A King's Quest For Respect: The Bowser Matchup Thread

[itsthebigfoot]

ike, ganon, lucario, ddd, link for general slowness, the rest, it depends on what they're slow in, wario has slow ground attacks, ivysaur has slow movement speed, mk has slow aerial movement speed, zelda has slow aerials, sonic has the slowest ko moves in the game (bair is 13 frames I think, and that's the quicker of the two)

 

[Matador]

All 5 of those characters are slower than Bowser? And I'm talking overall. Overall, Bowser is slow. There are moves he can barely ever use because of their low speed. He generally moves slow.

The same thing for Marth. If you're below him, he won't Dair you and suffer the ending lag of a slow move. He'll space backward and Fair with a faster, safer move. This is one of the drawbacks of him having a slow move. Characters like Bowser seem to have to cut out moves entirely to deal with different situations, which limits options.

 

[itsthebigfoot]

All 5 of those characters are slower than Bowser? And I'm talking overall. Overall, Bowser is slow. There are moves he can barely ever use because of their low speed. He generally moves slow.

yeah, but we can just use his quicker moves in place of the slow moves, why usmash when utilt kos pretty well too?

bowser might have limited options due to speed, but he does have good, quick options in his limited pool of moves (see: upb any time on the ground)

 

[Matador]

That's where I find it to be a negative. If you're above Bowser, he can Utilt, try to bait and airdodge and Uair, or try for an Usmash.

If you're MK who has pretty fast options for when the opponent is above him, Uair, upB, Utilt, and Usmash. They don't have the power of any of Bowser's options, so they don't have the benefits of dealing tons of damage or killing at low % OR even having a ton of range.

However, because his options are fast and he HAS a ton of options, he can mix them up to remain unpredictable, combo them into each other, pressure with them, AND bait the airdodge like Bowser. One of Marth's biggest weaknesses is that he's weak from below since his Dair is slow. That's just one move on a generally fast character.

DK's Donkey Punch is a punisher more than anything IIRC. Wario's waft works the same way, except it's faster, and therefore, can be comboed into and pressured with, when coupled with his insane aerial speed. If the attack were faster, OR if DK were faster, it could be used the same way. That's generally the point I'm trying to make.

Anyway, it's 3 AM over here and my thoughts are losing their cohesion. I'll be back.

 

[itsthebigfoot]

That's where I find it to be a negative. If you're above Bowser, he can Utilt, try to bait and airdodge and Uair, or try for an Usmash.

If you're MK who has pretty fast options for when the opponent is above him, Uair, upB, Utilt, and Usmash. They don't have the power of any of Bowser's options, so they don't have the benefits of dealing tons of damage or killing at low % OR even having a ton of range.

However, because his options are fast and he HAS a ton of options, he can mix them up to remain unpredictable, combo them into each other, pressure with them, AND bait the airdodge like Bowser. One of Marth's biggest weaknesses is that he's weak from below since his Dair is slow. That's just one move on a generally fast character.

DK's Donkey Punch is a punisher more than anything IIRC. Wario's waft works the same way, except it's faster, and therefore, can be comboed into and pressured with, when coupled with his insane aerial speed. If the attack were faster, OR if DK were faster, it could be used the same way. That's generally the point I'm trying to make.

Anyway, it's 3 AM over here and my thoughts are losing their cohesion. I'll be back.

mk will never usmash, it's terrible, utilt is extremely rare and depends on the mk, some just ignore it completely, above mk he can upb or jump into an aerial, thats it, bowser can upb, utilt or jump. most characters are just as limited as bowser optionwise, some moreso. if mario is at poke range against the "slow" dk and bowser, he has to jump, since none of his ground moves have the range and speed of dk and bowsers pokes/grabs

 

[Red Arremer]

He generally moves slow.

How does he move slow if his aerial mobility is among the best and his ground speed is average to above average?

God, that's it, I'm not going to put up with this crap anymore. I'm quitting Bowser. I'll still maintain the threads I started, but I won't contribute to discussions anymore. I'm tired of having to state the same **** 9001 times over and over again.

 

[Hobobloke]

Don't do it man!

 

[B!squick]

D: What? Don't quit just because we're getting trolled.

 

[Red Arremer]

We're not getting trolled. People are just too dumb to realize that big =/= slow.

That's not only in this thread, but every time someone talks about Bowser. The people who know him a bit better than not at all won't ever say that he's slow, but unfortunately, these people are extremely rare. I'm sick of it. I don't want to put up with it every time over and over again.

 

[A2ZOMG]

We're not getting trolled. People are just too dumb to realize that big =/= slow.

That's not only in this thread, but every time someone talks about Bowser. The people who know him a bit better than not at all won't ever say that he's slow, but unfortunately, these people are extremely rare. I'm sick of it. I don't want to put up with it every time over and over again.

LOL, I can see your problem. I have to keep telling everyone that Mario's recovery isn't close to being the worst in this game (it's as good as recoveries like that of Marth and Toon Link, and there is like over a third of the cast who pretty much fails at recovery after them).

Mario is a lot faster than Bowser....just in terms of options. Most of Bowser's attacks take around 10 frames or so, while most of Mario's attacks are more like 5 frame startup. Mario even has a faster Up-B out of shield (like it matters). Of course, this speed difference constitutes a difference in the ability to combo stuff.

 

[Red Arremer]

So Mario's UpB comes out at Frame 0?

 

[A2ZOMG]

Bowser's Up-B is frame 6. Mario's is 3. Mario has like the fastest out of shield attack in the game basically (like seriously, I don't think there are any 3 frame Up-smashes or any other 3 frame Up-Bs...). Not that it's a big deal anyway.

 

[Red Arremer]

And the first 5 frames are invincibility frames. <_<

 

[Flayl]

Mario's UpB hitbox and invincibility starts on frame 3. While faster than the fortress's hitbox, it's slower in terms of invincibility frames.

edit: gah that's what i get for tabbing out and replying late.

 

[bigserg]

Hey guys. I'm serg, I bowser mainer who went to March gigabits(biggest tournament in Florida) ended up placing 17th out of 140ish people, beating some Power Ranked players along the way. (Chops and Hrnut) Now I'm considered Florida's best bowser. lol.

I've been reading this thread, its has a lot of good **** and I've learned some new things, so keep up the good work. I'll be posting some things from my experience, NOT theory, just to add on to MU info.

Anyway, I just want to say that, and REINFORCE the fact that Bowser is NOT slow. If you played against a Bowser the way it should be played, you will find out he is not slow. I'm not going to mention the reasons because it seems they are stated on like every page, yet people ignore it or don't take it seriously.

@Spadefox...I know you don't know me, but don't quit Bowser. We just have to prove to people what a Bowser can do, and hopefully move him up in the tier list.(Seriously, there are some people above Bowser that don't deserve to be there. I'm not going to mention names though.

 

[HRNUT (Honey Roasted)]

Serg is amazing

hopefully its recorded when we do the MM so they can see how good you are, i agree with serg bowser is in no way a slow character

 

[Cassius.]

Lol I just read like 3 pages worth of junk about how Bowser is or isn't slow. I see what Khaos' was trying to say. Although the stats show that Bowser obviously isn't slow...I think he was saying that....oh **** it.

And Spade don't quit Bowser. Seriously.

50:50 Right? We all agree, so let's just move on.

 

[Matador]

How does he move slow if his aerial mobility is among the best and his ground speed is average to above average?

God, that's it, I'm not going to put up with this crap anymore. I'm quitting Bowser. I'll still maintain the threads I started, but I won't contribute to discussions anymore. I'm tired of having to state the same **** 9001 times over and over again.

-_-

Fine, quit cryin. I'm leaving.

 

[Cassius.]

-_-**

Seriously...who's the next character up for discussion...?

[Put Mario up as 50-50 Mr.Eh]

 

[itsthebigfoot]

@ spadefox, as someone who has argued for dk since the release and bowser since like august, you learn to ignore like 80% of posters, 99% of posters on low tier boards

here's a couple tricks you should learn:
1. say who you've played in tournament of the character being argued, and then say that you shouldn't respond unless you've played a reputable bowser in tournament

2. point out that they completely lose in range and priority, while we're only 2-3 frames slower than their quickest attack



@ A2ZOMG - bowsers 10 frame attacks don't get used nearly as much as his 5-6 frame moves, also, mario's range doesn't come close to bowsers range. also, bowser's upb is invincible until the hitbox, so the 3 frames don't matter, we can actually do it oos more than you since you're vulnerable at the start

and his recovery is bad, he can't DI after finishing and doesn't go nearly as high up as toon link and marth

also, you haven't played any bowsers in tournament or offline at all, you're in socal and I'm the only bowser out here.

 

[MrEh]

I've stopped caring about this a long time ago. lol

Lucas now.



Grab release Bowser Bomb wrecks. And before any Lucas player starts saying stuff about being to airdodge it, then I can just grab release Dtilt. lol

 

[itsthebigfoot]

lucas gets ***** by his grab release

he'll try to camp you with sideb and use nair as a gtfo, when he does this, run up and shield the sideb, if he tries to follow up with nair just upb that ****

 

[MrEh]

Nair combos simply don't work because of the Fortress. lol

Too good.

 

[Phiddlesticks]

I am excited about this matchup. Our first advantage?!? Maybe. I love playing Lucases

Not that Bowser destroys Lucas or anything (only from grab releases), just that Bowser happens to have tools to deal with most of Lucas' strengths. But destroying Lucas from grab releases doesn't hurt :x

 

[A2ZOMG]

@bigfoot

Two of Bowser's most commonly used attacks, Forward-B and F-tilt are about ten frames. Bowser's aerials also come out in about that time, and his grab is slower than average. His Up-B out of shield is good but isn't always reliable due to its low range, and his Jab alone isn't dealing the majority of his damage.

And Mario can DI enough after his Up-B (not like TL or Marth get any more control than he does), and his Up-B is better than Toon Link's (as Toon Link's is easier to edgehog and intercept or punish when edgecamping). Not gonna argue against Marth's Up-B since his Up-B is obviously the best out of those three. However a big part of recovery is also ledge game, and Mario probably has the best ledge game of those three characters. Mario's Up-B gets enough vertical distance anyway. You can angle it so that it lands on the top platform on BF.

Now Bowser actually has a bad recovery...ANYONE can pretty easily punish or edgeguard him especially if the stage is not battlefield. So he pretty much gets dominated on FD and Smashville vs Mario, the other two main neutrals.

Also, InsomniaK's Bowser is good. Which reminds me...I probably have a few replays I didn't upload vs him...

 

[B!squick]

His Up-B out of shield is good but isn't always reliable due to its low range,

Wow, fellas. All these years- err, past year and some change, we've thought of Fortress as the best OoS option in the game has been overblown.

Seriously, I know of very few attacks that Fortress OoS doesn't ****. Well spaced Wolf and DK BAirs qualify (as long as they don't get greedy) and the rumor is Peach CAN float at just the right height to DAir Bowser's big head, but those are the only one's I know of. Am I wrong here?

and his Jab alone isn't dealing the majority of his damage.

That's what Jab cancels are for (see: what I've dubbed the MrEh Combo. Grab Release -> Jab -> Bowser Bomb). Jab -> Jabs are for when you need some breathing room and that deals, what, 10% on it's own I think? You don't want to get hit by too many of Bowser's Jabs, I know that much.

And Mario can DI enough after his Up-B (not like TL or Marth get any more control than he does), and his Up-B is better than Toon Link's (as Toon Link's is easier to edgehog and intercept or punish when edgecamping). Not gonna argue against Marth's Up-B since his Up-B is obviously the best out of those three. However a big part of recovery is also ledge game, and Mario probably has the best ledge game of those three characters. Mario's Up-B gets enough vertical distance anyway. You can angle it so that it lands on the top platform on BF.

Now Bowser actually has a bad recovery...ANYONE can pretty easily punish or edgeguard him especially if the stage is not battlefield. So he pretty much gets dominated on FD and Smashville vs Mario, the other two main neutrals.

Let's think about this. Bowser is the heaviest character in the game, which translates to meaning, unless I'm mistaken, that Bowser's exit speed from any given move to being the slowest. Because of this, the Bowser player would have the most time of any character to DI the correct way, which is to the corners of the blast zones.

Now, once the Bowser player actually starts making his way back, it's important to point out that Bowser has one of the best movement speeds in the game. Only 8 characters get around off the ground faster, if memory serves.

Couple this with Fortess's invincibility and priority and you have a great recovery.

I could actually count the number of times I've been punished or edgeguarded on one hand, it's not very many, at all.

 

[A2ZOMG]

Wow, fellas. All these years- err, past year and some change, we've thought of Fortress as the best OoS option in the game has been overblown.

Seriously, I know of very few attacks that Fortress OoS doesn't ****. Well spaced Wolf and DK BAirs qualify (as long as they don't get greedy) and the rumor is Peach CAN float at just the right height to DAir Bowser's big head, but those are the only one's I know of. Am I wrong here?

The difference is it's not easy to safely reach your opponent out of shield if they simply are good at hovering right in front of you without actually touching your shield. Whereas some other attacks out of shield actually pose an immediate threat to the sides (well, Bowser has F-air...but his jump is slow...and he's a big target. F-tilt/Jab isn't bad, but not safe in the range where you consider Up-B...). If you Up-B out of shield and your opponent was off to the side, at best you are going to get a weak hit on them. Bowser's grab range is not spectacular enough to really offset this.

That's what Jab cancels are for (see: what I've dubbed the MrEh Combo. Grab Release -> Jab -> Bowser Bomb). Jab -> Jabs are for when you need some breathing room and that deals, what, 10% on it's own I think? You don't want to get hit by too many of Bowser's Jabs, I know that much.

That decays to like 7% pretty quickly. And Bowser's Jab cancel is not all that good.

Also, you probably don't want to do Jab -> Bowser Bomb since that can be air dodged.

Let's think about this. Bowser is the heaviest character in the game, which translates to meaning, unless I'm mistaken, that Bowser's exit speed from any given move to being the slowest. Because of this, the Bowser player would have the most time of any character to DI the correct way, which is to the corners of the blast zones.

Now, once the Bowser player actually starts making his way back, it's important to point out that Bowser has one of the best movement speeds in the game. Only 8 characters get around off the ground faster, if memory serves.

Couple this with Fortess's invincibility and priority and you have a great recovery.

I could actually count the number of times I've been punished or edgeguarded on one hand, it's not very many, at all.

Recovery is easy in Brawl. I could count the times I get punished using Ganondorf's recovery on my hands too. Of course, this is probably in part due to people not knowing the matchup. Then again, most people aren't fully in the know about what to do against Bowser either.

Bowser is also a big target, so while he may move around fast, you don't have to be incredibly mobile to GET to where he is since he covers half the screen.

Attacking with anything except Up-B is almost out of the question for Bowser offstage without perfect prediction since his AERIAL ending lag is significant. Air dodging is also riskier for Bowser than most other characters, since offstage, this means falling longer, and we do know his air dodge isn't very good.

The invul frames on Bowser's aerial Up-B only matter against Sheik's F-tilt. Or there is a 1% chance they randomly save you on some whim the person EXACTLY messes up on that extremely narrow window.

If anything, Bowser has one of the most predictable recoveries in this game. I mean, look, I agree he doesn't have a bottom tier recovery like that of the PT, PK Boys, manly men, and tether guys, but those are the only guys he does better at in recovery. He gets good distance at least, but you have to be better than your opponent to avoid getting punished...and you're probably going to get punished if you're on FD or Smashville.

 

[Matador]

A2, we're screwing with their thread. Let's go XD

My apologies for derailing your thread yesterday with pointless discussion. Pretty rude of me. <3 Bowser board forever.

 

[MrEh]

see: what I've dubbed the MrEh Combo. Grab Release -> Jab -> Bowser Bomb

Are we calling it that now? lol

 

[Bowser King]

I'd say this is our first advantage. Bowser has the answer to all of lucas' moves except for a few (nair at some points but on the ground fortress takes care of that). Plus bowser has so many cool options like grab release bowser bomb.

-Bowser King

 

[bigserg]

most good lucases will c-stick specials for retreating side B. Its a very safe move. Its easy to block, but just to let people know. Bowser's up-tilt goes through lucas' up-b when recovering.
Lucas though, has very fast jabs, can use his up-b to hit us while recovering, and can jab-lock anyone if they don't tech floor when getting spiked, footstooled, etc.

But i agree, we do have the advantage in this match. 55/45 im saying.

 

[B!squick]

Best in Florida? You've never played me though. D: Sorry for being so late on that reply, lol.

On the subject of Lucas: Advantage Bowser, nice and simple.

 

[bigserg]

Best in Florida? You've never played me though. D: Sorry for being so late on that reply, lol.]

I'm down to play you any time. Sorry but I haven't seen or heard of any other bowser in Florida (except for nick riddle, but i already beat him).

 

[B!squick]

Not surprising. I'm WiFi only (I lack friends *sniffle*). But it's okay, I haven't played Brawl in lord knows how long, so I can probably guarentee that you're better, lol. Besides, WiFi lag + my bad controller = me playing even worse than I normally do anyway. x_x We should play some friendlies though, at some point.

EDIT: Also, currently working on compiling a spread sheet of attack speeds for the entire cast and here's what I have so far for the curious:

-----------Tilt Average Smash Avg. Aerial Avg. Special Avg. Total Average
Bowser---10.33---------- 18.67---- 11.4----- 12------- 12.24
C. Falcon-8.67----- 19.67---- 17.67---- 25.75---- 14.35
Diddy-----6.67----- 7.67----- 11------- 15.25---- 8.76
Donkey---8--------- 16------- 22.33---- 19.25---- 13.53
Falco-----5.67----- 10.33---- 9.33----- 13.5----- 8
Fox-------5.67----- 10------- 11.67---- 14------- 8.24

 

[itsthebigfoot]

I wouldn't do it by the command, do it by its use

i.e. average poke, average punish move, average ko move (reliable), average any ko move, average combo breaker move, etc.

because while from that list it looks like dk has slow aerials, but his poke (bair) and combo breaker/ko move (uair) are both really quick, while his gimps and punishers are very slow, same can be applied to falcon's specials and foxes aerials

 

[B!squick]

I know. I realised the data might be little skewed when I looked at the total average for Falcon which is higher than Bowser simply because of his Falcon Punch. I should make an average based on each character's most used moves. However, not only might this vary from person to person, but it would require me to know how to play the entire cast. x_x I plan on using this as ammo to say, "see, Bowser isn't slow. gtfo." So once I 've collected all the data for everyone (urg x_x I plan on working on it more tommarow), I'm gonna pick everyone's 10 fastest moves, average them, and compare. I was just posting some of what I had so far randomly, (lol, at Bowser having faster aerials than Falcon).

Annoyingly though, the data for some characters is incomplete. I've got to Ganondorf completed and so far Falcon and Fox are missing dash attack data; Falon is also missing DTilt (?); and Ganon is missing UTilt, NSpecial, and USpecial. To further throw off things, the Ganondorf data was compiled through means that caused the person to end with HALF frames for some moves. D: I just rounded those up. >.>

Regardless, my Excel-like program allows me to save files in html format, so I'll just make a free site to host the all the data. I'm really curious as to how it's all gonna look when I have it completed.

 

[B!squick]

Oh yeah, Lucas. Well, we already discussed this fairly recently on the Lucas Board. I forgot what we came up with. I think either a 55 or 60/40 advantage. Grab release and Fortess OoS ***** alot in this match up. If you need to work on either, this is the character to play. The Lucas player will presume he's safe with NAir (a better one will probably use DAir more against Bowser) and is prime for being cut up with the awesomeness of Fortress.

Some notes on my attack speed chart: Added another category, one that leaves out the specials since those are the biggest variable (interestly, Bowser is a fraction of a frame faster than Falcon in that department). Complained on the oxymoron complete and work in progress DeDeDe frame data thread as all it had was Jab, Tilts, and a mention of BAir hitting on the same frame as Kirby later in the thread. Who'd have thought a high tier like D3 would be missing something seemingly as simple as frame data when Brawl's been out for over a year now. O.o Finishing up Kirby at the moment.

 

[MrEh]

Who'd have thought a high tier like D3 would be missing something seemingly as simple as frame data when Brawl's been out for over a year now. O.o Finishing up Kirby at the moment.

6 frame grab

Do they need anything else? lol

 

[Red Arremer]

- April 31: Mario was discussed for 10 minutes and added as a 50-50 matchup.

I seriously lol'd at that.

 

[B!squick]

And that's all that happened. Don't let anyone tell you any different. And just as we can pretend that never happened we can pretend you never left us... right Spade? T_T