The following is an archived post from the Amiibo Dojo. It has been uploaded to the Exion Vault for referential purposes and retains its original publication date; some of the post’s links may not function currently or exist at all.
Welcome! So, as you may or may not know, I’ve won a lot of amiibo tournaments with a wide variety of different characters. A lot of people have asked me – how did I do it? There’s one specific training session I use to get my amiibo to block and dodge, and today, I’m going to share all of the details with you. Let’s get started!
Pre-Training Setup
To make this training session as easy as possible, I advise that you create a custom build that you can play as. From the main menu, go to Games & More, then navigate to Custom, and then to Characters. Select your amiibo’s character and create a set with two Easy perfect shield bonuses and one Improved escapability bonus.
Playing as this custom build during the training session will make life a whole lot easier for you. The two Easy perfect shield bonuses will make it three times easier to perfect shield an attack, and the Improved escapability bonus will help you escape from your amiibo’s grabs faster.
Once you’ve got this all set up, it’s time to get started! Please note, the training session I’m about to go over differs between the Wii U and 3DS versions of Super Smash Bros. Be sure to read the right one!
Please note: this training session is best used on Level 50 amiibo with shield bonuses – especially Explosive perfect shield.
Defensive Training Session (Wii U)
This training session is easier to do on a Wii U. If you have access to one, I recommend you use it.
The first thing you’ll want to do is go to Special Smash, and turn on 300% mode and Slow mode. You may be wondering “wait, don’t we have to turn on heavy gravity?” My answer is no. If you aren’t aware, heavy gravity shortens the height of jumps and increases falling speed…but amiibo can detect if this mode is on, and adjust the height of their jump accordingly, so that mode isn’t very helpful.
Set the match type to timed, and 3 minutes. Turn on custom characters, and go into the “More Rules” tab and turn on Score Display. Once that’s all said and done, play as the custom build we made earlier, scan in your amiibo, and begin the match.
Both you and your amiibo will be at 300%, so any hit will very likely result in a KO. Walk up to your amiibo and stand in front of it so that there’s a small space between you two. Press the shield button one time – your character will block for a moment and then take down its shield. Doing this “baits” your amiibo into doing an attack.
After blocking once, immediately pause the game and look at your amiibo. If it’s winding up for an attack, unpause, pause, unpause, and pause again until the attack is about to hit you – at the last moment possible, unpause the game and immediately block, and you should get the perfect shield. If your amiibo attacked you with a grounded or special move, respond with a forward smash. If it used an aerial, respond with an up smash.
By the way, if you are training a Bowser or Ganondorf amiibo with this session, try using side special after perfect shielding, too!
During this session, you might notice that, after perfect shielding your amiibo’s attack, it slides too far away for your counterattack to hit it. To fix this, press block once and then let go, and immediately walk towards your amiibo (who should be preparing to strike) and perfect shield. You should be able to land a counterattack in this way.
And that’s really all there is to it! Perfect shield and counterattack. I know that some of you might not be very good with timing, so utilize that pause button to help you out with perfect shielding.
Defensive Training Session (3DS)
If you own a 3DS and not a Wii U, this training session will be more difficult due to the lack of Slow Mode.
Set the match type to timed, and 3 minutes. Turn on custom characters and handicap, and go into the “More Rules” tab and turn on Score Display. Once you’ve got all that done, play as the custom build we made earlier, set you and your amiibo to 300% handicap, and begin the match.
Both you and your amiibo will be at 300%, so any hit will very likely result in a KO. Walk up to your amiibo and stand in front of it so that there’s a small space between you two. Press the shield button one time – your character will block for a moment and then take down its shield. Doing this “baits” your amiibo into doing an attack.
After blocking once, immediately pause the game and look at your amiibo. If it’s winding up for an attack, unpause, pause, unpause, and pause again until the attack is about to hit you – at the last moment possible, unpause the game and immediately block, and you should get the perfect shield. If your amiibo attacked you with a grounded or special move, respond with a forward smash. If it used an aerial, respond with an up smash.
By the way, if you are training a Bowser or Ganondorf amiibo with this session, try using side special after perfect shielding, too!
During this session, you might notice that, after perfect shielding your amiibo’s attack, it slides too far away for your counterattack to hit it. To fix this, press block once and then let go, and immediately walk towards your amiibo (who should be preparing to strike) and perfect shield. You should be able to land a counterattack in this way.
It’s very important to do a lot of game pausing on the 3DS version since the game speed isn’t slowed down. It’ll be more frustrating and difficult than on the Wii U version, but don’t worry – it’ll be worth it.
There aren’t too many differences between the 3DS and Wii U versions of this training session, admittedly, but I figured I’d put a bigger emphasis on pausing for the 3DS version.
You can repeat this training session as much as needed. Again, it’s best used on amiibo with shield bonuses so that it learns to take advantage of said effects.
Another article that is a good supplement to this training session is the defensive exercises post by Amiibo Trainer. It goes over some practice methods you can use to further improve your amiibo’s defensive capabilities!
And as always, thanks very much for reading. If you have any questions, you can email me at amiibocloud@gmail.com! Until next time!