Ask a quick question, get a quick answer (The Marth FAQ's)

[Jackson]

DB1 has a very small KBG. At higher percents it sends the opponent slightly higher. The opponent lands just before the hitstun ends instead of way earlier, which leads to more frames of hitstun because of the additional landing lag frames.

Ah, thanks for clearing it up. Also, this may be a dumb question, but what is KBG?

 

[Taytertot]

I'm from seattle washington and I was wondering if there are players in my area/tournaments within a reasonable distance from me?

preferably within washington

 

[Shaya]

the marth boards/character boards in general aren't really meet and greet. You're looking for Tournament Listings on main forum page and Regional Zones: Pacific something or rather.

 

[1PokeMastr]

How do I pressure Snake off stage with Marth... let's say after I magically land F-Throw -> Dair and the Snake double jump cyphers away.

Go!

 

[Shaya]

Sounds like he's putting himself into a position that requires him to C4 himself to recover?

 

[Jackson]

Sounds like he's putting himself into a position that requires him to C4 himself to recover?

Sounds right. Regardless of what happens after, you should get some nice free damage.

 

[Shaya]

If you're looking for a way to end his stock cleanly/efficiently in that situation, you're probably looking for dolphin slash stage spikes, and various ledge actions.

 

[Taytertot]

the marth boards/character boards in general aren't really meet and greet. You're looking for Tournament Listings on main forum page and Regional Zones: Pacific something or rather.

thanks sounds good I'll asking around there.

 

[1PokeMastr]

Actually, that'd be fine if he just jump and up b'd from vertically below the ledge, but I need to know how I should go about ending Snake's stock if I put them in that situation once again.

 

[CURRY]

WHAT THE HECKK???
USMASH STAGE SPIKE
WOW.
I ACCIDENTALLY DID ONE. I DIDN'T EVEN KNOW THAT WAS A THING.

Also, ledge traps again...
So Nair ledge trapping seems cool, I mean, there are two hitboxes that come right after another, so that's great... but it has shot range in front of Math
Also, Fair ledge trapping... yeah... the hitbox doesn't last very long... so it has to be an immediate reaction.
Does anyone have a video for a good Marth ledge trap? :D

Also, are get up attack and normal get up animations really just exactly the same for every character? Because that's a bit frustrating... yep.

 

[ぱみゅ]

Most ledgeguards require good positioning+good reflexes.
And Nair isn't really that short. Out of curiosity, do you aim the tipper to be at the top of the ledge, or do you take in account your opponent's width and aim the tipper to the furthest possible point they'd be while standing?

And for videos go look for Mikeneko's.

 

[1PokeMastr]

I like to stand still and react.
Or guess when they'll ledge hop, but space myself if I miss so they can't hit me.

 

[C.J.]

MN has the best ledge traps vs MK. For in general, look up Ramin vs Esam. One of the games on BF he almost 3 stocks Esam off of ledge traps. Like... just ledge traps.

 

[CURRY]

MN has the best ledge traps vs MK. For in general, look up Ramin vs Esam. One of the games on BF he almost 3 stocks Esam off of ledge traps. Like... just ledge traps.

Can you link? I can only find these Mr. R vs Kakera videos.

Or Kakera = Esam?

 

[Shaya]

MikeNeko is so dominant at ledge trapping MK, after observation of matches between himself and Otori, for example, Otori will literally never grab the ledge above 100% unless its completely unavoidable. Never. Ever.

 

[C.J.]

As for ledge trapping MK, MN is untouchable at how good he is. It's actually near mid-boggling.

For the esam match:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEe-bS4_wig

Starts around 12 minutes

 

[Xinc]

Tried a grab release running USmash on Meta Knight on a high percent and it worked. This is probably not a guaranteed combo right?

 

[Shaya]

It's never a guaranteed combo as the "hit stun" from a grab release does not change.

 

[C.J.]

That being said, MK pretty much has to AD to avoid it and usmash will trade with his other options iirc.

 

[CURRY]

As for ledge trapping MK, MN is untouchable at how good he is. It's actually near mid-boggling.

For the esam match:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEe-bS4_wig

Starts around 12 minutes

It's all Pikachu D:
I really want to try Pikachu now :|
But holy CRUD the mindgames in that match...
That was great.

ALSO
So down special is less punishable in the air if an attack hits than an airdodge? Because a lot of the times I die because I accidentally fastfall an airdodge :<
Or is it just for fastfalls or like what...?

 

[smashkng]

Counter is usually a very risky option. In almost all cases Counter is not a good anti-juggle not only because of a huge amount of recovery frames, but also because his feet aren't covered by the Counter frames, which is the part where Marth gets hit the easiest when above opponents. Plus even if you hit with it, it doesn't give you momentum as easily as hitting someone with something with a Fair. When you hit someone with a Fair while landing, it can in many cases turn the momentum around and maybe even give you the chance of performing high damage strings. Unless the opponent tries something easy to react to and which deals heavy damage (like DK's Giant Punch or Snake's Fsmash), the risk-reward ratio isn't really worth it.

You have to be smart with air dodges with Marth. Frame wise it's one of the worst air dodges in the game (but surprisingly, in practice it's a good one thanks to Marth's good fast fall and aerial mobility). Try to think about air dodging a bit later than super early when you see an attack coming. Doing it very early makes it very easy to react and punish it. Doing it late will allow you to keep the opponent forced to guess what you will do. That's how you can take advantage of Marth's different landing mix ups. Fast fall and then air dodge is usually the superior option over non-FF in MOST cases (there are situations too where it isn't). Make smart options about moving in the x-axis too, Marth has good horizontal air mobility, which you can also increase by using doubles jumps to change air momentum.

 

[CURRY]

Counter is usually a very risky option. In almost all cases Counter is not a good anti-juggle not only because of a huge amount of recovery frames, but also because his feet aren't covered by the Counter frames, which is the part where Marth gets hit the easiest when above opponents. Plus even if you hit with it, it doesn't give you momentum as easily as hitting someone with something with a Fair. When you hit someone with a Fair while landing, it can in many cases turn the momentum around and maybe even give you the chance of performing high damage strings. Unless the opponent tries something easy to react to and which deals heavy damage (like DK's Giant Punch or Snake's Fsmash), the risk-reward ratio isn't really worth it.

You have to be smart with air dodges with Marth. Frame wise it's one of the worst air dodges in the game (but surprisingly, in practice it's a good one thanks to Marth's good fast fall and aerial mobility). Try to think about air dodging a bit later than super early when you see an attack coming. Doing it very early makes it very easy to react and punish it. Doing it late will allow you to keep the opponent forced to guess what you will do. That's how you can take advantage of Marth's different landing mix ups. Fast fall and then air dodge is usually the superior option over non-FF in MOST cases (there are situations too where it isn't). Make smart options about moving in the x-axis too, Marth has good horizontal air mobility, which you can also increase by using doubles jumps to change air momentum.

nonono I know that, that counter when recovering onto the stage from above is bad, but I meant off-stage.
I know that the Counter breaks your fastfall, which is why I'm wondering that a counter offstage is better than a fastfall airdodge offstage. The fastfall is often resulted from me trying to recover from below, or from my momentum cancel...
So in that match that CJ posted, he used Counter for its invincibility frames when Pikachu used his down special offstage. Which is another reason why I'm asking. Like, frame-wise, is counter better...?

ALSO
I'm having trouble with my Snake main friend who spams dash attack and DACUSes :D
So I shield it sometimes (Snake's dash is so slow... sometimes I can't tell if he's dashing or not) but then he also mixes it up and grabs me instead.
And he often just DACUSes away so I can't Dolphin Slash OoS... or should I just get better reflexes?

Approaching is out of the question. He just dash attacks.

 

[smashkng]

Even offstage isn't that good. Fair and his Up b are already pretty good at protecting Marth from edge guards. Against Pikachu's Thunder, yeah Counter can be good. With quick reflexes Thunder is reactable. If you Counter it you won't get hit by Thunder at all. But in many cases even against Thunder when offstage, Counter isn't really necessary. You just have to move a bit away from the Thunder and wait until the move has ended or Up b into the ledge before the hitbox of Thunder comes out. And overall, Counter is in nearly all situations bad to use offstage. You can already reset your fast fall with side b and neutral b. DB1 especially has little recovery frames. And Up b already has some really nice invincibility frames from as early as frame 1 until frame 5 (which is also the first frame the move hits). In this game most characters have a hard time covering how they will edge guards. Usually it's possible to react to someone jumping into you and then intercept that with Up b or otherwise it's obvious when they will go down and edge guard you. It's far safer than using Counter and you'll get to the ledge afterwards instead of still being offstage while you're on the recovery frames of Counter. Up b, DB1 use to slow down or change a bit of air momentum (with the help of wavebouncing) and Fair/Bair in practice outclass the use of Counter offstage. If someone doesn't go into you offstage, they can hit you for free out of Counter with nearly anything they want due to its massive amount of recovery.

And in order to deal with Dash attack, you just need to learn to control the ground better. I like to stay a bit away from Snake, just outside his dash attack range and walk in to bait out Dash attacks/DACUSES or his tilts with the help of shielding. They aren't truelly safe on shield actually. Sometimes yes Snake can get away with DACUS but still Snake shouldn't be feeling safe doing it or else it means you're doing something very wrong. Because Snake slows down later during his DACUS, it should mean that spacing on the ground more away from the DACUS makes the DACUS easier to punish, including with the DS OoS. You can shield in MID RANGE against Snake more reliably than you can against someone like MK. Snake simply doesn't have a good dash grab. Take advantage of that. And actually, yes you can tell if Snake is dashing or not. The animation is different from his walk. And if you want to know a good way of learning the range of Snake, just go to training mode and test the ranges of Snake's tilts and dash attack. Test the differences between Snake's walk and dash animation too and you'll see that they're very different.

And yes you CAN approach Snake. The baiting of dash attack/tilts could be considered as an "approach" against Snake. Mix up with careful jump-ins too baits though. Unless Snake does some really well placed Grenades or something like that, he doesn't have that safe anti-airs (yes Utilt has a lot of range, but it also has plenty of recovery frames to be baited in the air and punished). Even dash attack is punished. If the Snake can dash attack you every single time, you're just both being predictable and not choosing a good option. It's an even matchup because neither character have great ways of outplaying each other, so you'll have to show that you both know the matchup and that you can outsmart and outadapt the Snake.

 

[1PokeMastr]

Mr.R used counter in that situation because if he had air dodged, Marth's Up B would not have made it back to the ledge.
The only situations you should be using counter is when you KNOW FOR CERTAIN that your opponent will put an attack there.
The only reason why you're dying from a FF Air dodge with Marth is either you are being read from it because of your obvious patterns, or you're doing it off stage which isn't the greatest of ideas.

Run up -> Shield -> something fast oos will cover his dash attack approaches or w/e

If you know he's going to Dacus or Dash attack, as in.. you know the pattern, put a move where he'll be and then it's just all up to timing. the easiest one is to pivotgrab dash approaches.

And if your friend runs up -> shield grabs you, that means he knows you're not going to do anything, or he knows you'll throw out a move that can be grabbed.
If he dash grabs you straight up, he knows you're going to stand there sitting in your shield.

Down Tilt/ Spot dodging and not standing there will easily fix this problem.

 

[CURRY]

loloollolol I've commonly had this problem of not doing very well around people, because I mostly play at home, against lvl 3 MK and lvl 7 Snake... QQ

Even my TL gets really bad. I don't even know how I win.
As a(n asian) sophomore in a very studious high school, I'm one of the only ones in my group of friends who aren't taking any AP classes this year. Aaaand so consequently, I don't have that much time to spend outside of school with my friends unless it's a break. And I'm the only one really spending this much time on games at all, because I have no AP classes.
When I play around people, my timing gets all weird! Yaay. Even the most basic things like powershielding sometimes fails me. -.- YEP.
So well, it seems that you all just talk about timing... I can pull off the basic timing things on TL when I'm around people, so I guess it's just like... practicing more, I guess.

But the other day I played in Training at 1.5x speed on Toon Link. It was then that I realized how SLOW Brawl was, wow. Even the most strictly timed ATs seemed really simple, but I still can't pull them off. -.- lolololool

 

[CURRY]

Okay.
-What do you do after you land the first hit of nair? It apparently has really high hitstun, so.. yeah. I would imagine something like usmash or Dancing Blade would be good?
-I have trouble doing the foxtrot+fsmash... so with the dashing, there is this rhythm that has to go with it. Does the cstick tilt NOT go with that rhythm? I can't seem to pull it off unless I don't have the end of the dash animation...
-When I do my downtilt attacks, on the analog I put in diagonal + down. And then I press down on the cstick. Sometimes Marth just starts dashing and I accidentally do a dash attack instead??? Help?

EDIT:
Why do people talk about swords swinging high to low, and low to high?
I remember in a Wario matchup discussion on the TL boards, a Wario main said that TL Bair was better than Marth Fair because it swung from low to high instead of high to low? Why does that matter? I can't believe that people have reflexes so fast that something this minimal could make a difference.

 

[Jackson]

Okay.
-What do you do after you land the first hit of nair? It apparently has really high hitstun, so.. yeah. I would imagine something like usmash or Dancing Blade would be good?
-I have trouble doing the foxtrot+fsmash... so with the dashing, there is this rhythm that has to go with it. Does the cstick tilt NOT go with that rhythm? I can't seem to pull it off unless I don't have the end of the dash animation...
-When I do my downtilt attacks, on the analog I put in diagonal + down. And then I press down on the cstick. Sometimes Marth just starts dashing and I accidentally do a dash attack instead??? Help?

EDIT:
Why do people talk about swords swinging high to low, and low to high?
I remember in a Wario matchup discussion on the TL boards, a Wario main said that TL Bair was better than Marth Fair because it swung from low to high instead of high to low? Why does that matter? I can't believe that people have reflexes so fast that something this minimal could make a difference.

This is only referring to part of what you said, but I do Down tilts by pressing down on the analog stick and A. It never does anything else that way(like dash attack, because you are crouching).

 

[CURRY]

This is only referring to part of what you said, but I do Down tilts by pressing down on the analog stick and A. It never does anything else that way(like dash attack, because you are crouching).

Well, with down+cstick, you can pivot your downtilt... or something.. I don't know what to call it. You can turn around immediately and continue downtilting.

 

[Taytertot]

I'm having trouble with my Snake main friend who spams dash attack and DACUSes :D
So I shield it sometimes (Snake's dash is so slow... sometimes I can't tell if he's dashing or not) but then he also mixes it up and grabs me instead.
And he often just DACUSes away so I can't Dolphin Slash OoS... or should I just get better reflexes?

Approaching is out of the question. He just dash attacks.

This video might help in terms of how the match-up should go.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbUFoSYQZSU

 

[CURRY]

This video might help in terms of how the match-up should go.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbUFoSYQZSU

lol thanks, but Ally doesn't spam dashes and DACUSes because he knows that this Marth is not as bad as I am. :<
So every time that a dash attack or DACUS happens, yeah... Ally makes his choices carefully, so this Marth isn't faring too well against them. Thanks though.

 

[Taytertot]

lol thanks, but Ally doesn't spam dashes and DACUSes because he knows that this Marth is not as bad as I am. :<
So every time that a dash attack or DACUS happens, yeah... Ally makes his choices carefully, so this Marth isn't faring too well against them. Thanks though.

fair enough but I do think that ally not using it all the time means that marth has an answer to it so he's being careful. I would assume that a retreating SH tipper fair should beat it though you may have to make a little prediction on timing. maybe FF nair or DB1? if there at high percent youve always got DS.

 

[1PokeMastr]

You're able to buffer turn around down tilts with Analog down + A, just tilt it slightly in the opposite direction.

For the foxtrot thing, rapidly input a direction, so you dash right, continually just tap the analog stick to the right
If you do it right, Marth will do his dash thing over and over again

The Foxtrot Fsmash is 2 forward + fsmash input.

Again, there's no way to get better at a technique outside of practicing.


And you're better off watching high level matches regardless of your skill level.
Since your friend is obviously not a high level player, you should be able to learn how to beat his low level style.

 

[Jackson]

You're able to buffer turn around down tilts with Analog down + A, just tilt it slightly in the opposite direction.

For the foxtrot thing, rapidly input a direction, so you dash right, continually just tap the analog stick to the right
If you do it right, Marth will do his dash thing over and over again

The Foxtrot Fsmash is 2 forward + fsmash input.

Again, there's no way to get better at a technique outside of practicing.


And you're better off watching high level matches regardless of your skill level.
Since your friend is obviously not a high level player, you should be able to learn how to beat his low level style.

Ah...so you have to Fsmash after the second foxtrot.

 

[C.J.]

Yeah, keep in mind that you can fsmash out of the opening frames of your dash animation (stutterstepping) so you have to input the second (or third or w/e) dash input before you can fsmash.

Pivot grab and slow fall retreating nair beat Snake's dash attack.

 

[CURRY]

Welp. I guess I just don't know what's happening with the dashing thing.... because I'm already tilting down. I guess it's just something weird like how I can't do a moonwalk because I just charge side smash all the time instead xD

Well okay. I'm confused about pivot grabbing because he'll just dash attack me? So Pivot grab out of shield????Didn't even know that was a thing.
Also, What is something nice I could do after I hit the first hit of nair? (rising fair -> first hit nair -> ????) Apparently it has high hitstun so yeah

Also I had a random question about why low to high sword swinging is usually better than high to low, because I honestly see no difference because there's like, minimal frame difference, if any.

EDIT:
Is anyone annoyed by how much I ask? :<
Welp. :/
... How do you kill with the sweetspot on Marth's Utilt if it's the back? You can't really approach with that... and if someone approaches from behind, then welp, you're going to get damage and you're not going to be able to do it.

 

[Taytertot]

How do you kill with the sweetspot on Marth's Utilt if it's the back? You can't really approach with that... and if someone approaches from behind, then welp, you're going to get damage and you're not going to be able to do it.

I use it mostly to hit people on platforms. Once you get the spacing it can work quite well.

Also, What is something nice I could do after I hit the first hit of nair? (rising fair -> first hit nair -> ????) Apparently it has high hitstun so yeah

you follow it up with DB1 (maybe even the combo depending on your spacing). dtilt should also work and jab. you can grab after nair depending on spacing and percent. I dont think rising fair would work unless it was a read because the hitstun isnt quite good enough for that. maybe ftilt or if you read them DIing towards you after the FF first hit of nair you could go for dsmash (dsmash hits on frame 6 in the front).

 

[C.J.]

Welp. I guess I just don't know what's happening with the dashing thing.... because I'm already tilting down. I guess it's just something weird like how I can't do a moonwalk because I just charge side smash all the time instead xD

I don't know what you're referring to here. Go into more detail on what you're actually trying to do other than "dashing thing" and I'll help you.

Well okay. I'm confused about pivot grabbing because he'll just dash attack me? So Pivot grab out of shield????Didn't even know that was a thing.

Pivot grab OoS isn't a thing. Grabs beat out attacks though in Brawl. So you pivot grab and he literally slides into your hands.

Also I had a random question about why low to high sword swinging is usually better than high to low, because I honestly see no difference because there's like, minimal frame difference, if any.

That "minimal frame difference" literally is why Marth has so many even MUs. The fact that is take 2 frames for the sword on fair to get in front of and below Marth makes an absurd difference in how the game is played. To be brief, if fair was functionally a frame 4 attack (since it's functionally a frame 6 attack because of the arc) Marth would almost never get his zoning broken and would almost never get AA'd.

EDIT:

Is anyone annoyed by how much I ask? :<

Nope

... How do you kill with the sweetspot on Marth's Utilt if it's the back? You can't really approach with that... and if someone approaches from behind, then welp, you're going to get damage and you're not going to be able to do it.

Trap landings and read ADs

 

[CURRY]

ADs...?
Well, the dashing thing... I put my analog like this:
http://i.imgur.com/qKwYUC8.png
And I just randomly dash sometimes, even though (I think) my analog hasn't moved. It's in the corner of an octagon, so... .yeah.
It's just random. Whenever I dtilt, I dtilt fine, and even though my analog stick seems to not have shifted in position (I mean, my stick is forced into a CORNER of an octagon...) and he just spontaneously dashes, so when I do cstick down, I do a dash attack. :/ This happens like, anytime... probably mostly around 5-20 times I dtilt properly before I dash
I've tried it on Toon Link; when I dtilt with my analog stick diagonally down, I do some dtilts, then I spontaneously dash at a random time.
I don't think doing this:
http://i.imgur.com/AlFtBab.png
will help, because I can't pivot my dtilt properly when I want to.

EDIT:
How do "campy" Marths work if they have no projectiles? Is it like that "defensive Marth" that you all talk about? (The safe Marth?) Because of no projectiles, I always just approach...

EDITTTTT: FOUND A WEIRD GLITCH.
So I was playing around in Training mode, abusing the no-staling Dancing Blade on poor Pit.
Pit was OFF THE EDGE, and I was ON STAGE (SV) and I did dancing blade while Pit was in the air, near the edge. (right side of the stage) (DB, all four hits = side version)
Pit activated his up special just as I was doing the DB finale, and we BOTH got launched sideways REALLY far, to the right, and not at all launched up.
I was being launched right during the ending lag of DB finale. And I wasn't able to recover. :|
If anyone replicates this... and records... holy crud. =.=
Or if it's already known and recorded, then holy whoa, I want to see. Windboxes are so weird.

 

[Shaya]

Marth's dancing blade has very weird self moving trajectories when other forces are being applied to him. We've got a few videos about it (pokemon stadium 2 is a really good example of somewhere you can do it semi-consistently)

 

[C.J.]

ADs...?
Well, the dashing thing... I put my analog like this:
http://i.imgur.com/qKwYUC8.png
And I just randomly dash sometimes, even though (I think) my analog hasn't moved. It's in the corner of an octagon, so... .yeah.
It's just random. Whenever I dtilt, I dtilt fine, and even though my analog stick seems to not have shifted in position (I mean, my stick is forced into a CORNER of an octagon...) and he just spontaneously dashes, so when I do cstick down, I do a dash attack. :/ This happens like, anytime... probably mostly around 5-20 times I dtilt properly before I dash
I've tried it on Toon Link; when I dtilt with my analog stick diagonally down, I do some dtilts, then I spontaneously dash at a random time.
I don't think doing this:
http://i.imgur.com/AlFtBab.png
will help, because I can't pivot my dtilt properly when I want to.

AD = air dodge
Sounds like your controller is just bad, get a better one/reset it more often/etc

EDIT:
How do "campy" Marths work if they have no projectiles? Is it like that "defensive Marth" that you all talk about? (The safe Marth?) Because of no projectiles, I always just approach...

Watch MikeNeko and NEO.

Also you don't have to do damage if you can create implied pressure since they'll run into your attacks.