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I really don't think it's that bad. Definitely in Sonic's favor. Bowser just has to play patient yet mix it up a TON while ensuring his laggier moves are used sparingly. You definitely need to play this MU differently than any other MU.
vs. anymore. I just pick or then spam fireballs and n-airs. **** that match-up.I thought you'd go Falcon.I don't even bother with
I'd imagine Falcon and Ganon would make bad Co-mains since one is just a faster, less powerful version of the other without a command grab. But maybe that's precisely the reason I'm wrong, on the other hand. I do like fighting Ganon though. I can tell he has to deal with a lot of the same issues we do, so it creates a strange brotherhood when we fight...oh but be careful when both of you are on last stock. His suicide move will actually work. We've talked about Falcon briefly just on the last page. He can be tough, but is far from unbeatable. Both characters fear the others' offstage and on stage options. Having great running speed gives Falcon a good grab game, but you need more than that to have any advantage against Bowser. Even at 120%, if you've got no reliable vertical kill moves, Bowser is still far from losing a stock if he maintains center stage, and is steadily gaining more rage for his early kills.
UltimaLuminaire
. Pikachu especially gives me trouble, but I've been working on it, since I feel like Bowser has a better chance than Mac. I'm not so sure I'd agree with Luigi. I've KOd my share of Luigis as Bowser at my local tournaments. Luigi mains believe they have this in the bag, but both characters should dread this MU. Luigi's fireballs are useless and will get punished due to tough guy at low percents. I once walked through a fireball to start a match and did jab > Dtilt > onstage Dair. You'd be surprised how many people don't respect Bowser's Dunk Zone near the ledge. But once you stop armoring his fireballs, Luigi has his full repertoire of options, and a killer grab combo game to get Bowser to this point. Luigi's offstage game is poop, I never have trouble recovering.
Then looking for some inspiration I found the the bowser board's saddest video of all time:
This is actually pretty interesting. I've never considered a bair as a punish option out of shield but I think it raises some interesting questions. My guess is that you can punish things slower than ftilt but faster that fsmash, but really I have no idea. I assume it has more range than ftilt so maybe there's certain moves that push you (like falcon punch?) that you can bair but not ftilt? bair also kills pretty early, so if you can punish with bair or ftilt, does the bair always make sense?
Faster Aerials tend to function well as OOS options, but the issue with using Aerials OOS as Bowser is that his jump is frame 8 meaning it's one frame slower than a shield release, then you're adding that on top of your aerial, so while Bair itself is only frame 9, you have to consider it as a frame 17 move. However, Ftilt OOS takes 17 frames as well because it's a frame 10 move but you're adding the 7 frames of shield release lag on top, so anything an ftilt can punish should also be Bair punishable OOS unless the character is too short to use rising Bair on. On that note, up air is also frame 9, meaning it's also frame 17 when considering jump frames, this means it could be useful for hitting in front of and above you vs aerial or large opponents since the first hitbox it creates is directly in front of Bowser around where his chest is, which is pretty high and easy to duck under, even during a short-hop. It can also hit behind him somewhat but that takes longer to come out, and there are better ways to handle cross-up attempts.
It might not be a bad idea to simply bomb to the ledge. I've seen a lot of tournament-going Bowsers retreat to the ledge when it came to getting back to the stage.
Nobody has won a tournament as a Bowser since the early days of wii U. I do maintain a youtube playlist of bowser players at tournaments if you want to check out what competitive Bowser looks like at the highest levels: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLafWKd-RfF3dpCv8v1LSAZDb-k1a-_W2T
It's pretty precise to grab the ledge from high in the air, but not at all a bad option. Bombing down to the stage of course causes you to suffer a lot of landing lag. One thing to remember is that in Smash Bros., holding down during any move or animation forces your character to not grab the ledge. For my first few days playing Bowser, I was convinced you couldn't grab the ledge during a bomb, because I was mistakenly holding down still. Now I hold up because I'm paranoid that my control stick won't return to a neutral position in time.
I'm a fan of Greward's Bowser: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4L4BFIv6F0I
I usually understand patience, but I've never seen a Bowser played like that. It makes me want to train to be like that xD To be... The best there ever was.
What...I've won two tournaments with Bowser. Granted they were small, but I haven't had time for a large one in months.
Hey, this is something I've actually started playing around with recently, and Upsmash does actually make for a pretty good baiting tool, if you know the spacing for your opponent's punishes you can carefulyl space whiffed upsmashes or up tilts and just punish them when they come in for the hit. Uptilt is actually safer due to there being less lag, but I think upsmash tends to get more attention.
Duck SMASH!
People that are respecting you with Shulk should be cornered and flamed. Beyond that, you're not mentioning specific moves. if they're not doing retreating SHAC Nair, then they're doing it wrong. If they spam anything else, they leave a significant opening.
