Bowser general discussion thread.

[Chaos_Blasta]

Here is where we talk about everyone's favorite mutant, fire-breathing lizard turtle.

I'll start by asking something; What use do you guys find for Dair? I have to say, i very rarely use it when i play Bowser, and half of the time it's a mistake on my inputs, and on the other half it gets punished horrendously badly.

 

[Gimpyfish62]

rising dair through platforms onto not full shields - make sure you land the final hit on their shield too

shield damage is the major use to me, otherwise it's uses are normally something that gets outdone by another move in the same situations

 

[cmart]

I like dairing into platforms to hit someone beneath. Sometimes that leads into lol setups for better things. Also edgeguarding, dragging people back down to the stage, crossing up shields. And of course Gimpy's suggestion too.

 

[cannedbread]

ledgejump dair? never tried it but in theory it could work. especially on a platform.

 

[G13_Flux]

did u guys notice that they took away the initial hit on his grounded down b? like when hes on the rise. whats up with that? i thought it was pretty useful without being over powered.

 

[Ace55]

Doesn't dair hit lower than any other option besides bowser bomb? I like using it to knock DK away when he goes for that ridiculously large sweetspot.

 

[a nub]

edgecancel dair on high platforms into uair is sex

uair is quicker than in melee so it probably works on some lower platforms too

 

[ItsRainingGravy]

did u guys notice that they took away the initial hit on his grounded down b? like when hes on the rise. whats up with that? i thought it was pretty useful without being over powered.

Because he can cancel his grounded down B by jumping now. Thus, it would allow him to get a free aerial off of the move if it still had the initial hitbox. Not to mention, unlike Brawl where you can take a lot of punishment and live, 25% damage hurts a lot more in P:M.

I do miss it a little bit, but it had to be taken out. Its utility has been vastly improved since you can JC it now, anyways.

 

[Chaos_Blasta]

rising dair through platforms onto not full shields - make sure you land the final hit on their shield too

shield damage is the major use to me, otherwise it's uses are normally something that gets outdone by another move in the same situations

This is nice, i have been able to put it to good use recently

 

[Chaos_Blasta]

Snazzy edgeguard method at low percents: stay near the edge, try to DD/WD to bait a hit then grab and bthrow off the stage, then drop down and Fair them. This puts them in a very unfavorable position and makes it easy for you to edgeguard.

Of course, character dependant, but someone else should test this and tell me how it goes.

 

[GKInfinity]

Bowser is the best character in P:M -- no joke. He has MAYBE 5 bad matchups and destroys the rest of the cast. I feel like he could lose all of his super armor and suffer from a few other nerfs and still be top tier.

In melee, bowser was a character I would honestly never use. I think most people have that mentality, and largely I think it has transferred over to P:M. If it wasn't for one of my friends using him, I probably never would have tried bowser out for more than a few minutes. I don't think that enough people have tried P:M bowser and experimented with the moves he has however. His range, priority, and invincibility frames, combined with the fact that he's 10 times better than any other character on the edge of the stage, makes him overpowered IMO.

As a zelda main in melee for an obscenely long amount of time (at least 5 years, idk) I still find myself going back to a playstyle similar to the one I used in melee without really taking all of her buffs into effect. I feel like bowser players are probably doing that a lot too. I know Gimpyfish is really old school, and while watching his videos I can see a lot of melee bowser technique popping up where better options now exist.

@Gimpy - I encourage you to try to recreate the character's playstyle from scratch and see what you can come up with. Win tournaments and get bowser nerfed a bit LOL. He's scary as hell to play against as is. A certain friend of mine was experimenting for several hours earlier and we discovered some SUPER broken stuff with him and neither of us have touched melee bowser almost at all. I mean, you won that recent tournament so you're obviously doing a lot of things right, but I still think bowser has a lot of untapped potential... perhaps too much of it.

Hopefully there's a Project M tournament in my area sometime soon so we can showcase some of the things we've found.

 

[Chaos_Blasta]

Bowser is the best character in P:M -- no joke. He has MAYBE 5 bad matchups and destroys the rest of the cast. I feel like he could lose all of his super armor and suffer from a few other nerfs and still be top tier.

In melee, bowser was a character I would honestly never use. I think most people have that mentality, and largely I think it has transferred over to P:M. If it wasn't for one of my friends using him, I probably never would have tried bowser out for more than a few minutes. I don't think that enough people have tried P:M bowser and experimented with the moves he has however. His range, priority, and invincibility frames, combined with the fact that he's 10 times better than any other character on the edge of the stage, makes him overpowered IMO.

As a zelda main in melee for an obscenely long amount of time (at least 5 years, idk) I still find myself going back to a playstyle similar to the one I used in melee without really taking all of her buffs into effect. I feel like bowser players are probably doing that a lot too. I know Gimpyfish is really old school, and while watching his videos I can see a lot of melee bowser technique popping up where better options now exist.

@Gimpy - I encourage you to try to recreate the character's playstyle from scratch and see what you can come up with. Win tournaments and get bowser nerfed a bit LOL. He's scary as hell to play against as is. A certain friend of mine was experimenting for several hours earlier and we discovered some SUPER broken stuff with him and neither of us have touched melee bowser almost at all. I mean, you won that recent tournament so you're obviously doing a lot of things right, but I still think bowser has a lot of untapped potential... perhaps too much of it.

Hopefully there's a Project M tournament in my area sometime soon so we can showcase some of the things we've found.

Eww no

Bowser is good but absolutely nowhere near top tier.

Negative MUs:
Link
Snake
Pit
Fox
Sheik
Mario
Ganondorf
DDD
Lucario
Pikachu

And this is only from personal experience; I haven't played vs every character of the game in a top level to make an educated decision, but the way i see it, most other MUs are even or have Bowser winning by a small amount (And there are a few, very polarizing MUs that Bowser wrecks at, like vs GnW for one)

Bowser does have a lot of ridiculous strengths but in the end, his big frame, weight and fall speed make him incredibly easy to combo by EVERYONE on the cast. If you slip past his OoS shenanigans and get him in the air for a hit string, Bowser will be hard pressed to do anything, as not even DI is that effective when you're so big. All of his attacks are also super slow and leave him vulnerable to setups more often than you'd think.

Also, please explain this "Super broken stuff" that you found on Bowser.

 

[GKInfinity]

I can see Snake, sheik, and ganon being bad MUs for bowser. I think Falcon is too actually because of his ability to combo bowser pretty hard. I still haven't played anyone who knows how to use Lucario properly, but I can see him doing some crazy combos to bowser.

I can see link being troublesome because of his projectiles, and mario being a nuisance because of his cape, but I don't really see how the other characters you listed would be a problem at all.

 

[Chaos_Blasta]

Surely i do not have to explain why Fox is a problem?

(CF is not that bad because you stuff his recovery anytime you get him offstage.)

 

[choknater]

Fox is not that bad. If you know how to fight fox in melee its a similar deal. Just use up b very well since it gives you a free knock down at low percent, maybe even 0 percent but I didn't test that.

Btw if gk infinity makes any interesting claims, its because of playing me haha

Bowser is very solid I think the best thing about him right now is that he has absolutely no problems with Marth and fights ike pretty evenly

 

[GKInfinity]

Edgeguarding fox is extremely easy with bowser

 

[Chaos_Blasta]

Edgeguarding fox is extremely easy with bowser

Absolutely, and it's one of the best things that Bowser has vs Fox and what makes the MU not so excruciating, added to how easy Bowser can combo Fox with moves such as Utilt, Side B, Dsmash, Usmash Uair, etc.

But there's no way to properly describe how Fox destroys Bowser if the Fox is decent and does not screw up. One problem right off the bat is how easily Fox can laser camp Bowser, with Bowser being able to do much about it, lest he risk getting baited and punished hard.

Bowser is just super weak to anything Fox has to offer. In paper it may seem that Bowser's crouch can decently stuff Fox's shine and dair combos but this is hardly the case, as Fox has much better tools to approach Bowser at first, particularly grabs or Nair. Basically, once Fox starts a combo on Bowser, Bowser won't be escaping any time soon because of how fast Fox is and how well his everything comboes into everything.

Fox's kill power is nothing to scoff at, either, and it's one of the worst things in this MU. Usmash kills at like 80% or so in most stages with a decent ceiling, not to mention that it's safe on shield. Uthrow > Uair hits Bowser like no other character, and he is unable to do absolutely anything about it due to being so big, not even DI can save you here. If Bowser gets knocked offstage, don't count on recovering, Fox can easily keep you offstage and edgeguard you effectively with Bairs, Shines and Dsmashes..and if you try to recover high you are just asking to get hit by an Uair/Bair

It's really one of his worst MUs in the game along Sheik and Link.. you should be always careful when facing a Fox.

 

[GKInfinity]

Hmmmm, good stuff to know. I've probably been playing the matchup wrong as fox. Thanks for the tips

 

[DrinkingFood]

Why the **** is comboing and edgeguarding the first things people look at when analyzing a matchup
they should be the last things. The first should be things that occur at neutral, such as platform movement, stage control, projectile vs character interaction, priority, general movement and speed of both characters, etc. How well Falcon can combo Bowser or vice versa isn't important if one of the characters can never get something started on the other or at least put them in a bad position.

tl;dr comboing and edgeguarding aren't very important matchup aspects.

 

[Chaos_Blasta]

Why the **** is comboing and edgeguarding the first things people look at when analyzing a matchup
they should be the last things. The first should be things that occur at neutral, such as platform movement, stage control, projectile vs character interaction, priority, general movement and speed of both characters, etc. How well Falcon can combo Bowser or vice versa isn't important if one of the characters can never get something started on the other or at least put them in a bad position.

tl;dr comboing and edgeguarding aren't very important matchup aspects.

This is very true.

One of the reasons i didn't pick Falco or CF as negative MUs even though they apparently also **** bowser in the combo department is simply because their neutral game isn't as good as Fox. Fox has much better stage control and has very good ways to put pressure on you AND approach at all ranges, plus his superior speed compared to either character makes him much harder to punish, in comparison.

I still believe combing and edgeguarding are important factors to discuss in a MU, just not the deciding factor, you could say.

 

[Majora88]

This is very true.

I still believe combing and edgeguarding are important factors to discuss in a MU,

No amount of combing will ever make Fox's hair superior to Bowser's rugged good looks.

On a more serious note, I believe you underestimate Bowser's neutral game. Grabs are easily beaten out by Bower's jab or early up-b. SHFFL-ed nair approaches can be read and punished with side-b or you can trade with up-b.
Both sides require proper mix ups and effective baiting to get in, but there's nothing Fox has over Bowser that is totally uncounterable. Laser camping can become an issue if the stage is too big, but I've never found it to be a problem otherwise.

 

[Ace55]

Negative MUs:
Link
Snake
Pit
Fox
Sheik
Mario
Ganondorf
DDD
Lucario
Pikachu

What's so bad about DDD & Pikachu? Just curious, no experience in the matchups.


I'd argue Falcon is a bad matchup too. Bowser has to be the easiest viable char to DD camp since melee Ganon.

And I did not like the Ike matchup in 2.1 but I don't have any experience with it in 2.5 yet.

Also theorizing Wario as a bad matchup. I thought he did pretty well against Bowser in 2.1 and now he's a ton better.

 

[Chaos_Blasta]

No amount of combing will ever make Fox's hair superior to Bowser's rugged good looks.

On a more serious note, I believe you underestimate Bowser's neutral game. Grabs are easily beaten out by Bower's jab or early up-b. SHFFL-ed nair approaches can be read and punished with side-b or you can trade with up-b.
Both sides require proper mix ups and effective baiting to get in, but there's nothing Fox has over Bowser that is totally uncounterable. Laser camping can become an issue if the stage is too big, but I've never found it to be a problem otherwise.

Although Bowser's jab is indeed a very nice move to use to get people off your comfortable range , it's not as safe or fast taking into consideration how easily Fox can just make you whiff it then it come in to punish. Same with Up B, although Up B is much, much more punishable than Jab if it gets baited.

That's kinda the problem..Fox does not have to approach Bowser in like, ever. He's happy enough at long range, laser camping and racking % all day, and Bowser cannot do much about it because his approach is poor, specially vs someone who can punish him so well. In later %s he can just DD and WD at close range to bait your typical defensive moves like Dtilt, Up B, Ftilt, etc and just swoop in with the Usmash or Uthrow > Uair for an easy kill. You really underestimate how easily Bowser is baited and how laggy even his fastest moves are, all things considered.

 

[Chaos_Blasta]

What's so bad about DDD & Pikachu? Just curious, no experience in the matchups.


I'd argue Falcon is a bad matchup too. Bowser has too be the easiest viable char to DD camp since melee Ganon.

And I did not like the Ike matchup in 2.1 but I don't have any experience with it in 2.5 yet.

Also theorizing Wario as a bad matchup. I thought he did pretty well against Bowser in 2.1 and now he's a ton better.

Pikachu is suuuper fast. The reasons for Pika being a bad MU are similar to Fox or Sheik being bad MUs in the sense that these characters can easily bait and punish Bowser's everything, while also being very good at comboing him. Pikachu is not that bad, however, due to his poor range and a projectile that doesn't do much to phaze you onstage. If Bowser is patient and spaces himself properly he won't have such a hard time, as long as you're careful.

I don't like the DDD at all, mostly because D3 has range that compares or even beats Bowser's, with attacks such as Bair, Fair, Ftilt, Dair, most smashes, etc. He has a super good projectile, as well; Waddle Dees are hard to take out without actually sending them back to DDD to use to approach (And Waddledashing as an approach is very effective), and all the new angle trajectories in 2.5 just make the situation better for DDD. His grab game and grab range is also very, very good, and makes shielding actually risky because of how easily he can just grab and chainthrow you with Dthrow, Or just send you offstage to edgeguard with Fthrow/Bthrow. Reckless approaches are stopped by Swallow, and Jet Hammer is a scary move if DDD can get to charge it fully due to Bowser having no safe options against it (Typical spacing moves such as Fire Breath or Jab don't really work vs Jet Hammer due to the light armor frames on a full charge)

I like the CF and Ike MUs, personally, but maybe that's because i'm always playing vs these characters and kinda feel used to them already. In what comes to CF he can very, very easily punish you because of his speed, he can really just wait for you to whiff a move and go in for the grab > long combo string, although it's not that bad if you play it safe with Fire Breaths and Jabs. CF has no projectile to threaten you at Medium or long range so it's certainly much easier compared to other MUs.

And IDK mang Ike just feels free

I have no idea vs Wario because i have never played a Wario main, so i can't say.

 

[Hashtag]

By your logic, sonic would also be a bad match up for bowser. He's also one of the few characters who is fast enough to punish anyone, especially bowser.

Edit:
I do however believe fox vs bowser is not that bad a match up. Fox can not approach carelessly at all against bowser. Bowser's crouch cancel can almost negate fox's shine in a number of situations. Anytime bowser hits fox, it's going to either really hurt or it's going to kill fox. If fox is off stage against bowser, he shouldn't be making it back. Bowser is also killing fox at much lower %s than fox is killing bowser on a normal basis.

If anything, I believe this match up is close to even. If not, it's slightly in foxes favor. Just like fox can bait bowser, bowser can bait fox. When you take Bowser's bait, he's going to hit harder than fox. Up b out of shield is punishable, but if bowser does it near an edge he can retreat to, it's hard to do do. If he's below 100% damage, you have to look out for that ridiculous ledge attack.

Bowser has more really good tools I've seen used in this match.

 

[Chaos_Blasta]

By your logic, sonic would also be a bad match up for bowser. He's also one of the few characters who is fast enough to punish anyone, especially bowser.

Except Sonic is a much, much worse character in pretty much every aspect compared to Fox. I will speak 2.1 here, but terrible priority, not so good frame data, poor range, no projectile, no decent kill potential, no guaranteed followups to most of his moves, Sonic's existence being invalidated by Bowser if he crouches..

Don't get me wrong, I personally originally though that Bowser could easily beat Fox by a reasonable margin (like 60-40), but after playing with Fox players who are very good at both Tech skill and mindgames my views on the MU changed immediatly. I know Bowser has a lot of things to Fox but the cons greatly outweight the pros.

 

[\Apples]

Vs DDD: try Flamethrower, it'll really help your neutral game. It outspaces DDD's Ftilt and you can Flame Cancel it. In that matchup, I Flamethrower tons. It helps mitigate the loss of outgoing damage due to inferior range, and again, I think it really help's Bowser's neutral game. Not just against DDD, but especially against DDD. You're gonna hit him with it a lot because he's so big and his jump is so slow. He's going to have a hard time punishing you because his aerial control is very very weak, since he can't get at you from the ground, he'd be forced to come from the air. At which point you can stop breathing fire. Careful here though, they might start going airborne to bait you into stopping, and then try punishing you out of that. Faster characters will go for that. I usually UpB to a ledge ASAP (broken tactic in general, lol).

Vs Wario: Yeah, Wario does well vs Bowser. I have experience on both sides of the matchup, though more from Bowser's perspective, as there are no local Bowser players near me. With 2.5, Wario's Bite really helps him get in. The fact that he can DI during it is completely gamechanging, and Bowser is the easiest target out there. Wario can DI well out of Bowser's combos (he can't even really hit him out of Uthrow most of the time) and spaced Bairs will really keep Bowser out well. Bowser's Fair out-prioritizes all of Wario's everything, though. He can DI out of the flames easily and really just stay on top of Bowser a lot better than Bowser can stay on top of him. Dthrow is your best throw vs Wario since you really don't have follow-ups on the guy, and Idk, I don't really have a solid strategy for Warop outside of the basic Bowser stuff: UpB, Fair, UpB, Fair, UpB, be careful, UpB, knuckle, UpB... I'd give the matchup a 4/6, at least based on my experience.

My 2 cents on the Fox MU: Fox wins it. The ledge attack is really only super powerful for edgeguarding. Aside from that, using it when Fox is grounded will usually result in Fox shielding the ledge attack and USmashing you out of it. Or really, whatever he wants. Drill OOS to shine, etc, you know what Fox does.

 

[Hashtag]

I was referring to 2.5 sonic but okay.

I'm a fox player myself and I found the match up do be fairly even in my experiences. I think it boils down more to the player's ability more than just the character.

The bowser I play normally is very good. I generally don't even like to go fox against his bowser. I'll go falco because he can keep bowser off the ground with combos. I feel like a bowser who is rooted to the ground in a smart manner is a dangerous one.

Fox's Drill to shine can be countered by CC Dtilt or whatever in my experiences. If the bowser suspects that approach. Drill shine is not an approach I will use against bowser.

 

[Chaos_Blasta]

I was referring to 2.5 sonic but okay.

I'm a fox player myself and I found the match up do be fairly even in my experiences. I think it boils down more to the player's ability more than just the character.

The bowser I play normally is very good. I generally don't even like to go fox against his bowser. I'll go falco because he can keep bowser off the ground with combos. I feel like a bowser who is rooted to the ground in a smart manner is a dangerous one.

Fox's Drill to shine can be countered by CC Dtilt or whatever in my experiences. If the bowser suspects that approach. Drill shine is not an approach I will use against bowser.

Fox will simply change his approach depending on whether you crouch or you shield, and he can react much, much faster than you can due to how fast he moves. If you shield he can just use Dair, Shines, jab pokes and grabs to pressure your shield or simply get you out of there, and if you crouch attemping to block moves like dair or shine you just are going to get stuffed by a Nair or Dash attack. Or he can just bait your Dtilt or Ftilt with some DD then grab or Usmash you..

You really are underestimating how quick Fox is and how easily and effortlessly he can answer to everything that Bowser has. It's one character that you're simply going to have a very hard beating unless you outplay the Fox in what comes to mindgames, but in what comes to technical application Bowser just lags behind..

@Apples: Interesting on using Fire Breath vs DDD, it seems like the best way to space vs him now that i think about it. I did use it occasionally but not as often as i should have. Also, i want to point out that DDD can approach very effectively vs Bowser when on the ground, he just needs to have 1 waddle dee out to poke a shield and then go in for the grab (And if he has 2 waddles out, that will just make your life more miserable), although fire breath alleviates this somewhat. DDD can also space himself very well on the air with Bairs, Fairs or Dairs, depending on his positioning, so i don't feel like he's really vulnerable while on the air.

 

[\Apples]

@Chaos_Blasta - That's definitely true regarding DDD approaching with Waddle Dees. But as a Dedede player as well, I don't find them to be entirely reliable considering they're not safe to throw unless you have some distance between you and your opponent. Relying on Waddle Dees to approach is no good, I take a more "if it happens, it happens" approach to using Waddle Dees to approach like that.

Also, I was reading back a bit and I noticed you said that Fox's USmash is safe on shield vs Bowser. I can't imagine how that's possible considering Bowser's UpB OOS.

Touching back on the Fox MU, I don't really think it's one of the worst matchups in the game, I think both characters really have to work for the win, and it's pretty stage-dependent. If Fox has room to run away, he should be able to win it if he camps lasers. But if Bowser has the space to control Fox and can UpB to a ledge no matter where he is (Yoshi's Story, Metal Cavern, Battlefield, WarioWare), then I think Bowser might even have the edge on the matchup because of how safe he can be.

For both characters, if one is offstage, they shouldn't make it back. So edgeguarding isn't really an important topic in this matchup. Both can rack of damage and chop off stocks pretty quickly and kill power certainly isn't an issue. I really think it's mostly the stage that makes the difference here. Give Fox the space he needs and he'll take the win, else, Bowser arguably has the advantage, with how completely-******** safe he can be with UpB to ledge retreats coupled with good ledge options. The best chance a Fox has in this matchup on small stages is grabs. If you're Fox and you're trying to shield pressure Bowser, you're doing it wrong. You need to grab more. And if you're Bowser, and you're not punishing Fox's shield pressure with annoyingly repetitious UpB's, you're doing it wrong.

 

[Hashtag]

Fox will simply change his approach depending on whether you crouch or you shield, and he can react much, much faster than you can due to how fast he moves. If you shield he can just use Dair, Shines, jab pokes and grabs to pressure your shield or simply get you out of there, and if you crouch attemping to block moves like dair or shine you just are going to get stuffed by a Nair or Dash attack. Or he can just bait your Dtilt or Ftilt with some DD then grab or Usmash you..

You really are underestimating how quick Fox is and how easily and effortlessly he can answer to everything that Bowser has. It's one character that you're simply going to have a very hard beating unless you outplay the Fox in what comes to mindgames, but in what comes to technical application Bowser just lags behind..
.

This is funny because I personally think you're underestimating Bowser lol. I don't even play bowser, just agaisnt him.

Truthfully, through my experiences I will agree that nair is a better approach than dair, but i just find fox has problems moving bowser at low percents if bowser is prepared to CC. The bowser i play against is patient. Often not going for my bait attempts (or rarely, in which at those times he does get punished and hard) and usually counters SHFFL'd attempts with upB OoS if he's forced to shield. If he's at low percents he may opt for a crouch cancelled manuever. Though I do agree that once Fox gets a solid hit in he can rack up damage quickly. Bowsers just have to play more patiently in my opinion in the match up.

Edit:

On the flip side, Bowser just needs to hit you a couple of times to do the same thing. I will also agree that the bowser player will generally have to outsmart the fox player. Bowser can punish fox harder than fox can punish bowser for mistakes. Its just that fox can create more opportunities on a consistant basis.

All in all though, i can agree that generally the match is in fox's favor. I just dont think that the match is all that lopsided. I also think it could be pretty even based on how skilled an knowledgeable the two players are at the match up.

 

[Ace55]

@Chaos_Blasta

Dash attack does 7%. It doesn't even hit through crouch armor. Nair in crouch cancelable till like 90%.

How is Fox pressuring Bowser's shield? How is anybody pressuring Bowser's shield?

 

[Chaos_Blasta]

@Chaos_Blasta - That's definitely true regarding DDD approaching with Waddle Dees. But as a Dedede player as well, I don't find them to be entirely reliable considering they're not safe to throw unless you have some distance between you and your opponent. Relying on Waddle Dees to approach is no good, I take a more "if it happens, it happens" approach to using Waddle Dees to approach like that.

Also, I was reading back a bit and I noticed you said that Fox's USmash is safe on shield vs Bowser. I can't imagine how that's possible considering Bowser's UpB OOS.

Touching back on the Fox MU, I don't really think it's one of the worst matchups in the game, I think both characters really have to work for the win, and it's pretty stage-dependent. If Fox has room to run away, he should be able to win it if he camps lasers. But if Bowser has the space to control Fox and can UpB to a ledge no matter where he is (Yoshi's Story, Metal Cavern, Battlefield, WarioWare), then I think Bowser might even have the edge on the matchup because of how safe he can be.

For both characters, if one is offstage, they shouldn't make it back. So edgeguarding isn't really an important topic in this matchup. Both can rack of damage and chop off stocks pretty quickly and kill power certainly isn't an issue. I really think it's mostly the stage that makes the difference here. Give Fox the space he needs and he'll take the win, else, Bowser arguably has the advantage, with how completely-******** safe he can be with UpB to ledge retreats coupled with good ledge options. The best chance a Fox has in this matchup on small stages is grabs. If you're Fox and you're trying to shield pressure Bowser, you're doing it wrong. You need to grab more. And if you're Bowser, and you're not punishing Fox's shield pressure with annoyingly repetitious UpB's, you're doing it wrong.

I'm theorizing that it's safe on shield, although i may be wrong. I assume that if Fox really keeps up the shield pressure Bowser won't really be able to Up-B out of shield before Fox gets a grab in..but then again, i could be wrong so yeah.

 

[Hashtag]

Ok, apples just basicly said what i was trying to say but better and included stages which i hadn't touched yet. Plus grabbing which i was about to get to, since that is a effective way to deal with bowser on small stages. What he said, i agree with and have experienced in the march up. We were/are basicallu saying the same thing.

Though im a bit upset i was disregarded like what i was saying was completely wrong but apples made you possibly second guess a bit. :/

Edit:
Ace brings up somegood points, dont completely agree with the whole shield pressure on bowser thing but i do agree that it's difficult to do so.

 

[Chaos_Blasta]

Ok, apples just basicly said what i was trying to say but better and included stages which i hadn't touched yet. Plus grabbing which i was about to get to, since that is a effective way to deal with bowser on small stages. What he said, i agree with and have experienced in the march up. We were/are basicallu saying the same thing.

Though im a bit upset i was disregarded like what i was saying was completely wrong but apples made you possibly second guess a bit. :/

Edit:
Ace brings up somegood points, dont completely agree with the whole shield pressure on bowser thing but i do agree that it's difficult to do so.

I did not mean to ignore or disregard your posts, just that Apples made me see some of the flaws in my reasoning, so i went with that.

Also, i think we need a Bowser MU thread, considering how quickly this thread devolved into exactly that.

 

[choknater]

I am super used to fighting melee fox so it is kinda the same deal in this game lol. Bowser has plenty of tools for that MU, but fair and up b are the best. Ftilt and dtilt are also both good to make him respect your space. Good decisions and reactions with these moves make it really hard for him to get things going, especially if you defend well enough to make your own approach.

The key to beating fox with slower characters is to make him respect your space, which makes him wanna dash dance or jump on platforms. These are still good for fox but it also gives you more freedom to move when he stops rushing down. This is really easy to do with Bowser bc up b is so good defensively.

Falcon is another story lol, that matchup is hard.

Edit: oh yeah and guys don't talk about shield pressure LOL it is nearly impossible vs Bowser as long as ur shield is fresh. Just up b out of everything.

 

[Chaos_Blasta]

Falcon is another story lol, that matchup is hard.

Honestly, CF is a much easier MU and i actually consider it even. he does have some very mean things against you like i previously stated above but it's much easier to handle compared to spacies.

 

[choknater]

Hm I see lol well its probably a matter of perspective and the players we're playing against then

 

[Gimpyfish62]

if you think falcon is easy the falcon players you play against are probably bad or don't play the matchup appropriately

same with fox but to a lesser extent

 

[traffic.]

Yeah no doubt. What makes a super powered knockout flying knee**** to the face even more super powered? a really big slow target.