Tee ay eye
Smash Hero
hmm.... welp, something i will mention is that i generally only do it when i'm pretty far away from my opponent. i would never do it INSIDE of falco's nair range.
try thinking of it as a (much, much, much, much) worse version of peach's float: peach can float around a range where it's incredibly ambiguous whether or not you can punish her. if you try too hard to push into her, you're going to miss, and you're going to get punished with a slap in the face. if you give her too much respect, she can float into you and push you to the edge all day.
marth doesn't have peach's amazing fair, though.
marth in the air isn't AS MUCH of a sitting duck as you're making him out to be, IMO. when he's in the air, he can prolong how long he's in the air and dodge your attempts to challenge him by using his double jump and by using the tiny float from his forward B (pretty situational, but still). if he needs to get back to the ground ASAP, then he can fast-fall to the ground. sure, marth is vulnerable in the air, but he's not FREE. if marth is able to make falco whiff an attack, then he's already come out on top of the exchange.
also, crimson brought up a really important point that i forgot to argue:
aerial marth can be used AS A SUPPLEMENT to grounded marth. i feel like pigeon-holing yourself into playing grounded marth exclusively, even if it's the most "efficient" way to play marth. by limiting yourself to the ground, you're missing out on a lot of room to "play with" your opponent. every single facet of depth you add to your game makes it that much harder for the opponent to figure you out and lock you down, and i think that ignoring marth's (albeit limited) aerial capacity makes you more predictable, to an extent. conversely, using both aerial and grounded marth in the right situations will make you more unpredictable, and that small bit goes a very very long way, and i'm about to explain why:
it takes time for an opponent to optimally adapt to your aerial play. they're probably not going to zero-on to you after the first time. maybe not even the second time. however, once your opponent shifts himself to a style of play suited to punish you for going in the air, then yeah, you'll lose those exchanges. however, if your opponent adapts to you, he HAS to sacrifice something. that's how adaptation works, for the most part. his ground game will then become a little bit weaker, allowing you to shift back to your own ground game to beat him. this is why i think all options should be explored, and not just the ones that are strongest on paper. even if an option is "bad," it will create a degree of uncertainty in your opponent's mind, which shifts the pressure away from your core game.
i know it's a different character, but look at S2J's falcon. he uses fullhops and double jumps quite a bit, if my impression of his playstyle serves me correctly. he's able to play a mindgame with his opponent by utilizing every guessing game he can. he's able to use falcon's air game by mixing safe hopping mixed in with actual, risk-taking aggression, and he's able to take those risk because he puts so much work into conditioning and throwing-off his opponent.
whenever you're in the air, yes, you're vulnerable due to gravity. however, your opponent has to think of spacing in two dimensions, rather than one, which is a lot harder to do than playing the pure ground game.
try watching taj's marth. he fullhops quite a fair amount. this isn't the BEST example, but hopefully it can kinda illustrate what i'm trying to say. watch this until the end of the match. taj lands the first dair on mango by using the float from his forward B to delay his landing just a little bit, throwing off mango's timing and enabling him to get the successful bait. then watch how he plays the next stock after mango respawns. he does a waveland to juke mango's attempts to swing at him. THEN HE DOES A QUICK FULLHOP FAST FALL TO BAIT A BAIR FROM MANGO, which could have set him up to win the set. yeah, mango could have played that situation a little more safely (short hopping his bair instead of committing to it so hard), but i honestly think that taj would have been able to punish a short-hopped bair, as well, although he might've had to work a little harder for it.
when i think about it in my head, i almost never hit the opponent when i'm IN the air and descending on them. i usually find some sort of advantage after i've already landed, so pretty much, i use it exclusively as a tool for baiting, and if they challenge me and don't fall for the bait, it becomes a tool for encroaching.
try thinking of it as a (much, much, much, much) worse version of peach's float: peach can float around a range where it's incredibly ambiguous whether or not you can punish her. if you try too hard to push into her, you're going to miss, and you're going to get punished with a slap in the face. if you give her too much respect, she can float into you and push you to the edge all day.
marth doesn't have peach's amazing fair, though.
marth in the air isn't AS MUCH of a sitting duck as you're making him out to be, IMO. when he's in the air, he can prolong how long he's in the air and dodge your attempts to challenge him by using his double jump and by using the tiny float from his forward B (pretty situational, but still). if he needs to get back to the ground ASAP, then he can fast-fall to the ground. sure, marth is vulnerable in the air, but he's not FREE. if marth is able to make falco whiff an attack, then he's already come out on top of the exchange.
also, crimson brought up a really important point that i forgot to argue:
aerial marth can be used AS A SUPPLEMENT to grounded marth. i feel like pigeon-holing yourself into playing grounded marth exclusively, even if it's the most "efficient" way to play marth. by limiting yourself to the ground, you're missing out on a lot of room to "play with" your opponent. every single facet of depth you add to your game makes it that much harder for the opponent to figure you out and lock you down, and i think that ignoring marth's (albeit limited) aerial capacity makes you more predictable, to an extent. conversely, using both aerial and grounded marth in the right situations will make you more unpredictable, and that small bit goes a very very long way, and i'm about to explain why:
it takes time for an opponent to optimally adapt to your aerial play. they're probably not going to zero-on to you after the first time. maybe not even the second time. however, once your opponent shifts himself to a style of play suited to punish you for going in the air, then yeah, you'll lose those exchanges. however, if your opponent adapts to you, he HAS to sacrifice something. that's how adaptation works, for the most part. his ground game will then become a little bit weaker, allowing you to shift back to your own ground game to beat him. this is why i think all options should be explored, and not just the ones that are strongest on paper. even if an option is "bad," it will create a degree of uncertainty in your opponent's mind, which shifts the pressure away from your core game.
i know it's a different character, but look at S2J's falcon. he uses fullhops and double jumps quite a bit, if my impression of his playstyle serves me correctly. he's able to play a mindgame with his opponent by utilizing every guessing game he can. he's able to use falcon's air game by mixing safe hopping mixed in with actual, risk-taking aggression, and he's able to take those risk because he puts so much work into conditioning and throwing-off his opponent.
whenever you're in the air, yes, you're vulnerable due to gravity. however, your opponent has to think of spacing in two dimensions, rather than one, which is a lot harder to do than playing the pure ground game.
try watching taj's marth. he fullhops quite a fair amount. this isn't the BEST example, but hopefully it can kinda illustrate what i'm trying to say. watch this until the end of the match. taj lands the first dair on mango by using the float from his forward B to delay his landing just a little bit, throwing off mango's timing and enabling him to get the successful bait. then watch how he plays the next stock after mango respawns. he does a waveland to juke mango's attempts to swing at him. THEN HE DOES A QUICK FULLHOP FAST FALL TO BAIT A BAIR FROM MANGO, which could have set him up to win the set. yeah, mango could have played that situation a little more safely (short hopping his bair instead of committing to it so hard), but i honestly think that taj would have been able to punish a short-hopped bair, as well, although he might've had to work a little harder for it.
when i think about it in my head, i almost never hit the opponent when i'm IN the air and descending on them. i usually find some sort of advantage after i've already landed, so pretty much, i use it exclusively as a tool for baiting, and if they challenge me and don't fall for the bait, it becomes a tool for encroaching.
