Super Smash Bros. Next Beginner's Guide: Controls, Percentage System, and First Steps

You Don't Have a Health Bar

First thing that throws people off about Smash. There's no HP. You don't die when your number hits zero, you die when you get launched off the blast zone. And the higher your percentage, the farther you fly when hit. It's honestly the most misunderstood mechanic in the series.

The percentage starts at 0% and climbs as you take damage. At 0-30%, you barely flinch from weak attacks. At 100%+, a solid smash attack sends you sailing. At 150%+? You're basically a golf ball waiting to get driven off teh tee. The trick is learning where the invisible blast zones sit on each stage. They're different sizes on every layout, and getting knocked sideways on a small stage like Smashville kills way earlier than on Temple.

I spent my first few weeks of Smash thinking I was terrible because I kept dying at 80%. Turns out I just didn't understand that getting hit near the edge of the stage is way more dangerous than getting hit at center stage. The same attack that barely nudges you from the middle will kill you instantly near the sideline. Direction matters more than the number, frankly.

One more thing about percentage that nobody told me. Different moves have different knockback angles and growth rates. Mario's forward smash sends opponents horizontally at low percent but more diagonally at high percent. Some moves have fixed knockback too, which means the launch distance doesn't change much regardless of percent. These are the moves you use to set up combos, and learning which ones your character has is pretty much step one of actually getting good.

Your First Controls

Smash uses a pretty unique control scheme compared to other fighting games. You don't do quarter-circle motions or complex button sequences. Every attack is direction plus button. Tilt the stick and press A, that's your tilt attack. Smash the stick and press A at the same time, that's your smash attack. Press B with a direction for a special move. The shield button blocks, and the grab button... grabs things.

If you're coming from Street Fighter or Tekken or whatever, this feels weird at first. No command inputs, no dial-a-combo, no traditional blockstrings. It took me maybe two weeks to stop accidentally jumping when I meant to up-tilt. Happens to everyone, tbh.

The one thing I wish someone told me early on: learn to short hop. Tap the jump button and release it quickly. Your character does a tiny hop instead of a full jump. Almost every aerial attack in the game is better from a short hop because you land faster and can act again sooner. It's the single most important tech skill for any character, and you can practice it in training mode in like 20 minutes. Not kidding, twenty minutes of short hop practice will do more for your gameplay than twenty hours of mashing against CPUs.

Do yourself a favor and remap the controls early. Set your right stick to tilt attacks, not smash attacks. And turn tap jump off. Tap jump off, seriously. You'll thank me when you're not accidentally wasting your double jump every time you try to up-tilt. In Ultimate you'd find these options under Controls in the Smash menu. The new game will almost certainly have the same customization screen.

Shields, Dodges, and Not Getting Hit

Shielding seems simple enough. Hold the button, block the attack. But the shield shrinks over time and when it gets hit, and if it breaks entirely you're stunned for a good three seconds while your opponent charges a full smash attack. Fun times.

Rolling (shield plus direction) is your basic dodge. It's safe, it's easy, but if you roll too much against anyone decent they'll just wait at the end of your roll and punish you. Spot dodging (shield plus down) is faster but riskier. You're invincible for a split second, then immediately vulnerable. Air dodging lets you shift position in the air, but you can only do it once before landing or getting hit. Directional air dodges give more distance but have more endlag.

The best defensive habit I've picked up: don't always roll. Mix in spot dodges, jumps, and just plain running away sometimes. Rolling every time you're scared is the number one beginner tell. I still catch myself doing it when I panic against a character I don't know well. Old habits die hard.

Oh, and shields in Smash don't cover everything. Grabs go right through shields. So does anything that counts as an unblockable attack. If you're holding shield and someone runs up and grabs you, that's not a glitch. That's how the rock-paper-scissors works. Attack beats grab, grab beats shield, shield beats attack. Basic stuff, but you'd be surprised how many new players never internalize it.

Recovery: Getting Back On Stage

Okay so you got launched. It happens. You have a double jump and an up-special to get back. Some characters also have side-specials or down-specials that help with horizontal recovery, like Fox's side-B or Pikachu's up-B that goes in two parts. Don't burn your double jump immediately. Save it until you actually need it. If you jump right away when you're at 40%, you're wasting your best recovery resource for no reason.

Airdodge toward the ledge is another option, but it's laggy. The safest approach is usually: drift toward the stage with your character's air speed, double jump when you're close enough, and then up-special to snap to the ledge. Grabbing the ledge gives you invincibility frames, which is nice. And from the ledge you have several options: normal getup, roll, jump, attack, or drop down and regrab. Mix these up. If you always do the same ledge option, competent players will punish it.

If you're playing a character with a bad recovery... honestly, you just have to accept that getting knocked offstage is often a death sentence. Little Mac players know this pain intimately. The best defense is not getting launched in the first place. Easier said than done.

What to Actually Practice First

I'd start with three things. First, movement. Just dash around the stage, wavedash if that carries over to the new game, short hop fast fall aerials. Get comfortable controlling your character without thinking about it. Ten minutes a day in training mode makes a real difference.

Second, learn your character's kill confirms. Every character has setups that lead into kills at certain percentages. Mario has down-throw into up-air at mid percents. Donkey Kong has cargo throw offstage. Fox has up-tilt into up-air strings. Find what your character does and grind it until it's muscle memory.

Third, watch one replay of yourself losing. Just one. Look at how you died each stock. Did you roll too much? Burn your double jump early? Miss a tech? Most losses come down to the same two or three mistakes repeating. Fix those first, worry about advanced tech later.

And honestly? Play against real people. CPUs teach bad habits. They read your inputs and react in ways humans never would. Online isn't perfect, nobody's going to pretend the netcode is always great, but it's way better for learning than grinding against level 9 bots. You'll lose a lot at first. That's fine. Nobody starts good at this game. I got three-stocked for weeks before I took my first online match, and I'm still losing to random DK players who cargo throw me into the blast zone. It happens. You queue up again and try to do one thing better than last time.