Bowser general discussion thread.

[Mr. Bones]

Favorite Bowser smash move?

Forward Smash. You literally dodge and destroy. IN that order. With your skull.

 

[Abeebo]

I remember an old comment maybe somewhere around here saying Fsmash is 'the headbutt of a thousand suns.' I like that.

 

[Mr. Bones]

I remember an old comment maybe somewhere around here saying Fsmash is 'the headbutt of a thousand suns.' I like that.

I thought it was "a million burning suns"?

 

[Abeebo]

Uhh yea you know whatever. They both hurt like phuck.

 

[shairn]

So from messing around in debug mode I've uncovered a fair amount of stuff regarding Bowser in Yoshi's Story.

First off, due to the way the collision detection only updates ten frames after leaving the ground, in order to perfect waveland off of the YS side platforms, Bowser must waveland on his feet rather than on his knees like he normally would. Certainly something to keep in mind if you ever find yourself in YS.

Furthermore, I've also found a peculiar effect of DJ cancel BB: using your DJ on frame 14 of the BB animation will cause bowser to instant land on the top platform 5 frames later, which is significantly faster than if you had done the instant landing with jump + DJ. Significantly as in twice as fast. I hypothesize this is also possible on other stages, which I'm going to look at now.

Other, probably already known stuff includes frame perfect ledge jump WL leaving you invincible in the middle of the stage.

EDIT: BB DJ cancel instant landing also works on WW top platforms if you DJ on frame 15. Skyworld top platform on frame 16.

 

[V]

How would you rank the match up difficulty between Marth, Fox, and Pit?

 

[Frost | Odds]

Good Fox was really rough last patch, probably similar in this one.
Bad Fox gets facerolled. If Fox isn't your main, don't bother - you'll get creamed.

Haven't played against a good Pit since the patch, but the MU didn't scare me too much.

Marth scares me the most, though that's probably just because my personal counterplay against grabs is pretty bad.

 

[Osmosis124]

How would you rank the match up difficulty between Marth, Fox, and Pit?

I find Fox to be Handled very well, edge guarding him is really easy, and I think Up B does well against Shine. but overall I think it's like 6.3 in favor of fox but very winnable

I played a really good Pit a couple round a while ago an approaching pit is such a pain (I was on FD which might magnify the problem), Arrows wreck you and if the Pit player know how to combo and gimp you properly you can kiss the stock good bye when you get hit. A pretty solid 7 to 3 in favor of pit.

Against Marth is scary. Grab in general are extreme good against bowser and marth has a stupid grab range and a good tech chase game and can combo you if you DI badly. You are super easy to combo and his Dair and fsmash are really dangerous. But you can gimp MArth very hard, and good reads reward you alot. Very winnable but can be hard to keep a solid lead.

 

[-Maddox-]

Fox is in Bowser's favor for sure. I beat K9's fox a couple days ago with bowser.

 

[Abeebo]

Fox is in Bowser's favor for sure.

A shine-happy fox that laser/usmash-spams you a lot and is good at avoiding your grabs. I'm curious as to how you personally turn this common neutral situation into bowser's favor.

 

[-Maddox-]

A shine-happy fox that laser/usmash-spams you a lot and is good at avoiding your grabs. I'm curious as to how you personally turn this common neutral situation into bowser's favor.

Be patient with shine pressure and use up-b out of shield. Even if you can't get many grabs it only takes 1 to really turn the stock in your favor because you can u-throw to fair to get them offstage (or kill) and then edgegaurd them super hard. fox is scarier when he's camping because you're in a worse position while you are approaching. When you are at a high enough percent for his up-smash that actually can work in your favor because you know he'll be looking for it and he might become more predictable.

But yeah in general I think fox has bit of an advantage in neutral, but bowser's punish and edge guard game is much stronger.

EDIT: Bowser vs. Wolf feels WAY more difficult though, I'm not sure about falco.

 

[Heero Yuy]

Myth or fact: Bowser bops spacies?

 

[Crulex Crystallite]

Myth or fact: Bowser bops spacies?

A good bowser will bop spacies. A spacie can combo you if you slip up, but Bowser has a lot of mix ups and immunity tools to screw up a spacie's comfortable combo game. You can crouch cancel wolf/falco lasers, your dash attack can go through most stunning projectiles and your Dsmash range is good for tech chasing, the back of it has a disjointed hitbox.

Bowser has some pretty strong tools to keep them on the ground and trying to tech away from you. Abuse flame/flame cancels when you need space, and don't be afraid to trade their grounded advances with a dash attack (if they want to grab you, or are nairing or what have you). Upsmash/tilt is good for picking off platform tumblers. Uair is extremely potent as a kill option against spacies.

It depends on how your opponent will play against you. Don't get comfortable, because Bowser is easy to grab combo.

 

[Frost | Odds]

Myth or fact: Bowser bops spacies?

Bowser bops bad spacies. Good, patient, disciplined spacies (mostly Fox) bop Bowser.

 

[PootisKonga]

Bowser bops bad spacies. Good, patient, disciplined spacies (mostly Fox) bop Bowser.

Good, patient, disciplined Foxes theoretically bop everyone though
/maybe s

 

[Christopher Rodriguez]

How would you rank the match up difficulty between Marth, Fox, and Pit?

Bowser > Marth
Fox > Bowser absolutely in high level tournament play, still somewhat playable
Pit is decent for Bowser

 

[Frost | Odds]

Bowser > Marth

Oh dear. I was so hopeful that I wasn't going to have an aneurysm today.

Why do you think this? I used to have the same opinion about marth in theorycraft land, then I played a good one. Maybe you know something I don't.

 

[Christopher Rodriguez]

haha

Dtilt/CC approach murders any sort of physical approach, and even grabs all together. Mindless neutral game winnage.
5 or so good hits and he's prepped to get dtilt/ftilt/faired in neutral approach by Bowser. Edgegaurd. Rinse and repeat.

You can tank his lame damage rackups. Worse comes to worse he knocks you off stage after, recover perfectly and start over. Dair spikes can be kind of annoying, I guess.. The matchup in the bigger is insanely frustrating for Marth, so long as you don't let him breathe and remain the aggressor. He's a goner to the bair edgegaurd. He can't handle instant flame approach because Marths mistrust their center stage game. Bowser has matched range and priority to answer Marth's disjoint range. OOS game is devastating should Marth try and fsmash you over and over, as 99% of Marth players do. The other one percent will DD well and weave in and out. Create space with triangle jump and the occasional reminder of close range instant flame cancel shield ****.

I swear on everything this MU isn't as bad as everyone puts it out to be. Most marth players will disagree, but I'm almost positive I haven't lost to a Marth player in singles tournament yet as it is.. or ever. Teams is a different story. Somewhere down the line it'll happen I'm sure, but point still standing..

By the way, to all you up and coming Bowser mains and long time mains as well, accepting Bowser's faults at face value and giving up right there will NOT further your progress as a player.. Accepting them, developing NEW and intuitive mindsets and finessing your tech skill and clutch decisions will. I've been a top level placing Bowser player since Apex in arguably one of the toughest regions for PM (tristate/occasional mdva) and have always surprised and overcome high level players, or at least matched them. I've been throw the lows and the highs with just about every matchup; I'm completely aware at times certain matchups can appear nearly unplayable.

I've been avoiding these boards because of the misconception that Bowser is just written off and slandered in high level play and large amounts of inactivity. He has obvious flaws but those are since in stone and need to be get over. If I need to hang around here more to spark some controversy, I will. If I need to talk/convince other fellow Bowsers about his potential, I will. I'll make an effort to post more and offer more insight and such. I literally have tons of tournament experience haha

 

[NFMLH2]

I really like Bowser's new victory theme.. I wonder what brstm file is Bowser's Victory theme.

 

[Abeebo]

Bowser > Marth

I agree with you here, deff.
I'm not here to say that Bowser 'craps' on Marth, or anything of the sort. It's a pretty tight matchup and, ultimately, that is exactly what this game should be striving for anyway, I think.
You all chose one of the slowest, biggest, more unorthodox characters in the game, so it really should go without saying that you're going to have to be very careful and thoughtful about your real-time decisions. To get past these rough matchups, you HAVE to know this character intimately first.

The one tipper move we have can ignore all but marth's fsmash and maybe ftilt (marth dtilt is huge, but you'd be safe in the air anyway). Marth's recovery is almost as linear as ours. Bowser can fsmash Marth's sweetspotted recover if you always time it right. Flame cancels make a good wall, utilt is a strong launcher/floaty killer, and don't be too afraid to approach with dash attack or upB-to-ledge grab when the opponent is acting aggressive. ::THAT IS WHAT THEY ARE FOR:: As long as you have a plan for getting Marth offstage, then he shouldn't be a major threat.

Personally, I think what most Bowsers can use brushing up on is their usage of crouch-canceled jab1 IASA specifically. It's an old technique to cancel your jab 1 IASA frames with a crouch (I spammed this a lot with brawl falco), and we all know what options crouching can give Bowser. If there is ONE thing that I would say is missing from Bowser's deeper meta and the MU knowledge that everyone else has on him is the capability of his jab 1:

-Range is actually quite comparable to dtilt AND is faster
-It does 6% damage (for reference, Ganon's jab (phucking bullspit ) does 7%)
-Can be followed by dash attack (Frame 1 medium armor)
-Utilt can follow jab1 fluidly IF opponent is close enough. Great for starting a combo
-For shield pressure, ftilt can follow jab1 for heavy shield damage
-Jab1>dtilt might be the easiest way to get someone offstage. Can also open up shield pressure
-Dtilt can kinda follow jab1. Almost always catches people offguard. Can follow up with another jab1>jab2, dtilt1>dtilt2, ftilt for solid shield damage + pushback
-When landed, you can almost always get away with a second jab1 (super quick 12% right there) before your opponent reacts, which is almost always a shield. You can react with more shield pressure or a grab

The only problem with jab1 is how slow it is, starting at frame 6. The move technically starts on frame 5, but the hitbubbles are in such an awkwardly short and high position where it rarely makes contact (better off using upB, tilt, grab, or most anything else at that point). Frame 6 is where jab is fully extended and most helpful. Also, the angle of jab1 is pointed kinda low, so it's hard to land a jab reset on a descending opponent.
Frame 5:

Frame 6:

 

[Abeebo]

Debug mode has revealed to me the fact that Bowser's Uair gives him the slightest of stalls, thus aiding his recovery. Most of you probably won't bother with it, but those that are too familiar with JUST landing on the stage when your opponent hogs the ledge in anticipation of a sweetspot (and sometimes you even knick them off the ledge) may keep this in mind. Yes, if you have time to Uair then you probably have time to sideB which gives you way more distance. The difference here is that one halts your fall and the other propels you as well as accelerates your fall. Your choice, kemo-sabi.

 

[Frost | Odds]

haha

Dtilt/CC approach murders any sort of physical approach, and even grabs all together. Mindless neutral game winnage.
5 or so good hits and he's prepped to get dtilt/ftilt/faired in neutral approach by Bowser. Edgegaurd. Rinse and repeat.

I, uh, don't think you know how dash dancing works.

Worse comes to worse he knocks you off stage after, recover perfectly and start over.

No. If you're offstage, you're dead against a marth that has even the faintest clue of what he's doing.

Bowser has matched range and priority to answer Marth's disjoint range.

Not even remotely true.

OOS game is devastating should Marth try and fsmash you over and over, as 99% of Marth players do.

Sure, Bowser beats bad marths. There is no point in discussing how bad players approach a matchup, though.

The other one percent will DD well and weave in and out. Create space with triangle jump and the occasional reminder of close range instant flame cancel shield ****.

Neither triangle jump nor short hopping to flame cancel is even remotely safe in neutral against marth in most situations.

I swear on everything this MU isn't as bad as everyone puts it out to be. Most marth players will disagree, but I'm almost positive I haven't lost to a Marth player in singles tournament yet as it is.. or ever.

I need video, because I simply do not believe that you are both being accurate here and playing against decent Marth players.

I hope I'm wrong.

By the way, to all you up and coming Bowser mains and long time mains as well, accepting Bowser's faults at face value and giving up right there will NOT further your progress as a player.. Accepting them, developing NEW and intuitive mindsets and finessing your tech skill and clutch decisions will.

This is great advice. I hope nobody takes my pessimism as a sign that I have (or that anyone else should) stop(ped) attempting to find new solutions in difficult matchups.

I've been avoiding these boards because of the misconception that Bowser is just written off and slandered in high level play and large amounts of inactivity. He has obvious flaws but those are since in stone and need to be get over. If I need to hang around here more to spark some controversy, I will. If I need to talk/convince other fellow Bowsers about his potential, I will. I'll make an effort to post more and offer more insight and such. I literally have tons of tournament experience haha

Get in the Skype chat. Post some videos. I'd love to get some more specific details on your play.

 

[Xanthyr]

A cute interaction with boost klawing on the stage edge, you go much further backwards, looks cool. It seems you're b-reversing in the air, but Bowser's collision doesn't go far enough off stage so you get launched back onto stage without your armor.

Dunno if y'all know this, but I posted on the skype group as well, a couple people looked at it.

 

[Candypants]

A cute interaction with boost klawing on the stage edge, you go much further backwards, looks cool. It seems you're b-reversing in the air, but Bowser's collision doesn't go far enough off stage so you get launched back onto stage without your armor.

Dunno if y'all know this, but I posted on the skype group as well, a couple people looked at it.

Looks pretty cool, do you keep your armor whilst doing it?

 

[Abeebo]

That 'cute' interaction is simply you utilizing the taunt mechanic, I.e. canceling an animation with your teetering animation by sliding to the very edge before falling. What you're doing there is canceling your dash into idle stand, then immediately dashing the opposite way and doing a sideB which makes it seem like it goes farther. This is not exclusive to any one character and/or any one move. Still, nice find and a cool way to utilize that mechanic.

 

[Xanthyr]

That 'cute' interaction is simply you utilizing the taunt mechanic, I.e. canceling an animation with your teetering animation by sliding to the very edge before falling. What you're doing there is canceling your dash into idle stand, then immediately dashing the opposite way and doing a sideB which makes it seem like it goes farther. This is not exclusive to any one character and/or any one move. Still, nice find and a cool way to utilize that mechanic.

I have debug mode on for the whole video. Bowser does not have armor during the boost klaw, thus he is barely off stage, actually b-reversing. There is no animation being canceled, and he goes significantly further.


First I pivot klaw, then I edge boost klaw twice, then I show the normal distance of the klaw, then I klaw hog, all to show about the timing and distance differences.

Thank you for check in' it out :D

Did you watch my other video? I have you a shout out. You were the first bowser I've ever played against, and one of the reasons I became a Bowser main.

 

[Abeebo]

Ahh! Now I see what you're trying to show off. Dang. That does give you some distance. What's the timing like on that? I guess I was expecting to see a single example of your tech instead of multiple variations, ha.

I haven't seen your other videos (which ones?), but thanks for the shout out though! That's pretty neat.

 

[Xanthyr]

Bowser; a glimpse, posted earlier in the week.

 

[Christopher Rodriguez]

I, uh, don't think you know how dash dancing works.

Let's just assume a player that's been around since '07 melee era and almost always places top 8 regionally with Bowser has NO idea how dash dancing works.

No. If you're offstage, you're dead against a marth that has even the faintest clue of what he's doing.

No sort of validity here, aside from shoving the fact down without any sort of actual facts.. are you aware Bowser has a mean sweetspotting game? There's many ways to approach ledgegaurding antics with Bowser.. switching up your double jump timing, stalling in place with fortress midair, rising bowser bomb recovery, forward air trade off.. You're missing the substance here, bud!

Not even remotely true.

Not going to bother here. Generally arguments need to have substance, simply saying no and moving through with a whim is super detrimental to the purpose of discussion. Unsure why I'm explaining this to somebody I'm assuming is able to grasp that concept, but I guess it happens..

Sure, Bowser beats bad marths. There is no point in discussing how bad players approach a matchup, though.

Good players beat bad players. Better players beat good players. There's tons of elbow room in this matchup and if you're generally more skilled than your opponent, you will win in my opinion and that's that.

Neither triangle jump nor short hopping to flame cancel is even remotely safe in neutral against marth in most situations.

"most"?

triangle jump and WD back are literally CRITICAL to Bowser's gameplay! You can't expect to just be a sitting POS in neutral! No, you must be FAST with Bowser. You need to not take any sort of movement or option for granted with this character, anything helps and the sooner you to learn to streamline all of it, the more versatile you can become. Retreats are amazing with Bowser.. His knockback on the majority of moves is very explosive, but if he's being rushed down he'll have trouble throwing much out aside from nair when not in hitstun and b-up OOS on the ground.

flame breath is safe.. It comes out instantly, has huge range, covers anything marth wants to do in front of you. It adds insane pressure so long as

A. You're not predictable with it
B. You use it closer and wreck his shield and get a free chomp hit to possibly a leadup/leg up in neutral.

I need video, because I simply do not believe that you are both being accurate here and playing against decent Marth players.

Search for them, then. You don't need video, you need someone who actually knows what they're talking about and consideration, running through scarce attempts at points to be made and answering with blocks upon blocks of information.

This is great advice. I hope nobody takes my pessimism as a sign that I have (or that anyone else should) stop(ped) attempting to find new solutions in difficult matchups.

Your intentions are good, but you aren't promoting much growth in the discussion IMO.

Get in the Skype chat. Post some videos. I'd love to get some more specific details on your play.

I will in due time. Wouldn't mind helping out and talking to other Bowser players as well

 

[Christopher Rodriguez]

I agree with you here, deff.
I'm not here to say that Bowser 'craps' on Marth, or anything of the sort. It's a pretty tight matchup and, ultimately, that is exactly what this game should be striving for anyway, I think.

Literally a golden post chock full of information. Thanks Abeebo!

Bowser's jab is so good and fluidly links to all his other ground options. Jab 1 dtilt is literally bread and butter, destroys all of Marth's hopes and dreams lol and racks up some seriously unfair damage if they are unknowing.

 

[Frost | Odds]

Let's just assume a player that's been around since '07 melee era and almost always places top 8 regionally with Bowser has NO idea how dash dancing works.

You're the one insisting that throwing out high commitment, non-disjointed hitboxes 'murders' marth's neutral game, which consists mostly of dash dancing precisely to bait grab-punishable moves out. If he knows the timing of your pokes, he can whiff punish with a grab. If he doesn't know the timing but merely knows that you will poke, he can still dtilt or [pivot] fsmash very safely.

No sort of validity here, aside from shoving the fact down without any sort of actual facts.. are you aware Bowser has a mean sweetspotting game?

I practiced daily against a top 5 Mewtwo player in 3.02 - I'll let this slide without further comment.

Not going to bother here. Generally arguments need to have substance, simply saying no and moving through with a whim is super detrimental to the purpose of discussion. Unsure why I'm explaining this to somebody I'm assuming is able to grasp that concept, but I guess it happens..

Substance like "bowser's dtilt murders marth in neutral" and "just recover perfectly".

RIght.

Good players beat bad players. Better players beat good players. There's tons of elbow room in this matchup and if you're generally more skilled than your opponent, you will win in my opinion and that's that.

Substance.

triangle jump and WD back are literally CRITICAL to Bowser's gameplay! You can't expect to just be a sitting POS in neutral! No, you must be FAST with Bowser.

You're aware that I've been pushing this harder than literally anyone, anywhere, right?

Retreats are amazing with Bowser.. His knockback on the majority of moves is very explosive, but if he's being rushed down he'll have trouble throwing much out aside from nair when not in hitstun and b-up OOS on the ground

His retreats are good, but he has no means of gaining stage position in the first place, particularly not against someone with as ridiculous of a DD/grab game as marth.

flame breath is safe..

And now we know you either
A. have absolutely no idea what you're talking about,
or
B. only play against garbage players.

I went and watched a couple of your games on youtube, and your bowser is actually pretty damn respectable - so it's not A. You just need to play against someone who doesn't just freak out and stick his thumb in his eye when placed into the Bowser matchup.

That's probably not your fault either -- hell, of the 3 or 4 in Alberta who present a meaningful challenge to me in bracket, precisely zero both play Marth, and are willing to regularly practice with me, so I identify with your struggle.

It's even possible that if I got to grind the matchup more I might consider it a little more even, but it's unlikely.

It comes out instantly, has huge range, covers anything marth wants to do in front of you. It adds insane pressure so long as

A. You're not predictable with it
B. You use it closer and wreck his shield and get a free chomp hit to possibly a leadup/leg up in neutral.

Using it in the second context necessarily invalidates your first criterion -- and is incredibly unsafe to begin with. That requires you to be directly above Marth which, I shouldn't need to tell you, is absolutely horrific positioning.

Search for them, then. You don't need video, you need someone who actually knows what they're talking about and consideration, running through scarce attempts at points to be made and answering with blocks upon blocks of information.

I did. There's no recent video of you against a decent marth.

Anyway, the only footage I'm aware of that has a reasonably good Bowser against a reasonably good Marth is JaimeHR vs Axe, I think about 6 months ago -- and Axe gets crushed for about 5 matches until he figures out the matchup, and then JHR has absolutely no chance.

Your intentions are good, but you aren't promoting much growth in the discussion IMO.

Heh, same to you. For what it's worth, though, I apologize for my tone. It's been a rough couple weeks; and though I'm still convinced I'm right about the matchup, I have in the past allowed my emotions to get between myself and intelligent play - so it's possible that's happening again.

I'll try to cajole Quaff into playing some games onstream with me at some point, and I can demonstrate the efficacy (or wild lack thereof) of your advice.

 

[TTTTTsd]

Should've done a video on this a bunch of pages ago but here, pre-new years! I mentioned this earlier way back when 3.5 dropped but, I never got to show it or anything. Keep in mind, this trick just BARELY increases distance but it's usually noticeable. Hey, super situational, but you never know! (also pardon my awful voice, hah...).

I'm no Bowser master but I still might pick up this char despite my shared thoughts, I just need to understand his neutral and options since he's arguably one of the most unique characters to play in this meta IMO. He works well and is definitely viable with secondaries IMO so I want him in my pocket for fun.

 

[Christopher Rodriguez]

legitimate and applicable. Good job dude! Little things like this are actually a big deal for Bowser

 

[Jacob29]

I don't think this would be useful for grabs being that, as far as I know, dash grab is better in nearly every way to standing grab.

BUT anything new is nice and could lead to some cool stuff.

I didn't know the walk extended it though which is neat I've walked from waveland before though and it looked sweet but knowing it's actually beneficial is nice

 

[TTTTTsd]

Yeah IDK WHAT it could be used for beyond hard reads but Bowser is all about that life so it's fine.

Glad I could help out and contribute!

 

[Abeebo]

I just use it to get across stage faster when I somehow manage to fAir my offstage opponent the opposite direction. Or whenever I need to cover distance, really. Ftilt?

 

[Pluttergub]

On the topic of wavelanding, I found this ledgestall awhile back.

You can see there's only a few frames of vulnerability, and I obviously wasn't doing it perfectly. If done perfectly (there's actually a 2-3 frame room for error), there's only one frame of non-intangibility, which occurs right before grabbing the ledge. To perform it, ledgejump as soon as possible, then waveland horizontally off the platform and immediately fast fall to the ledge. With some practice, it's fairly easy. The window for wavelanding off the platform seems really big; it has to be at least 2 or 3 frames. This also works on the right side of the stage.

This technique's usefulness is debatable. It looks really intimidating, at the very least. On WarioWare, Bowser's ledge attack covers more than half the stage (and the platform above him near the end of the animation). Wavelanding on the platform towards center stage can lead to a falling Fair or other aerial, or a flame cancel to cover the "safe" half of the stage. This ledgestall is really only useful either as a mixup for wavelanding forward on the platform or for baiting your opponent into thinking they can hit you out of it (they can, but barely). I would hesitate using this to avoid projectiles, since they will most likely hit you during that one frame of vulnerability.

Yoshi's Story (Melee) does allow for this ledgestall, but it's a much tighter window. Also, Randall can really ruin your day if you're not paying attention. If this thing is even remotely important or useful I elect we call it the "Koopa Dash" since it looks like a mangled version of Hax Dashing. The hardest part of this trick, by far, is having an opponent dumb enough to not ban WarioWare.

 

[Jacob29]

Looks swag. We'll take it.

 

[Abeebo]

I caught this post earlier today and ended up remembering to use it on netplay just a while ago. This diddy player took me to WW one round and this tech helped me keep my composure. I actually prefer this over 'Bowser Hopping' since it's easier to do consistently (though its not as fast and limited to certain stages). Thumbs up, @ Pluttergub

 

[Frost | Odds]

Am I the only one who likes "plutterdash"?

Screw you guys, that's what's going in the guide. ^_^