FakeKraid
Smash Apprentice
So, since the Project M blog has stated that 3.5 will focus on recovery, I thought now might be a good time to talk about Bowser's recovery: its strengths, its weaknesses, and my (and your) experience with using it.
Primary recovery tool: Whirling Fortress
Bowser's Whirling Fortress, used as a recovery, sends him in a more or less parabolic arc upward and to the side with a fair amount of directional freedom, similar to Captain Falcon's Falcon Dive but with significantly shorter reach. During the move he enjoys a fair degree of protection from the continuous hitboxes it creates around him, but it can be clinked or out-prioritized by a sufficiently disjointed move like Marth's dtilt or dair, making it risky to use without sweet-spotting. Unfortunately, the move is much harder to sweet-spot consistently than many others like it because Bowser is granted fairly little vertical warp, making the sweet-spot window quite small, especially against on-stage guards that enjoy below-edge hitboxes like DeDeDe's dtilt and Zamus's dsmash. In addition its relatively small amount of vertical distance leaves Bowser vulnerable to low% spikes from Marth, Falco, Ness, and other characters with useful meteors.
Bowser's recovery can go quite far between his medium-size second jump and the considerable drift he enjoys after his Fortress, but its slow, predictable arc and his lack of viable alternatives in most circumstances (more on that later) makes it predictable and easy to foil. Perhaps the saving grace that keeps his recovery from being outright bad is the very low lag he enjoys when landing on-stage from a high recovery, unlike characters with similar recovery (CF, Ganondorf, Link, etc.), making it hard to punish a high recovery from an unsuccessful edge-hog and leading to Bowser's famous "double-Fortress" follow-up. Unfortunately there is still a window for this; if Bowser lands too much before the end of his Fortress he will end with full on-stage lag leading to an easy punish unless you can react quickly enough to drift back over the edge for a Fortress Hog cancel.
There are a few tricks to make his recovery less predictable even from below the ledge. His good horizontal control during the move allows for lateral stalling to bait an early edge-guard attempt. Off-stage punish attempts can often be foiled by an early Fortress or, with sufficient room and height, a low-lag air like fair. Closer recoveries allow Bowser to advantage of the considerably more forgiving warp from his neutral stance in the air. And finally, the Bowser Bomb can be ledge-cancelled from any facing for high recovery straight down to take advantage of its heavy armor and powerful knockback and shield damage to punish unwary on-stage edge-guards.
For my part, I think Bowser's recovery should serve as a model of good balance for the PMBR: experienced players who make use of all available options can generally make it back in most matchups and situations, but a bad read or a skillful off-stage gimp will ruin Bowser's day in short order. The only matches where Bowser's recovery feels very inadequate are generally balanced by similar qualities on tho other side (with the exception of Zamus, and Pit, but that's another balance issue altogether), leading to tense recovery situations all around that call for precision execution, good mix-up, and a steady mind.
Primary recovery tool: Whirling Fortress
Bowser's Whirling Fortress, used as a recovery, sends him in a more or less parabolic arc upward and to the side with a fair amount of directional freedom, similar to Captain Falcon's Falcon Dive but with significantly shorter reach. During the move he enjoys a fair degree of protection from the continuous hitboxes it creates around him, but it can be clinked or out-prioritized by a sufficiently disjointed move like Marth's dtilt or dair, making it risky to use without sweet-spotting. Unfortunately, the move is much harder to sweet-spot consistently than many others like it because Bowser is granted fairly little vertical warp, making the sweet-spot window quite small, especially against on-stage guards that enjoy below-edge hitboxes like DeDeDe's dtilt and Zamus's dsmash. In addition its relatively small amount of vertical distance leaves Bowser vulnerable to low% spikes from Marth, Falco, Ness, and other characters with useful meteors.
Bowser's recovery can go quite far between his medium-size second jump and the considerable drift he enjoys after his Fortress, but its slow, predictable arc and his lack of viable alternatives in most circumstances (more on that later) makes it predictable and easy to foil. Perhaps the saving grace that keeps his recovery from being outright bad is the very low lag he enjoys when landing on-stage from a high recovery, unlike characters with similar recovery (CF, Ganondorf, Link, etc.), making it hard to punish a high recovery from an unsuccessful edge-hog and leading to Bowser's famous "double-Fortress" follow-up. Unfortunately there is still a window for this; if Bowser lands too much before the end of his Fortress he will end with full on-stage lag leading to an easy punish unless you can react quickly enough to drift back over the edge for a Fortress Hog cancel.
There are a few tricks to make his recovery less predictable even from below the ledge. His good horizontal control during the move allows for lateral stalling to bait an early edge-guard attempt. Off-stage punish attempts can often be foiled by an early Fortress or, with sufficient room and height, a low-lag air like fair. Closer recoveries allow Bowser to advantage of the considerably more forgiving warp from his neutral stance in the air. And finally, the Bowser Bomb can be ledge-cancelled from any facing for high recovery straight down to take advantage of its heavy armor and powerful knockback and shield damage to punish unwary on-stage edge-guards.
For my part, I think Bowser's recovery should serve as a model of good balance for the PMBR: experienced players who make use of all available options can generally make it back in most matchups and situations, but a bad read or a skillful off-stage gimp will ruin Bowser's day in short order. The only matches where Bowser's recovery feels very inadequate are generally balanced by similar qualities on tho other side (with the exception of Zamus, and Pit, but that's another balance issue altogether), leading to tense recovery situations all around that call for precision execution, good mix-up, and a steady mind.
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