BBR Weekly Character Discussion #26: Bowser

[TheReflexWonder]

Charizard's fire breath is already on the cusp of usability IMO; it's pretty risky, and if things don't go just right you get hurt for it. I think Bowser's version goes a bit beyond that, to the realm of "if you are so much better than your opponent that you know this is going to hit, can't you do something better?" But then again, if you're playing as Bowser, maybe not...


Mind you, I don't think Bowser needs to go down far, but I don't think he's keeping up with the joneses in E tier.

Charizard's Flamethrower beats a lot of stuff and forces the opponent to come above to attack. The same goes for Bowser's Fire Breath, except Bowser's fire has more priority and sacrifices length for width, I believe. Both moves are to be used as pressure or to make the opponents react a certain way, not as a standalone attack.

 

[T-block]

Can't speak for Bowser, but Charizard's Flamethrower definitely has its uses. It's beyond the cusp of usability.

 

[gallax]

has more priority and sacrifices length for width

You heard it here first folks.

 

[CT Chia]

im really shocked at what everyone thinks of bowser here. 2nd worst?? bottom tier??
am i the only one that thinks bowser isnt too bad? the chars a hell of a tank and has some really interesting moves and traits. hes the grab release master, i dont need to tell u guys that. even though his upb isnt as good for recovering that dks, bowser has a better fair to protect him, and added functionality of his downb.
bowser loses to a lot of low tiers so in a low tier tourney setting he wont shine, but he does far better than most low tier chars against high tiers.
this is a matchup you truly have to kno to play or you will lose... badly. anyone remember vex vs ally @ pound 4)

 

[Crow!]

@ Vex vs Ally: Ally was deliberatly being a scrub, remember? Then he went Snake and dealt out the pain.

Also, if a character "loses to a lot of low tiers", he I can't imagine him not losing worse to a most of the mid and high tiers.

 

[EdreesesPieces]

Chibo I agree with you, though I felt like i was the only one too

 

[AllyKnight]

I guarantee you I'd be different this time if I played Vex with MK this time

 

[Pierce7d]

Ally got that King Kong training

I don't think Bowser is that bad. UpB OOS is annoying, because it means you MUST space against him very well, all the time. This is frustrating, because Bowser's ftilt has a lot of range, and is fast enough to be a reasonable anti-approach tool. Running shield is OKAY against him, but he gets massive rewards off grab. Also, air grab is pretty good, and I believe aerial claw has more range. Utilt and Dtilt are good for K.O.ing as well.

Can we please get Vex back here? He deserves it anyways, lmao.

 

[Marc]

I'm one of those people who overestimated Bowser and he needs to go down, but he's definitely not second worst or whatever. His moveset other than his smashes is pretty good and guaranteed setups (his grab releases) are always great. A character like Falcon has to struggle for his kills a lot more.

I even like down+B because of how unexpected and devastatingly punishing it can be in one of those rare situations where it's actually viable, which is basically when Bowser is falling down and someone underneath him gets too greedy with aerials. I guess people are right in saying Bowser is great when you're better than your opponent because of hard he can punish mistakes, but is that ability in itself (being able to capitalize on mistakes hard) not worth something?

 

[Pierce7d]

Grounded DownB can be airdodged, but it's not a stretch to say it will catch people off guard sometimes considering how fast and rare it is. Also, if DownB is used while in knockback, it can give Bowser a slight rise. It also sweetspots the ledge.

 

[Crow!]

Data time - a little late, but late is better than never.

First, I would like to caution that for characters as low as E tier, the sample size of serious players representing them is quite small. Drawing conclusions from this data alone may be dangerous, much more so than with higher tier characters.

As usual, the following graph takes tournament results as compiled by Ankoku (current as of the end of May, 2010), groups the results by character and player name, and shows on the Y-Axis how well the N-th best player (arranged on the X-Axis) of characters A, B, C... has been doing in tournaments over the course of 6 months.

Bowser just is not E tier material. I don't see where his characteristics make him any more likely to actually win a typical matchup than F tiers, plus he doesn't even do great against other lower-tiered characters.

Tournament data bears this out - nobody has risen to have any noticeable amount of success with Bowser lately. And we're not talking about just a lack of a specific hero like Shiek - there just isn't any "upper skilled mains for this character go here" section for Bowser at all, suggesting that either that only bad players would main Bowser in the first place, or that maining Bowser makes players do badly. (Or both..) I'm leaning toward the latter.

I mean, it's possible that Bowser's just not gotten any good players to have any interest in him as a matter of random chance, but that just doesn't sit well with me. Bowser's too cool for that, and some people were pretty excited about him very early on. Also, in that case, I would expect at least the mediocre players who go Bowser to be sort of keeping up with the mediocre players in the rest of E tier.

 

[TheMike]

Crow!, can you compare Bowser's data to some other low tiers, please?

 

[Mew2King]

be careful when jumping over bowser or the hatchets might hit you

 

[Crow!]

Crow!, can you compare Bowser's data to some other low tiers, please?

Sure, I'll get on that tonight. I think I'll just go ahead and put together all of F tier, and include Bowser in the mix to see how well he fits in.

 

[Flayl]

This far down on the tier list character ranking points mean nothing but a popularity contest. I should be one of the players with most points and I'm ****ing horrible lol.

There was too much theorycraft going on in this discussion. Way too much. Kind of what I expected. You can kind of tell AmazingAmpharos and Crow have never played a decent Bowser.

 

[Shaya]

This far down on the tier list character ranking points mean nothing but a popularity contest. I should be one of the players with most points and I'm ****ing horrible lol.

I read this as "Can't rely on tournaments results that don't exist for a character".

There was too much theorycraft going on in this discussion. Way too much. Kind of what I expected. You can kind of tell AmazingAmpharos and Crow have never played a decent Bowser.

I read this as "Shakespeare's Revival: Dramatic Irony 2010".

 

[Flayl]

I read this as "Can't rely on tournaments results that don't exist for a character".

Don't play dumb. If you're going solely by the CRL Ganondorf is a better character than Bowser. And has been for most of Brawl's life.

I read this as "Shakespeare's Revival: Dramatic Irony 2010".

Please, explain.

 

[B!squick]

There was too much theorycraft going on in this discussion.

Pfft, what are you talking about? Theorycraft is EVERYTHING. Right A2ZOMG?

inb4youknowwhat

Besides, it's Bowser. No one plays him, so theorycraft is kinda what you have to fall back on.

 

[Shaya]

Ahem, if a character does not exist in tournament play at all;
how do you propose we discuss them?

This actually applies to all discussions,
what, we're only meant to go "hey this character has player X that did well at a tournament" or "omg this player X took a match off mew2king"?

Don't say silly things

 

[B!squick]

If we could somehow merge Ixis's skills with Vex's experience, Bowser would be unstoppable.

 

[Flayl]

Ahem, if a character does not exist in tournament play at all;
how do you propose we discuss them?

This actually applies to all discussions,
what, we're only meant to go "hey this character has player X that did well at a tournament" or "omg this player X took a match off mew2king"?

Don't say silly things

Friendlies don't exist. Low tier tournaments don't exist. Money matches don't exist.

Everything I know is a lie.

edit: One thing I sort of enjoyed was the almost universal agreement that he shouldn't have been mid tier for the past 4 tier lists. Bowser is definitely a low tier character, don't get me wrong. But 2nd or 3rd worst? Whaaaat?

 

[TheMike]

I don't think he is that bad, but should definately drop some spots. And I'm not the only one.

 

[MrEh]

tl:dr version

Bowser sucks.

 

[Kofu]

tl:dr version

Bowser's bad.

Not bottom 5, though. Maybe bottom 8.

See, the problem with tier lists is that...
though a lot of characters may be good in their own right...
Somebody's gotta suck.

 

[Cassius.]

Ok, let me be the first one to say, all of you guys are saying Bowser is terrible, yet all of you guys have yet to mention Bowser's best move, in my opinion and with grace as well. I'm APPALLED at all the stuff you guys have to say about how bad he is, but you can't even get one simple move out there that is up on the top tier of his moveset. Really? It seems like a simple move, and you think it can be beat easily, but if Klaw is used CORRECTLY and spaced CORRECTLY, it's far from what you think it is. It's a grab that can be used on the ground, but its real power lies in its aerial form.

Bowser's Klaw (side-b) is his best move in his arsenal, and even Vex agrees with me (or rather, I agree with Vex.) That move is amazing, and I thank Reflex, Edrees and Pierce for knowing their stuff.

Yes, Bowser is bad, all of those points that AA pointed out and everyone else did are completely correct as well, but you're missing out on a big part. His klaw is amazing, and every Bowser MAIN/people who come to these boards knows that it's a really good move. (inb4ohbowserboardsdon'texist)

And he's not second worst in this game. What the **** are you smoking?

YES, he has little to no representation in America, ESPECIALLY since Vex quit.

YES, KingKong is doing work, and I love him for that(irrelevant note)

But like Pierce said, Up-B and Grabs going to work force you to space correctly against Bowser. He's really not as bad as you guys think, and it pains me to see all these matchup threads with Bowser at 65-35 or whatever when it's not that bad at all., I can't argue for matchups anyway. I gave up on that **** ages ago.

Again, he has no representation that I really know of, and for good reason; when you look at Bowser, your first thought is that he's garbage, but he's far from it. I honestly think he's fine where he is, maybe Yoshi will rise above where he is, I don't know. Obviously knowing the tier list, he's going to go down, but he's reaching his limit of how far down he can go. Honestly.

Now, like I was saying before, Inferno and Espy and AA hit it off right. His recovery is meh, and he's not going up anywhere in the tier list. He has some pretty scary matchups ie. Diddy, ICs, MK to an extent, and Dedede I guess. He's perfectly fine where he is, the bottom of mid tier/top of low tier. Like I was saying, he may go down ONE SPOT, but that's it, in my opinion.

edit: I dunno if I can post in this, but I'm assuming since it's just out in the open like that, you guys are open to input... <_< *crosses fingers*

 

[The Real Inferno]

Anybody can post in this, that's why it's here. We move them when the BBR moves on to the next set of characters so the public can join in.

Edit: LOL at Mr. Eh.

It's not that bad, but yeah, he's bad in the it makes me sad kind of way. I like playing Bowser. I used him against Dojo once for the lulz at Whobo1 (guess what?! He won! I know! I was totally shocked!).

 

[Cassius.]

Oh ok. Good -.- Well, that big hunk of whatever up there is my input. I was distracted by other stuff so I may have repeated myself twice. But I'm pretty sure Bowser can only go down one more spot before it starts becoming ridiculous lol.

 

[Shaya]

Bowser was "top of low tier" last tier list along with Ness.
Just we felt having a tier of just ness/bowser wasn't worthwhile.

 

[Hobobloke]

Tell the people who won't let me play Bowser in low tier that.

This thread makes me sad.

 

[Nidtendofreak]

Bowser should be in the upper or middle part of low tier. Retreating OoS Fortress helps to avoid getting combo'd when on the ground, koopa claw is too good, amazing amount of grab release stuff which allows for follow ups to KOing moves in some MUs, and is a fatty who takes forever to send off stage.

At least that's what I gathered during the couple of months I was trying him out as a secondary. He's not even close to second worse in the game. He's rather limited in what he can do, but those few options can be good, when abused correctly.

 

[Crow!]

(The above chart uses the same rules as the previous one shown in this thread. Ness is included as a reference point to compare the two charts with each other.)

As you can see, in terms of tournament results, Bowser fits in at the top of the lower half of F tier.

 

[Zigsta]

Do those tournament results take into account how many Bowsers enter tournaments?

Meaning does Ike, a much more popular character, have an advantage in this graph over an unpopular character like Bowser?

 

[Cassius.]

So the tier list is judged by a popularity contest now.

K.

Now before I respond to that graph I kinda need to know what everything on that is about. I pose the same question that Zigsta does.

And let's say for the sake of argument that there was one Bowser player in each state, that didn't even place well, yet they went to tournaments regularly, and Bowser had hell of a more decent rep than he does now. Would that mean he wouldn't be "in the lower half of F tier" as you say? Which is complete bull**** IMO but we're all entitled to opinions so w/e.

edit: I read that post in the last page. You said:

"First, I would like to caution that for characters as low as E tier, the sample size of serious players representing them is quite small. Drawing conclusions from this data alone may be dangerous, much more so than with higher tier characters."

If it's "dangerous", why do it? I'm not going to question the purpose of data even though I already did, but you know and you even mentioned that it's kinda hard to judge stuff.

It's been a hell of a long time, I can't remember what you guys use to judge tier list placements, but if it really is POPULARITY then there's something wrong. Tournament placings may seem a bit more valid than that, because yes, I admit, no one's really done nothing stellar with Bowser since Vex. Wholeheartedly admit it.

KingKong, as much as we love him didn't make it out of Apex, so you guys (BBR) probably just shrug that **** off. lol

"I mean, it's possible that Bowser's just not gotten any good players to have any interest in him as a matter of random chance, but that just doesn't sit well with me. Bowser's too cool for that, and some people were pretty excited about him very early on. Also, in that case, I would expect at least the mediocre players who go Bowser to be sort of keeping up with the mediocre players in the rest of E tier."

You just said it there yourself. No one is interested in Bowser. When they take a glance at him, they just see a piece of trash that's easy to beat or whatever. It's their pure ignorant thought that drives them to this, because people make notions about something before they even try it. Why doesn't it sit well with you? It happens everywhere, even outside of Smash (not saying we can put character rankings on life or tier lists on aspects of life, lul)

Bowser's too cool for that. K, sure.

Who was pretty excited about him early on? Gimpy played Bowser for a bit, said he was bull****. Warriorknight went to work, he quit because Brawl sucked, plays Melee now. Vex dropped Dedede, picked up Bowser, did well. Who was excited ENOUGH to actually follow Vex's trend and try Bowser and do well? People probably still second guessed him, like maybe it's Vex just being really smart and making Bowser good. Maybe Bowser actually isn't that good.

Same predicament with San. You see a character like Ike doing so well and Bless him, I have no issues with San or Ike, I think he's amazing but..honestly, sometimes people just think maybe it's San and not Ike. Now, this isn't an Ike discussion, and I have no idea where he's going to go on the next list, but hopefully you see my point?

No one's interested in Bowser. Maybe it's just our fault? I mean yes we have Bowsers here and there that do work, but most of them aren't in America, and the ones that are in America...I haven't seen, since Vex quit. I can only name Myself, KingKong, Zigsta, MrEh and...i don't even know after that. Vex gave up on Bowser and for good reason but now he's just a sitting duck in terms of popularity.

We get posts of people saying "hey im picking up Bowser", then we get hope, just to see them never really post again and just go back to their mains. Why? Bowser doesn't interest them. It's not that Bowser is terrible, because he's far from it; like I've been saying, he belongs maybe one or two spots down from where he's at now (because there are a few characters doing more work than him) or maybe he's fine where he is, but at some point you have to understand although his results don't show it, he's not as bad as the rest.

God...why do I type so much -_- I don't even type like this for my boarding school essays...sigh

 

[TheReflexWonder]

Do those tournament results take into account how many Bowsers enter tournaments?

Meaning does Ike, a much more popular character, have an advantage in this graph over an unpopular character like Bowser?

It just shows how many points the highest-ranked players of each character have gained.

Judging by this, there -are- no Bowser players placing, regardless of how many there are.

 

[Crow!]

Look at Captian Falcon or Pokemon Trainer, for example. Each of those characters have one player who is doing amazing (lol Ally) but the rest of that character's mains are kind of sucking in terms of tournament placements. Does this mean those characters have more potential than others, or does it mean that those players are just outliers, placing that well either because they're such uncharacteristically good players taking advantage of the gimmick effect, or because they did so well by playing against terrible players?

The key pieces of information you can get from these charts are how well the best players of each character can do, and how well a more typical player can do. At present, Bowser doesn't HAVE any best players, and the typical Bowser players are also doing poorly. What more can you ask for?

If anything, Bowser seems to be abnormally popular, btw, judging by how his curve decays a lot slower than his peers. If this were a popularity contest, I'd be giving Bowser bonus points.

 

[Flayl]

If anything, Bowser seems to be abnormally popular, btw, judging by how his curve decays a lot slower than his peers. If this were a popularity contest, I'd be giving Bowser bonus points.

What the... That has nothing to do with popularity. That means that the few Bowser players that exist are placing more or less the same.

I'm starting to wonder if Crow has some agenda, like putting Link above Bowser lol.

 

[Crow!]

My underlying assumption is that players going to similarly tiered characters each come from approximately the same skill destribution. If that is true, then the most likely way to get a flatter distribution than your opposing characters is by having more players playing as that character.

The case and point example of this is Peach. See this post:
http://www.smashboards.com/showpost.php?p=10949543&postcount=17

Also, nah, Bowser's got it better than Link.

 

[MrEh]

If anything, Bowser seems to be abnormally popular

That's something you don't hear everyday. lol

 

[Cassius.]

That's something you don't hear everyday. lol

Only in my dreams. :\

 

[B!squick]

If anything, Bowser seems to be abnormally popular, btw, judging by how his curve decays a lot slower than his peers.

You know, when you start a race closer to the finish line than everyone else, it DOES make alot of sense that you'd have less of a trip to make than everyone else...