So I just got finished watching this awesome video by Zero where he breaks down every single move in a game for 40 minutes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPwplk90u2U. Near the end he talks about his game plan for killing M2K's diddy with Dr. Mario. It basically came down to looking for an up smash. This really put a light on in my head. When I play and my opponent is ~120% I really start to lack a game plan. I either keep playing for damage with up B OOS/jab1/2/grabs or go HAM on killing moves like bowser bomb and up smash, and get punished and die. Dr. Mario's up smash is interesting to me because you can make a bad guess, whiff the move, and still not necessarily die. I mean the end lag is such that if say you were reading a roll from the ledge and guessed wrong, you're still basically in neutral. You can't say that about say bowser's up smash.
So now I'm thinking well, if one of us ever got good enough to face M2K in grand finals at evo, what would Bowser be looking for to close out the stock vs diddy? So I'm a pretty new player and I'll kind of lay out my understanding of what I might be looking for that's relatively safe, and I'd like to see if any of you other guys can give me some insight into how you see closing out stocks vs high level players, where punishing big mistakes with fsmash isn't really an option anymore.
Offstage Play
If the diddy is high and offstage and you are near the ledge, your options for killing are pretty minimal. He has the option of dropping low or side b-ing.
Even if you read the side b, diddy can instantly shift his momentum by throwing a banana, making it even more difficult to read where he will land. Scrub me, would have thought that if you think you can read his landing that you should try to grab him. Now that I think about it though, grabbing at this percentage really doesn't get you anywhere. Sure you can pummel and down throw for like 14% but if he rolls or spot dodges, that could end your stock. It isn't a 50%/50% situation where you kill or he kills you. You get 14% if your right, and up air'ed if your wrong. Assuming your not right next to the edge, I think the smart thing to do is take back stage control and be slightly better than neutral. If you are near the edge you CAN choose to throw offstage, and watch diddy side-b and play this game again. Again even if you think you can back throw a diddy off the stage (and not get the kill of course) it may still be a better idea to take back stage control, just because whiffed grabs have so much endlag.
If the diddy goes low and directly below the stage, a well placed up + b in his trajectory is a guaranteed and safe kill.
If the diddy comes from down and away from the stage, a fair gets the win. If you whiff, you have a pretty good shot of getting back to the ledge safely.
Ledge Play
If diddy is on the ledge with you on stage, from what I can see you have two safe options for potential kills.
Ledge trump. If you can get the bair you get the kill. If you see the diddy go low, charged dsmash or dtilt gets the kill.
Bowser Bomb the ledge. Well timed this covers all options but roll. In the worst case scenario you have invincibility on the ledge and diddy has to play the same game as you.
I should add here that there is an option that can be punished hard but also has a pretty high likelihood of success. If you space and time it right, down smash can cover almost every option from the ledge. Depends on how sure you are of the get up timing by diddy, but considering the high likelihood of success, it might be worth it.
The Neutral
It goes without saying that against m2k, you won't be getting a lot of punish opportunities. That being said I really should point out how easy it is to bowser bomb even a good player. Side stepped aerials are a guaranteed bowser bomb punish. As are side stepped dash grabs if done early enough, something m2k will be going for at that percentage super hard. I'm not sure what the frame data looks like compared to bowser bomb, but dtilt might be an even safer way to get a kill as a punish for a whiffed dash grab.
Alright now that we've talked about a punish that will probably not happen, what moves can bowser throw out safely, that could lead to a kill but doesn't guarantee an fsmash to the face?
Pivot ftilt. The problem with this move is it won't kill at ~120% percent unless your near the ledge. A pivot ftilt near the ledge is a situation that probably won't happen. Why pivot ftilit and not ftilt? Ftilt is pretty punishable and pivot ftilt if used as a rare move probably will be unexpected enough to not immediately be punished without getting jabbed in the face.
Pivot grab. This is fairly safe but doesn't lead to a kill. Try not to use this unless you are trying to bring diddy to like 160% where you have more options.
Fair. Super safe move if you aren't spamming it and auto cancel it. Can lead to a kill at the edge.
Bair. This is really your bread and butter I think. YOLO bair's can be safe if not spammed. You might be able to bait M2K into trying to punish only to get a reverse bowser bomb to the face.
Uair. This move kills very early, it's fast, AND it has super armor. This is spammable from a full hop distance, but at short hop height it has a lot of landing lag. You may feel squeamish about challenging diddy in the air, but our hero Bowser theoretically is precise enough to know how to get a guaranteed uair against diddy.
Bowser Bomb. This is literally by far his safest and most guaranteed kill move. That is if Sakurai fixes bowsercide. It's so good it almost makes me want to leave dash slash. Almost.
Jab 1 Frame Traps. Ok so if I were facing m2k I would frame trap Bowser Bomb and Fsmash him all day. Our hero bowser though wants to play as safe as possible, so those 2 are out of the question. I think jab1 -> dtilt is actually a very good option for a kill at this percent. The question is, how punishable is that? I'm not sure how punishable dtilt is on shield but if his only options are fair and grab, those are potentially survivable. Fsmash on the other hand, isn't. The higher percentage you go the more likely you'll be able to simply double jump out of an up throw combo.
Conclusions!
So I assume that a lot of this is straight up wrong, and I also assume that I'm missing hella options. I think it's a pretty interesting starting point though to get some feedback on how other bowsers see closing out stocks at a high level at around 120%.
So now I'm thinking well, if one of us ever got good enough to face M2K in grand finals at evo, what would Bowser be looking for to close out the stock vs diddy? So I'm a pretty new player and I'll kind of lay out my understanding of what I might be looking for that's relatively safe, and I'd like to see if any of you other guys can give me some insight into how you see closing out stocks vs high level players, where punishing big mistakes with fsmash isn't really an option anymore.
Offstage Play
If the diddy is high and offstage and you are near the ledge, your options for killing are pretty minimal. He has the option of dropping low or side b-ing.
Even if you read the side b, diddy can instantly shift his momentum by throwing a banana, making it even more difficult to read where he will land. Scrub me, would have thought that if you think you can read his landing that you should try to grab him. Now that I think about it though, grabbing at this percentage really doesn't get you anywhere. Sure you can pummel and down throw for like 14% but if he rolls or spot dodges, that could end your stock. It isn't a 50%/50% situation where you kill or he kills you. You get 14% if your right, and up air'ed if your wrong. Assuming your not right next to the edge, I think the smart thing to do is take back stage control and be slightly better than neutral. If you are near the edge you CAN choose to throw offstage, and watch diddy side-b and play this game again. Again even if you think you can back throw a diddy off the stage (and not get the kill of course) it may still be a better idea to take back stage control, just because whiffed grabs have so much endlag.
If the diddy goes low and directly below the stage, a well placed up + b in his trajectory is a guaranteed and safe kill.
If the diddy comes from down and away from the stage, a fair gets the win. If you whiff, you have a pretty good shot of getting back to the ledge safely.
Ledge Play
If diddy is on the ledge with you on stage, from what I can see you have two safe options for potential kills.
Ledge trump. If you can get the bair you get the kill. If you see the diddy go low, charged dsmash or dtilt gets the kill.
Bowser Bomb the ledge. Well timed this covers all options but roll. In the worst case scenario you have invincibility on the ledge and diddy has to play the same game as you.
I should add here that there is an option that can be punished hard but also has a pretty high likelihood of success. If you space and time it right, down smash can cover almost every option from the ledge. Depends on how sure you are of the get up timing by diddy, but considering the high likelihood of success, it might be worth it.
The Neutral
It goes without saying that against m2k, you won't be getting a lot of punish opportunities. That being said I really should point out how easy it is to bowser bomb even a good player. Side stepped aerials are a guaranteed bowser bomb punish. As are side stepped dash grabs if done early enough, something m2k will be going for at that percentage super hard. I'm not sure what the frame data looks like compared to bowser bomb, but dtilt might be an even safer way to get a kill as a punish for a whiffed dash grab.
Alright now that we've talked about a punish that will probably not happen, what moves can bowser throw out safely, that could lead to a kill but doesn't guarantee an fsmash to the face?
Pivot ftilt. The problem with this move is it won't kill at ~120% percent unless your near the ledge. A pivot ftilt near the ledge is a situation that probably won't happen. Why pivot ftilit and not ftilt? Ftilt is pretty punishable and pivot ftilt if used as a rare move probably will be unexpected enough to not immediately be punished without getting jabbed in the face.
Pivot grab. This is fairly safe but doesn't lead to a kill. Try not to use this unless you are trying to bring diddy to like 160% where you have more options.
Fair. Super safe move if you aren't spamming it and auto cancel it. Can lead to a kill at the edge.
Bair. This is really your bread and butter I think. YOLO bair's can be safe if not spammed. You might be able to bait M2K into trying to punish only to get a reverse bowser bomb to the face.
Uair. This move kills very early, it's fast, AND it has super armor. This is spammable from a full hop distance, but at short hop height it has a lot of landing lag. You may feel squeamish about challenging diddy in the air, but our hero Bowser theoretically is precise enough to know how to get a guaranteed uair against diddy.
Bowser Bomb. This is literally by far his safest and most guaranteed kill move. That is if Sakurai fixes bowsercide. It's so good it almost makes me want to leave dash slash. Almost.
Jab 1 Frame Traps. Ok so if I were facing m2k I would frame trap Bowser Bomb and Fsmash him all day. Our hero bowser though wants to play as safe as possible, so those 2 are out of the question. I think jab1 -> dtilt is actually a very good option for a kill at this percent. The question is, how punishable is that? I'm not sure how punishable dtilt is on shield but if his only options are fair and grab, those are potentially survivable. Fsmash on the other hand, isn't. The higher percentage you go the more likely you'll be able to simply double jump out of an up throw combo.
Conclusions!
So I assume that a lot of this is straight up wrong, and I also assume that I'm missing hella options. I think it's a pretty interesting starting point though to get some feedback on how other bowsers see closing out stocks at a high level at around 120%.
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