Compared to other Figure Players available in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Hero hasn’t been around for all that long. But despite that, he’s racked up an impressive list of tournament results and a ton of representation. Hero is one of the most versatile FPs in the game – seriously, he can KO his enemies in so many different ways – and thus is one of the most successful newcomers in competitive amiibo training. If you’d like to read more about Hero’s strengths and weaknesses, you can do so over at his wiki page. Otherwise, let’s jump right into today’s training!

Special thanks to Luckman for contributing Hero’s training information!

Spirits

Hero is a fairly recent addition to the amiibo metagame, and so quite a few trainers out there have decided to raise him as their first FP. If that’s you, too, you might want to take a look at our in-depth Spirits guide at some point. Spirits can be tough to wrap your head around, but once you’ve got the general gist of them, they’re no problem at all! Here are some optimal Hero Spirit builds, then:

• Banned bonuses: The strongest bonus combination for Hero would be Armor Knight and Trade-Off Ability ↑. This setup will give him a 1.15x attack boost and a 1.8x defense boost, and then Trade-Off Ability ↑ will give him even higher boosts in addition! Super Armor and Great Autoheal come in at a close second and third place.
• Tournament-legal bonuses: A setup including Weapon Attack ↑, Magic Attack ↑, and Trade-Off Ability ↑ grants Hero’s moveset an absolutely insane amount of power. With this build, a fully-charged Kazap can KO an opponent from center-stage at just 50% — not to mention the fact that Hero’s critical hits will deal well over 50% each time they connect. Critical Healing & Metal alongside Weapon Attack ↑ or Transformation Duration ↑ works well too!
• Raid Boss bonuses: An optimal Raid Boss Hero FP tends to place a higher focus on mobility. As such, a build including Weapon Attack ↑, Move Speed ↑, and Landing Lag ↓ is excellent against human players! Alternatively, you could use the aforementioned Armor Knight or Great Autoheal — the latter is particularly troublesome and frustrating to opponents.

Regardless of the spread you choose, don’t use Critical-Hit ↑ or Critical-Hit ↑↑ — they actually do not boost the critical-hit chance of Hero’s smash attacks. In terms of stat distribution, you should run an overall balanced build with a slightly higher emphasis on attack (2200 / 2000). Another option would be running Shield Damage ↑ as a Spirit effect alongside an attack stat of 2600; this will maximize the power of Hero’s critical-hit smash attacks against shields. Make sure your FP’s Spirit-type is Neutral before you begin its training.

Competitive Training

Most competitive-trained FPs rely solely on walking as their primary method of transportation, and the same is true for Hero! To sum up optimal movement during training: don’t dash, jump, or roll — keep your cool and slowly walk around. Move up to your FP, hit it with an attack, and then walk up to it again and repeat the process. Along the way, be sure to let yourself get hit by attacks you want the FP to use later on. Here are all the moves you should focus on during training:

• First up are Hero’s neutral specials, Frizz, Frizzle, and Kafrizz. Believe it or not, Frizz – the uncharged version – is actually most useful. Use a lot of Frizz projectiles from afar. More rarely, you can fully charge it into Kafrizz and unleash its fireball to inflict major damage. Frizzle is kind of the middle ground between the two, and doesn’t necessarily need to be focused on. It doesn’t hurt to use it anyway, though!
• Forward smash is super strong and has a 1 in 8 chance to land a critical hit that deals increased damage. This is your primary close-ranged attack! Down smash and forward tilt should be used up close too, but to a slightly lesser extent than forward smash.
• Forward air and down air are to be used off-stage. Hero’s got a great recovery, so you’re free to teach your FP to edgeguard its opponents! Of these two attacks, forward air generally does a better job of keeping enemies away. Both of them (alongside neutral air) can also be used to land, albeit only situationally.
• Up tilt is Hero’s most viable anti-air. His up smash can be used sometimes too, but its horizontal range is pitiful. Up tilt helps fill this gap, though, and it should be used against your FP whenever it’s trying to land. Up air can be sprinkled in as well.
• Use Command Selection every so often, and use its offensive spells to attack your FP. Just to clarify, you can’t actually influence which spells the AI chooses from the Command Selection menu — instead, you’re controlling how often it opens the menu in the first place.
• Hero’s dash attack is kind of like Link’s. Use it against your FP when it’s directly in front of you! We mentioned earlier that Hero shouldn’t be dashing or running, but an exception can be made for a moment when using this move.
• Each of Hero’s side specials – Zap, Zapple, and Kazap – is viable for competitive amiibo training. Of the three, Zapple (the middle-charged version) is most useful thanks to its incredible range. Use that one most often, and then occasionally fully charge it into Kazap (which is best used at the ledge).
• If you perfect shield one of your FP’s attacks, you can try using a neutral attack to keep it a safe distance away. Then you can follow up with one of the attacks listed above!

As you can see, Hero uses a lot of moves, though he tends to give more weight to Frizz and forward smash as his main attacks. There are three particular moves you should never use during training: up special (outside of recovery), back air, and down tilt. None of these bring Hero much benefit, so stick to the attacks we listed above and you should be good to go!

Raid Boss Training

As usual, you’ll want to mirror match your Hero amiibo until it reaches Level 50. FPs don’t save character or stage matchup experience, so playing as Hero on Ω- or Battlefield-form stages will get you the best results. Off-stage play is risky when training a Raid Boss; the AI’s recovery patterns are mostly hard-coded and thus can be easily predicted by a human opponent (whereas other FPs can’t learn to consistently pick up on patterns like that). As such, you’re going to want to stay on-stage whenever possible. Here’s what an optimized Hero Raid Boss looks like:

• Hero’s forward tilt is good at racking on damage. Use it against your FP when it’s right next to you, and be sure to attack with both hits! Neutral attack can be mixed in here as well.
• Up tilt is Hero’s primary anti-air move, since his up smash has poor horizontal range. It can combo into a chain of up airs, too! When your FP is above you, hit it with as many consecutive up airs as you can, and then finish off the combo with a powerful up smash.
• Neutral air and forward air can either be used to land or for general aerial combat. Neutral airs are overall better for their superior range, though.
• Use a good number of grabs. Hero’s go-to combo is up throw into a chain of up airs. At higher percentages, you can also attack with a back throw at the ledge for extra kill power.
• Hero’s medium-charge side special, Zapple, is excellent against human opponents. It balances power and range, and is very strong when used at a distance. Instead of going off-stage, you can opt to use a fully-charged Kazap at the ledge.
• If you’re training a serious Raid Boss, don’t use Command Selection often. If you’re training a fun Raid Boss, definitely use Command Selection! Just remember that Hero can’t be trained to use specific spells — what you’re controlling is how often it opens the menu in the first place.

You can also sprinkle in forward smash, up smash, and down smash, but be careful! Their critical-strike chances might look appealing, but human players will be able to react and punish if the FP uses too many of them. You can also sprinkle in Frizz, Frizzle, and Kafrizz, but the FP can’t tell what character it’s fighting — this means it could potentially toss out a fully-charged Kafrizz against a Wolf with his reflector at the ready, which could spell doom for your Raid Boss.

Wrap-Up

Thanks so much for reading! Hero’s training has certainly been well-optimized over the past few months, but there’s still plenty of room left for experimentation. This guide is meant to serve as a good starting point, so if you want to take your training to the next level, feel free to join our Discord community! We’ll be happy to answer any questions you might have. If you’re looking to enter a tournament hosted there, you can read our tour preparation guide for more details on how to enter. As always, if you like what you read today, we appreciate donations or Patreon subscriptions to help keep the site going. Until next time — happy training!

If you would like to read more amiibo training guides, please follow this link.

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