There’s something rather strange about Olimar in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. If you’ve taken a look at our tier list lately, you might’ve noticed Olimar’s rock-solid position in its higher rankings. Yet despite that, he’s considered underrepresented and isn’t often seen in competitive tournaments. Perhaps it’s because Olimar is a somewhat plain fighter. Or maybe players have forgotten how to train him? Whichever the case, we’re here today to help fix that! If you want to learn more about Olimar’s metagame history, you can read up over at his corresponding wiki page. Otherwise, let’s jump right into today’s training!

Special thanks to Gotelin for contributing Olimar’s training information!

Spirits

A recurring theme throughout this guide is going to be that Olimar is a simple fighter. For the most part, this extends to his optimal Spirit builds as well, and we’ve got a whole bunch of them listed here for you to check out. If you’re new to amiibo training and would like to learn more about Spirits, be sure to read our in-depth guide whenever you’ve got an extra moment. In the meantime, here are all the best setups you can use on Olimar:

• Banned bonuses: Strangely enough, Autoheal and Great Autoheal have proved their worth on Olimar in the past even though he’s a close-ranged fighter. If you’d rather steer clear of healing bonuses, try using Armor Knight alongside Weapon Attack ↑ — this is probably the best setup you could use on Olimar.
• Tournament-legal bonuses: Okay, so get this: Super Smash Bros. Ultimate considers Pikmin as weapons. Which means you can run one or even two Weapon Attack ↑ bonuses to great effect! You can then use Air Defense ↑ to fill the third slot, and boom — you’ve got a viable setup.
• Raid Boss bonuses: If you’re aiming to raise a Raid Boss, then the aforementioned Great Autoheal or Armor Knight bonus effects are your best choices. Otherwise, you can use a build of Shield Damage ↑, Move Speed ↑, and Weapon Attack ↑ to bolster Olimar’s damage output and increase his recovery potential.

Don’t think too hard about Olimar’s stat spread; a simple balanced build (2100 / 2100) is most optimal here. Before you start your FP’s training, make sure its Spirit-type is Neutral (a gray-looking icon) so that it doesn’t lose any Spirit-type matchups later on. Please note that we’ve got two different guides below; one for competitive tournaments and one for Raid Bosses. Pick your favorite and get ready to start battling!

Competitive Training

Olimar’s whole shtick is that he attacks his opponents with Pikmin that he plucks from underground. It goes without saying, then, that you should have three Pikmin plucked and active at all times — don’t try to train this FP to rely solely on its physical attacks (including jab, forward tilt, and the like). As always, ensure that you walk instead of running so that your FP can think more clearly at later levels. Here’s what an optimal Olimar amiibo’s moveset looks like, then:

• Your main three moves are forward smash, up smash, and grabs. Each only functions when Pikmin are present, which is why you’ll need to have three plucked at all times. Use all of these moves about equally, and mix and match them depending on your FP’s current position (for example, use up smash when it’s above you and trying to land). When grabbing your FP, either attack it with an up throw or throw it toward the nearest ledge.
• There are two types of Olimar amiibo: ones that go off-stage to edgeguard, and ones that wait at the ledge instead. As usual, there’s a choice to make: risk and possible reward, or to play it safe. If you do decide to go off-stage, attack your FP with down air or forward air. You can use these moves to secure a safe landing, too.
• If you’d like, you can add in some Pikmin Throw — but it’s totally optional. The Pikmin will rack up lots of damage on the opponent, and they won’t know that they have to attack to shake the little guys loose. Instead, they’ll try shielding and jumping, and neither of these can shake Pikmin off.

As you can see, Olimar’s playstyle is rather spammy. But to be honest, how else are you supposed to play him? By the way, the only moves you should avoid are ones that don’t use Pikmin – including neutral attack, forward tilt, up tilt, down tilt, and neutral air – because these moves are exceedingly weak and do not KO until extremely high percentages. Olimar’s above-average kill power is one of his main strengths, and he needs Pikmin plucked for that!

With this move setup, you’ll have an Olimar amiibo that always keeps its Pikmin plucked and focus on its strongest attacks. His smash attacks are quite fast and really strong, so he shouldn’t have much trouble scoring KOs unless he somehow runs out of Pikmin. If you chose to go off-stage, he also has a chance of scoring early KOs with aerial attacks!

Raid Boss Training

There’s one key difference between Raid Boss FPs and competitive-trained ones: Raid Bosses are free to run, dash, and jump around to their hearts’ contents! In terms of the optimal moves to use, both versions of our training guides are rather similar: we’re just going to spam every attack that involves Pikmin. As is standard practice for Raid Bosses, you’ll want to remain on-stage at all times; don’t jump off and try to edgeguard. Here’s a complete explanation of all the moves you should use during level-ups:

• Forward smash, up smash, and grabs work incredibly well on a Raid Boss Olimar! Regarding his grabs, keep in mind that your FP won’t be able to tell which color Pikmin it’s about to use — which means it won’t know to save its blue Pikmin to make its throws more powerful. Also, all of Olimar’s grab follow-ups are hard-coded at later levels, so don’t worry about teaching your FP to use them.
• Up air and up smash should be used in tandem with each other to juggle your FP. Up tilt is actually alright to use on a Raid Boss as well, though the two moves listed prior should take priority.
• Forward air, back air, down air, and up air can all be used for air-to-air combat. They’re quite strong, especially if you equipped a Weapon Attack ↑ bonus effect from our Spirits section. Yes, Pikmin are considered weapons by the game for some reason!

You can try working in some other attacks as well (bar Pikmin Throw, which separates Olimar from his Pikmin and weakens him as a result), but you only really need the ones listed above. Olimar is certainly a spammy FP, and human players will find it tough to beat a Raid Boss Olimar that’s been loaded up with powerful Spirits. If you’d like to learn more tips and tricks on training formidable Raid Bosses, check out our general training guide!

Wrap-Up

To those of you paying close attention to this guide, you might be looking at the image above and wondering why it’s so plain. It’s actually a somewhat-clever reference: in Super Smash Bros. 4, Olimar could be trained to do absolutely nothing until the game timer reached zero. That’s no longer possible, so it’s safe to say that Olimar’s FP has come a long way since then. If you have any questions regarding amiibo training, you’re welcome to join our Discord community and ask around. If you’d like to learn how to enter competitive tournaments, we have a handy guide you can refer to right here. As always, if you enjoyed this post, Exion has a donation box that goes toward site upkeep. Until next time — happy training!

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

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