Bowser general discussion thread.

[Frost | Odds]

Further, KK-> KK is only guaranteed on about 10 members of the cast, at certain percents.

No, it's never guaranteed if the opponent DI's correctly.

 

[Electric Tuba]

KKDthrow is the thing that is making bowser a threat for edge guarding

Not really. Bowser could already edgeguard almost every recovery really consistently without it, killing/keeping someone off stage wasn't an issue. Klaw down throw just adds an option that's occasionally useful to Bowser's edgeguarding.

 

[Matthew]

KKDthrow is the thing that is making bowser a threat for edge guarding

I agree. Bowser already was a huge threat for edgeguarding, and Kk down throw is a great move that has been added to his box for edgeguarding.

 

[Jamwa]

Hi Hello
Just wondering if anyone can impart some advice on how to DI bowsers uthrow as Lucas
is a follow up guaranteed (on reaction) no matter where i choose to DI?
(pls quote me or tag me in the response as i dont watch this thread and i wont get the notification, thx)

 

[Filosafer]

Usual combo DI is still there with Bowser. If you DI in, Bowser can get basically anything he wants off of it, so DI away, in front of Bowser, and just a little bit down. But straight away works. When that happens, low-mid % Bowser can only get a fair, and at high percents, can't get anything.

 

[Ace55]

@Odds_

Good stuff on beating Mr. R.

 

[tasteless gentleman]

No, it's never guaranteed if the opponent DI's correctly.

DK for sure, bowser and dedede most likely. But not 10, just the fat ones

 

[Frost | Odds]

@Odds_

Good stuff on beating Mr. R.

Thanks man! :D

I was actually strongly considering going Charizard in basically every game we played. >.>

 

[Soft Serve]

Bowser is pretty cool

Sad he still kinda blows, but he's scary while sucking

 

[A6stringthing (A6ST)]

Been playing Bowser since 3.02. He had way worse mobility. I like his kit now, its a lot less polarizing. I like it. I need help figuring out how to approach though. I haven't found any @ Frost | Odds sets from latest patch to learn from.

 

[Frost | Odds]

@ A6stringthing (A6ST) I played a buncha sets here:

http://www.twitch.tv/anjosmash/v/13650704

First one starts at 19 mins. Will post YT links on the video thread when they're uploaded.

 

[UltiMario]

I've been playing some Bowser on the side with people in the MDVA area, and we pretty much think Bowser is even MORE polarized than before.

A lot of his new tools are match-up knowledge based gimmicks, and are incredibly focused on making what seemed like Bowser's strongest match-ups in 3.5 even more in his favor by opening up many more combo and kill options on fastfallers, but since it came at the cost of armor his most difficult match-ups now seem nearly unwinnable. Any character that struggles with dealing with new mixups is pretty much better off switching to like ICs or Sheik or something for a nearly free win rather than learning their character's Bowser match-up because of how stupid his new kit is.

Fast Bowser just is a stupid design. With the exception of Fox, his new kit overly rewards and overly punishes incredibly polarized match-ups compared to 3.5 imo. It takes extensive match-up knowledge of an incredibly infrequently played character to win with say, Falco, but you can just pick up a mediocre Sheik and do significantly better than what's possible with your main.

Obviously rounding out Bowser by making him faster was supposed to make his match-ups less crazy, but in testing over here it's just not worked out. He probably has the most 70:30/30:70 or better/worse match-ups out of any character in the game. The fact that this might be the most polarizing version of Bowser to date doesn't really tell me that the PMBR is working towards a good spot for him, especially considering how extreme this character has been in past versions of this game.

While a lot of the new changes like Down Throw Koopa Klaw are incredibly cool, they might not just have a place in this game. Options that force fastfallers, which generally already struggled with Bowser, to do bad DI that leads into free combos just to avoid an instant KO just is a bad mechanic and leaves Bowser with a tool thats useless vs the characters that already beat up on him.
He needs tools that push his bad match-ups into more even territory, not ones that patch up his overall lack of power vs the roster by having easy win match-ups. That's just dumb design, and Bowser is probably going to need to be overhauled entirely for like the 5th time in PM's history now if he wants to get into a zone where his match-ups aren't completely one-sided for him or the opponent.

 

[Frost | Odds]

I've been playing some Bowser on the side with people in the MDVA area, and we pretty much think Bowser is even MORE polarized than before.

A lot of his new tools are match-up knowledge based gimmicks, and are incredibly focused on making what seemed like Bowser's strongest match-ups in 3.5 even more in his favor by opening up many more combo and kill options on fastfallers, but since it came at the cost of armor his most difficult match-ups now seem nearly unwinnable. Any character that struggles with dealing with new mixups is pretty much better off switching to like ICs or Sheik or something for a nearly free win rather than learning their character's Bowser match-up because of how stupid his new kit is.

Could you be more specific? Bowser has always been based on highly MU-knowledge based gimmicks, so I'm curious in what ways you think he's more matchup-based than before. Is it the new KK mechanics? Dash attack? Dsmash? The rolls/tech rolls?

 

[tasteless gentleman]

I honestly think bowser's bad match ups have always really sucked. I dont think anything has really changed in that department. I do like the forced bad DI or DIE set up though lol. But bowser's niche always was MU knowledge and that has not changed either. I have a tournament tonight, ill tell you more after extensive "testing"

 

[cmart]

@ UltiMario Names plz?

 

[UltiMario]

@ UltiMario Names plz?

The people I play with might not be "good enough" to count to you guys, but the highest skilled players I frequently play with are Sylvx and Swag Apocalypse (not huge names but they place decently at Xanadu), but in general our play group agrees Bowser is way too gimmicky right now.

Could you be more specific? Bowser has always been based on highly MU-knowledge based gimmicks, so I'm curious in what ways you think he's more matchup-based than before. Is it the new KK mechanics? Dash attack? Dsmash? The rolls/tech rolls?

It's the rounding of Bowser that's doing him worse. While armor everywhere might've not been the best design in the universe, stuff like his old Nair Armor really helped patch up bad match-ups by letting him Nair out of things that he now has to pretty much hopelessly tank. The only armor overhaul that I feel has been working in his favor to even our match-ups is the changes to his Smashes, but the reduction/removal in armor of other places has barely rounded out stuff like vs spacies while not helping the fact that he always has struggled with characters with strong grab games. And as I said earlier, Koopa Klaw DThrow Spike, while flashy and really damn cool, just punishes the fastfallers, the few match-ups where Bowser had an advantage, and pushed it even further since they now get to choose between DI that leads to an instant kill or DI that leads into a combo (and usually a kill) in far too many situations. It's nice to have better options when you get a Koopa Klaw facing the ledge (this is a huge issue 3.5 Bowser had), but this is just ridiculous. And again, none of these new tools are really helping Bowser cope with Sheik or Marth or ICs. It's ok for a character to have some lopsided match-ups, but how lopsided Bowser's are is simply ridiculous. Fox is the only character that I feel got evened out by these changes because while Bowser gained some extra mixups and kill options to utilize, I always felt like the massive armor on Nair was a key point in winning that match-up, making the match-up much more fair for both players than before.

I'd really rather see Bowser find tools that help against the strong grab game characters and characters that just use Bowser as combo food than tools that let him destroy characters he's already strong against even more. Fire not sucking, Smash armor being revamped, etc definitely seem to make these match-ups more tolerable to play since it increases the versatility of his options, but when it came at the cost of things like Nair armor, the match-ups didn't get any better.

I'm also not saying "make nair ludicrously armored again" btw. That def pushed his strong match-ups too, much more than his weak ones. It's just he needs some sort of escape that prevents him from getting walked all over by characters that can just constantly set up grab combos, and it probably needs to come at the cost of some of his anti-fastfaller tools to balance match-ups out. The level at which you have to ridiculously outplay a Bowser with the characters he completely stomps is pretty much unacceptable, and the same goes for the fact of how little character knowledge it comparatively takes to grab one of his weak match-ups and end him. Even with other characters like Wario being pretty match-up gimmick heavy, the match-ups those characters have aren't as ludicrously extreme as Bowser. It's just not a healthy type of character design and more importantly its incredibly unfun to play against. Incredibly lopsided character design is something that should stay in Brawl-, not stick in PM.

 

[Raiden mk-II]

I practice some of Bowser's new Koopa Klaw mechanics in 3.6 Final. Is it a good idea to practice wavedashing with Bowser?

 

[Electric Tuba]

Is it a good idea to practice wavedashing with Bowser?

Yes. And perfect/regular wavelands.

 

[Taytertot]

i was thinking that bowser should have a crawl attack. my thought was that hed stretch his head out and bite then pull back doing a slight hop. the idea would be that itd be able to safely poke shield or poke at an opponent but give it enough frames that it cant just be spammed on someones shield. it could have a trajectory similar to marth dtilt or maybe charizard's ftilt with different knockback so that its not just a cheap kill move but a safer poke move then bowser's ftilt because of the pull back.

 

[Jacob29]

@ UltiMario

do you really think his fastfaller combo game is better NOW as opposed to 3.5? Because I'm having a hard time feeling that.

Also I completely disagree that we beat fast fallers (I assume those are the 70:30 mu's you are spouting).

The one we used to beat was probably Falco, but even that I'm not so sure about anymore.

 

[UltiMario]

@ Jacob29

I think Fox is more even, but Falco is absolutely still super Bowser favored. His entire toolkit is pretty much tuned to beating Falco, you can pretty easily cut off all his approach options and have multiple easy 0 to deaths if you can read DI. What makes you think that match-up isn't strong for Bowser?

 

[Jacob29]

Lasers can shut us down pretty bad. (yes yes powershield bla bla, I'm very aware and I'm very competent at it, but still the ability to mess up a fairly precise input compared to jumping and pressing B is way different).

Also he get's MAD combos on us and has a really good time pressuring us if they don't mess up inputs and timings.

if the Falco is playing properly they won't just run in and dair us as an approach as I'm sure you know but should play more like PP, and especially vs Bowser the best offense is baiting us out which Falco can do.

I haven't played vs fastfallers in 3.6 much, but what exactly are these 0 to deaths? They were fairly easy and obvious in 3.5 but I'm not seeing them as much in this version.

 

[tasteless gentleman]

I honestly have no trouble with marth because of fire and forcing approaches, but fox just combos bowser into oblivion (or maybe its just who i play against) but the falcon match up is hopeless i feel like and good campers are hopeless, thats why i picked up olimar. Snake is rough, but maybe only 40-60 at worst honestly. Bowser can edgeguard everyone. And after my tournament last night, my only gripe is that i cant approach but i got oli to pick up that slack and i didnt drop a single game in from start to winners finals. Also, i landed bowsers Dthrow on ledge, its good but if the opponent has a wall jump or alot of vertical they can recover. but you can edgegaurd them really easy from that position.
Oh yea, i can hardly do any combos at 0% vs a fast faller, but at higher percents its good. It just getting that 30% thats is hard.

 

[Frost | Odds]

The people I play with might not be "good enough" to count to you guys, but the highest skilled players I frequently play with are Sylvx and Swag Apocalypse (not huge names but they place decently at Xanadu), but in general our play group agrees Bowser is way too gimmicky right now.

I think this is the problem, sorry. I'm having serious problems agreeing with almost anything stated in your last post. I don't think Bowser beats any fastfallers, or even comes particularly close to even, with the possible exception of Roy.

And as I said earlier, Koopa Klaw DThrow Spike, while flashy and really damn cool, just punishes the fastfallers, the few match-ups where Bowser had an advantage, and pushed it even further since they now get to choose between DI that leads to an instant kill or DI that leads into a combo (and usually a kill) in far too many situations.

This is blatantly untrue. Bowser was far stronger against fastfallers in 3.5, and if they DI correctly at most or all percents, they can avoid being comboed out of KK fthrow in any way.

The level at which you have to ridiculously outplay a Bowser with the characters he completely stomps is pretty much unacceptable.

I'm curious which matchups you think Bowser 'completely stomps'. If he even wins any, i'm highly skeptical that he has a single MU that's more than 55:45 in his favor.

 

[TheoryofSmaug]

I personally feel Bowser wins at least 60-40 vs Roy.

 

[tasteless gentleman]

I personally feel Bowser wins at least 60-40 vs Roy.

Maybe because bowser can space with fire, but roy out ranges bowser alot and combos bowser a lot. I'm not saying its in roys favor, but im thinking its maybe even because bowser can edgegaurd roy hard.

 

[Jacob29]

Ah yeah Roy is technically a fast faller.

That one I can perhaps see. Not 70:30 though lmao.

 

[Electric Tuba]

Bowser can edgeguard the whole cast super well, that doesn't make him beat them all

Fox off stage? Yeah, he's dead. He still wreck us the other 95% of the time

 

[TTTTTsd]

Bowser in 3.6 is absolutely NOT better vs. fastfallers than he was in 3.5. If you want to take about how he unintuitively stomps them, you're about one patch late I think (even then he didn't stomp any fastfaller with a good dashdance/grab neutral, so....eh, stomped them if they ran into him carelessly I guess. The only one I think he stomped was Falco maybe).

To compare, 3.5 Bowser could punish fastfallers on any kind of DI, if they were caught, they would either take a boatload of damage, die onstage, or get knocked offstage by something and then effectively die because Bowser edgeguards this entire game (the edgeguard bit is still consistent). There was optimal DI......about as optimal as it got, anyways. He beat Falco in 3.5 by a small margin, and while he lost to the other fastfallers to my knowledge, he could easily 0-death them off of one mistake which is kind of annoying in a game built around DI mixups and interactivity (at least, for the fastfaller player, not the Bowser player =V)

3.6b rolls around, he sucks ass. I'm not elaborating on why, it's pretty common knowledge. As opposed to there being no DI to escape, now there's always DI to get out and no way to prevent it or inhibit it. NEXT.

3.6 comes and holy hell, liberation! For starters, tech rolls! Usable! Spotdodge! Usable! Rolls! Also usable! Better waveland window! Better things! Of course, what about the DI problem? Well, it was patched in a way that is pretty interesting and still needs work (Bowser's neutral mostly, but again, in time) but is pretty interesting. Klaw is faster ofc, been that way since 3.6b, but now we have Klaw D-Throw, a very good techchase followup that has a lot of properties that can control how your opponent approaches their DI. If you think they're gonna hold out to DI away from Klaw F-Throw, Klaw D-Throw them and they might flub and roll out which is a punish. If you think they're gonna roll in or tech in place? Klaw F-Throw, comes out so fast they probably won't DI in time. It's not perfect, it's not flawless, but, to put it bluntly, it's an actual DI mixup on this character. His fastfaller punish game is not nearly as good as it was in 3.5, but in 3.6 full it is very usable if you manage to get them mixed up. But to tl;dr it, it's a lot more intuitive and interactive than it was in 3.5, for both Bowser and his opponent. The character isn't TECHNICALLY as good as he was in 3.5, but he's more well rounded in certain aspects (notably defensive options) and this is gonna lead to much better things down the line circa more updates. He has a place in the 3.6 metagame, albeit small. He did not in 3.6b. That is all.

Whew. That was a lot.

 

[Zigludo]

@ cmart
wondering if this is intentional.

Bowser's armor value is set to 80 kb units while charging smash attacks.

however, while charging smash attacks, characters suffer increased knockback from all sources. this means that hitboxes that would normally induce fewer than 80 kb units are capable of inflicting more than 80 kb units while Bowser is charging a smash.

I'm not sure exactly what the bonus multiplier is, but it results in the smash charge armor being broken by many attacks that are incapable of breaking light armor.

I am deeply ashamed that I failed to notice this sooner.

 

[tasteless gentleman]

@ cmart
wondering if this is intentional.

Bowser's armor value is set to 80 kb units while charging smash attacks.

however, while charging smash attacks, characters suffer increased knockback from all sources. this means that hitboxes that would normally induce fewer than 80 kb units are capable of inflicting more than 80 kb units while Bowser is charging a smash.

I'm not sure exactly what the bonus multiplier is, but it results in the smash charge armor being broken by many attacks that are incapable of breaking light armor.

I am deeply ashamed that I failed to notice this sooner.

this explains alot of things, also why does all get up attacks break armour way higher than the KB?

 

[Frost | Odds]

@ cmart
wondering if this is intentional.

Bowser's armor value is set to 80 kb units while charging smash attacks.

however, while charging smash attacks, characters suffer increased knockback from all sources. this means that hitboxes that would normally induce fewer than 80 kb units are capable of inflicting more than 80 kb units while Bowser is charging a smash.

I'm not sure exactly what the bonus multiplier is, but it results in the smash charge armor being broken by many attacks that are incapable of breaking light armor.

I am deeply ashamed that I failed to notice this sooner.

We actually noticed this just a couple days ago. It's being looked into.

 

[tasteless gentleman]

We actually noticed this just a couple days ago. It's being looked into.

For real, if i read your get up attack, its my god given right to wave land/dash, charge up a smash attack, and make you eat it.

 

[eideeiit]

Didn't you know?

God hates Bowser.

 

[Taytertot]

i wonder if the charge kb increase effect could be taken out for just bowser or if its too ingrained in the programming. since bowser has that armor it seems unnecessary to also have the kb increase while charging.

 

[tasteless gentleman]

i wonder if the charge kb increase effect could be taken out for just bowser or if its too ingrained in the programming. since bowser has that armor it seems unnecessary to also have the kb increase while charging.

Exactly, i barely ever actually notice charge armour, i use it more as a bluff than actual use

 

[Zigludo]

For real, if i read your get up attack, its my god given right to wave land/dash, charge up a smash attack, and make you eat it.

actually I'm pretty sure most getup attacks break light armor at 0% as is. this could also be changed if the developers were to increase the amount of kb needed to break light armor (say, from 80 to 120 or whatever), but that would be a separate discussion. in this case, we're just observing a move that doesn't seem to function the way it's intended to.

personally, I think it would be better if Smash charge armor was increased to Medium Armor (in addition to the aforementioned compensation for the Smash charge knockback multiplier) . Bowser used to have Heavy Armor on grounded sideB and Medium Armor on dashattack which he could use to punish approaches and also punish defensive options that he could force out of opponents who he pushed against the edge of the stage. although many people complained about it, I remain pretty fairly convinced that it was just about right, given how high the level of commitment was for each of the moves in question, and how bad Bowser is at punishing wavedash back and dashdance etc

ever since 3.6b he's had massively reduced options with regards to aggressive use of armor frames, which makes him fall back more on his shield. his oos options are great against opponents who try to pressure from within upB range, but folds really hard to people spacing aerials a moderate distance ahead of his shield due to his long jumpsquat and awful shieldgrab, among other factors

i wonder if the charge kb increase effect could be taken out for just bowser or if its too ingrained in the programming. since bowser has that armor it seems unnecessary to also have the kb increase while charging.

that seems unnecessary. it would make Bowser better at surviving KO moves while charging smashes, proportional to the rest of the cast. sure, it's an edge case, but if the light armor is more usable in a future patch, then we'll be seeing Bowser players attempting to use Smash charge in neutral more often than other characters, anyway.

 

[tasteless gentleman]

actually I'm pretty sure most getup attacks break light armor at 0% as is. this could also be changed if the developers were to increase the amount of kb needed to break light armor (say, from 80 to 120 or whatever), but that would be a separate discussion. in this case, we're just observing a move that doesn't seem to function the way it's intended to.

personally, I think it would be better if Smash charge armor was increased to Medium Armor (in addition to the aforementioned compensation for the Smash charge knockback multiplier) . Bowser used to have Heavy Armor on grounded sideB and Medium Armor on dashattack which he could use to punish approaches and also punish defensive options that he could force out of opponents who he pushed against the edge of the stage. although many people complained about it, I remain pretty fairly convinced that it was just about right, given how high the level of commitment was for each of the moves in question, and how bad Bowser is at punishing wavedash back and dashdance etc

ever since 3.6b he's had massively reduced options with regards to aggressive use of armor frames, which makes him fall back more on his shield. his oos options are great against opponents who try to pressure from within upB range, but folds really hard to people spacing aerials a moderate distance ahead of his shield due to his long jumpsquat and awful shieldgrab, among other factors



that seems unnecessary. it would make Bowser better at surviving KO moves while charging smashes, proportional to the rest of the cast. sure, it's an edge case, but if the light armor is more usable in a future patch, then we'll be seeing Bowser players attempting to use Smash charge in neutral more often than other characters, anyway.

His forward smash already has medium armour and i was refering to all but super armour getting knocked out from a get up attack (ledge or normal)

 

[Taytertot]

actually I'm pretty sure most getup attacks break light armor at 0% as is. this could also be changed if the developers were to increase the amount of kb needed to break light armor (say, from 80 to 120 or whatever), but that would be a separate discussion. in this case, we're just observing a move that doesn't seem to function the way it's intended to.

personally, I think it would be better if Smash charge armor was increased to Medium Armor (in addition to the aforementioned compensation for the Smash charge knockback multiplier) . Bowser used to have Heavy Armor on grounded sideB and Medium Armor on dashattack which he could use to punish approaches and also punish defensive options that he could force out of opponents who he pushed against the edge of the stage. although many people complained about it, I remain pretty fairly convinced that it was just about right, given how high the level of commitment was for each of the moves in question, and how bad Bowser is at punishing wavedash back and dashdance etc

ever since 3.6b he's had massively reduced options with regards to aggressive use of armor frames, which makes him fall back more on his shield. his oos options are great against opponents who try to pressure from within upB range, but folds really hard to people spacing aerials a moderate distance ahead of his shield due to his long jumpsquat and awful shieldgrab, among other factors



that seems unnecessary. it would make Bowser better at surviving KO moves while charging smashes, proportional to the rest of the cast. sure, it's an edge case, but if the light armor is more usable in a future patch, then we'll be seeing Bowser players attempting to use Smash charge in neutral more often than other characters, anyway.

True and maybe thats a better approach to it.

On a different note, I not sure how i feel about bowser players using smash attacks in neutral (or any character for that matter), which has made me feel a little meh about the light armor on charge to begin with. I feel like as it is smash attacks are generally either used as a read when their opponent is at a disadvantage or used when the opponent is in a position where they cant avoid it. I dont feel that it is good to entice players to just throw out smash attacks in neutral because the charge is safer, that seems like it would create an unnecessary reliance on using reads in neutral and i dont want to sound too heavily opinionated in saying this, but that reliance seems a little scrubby in its nature.

 

[tasteless gentleman]

True and maybe thats a better approach to it.

On a different note, I not sure how i feel about bowser players using smash attacks in neutral (or any character for that matter), which has made me feel a little meh about the light armor on charge to begin with. I feel like as it is smash attacks are generally either used as a read when their opponent is at a disadvantage or used when the opponent is in a position where they cant avoid it. I dont feel that it is good to entice players to just throw out smash attacks in neutral because the charge is safer, that seems like it would create an unnecessary reliance on using reads in neutral and i dont want to sound too heavily opinionated in saying this, but that reliance seems a little scrubby in its nature.

Marth? Ike? fox upsmash? Any sword character really. mario and luigi. I wanna say alot of characters can use smash attacks out of neutral pretty easily