Rosalina & Luma are undoubtedly a technical fighter, so it’s no surprise that the duo has been long overlooked by the competitive amiibo community. It’s a shame, too — Rosalina was considered top-tier in Super Smash Bros. 4, but due to a lack of representation that’s no longer the case in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. If you’d like to learn more about her metagame history, be sure to check out her corresponding wiki page. Otherwise, let’s jump right into today’s training!
Spirits
For some reason, Spirits shuffle a Figure Player’s training data — which means that applying new Spirits to an FP you’ve already trained will cause it to behave differently. To prevent this from happening, you should give your FP its full Spirit team at Level 1 and then begin its training routine. We’ve gathered a list of Rosalina & Luma’s best Spirit builds right here, so feel free to pick and choose whichever setup sounds best to you:
- Banned bonuses: Armor Knight. That’s going to be Rosalina’s best Spirit setup. Its massive defensive boost helps patch up her light weight, which lets her survive over longer periods of time (which also helps her get more KOs!). Armor Knight only takes up two slots, though, so occupy that third slot with Trade-Off Ability ↑ or Move Speed ↑ for best effect.
- Tournament-legal bonuses: Of course, most Spirits tournaments do keep Armor Knight banned, so if you want to enter one of those you’ll have to explore some other options. You could use Physical Attack ↑, Magic Attack ↑, Foot Attack ↑, Trade-Off Ability ↑, Critical-Health Stats ↑, Air Defense ↑, or Shield Durability ↑. That’s a lot of options!
- Raid Boss bonuses: Rosalina & Luma are a bit of a tough situation here; their attack types are split between physical and magic, so it’s best for a Raid Boss to either utilize Armor Knight or Great Autoheal or a setup including Move Speed ↑, Air Defense ↑, and Landing Lag ↓.
Your FP’s bonus effects are much more important than its specific stat spread. As usual, we recommend a simple balanced build (2100 / 2100) — don’t worry if you can’t get those exact numbers, as they’re nothing more than a ballpark range to shoot for. You could also use a more defensive build if you like (1900 / 2300). Make sure your FP’s Spirit-type is Neutral before you start training it, and check out our full Spirits guide for more information on Spirits in this game!
Competitive Training
An optimized Rosalina & Luma FP might not behave the way you think it would! It’s best to keep Luma with you at all times, which means you’ll have to refrain from sending it away using Luma Shot. Off-stage play is not necessarily recommended here; as Rosalina sometimes has trouble properly aiming herself with Launch Star. As a result, we’re going to recommend that you stay on-stage, but if you’d like to edgeguard with some down aerials, feel free to! Here is the rest of an optimized Rosalina FP’s moveset:
- At close range, your main options are forward tilt and forward smash — a healthy mix of the two. You can also mix in a bit of down smash and down tilt, and the latter works best when used right at the ledge!
- From a distance, you can use dash attack to approach. You should do this often, too! Generally speaking, it’s best to teach your FP to walk instead of run, but you can make a quick exception when it comes to using a dash attack. Go right back to walking afterward!
- When your FP is launched upwards, position yourself at its landing spot and then intercept with an up smash. You could follow up with a few up airs if you like, but you’re probably better off forgoing jumps altogether.
- Rosalina’s grabs are really helpful! She can use her down throw for combos, and then she can use a back throw against opponents at high percentages to secure a KO.
As you can see, Rosalina’s optimal training isn’t too crazy. Keep Luma with you at all times — this means you should never use Luma Shot, even if pressing the special-move button would bring Luma back to your side. You should also try your best to directly attack your FP and not its Luma, because any attacks directed at Luma ultimately won’t count as much towards training. Be careful and be patient, and remember to use as many perfect shields as you possibly can!
Raid Boss Training
Rosalina & Luma aren’t really the best Raid Boss around. Her moveset is nothing special, but it is made much stronger through a combination of Luma and Spirits. As is the case with the previous section, you’ll want to keep Luma with you at all times. At later levels, Rosalina’s AI will automatically know how to attack independently with Luma — specifically, she’ll often instruct it to use an aerial move after she’s launched. Here’s what an optimized Rosalina Raid Boss looks like, then:
- Though Rosalina can pull off Luma shenanigans to an extent, the behavior is hard-coded and fairly inconsistent at that. This means your go-to neutral tools are simple; it’s going to be a mix of grab, neutral attack, forward tilt, and down tilt. When grabbing, use down throw for combos and back throw to KO.
- Neutral aerial works well both for landing and for general damage-racking. You can also use a combination of neutral aerial, back aerial, and up smash out-of-shield.
- For juggling, employ a mixture of neutral air, up tilt, up smash, and up air. Keep your FP in the air with as many consecutive attacks as you can! Juggling strings deal tons of damage against human players thanks to the power of Spirits.
- Forward smash and down smash both have their uses, but shouldn’t be spammed. As mentioned before, Rosalina can get away with a decent amount of up smash usage too! By the way, you can also use dash attack to approach and catch landings.
It’s kind of nice — in human-versus-human matches of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, players tend to shy away from Rosalina due to how complicated she is relative to the rest of the cast. The same is true for amiibo training to an extent, but as you can see her optimal strategy isn’t too difficult to grasp. If you have any further questions, feel free to read our general guide!
Wrap-Up
Thank you very much for reading all the way to the end! If there’s any character that deserves more tournament representation, it’s likely this one, so if you’ve got a spare Rosalina amiibo sitting around you should definitely sink some time into its training! You’re always welcome to join our Discord community to ask for help, plus we’ve got a competitive setup guide if you want to learn how to enter tournaments. We also have a Patreon page and a donation box if you like what you read today. Until next time — happy training!
If you would like to read more amiibo training guides, please follow this link.