Attack choices
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When dashing a long distance towards the player, CPUs often attack them with a basic dash attack, rarely using dash grabs or aerial attacks instead, making their approach easy to punish. Similarly, they tend to grab when starting to walk close to the player.
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When at a moderate distance from a foe, most CPUs often jump before shooting projectiles, even if these are fired in a straight horizontal trajectory, such as Blaster or Charge Shot, causing them to miss if the foe just stays on the ground.
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CPUs that launch an opponent upwards will just stay on the ground waiting for them to come down, spamming up tilts and up smashes as they get near, which can be easily dodged, even when going airborne and responding with aerials is a better option.
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When the player and a CPU with a chargeable projectile are on opposite sides of a stage, the CPU often charges and fires it constantly regardless of whether the player can absorb or reflect it.
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CPUs have generally poor edgeguarding abilities, simply standing on the edge of the stage and spamming weak projectiles such as Mario's Fireball instead of attacking offstage, while rarely taking advantage to do the same with characters that have stronger and more optimal projectiles for edgeguarding, such as Samus.
- Only a few AI-controlled characters, mostly those with multiple midair jumps such as Kirby, leave the stage to intercept a recovery with an attack, normally a meteor smash (down aerial in Kirby's case). Other characters with meteor smashes only use them if they were previously away from the stage, and simply stand on the edge waiting for the player if they don't have any projectiles.
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Recovery
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CPUs never avoid or fight off edgeguarders during their recovery, making them much easier to KO than human players.
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While CPUs in Melee could meteor cancel to a moderate degree, CPUs never meteor cancel in Brawl, sustaining a meteor smash's full knockback before attempting recovery. This results in meteor smashes KOing CPUs at much lower percentages than they can KO human players.
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CPU Luigi never uses Luigi Cyclone to recover, and never rises with the move in any other situation.
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A CPU Peach going over the stage with Peach Parasol will constantly cancel and reinitiate the move if a player is nearby, instead of simply falling all the way down or grabbing a ledge, leaving herself open to punishes.
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CPU Diddy Kong, Zelda, and Lucario use their up specials after their midair jumps to recover even when above ground level, without aiming for a ledge in the case of the latter two, leaving themselves open to powerful attacks as they land on the stage.
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CPU Yoshi never uses Egg Throw to recover.
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CPU Kirby at high levels recovering while above ground level always uses a forward aerial after each of his midair jumps until he gets back to the stage; while this makes him the only CPU to actually attack edgeguarders, the whole process still eventually becomes easy to predict and counter.
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CPU Meta Knight never uses Mach Tornado nor Drill Rush to recover, and often uses Dimensional Cape to recover instead of Meta Knight's other superior recovery options.
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When using their up specials during recovery while above ground level, CPU Fox and Falco will aim for nearby onstage foes instead of a safe ledge, leaving themselves easily punishable.
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CPU Ness and Lucas always hit themselves with PK Thunder in the same upward diagonal trajectory when recovering, even if using such a trajectory results in them failing to make it back to the stage while a more desirable trajectory would have allowed them to recover successfully. This is especially noticeable on Final Destination, as Ness will often not make it back to the stage when using PK Thunder to recover (when recovery is possible), while a Lucas will often launch himself underneath the stage's lips.
- CPU Lucas also never uses his grab aerial for recovery.
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CPU Ice Climbers never use Squall Hammer to recover even when their partner has been KO'd, guaranteeing a failed recovery if their midair jump doesn't make it back to the stage.
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CPU Ike doesn't use Aether unless he is directly underneath a ledge. This can cause him to get KO'd without trying to recover or waiting too late to use Aether and failing a recovery that was possible.
- CPU Snake exhibits similar behavior using Cypher, often choosing to use it too late and getting KO'd.
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After CPU Mr. Game & Watch fails to recover with Fire, he repeatedly uses Judge until the bottom blast line is crossed. While not necessarily problematic, there are instances where if a CPU Mr. Game & Watch reaches the apex of Fire and ends up short of the stage but in distance of reaching the ledge, the CPU will decide to use Judge too soon, causing him to miss the ledge and get KO'd.
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CPU R.O.B. never attacks or air dodges after using Robo Burner until he reaches the ground, grabs a ledge, or is hit by an attack.
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Shielding & Dodging
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After a CPU KOs a player, while the player has invincibility frames after respawning, the CPU always runs away and jumps onto a platform if there is one nearby, fleeing to others if the player comes near, without trying to dodge any attacks.
- On stages without platforms like Final Destination, CPUs instead constantly roll towards the nearest edge, even when jumping or sidestepping are better options to dodge foes, making them predictable and punishable.
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High-level CPUs almost always air dodge as soon as possible when launched in tumbling state, which can be easily exploited to get followups.
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Other
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When the player grabs a ledge, CPUs will stand still at a distance away from the ledge for some seconds before pursuing the ledge hanging player, doing so even after their invincibility wears off.
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When a CPU, regardless of level, is hit near the upper blast line while above an elevated platform, it will fall straight down until reaching the ground after knockback is finished, while making no attempt to dodge or counterattack a pursuing player.[1]
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When hit by an electric hitbox, a CPU may randomly DI up or down, more often DIing down, which can result in instances of an attack with an electric hitbox KOing them when the computer player would have survived otherwise.
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When grabbing edges, CPUs frequently choose to jump from them, instead of using other options like getting up with a roll or edge hopping, causing them to be easily punishable.
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CPUs never attempt to edgehog if they're on the stage; they never leave the stage to grab a ledge to prevent another character from grabbing it. They do, however, remain on a ledge if a recovering character is also trying to grab it, but only if the CPU in question was attempting to recover as well.
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When afflicted by Snake's down throw near an edge, CPUs will always roll toward the nearest edge the instant they can make a move, regardless of their level. This allows Snake to infinitely grab and use the throw on them, and get an easy KO afterward.[2]
- If the throw is done in a soft platform without grabbable edges, CPUs will instead always use a floor recovery attack, also leaving them open for another grab.
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CPUs floored by Ganondorf's Flame Choke always linger on the ground for some time before inputting a getup option, instead of acting the soonest they can, allowing players to always get followups out of Flame Choke that wouldn't be true on a human player.
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CPUs ignore when Team Attack is on, carelessly using powerful moves like smash attacks even if there are teammates with high damage near them, thus KOing them. When accidentally grabbing teammates, they will also still pummel and throw them.
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