Welcome to our general amiibo guide! Figure Players have changed a lot since their introduction in Super Smash Bros. 4. In that game, the AI couldn’t taunt, dash-dance, combo, or go off-stage, and we had to learn all of that the hard way. In fact, the Super Smash Bros. developers are a bit infamous within the community for telling us almost nothing about how FPs learn — we’ve had to figure out all of it ourselves. Today’s guide continues this trend, and we have included a figurative treasure trove of everything you need to know to train a powerful amiibo in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. If you’re new to competitive training and want some beginner-friendly tips and tricks, you’ve come to the right place!

Introduction

As we know, an FP starts out at Level 1 and can level up all the way to Level 50. There’s more to this than meets the eye, though: FPs actually level up twice, in a way. In addition to having a visible level, they also have an invisible level, so to speak. The visible level ranges from 1 to 50: it’s the one you’re able to see on-screen. As for the invisible level — FPs are essentially regular CPU fighters that are then altered by training data saved to the figurine. At Level 1, an FP is actually using a “base AI” of a Level 1 CPU. As its visible level increases, so too does the invisible level of the base CPU. When the FP’s visible level reaches 43, it begins using a Level 9 base CPU instead. If you’ve read many of our character guides, you might recall them specifically mentioning Level 43 — that’s because their base AI becomes fully capable at that level, and thus their built-in combos and behaviors become (mostly) finalized. It’s also important to note that an FP’s CPU / invisible level will increase as usual even if its learning isn’t on. If you raise an FP to Level 50 with its learning off the whole time, it’ll wind up identical to a Level 9 CPU of its respective character.

Since FPs use a regular CPU AI as a base, there are some things you can never properly teach an FP to do. At Level 50, most characters have a handful of hard-coded combos programmed into their AIs. For example, if you teach a Ness FP to grab a lot, it’ll automatically use a down throw to forward air combo because that string is hard-coded into its artificial intelligence. Unfortunately, this means you can’t really teach an FP to use a combo that has not been specifically hard-coded into its figurative brain. That’s okay though, because some fighters (such as Joker and Terry) have so many hard-coded combos that they’ll probably learn almost everything you want to teach them anyway. In general, FPs of Ultimate’s DLC fighters (minus Piranha Plant) are “smarter” than the rest, so keep that in mind if you’re looking to choose a character to train.

If you’ve trained many amiibo before, you might remember having trouble teaching yours to use a particular move. Examples of this could include Bowser with Flying Slam or Pichu with Thunder. This is because certain characters have built-in aversions to specific moves; in other words, their base CPU we mentioned earlier has a low usage rate of the attack in question. Training amiibo is relative; so if a Bowser FP has a maxed-out Flying Slam value, that value is only relative to the number of times the base CPU would use it, if that makes sense. Please note that CPU move priorities are frequently changed between game updates, so some FPs may start behaving differently in new patches.

When you play a match against your amiibo with its learning on, it will save specific data. This data includes the button inputs you made, which attacks the FP used, and which of these attacks successfully hit their target. The FP also looks for what kind of movement techniques you employ (walking versus running, jumping a lot, going off-stage, etc.) and how often you taunt. We talk about this in greater depth in our amiibo personality guide, but here’s a quick list of some FP behaviors you can change through training:

• Its general aggressiveness and attack frequency
• How often it jumps, shields, parries, rolls, and air dodges
• Whether it walks, runs, or dash-dances to move around
• Whether it goes off-stage to edgeguard its opponent, and whether it uses a meteor smash or a regular aerial to do so
• How often it makes use of hard-coded combos
• How often it goes out of its way to pick up an item, and how often it swings or throws that item away
• Whether it charges its smash attacks before using them
• How often it taunts after a kill or after dealing noticeable knockback to an opponent
• How often it uses each attack in its moveset, as well as which attacks it uses when standing at the ledge

So as you can see, FPs are highly customizable and can be changed in a number of meaningful ways. That being said, FPs do not save matchup experience, so they can’t learn to change their behavior against specific opponents. This, in turn, means that FPs will behave exactly the same regardless of the character they are facing. If you’ve trained a projectile-heavy amiibo, it won’t stop using them even against a foe who uses a reflecting move at a high frequency. Generally speaking, FPs learn more from what they do to you than what you do to them. This means that if a Terry amiibo hits you with Crack Shoot when it’s only Level 10, it’s most likely going to have a problem with using too many Crack Shoot attacks later on. Now that we’ve covered the basics, then, it’s time to talk about the best practices when training an FP and what you should avoid doing at all costs!

Training Strategies

As you train your FP, there are several strategies you should employ that apply to almost every character. For the best possible result, you should mirror match your FP until it reaches Level 50 — this means you need to play as the character that is your amiibo. If you’re training a DLC fighter but don’t have the corresponding Fighter Pass, that’s a bit of an issue. As mentioned in the last section, FPs don’t save matchup experience, so your best bet is to mirror match it so that both of you have access to the exact same tools. Assuming you’re able to mirror match it, here’s a list of everything you should keep in mind as you train:

• Keep the FP’s learning on. This is a bit of an obvious one, sorry! If you’re fighting the FP and want its behavior to change, make sure its learn toggle is switched on. You can find this toggle in the settings section of the amiibo menu. Leveling up an FP takes a long time, so if you fight it with learning on until somewhere around Level 30, you can actually toggle its learning off. Then you can level it up against CPUs or other FPs so that its level increases, but its training values stay the same. As stated previously, an amiibo’s base CPU will still level up even with learning off, so don’t worry!
• Don’t train your FP against CPUs, other FPs, or in matches with more than one additional player. That is, you shouldn’t do any of these with the FP’s learning still on. If its learning is off, then it’s fine! You want to be in direct control of the moves and behaviors your FP learns, and that’s not possible if you have it fight other CPU-controlled characters with its learning still on. FPs are easily overwhelmed in matches containing more than 2 total players. If there are more than 2 FPs in any given match, there’s a small possibility that they all freeze and just stand there forever. So be careful!
• Walk, don’t run. If you’re training an FP with the intent of eventually using it in amiibo tournaments, you shouldn’t run or dash at all if possible. If trained to dash too often, FPs can get hasty and they’ll occasionally run right into an opponent’s attack. By teaching it to walk instead, it can “think” more clearly and choose to utilize a defensive option such as blocking or dodging instead. Do note; even if you teach your FP to walk at all times, it may still dash to catch up to an opponent who has just been launched far away. That’s fine — as long as the FP walks when it’s close to its enemy, you’re good to go. If you’re training a Raid Boss, you can disregard this particular note and teach it to dash around anyway.
• Be careful going off-stage. Ideally, you’d read this post first, and then move on to one of our character guides. Said guides will tell you if off-stage play is optimal for the given fighter, and which moves you should use when edgeguarding. Remember that FP recoveries are hard-coded; this means you can’t teach one to mix up its recovery to keep its opponents guessing. It also means fighters like Bayonetta are stuck messing up their recoveries for good — or at least until a patch fixes their behavior.
• Be careful when giving your FP Spirits, too. Each Spirit your amiibo inherits changes its training data. So if you were to train an FP to Level 50 and then give it a bunch of Spirits, its behavior would drastically change — often to something unfavorable. Some Spirits can cause FPs to hold their smash attacks forever, and some cause uncontrollable taunting (including the Meloetta Support Spirit, which is specifically known to do that).
• Never charge smash attacks. Not even after a shield break. FPs have a value that determines how long they’ll hold their smash attacks before using them. Perhaps this is so that they can make use of the Unflinching Charged Smashes Spirit effect? In any case, when using a smash attack, just use it without a charge.
• Don’t taunt too often. Or at least, keep taunting to a minimum. Some FPs go a little crazy when taught to taunt. Kirby, in particular, is known to occasionally stop fighting altogether and just say “Hi!” over and over again until somebody attacks him. If you don’t mind your FP spamming its taunts, though, feel free to go wild!
• Either shield a lot or don’t use defensive maneuvers at all. Many new trainers complain about their FPs rolling too often. As a result, you should avoid rolling as you train yours. For good measure, you can also avoid spot dodging, air dodging, and tech rolls as well. If you’re training a competitive amiibo, you should teach it to shield a lot. You can do this by shield flickering, which is when you press the shield button over and over to continuously put up your shield and take it down again. FPs see this as you inputting a parry, so they’ll pick up on this technique before too long. If you’re training a Raid Boss, you might be better off taking no defensive actions, as they are hard-coded to an extent (the FP will always use them no matter what, but they can learn to use them even more through additional training).
• Let your FP hit you with moves you want it to use. You might need to do some pause-buffering to make sure you know which move your FP is about to use, though. By letting yourself get hit, you’re not teaching it to leave itself vulnerable — you’re actually teaching it to use the attack it just hit you with more often. Of course, you should use attacks against the FP too, but letting yourself get hit is just as important.
• Only attack your FP with aerials while you’re falling. This is probably the strangest advice on this list, but for whatever reason, Ultimate’s AI only registers your input of aerial moves if you use the attack while you’re falling (and not rising). To teach your FP to use aerials, you’ll have to input a jump and then an aerial move — this means you can’t use the short hop macro, which is when you press the X and A buttons at the same time to use a short-hopped aerial move. Special thanks to Nozomu for this interesting discovery!
• Don’t be afraid to quit the match if something goes wrong. When you quit out of an individual game, none of that match’s events are saved to the FP. If it hits you with a wonky move or does something you don’t like, you’re more than welcome to end the game early and try again.

That’s a lot of instructions to follow, right? It might appear overwhelming at first – and it kind of is – but with practice, you’ll eventually be able to follow all of these “rules” without even thinking about them! Training a tournament-optimal FP is somewhat jarring if you’ve never done so before, but we’re happy to help! If you have any questions, you can join our Discord server and ask away. Otherwise, let’s continue on to the final section.

AI Flaws & Exploits

There are some things you just won’t be able to teach your amiibo to deal with, unfortunately. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate’s AI is the most intelligent in the whole series, but it’s still very flawed. For one, it generally can’t detect things it can’t see. This might seem obvious, but think of it this way: the Figure Player has to see something with its “eyes” to be able to notice it. Meaning it can’t always tell how much damage an opponent has taken, or if the enemy’s attack has super armor active (in which case it will try to challenge it and fail terribly), or – perhaps most disappointingly – if team attack is on. And there’s no way around these things: they’re just flaws we have to accept. As you might expect, a lot of characters have AI flaws that are specific just to them. We talk more about those in our character guides and wiki pages, so rather than list them all here, feel free to check out our post on the fighter you’re thinking of. If they’ve got a noticeable AI flaw, we’ll mention it on their corresponding pages.

It’s safe to say, then, that the strongest Figure Player characters are ones who can be easily trained to take advantage of the game’s exploitable AI. That’s why you’ve got fighters like Incineroar and King K. Rool at the top of our tier list: their movesets are difficult for AI opponents to counter. If you’re raising your FP to fight human opponents, though, you don’t have to focus on “AI breaker” moves. In that case, you’re better off focusing on things like grabs and tilts and fast attacks. Humans are generally much better at dodging smash attacks and command grabs, which are otherwise the go-to options against Figure Players.

Wrap-Up

To summarize this entire post in one sentence, FPs are simultaneously smart and dumb. On one hand, they can utilize hard-coded combos that occasionally end up looking cool! On the other, you can’t teach them how to recover, they sometimes spam moves, and they can sometimes spiral out of control with taunting. Training a strong amiibo requires a certain degree of finesse, and it may take you an attempt or three before you wind up with a good one. Your next step should be to check out our character guides; the general info outlined here will apply to every fighter you can think of. And if you still have questions, feel free to join our Discord community and ask around. We’ll be happy to explain whatever it is you’re wondering about. If our guides have helped you out, we’d appreciate it if you take a look at our Patreon page or donation box to help keep the site up and running. Until next time — happy training!

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

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