Steve is one of the more complicated Figure Players to train in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. Between the ability to mine, craft, and place blocks, training this character might sound intimidating. Luckily, you don’t even have to use any of these moves during the matches you play — which will make training a Steve FP a whole lot easier. If you’d like to read more about his metagame history before you continue, you can do so via his wiki page. Otherwise, let’s jump right into today’s training!

Special thanks to Gotelin and fammydamammy for contributing Steve’s training information!

Spirits

Looking to equip your FP with a Spirit team? You’ve come to the right place! If you’d rather train your Steve amiibo without giving it Spirits, you’re welcome to skip ahead to the next section instead. To those of you new to amiibo training, we recommend reading our full Spirits guide. They’re far too complex to adequately explain here, so be sure to come back to this guide after reading that one! Without further ado, then, here are Steve’s best Spirit setups:

• Banned bonuses: As with most fighters, your best bet here is Armor Knight plus Weapon Attack ↑ or Move Speed ↑. Armor Knight’s incredible stat boosts (1.15x attack power and 1.8x defense) are helpful for any and every character, which includes Steve! Otherwise, something like Great Autoheal is a fine replacement.
• Tournament-legal bonuses: Steve’s optimal moves are split across two categories: weapons and fire. With this in mind, both Weapon Attack ↑ and Fire & Explosion Attack ↑ are viable choices. In fact, with Fire & Explosion Attack ↑ equipped, Steve’s up smash becomes a one-hit shield breaker! You can then include Air Defense ↑ in the third slot. You can also double up on Weapon Attack ↑ or Fire & Explosion Attack ↑, if you like.
• Raid Boss bonuses: Each of the bonus effects listed above works well for Steve — especially Fire & Explosion Attack ↑, thanks to its shield-breaking prowess. Move Speed ↑ works here too, and you can pair that with Weapon Attack ↑. Shield Damage ↑ is another decent option you can go with, too.

Do note — if you want your Steve amiibo’s up smash to instantly break a shield, you do need Fire & Explosion Attack ↑, but you also need an attack stat of 2100 or more. If you decide not to use Fire & Explosion Attack ↑, you should lean a bit more into defense (1800 / 2400). Make sure your FP’s Spirit-type is Neutral before you continue!

Competitive Training

Steve is rather tricky to train. Even if you manage to train him perfectly, he’ll still lose to high-tier characters — as a mid-tier fighter himself, Steve quite simply isn’t on their level. When training, it doesn’t matter if you mine or craft; by Level 50, the AI seems to do it just the same regardless. Ideally, an optimal Steve FP uses lots of different moves, so be sure to include each and every one of these in the matches you play!

• Up close, Steve’s best options are up tilt, forward smash, and down tilt. Up tilt is incredibly fast, and can link into itself or into a back air or up smash for a kill confirm. Forward smash is rather standard, but becomes extremely fast with gold tools or extremely powerful with diamond tools. Down tilt doesn’t require any tools, and it strikes multiple times to help against defensive opponents. By the way — up tilt, forward smash, and down tilt should all be used in descending order of priority.
• From a distance, use dash attack and especially Minecart attacks. You really have to use Minecart a lot to get the FP to add it to its arsenal. It’s also a fast, moving hitbox, which this game’s AI deals with notoriously poorly.
• In addition to up tilt, up smash also does a great job at catching landings. It’s such a good move, in fact, that you can even use a little bit of it in general situations while grounded! You should also work in a sprinkle of grabs, as Steve’s fishing rod has lots of range and his throws can combo.
• If you wind up above your FP – either because it launched you upward or because you’re falling from a platform – you can use forward air, back air, some down air, and some TNT to secure a safe landing. Forward air and back air are the safest options, so you’ll be using these most often. Down air and TNT should be used more rarely to save materials. You can also work just a little bit of airborne Blocks into your Steve’s kit, if you like. You don’t have to place them in any particular fashion; simply place a lone block in the air while you’re falling every so often.
• Steve can afford to edgeguard off-stage, and he should do so with forward air every so often. That being said, you don’t need to be super aggressive about edgeguarding; at later levels, his AI’s ledge trapping game is on point. You just want him to go off-stage to edgeguard sometimes.

In a previous version of the guide, we recommended down smash as one of Steve’s better options. This is still true, but Steve’s AI tends to favor its forward smash and down tilt; as a result, you won’t see it use down smash all that often at later levels. At Level 50, the AI will sometimes use this move out of shield, but this behavior doesn’t need to be taught — as a result, you don’t really need to use the move yourself.

This moveset includes many different attacks, so your Steve amiibo won’t have any problem unstaling its strongest moves. At close range, he can threaten opponents with an up tilt, which sets up for hard-coded combos involving Blocks and aerials. From a distance, Steve can either fire off a Minecart to approach or take a moment to gather materials and craft sturdier tools. As long as his pickaxe hasn’t broken, he can then dunk enemies off-stage with a well-spaced forward air. Between his powerful diamond attacks, off-stage finishers, and numerous landing options, Steve technically has tools to handle any opponent — it’s just a matter of whether or not the AI chooses to use the right move at the right time.

Raid Boss Training

In terms of mining and crafting, you might want to do less of each when training a Raid Boss Steve. Generally speaking, you have to be far away in order to mine or craft without taking damage; if you do this too often, the resulting FP won’t be very aggressive. Instead, you should attack your Steve amiibo even after your tools break. If you try to, say, place a Block without materials, the AI will still slightly increase its usage of Blocks in response. Here’s a full list of moves to teach to your Raid Boss Steve, then:

• Lots of ground moves to consider here! Up close, use up tilt, down tilt, and up smash — the latter works especially well when catching landings or rolls. Up tilt combos into itself several times and then leads into hard-coded combos involving Blocks and air attacks. Forward smash and down smash work too, but should be used a bit less frequently.
• From a distance, approach with dash attack and Minecart. As mentioned in the previous section, you really have to spam Minecart to get your Steve amiibo to use it even a little bit. Just make sure you don’t run out of materials!
• In the air, your priorities are as follows: repeated up air attacks, forward airs, and then some back airs. You can also place a few Blocks while airborne every so often; the specific placement of each one doesn’t matter.
• Finally, you can secure a safe landing with a forward or down air. Keep in mind that your FP will still learn to use these moves even if you try using them while your tools are broken — the same goes for Steve’s other moves, too.

If you’re new to amiibo training, you picked a rather difficult character to start with! For more information on how this process works, we’ve got plenty of resources available here that can help you out. Our general training guide goes over key concepts that apply to every single fighter’s training routine, while our personality guide helps clear up important misconceptions.

Wrap-Up

Thanks so much for reading! Steve is certainly challenging to train, and it’s a bit disheartening that Steve still isn’t all that fantastic even with proper training. Still, he’s a solid mid-tier that can give other fighters on the same level as him a run for their money. If you have any follow-up questions, please direct them to our Discord server! We’ve also got a donation box if you’d like to help support the site and its (expensive) upkeep. Until next time — happy training!

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

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