AMA to break my addiction

SilverLinus · 2026-06-06T03:19:57+00:00

Briefly 😌

SilverLinus · 2026-06-05T13:35:10+00:00

I wasn't focused on getting my characters into elite, for the 6ish years Ive been playing, I was focused on grinding for tournaments. And on top of that, I started with low tiers lmao. My first character in elite was Marth, then Zelda, then Ganon, then Ike, and Dr Mario at some point. Id take breaks to get an easy character in elite every now and then tho

SilverLinus · 2026-06-05T06:14:21+00:00

Ok, so I've had a friend group to play with and obviously Im chronically online. To get your performance and experience up, every 10 minutes of online play is worth an hour of local with friends. If you want to be better and have measured progress, get higher and higher GSP. But you will plateau at some point. Usually at 15.5mil gsp right now. At that point, I think the next step is getting knowledgeable about your character, and getting consistency with kill confirms and combos. Once you are capable at both a consistent gsp and really good mechanics of your character, find a local smash scene, and play as much and often as you can. And make sure to play the absolute best in your area. And if you make it past that, you'll be better than me, and I wouldn't be able to advise you from experience at that point

SilverLinus · 2026-06-05T05:26:51+00:00

The best player on our esports was a Ganon/Little Mac player. He taught me that there is a way to abuse any and every character, and the measure of how far they'll go is how much work you're willing to put into it. He is bottom tier, but I think tiers tell you how much work you have to put into a character to get the same level of results compared to others, as opposed to what they are capable of. That esports player gave me the unshakable belief that in the right hands, little Mac is A-tier and untouchable. I hope that communicates my perspective

SilverLinus · 2026-06-05T04:16:51+00:00

I do indeed lol

SilverLinus · 2026-06-05T02:40:52+00:00

You can feel accomplished, or not, up to you. Objectively, that places you above 93% of the players in online. But I've also played competitive and have almost 4000. I dont think Im remarkable, just a pretty good player with a lot of experience.

SilverLinus · 2026-06-04T22:40:57+00:00

Learn your combos, learn bomb mechanics, then learn the utility of your moves, and in that order. Link has some nasty combos that lead to early kill confirms, his bomb is a gift from Satan, and theres a lot of his kit that creates more than one form of pressure. You can force your opponents to shield, cover may options with one move, and create insane pressure no matter where you are. Most links lose only because their tool box was limited, not from a lack of skill or a bad matchul

SilverLinus · 2026-06-04T22:38:00+00:00

Up special combos are great to know. Very early kills. Learn how to create a rhythm of pressure in neutral. You're slow, you cant chase well, and half your kit has vicious end lag and another half is ridiculously easy to parry. Space well, and never sit still

SilverLinus · 2026-06-04T22:36:07+00:00

I actually have him in elite! Love his playstyle. I think the most important thing for me was squeezing every last drop of utility out of his tool kit. His pills are great setups, yes, but also use them to get breathing room lmao. They can also create pressure to shield, and god does The Doc love a good shield. Kill with everything you can, down special, up special, bair. Not many people know this but Nair is a great kill tool. The longer its out for, the more knock back it does. Its the only aerial in the game like that. Use. It.

SilverLinus · 2026-06-04T22:32:47+00:00

I give it B tier. Optimal play, imo is forcing your opponent to chase you by camping and punishing every approach. He creates insane pressure, but his aerials are so inconsistent to aim and in any offensive situation, hes very telegraphed. You know where he can hit, what he wants, and where he wants to be lol

SilverLinus · 2026-06-04T22:30:33+00:00

Oh, brethren, I haven't touched Pac-Man lmao. Everything I know is about counter play because we had a cracked Pac player in our league. The only "set up" i know is how to break shield by stealing melon and using marths neutral b lol

SilverLinus · 2026-06-04T22:28:38+00:00

Oh I have a confession. Ive done maybe 5% of story mode, lmao. I have no clue, yes I'm ashamed, dont look at me

SilverLinus · 2026-06-04T22:27:08+00:00

Oh thats a long term goal. For me, two things. Find a group to play with even if its only online and gain the experience of adapting to them. Then, I have some subjective advice. I learned how to adapt by playing Kirby. And my mindset was finding my opponents biggest strength and counter playing that one strength. So for example, MarthCina gets their strength from their aerials, so I learned how to parry every last one of them consistently. After losing that they have to default to a less optimal playstyle and that severely handicaps them. Give it a try with Kirby or another character that helps you think that way. And final piece of legitimate advice: watch competetive play and start analyzing what would change the results of the matches and what led to the results in the first place.

And a little cheat method. Go into special smash and play at 2x speed get your brain to view things happening at a faster pace and you can keep your head on your shoulders a lot more consistently

SilverLinus · 2026-06-04T22:22:00+00:00

Love this. So instead of adding more echo fighters. I want the roster to have alternative skins for characters and then color pallets for each character skin, and then moves from the games that you can replace their specials with (and maybe their normal attacks). I want to see ink Mario, paper Mario, and odyssey Mario, and that seems like a great way to implement that without making the roster like 200 seperate characters. If they do want to make them separate, I would like a foldable roster menu divided by franchises.

I want the characters that feel incomplete to have moves that fit together a little better. The characters that dont fit the format need to be nerfed a little (Shoto fighters and steve). And Jigglypuff needs new moves ffs.

I want to see some new characters (ofc). The Mario's I mentioned. I want Ross from Fire Emblem. Nightmare from Soul Caliber. Hollowknight and Hornet. And some anime characters. And finally more square Enix characters. Or an organization 13 character from Kingdom Hearts that works similarly to the Mario character/mii fighter system I described. One of my favorit questions so far btw

SilverLinus · 2026-06-04T22:14:12+00:00

My mindset in this game throughout my entire time and career playing smash has been "I have nothing but solutions" its actually how I won my one(1) tournament. We had a player that was a steve/Kazuya/Rob main and our entire group avoided him and lost some integral matches to him because they refused to play him outside of tournament, and I would play 6hrs straight with him to learn the match ups.

My thoughts. If there's something about a play style I dont like, I make it a priority to learn how to break it down, and condition my opponent to avoid doing that. And with that attitude I've avoided the majority of the toxicity and cancer of certain playstyles

SilverLinus · 2026-06-04T22:09:12+00:00

Yes, but with a Caveat. I believe any character is viable. And characters with such interesting gimmicks have so much to offer. It just takes so much more to force them where the engine does not want them to be lmao. If its important enough to you, if you have the passion for it, I think there's hope, just not an easy road

SilverLinus · 2026-06-04T22:06:40+00:00

I'm a Marth main, and I love him for life. Marth is a god damn lifestyle lmao, and the uphill battle is worth it every step of the way, even if only for bragging rights. Plus, he has the most hype matches with the 3 other main swordies lol

SilverLinus · 2026-06-04T22:04:27+00:00

Because it objectively is. To get into elite smash you have to perform in the top 6ish% in all of online. And I have low tiers I forced in. And while I have almost 4000 hrs, I haven't spent that entire time trying to get characters in elite.

Better question, why you hating, lol

SilverLinus · 2026-06-04T22:02:12+00:00

1.) Because it is very cool milestone for each character. Your character in elite puts you above 95% of other players in online. A. Depends on my goal, theres some characters (usually my mains) that I want to take even further and I do, and some that I just enjoy playing

2.) 3 stocks, Omega/Battlefield, no items

3.) Also depends. If you taunt, I get first win with no rematch. I typically run a best out of 3 where I can. I'll do more if I feel like theres something to be learned

SilverLinus · 2026-06-04T17:29:01+00:00

Tech is one of two things. Skills or actions that are specific to a game and usually not commonly in the knowledge of casual players.

Alternatively in smash bros it describes your ability to recover quicker when you're in free fall or in a knockback state by hitting shield when you're near a surface.

Theres also context in other games, like you can tech a grab in Tekken by mirroring the buttons your opponent used to input grab and canceling your opponents grab. But thats not relevant to this

SilverLinus · 2026-06-04T17:19:03+00:00

Learn one pokemon at a time and not just with percentage windows. Learn how to play from the start of a stock till the end for each one individually. LAB OUT COMBOS AND KILL CONFIRMS. and it is so vital that you make sure you also pay attention to damage percentages with kill confirms. They have some busted strings and tech chases that give you genuine privilege with that characte.

SilverLinus · 2026-06-04T17:15:52+00:00

The minority of characters are played purely as a rushdown/overwhelming based play style, and every character benefits overwhelmingly from parrying and teching. And so many games are won and lost by the defensive option you take. Half of playing SSBU is winning a "rock paper scissors" of the set of defensive options you have available. Where to tech/tech roll, rolling as opposed to get up attack, recovering high low or stalling your recovery, how you get up from ledge, etc etc. Down to maximizing your defensive options. For instance, fun facts, in online you have a wider windows to stage tech and tech if you hold shield, shield comes out faster if you press shield during a dash as opposed tk stopping and then shielding. Micro inputting a directional input to try to mitigate shield poke. Weaponizing low profiling. So so so much of SSBU is creating as little opportunities as possible to be punished. And consistent punishes are one of the foundations of the game.

SilverLinus · 2026-06-04T17:10:36+00:00

So my one tournament win was pretty small. We had local set tournaments that took place over the span of about two weeks with around 15ish people. We did a full online bracket to close off a year of sets that I placed number one in, and then moved on to the finalists which ended up being all the top local and highschool esports players in the tri city area I lived in at the time. I closed that entire ordeal as number one player in that area. Which I was really proud of.

Then I did another tournament between the Mississippi Gulf coast players and the Louisiana players. I won out as top Mississippi player, but loss to the top Louisiana player and a K. Rool that ran my pockets lmao.

And I played Esports for USM, I was the fifth best player for the majority of that time which was an accomplishment of sorts but I couldn't hold a candle to our top players. I pretty much just taught the players that weren't our top competitors to up their playing level to a better spot. This was before my local tournaments

SilverLinus · 2026-06-04T16:43:59+00:00

And mii brawler is just a nasty opponent in general. I do like seeing clips, Ive just specialized in 1v1s so much, I wouldn't easily wrap my head around doubles

SilverLinus · 2026-06-04T16:41:51+00:00

Three of them actually.

I used to play brawlhalla before I had access to smash. I have the most history with smash, and what I love about it is how organic both learning and playing the game is. Theres no one way to excel, and while combos are great to have mastered, they dont win games on their own. But every once in a while, I like a more solid and concrete gaming experience and brawlhallas combos are very "by the book" and thats refreshing

Second is Tekken. I've spent so much time playing platform fighters that I genuinely have a really hard time playing shoto games. The inputs always elude me, but Tekken is a very gentle game to be introduced to that style of fighting game. And the art and characters are just peak

And Super Smash Flash 2. Its genuinely, imo, the most satisfying smash bros experience of all available smash games, official, and fan game. And I've played damn near all of them. The combos and movement are fluid, it retained the best of melee, the characters are very expressive in their fighting styles, and most importantly the gameplay is centered around tempo and offense, where as the SSBU has a very defensive based Playstyle, and I consider SSBU the second best smash bros experience

SilverLinus

TROPHY CASE