how to play thanos

movement: thanos boasts insanely fast air and ground speed, although his air accel isnt great. this leads him to being extremely uncontrollable until you get used to his stats and large size. however, once you do, his excellent movement makes his absolutely broken aerials shine. wavedash is really subpar compared to his movement unfortunately so it doesnt matter much.

combo-ability: thanos is ginormous, extremely heavy, and falls like a fresh, 4 inch log of turd. basically, he gets combod absurdly easily even with good DI sometimes. since hes so heavy, he usually ends up living a long while, though, but the stature is truly awful in platform stages, where things such as utilts can hit thanos when hes standing below a platform. can lead to unique combos that work only on him.

MOVESET

hitbox visualization: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1aQl4aKIyBcKJ_v7wvogIl8uhZzRSoTr0qB-hXnxL9to/edit?usp=sharing

jab: kind of terrible. extremely laggy, and low knockback render it to not have great combo ability, typically only into itself or dtilt, and the hitbox leaves a bit to be desired even if its a bit sizeable; just not enough for how slow this is. you can use it for some cheese edgeguards, though, since theyre left in an awkward spot.

ftilt: really bad despite how large it is. the hitbox goes surprisingly far past the fist, but its super laggy and weak. it can be used as a combo finisher after fair, but youll quickly soon realize he has better finishers than this. has its spot as an antiair since it hits pretty high, otherwise, not much else to note.

dtilt: thanos' best tilt. decent range for its lag, has great combo-ability into itself, utilt and even his amazing aerial kit (more on that later). despite being his best tilt however, you probably wont use this much anyway, because his aerials are just that much better.

utilt: okay tilt to use, has an awkward hitbox and generally incapable of hitting characters shorter than him, which is like, a lot. it has decent combo ability into itself or aerials, and makes for an okay anti-air since the hitbox lasts a decent while and covers an alright angle, but not directly above.

dash attack: does not exist. youll be misinputting it when you use it; its got no knockback to ever kill and is unsafe on hit until ludicrous percents for a dash attack due to its absurd endlag. it has an absurdly long-lasting hitbox, but you literally have better moves that dont leave you open to a damned train-crash. avoid at all costs; his worst move outright.

fstrong: absurdly slow and surprisingly not strong compared to some other moves we will get into later. its gigantic and long-lasting however, so it makes a surprisingly effective punish tool or edgeguard tool. otherwise though, not going to be used much, since it leaves you pretty wide open. possibly his worst strong.

ustrong: super slow and not too powerful. it works, and covers directly above, but overall not a move youll be using, as thanos never kills off the top generally. its not necessarily super bad, just irrelevant in the context of his kit. his best strong, easily.

dstrong: huge hitbox on both sides make it a great tool to cover landings if youre unsure where the opponent will end up, otherwise surprisingly weak, and launches upwards. still slow, though.

nair: has a decently large, quick hitbox, and lasts a while. unfortunately i cant say much on this when this is literally just fair but worse, so ill just describe fair instead. redundant move overall.

fair: amazing aerial with decent startup, great hitbox and longevity. it is ludicrously good at comboing into itself, dair or bair, and is one of your main neutral tools. combined with thanos' fast air speed and amazing shorthop, its very good for pokes, approaches, what have you.

bair: thanos' second best kill move. the hitbox is again, gigantic, and also lasts a while. it does ludicrous damage AND knockback, with a brutal angle if the opponents DI incorrectly. unfortunately, though, this move has a fatal flaw, being that it hits too high, so its stupidly prone to low profiles. fortunately, youre not forced to use this in neutral, because dair just kind of exists. amazing antiair, however, generally rendering utilt kind of redundant, really.

uair: decent hitbox, good longevity, and amazing combo/juggle tool and antiair. this move's ability to combo and kill confirm should not be understated, but realistically, i can understate it, because dair is the next move on this guide, and its busted. anyway, pretty fast and good overall, important thanos aerial.

dair: thanos' best move bar none. this move lasts like thirty ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ frames and has obnoxiously good combo potential and kill power. it doesnt get low profiled ever unlike bair, and its absolutely free vs low recoveries, its not even funny. this is your main neutral tool because of how fast, huge and insanely rewarding it is. it is possible to carry the opponent from one side of the stage to the other with just dairs, and KILL with a dair finisher; its absurd.

neutral special: dogwater projectile since it deals like, 1 frame of hitstun or some ♥♥♥♥, with bad startup and endlag. its absurd how bad this makes it already, but im not even done yet. it also has an absurdly large cooldown for no ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ reason, making it easily forgettable and impossible to really use effectively. do not use this ever. its still better than dash attack because at least its a projectile, though.

side special: some weird thunder move. its hugely disjointed but does virtually nothing. its at least safe on hit unlike dash attack and has huge range but otherwise no reason to use this move ever; it sucks. it seems to also have a bit of a blindspot in front of thanos, which is depressing. dont use this.

up special: thanos' recovery move and it ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ STINKS. it goes really far, and since its a teleport, it has invulnerability, but the amount of time you are stuck in the air after it teleports you, and the fact that the hitbox does virtually no knockback or hitstun leaving you punishable on hit every time, makes this one of the worst recovery moves to ever be conceived. you can "mixup" by recovering high or low but just expect to eat a ton of punishes til the opponent messes up; this move sucks.

down special: thanos' gimmick and honestly forgettable. you need to hit the opponent or some ♥♥♥♥ to fill the stones meter above his percent GUI; once its at 6 his down b becomes a functional move. it has an enormous but slow hitbox, and doesnt even kill earlier than dair or bair. with how early thanos can kill youll almost never see this in play, and the fact of the matter is that even if you do gain access to this move, youll probably never find a situation to actually use it. it launches upward, making it one of thanos' only reliable upwards killing moves, but thats about it. i guess you can use it for a cheap edgeguard but frankly, dair and bair do that just fine.

final thoughts: overall extremely aggressive air-based character with plenty of useless moves, and plenty of insanely broken ones. combos can last a while and end in death starting from zero, making thanos extremely difficult to play against if the opponent utilizes his dair correctly and avoids his atrocious moves.

before anyone asks yes this is a meme post