When should you move on to another character

[Walbytamer11]

When should you stop playing a character to move on to another? What character do you main now and which did you used to play? Why did you move on? I'd like to know because I really have no clue as to when I should settle my mains and really focus on them.

 

[Bing]

When you find a flaw with your main that you feel can be corrected with another character and its abilities and style, try it.

I originally was hard set on maining Marth, but I was too aggro so it wasnt working out, I decided to try maining fox to see if it was different, and its been the best decision yet in terms of smash. Its all about trial and error and figuring out your mistakes and habits.

 

[ToastyTHT]

Through my time playing smash I have mained at least half of the tier list, including before I played seriously. These characters include.
Kirby
Marth
Yoshi
Ness
Marth Again
Young Link
Ice Climbers
Start playing non-casually
Game & Watch*
Sheik*
Pikachu
Kirby (Now)

The reasons for switching have always been me playing the character, and feeling it click. I will still play oddball characters to see if they click in my free time.
*=Still play today.

 

[Dan Salvato]

My opinion: If you're inexperienced then you should put all your efforts into one character. Otherwise you'll be juggling too many different timings and playstyles to effectively learn the fundamentals of Smash strategy. Once you feel adequate in this regard, you can experiment with other characters.

 

[Walbytamer11]

My opinion: If you're inexperienced then you should put all your efforts into one character. Otherwise you'll be juggling too many different timings and playstyles to effectively learn the fundamentals of Smash strategy. Once you feel adequate in this regard, you can experiment with other characters.

But how should I know the border between experienced and inexperienced? I mean I can shffl flawlessly with every character who I 'main' if that's what you mean. Like what separates an experienced from a non-experienced?

 

[Walbytamer11]

Through my time playing smash I have mained at least half of the tier list, including before I played seriously. These characters include.
Kirby
Marth
Yoshi
Ness
Marth Again
Young Link
Ice Climbers
Start playing non-casually
Game & Watch*
Sheik*
Pikachu
Kirby (Now)

The reasons for switching have always been me playing the character, and feeling it click. I will still play oddball characters to see if they click in my free time.
*=Still play today.

How long did you wait before switching to another character most of the time?

 

[Bing]

But how should I know the border between experienced and inexperienced? I mean I can shffl flawlessly with every character who I 'main'. Like what separates an experienced from a non-experienced?

Dont worry you'll know.

One thing I found helped me is that by practicing and maining Fox, because of the fact that my general skill and tech skill got better, the rest of my characters got better. So despite the fact that I am sort of ignorant to this; Main one MAYBE two characters(no, just one) and make sure you have everything down. Then you can look into other characters. But by the time you get to this point, the character you did all this work with, you'll probably want to stay with.

 

[ToastyTHT]

How long did you wait before switching to another character most of the time?

Kirby I played at first until my friend unlocked Marth,oddly he hadn't unlocked Marth yet.
Anyhow I played Marth for the longest time.
Even when I played Yoshi I would always fall back on Marth. I played Yoshi for quite a long stretch. Still today I can play friendlies Yoshi.
Young Link was just a switch I made due to his high recovery that could protect him well.
Ice Climbers were the product of a friend who kept beating my Young Link. I did not play them for long.
Mr. Game and Watch I picked due to the judgement hammer, and kept playing due to his amazing D-tilt and F-air.
He seemed like a bridge into Sheik, At this point I dumped Marth for reasons even I forget.
Finally Kirby, I was trying to beat All-Star mode on Hard for the trophy using swallowcide, and adapted a like for Kirby. haven't turned back since.

I also use Dr. Mario, Pikachu, Yoshi, and Young Link in friendlies occasionally.

 

[odinNJ]

play who you like. play them well, the rest will come.

 

[Walbytamer11]

Dont worry you'll know.

One thing I found helped me is that by practicing and maining Fox, because of the fact that my general skill and tech skill got better, the rest of my characters got better. So despite the fact that I am sort of ignorant to this; Main one MAYBE two characters(no, just one) and make sure you have everything down. Then you can look into other characters. But by the time you get to this point, the character you did all this work with, you'll probably want to stay with.

But I NEED to be the next Mango (no). How should I go about it though? I mean, I play with friends a lot with fox, falco, marth, sheik and falcon (high tier power) and they aren't really the most experienced (one friend beats me about 1/10 of the time). How should I go about filtering them? Should I just look at each ones play style and pick or just closely pay attention over time? Should I just make my friends train as hard as possible and match my level since I can't go to tournaments all the time?

 

[Bing]

Your not going to be able to force your friends to get on your level. In terms of increasing skill, because I dont have very many people to play against, so I spent a lot of time as Fox or Falco doing tech practice on Yoshi's. Just keep playing, figure out what characters fit your style and what characters fit your goals. And go from there. If you want to be the next Mango, then you're looking at Spacies/Falcon.

 

[ERayz]

You should switch main if you feel like you are stagnating too much with your current main.
And, as you progress and earn more experience, you will know what are your strengths and weaknesses. You should try to find one character that makes good use of your strengths (ie. Fox if you are technical).

 

[Walbytamer11]

You should switch main if you feel like you are stagnating too much with your current main.
And, as you progress and earn more experience, you will know what are your strengths and weaknesses. You should try to find one character that makes good use of your strengths (ie. Fox if you are technical).

Thanks, I was actually previously going to ask if someone should switch their play style or just stick with what they're good at and pick a character from there.

 

[PolishSmash]

You'll know when you start getting bored of your character.

 

[♡ⓛⓞⓥⓔ♡]

When you get bored

 

[Arcadia157]

At the relatively low level of skill that I'm at now compared to most competitive smashers, I'll move on to learn a secondary or two once I'm happy with my placement at a local tournament. Until then, I'd rather focus on finding the flaws of myself and Marth as a character and find ways to fix or work around them.

 

[KingofCereal]

I think the most interesting question in this thread is the distinction between experienced and inexperienced. By maining one character you learn more than just timings of combos, consistent wavedashing or shffling. You learn how each hit affects each character differently. How far does Peach fly if I U-smash at 37%? You don't have to think about it because you have developed your instincts to the point where you know exactly what you can and can't follow up with. Playing multiple characters will increase the time needed to get to such a level of skill and comfort. Besides, you can only play one character at a time... for now.

 

[samizdat]

If you're no longer having fun with that character and/or dealing with the character's weaknesses seems overly tedious/boring/makes you feel lame.

 

[KirbyKaze]

When they're not fun any longer and you don't see them being fun in the foreseeable future.

 

[Avalancer]

I've switched from Shiek (after playing with her for 4-5 years non-competitive) to Fox to Falco to Shiek/Marth/Falco to Ice Climbers.

Moving to Ice Climbers was a great choice for me, I'm not allowed into the Amateur brackets anymore because I'm too good to be an amateur. :D

 

[Arcadia157]

I've switched from Shiek (after playing with her for 4-5 years non-competitive) to Fox to Falco to Shiek/Marth/Falco to Ice Climbers.

Moving to Ice Climbers was a great choice for me, I'm not allowed into the Amateur brackets anymore because I'm too good to be an amateur. :D

There's such a thing as amateur brackets? 0_0

 

[Bing]

There's such a thing as amateur brackets? 0_0

Yeah its for people who dont make pro bracket.

4 people per pool. top 2 make pro bracket, bottom 2 make amateur bracket.

Its simple

Winner of Amateur bracket generally gets there entry fee back.

 

[McNinja]

Find a character you have a history with. It may be good memories or you may like the games they are from. Use them. Play them. Don't stop. You CAN play ANY character you dedicate yourself to. Do not quit them. Do not change mains.

All characters have weaknesses. You have to be willing to deal with those weaknesses and work through them. Don't just change because "Falcons recovery sucks". Because then you change to Jiggs and get Up smashed all day then quit again. Its an endless cycle. Pick one and save yourself the wasted time.

If you stick with the same character, it will be extremely hard. However in the long run, it will be beautiful. You give love to the character, they will give it back.

That's my emotional rant for the day. Good night.

 

[KirbyKaze]

Find a character you have a history with. It may be good memories or you may like the games they are from. Use them. Play them. Don't stop. You CAN play ANY character you dedicate yourself to. Do not quit them. Do not change mains.

All characters have weaknesses. You have to be willing to deal with those weaknesses and work through them. Don't just change because "Falcons recovery sucks". Because then you change to Jiggs and get Up smashed all day then quit again. Its an endless cycle. Pick one and save yourself the wasted time.

If you stick with the same character, it will be extremely hard. However in the long run, it will be beautiful. You give love to the character, they will give it back.

That's my emotional rant for the day. Good night.

I don't agree with this post.

Mostly because the first character I took as a serious main was Kirby because I liked Kirby (favourite video game character & super nostalgia). And this post claims that I should never have switched to Sheik (and played the other characters I mained in between Kirby and her along the way). My view of SSBM would have been much narrower and I don't think I'd have the appreciation for this game I do today playing such a terrible character. I'd probably have moved onto Brawl, in all honesty.

If something's genuinely not working you shouldn't stick to it. It's important to work through roadblocks, sure. But it's also important to recognize when something is not working out for you.

Most top level players have switched mains at least once. The first character you take as your main is probably not going to be the one you reach high level with. This is because your first character is probably going to be chosen for very superficial reasons and you haven't developed any semblance of a playstyle yet or really figured out what skills you want to express most yet (you might have a vague idea, but nothing really concrete at this stage). It's not until you start developing yourself as a player that it might be clear what you want to do when you play and how you want to go about winning. The initial character you picked may not be a good conduit for these revised goals & gameplan (because you picked Ness because you liked Earthbound, which has nothing to do with having a really sick offensive control style that you now want as you've started playing around and realized exactly what SSBM has to offer [and Ness can't really support that kind of style]). This is why most people switch at least once.

 

[Kyandid]

Most top level players have switched mains at least once. The first character you take as your main is probably not going to be the one you reach high level with. This is because your first character is probably going to be chosen for very superficial reasons and you haven't developed any semblance of a playstyle yet or really figured out what skills you want to express most yet (you might have a vague idea, but nothing really concrete at this stage). It's not until you start developing yourself as a player that it might be clear what you want to do when you play and how you want to go about winning. The initial character you picked may not be a good conduit for these revised goals & gameplan (because you picked Ness because you liked Earthbound, which has nothing to do with having a really sick offensive control style that you now want as you've started playing around and realized exactly what SSBM has to offer [and Ness can't really support that kind of style]). This is why most people switch at least once.

I've tried to explain this to a ton of different people with a ton of different games and never managed to do it quite as well as this post does. This is a really good post.

 

[ph00tbag]

When should you stop playing a character to move on to another? What character do you main now and which did you used to play? Why did you move on? I'd like to know because I really have no clue as to when I should settle my mains and really focus on them.

There's never really a time when you should move on to another character. Really, you can switch your main whenever you feel like you have a better chance of winning with the new character, or that you have a better compatibility with that character's playstyle, or whatever reason you have for using a particular character.

For my part, I perform best with Samus, and always have. Even back before I started playing seriously and incorporating wavedashing and l-canceling into my gameplay, my opponents would note that my Samus was much better than my Marth (who I actually mained for a long time around the time I started playing seriously). Eventually, I switched back, because my Samus really did just feel better.

 

[Arcadia157]

Yeah its for people who dont make pro bracket.

4 people per pool. top 2 make pro bracket, bottom 2 make amateur bracket.

Its simple

Winner of Amateur bracket generally gets there entry fee back.

Oh wow that's cool! I've never been to an actual pay-in type tournament so I don't know very much about the smaller stuff.

 

[Bing]

You should go, your skill will increase dramaticly once you start going to tournaments, you find a new type of player in yourself that you would have never known existed doing just friendlies.

 

[Arcadia157]

You should go, your skill will increase dramaticly once you start going to tournaments, you find a new type of player in yourself that you would have never known existed doing just friendlies.

Yeah I was hoping to go to one during the summer some time, but everything in the near future is either too far away to drive to by myself or something that's too small for my other smash buddies to be interested in. I have participated in a quite a few "friendlies tournaments" if that makes sense though. There's still a competitive atmosphere and I play my heart out, but I imagine it's nothing like playing against a whole set of new faces.

 

[Bing]

If you really want to get out there, go to the smaller ones. Meeting people there could even help you get to the further ones.

 

[Walbytamer11]

If you really want to get out there, go to the smaller ones. Meeting people there could even help you get to the further ones.

It doesn't help when you live 100 miles away from NYC. Also, the nearest mall and wallmart nearby is somewhere around 25 minutes away, just to give you an idea of my situation. I play with three others. Two of them never really play, they just do it because "IT'S REALLY FUN TO PLAY WITH FRRRRRIENDS AND NEVER TO IMPROVE" My other friend is a little higher level and is progressively getting better, though I'd only wish he wouldn't focus on low tier mains. At least I'll get some matchups down.

 

[Bing]

I have to travel about 100 miles to get to Toronto for my tournaments, I have 2 people to play against(I Guess) one mains Doc, the other Falcon. You gotta get out there if you really want to get better, busings cheap so look into that.

 

[Walbytamer11]

I have to travel about 100 miles to get to Toronto for my tournaments, I have 2 people to play against(I Guess) one mains Doc, the other Falcon. You gotta get out there if you really want to get better, busings cheap so look into that.

Huh, alright, I'll try. Especially now that I'm out of school for a couple months.

 

[Lovage]

i got really bored of practicing with my old main (FALCON) so i just practiced fox all day and then he became my best dood

do whats funnest

 

[Charlesz]

When character sucks and you can't do anything about it. Lucky I play top tiers so if I lose I can only blame myself.

 

[choknater]

try out new things if you get stagnant with your main

the only time to CHANGE mains is if it just feels natural and you perform better with that character, and also enjoy/love playing that character

i only main switched once, in 2006, from fox to ice climbers.

 

[Avalancer]

Yeah its for people who dont make pro bracket.

4 people per pool. top 2 make pro bracket, bottom 2 make amateur bracket.

Its simple

Winner of Amateur bracket generally gets there entry fee back.

Yep.