Quickly flick the Circle Pad to have your character make a dash in the direction pressed. Dashing is faster than walking, but there are two major issues to be aware of while dashing: You lose the precision that walking has, and you have limited stamina to dash with. Running out of stamina in single-player is bad enough, as you’re vulnerable to the enemy while Pit catches his breath. In multiplayer, running out of stamina is almost certainly fatal against a human opponent.
One of the primary uses of dashing is to get from point A to point B as quickly as possible, but it’s not the safest way to travel. As both dashing and dodging consume stamina, we suggest that once battle begins, you try to save your stamina for dodging the enemy.
The other major function of dashing is that it acts as a modifier to your ranged attacks during Land Battle. Every weapon has a unique set of ranged attacks with many different properties, and the direction you dash in before firing off a ranged attack can actually determine what attacks come out. Dashing toward an opponent, dashing away from an opponent (toward the camera), or dashing to the side all change what ranged attack is used, and this also works in conjunction with your weapon’s charged state.