Important Carefully Ask PPMD about the Tiara Guy

[RedmanSSBM]

Will my comment be the one to push this thread to the elusive 420? What do you think Dr Peepee ?

Nah.

 

[Wall Of SPain]

Dr Peepee Can you throw some knoweladge at me on true combos against floaties, I know if they are holding di in they can get ken comboed easily, but I usually dont finish my combos well and they end up in a platform, which is great for marth, but I just need a reliable option in pressure such as CG on spacies. Thanks.
PS: I was watching one of your sets against falco as marth. And you seem to pick yoshis at the start pretty often, why not BF which is most likely the one to start on?
PSS: Thanks for showing me (in your VODS) the importance of mixing up your grabs, I have gotten soooooo many f smashes off misstechs against spacies.

 

[Vanitas]

When one has Peach at the ledge and you're trying to cover all of her options, is there some sort of flowchart that Marth mains usually do? (Certain spacing away from the ledge, to cover roll with turn around grab, dtilt, etc?)

 

[RedmanSSBM]

When one has Peach at the ledge and you're trying to cover all of her options, is there some sort of flowchart that Marth mains usually do? (Certain spacing away from the ledge, to cover roll with turn around grab, dtilt, etc?)

Her options from the ledge are extremely limited and all reactable. You can crouch right next to the ledge and dtilt, instant fair, dsmash, reaction grab, and even fsmash her rolling from the edge. Her normal getup is also reactable and her getup attack is really easy to just CC and dtilt her back off.

 

[Dr Peepee]

Dr Peepee Can you throw some knoweladge at me on true combos against floaties, I know if they are holding di in they can get ken comboed easily, but I usually dont finish my combos well and they end up in a platform, which is great for marth, but I just need a reliable option in pressure such as CG on spacies. Thanks.
PS: I was watching one of your sets against falco as marth. And you seem to pick yoshis at the start pretty often, why not BF which is most likely the one to start on?
PSS: Thanks for showing me (in your VODS) the importance of mixing up your grabs, I have gotten soooooo many f smashes off misstechs against spacies.

I'm confused, do you want combo options or pressure options?

When one has Peach at the ledge and you're trying to cover all of her options, is there some sort of flowchart that Marth mains usually do? (Certain spacing away from the ledge, to cover roll with turn around grab, dtilt, etc?)

Stand where M2K stands vs Armada at Summit 2 and you can cover pretty much everything.

 

[Wall Of SPain]

Pressure options actually Dr Peepee Thanks.

 

[Dr Peepee]

If you want to pressure someone who lands on a platform, then SH. From there you can DJ and aerial and hit them away or maybe pseudo combo, or you can land and counter a shield drop or their next movement.

There are lots of ways to do it really like shield breaker or some instances in which FH works. I'm just telling you about a reliable one but you're welcome to look for others.

 

[Wall Of SPain]

Thanks bro

 

[Shiftyy]

A hypothetical for Marth vs Peach:

I've found myself questioning what the best option here is. Say I (Marth) have Peach off stage at 10% damage. I notice the Peach almost always gets juuust out of range of my sword, then airdodges onto the stage. Or, if I'm not positioned well, will try to bait out an attack and dodge it with said air dodge towards the stage. Peach's airdodge is really weird to me, and I'm not sure exactly what I'm supposed to do when that happens. I've thought about wavedash back fsmash on reaction, or perhaps wavedash back dtilt or something. I really don't see grabbing and fthrowing again being that good, I feel like I can do more than that off of the opportunity Peach gives me by doing that. Any ideas?

 

[Taytertot]

A hypothetical for Marth vs Peach:

I've found myself questioning what the best option here is. Say I (Marth) have Peach off stage at 10% damage. I notice the Peach almost always gets juuust out of range of my sword, then airdodges onto the stage. Or, if I'm not positioned well, will try to bait out an attack and dodge it with said air dodge towards the stage. Peach's airdodge is really weird to me, and I'm not sure exactly what I'm supposed to do when that happens. I've thought about wavedash back fsmash on reaction, or perhaps wavedash back dtilt or something. I really don't see grabbing and fthrowing again being that good, I feel like I can do more than that off of the opportunity Peach gives me by doing that. Any ideas?

to continue with some of the earlier conversations about conditioning, if the peach player always gets just out of sword range and then air dodges onstage then get into position where peach would normally expect an attack and just wait for peach to act. if she does nothing then she'll just drop too far to airdodge onstage in which case she has to upB and you can punish that or she airdodges onstage even though you havent thrown out a move and then you punish her afterward. this is all based on her being conditioned to expect an attack and so she starts respecting your space which she should.

 

[Shiftyy]

to continue with some of the earlier conversations about conditioning, if the peach player always gets just out of sword range and then air dodges onstage then get into position where peach would normally expect an attack and just wait for peach to act. if she does nothing then she'll just drop too far to airdodge onstage in which case she has to upB and you can punish that or she airdodges onstage even though you havent thrown out a move and then you punish her afterward. this is all based on her being conditioned to expect an attack and so she starts respecting your space which she should.

Right, my question is more so to which option I should choose if I just wait for the airdodge. At low percents, what exactly is the best response to this? I have next to no Peach experience so I'm not sure.

 

[Life]

Experiment and find out.

That said, I'd try dtilt or fsmash first, since they basically just reset the situation.

 

[Vanitas]

This sounds like a dumb question, but how does Mang0 make his nairs work against Peach? He tends to zone with them quite a lot but it seems like an option that can be beaten with Peach's dash attack in close quarters.

 

[AirFair]

Both of them hit on frame 6, and I believe that marth's nair hitbox has a better reach. Based on this, I think that nair would be able to beat dash attack, as long as Marth spaces it well.

 

[Kuryoku]

Hey Kevin, I have a few questions for you regarding Marth.

1. I was going through your post and saw that you posted on a Marth guide for Smash 4 (Or Brawl?) that spoke about how Marth has great coverage when his opponent is at the ledge. That really got me thinking about how Marth can transfer that into Melee. Obviously there are a few invincible ledge dashes to worry about in Melee, but that's rarely used outside of higher tier players (plus it's only used often by spacies). I don't really see people camping outside of their ledge range and punishing options as much as it seems people do in Sm4sh. Do you think the meta for covering the ledge as Marth isn't fully developed at the moment?

2. I've been studying Colbol a bit recently and I've noticed he's a bit unique in the sense that he'll end combo's much earlier in order to establish stage control and/or push his opponent to the ledge. Do you think a player with strong edge-guarding and ledge guarding (basically question #1) should adopt this style? It seems more reliable if you don't over commit to guarding the ledge and know when to be happy letting them up and having stage control.

3. Building off the previous questions: What do you think of WD Fwd Tilt? I've been paying attention to what other characters use as their bread and butter and seeing if we can adapt that to Marth, in this case, I'm going off the Mario brothers or specially Luigi who finds a lot of success with this technique. Same perimeters as the previous question. (I'd only use this over downtilt based on % and their weightclass)

4. Just like the previous question, have you seen how Wizz/S2J do really late up-airs a lot if they're about to hit the ground? It seems like they do it knowing if it doesn't it, whatever I won't be in land for long, but if they do hit it they get a sick combo. Marth's Up-Air has the same kind of principles, even more so than the Luigi example. Thoughts?

That's it for now. I wanted to add that I really appreciate all the information you've shared with the community. I haven't read you answer these questions (yet, I'm still going through some of your forum post, but I've read all your profile post :D), so I hope I spark some ideas from you as opposed to making you repeat yourself.

Thanks again.

 

[Dr Peepee]

Whoa people read my Brawl stuff? News to me lmao that's pretty cool.

1. Well it's more variable than standing at one position a lot of the time since you have different effective options. It's hard to stand in a place you can stop Falco SHDL from the edge while also covering edge dash. It CAN be done if you keep moving though. If you want to watch a Marth that attempts to stay in one spot(especially when it can work well) then M2K would be your example. I think Marths could definitely stand a tune-up here.

2. You want to get as much advantage off of a hit as possible. This comes in various forms and isn't always about getting the most damage in a mostly true combo. That said, it's been my experience you can often set up situations you can either get the kill or put them in an edgeguard position, so it's more likely that Colbol is dropping punishes he could be extending.

3. I actually kinda like this vs Sheik and Puff occasionally since they jump a lot, but mostly I think Ftilt requires tipping and it's not a constant hitbox, two things that really help the Marios' Ftilts.

4. Falcon also falls a LOT faster than Marth and his Uair reaches farther out. Marth can do this with Fair to an extent, and indeed that's what all Marths did from post-Brawl until more recently. They all got blown up for it since they didn't change their spacing or timing at all. Plus it's incredibly easy to react to since Marth falls so slowly. If you keep decent space while working the Fair or you change positions and timings fairly well then it's definitely still viable.

 

[Kuryoku]

Thanks so much for the quick reply. Nice to see you didn't just dismiss any of the ideas based on the "normal" way of thinking as others probably would have.

Regarding #4, I'm now experimenting with seeing if the late up-air can be used as an option coverage tool for tech chasing. Inspired by Gravy's Falcon video as well, which demonstrates Falcon still being able to react to tech roll behind/away (when near the ledge). Our Up-air has less landing land, so I would assume we could do the same thing. That said, I know you usually use N-air in that situation and it often leads to a F-Smash. So maybe you think n-air is better in most cases.

As an aside, because of how I've been looking at the game and trying to apply other characters strengths to Marth, I've become jealous of other characters jabs and long lasting hitboxes. FeelsBadMan

Have a nice day.

Edit: When you said Marth's did this post-brawl, do you mean a really late up-air or f-air?

Edit #2: Oh, I wanted to ask about your opinion on Marthritis. It seems to me that at the percents where this apparently happens, nearly every attack (including d-tilt) knockdown. Which in theory should lead to a VERY Scary neutral as after the knockdown we should be able to Up-B/F-Tilt Tipper Tech-chase, and at worse take stage. Obviously vs floaties they won't get knockdowned, but in that match-up our side-b to up-tilt also makes our neutral very scary, as well as our retreating/standing N-airs. I guess what I'm asking is, do you think Marthritis has been occurring more because the Marth players haven't been adjusting their move usage at those percents (ex. I see F-air a ton at those percentages instead of N-air/b-air to send them out), or am I missing something here?

 

[Dr Peepee]

I meant Marths did the late Fair a lot.

And jumping during tech chases can definitely be good. Mango and I both do it a lot, him moreso.

Edit: Yeah Marthritis isn't as big of a problem if you can edgeguard/tech chase well I agree. Besides even if it still happens you can always kill them at 50 the next stock lol.

 

[AirFair]

Dr Peepee Something that I need to work on the Falco matchup is confirming that I was hit by a laser. Sometimes I will accidentally jab to try and intercept a falco when the laser went over my head, or try to dash the other way when I was hit. While I was thinking of ways to fix this issue, I had one small idea. Do you think foxtrotting is a good idea when used with taking lasers and moving/jabbing? I thought it would make sure that I don't accidentally dash away, so that would be nice. Aside from that, I'll probably have to practice the matchup more for confirming lasers, but if there's a specific place you watch when lasering/being lasered, that would be cool to know too. Thanks!

 

[Dr Peepee]

Dr Peepee Something that I need to work on the Falco matchup is confirming that I was hit by a laser. Sometimes I will accidentally jab to try and intercept a falco when the laser went over my head, or try to dash the other way when I was hit. While I was thinking of ways to fix this issue, I had one small idea. Do you think foxtrotting is a good idea when used with taking lasers and moving/jabbing? I thought it would make sure that I don't accidentally dash away, so that would be nice. Aside from that, I'll probably have to practice the matchup more for confirming lasers, but if there's a specific place you watch when lasering/being lasered, that would be cool to know too. Thanks!

Dashing shrinks you, so if you were to get hit standing but not dashing then you need to keep that in mind. You could also stand suddenly to get hit by a laser that would otherwise move past you, giving you ground attacks.

I foxtrot some, but if you're struggling with laser heights it might be good to practice lasering some with Falco on your own so you know what to expect from where a laser begins. It would also help to practice with a friend where they are shooting at different heights and timings and you move around them.

For laser spots, generally Falcos will do it a bit out of Fsmash/run immediate Fair range. You can often see Falcos get comfortable lasering in certain places and you can find trends that way too. I would look for those good laser spots and try to exploit them.

 

[FE_Hector]

Dr Peepee Since you've been getting your energy back (hype!) recently, do you know yet what your next big tourney will be? Also, do you think you'll finally start attending locals once you're doing better? I'd love to understand exactly what it feels like to lose to a player of your caliber lol.

 

[Dr Peepee]

I don't know at this time. I got updated information on my situation this week and just started making adjustments yesterday. I'm starting to feel a little better but it's still too soon to say if I'll make it for smash con or whatever is in September. I imagine I'll be fine for Big House though. Don't wanna say anything definite until the day I feel 100%.

And yeah once I'm better I'll definitely go to locals occasionally. It'll be nice to play you and everyone else around there =)

Good luck to all Marths in here at EVO!

 

[FE_Hector]

I don't know at this time. I got updated information on my situation this week and just started making adjustments yesterday. I'm starting to feel a little better but it's still too soon to say if I'll make it for smash con or whatever is in September. I imagine I'll be fine for Big House though. Don't wanna say anything definite until the day I feel 100%.

And yeah once I'm better I'll definitely go to locals occasionally. It'll be nice to play you and everyone else around there =)

Good luck to all Marths in here at EVO!

Well in that case, it's possible that Big House will be the first tourney in a while to have all 6 Gods (I personally include Leffen) in attendance. That'll be super sick, especially since TBH5 was when Leffen got denied entry and since you decided not to play at that tourney.

 

[StrawHatter]

Dr Peepee Hey dude, I'm a Falco/Marth main and I've been having some issues when I try switching between the characters. I'll notice that I won't be able to move as clean as I would with the other. My wavedashes feel a little imprecise when I go between my practice schedules. Any ideas on how to maybe work around this? Or is it the sort of thing that I should warm up for /before/ I go into my training routine.

Cheers.

 

[AirFair]

According to this:
http://www.antd.org/ssbm/jump-speed-statistics-list/
Falco has one extra frame of jumpsquat when compared to marth, so there is a reason for this. As for working around it, you could commit them to muscle memory and then when you are switching characters, just do a short handwarmer.

 

[Greyson]

Hey, PP. What did you think of your boy Cactuar vs. M2K at EVO? With regards to the thread title, what did you think about their Marth ditto? What could Cactuar have done against those fsmash edgeguards?

Here's the VOD of the match in question: www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqKG_JcGkCI&t=4m50s

 

[ElectroLightning]

Hey PPMD. I'm a pretty big fan of you (you're on my top 10 favorite smashers), and I was wondering... How do you play passively with Marth? I think I have the offensive rush-down style down, but when it come to keeping my foes at bay, it's a bit harder.

 

[Dr Peepee]

Hey, PP. What did you think of your boy Cactuar vs. M2K at EVO? With regards to the thread title, what did you think about their Marth ditto? What could Cactuar have done against those fsmash edgeguards?

Here's the VOD of the match in question: www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqKG_JcGkCI&t=4m50s

Cactus couldn't punish and M2K could, Cactus should be watched for his neutral in this set and M2K for his punish.

You can tech the Fsmashes.

Hey PPMD. I'm a pretty big fan of you (you're on my top 10 favorite smashers), and I was wondering... How do you play passively with Marth? I think I have the offensive rush-down style down, but when it come to keeping my foes at bay, it's a bit harder.

Learn your full threat range and your opponents'. Stay at that space and jump/move. You can beat out people coming in if you understand this well and it will of course complement rushdown.

 

[Greyson]

You can tech the Fsmashes.

Cactuar managed to pull that off exactly once but unfortunately flubbed the follow-up. Does one have to input SDI virtually every time to get the tech? Is it safer to try to sweetspot the ledge at the risk of getting edgehogged?

 

[ElectroLightning]

Cactus couldn't punish and M2K could, Cactus should be watched for his neutral in this set and M2K for his punish.

You can tech the Fsmashes.

Learn your full threat range and your opponents'. Stay at that space and jump/move. You can beat out people coming in if you understand this well and it will of course complement rushdown.

Thanks for the advice!

 

[Mastodon]

So I'm a falcon main looking for advice on the marth match up which I struggle with. What do you guys not want falcon players to do in your matches? Particularly in neutral.

 

[Dr Peepee]

Cactuar managed to pull that off exactly once but unfortunately flubbed the follow-up. Does one have to input SDI virtually every time to get the tech? Is it safer to try to sweetspot the ledge at the risk of getting edgehogged?

Sometimes he tried to sweetspot from far away and dodge the Fsmash but M2K is great at sniffing that out and punishing it with walk forward. You could maybe SDI in this case but it'd be hard lol.

The bigger thing is when you do tech, you should do the walljump instant Bair instead of going back down. You can hit an Fsmashing Marth's extended body AND go straight to the edge safely when you do this. It's even pretty good vs Dtilt too(though if you're making the edgeguarding Marth use Dtilt then you've already made their job much harder).

So I'm a falcon main looking for advice on the marth match up which I struggle with. What do you guys not want falcon players to do in your matches? Particularly in neutral.

Trading aerials with our moves, run up grab, CC'ing our moves, playing with some patience.

 

[ridemyboat]

Dr. Peepee, when are you making a house call video for Marth?

 

[AirFair]

Dr Peepee , I've been looking at how I can start using crouch cancel better in my gameplay, and I wanted to know what your opinion was on it's effective use.

From observation, I don't usually like to cc grab in neutral since I can usually dash around aerials, so I think that it's not that important in neutral where marth is more focused on moving and spacing himself.

The one thing that I can think of is Fox or Falco jabbing you for combos (jab upsmash, or jab fsmash), and if I was in the corner or at a high percentage, I might hold down during a dash in to see if they try and jab me. Aside from that, I wouldn't know where else to really use it.

How much do you find yourself using cc? When I look at my question, it seems kind of weird to ask since it's such a widely used technique, but when I consider your style of marth (or at least, my understanding of it, since I try my best to emulate it), I don't see it very much, which kind of makes sense, considering how much mileage you get just off of fundamentals alone. Thanks a bunch, and I hope this made sense.

 

[Dr Peepee]

Dr. Peepee, when are you making a house call video for Marth?

One doesn't seem desperately needed like the Falco one did, but I'll consider doing one once I'm better if there's enough demand for one. Of course, I went over the Marth history some in the Falco video for context, saying Marth was dominant before Brawl and then died off afterward until a little resurgence from me/ppu/m2k/moon recently. So I'd have to go into more specifics about the character to make a good video I think lol.

Dr Peepee , I've been looking at how I can start using crouch cancel better in my gameplay, and I wanted to know what your opinion was on it's effective use.

From observation, I don't usually like to cc grab in neutral since I can usually dash around aerials, so I think that it's not that important in neutral where marth is more focused on moving and spacing himself.

The one thing that I can think of is Fox or Falco jabbing you for combos (jab upsmash, or jab fsmash), and if I was in the corner or at a high percentage, I might hold down during a dash in to see if they try and jab me. Aside from that, I wouldn't know where else to really use it.

How much do you find yourself using cc? When I look at my question, it seems kind of weird to ask since it's such a widely used technique, but when I consider your style of marth (or at least, my understanding of it, since I try my best to emulate it), I don't see it very much, which kind of makes sense, considering how much mileage you get just off of fundamentals alone. Thanks a bunch, and I hope this made sense.

I actually got stuck on this question. When I learned about Marth I just preferred to move and not be pinned down or take unnecessary damage.

CC uses is itself a separate discussion composed of several parts, but I'll talk about one thing for Marth.

Zoning seems pretty good for CC. I say this because you are always spaced so you have time to crouch, and when you finish an aerial/jump you can crouch out of it. For example, if you move into someone's space and then retreating Fair, even if they run in you'll be able to hold down vs whatever they want to hit you with after you land. This is a good way to strengthen your zoning threats(keep people from challenging you) and certainly a fair tradeoff for damage you take.

I don't think I have much recorded of me actually using this even though I do it some, so other Marths might be better to watch for CC. Of course I'm sure people can think of their own uses in the meantime since Marths don't CC a lot right now and it would throw people off to deal with it at all.

 

[A_Reverie]

One doesn't seem desperately needed like the Falco one did, but I'll consider doing one once I'm better if there's enough demand for one. Of course, I went over the Marth history some in the Falco video for context, saying Marth was dominant before Brawl and then died off afterward until a little resurgence from me/ppu/m2k/moon recently. So I'd have to go into more specifics about the character to make a good video I think lol.


I actually got stuck on this question. When I learned about Marth I just preferred to move and not be pinned down or take unnecessary damage.

CC uses is itself a separate discussion composed of several parts, but I'll talk about one thing for Marth.

Zoning seems pretty good for CC. I say this because you are always spaced so you have time to crouch, and when you finish an aerial/jump you can crouch out of it. For example, if you move into someone's space and then retreating Fair, even if they run in you'll be able to hold down vs whatever they want to hit you with after you land. This is a good way to strengthen your zoning threats(keep people from challenging you) and certainly a fair tradeoff for damage you take.

I don't think I have much recorded of me actually using this even though I do it some, so other Marths might be better to watch for CC. Of course I'm sure people can think of their own uses in the meantime since Marths don't CC a lot right now and it would throw people off to deal with it at all.

I've been looking for opportunities to CC in the same way you described. I'll try to explain it further.

Your first method of reducing damage taken and preventing your opponent from having opportunity to open up on you should be your zoning, as it can keep you from getting hit entirely when done properly, but there are holes in this strategy (as there are in every strategy.) This is where crouch cancel comes in. In this situation you're using CC as a secondary action to absorb a hit. You should already be aware of this hit if you're also aware of the holes in your zoning, so you can proactively choose how you want to protect yourself.

Be wary of things that CC loses to, and be ready to choose a different option. Good players will mix things up on you. Overall though learn where and when people can punch through your zoning in different matchups so you can take the next step to either reduce the damage you take or turn the situation against them entirely.

 

[capusa27]

Hi, Dr Peepee I read a while back that you were working on countering Fox's double stick platform DI. Do you have any ideas?

Also, what are your thoughts on Marth vs Yoshi? What could Marth players do better to deal with Yoshi generally and also his perry and double jump armor? Thanks.

 

[Dr Peepee]

Hi, Dr Peepee I read a while back that you were working on countering Fox's double stick platform DI. Do you have any ideas?

Also, what are your thoughts on Marth vs Yoshi? What could Marth players do better to deal with Yoshi generally and also his perry and double jump armor? Thanks.

Mangos Utilt is one, and Fsmash/Nair is another. I have another but I want to mess with it more.

Marth needs to throw Yoshi up and then hit him after he DJs, which as you can imagine works best on FD and worst on DL. As for parry, I don't know much about it in the matchup admittedly but if you don't force grabs too much and space pretty well I don't know if it would be a huge issue.

 

[capusa27]

Dr Peepee Thank you.

Another question: How do you think Mango's Marth has evolved as he has started to focus on the character?

What is satisfactory about his play (versus Fox and versus Falcon mainly)?

How do you think he could improve?

 

[Dr Peepee]

Dr Peepee Thank you.

Another question: How do you think Mango's Marth has evolved as he has started to focus on the character?

What is satisfactory about his play (versus Fox and versus Falcon mainly)?

How do you think he could improve?

He hits harder and has a bit of a DD, and his zoning is more sophisticated. Oh I think he recovers better too.

I don't know if I've seen him play Marth Falcon except vs S2J on his stream and I didn't like watching it. Vs Fox he does what I said above well.

He could improve by improving his movement and most especially his punish game(his tech chasing is fairly good already so I'm mostly talking about everything else). Adding CC would be a good choice as well.