How do you punish spotdodging?

[NonSequtur]

Title says it all really, as I have been having quite a bit of trouble with a friend of mine who times his spotdodges really well. How can Marth, with his laggy moves, punish a spotdodge? Is d-tilt fast enough? Jab?

 

[AppleAppleAZ]

If he's spot dodging it usually means he's scared of your grab or you are predictable in your flow when attacking.

Bait it out with your dash dance and grab him.

Run up nair can work, but grab is the best option 99.9% of the time.

 

[2-bit]

think about it like this. He knows what you are going to do before you do it, and this is how he's able to spotdodge all of yourstuff. Either bait it out and punish the lag like AppleAppleAZ said, or when you are going to do something, just do it later than you think you should. Don't get into the habit of doing everything late though, as that could be detrimental to your play against other people

 

[Elyssa Xey Hexen]

Title says it all really, as I have been having quite a bit of trouble with a friend of mine who times his spotdodges really well. How can Marth, with his laggy moves, punish a spotdodge? Is d-tilt fast enough? Jab?

There are many situations one can try spot dodging in. The one that annoys me the most is the spot dodge out of me being too slow. For example, (and like all examples its best illustrated with fox/falco lol) Falco/Fox are put into a tech on a platform. I am too slow and they spot dodge after the tech in place. It should have been a guaranteed punish, but I screwed it up due to my poor timing.

So, with those type of situations in mind either make sure you do not give someone the time to spot dodge, or wait for it and decide accordingly. The best spotdodge takes 1/3 of a second to complete and the last 7 frames are vulnerable. Its something you can try learning to react too when you whiff or look for it.

 

[TheCrimsonBlur]

Nair.

Or wait.

But mostly

Nair.

 

[Son of Slobodan]

I was getting really bummed out by getting spot-dodged all the time but it forced me to learn a crucial principle with Marth: The Wait. People are going to look to spot dodge mostly after tech chase scenarios because its the fastest option to avoid a followup out of a defenseless state. This is where the dash-dance is extremely effective to bait out an impulsive response from somebody and then punish. Keep in mind your dash-dance spacing has to be really tight or you won't be able to grab them when they're vulnerable after the spot dodge. You have to just feel the flow of the game with Marth. Once you start harnessing your emotions into your play you'll understand when somebody is afraid and that's when you bait defensive choices and punish hard.

EDIT: Oh and as for platform tech-chasing, a similar principle applies. Up-throw WAIT is always better than Up-throwing and then spamming uptilt. Spamming will only cover ONE option which is a missed tech. Waiting will cover tech in place and roll (depending on the platforms), but your timing still has to be good. Still anything that punishes a tech in place will also punish a missed tech so always cover it as if it were a tech.

 

[C_Mill24]

I'd punish a spot dodge with a grab, I don't think people spot dodge as much nowadays.

 

[Signia]

Spot dodges are pretty hard to deal with, it's not as simple as just waiting. Say you're dashing up to someone for a grab, but you think they might spot dodge. What are you going to do? It's all well and good if you get the read, but what if you're wrong?

Wavedash in place, right in front of them? Bad idea, the WD lag could cause your grab to not actually punish the spot dodge, or you could get hit since you're in WD recovery lag right in front of them.

Run up wavedash back? Similar problems, except now you're safer against pokes. Only problem now is: WD back momentum ****s with your dash forward momentum, so you have waste time doing something to cancel that momentum, and won't have time for a true punish.

Dash dance in front of them? But the timing of their spot dodge will be exactly when you turn around run back, increasing the time it takes to turn around again to punish.

Run through them and turn around? This option's pretty good but not against spacies, they might just shine you for free. Also you gotta be fast with that turn around and be able to down-cancel the full dash and/or pivot effectively.

Run up shield, wait? Safe against attacks and you're in position to punish right away, but what if they just shield, too? Now you're a Marth that's stuck in his shield vs another character that has better out of shield options than you.

Run up, sh aerial? The momentum will make your timing and spacing too predictable.

...

My answer? Dash-Shield-SH nair/fair that fades away. Dash-Dance empty-pivot at a safe spacing and wait. Dash, SH back, empty FF, and react. Cross-up Tomahawk. Empty SHFFL dash back pivot tipper F-smash. Dash-through full-run cancel tipper Fsmash (the JKun).

It really isn't as simple as waiting and baiting. It takes some real deliberation to delay attacks and approaches effectively, as in, in a way that is safe and actually covers options. Also, if you only wait, you're just squandering opportunities against any player that can WD back OoS.

 

[Hypernon]

You guys find Mario to be one of the best spotdodgers against Marth? I find his spotdodge is so good that even if you know for sure he's going to spotdodge it's STILL hard to punish, because it's so fast and he has good options out of it (dsmash, spotdodging again, grab, shield etc.)