The 7 Types of Raid Boss amiibo Training Guide

by Doc – Owner, Founder, Would Prefer 7 Crystal Stars But He’ll Stick with Raid Boss amiibo

It’s a common misconception that Raid Boss amiibo should be trained to be the “strongest”. Many self-proclaimed experts believe themselves to have the “strongest” amiibo, but don’t possess a hair of understanding beyond what they’ve been told by competitive trainers (or the knowledge that the word strongest doesn’t apply to amiibo in that regard). This leaves their fans in the dark on how to train a truly exciting Raid Boss amiibo opponent.

Let’s put that to rest. This is your guide, as a Raid Boss amiibo trainer, to creating the most interesting amiibo challengers ever. Of course, you can always watch the video instead.

This info doesn’t supersede anything found on our amiibo training guides. You should still reference these guides for an understanding of the amiibo AI, even if you don’t plan to train for amiibo competition.

The Strongest amiibo

The first and most popular type of Raid Boss, Strongest amiibo are very straightforward. They’re just big, and hard to kill.

Common Strongest amiibo characters:

• Bowser
• Incineroar
• King K. Rool
• Donkey Kong
• King Dedede

Common Strongest amiibo spirit effects:

• Super Armor
• Armor Knight
• Slow Super Armor
• Trade-Off Ability

Smashtuber’s Strongest Amiibo:

• Hard DK (Alpharad, Donkey Kong)
• Big Z (Little Z, King K. Rool)
• Pumpkin (Choctopus, Pokemon Trainer)

The Puzzle amiibo

The Puzzle amiibo is one of the most flexible applications of amiibo training. Puzzle amiibo consist of a gimmick in the amiibo’s behavior that must be overcome, and are typically used in situations where the Raid Boss trainer can ask the opponent to choose from a few characters or stages. A streamer, for example, could require that their viewers avoid using characters with reflectors when fighting his Mii Gunner Raid Boss amiibo.

In the video, I used a Chrom amiibo that simply repeated Forward Smash frequently. The “Puzzle”, in this case, is deciding how to beat an amiibo that you can’t get close to without dying. In this case, the solution to the puzzle would be to use projectiles to KO the Raid Boss.

Remember, Puzzle amiibo are supposed to be beatable.

Common Puzzle amiibo characters:

• Byleth (Side Special spam)
• Mii Gunner (Missile flooding)
• Incineroar (Alolan Whip spam)
• Little Mac (Ground-based Forward Smash hunting)
• Most Swordfighters, particularly the Marth clones

Common Puzzle amiibo spirits effects:

• NOT Super Armor, Armor Knight, Slow Super Armor, Great Autoheal, Autoheal, Instadrop
• Easy Perfect Shield
• Hyper Smash Attacks
• Toss & Meteor
• Critical Hit Up
• Impact Run
• Unflinching Charged Smashes

The Final Boss amiibo

Final Boss amiibo are pretty straightforward – at some point in the battle, surprise! The Raid Boss changes for a period of time. This is always due to a spirit effect, and there’s only a few that do this.

You should take a few things into account, though. Most of the common Final Boss spirits only last for the first stock. Thus, you should limit the stock counts of the Raid Boss battle to 1 or 2, unless you’re using Critical Healing & Metal.

Common Final Boss amiibo

• Anything can work, but it’s typically middleweights if trained properly

Common Final Boss amiibo spirit effects

• Critical Healing & Metal (only Critical spirit that occurs on every stock)
• Critical Super Giant
• Critical-Health Healing (50% healing)
• Critical Health Healing x2 (100% healing)
• Critical Health Attack, Defense, Stats, Stats x2, Immunity (each has their own benefits, but they’re not as interesting or as obvious as the others)
• NOT Super Armor, Armor Knight, Slow Super Armor, Great Autoheal, Autoheal, Instadrop

The Technique amiibo

It’s hard to explain Technique amiibo to someone outside of the competitive amiibo scene. See, the competitive amiibo trainers in USAC have devised a tool called Tournamiibox. Tournamiibox allows you to edit on spirit effects and stats and adjust levels without having to actually get the spirits yourself. It just takes the amiibo bin file, modifies it, and then you can put it back on your figure with Powersaves.

Basically, Technique amiibo are amiibo that were originally trained for amiibo competition, but have been edited to have stats or effects – but usually not both. They’re intended to be slightly unfair sparring partners, not your typical Raid Boss amiibo.

Common Technique amiibo characters:

• Anything goes, although the lower tiers are used more

Common Technique amiibo spirit effects:

• Physical Attack Up
• Weapon Attack Up
• Fist Attack Up
• Foot Attack Up
• Basically any spirit that specifically buffs a type of move relevant to the character
• NOT Super Armor, Armor Knight, Slow Super Armor, Great Autoheal, Autoheal, Instadrop

The Trick amiibo

Instadrop is one of the most unique spirit effects in any Smash game, and Trick amiibo are designed to take full advantage of that. Trick amiibo are typically amiibo that would be high tier in human play, but are low tier on the amiibo tier list. These amiibo are often blessed with a move that they can immediately use right after the Instadrop hitbox, and that Instadrop to Attack combo is the crux of a Trick amiibo.

Trick amiibo are intended to keep the opponent guessing, and never fully able to predict or counter the Raid Boss amiibo’s next move. In other words, it’s supposed to trick them.

Common Trick amiibo characters:

• Jigglypuff (Instadrop true combos into Rest)
• Luigi (Instadrop to Super Jump Punch is almost a true combo)
• Pichu (Instadrop into Up tilt combos)
• Fox (Instadrop into Up tilt combos)
• Mega Man (Instadrop into, you guessed it, Up tilt)
• Dr. Mario (Instadrop into Up Special)

Common Trick amiibo spirit effects:

• Instadrop
• Landing Lag Down
• Physical Attack Up
• NOT Super Armor, Armor Knight, Slow Super Armor, Great Autoheal, Autoheal

The Ninja amiibo

Ninja amiibo are the love-cousins of Trick amiibo. There’s a bit of character overlap between Trick amiibo and Ninja amiibo, but that’s where the similarities end. Ninja amiibo are a more fair fight, and it focuses much more on the actual skill of the human opponent instead of avoiding getting Instadropped. They’re intended to be a far more interesting fight than a simple Instadrop battle, because the quality of the training and built-in combos is on display.

Common Ninja amiibo characters:

• Joker
• Sheik
• Pichu
• Greninja (imagine that)
• Fox
• Inkling

Common Ninja amiibo spirit effects:

• Landing Lag Down
• Physical Attack Up
• Weapon Attack & Move Speed Up
• Trade-Off Ability
• Lightweight (Lightweight should only be applied if one is trying to make the fight easier on the human opponent)
• Speed Up
• Any Attack Up that boosts a preferred move of the Raid Boss character (such as Sword Attack Up, Fire Attack Up, etc.)
• NOT Super Armor, Armor Knight, Slow Super Armor, Great Autoheal, Autoheal, Instadrop

The Attrition amiibo

Directly inspired by the front lines of World War I, Attrition amiibo are an even harder opponent than Strongest amiibo. Attrition amiibo utilize corner cases of Smash Ultimate’s spirits system to bring the amiibo battle to a grinding halt. I’ve never actually beaten a well-trained Attrition amiibo. The closest I’ve ever come was timing a few of them out.

When the Attrition amiibo is properly planned out and trained, it is a nearly-unbeatable Raid Boss amiibo.

Common Attrition amiibo characters:

• Incineroar
• Mii Brawler
• Mii Gunner
• Simon and Richter Belmont
• Sonic
• Little Mac
• Ness

Common Attrition spirit effects:

• Great Autoheal
• Autoheal
• NOT Super Armor, Armor Knight, Slow Super Armor, Instadrop, or anything else

Attrition amiibo should be very defensive in spirit loadouts, with over 3000 Defense while maintaining about 1000 Attack points. Ideally, the human opponent will only be able to do a little bit of damage, that the Autoheals will immediately wipe out. Attrition amiibo should only be used when you want to lose friends.

Please note that this is not an exhaustive list. I have observed other types of Raid Boss amiibo in use, but these 7 are the most common and/or obviously defined.