says "yo let's have some fun" and starts using a bunch of random characters they probably don't know how to use, so naturally, I do too. I mostly find myself playing my previous mains or other characters considered playing at a higher level during my first year, and express interest in adding (essentially) one extra fighter to my roster as I love switching characters instead of sticking to one, but I'm wondering if learning and utilizing 3 characters at tournament level play is a viable decision, especially at the trash tier level I currently am (hmu my nnid is CarlFire900; ill be your body pillow if u know what im sayin), as most people only use 2 characters, and some people are even full on one-trick ponies (*cough* *cough* Genkai wo koeru).

I understand the logic behind only playing 2 characters to practice for tournament play, however for me personally playing only 2 or even 3 will get stale very quickly, yet it's likely my only way to improve.

So I'm turning this little scenario to you, the Smash community. For someone still a noob yet finding some success with the Mario/Lucina pairing alone, would it hurt me badly to add one more character in my main roster? Or do you say "nah man you won't improve that way"?

-karu, A weeb

 

[Dream Cancel]

From a match-up (MU) perspective, adding another character won't really help much. There's a reason why you only really see 1 or 2 characters at all but the highest levels of play, and that's because they're extremely good at the game. Players generally only use 1 or 2 characters because they can funnel all of their experience into getting really good with one character. This, in turn, rapidly increases their rate of skill acquisition.

However, you have a great point that playing a few characters gets stale; to this I recommend you play a character whose playstyle feels natural to you, and, most importantly, play a character who you enjoy playing as.

No one wants to spend time with a character they don't really like for hours on end, so you should play a character whose aesthetic appeals to you. You may find a character quickly, or it may take a while, but ultimately you should consider defining what your aim is in Smash, and go from there.

I highly recommend you watch this video. It greatly helped me understand what so many of us struggle with.

Lastly, it's natural to experience a character "crisis," more or less, so don't worry too much about this delimma.

 

[Hydgen]

I do the same thing, I like to play tons of different characters, but I can't improve because of it. I am a main now.


I recommend that you find any character that you like to play as or find fun, (you might not be good with them, yet.) Then look up a guide for that character. Continue training with them and practise with friends or on For Glory. That's what I did, and now I main one character that I find fun to play.

Cya

 

[Kaze Arashi]

There are upsides and downsides to solo maining and having multiple characters. If you solo main, you will have alot of expertise and experience with that character. You can go along fine but you struggle in the sense that you only have knowledge mostly on that character and not much on everyone else. On the other hand, having multiple characters means you will have skill to play different styles and have better time with counter picks, but not have as much expertise as a soo main. It's all your decision whether you like solo maining mario or want to play another character.