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by Cookiezac, Guest Contributor
Hi! I’m Cookiezac and I’ll be teaching you how to train the Joker amiibo. I’ve gotten 2 wins with my Joker “WearUrMask” and I have gotten many top 3 placements with the character.
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Amiibo Tier List Placement
Joker is C+ on the tier list (at the time of writing this) for several reasons. Before the Joker amiibo was released people thought he’d be broken but that doesn’t seem to be the case. Joker is low-mid tier because he is light (He has a weight value of 93, barely making it into midweights), he has a very exploitable recovery and can’t consistently kill since he needs Arsene to kill at percents lower than 100. You can learn more about Joker’s tier list placing here.
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AI Issues
Joker will SD with downwards gun offstage, if you teach him to use downwards gun offstage it’ll cost a few stocks per set. Joker can sometimes use Down Special at bad times if you use it too much during training, so only use this once or twice when training. Also Joker can’t use Up Special properly as an attack, try to avoid it.
Overall Playstyle
Joker should stay grounded, only jumping for combos or for Up Air juggles. Joker will rack up damage with Arsene and his amazing combo game and when the opponent is at high percent, Joker should rely on smash attacks/edgeguards to secure stocks. We’ll go more in-depth into this soon.
How to Train the Joker amiibo
First, If you want to put on spirits, you should put spirits on before any training as spirits mess up amiibo values. The best spirits in the game are Armour Knight, Super Armour, Slow Super Armour, Autoheal and Great Autoheal but these are banned from most spirit tournaments. Recommend Legal Spirits Are Weapon Attack up, Trade off Ability, Air Attack up and Move Speed up.
Then you want to set up a match (for settings, personally I do FD, 3 minute time match, but do whatever suits you). Now this is what to teach your Joker amiibo:
Smash Attacks: Jokers Smash attacks are essential since they’re his only reliable kill moves. Down Smash is good, it covers rolls, it’s fast and it kills pretty early. Down Smash is also what Joker will mainly do out of dragdowns. Up Smash is his best Smash Attack, it has a big hitbox and it is his most reliable kill move, it kills early (Especially with Arsene) and even if it doesn’t kill, Joker can secure the stock with his Up Air. Use it as an anti-air and a general kill move. Forward Smash is bad, it’s slow, has high end lag and is worse than up and down smash in every way.
Aerials: Joker should stay grounded but when he does jump, it will be to combo or juggle. Jokers Up Air will be used the most, it’s used for kills, juggles, anti-air and combos. Joker can do so many combos finishing with Up Air, some of them being:
Down Tilt into Up Air
Up Tilt into Up Air
Down Throw into Up Air
Up Throw into Up Air
Out of dragdown Up Air Joker can do:
Grab
Down Smash
Up Tilt
Back Air is a good kill move, but Joker has better kill options. Forward Air is good for combos, Jokers Forward Air has a built in combo/kill confirm, being Forward Air hit 1 into Up Air Dragdown into Down Smash. Neutral Air is an ok move but all his other Aerials are better, don’t use it much. Down Air should only be used onstage when landing, but Forward Air can also be used as a landing option.
Tilts: Jokers Tilts are his best moves, being combo tools or kill moves or even high damage dealers. Jokers Forward Tilt is a great move, killing and dealing great damage, especially with Arsene. Use this move to get the opponent offstage and as a get-off-me tool. It can kill but only at around 120% with Arsene, he has way better kill moves. Down and Up Tilt are Jokers second best combo starters, Down tilt leads into Up Tilt, Up Smash and Up Air while Up Tilt sets up for easy Up Air dragdowns.
Throws: Jokers throws are amazing, one of the most important parts of his kit. You should be using Down Throw and Up Throw to start combos, here are some combos that Joker will do out of Down and Up Throw:
Up Throw into Up Air
Up throw into Up Air drag down into Down Smash
Down Throw into Forward Air
Down Throw into Up Air
Down Throw into Back Air
These Combos are Hardcoded so Joker will already know how to use them. You can also teach Joker to do Down Throw into Forward Smash.
Forward Throw and Back Throw are also good, launching at a perfect angle for…
Edgeguards: Joker has great edgeguarding and has a lot of different moves for it, the main 3 being Down Air, Back Air and Forward Air. Neutral Air can work but the other 3 outclass it. All 3 are good, it comes up to personal preference, I used Down Air but I’ve seen other trainers have success with Back Air and Forward Air.
Special Moves: Joker doesn’t get much use from his Special Moves but they can be useful sometimes. Side Special is the best one, dealing damage and inflicting a curse status, dealing damage over time. This is good for racking up damage, and Joker can use this to protect his recovery. Down Special is ok, Joker is Hardcoded to use it against projectiles and it helps boost Jokers Rebellion Gauge but only use it once or twice during training or else he won’t use it properly. As I said earlier, Joker can’t use Up Special properly as an attack, don’t use it. Neutral Special is pretty useless, it does low damage, no knockback and barely any hitstun and downwards gun makes Joker SD. Sadly Gun is built in so you can’t make him never do it but you can try to make him use it not much.
Extra Attacks: Jab is bad, it’s too small and Forward Tilt does a better job at reaching opponents and racking up damage faster than Jab. Dash Attack is great, it works as a great approach option, it’s fast, deals good damage, it’s a multihit and sends at a good angle for edgeguards, use this a lot.
Why it Works:
Joker will be able to rack up fast damage using combos and punishing bad options with his powerful Smash attacks and Arsene makes that even better. Joker can easily get edgeguards to fish for early kills that other characters couldn’t get.
Joker is a super fun character with a lot of potential, so give him a shot! Thanks for reading and have an amazing day (Happy new year btw)!
Amiibo Doctor 