Bowser Needs Something

[turtletank]

Y'know, I'd be happier if they redesigned him with better mobility and greater speed overall. Nothing too dramatic, just enough that he still feels like the lumbering turtletank (heh) he was designed to be, just quicker and easier to approach with.

 

[WIZRD.Pro]

Y'know, I'd be happier if they redesigned him with better mobility and greater speed overall. Nothing too dramatic, just enough that he still feels like the lumbering turtletank (heh) he was designed to be, just quicker and easier to approach with.

That's the thing, Bowser is designed to be an Anti-Meta Character. Everyone likes to approach in this game and Bowser is Anti-Approach. That's his gimmick: Anti-Approach. As such, he needs a way to force opponents to approach. Our options are as follows:

1. Give him a Projectile
2. Give him a Reflecter

 

[turtletank]

I recall reading somewhere from a PMBR member that they were planning to completely overhaul his design before releasing 3.0. I wish they followed through with it, really, because although Bowser is designed to be powerful and "anti-approachable", his design feels too extreme to allow him to be played any other way.

EDIT: Found it

From a design standpoint, we've known for awhile that Bowser is a lumbering hulk that compensates for a poor neutral game with overwhelming punishes. This is part of where the salt comes from - no one likes putting in a lot of work to outplay the other guy, and then losing a stock cuz they ****ed up once. To address this, there was a point where we were experimenting with a huge overhaul to Bowser's design, but we held off because we didn't want to alienate the Bowser playerbase like we did with 2.1 Ike and 2.6 Sonic.

While I understand that they didn't want to alienate Bowser fans, I believe it would have been better to push for slightly bigger changes. There was some upsets in the beginning but I don't think anyone disagrees that 3.0 Ike and Sonic are the best designed iterations to date.

No I'm not saying that Bowser is unviable, but he certainly feels, as I've said before, too extremely designed to allow much variety in his gameplay. Dialling it back a bit would IMO make him feel less restricted whilst lending some flexibility to his meta.

 

[WIZRD.Pro]

I recall reading somewhere from a PMBR member that they were planning to completely overhaul his design before releasing 3.0. I wish they followed through with it, really, because although Bowser is designed to be powerful and "anti-approachable", his design feels too extreme to allow him to be played any other way.

EDIT: Found it

While I understand that they didn't want to alienate Bowser fans, I believe it would have been better to push for slightly bigger changes. There was some upsets in the beginning but I don't think anyone disagrees that 3.0 Ike and Sonic are the best designed iterations to date.

No I'm not saying that Bowser is unviable, but he certainly feels, as I've said before, too extremely designed to allow much variety in his gameplay. Dialling it back a bit would IMO make him feel less restricted whilst lending some flexibility to his meta.

Agreed, while an Anti-Meta type character IS necessary for any competitive game IMO, Bowser just doesn't fit that description ATM and that's the bad part. I would far rather losing an Anti-Meta to the majority of the cast that is horrible at his job for an actually valid character than the contrary.

Maybe Bowser could get a boost on his mindgames... and Wavedash:

• Koopa Klaw has 5 different throws. Forwards and Back are DI Mixups, Up is for Killing off the top, Down is a meteor and neutral is for a cool Klaw->Nair/Dair/Uair.
• Down-B can be jump canceled once while in the air. (He has quite a bad recovery while almost everyone else's is godlike, at least this helps mix up Gimp timings)
• Dash attack can be canceled into a rolling attack of by pressing attack a second time. Travels either left or right.=
• Wavedash travels really far but is still painfully slow.

 

[Frost | Odds]

Please no changes for Klaw, except *maybe* to remove the armor. :/

 

[Jacob29]

You wanna make our read-dependant move worse?

 

[Frost | Odds]

I'm not sure I agree with it being a counter as well as a command grab. My thoughts on the subject can be found in more detail in the big thread from months ago.

I'd rather reduce Bowser's dependence on that move by making him faster and have more safe options elsewhere.

 

[mimgrim]

I think you are overstating Bowser's reliance on Koopa Klaw.

Just look at top Bowsers like Jamie, Nick, and Kirk. You hardly see a dependence on the move and see that it is more for reads and stuff. If you are depending on Klaw then you are probably doing something wrong.

 

[Frost | Odds]

I actually think they're doing something wrong, but I don't have the results just yet, so all other things being equal it obviously makes more sense to play like them.

All 3 could stand to punish with Klaw a bit more often, probably (mostly against fastfallers) -- but iirc Nick has it pretty close to optimal imo

 

[mimgrim]

Or you are just playing bad players who don't know how to handle it and don't know how to DI it correctly. That's always a possibility.

I have a really hard time believing that players like them have not found out anything great about Koopa Klaw for it to be full on dependable.

 

[Frost | Odds]

That's also a strong possibility. I'm still shaking the rust off after a very long absence, so hopefully we'll see within the next few weeks - we've got a couple regionals coming up.

Rewatching their games anyways. Should probably be studying bower instead of messing around with other chars @_@

They're all better players than me for sure, but I also think those guys fail to incorporate some pretty important bowser tech, and also fsmash way too often. >.>

edit: nvm, Kirk also seems to Klaw pretty appropriately. It's mostly Jaime's style that drives me up the wall.

 

[GeZ]

I know how you feel _Odds. A lot of players think that because a player gets tourney results they're playing the character optimally. A perfect counter example of this is M2K playing Mario. He uses Mario at a high level, but he wins entirely with better fundamentals rather than good Mario play.

There's something to be said for top players and their respective playstyles, but that doesn't mean that the way they decide to play is the Gospel. A lot of the time I prefer watching lesser known players with a better grasp of their character, and slightly less impressive results than the tops.

 

[Frost | Odds]

I know how you feel _Odds. A lot of players think that because a player gets tourney results they're playing the character optimally. A perfect counter example of this is M2K playing Mario. He uses Mario at a high level, but he wins entirely with better fundamentals rather than good Mario play.

There's something to be said for top players and their respective playstyles, but that doesn't mean that the way they decide to play is the Gospel. A lot of the time I prefer watching lesser known players with a better grasp of their character, and slightly less impressive results than the tops.

Indeed. M2K's mewtwo was also a great example. My roommate's m2 isn't nearly as good vs spacies, and lacked M2K's fundamentals, but took a few games off m2k in friendly dittos because he actually used Hover and a lot of Mewtwo's other little tricks that M2K just hadn't bothered with.

There's no real nice way to say that all the top players of a character are just a bit suboptimal in fixable ways, but there it is.

Chu also drove me nuts back when he refused to use Kirby's dash attack. :x

 

[mimgrim]

I think M2K is a bad example in all honesty. He plays multiple characters and stuff and in PM he doesn't really play exclusively one character. Whereas I know Jamie, and I think Kirk does as well, both exclusively play Bowser in PM and that it's rather unfair to compare them to M2K playing Mario and unfair in implying that they haven't found a lot of things about Bowser. They also put a lot more of time into PM as far as I know, I'll be honest and say that I never heard of them until PM, whereas M2K said on Reddit not that long ago that he only Plays PM at tournaments now.

I just don;t think it's a fair comparison.

 

[Frost | Odds]

unfair in implying that they haven't found a lot of things about Bowser.

Tough. It's true.

It's not a lot of stuff, and the applications are kinda niche, but they could really stand to use more Brawl tech - notably b-reverse and wavebounces. Also shield drops.

And Jaime's reads are godlike, but he needs to stop the dumb fsmashes >.>

 

[GeZ]

The example of Chu and Kirby's Dash Attack is good too.

Or a better example of Mario is boss never using Wave Bouncing. In fact most top players don't DACUS at all.

I think even the top players are convinced that tourney wins = optimal play, which is wrong, firstly, but also just too self aggrandizing. Everyone has room to improve their game immensely. Best comment on the current P:M meta is that it's ridiculously fresh. Nobody knows **** yet.

 

[WIZRD.Pro]

The example of Chu and Kirby's Dash Attack is good too.

Or a better example of Mario is boss never using Wave Bouncing. In fact most top players don't DACUS at all.

I think even the top players are convinced that tourney wins = optimal play, which is wrong, firstly, but also just too self aggrandizing. Everyone has room to improve their game immensely. Best comment on the current P:M meta is that it's ridiculously fresh. Nobody knows **** yet.

I would love to DACUS, I just can't figure out the timings... any tips?

 

[GeZ]

I had a lot of trouble my first day trying it, but got better once I figured out the feel for it.

I use custom controls because it makes it easier for me personally, but the timing is the same whatever your control scheme.

My original mistake is that I would try to press Cstick down and the control stick up and attack at the same time, while the timing is really: Cstick down > control stick up and Z (I personally set R to attack as that is the easiest for me)

The key is to stagger the cstick down input with the control stick up and attack input. Like making sure there's time inbetween the inputs. I recommend practice with Ganon as his is relatively easy to execute. There are also videos on youtube explaining how to do it, which I would recommend as they at least got me started.

 

[Abeebo]

SideB armor comes out quicker than his other grounded red armored moves, no? SideB armor is also equivalent to FSmash armor in endurance. It is pretty ridiculous, but not quite over the top when factoring in what Bowser can/cannot do. Plus you can still get grabbed out of it easily enough and even hit out of it because there ARE small open windows during Klaw. Could be why some higher-level Bowser's choose not to use it often. That or the armor, while fast, doesn't come out fast enough to be a safe choice at that moment. On paper, it's still one of his best moves. Removing this would have to significantly make up for it somewhere else though. Where else? You tell me.

Being able to fast fall aerial Klaw could help in follow-up consistency on stages with multiple/dynamic platforms by giving you a better chance of landing on the ground to at least gain your jump/superjump back. It would probably just net a small situational option at most, though Bowser's moveset tends to be situational anyway ::more talk about this below::
I was gonna even suggest improving Bowser's shield specifically so that he may PowerShield better, but judging from The NZA's post on reddit and people's opinions on it, this may or may not not be favorable.
I would like to see better shield pressure come from Bowser, honestly. Yes, he does high shield damage already, but it's not quite proper pressure when he has to be so meticulous about when to attack, most of his attacks aren't multi-hit, he can only land a handful of hits (if at that) before your opponent reacts accordingly, and he tends to rely on his shield more so than most of the other characters because they're usually pressuring him harder. I could see Flame Breath being reworked to help aid this, even if this calls for a general shield damage reduction for his moveset. Another multi-hit move could be cool too.

One thing we could be looking closer into as far as Bowser's movement and neutral game goes is not so much speed and jumpsquats n stuff, but how his moveset physically moves Bowser around the stage. What I mean by this is that Bowser's design, no matter what moves he chooses to use (aside from Down/UpB, maybe SideB and Fsmash, which all have significant risks), keeps him planted in that one area without any shift in positioning. Not every character has moves that directly help with movement as their main purpose, but some moves(such as tilts, smashes, or specials) give the character some sort of positional change that they may be able to use to their advantage as they're using them in their primarily intended ways(lucario's ftilt, Spacie's/Links's fsmash, Jigglypuff's SideB, etc). Those that don't have such moves tend to not really need them anyway. Bowser kinda doesn't fit in either of those two camps.

I'll use a specific example: Ganon isn't an example of great movement and movement options just like Bowser, but the SideB that Ganon has does help with his neutral game better than Bowser's SideB, or even SuperJump, does for Bowser because Ganon dashes straight at you from a great distance. Due to this horizontal distance, it gives Ganon a way to move around the stage while being a threat IN ONE MOVE. In a moment where Ganon is just shy of landing an A move, his SideB just might make it. On the other hand, If Ganon misses, the distance he travels MAY be far enough for the opponent to not be able to punish, and may even give Ganon another shot to punish the opponent. That and it's also a recovery move. Then there's Ganon's DownB. This move also gives Ganon an extended dash while being a threat which can cover a good deal of options, but it doesn't stop there. If done in the air, the trajectory changes to a much more vertical dash, giving him yet another positional option from a single move. According to this video, grounded DownB's landing animation can easily change from grounded to aerial. This gives Ganon YET ANOTHER POSITIONAL OPTION AND A NEW WAY TO APPROACH from one move.

I believe that little details and intricacies such as these should make for more personal and unique style of Bowser gameplay that we may be looking for. I mean, if we want Bowser to have more colorful and flexible styles for players to form, but don't want him to be a faster (possibly smaller?), 'wavedashable' offensive character (though i'm not against this), nor do we want to give him funny unnatural properties to add to his 'gimmicks' and 'immovable object' gameplay, then i'm not sure where else you could go other than giving his moveset some inherently creative movement. Maybe then Bowser could actually find a way to play safer and more effectively.

 

[GeZ]

I gotta say The NZA's post on the subreddit was pretty silly. I really don't feel that this games meta has become overly projectile centralized, but rather projectiles are actually a part of the meta now, rather than completely out of sight, out of mind.

 

[Frost | Odds]

@ Abeebo if I could have sex with that post, I would.

 

[Abeebo]

@ Abeebo if I could have sex with that post, I would.

You seem like a nice guy, but please don't.

 

[Abeebo]

I gotta say The NZA's post on the subreddit was pretty silly. I really don't feel that this games meta has become overly projectile centralized, but rather projectiles are actually a part of the meta now, rather than completely out of sight, out of mind.

I think so too. In a game this clustered, simply piling on more power options may feel overboard and possibly less polished. Imagine the meta evolving from PowerShielding all projectiles to PerfectShielding everything? Ha.

 

[GeZ]

I think so too. In a game this clustered, simply piling on more power options may feel overboard and possibly less polished. Imagine the meta evolving from PowerShielding all projectiles to PerfectShielding everything? Ha.

That's exactly what I said to my friend when he showed me the post.

 

[Blank Mauser]

SideB armor comes out quicker than his other grounded red armored moves, no? SideB armor is also equivalent to FSmash armor in endurance. It is pretty ridiculous, but not quite over the top when factoring in what Bowser can/cannot do. Plus you can still get grabbed out of it easily enough and even hit out of it because there ARE small open windows during Klaw. Could be why some higher-level Bowser's choose not to use it often. That or the armor, while fast, doesn't come out fast enough to be a safe choice at that moment. On paper, it's still one of his best moves. Removing this would have to significantly make up for it somewhere else though. Where else? You tell me.

Being able to fast fall aerial Klaw could help in follow-up consistency on stages with multiple/dynamic platforms by giving you a better chance of landing on the ground to at least gain your jump/superjump back. It would probably just net a small situational option at most, though Bowser's moveset tends to be situational anyway ::more talk about this below::
I was gonna even suggest improving Bowser's shield specifically so that he may PowerShield better, but judging from The NZA's post on reddit and people's opinions on it, this may or may not not be favorable.
I would like to see better shield pressure come from Bowser, honestly. Yes, he does high shield damage already, but it's not quite proper pressure when he has to be so meticulous about when to attack, most of his attacks aren't multi-hit, he can only land a handful of hits (if at that) before your opponent reacts accordingly, and he tends to rely on his shield more so than most of the other characters because they're usually pressuring him harder. I could see Flame Breath being reworked to help aid this, even if this calls for a general shield damage reduction for his moveset. Another multi-hit move could be cool too.

One thing we could be looking closer into as far as Bowser's movement and neutral game goes is not so much speed and jumpsquats n stuff, but how his moveset physically moves Bowser around the stage. What I mean by this is that Bowser's design, no matter what moves he chooses to use (aside from Down/UpB, maybe SideB and Fsmash, which all have significant risks), keeps him planted in that one area without any shift in positioning. Not every character has moves that directly help with movement as their main purpose, but some moves(such as tilts, smashes, or specials) give the character some sort of positional change that they may be able to use to their advantage as they're using them in their primarily intended ways(lucario's ftilt, Spacie's/Links's fsmash, Jigglypuff's SideB, etc). Those that don't have such moves tend to not really need them anyway. Bowser kinda doesn't fit in either of those two camps.

I'll use a specific example: Ganon isn't an example of great movement and movement options just like Bowser, but the SideB that Ganon has does help with his neutral game better than Bowser's SideB, or even SuperJump, does for Bowser because Ganon dashes straight at you from a great distance. Due to this horizontal distance, it gives Ganon a way to move around the stage while being a threat IN ONE MOVE. In a moment where Ganon is just shy of landing an A move, his SideB just might make it. On the other hand, If Ganon misses, the distance he travels MAY be far enough for the opponent to not be able to punish, and may even give Ganon another shot to punish the opponent. That and it's also a recovery move. Then there's Ganon's DownB. This move also gives Ganon an extended dash while being a threat which can cover a good deal of options, but it doesn't stop there. If done in the air, the trajectory changes to a much more vertical dash, giving him yet another positional option from a single move. According to this video, grounded DownB's landing animation can easily change from grounded to aerial. This gives Ganon YET ANOTHER POSITIONAL OPTION AND A NEW WAY TO APPROACH from one move.

I believe that little details and intricacies such as these should make for more personal and unique style of Bowser gameplay that we may be looking for. I mean, if we want Bowser to have more colorful and flexible styles for players to form, but don't want him to be a faster (possibly smaller?), 'wavedashable' offensive character (though i'm not against this), nor do we want to give him funny unnatural properties to add to his 'gimmicks' and 'immovable object' gameplay, then i'm not sure where else you could go other than giving his moveset some inherently creative movement. Maybe then Bowser could actually find a way to play safer and more effectively without radically changing him.

One of my ideas for buffing Bowser was giving him the ability to "kara" his f-tilt. Example, canceling the first few frames of ftilt into B-moves let him move forward, while canceling the first few frames of jab moves him backwards. Another idea is giving said B moves different properties when kara'ing. Imagine instant kara backwards flame thrower for spacing. Or Kara ftilt > side-B grab as a mix-up.

 

[mimgrim]

I really want Bowser to end up being a grappler, he's kinda close to the already but I feel like he needs more throws out of Klaw to really be one.

 

[GeZ]

The grappler archetype doesn't fit into smash. I wouldn't bank on it being added by the PMBR.

 

[Frost | Odds]

Indeed not.

Other zany ideas:

- Allow Bowser Bomb to be JCed or otherwise canceled (with Guard or something?) until halfway down the drop for t3h m0b1l1tiez such mobility wow better/more flexible movement
- Better firebreath or a projectile, goddamn
- Less Ridiculous Jumpsquat. Pls don't forget to change down-b animation accordingly @_@
- Special property of some kind on standing grab? Armor, or intangibility on his front half, or something? Or maybe just make it not stupid as hell

 

[himemiya]

Bowser needs moar cancels.

 

[Abeebo]

Cancels with Bowser seems kinda weird to me. He doesn't really need to be more technically demanding to be effective. Intangibility on his front half? His shell is on his back!

 

[Frost | Odds]

Hence the alternative of making the move not stupid/laggy/slow as hell

 

[DMG]

He needs to wield a Smoked Turkey Leg, and smack people to death with it

 

[Frost | Odds]

you want he should wield a charizard?

 

[DMG]

Just his tasty leg, sure

 

[WIZRD.Pro]

Okay, how about Bowser being an anti-approach with a whiff of grappler?

• My above Koopa Klaw additions
• Grabs have armor (his gimmick is armor after all)
• His Flamebreath eats Projectiles to compensate for how short it lasts
• No changes to his current aerials and grounded moves

 

[mimgrim]

The grappler archetype doesn't fit into smash.

Has it ever been tried before in Smash?

If not, then how do you know it wouldn't fit?

 

[Thor]

That's the thing, Bowser is designed to be an Anti-Meta Character. Everyone likes to approach in this game and Bowser is Anti-Approach. That's his gimmick: Anti-Approach. As such, he needs a way to force opponents to approach. Our options are as follows:

1. Give him a Projectile
2. Give him a Reflecter

Falco's Brawl shine, jump-cancellable once it's reached its farthest distance - would probably allow you to waveland out of it and be a fairly safe zoning tool. Could replace his fire breath or Bowser Bomb. That takes out two stones with one shine two birds with one shine stone.

While it would be totally out of character, watching Bowser kick a shine would also be hilarious, and useful for him too.

 

[GeZ]

Has it ever been tried before in Smash?

If not, then how do you know it wouldn't fit?

Because grapplers work specifically in the traditional fighting games by being very spacing based. They give up mobility more high damage and unstoppable throws. Smash games are so mobility based that a grappler character's ability to use unstoppable throws wouldn't really benefit him.

It wouldn't fit because the gameplay system doesn't accommodate it. That much is obvious.

 

[Thor]

Because grapplers work specifically in the traditional fighting games by being very spacing based. They give up mobility more high damage and unstoppable throws. Smash games are so mobility based that a grappler character's ability to use unstoppable throws wouldn't really benefit him.
It wouldn't fit because the gameplay system doesn't accommodate it. That much is obvious.

Brawl- made it work - but I don't think people want Bowser to have moving super-armor-covered grabs...

 

[GeZ]

Brawl- made it work - but I don't think people want Bowser to have moving super-armor-covered grabs...

Firstly, Brawl- is a mess, so citing it is like saying glue is edible because preschoolers have done it.

Second, that's not the grappler archetype. The grappler archetype relies on poking, short combos, and out smarting your opponent and landing your punishes based on that. This only works when your mobility is greatly limited, a la street fighter format. Think Zangief.

Edit: I know they say they have stuff inspired from Gief, like the running bear grab, but it just doesn't serve the same purpose as it does in street fighter. The point I'm making is you could make Bowser into something like that, but it's fundamentally not a grappler, and wouldn't fit in the P:M environment based on the mobility offered to the rest of the cast.