The Beginner’s Guide to Training the Sonic Amiibo in Smash Ultimate

by: starchess

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I am starchess, and I’m known as the Sonic guy in the amiibo community. I’ve spent months labbing out the Sonic amiibo. At the time of writing this, I have 2 of the top 10 vanilla Sonics and 4 of the top 10 spirits Big 5 Ban Sonics on Amiibots. I am a Sonic informer in USAC, and I also have good tournament results in both vanilla and spirits tournaments with Sonic.

AI Issues

The biggest AI issue for the Sonic amiibo is that he doesn’t realize how long his Air dodge is. When performing an aerial when returning to ledge, it will cause him to SD, because he doesn’t realize that he can Air dodge to ledge and survive.

Another issue is that, after using Up Special outside of a recovery situation, he will tend to drift in a random direction, which can lead to some bad situations or even an occasional SD. If you teach the Sonic amiibo to use Jab 1, and not use Jab 2 and Jab 3, Sonic will always have a chance of trying the following string:

Jab 1 > Side Special.

Another issue that doesn’t seem to be preventable but is worth it to not try to avoid, is the fact that the Sonic amiibo is likely to use Up Special, Neutral Special, or uncharged Down Special out of Parry or Spot dodge.

Overall Playstyle

When training Sonic, you should walk most of the time, and be fairly grounded.

For defensive options, Sonic should be using mainly Parries and Grabs, but there is no problem with Shielding attacks. Sonic should be offensive in the air, but defensive on the ground.

Sonic should mainly edge guard offstage with Forward Air and Back Air. I believe optimal Sonic goes offstage to edge guard around 75% of the time and stays at ledge the rest of the time. Even though he gets a lot of his kills offstage, however, a Sonic amiibo that never goes offstage can work.

How to Train the Sonic Amiibo

Spirit Loadout for Sonic Amiibo

The best spirit loadouts that I’ve found for Sonic, given the Big 7 (Big 5 + Instadrop and Critical Health Healing and Metal) spirits are banned are

2000/2200 (or 2100/2100), Critical Health Immunity, Physical attacks Up

2100/2100, Physical attacks Up, Physical Attacks Up, Air Defense Up.

Three Playstyles

There are three styles of Sonic amiibo that I’ve found success with:

1. Traditional Sonic – Pretty much exactly what you’ll find in a generic Sonic guide, with one small change.

2. Onstage Sonic – This is Traditional Sonic, but the amiibo stays onstage and does Down Tilt/Down Smash at ledge instead. Not recommended, but it can work.

3. Side Special Sonic – This is Traditional Sonic, but the amiibo does Side Special at a distance.

I’ll start off with talking about Traditional Sonic and then move onto Side Special Sonic.

Moves to Use

AIRDODGE TO THE LEDGE – This is the only way to even attempt to prevent his worst AI flaw. Do it whenever you are offstage and can do it, even when you are almost directly above the ledge.

Traditional Sonic

Forward Tilt – Right off the bat, I’ll talk about the change from what’s in a generic guide for Sonic. Forward Tilt is a big, fast, multi-hit move. This is good because it beats Parries, sometimes beats Shields, and it’s much faster than Forward Smash.

Forward Smash – This is Sonic’s big, high-priority kill move. It is a single hit move that takes 3 times as long as Forward Tilt does to come out, but it’s still a very important move for Sonic.

I recommend a Forward Tilt to Forward Smash ratio of around 60:40.

Grab – This is a great move to use for the Sonic amiibo, because this is an option that can never get parried or shielded, and it leads into combos and kills. When you get a Grab, go for Up Throw into Up Air juggling. This is the third most important move to use up close.

Up Smash – This is Sonic’s primary anti-air option. It is a move that I’ve seen kill a Yoshi off the top Battlefield platform at 50%, when both were spirited. Sonic is completely invulnerable during the first 2 hitboxes of Up Smash, and his hurtbox is shifted so that a lot of non-anti-air moves will just whiff, letting Sonic land for free. It’s also a multihit that hits 8 times, and hits opponents on platforms above Sonic.

Neutral Air – This is Sonic’s best landing option, because the Sonic AI has a huge combo tree from Neutral Air. The best part is, all you have to do to unlock the combo tree is use Neutral Air when landing.

Forward Air – This is Sonic’s best kill move, when used offstage. This move can kill opponents very early offstage and is a long-lasting multi-hit move. The fact that it’s a multi-hit means it’s also a decent move to land with, but it isn’t the best one. The Sonic amiibo can do a string of landing Forward Aerial into Forward Smash.

Up Air – This is the other anti-air option to use when training Sonic. Up Air juggling is one of Sonic’s best ways of building damage, because it has a huge multi-hit that lasts long enough to be able to sometimes catch opponents doing a Neutral Air dodge to avoid the first hit. Up Air is also a decent landing option, and Sonic can do landing Up Air to Up Smash, which can be a kill confirm.

Back Air – This is a good kill move. While edge guarding, if the Sonic amiibo is still alive after getting hit by a Forward Air, it’s a good idea to go to ledge and do a ledge drop Back Air. It can finish the stock off and, while it won’t kill at 60%, it will kill at 120%, and maybe even 100%, depending on the character.

Dash Attack – This is another important kill move for every Sonic amiibo, but it isn’t a good move to use a lot.

Side Special Sonic

Side Special – While not necessary for a good Sonic, it’s necessary to use Side Special a lot early on if you want Sonic to use it much, if at all. Side Special is a good move, because it has a single moving hitbox when grounded that transitions to a different hitbox when jumping or pressing B. The Sonic amiibo can combo Side Special into almost any of his aerial attacks and can also be cancelled if you use Down Air.

Down Air – This move is only really useful when training Side Special Sonic, because, as I mentioned before, Sonic is able to cancel Side Special (and Down Special) with Down Air. It’s also a decent landing option but is outclassed by all of his other aerials.

Down Special – Down Special does exactly what Side Special does, except that it doesn’t do it as well. Down Special is a multi-hit move that just doesn’t work at higher percents, and Sonic doesn’t consistently kill at lower percents.

Onstage Sonic

Down Tilt – This move is pretty much just a smaller, weaker, single-hit Forward Tilt, and it can combo into Forward Air. Down Tilt is an effective move for 2-framing because it can loop into itself, but other than that, it’s pretty much useless.

Down Smash – This move is one of the more useful optional moves, because it sends at a nasty angle that makes it hard for some characters like Roy (possibly Sonic’s worst matchup) to recover. It’s also Sonic’s fastest smash attack.

Lower Priority Moves

These are moves that are okay and should only be used up to 3 or 4 times during training.

Up Tilt – This move is a decent multi-hitting anti-air, but is completely outclassed by Up Smash, with one exception: Up Tilt can combo into Forward Air. If you misinput and get Up Tilt instead of Up Smash, you don’t need to reset, but I wouldn’t recommend intentionally using Up Tilt.

Neutral Special – This move is one that Sonic WILL use out of Down Throw, sometimes. It is a move that can be used, but it loses to any defensive option, other than Parry (I personally HATE this move).

Up Special – ONLY ever use this move to recover. I have one Sonic amiibo that I trained to be the worst spirited amiibo, and it was trained by spamming this move. It is currently the lowest-rated spirits amiibo on Big 5 Ban Amiibots.

Sonic’s Place in the Meta

Sonic is a character that I believe is a low mid-tier. He has a decent move set, and is an anti-meta character, like Meta Knight.

His biggest flaw that prevents him from being a very good amiibo is not Air dodging to ledge SD. In my opinion, having the not Air dodging to ledge SD is enough to bring Sonic down a full tier. He has potential to be a solid mid-tier, but the inconsistencies are what fuel the belief that he is a low tier. Sonic has even matchups with some high/top tiers like Ness, Lucas, Zelda, and Ganondorf, and can even beat characters like Captain Falcon. But he struggles against characters that have good anti-edge guarding tools like DK’s Forward Air and Inkling’s Up Special, or characters that can consistently kill him for having to get in close to land his attacks, like Roy. He also struggles against the same thing he excels in: amiibo that will edge guard him.

Sonic is a good surprise pick in a counter pick tournament, not only because of his weird matchup spread, but also because his matchup spread varies based on his training.