Hey guys I'm not particularly a fan of marth, but
a friend of mines plays him and would like to
know:
1) Useful attacks in sticky situations
2) Proper fair/dair usage
3) And his grab game
Thanks in advance
First off, proper dair usage is not to use it. There are some situational uses (grab release on MK, spiking Snake's recovery), but in general, there's nearly always a better option. On the other hand, F-air is just amazing, and probably Marth's best move. Spaced F-airs are pretty safe, and will beat out most moves period. It has low end lag, low landing lag, decent damage, low startup, and can be done twice in a single short hop. That said, since we're not playing MK, it can be punished, and you have to be careful where you throw it out... but it's still a really good move.
Regarding useful attacks in bad situations, that ties into Marth's weaknesses. In general, he just has a really bad time trying to get back onstage once he's on the ledge or in the air. The main thing is not to be predictable, mix in airdodges, F-air's, perhaps the occasional N-air. Try to use your ledge getup options evenly, unless the opponent goes for the same ledge trap every time. Also, using your double jump to reset the situation can help you get out of a particularly deadly trap (like if Ike is charging up smash below you), and you can stall slightly with the first part of side-B in midair to mess with your opponent's timing.
Finally, Marth's grab game comes down to 4 important points.
1. At really low %'s, F-throw/D-throw chaingrabs on some characters to tipper-something.
2. Once those no longer apply, either U-throw into juggle, or an F-throw/D-throw into a mixup (F-air usually works if they don't airdodge, if you think they will then you can wait it out and then punish.)
3. At about 200% or so, U-throw will kill. Not exactly how you want to kill, but if nothing else works...
4. There is never a reason to use back throw, down throw is better in every way.
A lot of this is false or inaccurate, lol. Let me help you out a bit.
Dair is good for hitting enemies below you, but should be used very sparingly, due to it's high risk/low reward in the instance it doesn't spike. At higher levels of play, it's good to use to hit an enemy that is anticipating an air dodge and is waiting to punish it. If your friend is still asking questions like this, he's probably still in a level of play where airdodge will win every time and his opponents will not adapt, so he should never use Dair except to practice spiking, or out of shield, to punish enemies that use ambiguous cross-ups, since Bair has such a high hitbox. He also shouldn't go for every spike, but you learn through finding out what works, so there will be a learning period where he will understand when he can or cannot land a Dair to spike, and he will whiff many Dairs while learning, but it's okay.
Fair is your primary zoning tool. I'm not going to write an essay on Fair. Just use Fair a lot, and you'll learn when it's good and when it's not. Metaknight's Fair is a lot less safe than Marth's, lol.
Some tricks I use in bad situations:
When on a ledge - Push back to slowfall from the ledge, and immediately push forward on the C stick which will Fair. This will cast a Fair which will hit anyone standing near the ledge, and unless the Fair is miraculously powershielded, it will be virtually impossible for them to grab the ledge before you can get back to it, due to block stun and shield pushback. Rinse and repeat this several times, so that you have a safe option flow and remain active, making your mix-ups for getting back onto the stage smoother and helping you negotiate your way back onto the stage.
When your opponent successfully crosses you up - Unshield, turn around, and reshield. This will prevent them from applying heavy amounts of pressure on the back of your shield that you cannot react to with a grab or OOS (out of shield) option. It can also disrupt the pressure string they wanted to use on you because their attack might not be safe against a potential shield grab, or Fair OOS/shield drop dancing blade.
When your opponent is using a multihit move on your shield - When spacing permits it, if the opponent is above 20%, upB. This can break even mach tornado on your shield, unless the tornado is on your head and not your body, since the hitbox starts low and in front of you. Marth's UpB has invincibility at the beginning, so it will beat any attack. Don't panic UpB in every situation, but use it a lot to learn when you CAN use it. Also, note that there are 2 types of UpBs: vertical and horizontal. If you press UpB, Marth will do a vertical UpB, which is your standard upB. If you angle your joystick slightly to the side (while still primarily aimed up) Marth will launch forward (or backwards if it's a reverse/turnaround UpB) which can give you more of a horizontal distance. When punishing an attack OOS or parrying an attack through reading and UpBing, this can make a huge difference between whiffing, hitting the sour spot, or hitting the sweet spot of your UpB.
When getting hit: Always DI weaker, combo hits, and juggle hits UP (or sometimes down) AND AWAY from the opponent unless you are at a higher percent. A very easy way for a good player to identify a newer/mediocre player, is by seeing if they use "recovery DI" in every situation, when they should be using "combo DI". Everyone is taught that "recovery DI" is up and towards the stage, but if you use this DI against weaker attacks, or at low percent, you actually make it very easy for your opponent to land follow-ups, and in some instances, you create COMBO OPPORTUNITIES that you could've otherwised escaped. A very common example of this is Metaknight's Uair string which dominated the metagame in late 2008/early 2009, but in actuality is quite a fraudulant combo, because you can simply avoid getting hit by Uair 4-6 times in a row, by DIing away from Metaknight. If your opponent DIs Marth's tipper Fair Up and Towards him (recovery DI), if they are at mid percents, it will actually let you COMBO into another Fair or an Fsmash at some percents, when technically they could DI away, and you will have follow-ups, but no true combos. Utilizing correct combo DI is VITAL to defense at high level play. I could go deeper into this, but for now, just know that you should DI away from an attack if it tends to lead into other attacks.
It's ALMOST ALWAYS BETTER to DI off the stage and then recover to the ledge, then to try to bully your way back onto the stage when you're in a disadvantageous position. Attempting to do so is one of the most common ways that people find themselves getting juggled. You cannot be juggled if you are offstage, because your opponent does not have ground beneath them to continuously launch attacks upwards and juggle you. Marth has one of the best recoveries in the game, due to powerful aerials to let him get back to the stage safely, and a fast, transcendent priority, invincible UpB. If you have good DI and proper recovery know-how, you can't get gimped by most characters INCLUDING Metaknight unless you are outplayed.
Also, realize that wake-up options are different when you're above and below 100% damage. Marth's wake-up ledge-jump Fair is invincible on start-up when below 100%, and is a VERY powerful option against most ledge traps, since you retain your second jump after using a ledge-jump (done by pressing jump while on the ledge, and not to be confused by a ledge hop, which is done by pressing back or down to release the edge, and then using your double jump to get onto the stage)
Don't use your wake-up options evenly. Make reads and use good spacing. 90% of players can't do a proper ledge trap for **** (although I'm slightly biased because I actually was very well known for my ledge traps in my prime) and you're going to primarily use ledge hop Fairs or Nairs to recover with good spacing. The occasional read with counter or UpB is very powerful, and as I mentioned before, invincible ledge-jump Fairs are also powerful. Rolling onto the stage is not a strong option against good players, although a standard wake-up below 100% can be very effective against all but the best of players.
At high levels of play, Wake-Up attack from the ledge is best used WHEN YOUR OPPONENT IS NOT IN RANGE OF IT, because this is when they will least expect it, and potentially move into range to get hit by it. This is often done by DIing a horizontal move downwards (ONLY IF IT'S NOT GOING TO KILL YOU), and then quickly grabbing the ledge and then IMMEDIATELY ledge attacking, to use an invincible move to beat the chase, before your opponent has time to anticipate that you might be using a ledge attack.
Marth's Grab Game:
This sounds simple, but it actually takes a lot of people a long time to grasp this concept: Grab when you think the opponent will block. Advanced players use a standing grab or a retreating pivot grab to grab a dash in approach, as this will beat many dash attacks or run-up -> block options.
Retreating pivot grabs are generally also used to punish an opponent falling into you, as it is somewhat tricky to hit an opponent during their landing lag when they airdodge into the ground, and you would not want to ruin your advantage by missing the timing and casting a move that isn't safe on block. It's also quite good for punishing a read of a cross-up roll, which is a very popular tactic for many characters at low level, and for MK and several others at high level.
In most instances, you will throw your opponent to the nearest edge with either Forward throw or Dthrow, to generate more stage control. However, against some higher level opponents, in faster paced matches, you might mix-up the way you throw your opponent to generate the wrong DI from them, enabling you to get better follow up hits. However, since this is a mid-risk, mid-reward tactic, and there is a 0 risk, low reward tactic available, stick to just throwing your opponent to the nearest edge every time, until you understand DI and traps better as a player. Uthrow in general actually just gives the opponent more options, but is not bad at all, because of the psychological implications that it holds. If you think you are making more successful reads on juggles than on edge traps, or if you can see that your opponent has a weakness of falling into you over and over again instead of DIing and falling away, Uthrow is a great option.
Don't forget to pummel. In 2008 when I used to practice with my crew, we used to all shout "pummel" every time someone landed a grab, so that it would be ingrained into all of us as a habit to pummel. Considering how many grabs Marth can land during a match, that damage can wrack up pretty nicely. Assuming you land 4-6 grabs in a stock, and average 2 pummels a grab. Each pummel does 2-3 damage AND refreshes your other moves. This will actually mean that a person who pummels overall does on average around 50% worth of damage (that's 50 points of damage, not 1/2 extra) over the course of a match. Just to put that in perspective, imagine you're fighting a Metaknight, but he starts off each stock at 20%, which is the ACTUAL amount of damage you're going to be dealing when you add up each pummel and the extra damage you get from reducing your stale moves.
Marth also has several combos out of an Fthrow. It's important to note that all of Marth's throws are weight dependent throws. What this means is that the cooldowns of Marth throws are INCREASED if THE OPPONENT IS HEAVIER. This means you have more time to follow up a Forward Throw on Metaknight than you do on Diddy Kong, and more time to follow up a throw on Diddy Kong than you do on Snake. This affects the combos you can do from a throw at 0. I believe every character in the game can get hit by Fthrow - Fsmash from a grab at 0, but some characters require a stutter step to account for the distance they travel during those extra lag frames you have from a heavy weight. Lighter characters can be followed up by other moves. My signature grab combo on Metaknight at 0% is Fthrow - SH Nair FF - Jab - Regrab - Fthrow - Wait for Airdodge and Fair or Smash (forward or up, depending on DI). This string is very consistent on all levels of play, unless your opponent is well versed in SDIing the Nair out of forward throw.
Hopefully you learned something!
