I believe what EL is attempting to get at is this; there are a multitude of question being asked repeatedly. If you simply use the search function or look in the forums with little diligence you can probably find your answer. Also there are FAQ sticky threads for these kind of inquires. While it fine now as he was replied to, if an influx of people adopted this habit a majority of those threads made just like these would be brushed aside and he would never gain the knowledge he seeks. Most people usually only address the first page of a board. If everyone continues to make a new thread for every question they have then a ton will be displaced. That is what hes talking about.
Now for Marth: The entire cast gets hit by this and a certain point. It isnt the string that is the culprit; its most likely your own play. You are probably not buffering the uair correctly thus wasting precious frames; more often than not its probably too many lost frames for it to combo. thus they can airdodge. BTW just a tip for progression in this or anything in life, be critical of yourself first ( in a constructive manner of course) before you displace blame to an outside source. You need to attempt to identify if you are making a mistake before you deem something flawed or broken. Its a very bad habit most people tend to have, which curtails them from true progress.
Anyways Marth has some solid strings; however hes less about true combos ( hes no the same archetype as sheik) and more about controlling mid range space with his disjointed hitboxes and capitalizing of aerial frame traps/landing traps. His traps can transition into more juggles strings/ traps. Thats how you are able to continue racking damage. Perfect Example, although I dont dabble in the character too much, I have played him a few times to recognize how to maintain the advantage with certain combo starters. For instance, we are talking about dthrow> uair at low percents, however I try to abuse things like dthrow>bair or fair more. Why? If I get a dthrow>buffered bair I have a greater chance to not only hold an advantage ( because dthrow>uair does that as well), but I get an immediate mixup option. Most characters dont have the combination of range and speed fair has. Now add the fact that Marths bair auto turns you and ends quickly, you have a huge advantage frame wise AND spacing wise to chain a fair. Now theres a small window of escape but most characters cant take advantage of it and leave that situation unscathed. If they AD i just got a free dthrow> another aerial of my choosing. If they choose an attack option I should win everytime unless they use some kind of DP aka invincible knock away move ( ex: Marth's Dolphin Slash) which in itself can be a large risk on their part. now if they use a regular attack i beat it out with fair, leaving the opponent again in a a situation where i have not only solid frame advantage but their quickest methods of escape ( DP or AD) result in a free followup for me. Now sometimes because of utilts large hitbox i can actually hit them with a utilt after fair. It covers a good range, will beat out virtually anything they could do provided im in range and again its cooldown is safe enough for me to punish the seemingly best option they have ( AD). Now if they get hit by that, they they are above marth; a place where marth extremely excels because uair and utilt are not only massively disjointed but they protect marths hurtbox ( the area that has to be touched in order to hurt marth). Now again they are in a situation where they are pressured to pick a defensive option, however most of their defensive options due to where they are in space ( low to the ground and for the most part out spaced my marths pokes) can easily be "trapped."
You see where Im going with this? this is how you continue racking damage with marth, by continuing the pressure not with multiple guaranteed hits per string ( marth has very little multi hit true combos) but by abusing your frame advantage AND your disjoints simultaneously. This is something sheik on the otherhand cant necessarily do. she relies pretty much on her high frame advantage with either results in a true combo or very close to being so to elicit a response from her opponent. Because if she doesnt have enough frame advantage, most characters will out right beat her on range. So you cant go into Marth looking for something that isnt his sole proponent over his opponents. You have to look at the characters other strengths besides frame advantage when considering strings. There has been a myriad of times where I can bring my opponent to 0- 50% with Marth ( and no Im not talking about randoms, I stream with Larry and I used to train with Mike Haze and Tyrant, some of the best Marth had to offer in brawl). Things like dthrow> bair> nair ff> dash sh nair ff> or dthrow> bair>fair> dtilt> dthrow> uair or dthrow> uair ff> bair> fair ( which can trap airdodges)> ftilt. Heck sometimes you can just do dthrow> full hop into them to bait the AD> uair ff> nair> dash stuff. These are some of the basic stuff i can go for which all are contingent with solid spacing with marth to make extremely viable.
This is honestly one of the beauties of smash; true combos are always a blast, but in order to get the swag most characters have to combine some mixup or trap in order to extend their strings. Its something that is present in all fighters and is a mark of a great player ( being able to convert advantageous situations into not only solid damage but spacial conditions that continue to hold the advantage for you.) This is where you can pressure an opponent and break them down. You just have so much freedom with movement to do so in smash. So if I was you I would focus less on the true combos ( because they are relatively easy to find if u just go to training mode and examine his moveset) but moreso on conceptualizing traps and using them effectively. I realized I am writing a monologue that probably noone will read lol but I will end of this note. check out this match with Ryo vs StreetShark. Hes clearly not using Marth, but the lesson is still the same. In fact you could argue that what he does is something that should be ( and it is lol) more commonplace of marth because of his combination of speed and range ( as most of what he does doesnt necessarily have to do with power (which is another attribute among many one must factor into strings and traps as power breeds fear)).
http://youtu.be/VKujI0urZro?t=55s
While Ryo hit his opponent multiple times, its important to look at ( in the initial part of his combos) why he landed certain attacks and why he was allowed to wait in others. Also the arguably most important one ( especially in reference to Smash 4 imo) is inquiring what wouldve taken place if the hits that he connect with where they opponent arguably had many options for escaping had whiffed due to an air dodge or use of double jump. As you get to the later part of his string you begin to see precisely what wouldve take place. Pretty much none of the attacks he went for were raw reads. How is this so?
Lets take a look at the entire string: Ryo gets a dthrow> bair and begins to drift back while ff. Why? because he knows he will be in advantage after his true combo however the frame advantage isnt enough. So he prepares to space himself to use one of Ikes primary beneficial traits; his range. Now Sonic is in a position where he couldve used his double jump, but he was close to Ike and he knew however little it may be I had the advantage.so that situation right as he lands becomes close to becoming a good 50/50 scenario. This means that there's seemingly two dominant options in the assailant's repertoire that cover the two major defensive options of the opponent to the point that theres not only a 50% chance regarding which of the two viable options he can use but that has little risk in choosing either option. While double jump is also a option that he couldve used, he wouldnt necessarily have gotten a punish that is anything worthwhile and he couldve put himself in a dire situation where he is forced to land in a limited fashion.
Anyways he goes for the pivot grab which arguably covers all 3 primary defensive options present ( air dodge, attack, double jump). So this pivot grab is actually a soft read ( basically something that is little risk to employ and covers a good amount of options due to the situation present). So he gets the second dthrow>and opts fair after seeing the smashville platform. Now why is that so important? because after his true combo of dthrow>FH fair he has frame advantage again AND has minimized the frame requirement for his next fair due to being able to walk of fair rather than having to jump then fair ( because jump squats heighten that frame requirement due to the conditions needed to do an aerial in most cases.) Now this second fair is ANOTHER scenario at which the opponent is not only somewhat low to the ground ( to the point where ADing could be a potential issue) but they are spaced away and have a frame disadvantage. So much so that if they had AD, they simply wouldve been placed in a greater frame disadvantageous scenario at which a guaranteed punish was there. this is a landing trap; this allows Ryo to again lower the risk of going for his "read" so another soft read.
After that you can see that StreetShark choose AD the last few times at which case we get to see the traps sprung into action. He goes for a FH Fair, StreetShark ADs ( due to him realizing the range and the frame advantage were not in his favor) and get his AD trapped aka guaranteed punish via dtilt. Now Ryo makes his probably greatest read "waiting" for the AD so that he get a dair for the kill. HOWEVER, his very waiting is minimized by the spacing he has and the frame advantage he had after dtilt. The advantage allowing Ryo again to take a minimal risk bet for a ton of reward.
By now I hope I have given insight as to what really took place; Ryo didnt just Google StreetShark and hard read his soul. He took basically 3 really soft reads ( practically minimum risk options that were all a result of the first dthrow he got and the spacing he kept. ) The final hit being bait he simply believe he earned due to his pressure and he was right. So all in all my entire point of this damn message is this: true combos are great but what allows you to MILK them for a substantial reward is traps. They ( the good ones) are designed minimize risk on your guess. When you have that and utilize it accordingly, Youre able to create more advantages for yourself that make it far more easily for you to hit them and locks up their defensive choices. This is huge because that should without a doubt be one of your if not your primary objective against an opponent, because the more options lost to your opponent the easier it is discern what they are doing. Put it this way you wanna look at true combos as throwing someone down ditch. If an opponent is in that ditch and wants to come out they have to climb out to be at the same plane as you, but until they do you can just chuck rocks at them till they get there. If you hit em with a rock? they fall back down and have to climb back up again, thats what a good trap will do. If you miss with the rock? Doesnt matter, they're still in the ditch climbing. they cant hurt u. They may be higher, but u still get a chance to hit them with little repercussions besides you KNOW where they are coming from, so u have no reason not to just keep chucking those rocks in his/her vicinity and watch it unfold. Thats what Ryo did and get got rewarded. And if he didnt get all that, it wouldnt have mattered. No one would have none any better and Ryo would still be more likely than not in advantage lol. Its pretty much heads and tails but every 4 wins they counts as a lost to you and every win you have counts a lost to them. Its stupid betting favors.
Okay im done im just rambling now. I havent sleept in 2 days forgive me if its all useless LOLOLOLOL
