How do I avoid being tossed around so much?

Question

When playing Smash Bros against two or more bots or human opponents, I often find myself being tossed around endlessly between them until I get thrown out of the stage. No amount of button-mashing can save me in those situations.

I mostly use Luigi or Fox, and this happens to me with both characters.

Answer 1

There's not a whole lot you can do if you have multiple enemies beating on you from different directions. You do have some limited options though.

• Try to shield. If you can get your shield up and successfully block an attack, quickly roll away from the bad zone. You probably should not try to grab unless you know you can time the throw perfectly to resist the bystander's attack (and can deal with the shieldgrab's half damage).
• If your damage is low and everyone's close together, try to SDI through the guy hitting you towards their other side. This might be more effective than SDI'ing away because you're not moving towards the other guy and the first attacker may not be expecting it, but watch out for attacks that have sweetspots up close.
• If you have room to fly between the two enemies, try to SDI downwards so you're closer to the ground and so have a chance of landing and teching earlier. High-gravity characters have a better chance here.
• For Luigi and Fox specifically, here are some of their fastest attacks you can try and use to hit the opponents, measured in frames:
  • Luigi
    • Neutral attack: hits on 3
    • Neutral air: hits on 4
    • Up air: hits on 3
    • Up special: hits on 3
    • Down special: hits on 1
  • Fox
    • Neutral attack: hits on 4
    • Neutral aerial: hits on 5
    • Back aerial: hits on 5
    • Down aerial: hits on 5
    • Down special: hits on 1
  • As seen above, both Luigi's and Fox's down specials hit instantly. Time them correctly and the opponent can only trade with you at worst.

Answer 2

It sounds like you are deliberately putting yourself into 1v2 fights while you are not yet ready for them. In order to come out of a 1v2 fight successfully, your 1v1 fights need to be nearly flawless. A 1v2 is not merely twice as hard as a 1v1 - it is orders of magnitude harder. Whereas in a 1v1 you can trade hits or take the occasional hit and recover, with multiple opponents you don't have that luxury. You don't even have the luxury of using your high cooldown power finishers (Luigi's up B or Fox's up smash) because the other guy can punish you for killing his teammate. If either one of your opponents is evenly matched to you the fight will be nearly unwinnable.

Now assuming your 1v1 skills are good enough, you still need to fight strategically to win. Unless friendly fire is on, you don't want your opponents to be grouped together - their hitboxes will just stack and there will be very little you can do.

Your priority is to separate your opponents, and then get K.O.'s as efficiently as possible. Typically this means targeting the weakest of the opponents. Use the barest minimum amount of effort to keep the stronger opponents from getting too close (toss projectiles their way or a good spacing aerial attack - back aerials work fairly well for Luigi and Fox) while you try to go for low-percentage gimps on the weaker opponent.

Also, pick a large stage to give you room to escape when you need it. Hyrule Castle or Sector Z are good candidates. Maybe Zebes if it is allowed and just try to be king of the top platform and let the acid do the K.O.'s for you.

If it's a free for all stock match, just run away from everything - last survivor wins. You have no incentive to actually get k.o's in that mode. If it's a time match, just treat it as a team game with friendly fire on and target the weakest player as described above. Use projectiles to steal K.O.'s from people by hitting people already hopelessly off stage.

Other tips:

Focus on dodging, spacing, and positioning. You want to avoid shielding or rolling if at all possible - even in a 1v1 a single opponent can put quite a bit of pressure on a shield. With 2 opponents hammering on a shield at once, you are just going to get stun-locked until your shield breaks or someone grabs you and throws you.

Abuse throws as long as you are not Link, Samus, or Yoshi. Not only are throws one of the fastest attacks, they work great for positioning your opponents (e.g. to separate them), and most throws turn the thrown opponent into a projectile which adds additional protection.