Carrot Me Bro!: The Bowser Match-up Topic

[atticusfinch7]

Can't little mac not recover at all from a single ftilt or dtilt? And fire breath ruins his entire recovery as well?

 

[Zapp Branniglenn]

Can't little mac not recover at all from a single ftilt or dtilt? And fire breath ruins his entire recovery as well?

It depends entirely on how far little mac has been sent, but yes, Bowser's high base knockback attacks like Jab 1+2, Dtilt/Ftilt, and Fthrow/Bthrow can suffice for getting Mac offstage or killed entirely depending on stage position and his %. If you have time to get in position for fire breath, the windbox or flinching can gimp him unless he has excellent DI and timing with recovery moves or counter to reach the ledge through the flames. Making Mac flinch any way offstage is great because he is the second worst at building up air speed, and getting hit resets air speed to 0. However, a successful counter gives him more than max air speed once the attack animation finishes. So fire breath isn't a foolproof answer, and is slow to set up in any situation where Mac has a chance of reaching the ledge.

 

[atticusfinch7]

Yoshi is driving me mad. The ridiculous frame data and hitboxes are just killing me. My usual mains can't deal with a good yoshi one bit. But since my pocket Bowser seems to be improving, how does Bowser vs Yoshi go? I imagine it's hard for even him to deal with the shield pressure this character has. Does one Dair break a fully charged shield for Bowser?

 

[pitfall356]

No it does not, but it gets really close. Yoshi is a nightmare for Bowser to deal with, too, so if your pockets have even a marginally better chance against Yoshi, I'd practice with them more.

 

[Big Sean]

Yoshi is driving me mad. The ridiculous frame data and hitboxes are just killing me. My usual mains can't deal with a good yoshi one bit. But since my pocket Bowser seems to be improving, how does Bowser vs Yoshi go? I imagine it's hard for even him to deal with the shield pressure this character has. Does one Dair break a fully charged shield for Bowser?

I think this matchup is even personally. You just have to learn all the gimmicky yoshi things. On the ground yoshi is not that good. There are some frame trappy things he can do like jab -> yoshi bowser bomb, but none of it is guaranteed. In the neutral the strongest tactic yoshi's do is a lot of safe egg and spaced aerial pressure. Most of yoshi's aerial pressure, you don't want to up + b OOS. If spaced and timed correctly up + b oos doesn't usually work. Often times though filt OOS works really well. If they dair you then you should really be getting a good punish like klaw, grab/turnaround grab, or bowser bomb.

Most of what you should be doing in the neutral is shielding and rolling. Rolling specifically in the case where they threw an egg towards you and are moving towards you with some sort of scary aerial or empty jump mixup. Rolling completely resets to neutral which is beautiful.

If the yoshi has committed to this aerial egg neutral then there are usually a lot more openings than you would think. Specifically you want to be fishing for upsmashes, nairs, bairs, and up airs. Yoshi has ridiculous aerial mobility but its still maxed out at a certain speed. As long as you can time your aerials to coincide with their jumps, then a Yoshi is always two nairs and a bair away from dying.

 

[super fan bros]

Yoshi has clearly the MU. Faster, a lot of combo, of spike, of option to the shield with his B side, Down b and Dair. Yoshi has also a projectile effective. In the MU Bowser has interest from abusing of his grab and edgeguard.

+2 for Yoshi I think

 

[conTAgi0n]

How do you guys approach the Cloud matchup? I've seen people in this thread and elsewhere say it's not bad at all for Bowser, and yet I've always found it to be really tough.

Bowser has good tools to make recovering tough for Cloud, but Cloud is also good at threatening Bowser's recovery. His aerials beat all of ours and I think also all beat whirling fortress.

In neutral he forces us to approach and we have to respect his huge, relatively safe disjoints. Bowser likes to stay grounded in general, but in this matchup you really have to, because Cloud dominates us in the air. Overall neutral against Cloud feels winnable but like a bit of an uphill battle.

As soon as we are in disadvantage though it's absolute misery. Cloud's obscenely good juggling and landing punishes are really hard to deal with for Bowser. It's hard enough to land against characters who have to respect our landing hitboxes. Cloud doesn't have to respect our landing hitboxes at all.

I also think that because being offstage or above Cloud is so scary, Cloud's grab game is also a real threat, since he can just up throw to put us in a very bad spot.

Cloud is also great at killing, so this isn't a matchup where you can live forever and get rage, or where you are compensated for a tough time in neutral by high survivability.

So overall it just feels like an uphill battle in neutral where Cloud makes us play on his terms, and then in disadvantage we get absolutely murdered. If you manage to get him far enough off stage somehow, you have a decent shot at an edgeguard, but that isn't nearly enough to make the matchup even considering the advantages Cloud has over us.

Those are my matchup impressions at least. I'm hoping I'm wrong and there's something I'm not approaching the right way, because I would love to learn that this matchup doesn't have to feel like such a struggle.

 

[Zapp Branniglenn]

Cloud's an exceptional character. Since so much of the cast struggles against what he has to offer, it's probably a misunderstanding of semantics. For instance when I say Bowser has "a good matchup with Sheik" I wouldn't mean in the sense that it's even, but that Bowser has specific tools and properties (mostly weight, let's be real) that make the matchup unexpectedly possible against Sheik's inability to kill. Bowser should be having a tough time against cloud, but not as tough as characters that lack kill options like Duck Hunt, range and priority like Jigglypuff, or edgeguarding tools like Lucario. Cloud is still an opponent in which a stray jab combo or Pivot grab can immediately get him offstage and lose him a stock, and all of your advantage state should be spent attempting gimps rather than racking up damage. Limit attacks are dangerous and you don't want to contribute to seeing more of them or giving Cloud the limit up B he needs to come back from an impossible situation.

Trying to land against Cloud is dangerous, which is why chances should be taken at the ledge instead - often with the help of Bowser Bomb when you're sent high up. Cloud's Uair does have enough priority to beat or trade with Bomb and Dair, but only with a specific spacing. And as for recovering, I don't think Cloud's offstage edgeguards are all that threatening when Bowser has such good control over the angle he wants to approach the ledge. If you keep moving horizontally into the ledge, Cloud will Bair you every time. Directly vertical into the ledge would appear to be the angle of choice, given Clouds only option for hitting you is Dair. And in order for Cloud to Dair offstage and return, he must first shortop for more height. That's a massive tell for what he's going for, and a large margin for error on the part of his timing. If he's too early to intercept you, he runs out of active frames, if he's too late, Bowser can ledge go of ledge and Bair Cloud for his attempt.

 

[Big Sean]

You might want to watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-QMlsni7ko

Recovery: I hear this complaint a lot by commentators that don't really know Bowser. That Bowser is super easy to gimp. Bowser has like a TOOON of mixup potential because he can wait so long before committing to recovery. Like if you wanted to you could drop to the blastzone, then double jump + up b to make it back to the stage. No cloud can go that low and hope to survive. Now of course if you did that every time you would get gimped constantly. There are subtle things you can do that even that game above shows. For instance if you've conditioned your opponent into thinking that you'll recover super late, then you now have the opportunity to up b way earlier, interrupting their gimp attempt and getting a clean 15% for your troubles. Most of the time people just stop trynna gimp me after they realize it's a lot harder than they thought.

Neutral: Maybe i'm crazy but I think Bowser wins the neutral. First their's the ground game. The problem with most of cloud's ground moves is that they are not safe on shield and have a ton of end lag. A lot of characters for instance have trouble punishing a well spaced fsmash on shield. Bowser is not that character. HIs dash grab comes out so fast that it's always a free 30% or death. His tilts are ok, but i'm personally more scared of a marth on the ground.

The air game of cloud is good. Particularly his nair is pretty much unpunishable if spaced correctly. The rest of the stuff though is whatever. Up air has a huge blindspot on his sides that you can just fish for bairs on. Dair you can fish for bairs on technically but If timed near the end of the move, you can dash attack pretty easily. The most important thing though is that if a cloud is doing aerials constantly, then he's also LANDING constantly. Bowser is amazing at punishing landings. This means dash grabs, pivot grabs, up smashes, dash attacks, up tilt, and most importantly shield. Now your right fortress is of limited value, but if you watch the game above you'll see mix just goes for a dash grab read when a well spaced aerial hits his shield.

Limit: Your right that you have to chase cloud in the neutral. However this is actually an opportunity. First of all, limit is not a huge deal for Bowser. Even if a cloud gets a fully charged side + b at 90% on Bowser, you're still probably living. So don't panic. Next is that when you approach a charging cloud, they have to commit to a decision. That means a roll, or a nair, or a jab. This is an opportunity to get some crazy read. This is actually when I get a lot of my kills, as long as you pay attention to their habits it can often mean a free up smash.

 

[Phill-Bot]

I had like 20+ games playing Bowser against a DDD and I couldn't figure out the match up at all. DDD's neutral B inhale stuffs out most of Bowser's fast approaches, grounded up B seems to counter DDD's inhale SOMETIMES. Maybe I should punish the end lag of inhale, but it seems hard to do it in time with a dash attack or grab. Gordo's control space so well. Bowser's huge hit box makes it hard to get past them, and powershielding them doesn't help much considering DDD is completely mobile after he hits a slow bouncing gordo. Perhaps I'm horrendous at timing ftilts and jabs against Gordos, but I can never read a fast gordo hit, or a slow one. Once I'm on the ledge, DDD's ledge gaurding mix ups are so ****ing hard to creep past cause Bowser's size, and 2 or 3 mistakes means death, sadly even with Bowser's weight. Any tips???

 

[UltimaLuminaire]

Phill-Bot
You can use grounded Bomb if they're using inhale on the ground and you're already running at them (why, though?). Otherwise, from a walk, stuff it with jab or F/DTilt. Gordo walls vary from player to player, but if you block a gordo from up close (as well as the hammer swing that comes with it) it is not safe for Dedede. If they're launching from the air, then seek to gain ground at least (or USmash the gordo).

Blind ledge advice won't really help you here. We don't know what ledge traps the player liked using, nor what options you were committing yourself to. It's a tough spot to be in. If you need to expand your ledge options, get into training mode and practice pull away -> dj ADC Fortress/Klaw, as well as pull away -> dj auto-cancel FAir. Those will supplement pull away -> dj Klaw, and your ledge mix-up will be stronger for it.

Though, if they insist on hanging back and popping gordos at you while you're at the ledge, you can wait for the gordo to come to you before pulling away and sharking it with FAir or UAir. You won't have ledge invincibility anymore, but you can send back the gordo.

 

[Phill-Bot]

I have a newb question. For Bowser's kill confirm hoo ha, is it a full hop, or a quick double jump to get it to connect consistently? Also, should I buffer a jump right before the up throw animation finishes or is it more about timing it right after?

 

[Zapp Branniglenn]

I have a newb question. For Bowser's kill confirm hoo ha, is it a full hop, or a quick double jump to get it to connect consistently? Also, should I buffer a jump right before the up throw animation finishes or is it more about timing it right after?

There's absolutely no downsides to buffering your first jump. The full hop will satisfy early Uthrow combos with Nair, Fair, Bair. Bowser's 8 frame jumpsquat gives you another great window to buffer your aerial so that is also frame perfect every time. A double jump should always be necessary for Uair at most of the %s where they're able to die from it. Not because it makes you ascend faster but because they're too high for full hop to reach. Timing this double jump so that you ascend far and fast enough to reach with Uair based on their current damage is really the only thing that requires practice. Fast fallers can be nailed with just a full hop at the beginning of their kill range, but an immediate double jump will work just as well.

 

[Fiddlesnarf7]

So I've attended a tournament using Bowser as my main and had great difficulties against Captain Falcon mains. I had issues approaching them due to fast uairs that have quite decent range and fast aerial mobility, and I only had to get hit once for them to combo me quite easily, ending with a perfect knee. Any tips on Bowser vs Captain Falcon?

I did notice Sonic wasn't really that bad to play against. I had to play against IxisNaugus (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6_J45g36_c is an example match of him. My match isn't recorded anywhere due to me being a nobody in the competitive scene), a vastly better player than me, but could play decently against him in my first match against him. Sonic thrives on air juggles, but as Bowser you're too heavy to easily die from them. I managed to get quite a few hits in using down air and bowser bomb. I also used down air to reach the ground as fast as possible, as air fights are not something you want to do as Bowser, especially not versus Sonic. On the ground, I could use my tilts, especially up tilt, to block any attempt to combo me. I did have trouble getting back from the sides, he tilted his forward smash to keep me from grabbing the ledge. Is there anything I can do against that, except using up B and varying my rate of tapping?

 

[S-bow64]

I'll try to help you out on this the best way I can.

Against Falcon :

Always stay on the ground and never jump as you will never win against Nair and Uair in the sense that your reward for landing an aerial is not as good as it is for Falcon.

Your best tools will be Shield, jab and Up B and it's really important that you know which to use depending on the situation. At low %, Falcon will always want to grab you or try to mix things up by using Dash A or Nair but it really is the most basic stuff.

If he stay on the ground and run at you, just Jab. If you fear for something else than a Dash grab, shield and Up B out of it when he is near you, It is not that hard to react to that despite his speed. Just go for it, it's not like they'll shield at the last moment, Falcon need to commit a lot for most of his stuff even if most of them are ridiculous.

At mid %, it becomes a little more tricky as Falcon will get the most nasty kill confirm on Bowser as FF Uair into Fair. This thing is ridiculous, I don't even know how something this FREE even exist and most of the time you don't even see it coming. I'm warning you, you can die at 70 % from this, this is no joke and it work, like, forever.

So if you see Falcon jumping around and trying to mess with you, just shield, that's it, stay in it, breath in it, sleep in it and never let go until you know you're safe. FF Uair is highly punishable but you still need to be quick on your toes. Rather be grabbed than this, trust me.

Then, there is the off stage game. Falcon will try to spike you a lot, in fact, he will try his luck every single time your feets are not on the ground. If he gets you off stage with Nair or a throw, never air dodge and always Fair at him to teach him to stop these easy spikes. And remember not to recover too low, Falcon will shark you for that spike and get it and most of the time, get back to the surface, so try to Jump and air dodge at the same time if you can't sense an attempt at spiking, it may even give you some advantage.

Edit : Ah and don't try to approach or at least not too much.

Against Sonic :

This will never be easy, I only have a few advices for you, so try to cling to that, I guess.

- If you see spin dash : shield, don't try to punish if you see him going too far, it's not worth it.

- If your shield goes too low, run away and camp the ledge a little. This is actually a thing I do since I tend to shield a lot to get more punish opportunity. You give away stage control but a least you can start fresh and Sonic kinda always have the control against Bowser, so...

- If you are at the ledge, never get up right away and this is actually an advice against every and any characters. Bowser have the most crappy get up ever, I can't recall how many time I got F-smash on reaction, this is a complete joke, I even tested it out with a friend who didn't believe it and though it was a frame perfect read or whatever.

Wait and act on reaction, if you get your opponent guessing how you will get up, you have already increased your chances of survival by 50%, no scam. I can assure you that I now live 50% longer than before.

And for your recovery problem, if you get hit off stage, you need to wait 1 second or so before being able to grab the ledge, so don't try to recover right away so you can snap and try to recover a little lower.

But if he is a 2 frame artist, then I don't know what to say. He must be the Sonic Hero or something.

 

[Fiddlesnarf7]

Thanks for the advice. I especially think your Captain Falcon advice might be spot on, seeing how the things you're describing are exactly what I did not do, like shielding when he's jumping and jabbing when he runs at me.

Against Sonic, I found his Spin dashes to be the easiest to punish. It required a bit of timing, but those were the moments where I could damage the Sonic. Against the pro sonic, he was baiting a lot which caused some troubles, but against a different Sonic he couldn't use the spin dash at all. You'll never be able to stop all the spin dashes, but even a 50/50 between you hitting him with a forward tilt/up tilt and him hitting you with the dash seems reasonable due to your weight and Sonic's tendency to try and kill you through the ceiling. I will have to find more Sonic players to confirm whether it was a fluke or it actually works against Sonic.

I'm not sure if it was a 2-frame punish or just that I was trying to recover too horizontal.

Again, thanks for the advice! Looking forward to the next tourney

 

[Chyunman98]

Is the Corrin matchup even possible? (Aside from playing against bad Corrins)

It just doesn't seem possible for Bowser to punish anything this character can do and is completely outranged in literally every factor. The best I've gotten against a good Corrin is using the up smash on some aerial approaches. Other than that, I can't figure out anything.

The above is just a basic summary but some angry ranting if anyone wants details:
- Bowser's flame breath doesn't do **** in this MU. You can get some damage off but when Corrin leaves the hard hitbox of the flame, he can just use a forward smash or a side b to stop it.
- The moment Bowser leaves the stage, it's all about luck when you want to get back. Bowser Bomb kills you because counters, Up B from far doesn't work because counter and Corrin's down air, forward air is too slow to stop any of Corrin's aerials, and Corrin's range makes none of his attacks have a risk factor to them. Plus, Corrin's edgeguarding options on stage are completely covered with side b alone since Corrin can change the way he goes. Neutral Air also stops practically everything.
- It's a stupid programming decision to have Corrin's charging smashes have a small hitbox on them. Then we have Bowser who will most likely get caught in it and suffer the fully charged attack. Nothing else to say here.
- This is my own personal misunderstanding of Corrin's playstyle, but is an offensive playstyle with any other character a bad idea on Corrin? First off there's Corrin's range which makes punishing landings impossible, the counter which basically tells you that commiting on normal attacks is a bad idea, and Corrin's recovery is practically nigh invincible. This is not about Bowser since approaching with this character isn't a good idea anyway, just an extra tidbit.

 

[UltimaLuminaire]

Chyunman98 Nah, it's about managing your shield and dash pressure. Our Bowsers were able to clutch it out against the Corrin Discord, so it's not the impossible MU you're making it out to be. Control the stage first before doing something other than walking/dashing and shielding. Corrin can't lunge us for free, and anything safe, like BAir or lunge away, just leads to more stage for us. Corrin counter is horrible to just throw out against us. Grab that fool.

Yes, we get wrecked if we get tossed off stage. Save your double jump till the end and be on the look out to alter your recovery timing to avoid an early counter attack kill.

You have no reason to be right next to Corrin for the charge FSmash to hit. Corrin is not Marth. Just stay at FTilt range. If you're at the ledge and they're dumb enough to charge FSmash, just pull away -> double jump -> FAir the fool.

And yea, optimally, most people won't just go in against good Corrins. It can work, but Corrin has enough end lag on certain moves that, combined with the lack of an escape option, you get heavily rewarded for your patience anyway. You have 0 reason to play like a maniac while in the neutral.

 

[Y2Kay]

Come speak! : https://smashboards.com/threads/mas...read-session-16-bowser-ike-12-5-12-11.438657/

 

[Cool Trainer Ace]

I don't really tend to struggle against a lot of characters as Bowser, but if there's one character (or duo of characters) I can't seem to get by, it's Pit. How exactly does that MU go?

 

[Big Sean]

Cool Trainer Ace I'm wondering which parts you're struggling with. Obviously if you show us a video we can better explain it, but you can just describe the things that you find hard to deal with. Fairly normal bowser play should theoretically beat this.

 

[Cool Trainer Ace]

Cool Trainer Ace Fairly normal bowser play should theoretically beat this.

Really? I keep getting completely bodied, even if the Pit/Dark Pit doesn't seem to have any idea what they're doing. Maybe I just suck? (Which is very probable)
They don't even body me off stage or in the air half the time. They body me on the ground somehow. I probably just suck. Then again, I play this game very off-and-on, so in the end I don't think it matters.

 

[UltimaLuminaire]

Cool Trainer Ace We do not intend to put you down whatsoever. What BigSean meant by normal play is monitoring your ground movement so you don't need to throw out Jabs or FTilts unnecessarily. You want to mix-up walk -> shield with dash dancing and possibly dash stop so you can force Pit to whiff. In any fight against swordsmen/projectile users, Bowser shouldn't be the one making the first attack unless you're sure you've found an opening in your opponent's habits. If you're not familiar with utilizing Bowser's ground movement to mess with your opponent's spacing, then hopefully this gives you an idea as to what you can do so you don't feel lost or overwhelmed.

 

[Cool Trainer Ace]

Cool Trainer Ace We do not intend to put you down whatsoever. What BigSean meant by normal play is monitoring your ground movement so you don't need to throw out Jabs or FTilts unnecessarily. You want to mix-up walk -> shield with dash dancing and possibly dash stop so you can force Pit to whiff. In any fight against swordsmen/projectile users, Bowser shouldn't be the one making the first attack unless you're sure you've found an opening in your opponent's habits. If you're not familiar with utilizing Bowser's ground movement to mess with your opponent's spacing, then hopefully this gives you an idea as to what you can do so you don't feel lost or overwhelmed.

Thanks for the tips!

 

[Mintshroom]

Anyone know how to deal with R.O.B.? I'm just above top 10 in my state (#11, #12) because the ones to always take me out of tournament are our two ROBS Lada and TSS, TSS being a top 5 ROB in the U.S. I live in Utah. Anyone have a textbook way of dealing with ROB because I just keep getting ****ed lmao

Also the only person in our top 5 I can't budge with at all (not take any sets from) is our Sonic main Valor who's #3 atm... I always get so close but I feel like Bowser has to make too many correct reads in the neutral to win against sonic... it feels like a guessing game and I've recently picked up mewtwo because of it

Anyways tl;dr I'm a pretty good bowser player but I get ****ed by sonic and ROB, help

 

[UltimaLuminaire]

I see you've already hit up the Discord. I think BigSean might still frequent the boards here, but he's also on Discord every once in a while.

I would also recommend checking the ROB Discord and going through all their most up-to-date resources.