Help on Comboing/Punish Game

[ThatIsWho]

Hi guys, recently I have realized that my punish game is horrible. I main Marth and have had a lot of trouble comboing spacies. Something in my brain just can't comprehend combos. I don't know wether it's their speed or maybe I just don't practice enough. The thing is I usually spend an hour or so every day just trying to combo, but to no avail. I also watch lots of m2k, ppmd, and ppu vods to try and learn. Right now my tech skill and neutral are at least average if not above, given my skill level. I think my inability to combo consistently well is what is holding me back the most. Is this the sort of thing they just clicks given enough practice or am I missing something? Thanks! I'll be happy to clarify if anyone would like specifics.

 

[Life]

It might be an issue of holding yourself to a higher standard than you might expect. Zero-death true combos are actually very rare in Melee; usually combos become extensive because the comboing character forced bad DI out of the opponent somehow (e.g. Sheik players mixing up uair or fair after a dthrow to try to get an earlier kill via bad DI) or because they got a techchase somehow (e.g. Falcon does a combo that ends in a techchase, then reacts with grab to uthrow uair knee or something).

Most Marth zero-deaths on space animals require an edgeguard confirm of some kind, such as fthrow dtilt gimp setups, or uthrow fsmash at around 70.

Also, be aware that Marth's moves serve different combo purposes depending on whether they're sweetspotted. Most obvious offenders are fair and uair.

If you're referring to uthrow chaingrabs on FD, be aware that 1) you have to pivot grab in certain percent ranges or they can end up slightly behind you; 2) Falco weighs a little more than Fox, so the timing to act after uthrow is different and you need more percent to start things on him; 3) it doesn't help as much on other stages because Marth combos under platforms at low percents are kind of limited, we're still working that problem out for the most part.

 

[ridemyboat]

We're all looking to get better at punish, so I hope it eventually clicks with practice. I've found that my punishes have gotten better after I stopped looking for true combos and started watching for the other guys habits after I drop the combo. If they like to land with aerials too much then you can just run in and they'll throw it out, then you go back in and continue the punish. Or if they like to double jump, it's the same idea.

 

[Gen.Excel]

I think the best thing is to take your gameplay learning slow and not worry too much if you can't chain more than two aerials together. If you've watched the Smash Bros documentary, Mew2King makes a point that whenever he gets a hit, he wants to take it as far as he possibly can, as seen in that crazy chaingrab to ken combo. But Mew2King also said he spent 2,000 hours by himself working on Marth's frama data to fully optimise his combos. What I'm trying to get at is you can't expect to have a combo game by watching the top professionals do their thing and then trying it five minutes later.
I guess my advice is practice, feel free to experiment, spend heaps of time in training mode until you can chaingrab. You could even find something you didn't know worked, like I did: If you land a dash attack at certain percents on a fastfaller, you can wavedash backwards to tipper. No, it's not that practical and it won't always work. But little things like that let you know you're on the right track. Good luck man, I'll leave you with a video by PewPewU that's helped me a lot.