How do you choose a fighting game main?

Anytime a new fighting game that I'm interested in is about to be released, one of the most important questions I find myself faced with—and I'm sure I'm not alone in this—is who the character I'm going to main is.

Usually, after a fair amount of deliberation, I end up maining a character based on aesthetic alone and that character is typically a main antagonist. The first reason I do this is because, well, I like bad guys more than other characters and liking the character you play as is a good motivator to improve, in my opinion. However, a second reason I think I do this is because I get frustrated when I have to think about "which character fits my playstyle the most" and I just resign to what I'm familiar with.

The problem lies in the fact that I don't know what my "playstyle" is. Oftentimes, I'll try all of the characters in a game's roster and not really feel any character that I immediately feel good playing as, so I'll pick an antagonist I like and tell myself that I'll simply adapt to the primary playstyle of that character, which usually ends up being the case.

What are your methods of finding the character that is right for you?

Trying to figure out a way to easily determine my type of fighting game playstyle and how I could easily determine a character I could naturally adapt to instead of struggle to learn, I created this pseudopsychology based100% accurate quiz based on rigorous study and scientifically obtained data based on eight different fighting game character playstyles I made up:

All-around

All-around characters have the tools to deal with any situation they find themselves in, making them the most balanced kinds of fighters, though they might not excel in any one area.

Examples: Ryu, Ken (SF); Yu (P4A); Scorpion, Sub-Zero (MK); Terry Bogard (KoF)

Rushdown

The goal of rushdown characters is to constantly be in the opponent's face, never give them any breathing room and to always be on the offense. They are weakest when when distanced from the opponent, but are scary when up close with high damage output and mix-ups.

Examples: Cammy, Fei Long (SF); Chie (P4A); Iori (KoF)

Grappler

Grapplers are typically big and very slow, oftentimes with more health than the average to make up for it. Their goal is to patiently approach the opponent in order to deal very high damaging attacks, primarily in the form of command throws.

Examples: Zangief, Hakan (SF); Cerebella (SG); Kanji (P4A); Tager (BB)

Zoning

Zoning characters typically have low health, but they make up for it with their ability to control space. They are strongest when distanced from their opponent and will attempt to keep them at bay with a variety of projectiles and traps.

Examples: Dhalsim (SF); Dormammu (MvC3); Yukiko (P4A)

Tricky

Tricky characters excel in high mobility, capitalizing on their movement to confuse opponents through feints, teleportation or attacking in multiple directions simultaneously. Usually use a mix of long-range and close-range attacks and they might have a random element to them.

Examples: Faust (GG); Arakune (BB); Teddie (P4A)

Puppet

Puppet characters are a special type of fighting game character which involve controlling two separate entities at once to overwhelm the opponent by attacking in multiple different angles simultaneously. These characters usually require more multitasking than other characters.

Examples: Carl (BB); Shadow Labrys (P4A); Eddie (GG)

Stance change

Stance change characters are characters that involve changing stances or "modes" depending on the situation they find themselves in. These characters are usually execution heavy and require thinking ahead to determine when the best times to switch modes are in the heat of battle.

Examples: Aigis (P4A); Gen (SF); Amaterasu (MvC3)

Turtle

Turtle characters are characters that rely on their defense being stronger than the opponent's offense. Their game plan revolves around punishing opponent's mistakes, whether it's by running away with high mobility in order to frustrate the opponent, by countering the opponent's attacks or via other means.

Examples: Guile (SF), Venom (GG), S-Kill (Divekick)

Aside from "Tricky" (which I practically made up, though I personally think it's valid), all of them are recognized character playstyles, though they might not be categorized in the way I did and these descriptions are very general since there can be several sub-categories to certain playstyles.

Fighting game characters are generally designed to be optimally played in a specific way that fits the above playstyles, but each person still applies their own approach and personal style to their character of choice, meaning that the quiz isn't to determine how a player should play a fighting game, but which kind of character they might enjoy or find success playing as the most.

So after creating this 100% accurate quiz on FG character playstyles, I took things one step further by applying the completely logical process of the Hunter X Hunter Nen diagram to an individual's inherent fighting game character playstyle, which resulted in the following:

I created the above diagram on a whim and it means nothing. Basically applying HxH's Nen theory directly to fighting game playstyles, the concept is that one has the potential to be 100% efficient playing as a character of their inherent FG character playstyle (i.e. the one obtained in the quiz), 80% efficient with playstyles adjacent to one's primary one, and so on before finally having a max. potential of being 20% efficient with a playstyle opposite to their primary one.

Using Rushdown as one's primary playstyle in the above chart, the person has the potential to be 100% efficient with any rushdown based character, 80% with an All-around or Grappler character and 20% efficient with a Turtle character.

Oftentimes a character will actually belong to several playstyles (i.e. hybrids), so if a character would be a combination of Tricky and Turtle like Yosuke in Persona 4 Arena, a Rushdown character player's max. efficiency potential with Yosuke would be 40% (60% + 20% divided by 2).

Conclusion

The above is total hogwash; please don't take it seriously. But it was fun to come up with and it gave me certain things to think about as, honestly, determining which character to main in a fighting game can be fun initially when you get to try out all of the characters and see which one fits you best, but it can end up frustrating when you just can't commit to one character or another.

I used the basics of Ryu play when I played Killer Instinct on Xbox One this past Tuesday and I won every game. I play Ryu and ERyu on AE.

Not going to lie the sexy ladies attract my initial attention. I'll usually play around with move sets in practice and see who I click with. I don't have any one style really. I liked Cammy a lot in SF while in Injustice I really enjoyed Raven who is a zoner. In DOA5U Ive played a ton with Rachel who is equivalent to a grappler with slow powerful attacks and being able to link stun grabs into combos. So its weird.

I pick the cute girl.

I pick the one that looks the coolest. That is why I always pick Johnny Cage.

Love the blog post, it actually helped me understand a lot about fighting game character structures. I only play fighting games casually with friends, so it's nice to see some of that stuff.

I always pick the slowest, strongest guy I can. It sort of comes from the same place as my "always pick shotgun" FPS style; I hate chipping away at something, and while constantly getting my hit interrupted or missing can be frustrating when you're slow, getting that one huge hit is SO satisfying to me. I main Ganondorf in Smash Bros, and Bob in Tekken.

Im easy.

Step one: who's cute

Step two: Who's awesome

step there: who's accessible

Step four: who have you been winning with

Step five: throw all that shit out and use who you like.

This is why my marvel team is so dumb

Though the decision-making process isn't wholly conscious, I tend to find myself attracted to the Zoning and Turtling way of things. Anything that forces the round into more tactical, mind-gamey territory is where I like to be. Your diagram is actually pretty applicable to me, if I consider myself a "Zoning" player. I can't play a grappler for shit, and am only slightly better with rushdown or tricky characters. The only thing that's a bit off... is that I'd say I'm probably better with all-around characters than stance-changers. Another great write-up, by the way!

I don't tend to worry about who I'm going to main off the bat. Whenever I jump into a new game, I just graze forever. Eventually I'll sorta naturally settle into whoever I'm most comfortable with.

I usually start just by checking out the ones I like aesthetically and then narrow it down based on who I like to play after that. Occasionally I'll end up playing someone unexpected that I end up enjoying more than I expected, but it pretty much always comes down to who I like playing the most more than anything like tiers. And if the game is unbalanced enough that my favorite simply can't compete with the rest of the cast that's often enough to turn me off of a game.

I don't really have any particularly preferred playstyle though. Thinking about the various characters I've mained in fighting games they range anything from rushdown to zoning to grapplers. Although I do tend to gravitate a bit more toward speedy characters than slow heavy hitters.

Heh, glad the diagram somewhat works out for another. Not too sure something like that could ever really work out for the highly subjective activity that is choosing a fighting game main, but I wanted to create something like it as a guide to help me determine why a style of character might not be working out for me and vice versa.

I've wanted to write a blog like this for a while to compile a simple list of character playstyles and see how others think about maining characters. Glad to see people appreciated it.

It's funny to see that the way a lot of people choose their characters is mainly superficial as well. It's why I've been looking primarily at playing Terumi in the upcoming Chronophantasma.

I think I like a mix of all-around and tricky. I'm a sub-intermediate player, above novice but not capable of pounding out cool combos, and the main thing I want in my fighting game character is good reach and good normals. I like to play what apparently is called the neutral game, I want to watch the tendencies of the player and start reading them rather than just go out there and play the matchup.

The fighting game I've been best at in my life is Persona 4 Arena and my main is Teddie. Before that it was Mitsuru but I felt bad since she's Sagat tier. Teddie kind of has everything as far as I'm concerned; reach, high mobility (massive jumps), an incredible set of normals and the ability to shift from strict keepaway to really furious rushdown at the drop of a hat. The other characters I've leaned towards are Litchi from BlazBlue, those huge screenlength pokes combined with good mobility are perfect for me.... Wesker and Taskmaster from MvC, Wesker simply was god tier and Taskmaster had just about every option you could ask for... and I guess my Street Fighter character is... Ryu? I dunno. I was never good at Street Fighter. The mark of a Brodehouse fighter is the ability to airdash forward and block at the same time.

Oh, Flux made this thread. When people change their avatars is like they put on new faces.

I find myself using mostly grapplers in fighting games. DISHING OUT DAT BIG SOVIET DAMAGE!

I go with Zoning or Stances, or whoever seems coolest/most fun to play for me.

So Dhalsim and Dormammu got me instantly. Ivy is one of my all time faves, and Aigis was like a dream come true. I really liked Elizabeth because she's basically Magneto, but she felt a little too flimsy for me.

Although, for some reason I only played Hugo in SFxT. Fuck I love Hugo.

I hate Shoto's and all other game's equivalents of Shoto's.

I defy your Nen theory by always maining zoners and grapplers. My favorite characters in SF are Gief and Sim, plus Dan when I want to be an asshole. I haven't played MvC in a while, but if I did I'd use a Haggar/Dorm shell.

But really I try to use a little bit of everyone if at all possible.

Usually whoever has the launcher-into-anti-air-grab. Potemkin, Tager, Kanji, Abel, Kishima Kouma, Jax, Goro and Kira come to mind. Guess I'm just a sucker for buff dudes and little girls floating in sentient bodies of water.

All time favorite would still be Hisui from Melty Blood with her chair-charge-frying-pan-cleaning-cloth-ladle into aerial delayed-tea-table-tome combos.

/Forgot about Cerebella, she was like a dream come true with that shoryu-grab.

Now that's just crazy. Would you actually say you have an aptitude for both kinds of characters and not a preference for one type over the other? They're almost the complete opposite in terms of playstyle, but I guess I shouldn't be surprised that that doesn't matter too much in the grand scheme of things when it comes to character preference.

The main fighting games I've gotten competitive at are SSFIV, P4A and Divekick (the latter of which is a significant anomaly).

SSFIV = Balrog = Turtle + Rushdown

P4A = Shadow Labrys = Puppet

Divekick = S-Kill = Turtle + Tricky

I also go for aesthetics and ladies most of the times ... but as a playing style I like to combine turtle and rushdown so yep my fav SF characters are Guile and Cammy. Also in Guilty Gear my favs are Millia Rage and Testament (as you can see there is a constant patern here). In PA4 I like Labrys and Mitsuru. In UMVC3 I play a team of Morrigan , Ghost Rider , Dr. Doom , Iplayed Morrigan/Doom way in vanilla so Im not copying Chris G >:(. In Blazblue I play Null and Hakumen. In Samurai Shodown Charlotte and Haomaru. The least I like would be grapplers ... too slow for my taste.

I go for a mix of aesthetics, personality over gameplay, really. Sometimes this hampers me, in that I'll find myself trying to learn a character of a style that I have to work more to really understand, but it's a method of selection that's served me well in the past.

High damage in the fewest number of button presses + bonus if the character is still maneuverable.

In all Street Fighter games that have him: Blanka. Although I hate what they did to him in SFIV. Favorite version of him is the Super Turbo one, followed closely by CvS2. If no Blanka, I played the Chunner mostly. Speaking of CvS2:

CvS2: Blanka, Hibiki, and somebody else. I never stuck to any particular character with regularity in the third slot.

Garou MOTW: Hokutomaru

Guilty Gear: I liked Millia a lot at the time. She doesn't have crazy high damage per hit but the combination of mobility and zoning made up for it. It wasn't necessary for me to learn a lot of combos to be effective with her.

Blazblue: Tager

KoFXIII: never developed a preference. My favorite thing to do in that game is just training mode doing combos. I don't enjoy competitive KoF although I'm not sure I could provide an explanation of the why. All of the different movement options are overwhelming for me I think. That's part of it.

I don't Mahvel.

Favorite character to play across all games: Hibiki. I ♥ Hibiki forever and ever. Not easy to learn but once you get reasonably good with her everything is so terribly satisfying when it connects.

Fast, move all over the place.

Who chooses a main? Just master everybody.

Unless Hagar is in the game. Then just master him.

For me it's all about feel. I'll go into a game with an idea of who I want my main to be, but I like to play around as most or every characters, especially initially, so I'll just naturally end up settling into someone.

For P4A, which is the only fighting games I've ever been anywhere near decent at, I went in thinking Chie, Akihiko, Yu. I ended up maining Yosuke with Teddie and Kanji in my pocket.

Actually I guess I'm all over the place, now that I think about all the games I play. Hmmm.

GG = Chipp, May

BB = Litchi, Tsubaki

P4A = Elizabeth (not well at all, I'm very bad at the game but she's my favorite to be bad with)

And when I want to get dumb at SFIV I pick Balrog. Not saying that Balrog is dumb, but that I play dumb when I pick him.

Usually my method for picking a main is random select matches with my freinds until I hit a character that fits my play-style for that game.

Zoning characters because it's HILARIOUS. I play Dhalsim and it's satisfying when somebody sends me a rage message because he couldn't get close to me.

Doesn't seem to be much injustice love here. When the game first came out, started with Cat woman due to the speed and the deadly b3. Then I moved on to Raven, Batgirl and now playing with Lex. I guess I must just like the fast characters and the ladies I guess. Decided Lex recently to just mix things up.

I already knew my style and took the quiz to see if it got me right, and it did.

Grapplers all the fucking way.

Go ahead and try to whittle be down, the moment you whiff an attack your losing a quarter life.

(Btw, Kanji is the best designed grappler in fighting games this generation. Period)

I definitely lean towards shoto characters like Ken, Yu, Jin and Ky most of the time since they usually are the same with each iteration of the game and they are all-around. Some games like UMvC3 and KoF XIII, I just choose who I like/familiar with (Kyo, King and Shen). Choosing a sub is an entirely different process for me.

I will admit something here. There are some characters that I pick to main but when I hear they are unfair and overpowered, I just drop them and pick another one so people won't give me shit...

If they look like Bruce Lee, then that's what counts for me.

One doesn't simply master everyone at Virtua Fighter :p

Yeah, I get what you're saying. I usually do the opposite though. I choose only two. Few games I master/try to master more than two.

Hagar is such a beast:

I pick my characters based on who looks the coolest to me. Usually female characters. Then I play test them and if they fit my style, I start learning them. I like characters that have the damaging attacks when you rush in, but also play a pretty decent keep away. Examples: Chun-Li in SF, Morrigan/Vergil/Hawkeye in MvC, and Harley Quinn in Injustice.

It depends on which character just clicks with me. Whether or not they're easy to control and how cool they look go a long way in how I make my fighting game decisions.

I play characters that have large melee weapons of some sort and have an easy learning curve. It's a sword most of the time.These characters usually have obnoxious normals with really big hit boxes. If there's no character like that in the game or if i don't particularly care about the game I tend to just pick a top tier.

Ragna/Hakumen in BB

Labyrs in p4a

Kliff and Baiken in GG

Cammy in SSFIV

Often I just try everyone and pick the one I think feels the best. Didn't expect to be maining Akihiko in P4:A or Tsubaki in Blazblue. Kinda expected Eileen in Virtua fighter 5 though, cause she's crazy cute and knows monkey-style kung-fu.

@viciousbearmauling said:

It's just too bad he has to be in the same game with characters like Mitsuru that shut him down so hard, because as a stand-alone character I totally agree, he's awesome and fun.

I picked Yoshimitsu on Tekken 3 because he was badass ninja guy with sword.

I recently played Tekken Tag Tournament 2, and picked Yoshimitsu for same reasons.

For the record, I am not fighting game consumer, I play them occasionally and usually with my friends who are just as bad as I am.

Yeah, I hope Ultimax either nerfs Mitsuru, or allows me to ban characters in lobbies.

Actually, from what I recall, playtest builds of the first Arena seemed to have an overpowered Kanji. They probably nerfed him quite a bit over the course of development.

I think it was more just Grappler syndrome. People were calling him top tier when the game first came out, but he gradually dropped as people realized how OP some of the other characters were and how limited his options were against them.

@hailinel: I remember that as well. You really have to be tricky with Kanji now or else you'll just get ducked and punished. Maybe he gets a farther air dash, faster normals or better range on his All-Out Attack. That would be nice.

@viciousbearmauling said:

I believe they actually kind of nerfed his air-dash (backward airdash doesn't cover as much space anymore), however they did give him that projectile tackle that breaks other projectiles.

That's easy, I choose the coolest one. I chose Ken because he's cool!!!!!!!

Pick who you like, although that sometimes backfires. I love me some I-No, but damn she is hard to play on the execution front. She should be tourney ready by Xrd.

Haha, I can't really master everybody in any game, but I do really like learning everybody well enough to do all their special moves. I really enjoy the process of seeing all the moves in fighting games. Rarely ever master even one character, unless it's just through attrition (like playing Ryu for the last 15 years of my life).

Virtua Fighter was always a real challenge for me. For some reason I kind of clicked with... uh... er... Wei? The monk guy they introduced in VF4. Also really like Wolf.

I just pick whoever is like Ryu.

I choose based on a combination of looks and fighting style.

Noel is my favorite fighting game character ever simply because she's gorgeous and wields the gun-kata style.

I use I-No in Guilty Gear cause the barrier to entry for her execution wise was enticing to me. She's also pretty hawt and smacks people in the face with a guitar.

Persona4A I went to Naoto. I don't really have any reason why. I use to be a Chie guy in the RPG, but Naoto was always really close. I tried Chie in P4a and it didn't click with me. Naoto is really the only character I like playing as in that game.

In Arcana Heart 3 I Main Elsa. She has a cool battle cleric style and has a lot of weapons including traps and a combat cross.

DOA5 I main Christie and Pai. Both are pretty quick strike characters with neat styles.

I'm not really good enough in Mahvel to justify my team choices. I mostly go for the obscure and underused. Trish, Jill, Thor, Hsien Ko, Chun li, Felicia, Nova, Vergil. x23. (I know Vergil and Nova aren't underused)

If I played SSF4 AE, I'd prolly main Viper, Makoto, Abel, or Sakura. I don't really care for how that game "feels" though. I'll give it another shot when Elena comes out. She was my favorite in Third Strike.

Looking back, it seems my choices usually involve rushdown/traps. And Short hair females. I try to play many different styles. I like the idea of grapplers, but never really committed to learning one. I plan on subbing Bullet in BB:CP, who is a grappler...kinda.

I avoid boring "shoto" characters, they just aren't interesting to me... and most the time they're male. The 100% accurate no fail quiz said I like the "Tricky" fighting style... but I think I'm really bad at quizzes.

Pick your favorite character

All around characters, sometimes grapplers because they have a different playstyle to them

Step 1: Pick the best looking character

Step 2: Mash buttons because fuck actually learning how to play the game.

Good graph and sums up my experience. Top tip: just about everyone picks Ryu or Ken (because they don't know what they are doing) so counter-pick with someone strong against shotos. I'm novice-intermediate at Street Fighter but I trash people online because they never know how to deal with Cammy dancing around their fireballs.

I employ a simple logic.

• If Batman possible > Batman
• If Batman not possible > wrong game

Join me, and your life too can be a lot easier.