No offense taken. I’m just different. I don’t require that much time with each character to understand them. Call me Braniac or something, but I don’t find Smash characters all that hard to grasp (in contrast to your average fighter).
Also, switching often, and learning the just of all the characters, helps me when facing them. Not being aware of all they can do only hinders me in a fight.
WTF u talking bout? ssbb has a much higher learning curve then other 2d fighters such as cvs2 we all know that.
Yeah I feel you it’s easy to main a lot of different characters in brawl then other fighters because how ridiculously lax the execution (or lack thereof) is, personally though I believe in sticking to a few characters and playing them enough to be able to adapt to whatever the opponent throws at me.
Besides I doubt there anything in brawl that could surprise any of us at this point (barring some unforseen discovery of an “advanced technique”), if my opponent is using zelda i’m not going to say HOLY SHEEPSHIT WHAT’S THAT RED BALL?
not necessarily. I play a wide variety of chars myself. I’ve tried both ways in many games, and what I’ve found is that if you play a wide variety, you’ll get a grasp on how the game is supposed to work. however, if you have individual skills with them, you’ll either win or lose all your matches because they’re based on your overall abilities. However, if you play one char for the longest time, you’ll get a great understanding of that char and might even be able to use your experiences with them to better your use of the others.
Alts
Bowser, Wolf, Zamus
I’m not talking about the learning curve. I’ve learned the curve. I’m far past that. I’m talking about being somewhat adequate with as many characters as I can, and at the same time, learning what to expect from every possible match up. That way, it’s less of a guessing game, and more of a exploit their weakness game.
If Brawl was a War, I’d send my spies to see what my enemy was packin, and not go in blind, but going “well, at least my own army can shoot really good”. I consider myself at a disadvantage, doing that. Again, it’s all about me personally. I’m not speaking for you, or anyone else here.
Smash as a whole is much simpler (i.e. easy to pick up) than most other fighting games. That much is obvious.
It’s not being surprised at some kind of move. It’s just knowing how to exploit that move, I look out for. Or rather, knowing what to expect from that character, because I know what I’d do against myself (with a different character) if I had my opponents character.
Know your enemy > Being really good with a “few” characters, in Shade’s Book of War Tactics.
hard for me to put it in black and white terms. my reasons for picking chars are weird. I’ll explain below. geez this shit took a while to come up with, I wonder if anyone even cares. doesn’t matter to me though, it killed a good bit of time and it was interesting to do it. There’s still a lot of chars I’ve yet to play or explore, so I may have even more on the list. For right now though, I’m satisfied with what I’ve got.
RP Chars
Sometimes I’ll play a char because… I guess I want to roleplay. You should try it sometime, it’s fun.
Fox: I imagine Fox being the most arrogant son of a bitch in the universe. So when I play him, I don’t walk unless I’m trying to change directions (and even then, I’ll only do this so he’ll turn around). I won’t run either unless I’m doing a dash attack or a throw attempt. I will purposefully change my ground position using only 1 of 3 things: a moving dodge, Fox Illusion, and F-smash. When I’m done playing this way, I’ll do his U-taunt and then I’ll fight for real. Surprisingly… I play Fox better when I’m role playing. He’s the only char I play that I don’t really care about learning.
Jigglypuff: For those who don’t know, there’s a char called Luffy from an anime called One Piece. I pick the Jigglypuff costume that has the Luffy hat. If it wasn’t for the hat, I would’ve never picked her up… but now I like her. I try to use the funniest, Luffy-like Jigglypuff moves when I can (D-throw, most of the B moves, U-taunt, etc). She’d be a main or a casual char if I had more experience with her.
Wolf: On rare occasion, I’ll do nothing but F-smash for like 10 seconds at the most. This usually happens when I try to land a F-smash but miss or something… so I just try another one and keep doing it till I hit. The second or third one usually hits, so I’ll keep doing it. Enemy comes to punish me for doing it, so I’ll do it to the other side. They miss, I come back and F-smash them again. Once this weird phase is out of my system, I go back to playing him like normal. This is a lot of fun, way more than it sounds.
Link: There’s 3 costumes I like using for him, and with each costume, I use a different play style. Link (the original costume), Dark Link, and Gold Link.
Link: I’ll use bombs, boomerang, and hookshot to set up distractions so I can hit them with my sword. Once they get over a certain %, I’ll switch to only using melee.
Dark Link: I’ll only use melee to attack the entire game and I won’t use his grab. Also, if I run into ANY enemy Link players, even if it’s an FFA, I will focus ONLY on that player no matter what everyone else does to me. If more than 1 are Links, then I’ll focus on the closest one.
Gold Link: I’ll almost only use bomb, boomerang, and hookshot. The only melee attacks I’ll do are to push the enemy away from me so I can keep on doing it.
Fascination Chars
These chars should be considered chars that I main. The only real reason I call them fascination chars is because I don’t play them as often as I do my mains. I can win with them, I do well with them, and I even play them a lot… but I just don’t main them. I COULD main them, but there’s just so many chars to play. It was hard even figuring out who they are because I thought they all belonged on the Main Chars list.
These are Wolf, Jigglypuff, Snake, Wario, Ganondorf, Diddy Kong, Ike, and Yoshi.
Main Chars
These are the characters I try to fully explore until I understand every part of them. I think most people main 1 or 2 chars in each game, but I tend to main any char I find interesting.
These chars are Link, Lucario, and Sonic.
The way I play is that I choose one main, but purposely learn how to play all the characters.
Ever heard of Azen?
CvS2 has a much steeper learning curve than Brawl. Hell, even Melee has a steeper learning curve than Brawl. RC’ing, and custom combos are harder than anything present in Brawl as of now.
If you dunno who my Main is by now, you must either have just joined or gotten some brain damage. but as a Refresher…look at my avvy.
FINAL! ATOMIC! BOOZAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!:woot:
I also Mess with several other characters, Link I think I can say is solidly my secondary main…For a character so many call shit, I have alot of fun playing him too.
Others I feel at home with: Luigi/Fox/Falco/Zelda/Sheik/ROB/Pikachu/D3/Ike
Oh yeah D3 is on my list as well… that fat ass bird is just too fucking good. 
yeah i don’t know if i found a true main yet. i keep flip flopping between a select few. cant decide who i should really learn in depth. but i do like using wario, ice climbers, yoshi, sonic, ganon, and the dude on my av
It’s hard to understand what your point is when your defending opposite POV’S at the same time lol.
Being very good with a few characters>being medicore with everyone IMO.
if knowing everyone’s tactics and how to punish them accordingly was so important then how come you see daigo only use ryu in st and MAYBE sagat/boxer once in a while instead of him using everyone? In most tournaments for 2d fighters why do the top players stick to the same few characters over and over again even when they lose?
Let me give you another example; I’ve never used luigi in brawl but i’ve played against luigi enough times to know how to punish his moveset.
You adhere to the oldschool of thought and i’m in I agree with the new school of thought, this part of the st wiki explains it perfectly.
"Counter Characters
There are two very different schools of thought when it comes to character selection. One school of thought is basically that because the game has counter characters, you should learn more than one character in order to do well overall. Another school of thought is basically that if you just stick with one character and learn all of the match-ups inside and out, the “counter matches” will not be nearly as hard, and you won’t ever need to switch characters.
I feel that relying on counter characters is a very unstable strategy. For one thing, every match is winnable, and for another thing, the numbers are overwhelming. For every one character you play, you need to know 16 match-ups, and that can take an extraordinary amount of time to learn. If you only stick with one character, say, T.Hawk, and if you just man up and learn all 16 matches, you can beat any character, even Dhalsim (as Toutanki has shown). Obviously Dhalsim still has the advantage, but it is definitely not a free win, as a lot of people would have you believe.
Playing counter characters will only work consistently against other people who also play counter characters (people who don’t know their characters 100%). It will not consistently work against people who know the matches, and that is why I would not advise relying on counter characters.
I think a good example is the Japanese player Muteki Guile (whose name means “Invincible Guile”). He has unquestionably one of the best Guiles in the world, and he also plays a little bit of Chun (in casual matches). If he were to play in tourney against a Blanka player, he could try switching to Chun (who is considerably better than Guile versus Blanka), but if he wins, then his opponent could just switch it up to O.Sagat and counter-character his Chun (because Muteki Guile doesn’t know Chun 100%).
But that situation will never come up for him, because he has taken the time to master Guile, and he has no need to switch to Chun. Even though Blanka vs. Guile is an uneven match, Muteki knows exactly what he can do, and that match is still totally winnable for him, even against the best Blankas."
Ever hear of afro legends, nuki, daigo, wong, choi, valle?
Hook, line, and sinker:wgrin:
Well, what I meant is that both give you a kind of skill. If I termed them, it’d probably be game-finese and character-finese… the first would be what you get from wide variety, the 2nd coming from specific chars. they both have their advantages and disadvantages
Did you even understand the point of me mentioning Azen?
I always fall for bait.
So because Azen can use anyone equally well at the top level of play that means everyone else can too right? we’re all masters of diversity! :looney:
BTW To those reading the thread who have seen the vid thread sticky he was the shiek player who won the nyc brawl tourney.
I was only pointing out that you shouldn’t discourage players from wanting to not have a main.
main: wolf, maaaaybe lucario
alts: bowser, fox, falco, cap’n falcon, I dont really like ganon but he was my main in melee along with mewtwo so Im trying to use him and not suck horribly.
really I would LIKE to use everyone, typically I move from character to character once I get a solid understanding of their pros/cons. at the moment Im working on pokemon trainer and metaknight. I love rushdown so metaknight is right up my alley.
Mario… 
I haven’t in the least as you’ll notice from my posts especially on page1, where I said ideally it’s best to use everyone given enough time.
Wario.
Peach = Backup.
In Training: Sonic, Lucario, Wolf :wgrin: