Data Bowser's Moveset Data & Discussion

[Jerodak]

I haven't had any time to test dair/nair all this week after all--but I will before Apex for sure.

I keep forgetting to ask: has anyone tested Koopacide on Smashville and Duck Hunt yet? Those are the only stages not in the list of the OP. If no one's tested, I'll test quickly either tonight or tomorrow morning before Final Battle.

Do you still need someone to help you test? And testing how Koopacide works on those stages should be Easy with level 9 CPUs. They always jump out if they can unless I'm mistaken.

 

[Zigsta]

Do you still need someone to help you test? And testing how Koopacide works on those stages should be Easy with level 9 CPUs. They always jump out if they can unless I'm mistaken.

Thanks, I'll try that. I should be fine to test on my own.

 

[Zigsta]

Test result time!

Smashville = Bowser dies first
Omega Smashville = Sudden Death
Duck Hunt = Sudden Death
Omega Duck Hunt = Sudden Death

Tested against a level 9 CPU in training mode set to jump.

Also I've been noticing how it seems that we have even less control of which direction Klaw lands, even when Bowser has a large lead (and therefore the most control). I know other people have talked about this too. I've been up by 100 and gotten cheesed. For grins I tried holding the control stick in the desired direction and mashing the c stick in the desired direction...and it gave me MUCH more control. Needs more testing. Try it out for yourselves! Maybe this will fix at least some of our Klaw woes.

In the mean time, rest assured that Duck Hunt is our friend.

 

[Jerodak]

Does it work with only a c stick set to smash? Does it work if you mash anything else? Maybe it's input based instead of just direction based perhaps.

 

[Zigsta]

Does it work with only a c stick set to smash? Does it work if you mash anything else? Maybe it's input based instead of just direction based perhaps.

Not sure--although mine is set to smash.

 

[KingKong_ad]

Its time to go on sudden death at this online tournament. Thanks for the info!

 

[Jerodak]

Hey guys, in case you didn't know. Tough guy actually gets noticeably better when Bowser is crouching, it allows him to further armor through attacks which it already worked on, and it actually allows him to armor some attacks that he previously couldn't.

Here are a few examples of how crouching affects attacks which already didn't flinch anyway.

Luigi's fireball will begin to flinch past 82% up from 56%

The weak hits of Peach Dair will now flinch past 51% up from 8%

Toon link's arrows will now flinch past 9% at half charge up from 0% and 24% uncharged, up from 6.

Here are a few attacks which can only be flinched while crouching.

Bowser Jr.'s weak hits of Fsmash from 0-24% with a full charge and from 0-30% uncharged.

Toon link's full charged arrows at 0% only.

Pit's arrows, 0-5% uncharged, 0-2% with one beep, and 0% with two beeps.

Unfortunately, outside of some of the still relatively low percentages, this has a pretty significant limitation, and that is that Bowser MUST be crouching, in place, doing absolutely nothing else. If he's crawling, or using dtilt, it no longer counts as crouching and Bowser will only have normal tough guy until whatever he's doing is finished. Crouching against attacks like Palutena's jab, or Ness's PK fire will not be effective because of a first hit that pops Bowser into the air, which negates the crouch animation.

I imagine that it could be possible to use this in the luigi match-up to soak a fireball while crouching then immediately throw a down tilt, jab or other attack without going through shield release frames or having to time a powershield. Against Peach perhaps Bowser could crouch against the weak hits of Dair and powershield the last hit for more advantage, I suppose this would technically make his punish slightly better as well because he'd build up rage from the non-launching hits. I'm not exactly sure how useful this will be, but I thought it'd at least be good for everyone to know.

Hope this helps!

Edit: I haven't finished yet, but I decided to take a break. Figured I might as well post my current findings, also it appears I may have missed a few things from my previous test, so I went and added anything I didn't notice before.

"Tough Guy" Crouch Data

The format is the name of move, the highest percent standing tough guy works at, and the highest percent that crouching works. If the first percent value is 0 then that means it is while crouching only, unless stated otherwise.

Spoiler: Luigi

Fireball 56-82%

Spoiler: Peach

Dair 8-51%
Saturn 15-28% (tilt) 12-22% (smash) 30-41 (SH drop) 17-36%(Float drop, results may vary.)

Spoiler: Bowser Jr

Fsmash 0-30% Uncharged 0-24% Full charge
Dash attack 1-18%
Jab1 0-18%

Spoiler: Toon Link

Arrow 0% (Full) 0-9% (Half) 6-24% (uncharged)

Spoiler: Pit

Arrow (uncharged) 0-5% 0-2% (one beep) 0% (two beeps)

Spoiler: Megaman

Crash bomb 190%-312%
Pellets 372-510%

Spoiler: Ness

Jab1 14-41%
Jab2 14-41%
Dtilt 164-209%

Spoiler: Kirby

Jab1 74-119%
Jab2 57-94%

Spoiler: Metaknight

Jab 50-96%

Spoiler: Fox

Jab1 107-176%
Nair (Weak) 0-2%

Spoiler: Falco

Laser 0-999%

Spoiler: Pikachu

Jab (tip) 34-74%
Jab (close) 8-44%

Spoiler: Sheik

Rapid Jab 0-43% This works while standing, I just forgot to add it in my previous list.

Spoiler: Samus

uncharged shot 0-2%

Spoiler: Zelda

Nayru’s love 0-30%

Spoiler: R.O.B

Jab1 8-26%
Dtilt 0%

 

[Uncle]

Just when I thought Tough Guy couldn't get any weirder, it does. I'll definitely keep the Luigi and Peach cases in mind.

Good finds, Jerodak.

 

[MagiusNecros]

Wow on Tough Crouch against Falco's Laser. This could be really useful.

 

[B!squick]

Is this crouch stuff specific to Bowser? I can't help but wonder if crouching through certain weak attacks might be a natural occurrence in relation to DI.

 

[Jerodak]

Is this crouch stuff specific to Bowser? I can't help but wonder if crouching through certain weak attacks might be a natural occurrence in relation to DI.

Yes, while crouching does lower the knockback you take, Bowser is the only character with tough guy. So what's happening is that the knockback of attacks which are just barely exceeding the knockback threshold are lowered enough by the knockback reduction from crouching to be affected by tough guy and Bowser ignores the knockback.

 

[Big-Cat]

Looking at the frame data, does the angle listed only pertain to the angle of the hitbox?

 

[MrEh]

The angle listed is the angle that your opponent gets sent flying after being hit by the move.

Obviously, this can be affected somewhat with DI.

 

[Big-Cat]

Unless I'm looking at the frame data wrong, the angles listed are extremely unintuitive. I was doing pics of Shulk's knock back angles and they don't line up with the frame data listings.

Regardless, I have plans to take pics of the knock back angles for Bowser like I did here.
http://smashboards.com/threads/monado-show-me-the-way-shulks-attack-angles.388199/

 

[KingKong_ad]

On training room, it says I can Air release to fair, bair jigglypuff and it also looks viable. Need more testing, I'll check tomorrow.
I know it's hard to make an air release happen. The only ways are grab at the edge of a platform or stage or they mash jump while in grab release (if it's like brawl).

 

[Jerodak]

On training room, it says I can Air release to fair, bair jigglypuff and it also looks viable. Need more testing, I'll check tomorrow.
I know it's hard to make an air release happen. The only ways are grab at the edge of a platform or stage or they mash jump while in grab release (if it's like brawl).

If you need a spotter for your test then I can help you out, just let me know.

 

[MrEh]

It doesn't work. Training mode combo counter is wacky when it comes to grab releases.

Grab release stuff just doesn't work in this game outside of Wario, and even that is really situational silly crap.

 

[KingKong_ad]

Yeah you are right MrEh, the animation is really weird and the opponent can actually just airdodge.

 

[MagiusNecros]

Alright people this happened by mere coincidence when I was playing as Ganondorf against a Samus. I had clanked out a full power Charge shot with his Bair and suffered no lag whatsoever. So long story short I tested Bowser's Bair and guess what it also clanks out with no recoil due to the disjoint and intangibility.

I didn't stop there though. It works on a full power Aura Sphere. Even with Max Aura. Let that sink in for a minute.

WFT salute the sun ball thing? Bair. It works too.

So yeah weak projectiles? You can just punch them. But large projectiles? You can safely Bair them and they are gone. Poof!

Laser type Projectiles such as Fox/Falco and Thoron cannot be negated. Same with Arc Thunder. But you can dodge those easy anyway.

Sorry if this was already mentioned but I think it's worth mentioning.

 

[Zigsta]

That's really handy to know! Is there landing lag after bair hits a fully charged shot? I could see Samus/Lucario running in to punish bair only to be hit with another one.

What about Megaman's fsmash?

 

[MagiusNecros]

That's really handy to know! Is there landing lag after bair hits a fully charged shot? I could see Samus/Lucario running in to punish bair only to be hit with another one.

What about Megaman's fsmash?

No. Recoil. Whatsoever.

So regular mechanics of Bair apply meaning do it right from a short hop and you have no lag. It's awesome.

--------------------

Megaman's Forward Smash cannot be negated.

 

[UltimaLuminaire]

I see. So even if there's no disjoint, the projectile will simply get destroyed by a powerful enough hit box. I think @ J Jerodak mentioned that when talking about projectile properties, though not about Bair specifically. Also, this projectile clash override might be mentioned in a Tip somewhere as well. Either way, @ MagiusNecros thanks for testing it and reporting in.

 

[MagiusNecros]

Also worth noting Greninja's full charge Water Shuriken seems to be unhittable due to how low it is. But you can just jump over it.

-------------

I don't think Upsmash can negate Megaman's Fsmash. Nor can it negate Lucario's Max Power max charge Aura Sphere. Hitboxes are large enough to hit Bowser where the Autoguard is missing.

It's probably better to powershield MM's Smash Attack.

 

[Jerodak]

@ UltimaLuminaire The way it seems to work is that Bair is a high priority aerial, so it's able to clank "evenly" with the projectiles which then dissappear because that's how projectiles behave when they clank unless they win the exchange. Aerials, on the other hand, are never interrupted by clanking but the hitbox is nullified when they tie or lose. In the case of aerials with multiple hitboxes, I believe that only the current hitbox is nulled out and any hitboxes after that will continue to deal damage as long as they aren't also clanked out, this was one reason why Metaknight's tornado in Brawl was so good, and I kinda wonder if its why Bowser's Nair can trade with pretty much everything.

Most of the attacks this doesn't work on are trancendent, so they ignore clanking, arc thunder has strange mechanics, it can't be trancendent because it activates itself on firebreath, I think it might use a collision detector instead of an actual hitbox, I bet PK fire follows the same mechanics. So they just detect your collision box instead of klanking with your active hitbox. In the case of Water shuriken, I think it's trancendent at full charge, but it can be klanked normally otherwise, but jabs or ftilt work well enough for that, or you can simply powershield it.

Shiek's needles are also trancendent, which is annoying and why we can't use fire to deal with them, but at least they aren't plus on hit for her, even with max needles at point blank. Not sure how useful that is for the match-up, but I figured it'd be good to know.

 

[Zigsta]

This makes sense--it's like how Bowser's fsmash clanked with a fully charged shot. But this is even better since bair can be lagless!

 

[UltimaLuminaire]

I think it might use a collision detector instead of an actual hitbox, I bet PK fire follows the same mechanics. So they just detect your collision box instead of klanking with your active hitbox.

I'm guessing this same rule applies to Gordos since it checks for collision before dealing damage and sending the Gordo elsewhere.

 

[KingKong_ad]

Today, I played on ladder against a Pac-Man, while Side-Bing he brought me off stage. He was going to recover but he pressed UpB too early and he did it while I was still alive. Exactly between the blast zone and the stage. Since it is the upb of pac-man, I managed to comeback on stage too. It was weird to see that.

 

[MagiusNecros]

Bowser's Fair also seems to negate large projectiles. However Bair is safer since Fair has Bowser's nose sticking out a bit which means you'll probably get hit by the attack anyway. And Bair can possibly have no land lag. Which is good because a mobile Bowser is a dangerous Bowser.

Like Fsmash once Bair is out Bowser can be damaged by these projectiles.

So as already mentioned by Jerodak Bair is basically an attack that has higher priority values then most projectiles in the game.

Dunno if it was a lucky attack thrown out but I had Pacman throw the Key item at me and did the Bair and Bowser caught it so maybe on regular items we can catch them with Bair on reaction if they aren't explosive.

That's all I have to share. In any case you guys should try this in training for yourselves. Makes Projectile based characters more tolerable.

If something else happens during play and can be integrated into Bowser I'll pop back in and share my findings.

 

[Jerodak]

Hey guys, so I don't know how well this is known, but when I was fighting a Bowser Jr today, it turns out that when you block the mecha koopa, you do not need to shield release to pick it up, I was able to do a short hop pick up by simply doing the input for a short hop Nair without dropping the shield. This proved useful because I was able to avoid Bowser Jr's grab mix-ups while he followed behind the Mecha and it put me in the perfect position to throw the mech or air drop it. Probably could have also fast fell into side or down b possibly. If you do this properly, Bowser will jump out of shield with an empty short hop or full hop while picking the mecha koopa up at the same time, so you don't even commit to anything other than the jump. If your timing is a bit off then you'll actually get a Nair, but you can probably also do that intenionally as a mix-up. I didn't bother trying this with other aerial inputs, but I don't see why it wouldn't work.

 

[Zigsta]

So essentially you run up to the Mecha Koopa, shield, and upon inputting an OoS nair, Bowser short hops and picks up the Mecha Koopa as opposed to nairing out of shield?

 

[Jerodak]

So essentially you run up to the Mecha Koopa, shield, and upon inputting an OoS nair, Bowser short hops and picks up the Mecha Koopa as opposed to nairing out of shield?

Yup, but you don't have to run into it if you don't want to, if it walks into you then that works too, alternatively you can also do a powershield pick-up since that won't require a jump but how advantageous that is depends on how quick Bowser's pick-up animation is. You could also not pick it up at all if you want and let it walk past you, once you shield it, I believe it can't hurt you anymore until it reaches a ledge and turns around. This could let you go for a pivot grab mix-up too perhaps, or maybe a special?

 

[Sliq]

Reminds me of one of those things that Sliq said way back. If Bowser shot REALLY SLOW moving fireballs that you could walk or run behind, that would be legit.

Unfortunately, the fireball we got was nowhere close. Bowser lags for a billion years after firing, so you can't follow up on anything. Moreover, the fireballs disappear quickly and don't travel anywhere near as slow for this to work.

We can always dream though.

Just give him the fireball from SMB3 that travels diagonally downwards until it hits a floor, and then it travels along the floor slowly. IS IT THAT HARD I'M A GODDAMN GENIUS.

 

[MrEh]

Legit.

 

[Jerodak]

The item grab OOS on Mecha koopa aparently also works when it's thrown at you. This is because it functions similarly when thrown as it does when on the ground, when you shield it, it won't hurt you anymore unless it explodes near you on the ground or a wall, and it'll hit your shield and just pass through, so just do the Nair OOS and you should do the short hop pick-up. I found this out when I threw one at a Bowser Jr. on For Glory today, and he picked it up in this fashion.

 

[Karsticles]

What about Metal Blade?
I use dash attack, fair, and SHAD to grab Metal blades, depending on the situation.

 

[Jerodak]

What about Metal Blade?
I use dash attack, fair, and SHAD to grab Metal blades, depending on the situation.

I haven't tested this with metal blade, but I imagine that it wouldn't work mainly because it continues to hit your shield. I'll take a look at it though.

Edit: it looks like if the metal blade decides to pass through your shield then you won't be able to do the OOS pick-up. However, it seems like if Megaman is throwing them too often then it will actually ground itself after hitting your shield only 2-3 times or so. If it does the you can use the OOS pick-up then because it's sticking harmlessly out of the ground at that point.

Oh by the way, Has anyone noticed that hitting someone standing at the ledge while using certain moves will push them off? I notice this mainly seems to occur with charge moves. I haven't looked at this with everyone yet but here's what I know it works on so far.

Pacman's Neutral B: He continues charging when pushed off.

Samus Neutral B: She stops charging and ledge grabs.

Palutena Neutral B: She continues the animation but recovers quickly enough to easily grab the ledge.

Sheik's Neutral B: Continues charging.

I was thinking this could be used as a surprise punish for players that are being extremely campy at the ledge because it can either force them on the ledge, or surprise gimp them, and in either case it'll stop them from charging too. Or in Palutena's case, spamming projectiles. I'll continue looking at this to see if there's anything really exploitable here.

 

[Hitman JT]

What about Metal Blade?
I use dash attack, fair, and SHAD to grab Metal blades, depending on the situation.

I also recommend learning the timing to snatch them right out the air with your jab button. But yeah, it depends on the situation

 

[Jerodak]

So it turns out that you can reduce quite a bit of the lag from Bowser's initial dash by gently tilting the stick forwards slightly during it to go directly into the skid animation, which is infinitely better. I just tested this in Training mode at 1/4(hold) speed and had two bowsers initial dashing to shield with one using the skid stop to "cancel" the initial dash. The difference was pretty significant, but that might also have been exaggerated by the slow down. Maybe this could be used for micro spacing, or perhaps some mind games? What do you guys think?

 

[MrEh]

Generally speaking, going into the skid animation at all is pretty terrible when you could have jumped or done something else.

Even the 17-ish frames it takes to shield and shield drop would probably be faster than skidding. Not 100% sure about this, but I think so. Might have to test.

 

[Jerodak]

Generally speaking, going into the skid animation at all is pretty terrible when you could have jumped or done something else.

Even the 17-ish frames it takes to shield and shield drop would probably be faster than skidding. Not 100% sure about this, but I think so. Might have to test.

Actually, Bowser's skid animation is one of the best in the game, it's one of the reasons why his run is such a useful tool, you can just release the stick to neutral and go right from running to standing in a very short amount of time. This is why Bowser can do run to standing options, including a melee-esque run to down smash.

When you do a fox trot, unless you are actually intending to go into your run, you have to wait for the animation to finish before you are able to shield, so shielding will actually add more frames to what you're doing. Jumping out of a foxtrot will work but the skid and jump animations are pretty similar frame-wise but choosing to skid just gives Bowser an option that keeps him grounded. I'm pretty sure that just holding forward to go into a run will allow you to shield at about the same time as using the skid would, but you'll be moving forward pretty fast at the same time, and you slide while in the shield, which is great for run-in powershielding with and shield dashing in general but skidding covers less ground, and you're actually transitioning to standing rather quickly so it seems like it'd be better for spacing.

The distance that you cover with a foxtrot is enough to avoid spaced attacks, and I feel like Bowser's foxtrot is actually a pretty useful tool in this game. He can do regular pivots pretty much anytime during the animation to get pivot options, jump, use an upsmash, use up b, use side b, and now he can skid to return to his idle stance to add a few other options like maybe foxtrot -> skid -> down b, which he can't do otherwise out of a foxtrot.

This reminds me, how's that frame data coming along? I was actually wondering what the frame count was on doing the quickest possible run to run-stop/skid was. The current frame data doesn't seem have any information on non-attacks yet, so I was curious.