Forums → Games → best super smash bros melee characters

The best? Hasn't Fox always been the top-tier character in all of the games? Maybe no so much anymore, but it used to be that way for the first two iterations. That might just be a load of fluff though.

Mario Destroys on melee, but I use link on brawl.

I've been using Roy a lot recently. I never used him before a few months ago, but ever since then I've noticed he is a master K.O. artist. In stock battles, I'm usually not the guy who survives the longest, but when I play with him, in a 4-person battle, I get the majority of the total K.O.'s in each round, and I consider that just as much of a win as surviving the longest (you don't always have to do very much to win a round).

But in terms of survival, my most consistently-winning character is Yoshi. Yes, Yoshi. If you know how to use him, he can be a deadly force. I don't get quite as many K.O.'s with him as I do with Roy, but because of his epic double jump, I don't tend to die as often from being knocked off a ledge.

My third go-to character--up until recently my first--is Pikachu. My K.O. count is usually pretty high when I play with him/it, but after all these years, I still haven't become good enough with this character to the point where I can beat almost anyone in K.O.'s and still survive the longest. He's also a pretty easy character to counter--most players can see his lightning strike move from a mile away, and unlike the Starfox characters, his B-side move takes some time to charge and is very easy to dodge. I much prefer his short range A/C-stick moves.

Usually when I play multiple rounds, I play as a variety of characters to make each round more interesting, especially if the other people are playing as the same characters each round. The only characters I don't play fairly well as are Pichu, Young Link, Jigglypuff (but I'm getting better with Jiggly) and Zelda. Zelda is my worst character by far. With the other three, I at least have a fighting chance, but I'm so horrible with Zelda/Sheik that I usually don't get a single K.O. in each round I play as her/them.

I prefer the brute force characters to the fast ones or the range-based ones. The range attacks are nice for weakening the other players, but ultimately useless if you don't have a move to finish the other guy off.

It also all depends on who you're playing against. Most of the people I play against are hardcore skilled players, so compared to them I'm just the ping pong ball. The fact that I sometimes beat three of them at once even amazes me, but if I'm playing against non-hardcore players, dominating the round will come as no surprise to me. But it's also not as much fun if you know you're going to win, so playing against less-skilled players usually isn't as memorable an experience.