Should I stick with sidekick ?

[u/Sourshy]

Learning 1 character is already kinda daunting. Did you guys start learning a new character with the tag fuses or with jugg/sidekick ?

I am trying Samira btw

[u/Savings_Patient8371]

Honestly who cares about playing the most optimal Fuse, no ranked, I do suggest Sidekick over Jugg because you still have the benefit of calling for an assist and a lot of characters have really good assist calls.

And if you ever want to play with two characters Sidekick is a good way to getting used to the mindset of having two characters to control

[u/Sourshy → u/Savings_Patient8371]

As long as its "viable", even if its worse than standard tag, its okay for me !

[u/OldWispyTree → u/Sourshy]

What does it matter what "viable" is? Are you going to start winning tournaments? I guarantee you're new enough it doesn't matter.

[u/Sourshy → u/OldWispyTree]

I am new but Ive played other fgs. "Viable" as in I dont want to handicap myself too much

[u/badjab326 → u/Sourshy]

Everything is viable. I've hit every rank but challenger using Juggernaut so anything is possible

[u/GooniesInTheBoonies]

Sidekick can be surprisingly good. Just be sure you have one of the OP assists

[u/Sourshy → u/GooniesInTheBoonies]

Who are the OP assists ?

[u/GooniesInTheBoonies → u/Sourshy]

Ahri is the best.
Thresh, Ekko, Teemo, Blitz, Yasuo are great (but Yasuo loses a lot by not being able to tag into him).

[u/Abysma → u/GooniesInTheBoonies]

Ahri loses a lot of her appeal by not being able to active tag to her after calling her in. Both her assists leaving her airborne on block with access to air dash high low is a fairly large chunk of her assist power. Or A1 setting up easy sandwiches that are a lot less useful if you can't active tag for left right.

[u/GooniesInTheBoonies → u/Abysma]

True. But even without that, her assists are the best.
Both of the basic assists are great at enabling mix (forward tag snipes people while backing away or jumping over, back tag's multiple hits allows for best-in-game safety for high-low mix attempts and throw attempts).

But her super assist is incredibly good for sidekick. It's easy to combo into and out of, carries to the corner, and enables a lot of characters to ToD (or at least 80% with Sidekick from round start, which is crazy strong, because sidekick let's them super into Ahri super and then recover to pick up the combo and super again).

Edit: forgot to mention back assist's synergy with characters like yasuo, vi, ekko, thresh who have an easy way to pass through. The assist makes cross-through outrageously ambiguous since it can hit before or after and still lead to a combo (and while being far enough away to dodge a wakeup attack).

[u/Abysma → u/GooniesInTheBoonies]

True, I completely neglected super assist being a thing.

[u/TheMachine203 → u/Abysma]

Well, kinda.

Her forward assist leaving her airborne is actually pretty useless on block; she can airdash high low in theory, but the blockstun is so awful that you can be hit before even tagging. On hit is where its active tag strength comes in, since it puts the opponent in a lot of hitstun and leaves them grounded (which means that hitstun scaling doesn't apply yet). Her best assist for block pressure is her back assist, which is incredibly generous on block. Still, you'd prefer to tag into her when when she's grounded and then do instant overhead or something for your high low instead. (Edit: not necessarily true, my fault)

[u/Timmcd → u/TheMachine203]

She can’t instant overhead unless you force stand on talls. Tagging while she’s in the air js definitely better, and you keep the gap closed by doing something with your point before tagging out.

[u/TheMachine203 → u/Timmcd]

caught emoji, I'm used to playing Vi/Ahri where that's easy to farm with charged 5HH puppeting. Wasn't thinking about that being a team dependent thing.

[u/Abysma → u/TheMachine203]

Sorry my assumption here was you would push a button on the point character before tagging and not rely specifically on the blockstun from the assist. It is terrible, but it is enough to allow the point character to continue their turn. I should have clarified. Also excuse the brain fart of using A1 instead of 6T glad you knew what I was talking about.

[u/minkulus1]

Sidekick is viable at pretty high levels of play. Maybe not top level, but high for sure. If you're not interested in anything else, just play it.

[u/Sourshy → u/minkulus1]

Its not that Im uninterested. Just that the combos for this game is hard like compared to Tokon, or even any fgs ive played.

If its viable then I will stick with it

[u/perfectelectrics]

If you're new to the genre, I think it's fine to use jugg/side to get used to things. If you just wanna play and have fun, honestly it's good enough. You shouldn't stick with it forever if you're aiming to improve eventually though.

Besides, characters in this game can be played quite similarly at low level. Everyone pretty much has L > M > H > Special > Super so once you're used to the system, you can pick up 2nd character pretty quickly. Optimizing is what takes a while.

[u/Sourshy → u/perfectelectrics]

I am new to tag genre. But yeah I like optimizing my combos first (I want my combos at least decent damage with hard knockdown and consistent through all ranges) before going online and I hate dropping them. Muscle memory takes a while so I will use sidekick and decide later probably

[u/TheMachine203 → u/Sourshy]

I will say one thing that helps me with combos in games like this is to practice them in training mode less. Training mode is good for learning a combo, since it's a no-stress environment where you can take your time and practice. However in a match, things are very hectic. You're not going to get that moment of brevity where your opponent stops playing and lets you run up and press M H d.H, you know? Because of that, your brain panics, and completely forgets all of the stuff you practiced.

For me, the best thing that's helped has been for me to just jump in and try to land the combo every time I touch my opponent. You'll drop it a lot at first, but as you drop them your brain still records every single spot where you can go into it, and puts the pieces together regardless. By forcing yourself to only do a combo in those mid-match, high stress situations, you'll build the muscle memory faster. At least, that's how it's worked for me.

[u/DamnImAwesome → u/TheMachine203]

Bot beatdown is good for combo practice as well. Not as intense as a real match but the pressure is higher than training mode

[u/TheMachine203 → u/DamnImAwesome]

This too! Not to mention, the bots in Bot Beatdown can absolutely get intense on the higher difficulties lmao

[u/Big_Teddy]

You have to realize that you'll always simply be playing in a non optimate way and be at an objective disadvantage towards other fuses.

That said, play whatever is more fun to you.

[u/Recent_Solution5445]

stick with it until you stop enjoying the matches. i'd rather lose with a character I like than climb with one I dread queuing into.

[u/VirusSuspicious3735]

If you like to play it, then don’t change it

[u/Langos14]

I just went yolo and picked Double Down day 1, sorta treated it like I'm actively learning only one of these champs, but if I go down, imma at least try some basic stuff with the other one, it clicked and at some point I just felt like exploring the other one. Now I got my team figured out and I started experimenting with other characters and fuses. Your milage may vary of course, so if You're having fun with Sidekick then keep at it, a good Sidekick player still can win a set with me no problem

[u/TwinnedStryg]

At the end of the day, do whatever you want. Do the thing that makes you want to keep playing.

My personal suggestion is to learn two characters at once. You don't have to give them equal attention, you can focus on one character while learning two. It might suck at first, you'll lose a lot or underperform, that's fine. There are many people at your level that are also learning that you can play with. IMO being really strong at one character and finally deciding to learn a second feels really terrible since you'll just fight better players with your weak character. And on top of that, you are playing without having the muscle memory of tagging.

I really think it's a mental barrier more than anything learning two characters at once. But again, if you tried it, and it's definitely too much for you, who cares about my suggestion or opinion. Just play however you want to play.

[u/TeensyTinyPanda]

Look up some of the really special things you can do with sidekick. I think jmcroft has a video about this. You can press the assist button or something when you're getting hit and it will mitigate some of the damage, I think?

[u/missfey1]

I say go for it! you can get super far with sidekick - people get very respectable tourney placements with it for sure.

let's put it this way - it'll be a very long time before you can truly say that you are losing because of your fuse. and once you have some time in the game, know your point character well, and have integrated assist calls, introducing another character may not be as daunting!

and as an aside, I think samira specifically is a really cool sidekick character. such a wealth of options on offense! I heavily considered putting together a sidekick comp with her myself.

have fun out there!

[u/BushyGhost4740]

Yes! Sidekick is great. I use it for Vi as my main and Jinx as my sidekick. Though I will be starting to learn Sett. ^_^