Carrot Me Bro!: The Bowser Match-up Topic

[B-Black]

We can't do much against her.
She's the hard-counter.

 

[Jerodak]

@CreamyFatone I recommend watching these

https://youtu.be/c8MO9a9auqk

https://youtu.be/WQD6fPQXYwE

 

[super fan bros]

ZSS is faster, has very good combos (which are even more effective given the big hurtbox of Bowser), a better recovery, his Down b can kill Bowser if he uses his recovery and stun gun can be very useful.

Aside from his flamethrower and l'endlag huge grab of ZSS, Bowser is powerless in this fight and ZSS must be one of his worst MU.

85-15 imo for ZSS

 

[BarSoapSoup]

Hey everyone,

I'm sorry if this has been mentioned before, but I haven't been able to find any discussion on the Bowser/ZSS matchup. I find that I never really know what to do against ZSS except punish whiffed grabs and powershield her paralyzer into a dash grab. I know it probably doesn't look good any way you look at it, but there has to be something Bowser can do besides inevitably getting u-air into boost kicked to death.

ZSS is our worst matchup, I think. Shiek is very hard, too, but not as bad as ZSS. You just have to powershield like a mad man. On the rare offchance she does a flipkick while you're grounded, punish with Up-Smash. She can't do anything about it and will take a big hit for it. Keep changing up your grabs so you get the maximum damage from all things. Furthermore, it may be that you don't want to get her up so much as you want her our, in terms of blast zones. Try to read the flip kick and other forms of recovery to attempt to seal a victory.

Don't feel bad if you struggle hard against her because she can take advantage of all of Bowser's weaknesses.

 

[arcticfox_14]

@CreamyFatone I recommend watching these

https://youtu.be/c8MO9a9auqk

https://youtu.be/WQD6fPQXYwE

Excellent resource.

In the event you're only playing an OKAY ZSS, if she uses an aggressive down-B recovery when she's offstage and you're waiting at the edge, get ready to u-smash. Kills early and is a nasty slap on the wrist for being disrespectful.

Spot dodging her dash grabs takes precise timing because of the lingering tether, but it's a free down-b punish. A non high level ZSS will attempt these often by just dashing in; make em pay. It also works if you shielded/jabbed the paralyzer and she's dashing in for the grab confirm.

 

[Mario & Sonic Guy]

I did spot something odd with the Bowser vs. Dr. Mario match-up. It seems that Dr. Tornado is able to counter Whirling Fortress, as I saw the attack actually stop Whirling Fortress AND damage Bowser at the same time during a random match.

 

[Hitman JT]

I did spot something odd with the Bowser vs. Dr. Mario match-up. It seems that Dr. Tornado is able to counter Whirling Fortress, as I saw the attack actually stop Whirling Fortress AND damage Bowser at the same time during a random match.

Luigi's tornado beats it clean too so that isn't much of a surprise. Was it off-stage or on?

 

[Mario & Sonic Guy]

Luigi's tornado beats it clean too so that isn't much of a surprise. Was it off-stage or on?

On-stage, and while on the ground.

 

[Jerodak]

Mario & Sonic Guy

Whirling fortress doesn't really have good priority so it's actually not all that difficult to beat. The priority gets better in the air but it's only at the lowest end of the "high priority spectrum" as I call it, (10%) and only on the very first hit.

Also, because aerials ignore the general rules of priority anyway, it only really matters vs projectiles like hard knuckle or uncharged bowling ball.

This isn't to say it's a bad move though.

 

[GerudoKong]

How should one DI bayonetta's air combos? I end up dying like in this video at early % https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2XrzvlTBoM Is it like ZSS where there isn't any way to live?

The cpu has done it to me quite a few times

 

[Jerodak]

@Gerudo not sure about bayo but I hear it's escapable.

Also https://youtu.be/WQD6fPQXYwE

 

[HeavyLobster]

Bowser is pretty much the only heavy Bayo doesn't completely destroy from what I can tell. Bullet Climax doesn't really work on him since Tough Guy means they're just lasers to us, lasers Bowser can crawl under, he has the tools to outbox her in neutral, and has guaranteed throw combos + great damage output to punish her light weight hard. Obviously her combos are going to be brutal, but Bowser from what I can tell has enough strengths here to stay competitive. Poor Ganondorf on the other hand...

 

[pitfall356]

But from the experience I had earlier, once Bayo gets in, we're ****ed, just like with the Ryu MU.

 

[HeavyLobster]

But from the experience I had earlier, once Bayo gets in, we're ****ed, just like with the Ryu MU.

Well that's basically the case for all our high tier MUs anyway. Play patiently and don't let her in. She generally has to bait us out to do anything.

 

[Zapp Branniglenn]

Still need to see matches of somebody doing well with Bayonetta. Everybody's worried about that Dair for edgeguarding, but none of her moves have that sort of low launch angle where we'd ever have to recover with fortress. Only Fsmash, and well, nobody's bringing that up as a scary option. Her combo game is excellent, but so is DI/SDI and the punish opportunity when you've managed to avoid one of her specials. She can't afford trades with our larger range and priority, and her startup on everything but Up B is as slow or slower than our prominent moves. Finally, witch time is a liability because we don't wrack up damage with tilts and aerials like other characters, we use grabs and non-commital jabs.

You can keep showing me gifs of 0 to death combos in training mode with a cpu set to stop. It would be odd for a character like her that has on-hit cancels and no special fall to not have these possibilities in Smash Bros.

 

[constable lemon]

Bayonetta's fall speed and weight make her really easy to hit and kill with up throw up air as well.

Also, I activated Witch Time with Bowser's up smash, and it seemed that the shell invincibility on the move remained for the duration of it, because her F-smash followup did nothing against it. Maybe it just clanked with the second hitbox. Just a funny thing about the move that happened.

 

[pitfall356]

Pretty sure her smashes clank with every attack, including weak little **** like mario's nair. Good stuff.

 

[conTAgi0n]

On the Bayonetta note, consider also that she seems to be in the lightests characters in the game, and people are saying that she has trouble killing. As for now, until people discover more about her and dont really know what to do with her, I would say that the matchup is even, or in Bowser's favor.

I'm replying to this here rather than in the same thread because the Bayonetta matchup is being discussed here right now anyway, so it makes sense to keep all the discussion on the subject together.

I agree that this matchup is looking at least even for Bowser. Basically it seems that Bowser wants to keep the fight on the ground as much as possible, while Bayonetta wants to keep it in the air. Bowser is susceptible to juggling, and Bayonetta can do some wild stuff with aerial combos, so if she can get us up there, she shouldn't be letting us down without a lot of damage. However it doesn't seem like Bayonetta has great tools for forcing us into the air. Her grounded options for doing so like side b, dash attack, and up b aren't that threatening to Bowser. Thus it seems like Bayonetta will want to cautiously throw out aerials in neutral, play evasively, and wait for Bowser to leave an opening. Since Bayonetta doesn't have great options for camping out Bowser though, and Bowser only needs a few grabs to kill her, that seems like an uphill battle for Bayonetta. Of course it's all hard to judge because she's so new, but right now that seems to be her situation against Bowser.

 

[BarSoapSoup]

I know it might be a bit early, but how does the Corrin MU look for Bowser? I know they left but it might be worthwhile calling Oz to see what thinks of it.

I'm not having a terrible time against corn flakes, some of their moves are punishable. Just curious for input.

 

[S_B]

Out of curiosity, is anyone finding the ZSS any better now that BK's KBG has been reduced?

I would guess no, but...

 

[pitfall356]

Basically, BK just kills a little later. She didn't see nerfs to her frame data or damage, so it just means she can't kill off the top quite as soon.

 

[Zapp Branniglenn]

Sides, not the top. If you're DI-ing the final hit correctly, you would only die to the horizontal blast zones. Falling out of the top is the freak accident scenario that happens when she's mis-spaced, has rage, or the opponent is light and DI-ing in or out to escape the multihit. One or a combination of the three. Since Bowser is heavy we have a slight advantage in that it's more rare to get launched to the moon for an early kill, but it also has the drawback that we rarely escape of our own free will because we're so heavy and so large. Taking a little extra percent isn't a nightmare, we can always use the rage, I just wish we could fall out and Dair to punish.

That Bair of hers could stand to get a tweak though. It's KO power is comparable to her Fsmash and has just 11 landing lag. It's a solid plan B of a kill option when you've let them live too long and want as little risk as possible, but it's so good that it's hard not to rely on it as a Plan A.

 

[conTAgi0n]

I know it might be a bit early, but how does the Corrin MU look for Bowser? I know they left but it might be worthwhile calling Oz to see what thinks of it.

I'm not having a terrible time against corn flakes, some of their moves are punishable. Just curious for input.

Corrin seems like a scary matchup to me. Corrin has a lot of powerful and safe moves against us in neutral, including bair, fair, and side b, just to name a few. Furthermore, returning to neutral against Corrin can be tough. In particular, getting back onto the ground when she gets you in the air is not easy. Finally Corrin's counter is busted as hell, and will kill you at really dumb percents if you don't play extremely cautiously.

I should mention that my friend who plays Corrin is not close enough to play with offline, so all my Corrin experience has been in an online environment. That makes powershielding more difficult, and makes the timing for uthrow combos kind of a crapshoot, so those two things could be exaggerating my impression of how difficult the Corrin matchup is. Still, I am pretty sure we are at a disadvantage against Corrin. I won't speculate about how big that disadvantage is.

 

[BarSoapSoup]

conTAgi0n

That was about the same news I heard on the M2 boards - things aren't looking good. I'll slap down some information I have on Corrin.

1) Lunge can reportedly come out on the ground instantly in 4-8 frames. It does about 20%, is a kill move and kills early. Not to mention, the kick can be used to be safe from most thinga and even return to neutral. While I, personally, am skeptical that something this broken could slip into Smash Bros, I don't want to completely disregard it. From what we know no, its a marvelous punish, possibly even OoS.

2) Corn boards seem to agree on three things regarding weaknesses - they are weak VS shield, their recovery is mediocre to average, and despite their many kill moves, most of them require a lot of precision. All of her Smashes, of blocked, are extremely punishable. F-Smash is the only one with a range twice as long as Bowser is big. Regarding recovery, even if they use Lunge to recover, she is left very vulnerable for a brief moment.

3) Their water projectile, if I remember Bowser mains mentioning on another thread, is very weak. We could probably punch it and destroy it, but that's not where the problem lies - the bite prevents us from running in right after the projectile and grabbing.

4) Corrin is definitely the opposite of us in terms of best place to be - Corrin feels good in the air. Her B-Air and N-Air are safe on shield, as are her U-Air and F-Air, although the latter two need to be timed right.

5) Corrin has low mobility, which isn't as big a deal as she's an ultra-zoner. Obviously, with her disjointed weapon, we might not win many tradeoffs.

 

[S_B]

Yeah, Corrin is good, but I don't think is going to be anywhere near as problematic as Bayo will be.

 

[Greward]

Played quite some against the new DLCs.

I doubt corrin is a good matchup for us but it's not soo bad. Fsmash is supper annoying because it outranges us + kills + can get out of fire and fsmash during our endlag which makes firebreath even more risky.
He can combo us for days if he connects fair which is not fun. Fast disjointed with great range aerials is not what we like neither.
His sideB is superb and very hard to play around. If we shield sideb and he gets stuck we usually can punish it with grab o usmash. Side B makes landing and getting out of ledge even harder, and tipper can kill very early and confirms off of neutral b.
Neutral b projectile speed depends on how much he charges it so timing to jab/power shield it changes.
If we play super defensively he has some trouble approaching, so imo it's another of the super-patient matchups. Stay super wary of fsmash/sideB. Counter too I guess but it's not that bad.
Fair and bair can beat out his upB and his recovery is not amazing (well bair will trade, but that's good enough lol). Dair should be able to trade aswell but I'm not crazy enough to try it.


I have quite more trouble against bayo. Goddamn I'm not sure I want to ever play bowser against her. It's the first matchup I feel completely helpless, and it's not cause I haven't played against ZSS.

First of all recovery is a pain. She usually goes for dair, if we double jump + spot dodge it, her upB will hit, which is kinda of a semispike, so we're far from the ledge and with only upB. Dair will spike and kill at any %. She can also down B for a sure kill if she gets hit by our upB.
Gimping her is very hard/undoable and it is basically hitting her on the side B endlag if she messes up. I don't completely understand her recovery tho.
Side B is ********. Jab goes over her head for some reason and won't hit, if she misses it is hardly punishable and it confirms into 0 death. So I just spam shield and wait until im at 60% or so. Aerial side B is like bouncing fish but with less endlag and also confirms into 0 death. Even when shielded it's hardly punishable. I can't seem to shieldgrab it if she does upB after it, our upB should work tho. I'm mostly playing on wifi so I hope it get's way more punishable offline, this weekend I'll confirm since I'm sure my local will be full of bayonetta's lol.
Her jab does stupid amount of damage, like 25% or so. Dthrow combos into it I think. Fthrow is a kill throw but it won't kill us until higher %.
If she confirms the kill combos (side b into upb into more stuff into you'r dead) I usually try to DI down and away. I think that's the best way but I'm not sure. I've had success escaping it with that DI with smaller characters but yeah we're bowser. DI on the second hit of grounded side B is very important, try to not get it to combo into upB or it's gonna be bad.
Watch out for bullet time because we're tall and the **** deals more damage than our firebreath. I got to 44% after two of them in a game which kinda hurts. It also has knockback so it can kill if we're hit offstage.

On the good things in the matchup, well she's light and we can potentially kill very early so yeah. If offline I can do something about her sideB (at least the grounded one) matchup could get better. So yeah all this rant when I haven't played it offline is a bit stupid but I'm hella mad at this character.

 

[conTAgi0n]

Greward Honestly, if you feel helpless against Bayonetta's grounded side b, then you are letting the Bayonetta hype scare you way too much. Both dtilt and angled ftilt beat it, and if she tries to use it at extended range, you should be able to respond with one of those on reaction. If for whatever reason you don't have time, then just hold shield against it and you should be fine.

Her dash attack is highly telegraphed and should be easy to shield grab, and getting grabbed is VERY bad for Bayonetta in this matchup. I'm pretty positive none of her throws combo into anything, and her jab does 16% fresh, not 25. To compensate, her jab is really slow to get started. It's nothing like Little Mac's bull **** jab. She can use bullet time, but we can crawl under it onstage. Plus I just tested it, and tough guy lets us ignore the uncharged bullet time shots until a whopping 116% while grounded.

Because her grounded options aren't so great against us, and our grabs are so deadly, Bayonetta is probably going to want to stay in the air. If she uses her diving side b at extended range, you should be able to up smash on reaction. If you don't have time to react with up smash, then just shield it. That diving side b isn't really punishable on shield, but she also doesn't really gain anything by hitting shields with it, and she's just another step closer to having to land again. It's not at all like bouncing fish, because she can only do it from the air, and only when diagonally above you. Thus you just need to recognize when she's in a position to hit you with it and respond accordingly. It's not a constant threat from any position the way bouncing fish is.

uthrow -> uair kills Bayonetta starting at just 84%, and below that, her fastfall speed makes it easy to get 30% per grab on her. So we only need a few small openings to take a stock from her, and we don't even have to risk witch time that much because of how much we get done with grabs.


Both the Bayonetta and Corrin matchups are going to require extreme patience. The difference is that Bayonetta has the more deadly punishes BUT also has a more manageable neutral game, whereas Corrin still has brutal punish potential, AND has an excellent neutral game that is very difficult for us to deal with.

That's why I'm still more afraid of Corrin than Bayonetta.

 

[S_B]

You can shieldgrab her grounded side+B if you wait until after the hit collides with your shield.

Unlike the other witch twists, grounded is only ONE hit (though if she's firing her guns, it'll look like your shield is being hit multiple times).

 

[Cronoc]

You can shieldgrab her grounded side+B if you wait until after the hit collides with your shield.

Unlike the other witch twists, grounded is only ONE hit (though if she's firing her guns, it'll look like your shield is being hit multiple times).

I wouldn't rely on shield grabs for Bayo's side b, often she'll go through Bowser and you'll whiff. And whiffing a grab with Bowser means Bayo probably gets either a free second hit of side b, or even a whole combo. I can't say I've played the matchup enough to have a particular punish that works all the time, especially because of Bayo sliding through Bowser and having no way to know if she's going for the second kick until she does it in competitive play (bullets firing are an indicator, but it's possible for a player to use the bullet arts version of side b as a fake-out without doing the second kick). OOS Fortress seems like it should work, but I've been hit out of the jump cancel by Bayo's side b after I thought I was safe, and if you get hit by side b at any point you may as well have just shielded the whole thing to avoid the combo you'll be eating afterwards.

Much like with Meta Knight's dash attack, there's some advantage to standing near the ledge when Bayonetta uses her side b, as she can only slide so far and the punish will be easier knowing where she'll end up.

 

[Zapp Branniglenn]

I don't know why everybody is so afraid of Heal Slide going through us. She needs to be exceptionally close with the move to get physically past our shield and thus past the shieldgrab. Closer than our Jab 1 or flying slam's maximum range. Would you feel comfortable using a 15 startup move that close to somebody? I could imagine this is an issue when you fight her with smaller or more human-proportioned characters like sheik, but Bowser is the hardest to move through.

The flip kick mixup is the larger issue. You've only got time to shieldgrab that.

 

[S_B]

I wouldn't rely on shield grabs for Bayo's side b, often she'll go through Bowser and you'll whiff.

Thankfully, Bowser is so damn fat and Bayo is essentially placing her hurtbox horizontal to us so a shield grab isn't hard to pull off.

Finally, a case where us being so wide HELPS instead of hinders! :D

 

[Jerodak]

Speaking of Bayonetta, the 0-death is annoying but there's actually an easy escape in crouch mechanics. This method may require more testing overall bit's pretty straightforward. If you try it and it works, or not, please let me know.

The video description goes into more depth.

https://youtu.be/SBnxS-S_M34

 

[Cronoc]

Speaking of Bayonetta, the 0-death is annoying but there's actually an easy escape in crouch mechanics. This method may require more testing overall bit's pretty straightforward. If you try it and it works, or not, please let me know.

The video description goes into more depth.

https://youtu.be/SBnxS-S_M34

I don't know that I'd even call that anything to do with crouching, more like just DI'ing down. If you tried it with a taunt while holding down I suspect you'd get about the same result. It looks like DI'ing down screws up certain variations of Bayo's combo attempts though, that's good to know.

 

[Zapp Branniglenn]

I don't know that I'd even call that anything to do with crouching, more like just DI'ing down. If you tried it with a taunt while holding down I suspect you'd get about the same result. It looks like DI'ing down screws up certain variations of Bayo's combo attempts though, that's good to know.

Crouching has everything to do with it. Getting hit by any move while crouching reduces its knockback. Reduced knockback means less hitstun frames. Using this to screw up an opponent's combos is referred to as "crouch cancel".

As for whether it's the best answer is the real question. Shield is a frame 1 action, and while I can't say for certain from testing, I assume crouch is also a frame 1 action. If you can do one, you could do the other with the same reaction. And with shield you don't take the damage. But crouch cancel puts you in a position where you can airdodge the next hit, which might allow for a stronger, more guaranteed punish. I'd love to lab this out too, but I can't seem to perform this afterburner kick downward. How is it done?

 

[Cronoc]

Crouching has everything to do with it. Getting hit by any move while crouching reduces its knockback. Reduced knockback means less hitstun frames. Using this to screw up an opponent's combos is referred to as "crouch cancel".

As for whether it's the best answer is the real question. Shield is a frame 1 action, and while I can't say for certain from testing, I assume crouch is also a frame 1 action. If you can do one, you could do the other with the same reaction. And with shield you don't take the damage. But crouch cancel puts you in a position where you can airdodge the next hit, which might allow for a stronger, more guaranteed punish. I'd love to lab this out too, but I can't seem to perform this afterburner kick downward. How is it done?

Yeah yeah, I know all about crouch canceling, but it isn't a big difference maker in this game like in Melee. I still believe downwards DI is the main reason the extended combos didn't work in the video. Perhaps crouching helps get out of the second hit (though as you say it's unlikely a player would crouch with the intention of crouch canceling a hit, as there's no real benefit compared to shield), but downwards DI also seems to help get out of the extended combos in the video. Which seems more useful to know.

Downwards afterburner kick is a quarter-circle motion -> b (like Ryu's fireball).

 

[conTAgi0n]

Crouching has everything to do with it. Getting hit by any move while crouching reduces its knockback. Reduced knockback means less hitstun frames. Using this to screw up an opponent's combos is referred to as "crouch cancel".

As for whether it's the best answer is the real question. Shield is a frame 1 action, and while I can't say for certain from testing, I assume crouch is also a frame 1 action. If you can do one, you could do the other with the same reaction. And with shield you don't take the damage. But crouch cancel puts you in a position where you can airdodge the next hit, which might allow for a stronger, more guaranteed punish. I'd love to lab this out too, but I can't seem to perform this afterburner kick downward. How is it done?

Input down just before inputting side b as you would normally.

 

[Jerodak]

Crouching has everything to do with it. Getting hit by any move while crouching reduces its knockback. Reduced knockback means less hitstun frames. Using this to screw up an opponent's combos is referred to as "crouch cancel".

As for whether it's the best answer is the real question. Shield is a frame 1 action, and while I can't say for certain from testing, I assume crouch is also a frame 1 action. If you can do one, you could do the other with the same reaction. And with shield you don't take the damage. But crouch cancel puts you in a position where you can airdodge the next hit, which might allow for a stronger, more guaranteed punish. I'd love to lab this out too, but I can't seem to perform this afterburner kick downward. How is it done?

The prime advantage here is that crouching lets you take damage which offers the long term bonus of making the combo less effective if you get punished later. I've literally had winning/even games turn into a loss because I made a single mistake at low percent and died. Bowser already has enough things to worry about from this character without having to think "Oh man, I'm clearly in a solid lead, but is all of that about to go to waste off a single punish?"

It's one thing for that to be an issue when you're post 90-100~ depending on the match up but it's absolutely absurd having to worry about it sub 30% especially as Bowser.

So basically it's similar to Brawl Falco and how Bowser wanted to take 50% to balance out the risk/reward before attempting to mount any sort of approach. Only instead of a chaingrab it's a raw combo and the bar of entry is 30% instead of 50%

So if you're in that situation where Bayo is going to fiend for the combo, instead of trying to play around it perfectly you can just remove the option and force Bayo to stay honest. There might be other methods, I'm certainly not trying to sell this as the one and only method, or even the best one. I'm just pointing out that it's an option that Bowser has.

Now what would throw a wrench in everything is if the combo is still free past 30% or if there's an easy and reliable method that works after the fact. In either case, this is only meant to prove that the concept should work. Ultimately, I believe this concept deserves an in depth look. While we're at it, we could also look at charging F-smash as well since it's another proven method of altering knockback.

Also, Cronoc before testing this we looked at all kinds of D.I. I didn't try the taunt while holding down method on the ground but I did attempt down on reaction to the hit, which didn't work. In either case you would still just hold down before the hit connects. I might go do the taunt test later today but if you get to it first feel free to share the results.

Hope that helps, and clears up any confusion.

 

[constable lemon]

I noticed in the video that Bayonetta never reset her stale queue so her side b got weaker and weaker as the video went on. I don't know if that affects the data much but it's something to consider.

 

[Jerodak]

I noticed in the video that Bayonetta never reset her stale queue so her side b got weaker and weaker as the video went on. I don't know if that affects the data much but it's something to consider.

That's a good point, just tested this by using completely stale aerial side b and the full combo still works. You will not fall out as shown in the video.

We also tested taunting for no crouch down d.I, the combo still worked.

We also tested using fresh moves with the crouch defense and Bowser could airdodge as shown in the video.

As for the post 30% it might actually take more around 40%. It seems Bayo can still get the full confirm otherwise if she changes her timing. Past 40, it seems that Bowser falls out of the combo.

As always, everything should be tested more in depth, and preferably offline, which I'm unfortunately incapable of at the moment. This is meant purely to be a rough proof of concept after all, as opposed to a guide.

Hope that helps!

 

[BarSoapSoup]

We might want some opinion from Le Troof on this - he played the character throughout S@X 136 and got to Grand Finals with her. He might have some other good notes regarding the Bayo MU.

Personally I've had great fun fighting her and I haven't struggled too hard, relatively speaking, against some of the Bayos I've encountered. She's definitely a tricky character to fight, and most of the time I need to be patient with her, but I feel like the MU is pretty even, if not slightly in her favor.