As if Samus’ life weren’t rough enough, everyone’s favorite bounty hunter has historically struggled in the realm of competitive amiibo training, too. She was ranked as one of the worst three fighters in Super Smash Bros. for Wii U — fortunately, things are slightly better for Samus in this game, where she’s a solid mid-tier fighter instead. This time around, she can kind of use her projectiles, but the process is kind of technical. Get ready for a tough train!
Spirits
If you’re looking to equip your Samus amiibo with a Spirit team, you should do so as soon as possible — preferably, before you even begin its training routine. When a Figure Player inherits a Spirit, its personality and move priorities are swapped around. For more information, check out our full Spirits guide! In the meantime, here are some Samus-specific builds you can try out.
- Banned bonuses: Samus is a heavyweight fighter, so she pairs well with both Super Armor and Armor Knight. If you decide to choose the latter, fill the amiibo’s empty slot with either Move Speed ↑ or Trade-Off Ability ↑.
- Tournament-legal bonuses: Generally, your best bet with Samus is something like Air Defense ↑ plus two instances of Physical Attack ↑ — but there are other options, too. Trade-Off Ability ↑, Move Speed ↑, Toss & Meteor, and Fire & Explosion Attack ↑ are all viable selections here.
- Raid Boss bonuses: We’ll discuss this later, but Samus is a terrible Raid Boss. If you’re determined to make it work, try giving it Great Autoheal. It’s kind of a cheap cop-out, but it’s about the best this character can do. Alternatively, a setup including Physical Attack ↑, Move Speed ↑, and Air Defense ↑ could be decent too.
Samus’ stats can be whatever you like, but if you’re looking for specific recommendations, try a balanced spread of 2100 / 2100 or a more offensive build of 2500 / 1700. As always, make sure your Figure Player’s Spirit type is Neutral before you start training it. That way, it won’t lose Spirit-type matchups later on down the line.
Competitive Training
Training a competitive Samus amiibo isn’t quite as dreadful as it was in Super Smash Bros. for Wii U. She can utilize a decent portion of her moveset, and it’s enough to ensure her spot in our tier list’s middle rankings. Keep running, dashing, taunting, and charged smash attacks to a minimum. As we’ll reiterate in a moment, Samus can afford to go off-stage and edgeguard — but only against other Figure Players. Here’s a full list of attacks you should use during training.
- Down tilt and down smash are Samus’ most reliable grounded tools. You’ll want to mix the two just about evenly, giving down tilt very slightly more priority. A few grabs here and there do Samus good, too.
- You’ll want as much dash attack on Samus as possible, which means you should only ever run to initiate a dash attack. After you’ve used the move, go right back to walking. This might sound funky to first-time trainers, but this is something lots of characters have to learn.
- Up smash is far too unreliable, so up tilt is Samus’ best anti-air. When you’re launched upward or are otherwise above your FP, you can use down air and optionally neutral air very infrequently to try and secure a safe landing.
- When your Samus amiibo is knocked off-stage, walk off the ledge and chase it. Neutral air is Samus’ best off-stage aerial; it’s fast and sends opponents at a favorable angle. Ledge-drop back air is solid too, and you’re welcome to mix in an off-stage down air or two as well. For the most part, though, you’ll want to stick to neutral air.
- Charge Shot is where things get technical. You do want Samus using this move, but you don’t want her camping with it. To resolve this, fully charge Charge Shot and then shoot it at point-blank range. If you’re into specific amiibo values, the Charger value should be roughly between 65 and 80. If it gets too high, you’ll need to use uncharged or middle-charged shots on Samus to lower the value a bit. If this makes no sense to you, here’s the gist: unleash fully charged shots at point-blank range sometimes. Focus on your other moves first and foremost.
In terms of defensiveness, make sure your Samus knows to parry and shield. These are both separate values stored within the amiibo itself. If you’re a little bit confused, feel free to check out our general training guide — our character guides sort of assume you’ve already read that post. Special thanks to Vulkyz for contributing Samus’ training information!
Raid Boss Training
There’s no sugar-coating it: Samus is a bad Raid Boss. Charge Shot can be worked around if you’re training a competitive FP, but it’s nearly impossible to salvage against human opponents. The AI often charges the move at inappropriate times, and often fails to fire it altogether. Furthermore, it sometimes uses its Missiles too close to its enemy, meaning they can perfect shield the projectile and then strike back for free. This leaves Samus with a glaring lack of options; her close-up moves are weak, her grab is slow, and she can’t easily go off-stage since her recovery is easily intercepted by human foes. You’d be better off training any other character, but if you want to give it a shot anyway, here are the attacks you should focus on teaching.
- Samus’ grab is really slow, but it’s her only hope of getting past opponents who sit there and hold shield. Down throw can combo into a dash attack at low percentages, and into a neutral or back air at medium percentages. If you grab your FP while it’s heavily damaged, fling it off-stage with a forward or back throw.
- Neutral attack, forward tilt, and a bit of down tilt work okay at close range. Yes, we’re suggesting jab. That’s how desperate Samus is for close-up options. Down smash works here too, and it gives Samus some much-needed kill power.
- Up tilt is your main anti-air — and it’s not a fantastic one at that. Up smash would do the trick if its multiple hits reliably connected, but that unfortunately isn’t the case here.
- You’re welcome to run as often as you want while training a Raid Boss, so mix in lots of dash attack. A sprinkle of forward smash works too if you find that your Samus amiibo is struggling to get kills.
- Neutral air and sometimes down air can secure a safe landing, while forward air and especially back air are decent air-to-air combat tools that can rack on damage in a pinch. Back air KOs at high percentages, too, which certainly makes it a tool worth focusing on.
We did suggest off-stage play in the competitive training section, but that’s a little bit different. Figure Players generally recover back to the stage in exactly the same way every time, and other amiibo don’t pick up on this consistency. Human players do, though, and before long they’ll be able to predict exactly how Samus will recover back each time. This gives them a simple strategy of tossing her off-stage and then smacking her with a meteor smash, which she often won’t be able to recover from. You’ll want to avoid using Samus’ grab aerial (also known as zair), no matter what it takes — she gets very spammy with this.
Wrap-Up
Thanks so much for reading all the way to the end — or for scrolling all to the end. Either way’s fine! If you have any questions you’d like to share with us, feel free to join our Discord community! We’ve also written a guide on entering tournaments, and this will actually tell you how to save a copy of your FP’s training data to send it off to an online competition. Check out our other character guides while you’re here, too! If you’re looking to train a stronger Raid Boss, click on any name that isn’t Samus or Dark Samus. Happy training!
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