Help with Marth down tilts

[AndrewK]

I've been trying to hone my Marth after playing my brother over and over. He's been punishing my f smash hits and keeps telling me to use down tilt in place of f smash except during certain situations. I've been watching more videos, and when Marths use down tilt as an approach, they really seamlessly dash in, down tilt, and dash away. I know how to dash dance (the "ice skating way, according to Ken's guide), but I just can't seem place a down tilt inside my dash dance without having the weird interruption of the crouch in between the hit and the dash away.

Am I supposed to place a wavedash somewhere? Or do I need to place the down tilt somewhere in specific?

 

[Beat!]

You can't dtilt immediately out of the initial dash* because it'll result in the interruptive crouch you speak of (you can't crouch instantly out of an initial dash, so the character has to stop first). However, once you're in a full run you can crouch (and as a result dtilt) immediately, which almost certainly is what you've been seeing in videos.

*It IS possible to dtilt quickly out of your initial dash if you either pivot (difficult to execute) or do a wavedash in place (much easier to execute, but a little slower than a well-executed pivot). Aside from that, if you want dtilt to be an available option more often, I recommend mixing up your dashdancing with some regular walking.

 

[SAUS]

You could also wave dash to move and then down-tilt. For example, you could wave dash towards them (not too close), down-tilt, and then dash away. Just don't do something like that too much, because you could get punished for it.