Pre-Release Will multiple mains be necessary?

[Thinkaman]

Don't mind me, just white knighting red marth again

It doesn't seem right to put Roy in the missing section. Sure, you rarely see him in top 64s, but that's just because his best players didn't go to anything. When they actually did, they almost always placed in the top 64; according to the wiki (the most reliable source ever, I know) Hyper has never placed outside top 64, and Levi has only done so once. But also it literally doesn't matter so

I sympathize. (Ike joke somewhere here)

While Roy is rare and has never placed in top 8 of a national event, he has decent doubles results and does okay when people do use him.

What's more, like the clones, Roy suffers from a substitution effect with Cloud. In Smash 4, Cloud is just a better Roy. The small frame and power advantages Roy has here and there are nothing compared to Cloud's aerial range and limit options. There are lots of Smash 4 Roy players who travel to tourneys; they just play the better Roy.

Ulti's mechanical changes are probably above average for Roy; he likes jumping, has a fast dash, and disjointed normals to do out of it. Regardless, the best Roy buffs are the Cloud nerfs.

 

[Deleted member]

I would say, for a person just starting, yea, maybe maining a few characters would be good way of getting a feel of the characters and how different each and every one of them work. But for a person that been playing for a while and has a feel for the game, no. Grab a character you like, a character that you are your best at, and stick to it. Changing characters in my opinion will just hinder you from learning.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

To go back to the core topic here, let me offer the perspective of someone who in the end has always solo mained. There are some real upsides to always knowing what you're about and focusing all of your experience on your strongest character, but you can easily run into problems. If your character has a really bad match-up and you only have one main, you basically have to be so much better than your opponent to run over the problem. That's hard and honestly unrealistic for most people so, if you're solo maining, you either limit yourself to team super versatility (like Sheik or Pokemon Trainer) or just pray you don't run into that one character who is just a big problem for you. Even more than awful match-ups, it's easy to kinda fall into a rut and play one character in one way, and while that way may be enough to auto-pilot curbstomp the masses of weaker players, you can have a big problem when someone at or above your level is the one with the read on you. Somehow to deal with players like that you have to mix it up, and while some characters have huge style shifts built in, for a lot of other characters it's just hard to do that and the best thing to do would be to switch characters to another main level character with naturally very different dynamics... which I never had and always wished I did.

I want to try to find 2-3 main level characters in this game who are very different from each other and complement each other; I want to go into a tournament and not be worried about any particular opposing character or playstyle and only worried about the raw total skill of my opponents. Note I say 2-3 and not more; the guy who plays 20 characters is only hurting himself, but the guy who plays just 2-3 and stays at just that I think comes out way ahead. If Pokemon Trainer is top tier he could be an answer in and of himself and a very special case, but I'm not putting all my hopes in one basket so I'm prepared to shop around for a good character stable.

 

[Skeeter Mania]

Why not just do whatever you want? Unless you're in that tiny portion of people who regularly go to majors, I don't think this is something to take that seriously.

 

[Eternal phoenix Fire]

Yeah you do.

Personally, I feel like if you don't play with a variety of characters you're gameplay will stagnate, and you're going to be trash.

Reason being that playing with certain characters make you look for certain things. In smash 4, if you're Marth you're trying to optimize space, if you're Luigi you're looking for a grab, if you're Samus you're micromanaging projectiles and zoning, if you're Falcon, you're using your maneuverability to gain a tactile advantage, combo, and punish.

Utilizing each characters attributes will eventually meld into your play style, and you'll be able to optimize your ability to play since you're learning so many fundamentals. Not to mention you can throw players off pretty hard.

I try to literally play with every character, but I obviously favor others.

 

[MAtgSy]

Squad Strike certainly justifies multiple mains now.

 

[Peeton]

I’m planning on maining Wolf and having Simon/Richter as secondaries. Since Wolf has been pretty close combat oriented in past games, if I wanna zone out I’ll pick the Belmonts because they seem to have quite a long range and multiple good projectiles and get off me options!

 

[Azaël]

Am I the only guy who want to main Dr. Mario ?

 

[Izanagi97]

Welp, since Squad Strike (Crew Battle mode) and Smashdown (Ironman mode) are pretty much a thing, it will be beneficial in the long term to be viable with a wide range of characters.

 

[Skeeter Mania]

Welp, since Squad Strike (Crew Battle mode) and Smashdown (Ironman mode) are pretty much a thing, it will be beneficial in the long term to be viable with a wide range of characters.

Were those modes introduced in the most recent Nintendo Direct?

 

[Izanagi97]

Were those modes introduced in the most recent Nintendo Direct?

Yep

 

[Amiibo Doctor]

I could see this metagame going the way of Melee and being counterpick-focused. Short of having a Hungrybox or aMSa show up and decimate everyone with a single character (didn't aMSa pocket Falco at one point?) then we'll probably see many players with multiple mains.

 

[CostLow]

In Sm4sh you'd even see Nairo, Dabuz, Zero, etc. change things up from time to time evem within a single bracket. These guys could take on a lot of opposition with their mains, but they had refined alternates in the waiting incase they run into someone that happens to trump their playstyle with their main.

With the likelyhood of more legal stages than ever before plus way more character choices than ever before, it will be very hard to only use one fighter to reach the top (unless there is a broken lone top tier to abuse again).

I loved Mr G&W in Sm4sh but I often had problems against fighters with lots of longer disjointed hitboxes (mostly swordsmen) so I would usually switch to Link or Corrin depending on the fighter I was dealing with. If they were really agile I'd go with Corrin since Link's projectiles can be easily neutralized by fighters like ZSS or Sheik. If I'm dwaling with a heavy I'd go Link all day. With the massive roster in Smash U I'm not even sure that Illt be maining anyone I've mained before but I'm pretty sure I'll need a couple good alts to cover my weaker matchups. my

 

[Frihetsanka]

I could see this metagame going the way of Melee and being counterpick-focused.

According to Armada, in Melee having multiple mains is only worth it if you're a top 10 player in the world, if you're not you're better off solo-maining. The vast majority of Ultimate players will probably be better off solo-maining if they want to maximize their chances.

That is from a "What's the best way to win" perspective, anyway. Some people prefer to play multiple character because they find it more fun, and that's a valid reason. If you find playing multiple characters in tournaments more fun, then you should probably do that. Most people won't make much money off of Smash Ultimate anyway.

I'm not opposed to people picking up secondaries or dual-mains because they find that more fun, I'm opposed to people believing that doing so is optimal. Unless you're something like top 100 in the world (or are playing a bottom 5 character or something like that), then you'd probably be better off focusing on one character. Even -2 MUs are really winnable at lower levels of play if you know your character (and chances are Ultimate won't have many/any -3 or -4 MUs).

 

[MrGameguycolor]

Am I the only guy who want to main Dr. Mario ?

Nope.
You're not alone.

 

[Scicky]

Yeah you do.

Personally, I feel like if you don't play with a variety of characters you're gameplay will stagnate, and you're going to be trash.

Reason being that playing with certain characters make you look for certain things. In smash 4, if you're Marth you're trying to optimize space, if you're Luigi you're looking for a grab, if you're Samus you're micromanaging projectiles and zoning, if you're Falcon, you're using your maneuverability to gain a tactile advantage, combo, and punish.

Utilizing each characters attributes will eventually meld into your play style, and you'll be able to optimize your ability to play since you're learning so many fundamentals. Not to mention you can throw players off pretty hard.

I try to literally play with every character, but I obviously favor others.

I mean, playing a little bit as every character is a good idea even in Smash 64, helps build up your fundamentals and improve your match-ups, having multiple mains is a different story though.

I think if you're playing a top tier character and staying away from Squad Strike or whatever, solo mains will be able to survive, but with the amount of match-ups and (presumably) stages available, a secondary or two is going to be a huge boon to anyone who can put in the time.

 

[Mgl]

All you have to do is main Marth than your good with like 17 characters

 

[Smash Lampjaw]

It'll certainly help to have more than one main, and obviously it'll help to be great with as many characters as you can. Maining multiple characters would be a huge asset for sure, and that's entirely down to personal preference, but I think everyone should at least have reliable backups. In Smash 4, I'm a Link main, but I have a safety net prepared in advance if I meet a particularly good Dedede main and need someone faster, for example. No matter how good you are with a main, you'll be a bad matchup against someone's else's in the world on occasion. That's normal, and Ultimate will have a lot of characters you can build a setup around.

If you want to main more than one character, go for it. That's entirely up to you, you determine what is and isn't necessary for how you play.

 

[Jakisthe]

I hope that a)Squad strike is All-Star Versus mode from PM and b)Squad Strike becomes the Main Event this time around - I can see no argument why it shouldn't be beyond "well we've never done that before", which is a pretty weak argument - so fingers crossed multiple mains is required.

 

[J0eyboi]

I hope that a)Squad strike is All-Star Versus mode from PM and b)Squad Strike becomes the Main Event this time around - I can see no argument why it shouldn't be beyond "well we've never done that before", which is a pretty weak argument - so fingers crossed multiple mains is required.

I see no reason that it should be. Burden of proof is on you my guy.

 

[Jakisthe]

I see no reason that it should be. Burden of proof is on you my guy.

Exponentially larger effective "roster" of team construction (instead of choosing one of 67 single-man "teams", you need to make a combination from one of 287430 possible team lineups), which leads to more matchup variety (even if two players choose the exact same 3 characters in the exact same order, there is still the potential for 6 times as many matchups within the same set and at minimum 3 times as many matchups) and a larger amount of the roster being viable (since people could feel more assured with pocket picks, knowing they wouldn't need to carry an entire set), which leads to a far more interesting event to watch and a massively deeper meta.

If the goal is to keep things interesting and new, with more options for players and more variety for viewers and players, then it is unquestionably the better way to go about things.

 

[J0eyboi]

More variety in roster selection and matchups, more entertaining to watch, and deeper meta.

The second one is pure opinion.

That said, there are actual arguments against making Squad Strike standard, though I'm not against testing it and certainly think it should at least be a side event. The primary one is that it's way less accessible. Forcing new players to learn multiple characters in order to compete makes the game much harder to get into. The change could also make a bunch of veterans quit; even among people who can, some people just don't want to play 3 characters at a high level. Beyond that, there are other potential issues, primarily that we don't know if Squad Strike will be playable online. If it isn't, online tournaments will be impossible, and practicing against people you don't live near will be harder. There's also the minor problem that we don't actually know what Squad Strike looks like. We literally haven't seen a single frame of gameplay from it, which doesn't exactly make me optimistic that it'll be anything like All Star. Who knows, though. We can figure this out in December.

 

[Jakisthe]

That's true, and at some point it comes down to what people consider "entertaining", but I'd be curious to see a definition someone has for that which doesn't work better alongside greater variety.

It's also true that we don't know how it will work, and that I feel is the largest stumbling block at the moment - it could be just "1 stock 1v1, reset match completely every stock", for all we know. Forcing someone to know more than one character, well...I'm not sure. I mean, yes, it would, but I don't know if that would be as big a hurdle as we think it is (considering how many pros do play more than 1 or at least have a pocket whatever), and I can't help but feel that any benefits (again, on the assumption that SS works as imagined) outweigh any complications there - but mostly that speaking of complications, it goes back to that idea of "this isn't how we've done it".

I'm very much looking forward to the December and more testing, I just hope that it goes "SS needs to prove itself vs the established incumbent" and moreso "putting 1v1 and SS on equal footing which will make for the best tournaments; lets not enter with any preconceptions of how Smash 'should' be". I know it'll be the former to a degree for sure, but fingers crossed the community is particularly open, since whatever gets Established as a Main Event come Genesis will basically set the tone for the competitive life of the game.