Mario Match up discussion

[SuperLuigi9624]

Little Mac is honestly a mixed bag. Sometimes you destroy him from like, 10-0 and sometimes you can't even get a hit off.

 

[HeroMystic]

Little Mac is honestly a mixed bag. Sometimes you destroy him from like, 10-0 and sometimes you can't even get a hit off.

There's too many newbies playing Lil' Mac to get a decent feel for him. I can't count how many times I've dealt with Macs that just Side-B off the edge, or just let me grab them over and over again.

Right now though I have to say Mac is in Mario's favor since his air game is non-existant, and handling his ground-game is doable.

 

[A2ZOMG]

There's too many newbies playing Lil' Mac to get a decent feel for him. I can't count how many times I've dealt with Macs that just Side-B off the edge, or just let me grab them over and over again.

Right now though I have to say Mac is in Mario's favor since his air game is non-existant, and handling his ground-game is doable.

It's very hard to land against Mac if he plays right. He definitely juggles Mario very easily, and his 1 frame Jab and 3 frame F-tilt are crazy. But yeah, you typically will outlast him, and you basically only need to make one simple read/reaction to KO him once he's offstage.

 

[Numbre7]

I feel like as usual, Mario's combos are easily broken by Luigi's neutral air

 

[BSP]

I feel like as usual, Mario's combos are easily broken by Luigi's neutral air

If you expect a Nair combo breaker, shield it and grab him, or just U smash him if you have enough time.

Also, I'm 99% positive Sheik can hold down to escape our short-hopped Mario tornado if she is on the ground. As if things weren't already hard enough.

 

[A2ZOMG]

I feel like as usual, Mario's combos are easily broken by Luigi's neutral air

The difficulty of Luigi is correlated with how impatient you get. You have to time your moves well against him. Your best bet of beating him is in a spacing war with an emphasis on juggling him safely with spaced U-tilt and U-smash (and shieldgrabs) to beat his N-air.

You can mess with his recovery pretty hard with FLUDD, Cape, and Fireballs, and he's not great at directly gimping Mario as long as you don't get hit out of your midair jump. On default settings, I believe the matchup is even because while he outtrades you and has a better projectile, you can chase his landing better than he can chase yours, and he has to play respectfully against F-smash which outranges him. With customs, Mario edges out ahead slightly with Fast Fireballs which make it a lot harder for him to close the gap with Tornado and allow you to outspam his fireball.

On wifi lag, he beats you 65/35, because you don't have an option to him spamming his superior Jab.

 

[Darrman]

I might be just a bad player, but I think Shulk beats us. Whenever I tried to get close, I'd get swatted like a fly. Buster is very strong.... And his gimping? Well, let's say he always combos me off the stage. And he always had some counter waiting when I arrived back on stage, often fsmash angled down. Any tips?

 

[A2ZOMG]

Fireballs and reverse U-smash OOS are your friend. Other than that, I feel like you probably need to powershield to get the most success out of this matchup due to how hard you can get zoned if he spaces well. Also there's not much you can do about his edgeguarding if he uses Monado Jump correctly. Fortunately, edgeguarding him should also be pretty rewarding due to his recovery being predictable.

 

[HeroMystic]

I don't see Shulk as a difficult match-up. His only annoying Arts is Jump.

I do think due to his damage per hit he does beat Mario, but it's 6:4 Shulk's advantage at worst.

 

[-Se7en-]

I don't see Shulk as a difficult match-up. His only annoying Arts is Jump.

I do think due to his damage per hit he does beat Mario, but it's 6:4 Shulk's advantage at worst.

I don't want to give a ratio on it but I'll say this much - Shulk's spaced Nair is very hard to deal with. That is Shulk's Bread and Butter. He kills unusually early with Smash (I was killed around 70%).

If he uses the Weight Monado or whatever it's called at high percents I camp fireballs because he is ridiculously slow and we outspeed him. Any damage is good damage.

Buster is very scary, so if you can try to wait until the Monado Art times out.

Also Shulk players tend to fish for kills when they are in Smash, so try to fake an approach for them to read and punish.

I throw fireballs as much as I can, oh and Shulk's Nair negates fireballs.

Edit : Not unwinnable, but not even. 6:4 sounds about right if a ratio HAD to be given.

We can gimp him hard with FLUDD if he airslashes above the ledge so look out for that. When I get in on Shulk I SH Dair OoS and land behind him (usually forces a roll).

Also don't roll around Shulk, his Dsmash will catch you.

 

[Maruigi]

I don't want to give a ratio on it but I'll say this much - Shulk's spaced Nair is very hard to deal with. That is Shulk's Bread and Butter. He kills unusually early with Smash (I was killed around 70%).

If he uses the Weight Monado or whatever it's called at high percents I camp fireballs because he is ridiculously slow and we outspeed him. Any damage is good damage.

Buster is very scary, so if you can try to wait until the Monado Art times out.

Also Shulk players tend to fish for kills when they are in Smash, so try to fake an approach for them to read and punish.

I throw fireballs as much as I can, oh and Shulk's Nair negates fireballs.

Edit : Not unwinnable, but not even. 6:4 sounds about right if a ratio HAD to be given.

We can gimp him hard with FLUDD if he airslashes above the ledge so look out for that. When I get in on Shulk I SH Dair OoS and land behind him (usually forces a roll).

Also don't roll around Shulk, his Dsmash will catch you.

I feel like his speed form leaves me helpless if he starts juggling me with his aerials, I'm not sure what to do against him to get kill pressure if he's in the air. I'm not reliably spiking him due to his Nair and Fair, Shulk's advancing Bair just cripples me and forces me to once again try to contest him off the ground which feels terrible for me.

I'm not the best of Mario players either though. If you guys have any tips for the match up in specific then I'd really appreciate them. I have been using Cape/Fludd to gimp him or my spike to kill him but I don't really have a kill move that reliably works otherwise. Can I space our UpSmash to outrange anything he has? I feel like I only can punish him when I shield one of his smash attacks.

And having my roll screwed over by his D-Smash is painful but I'm getting okay at dodging + perfect shielding the hits. I'm not saying the match up was impossible for me either, the last few games I started 2 stocking him but I feel like it was him playing worse then he was at the start rather then me learning and beating him purely out of skill.

On the other hand though when we have momentum and are comboing him I feel extremely strong, I've been able to rack up near 40-70% without being touched with downthrow/downtilt into double up tilt uair/fairs. And when he's on the ground I like to use Mario's d-tilt to force him to restand so I can continue beating on him.

I think the biggest thing might just be spacing my fireballs correctly when I'm going in for a landing so I can regain control of the ground?

I also like running off the edge of the stage and jumping back up with bair, it doesn't exactly give me a ton of % but every little bit counts.

 

[-Se7en-]

I feel like his speed form leaves me helpless if he starts juggling me with his aerials, I'm not sure what to do against him to get kill pressure if he's in the air. I'm not reliably spiking him due to his Nair and Fair, Shulk's advancing Bair just cripples me and forces me to once again try to contest him off the ground which feels terrible for me.

I'm not the best of Mario players either though. If you guys have any tips for the match up in specific then I'd really appreciate them. I have been using Cape/Fludd to gimp him or my spike to kill him but I don't really have a kill move that reliably works otherwise. Can I space our UpSmash to outrange anything he has? I feel like I only can punish him when I shield one of his smash attacks.

And having my roll screwed over by his D-Smash is painful but I'm getting okay at dodging + perfect shielding the hits. I'm not saying the match up was impossible for me either, the last few games I started 2 stocking him but I feel like it was him playing worse then he was at the start rather then me learning and beating him purely out of skill.

On the other hand though when we have momentum and are comboing him I feel extremely strong, I've been able to rack up near 40-70% without being touched with downthrow/downtilt into double up tilt uair/fairs. And when he's on the ground I like to use Mario's d-tilt to force him to restand so I can continue beating on him.

I think the biggest thing might just be spacing my fireballs correctly when I'm going in for a landing so I can regain control of the ground?

I also like running off the edge of the stage and jumping back up with bair, it doesn't exactly give me a ton of % but every little bit counts.

Don't roll towards him, if he jumps at you with speed chances are he isn't spacing it. Spot dodge the attack and follow up with up tilts (low percent) or some damage racking move (high Percents) or just plain kill him (kill percents).

If you keep punishing his mistakes he will either keep doing them or maybe change his style.

 

[TMario]

Any tips against Pikachu? He's so quick! I can't help but get rocked

 

[A2ZOMG]

Any tips against Pikachu? He's so quick! I can't help but get rocked

DI well and survive as long as possible. Throw fireballs, space a lot of aerials, and hope he runs into them. SAVE U-SMASH FOR KOs. If for any reason he D-smashes your shield, you can F-smash out of shield against that.

Honestly on paper Pikachu is pretty broken, and there's really not much you can do to abuse him especially on default settings. FLUDD might sometimes cause him to make a recovery mistake once in a while.

 

[BSP]

Bumping this to say that Ness has been harder for me than expected.

In neutral, we can't fireball for obvious reasons. Ness Fair > our anything except maybe Usmash, which is a bit more of a commitment than I'd like to make in neutral.

If you get grabbed at zero, he gets Dthrow -> Fair -> Fair -> possibly another Fair, and there is nothing you can do about it.

If you grab him at zero, you can't utilt chain because he'll nair out. You could mindgame for the grab I guess, but Ness gets so much more reward off of his grabs.

If you're in the air, with smart PK thunder use, he can juggle Mario, even though he has cape. Ness can bait out the cape with loops, and then hit Mario in the lag. Of course, PK thunder pulls you into him for safe Uairs after that. If you try to attack the thunder, Ness can just tailwhip you.

It's a frustrating fight imo.

 

[HeroMystic]

Ness definitely has the advantage over Mario, probably 4/6. Mario can handle him in neutral, but once Ness gets a grab on him he's pretty much juggle fodder.

Mario is pretty much done if he gets hit off-stage since he has no solid answer to PK Thunder and ultimately getting B-thrown.

 

[HeroMystic]

Taking on Mr. ConCon's Luigi convinced me that Luigi has a very solid advantage against Mario.

 

[BoTastic!]

Taking on Mr. ConCon's Luigi convinced me that Luigi has a very solid advantage against Mario.

I completely agree. I had to switch to Rob vs a Weege Player in tournament tonight. It's not fun with Mario.

 

[BSP]

Third that sentiment. I played against a good luigi at a local and it feels like a clear uphill battle. Had to go Pac-Man.

 

[A2ZOMG]

I believe on a custom environment we actually beat Luigi because Fast Fireballs and Gust Cape force him to play on Mario's terms, and we can still screw with even his custom boosted recovery with FLUDD and aforementioned Gust Cape. But you're only beating him by playing a really long game focused on running away from him and poking him until he dies to U-smash/B-throw.

 

[rabbit.soaring]

Hey. You guys probably don't know me, but I'm from the Zelda boards. We just started our Mario MU discussion, so if you wanna help head on over.

EDIT: Please? If you do I'll love you forever. In a platonic way.

 

[Slimeproductions]

Ok so I am new(last time I said this I did it in the wrong place but here it is)
I found this awesome thng to actually deflect the Villiger's tree,Lloyd,and bowling ball so all you do is time Mario's cape at the right time to deflect it (I discovered this in the demo of the 3ds version but now I have the full version so yay for me)

Works best on:omega stages

Note:I am working on how to make an unescapeable KO punch for little Mac

 

[rabbit.soaring]

Ok so I am new(last time I said this I did it in the wrong place but here it is)
I found this awesome thng to actually deflect the Villiger's tree,Lloyd,and bowling ball so all you do is time Mario's cape at the right time to deflect it (I discovered this in the demo of the 3ds version but now I have the full version so yay for me)

Works best on:omega stages

Note:I am working on how to make an unescapeable KO punch for little Mac

I'm pretty sure Dtilt > KO Punch is guaranteed

 

[Slimeproductions]

Ya but for some reason now I found how you much guaranteed you are for a perfect hit cause even if you hit someone with it you may not get a KO

 

[TriTails]

Hey guys.... I'm from Weegee boards. I have one thing to ask you all Mario mains and pros.

Please tell me, is FLUDD a little useless against Luigi's Green Missile?

I used to fight Lvl 9 Marios back then. I can say this, almost all the time he threw FLUDD and clash with my Green Missile, it sends Luigi UPWARDS.

Then I played online, and I have seen it again these days! Fully charged FLUDD + Fully charged Green Missile = Luigi got propelled upwards. Anybody know why the heck is this going on?

Because Marios I met that used FLUDD (Which are VERY rare), seem to gave me a vertical boost every time they spray me. Luigi was pushed backwards, but only slightly.

If FLUDD is true proven a little useless against Green Missile, this may affect their MU, although I doubt it, but I crave the answer!

 

[EZdelFresco]

Rosalina might be one of his toughest match-ups.

 

[BoTastic!]

I disagree, I find Shiek and Diddy to be much harder. I think Mario exploits Rosa's weakness pretty well when he gets in her space. She's still not very fast.

 

[HeroMystic]

I feel it's time to make a match-up index for this board. Shall I do the honors, or would someone like to take the reigns?

 

[Seth B.]

I disagree, I find Shiek and Diddy to be much harder. I think Mario exploits Rosa's weakness pretty well when he gets in her space. She's still not very fast.

I actually haven't had much trouble with Diddy. Sheik on the other hand has really given me a hard time. I think it's safe to say that most will switch to a secondary more suited to a sheik MU but I think the jury is still out on Diddy

EDIT: as far as Rosa goes it's totally dependent on the player for me. Sometimes I'll find ways around Luma and other times I'll get caught between a rock and a hard place

 

[A2ZOMG]

Rosa wins 55/45 mostly because her juggles are actually kinda stupid good against Mario, so it sucks getting to the ground against her. Otherwise we have a really easy time handling her in neutral with B-throw and D-air.

Vs Diddy is easy if for whatever dumb reason they let you live past the percents where Throw -> U-air kills you, then you can just play really defensively all day and kill him easily with rage boosted attacks, but otherwise that matchup sucks pretty hard due to his range and damage. 6/4 Diddy solidly imo.

Vs Sheik technically sucks a lot because well, she craps on everyone in neutral, Mario included. But you can duck under Needles, and if you survive her edgeguarding and don't let her get easy Smashes, Down-B gimps, or U-air KOs, then you can generally KO her earlier than the other way around with w/e. This can debatably be 55/45 Sheik depending on how well you avoid putting yourself in really bad situations where she can easily get KOs because unlike Diddy, she always has to work harder to actually end stocks.

I stand by Marth and Duck Hunt being among Mario's hardest matchups and no less than 6/4 in their favor. Marth mostly kills Mario easily when he's in control, while Mario really just doesn't have a real option against Duck Hunt's zoning and pokes.

 

[HeroMystic]

Sometimes I wonder if you think Mario players are just full dashing into stuff.

 

[A2ZOMG]

Sometimes I wonder if you think Mario players are just full dashing into stuff.

You evidently have forgotten how I play Mario and fighting games in general. I'm a very defensive player, and I also am very deliberate about intelligent move usage. It's why I've been very adamant about people using D-smash less, because it's bad in this game.

 

[HeroMystic]

You evidently have forgotten how I play Mario and fighting games in general. I'm a very defensive player, and I also am very deliberate about intelligent move usage. It's why I've been very adamant about people using D-smash less, because it's bad in this game.

I'll be frank. No one cares about how you play. All everyone cares about, especially in MU threads, is accurate information. If your playstyle does not account for Mario's strengths then you should either rethink your playstyle or rethink your character.

The deliberate fact that you constantly believe Mario is terrible in this game when he is clearly better shows to me that you don't know how to utilize Mario's strengths in this game. For one thing, Mario is not a character that utilizes defensive strategy very well. Mario is an aggressive character. He works on getting inside character's personal space and overwhelming them with his mobility and attack speed. His low range keeps him in check, and his lacking damage per hit makes it so he's not overpowering every character that isn't Sheik and Diddy with every hit.

I'm not gonna speak of Duck Hunt because I don't have much experience against him, but I do have some against Marth/Lucina and I'm more than willing to say he is not the hardest MU for the fact that he doesn't have the ability to wall us out and has no aggressive power whatsoever. As long as Mario isn't running into his aerials like a derp the MU is very winnable even though Marth has the advantage. Mario has to be patient and wait for openings (which Marth makes a lot if he commits to anything), and then once inside Mario has to press his advantage as far as it can go. What makes this difficult is Marth has Counter and he can disrespect Mario's aggression with it, so Mario can't be 100% aggressive since Marth has a way to immediately push the momentum back in his favor. We also can't cross-up D-air Marth's shield since Dolphin Slash is still awesome.

Marth is able to edgeguard Mario, but unless he's getting a D-air spike it's really difficult to defeat Mario's Up-B, and Marth can't go that deep because his horizontal recovery is not that strong. Marth can juggle Mario but honestly who doesn't? This is why the majority of Mario's just reset the situation by landing on the edge or going for the ledge, and mixing up with B-reverse Fireball and Fastfalling.

Marth is at worst 60/40 in Marth's favor. Lucina is probably 55/45 or 50/50 since she lacks Marth's tipper damage.

 

[A2ZOMG]

Mario is bad, but that is a different subject. And you explained exactly why I believe the Marth matchup is terrible for Mario. You really don't have good capitalization options against Marth when he uses all his defensive options. He forces Mario to play a lot more defensively in more situations because Marth can stop a lot of Mario's pressure options with Counter, UpB, and his range. Landing a Smash against Marth is more difficult than it is against most characters, and in this game, we have a much harder time edgeguarding him when ledge invincibility was reworked.

Marth doesn't wall us in this game. He just has a much, much better risk/reward and has much less trouble confirming KOs most of the time. You are forced to airdodge or UpB very early against Marth's sword most of the time when recovering against him. Also he can edgeguard deceptively deep when you factor that his UpB actually gets good distance, and his sword, meaning he can pressure Mario in positions where your only hope is him not covering Double Jump + Airdodge.

Now, Duck Hunt does legitimately wall Mario. Mario's short range and poor DA and Fair make him very vulnerable to being zoned by the can, which you can't really reflect. The Clay Pigeon also can't really be reflected, and Mario doesn't have a move that can easily out prioritize it. Throw in Duck Hunt's better pokes and quick Nair, he is very hard for Mario to fight period. Duck Hunt does have below average KO power and a punishable recovery, but Mario likely will not gimp him and needs to land either Smashes or Bthrow to KO, which can be hard to do safely. Neutral is so hard in this matchup that FLUDDing him to the ledge is probably one of the better things you can do in this matchup.

 

[meleebrawler]

No offense, but if you get completely walled by Duck Hunt projectiles it's more of a failure on the player's part
than it is the character really. Sure, reflecting doesn't give optimal results, but why do that when it's way easier
to just leap and maneuver around them. If he tries to anti-air with can just move back and then continue
pressing forward once it falls, since he won't be able to immediately kick it again. Duck Hunt's projectile
game has plenty of openings, especially with a character as mobile as Mario. Stop playing him like
Ganon and trying to turtle and muscle your way in.

And his attack speed is laughably slow compared to Mario. If he misses with almost anything with Mario close by there's a good chance he'll get punished. His tilts barely have more range than Mario's. He has good pokes in the air through Fair and Bair,
but they're very risky to use on ground opponents and have lag. So does Nair, especially if he lands in it. Uair
is his safest aerial, but also the lowest-ranged one and thus prone to being beaten by tornado, which sucks for him
since it's also one of his best kill moves. Plus, how is Duck Hunt hard to gimp? Grabbing the edge is the only
safe way he can come back if knocked far is to grab the edge. Good DH players may use the can to cover them,
but that isn't always available. Otherwise, you can hit them with almost anything when they use their up b. It's just
a matter of timing.

 

[HeroMystic]

And you explained exactly why I believe the Marth matchup is terrible for Mario. You really don't have good capitalization options against Marth when he uses all his defensive options. He forces Mario to play a lot more defensively in more situations because Marth can stop a lot of Mario's pressure options with Counter, UpB, and his range. Landing a Smash against Marth is more difficult than it is against most characters, and in this game, we have a much harder time edgeguarding him when ledge invincibility was reworked.

Marth doesn't wall us in this game. He just has a much, much better risk/reward and has much less trouble confirming KOs most of the time. You are forced to airdodge or UpB very early against Marth's sword most of the time when recovering against him. Also he can edgeguard deceptively deep when you factor that his UpB actually gets good distance, and his sword, meaning he can pressure Mario in positions where your only hope is him not covering Double Jump + Airdodge.

You overstate the difficulty of getting past Marth's defense. Mario isn't forced to play defensively, he's just forced to not auto-pilot from aerial to aerial and he has to respect his options. Marth can Counter, attack, air dodge, or land on the ground. Three out of the Four of those options are beaten with Shield as an overall option. Landing on the ground is beaten by literally everything else. While Mario does have to guess what Marth is going to do, it's the same vise versa, and if Marth guesses wrong that is a substantial reward for Mario. If Marth guesses right he just resets the situation, because again he has no aggressive power in this game. The only legitimate thing he has against Mario is during neutrals, and that just means Mario has to be patient. We may not be able to hit him during the time but so can't Marth, and we have both fireballs and FLUDD to create opportunities without needlessly taking risks (and FLUDD does an amazing job at creating openings). Marth's defense is not difficult to get around. That's not even what gives him the advantage. What gives him the advantage is his damage and KO power with his tip mechanics.

Whenever Marth attempts to edgeguard you deep, if he can even do that at the intensity of what you say, you can FLUDD him and there isn't anything he can do about it. If he's below you as if he's going to DJ then edgeguard, you have the easiest time in the world because you can just fireball and DJ over him and to safety. Cape stalling and Up-B's absurd speed still exists as well.

No offense, but if you get completely walled by Duck Hunt projectiles it's more of a failure on the player's part
than it is the character really. Sure, reflecting doesn't give optimal results, but why do that when it's way easier
to just leap and maneuver around them. If he tries to anti-air with can just move back and then continue
pressing forward once it falls, since he won't be able to immediately kick it again. Duck Hunt's projectile
game has plenty of openings, especially with a character as mobile as Mario. Stop playing him like
Ganon and trying to turtle and muscle your way in.

I also want to say you can hit the can back at Duck Hunt and even better you can do it with fireballs. At that point DHD has to physically hit the can to send it anywhere. And I don't see how FLUDDing DHD off the stage should be taken as a negative.

 

[A2ZOMG]

No offense, but if you get completely walled by Duck Hunt projectiles it's more of a failure on the player's part
than it is the character really. Sure, reflecting doesn't give optimal results, but why do that when it's way easier
to just leap and maneuver around them. If he tries to anti-air with can just move back and then continue
pressing forward once it falls, since he won't be able to immediately kick it again. Duck Hunt's projectile
game has plenty of openings, especially with a character as mobile as Mario. Stop playing him like
Ganon and trying to turtle and muscle your way in.

And his attack speed is laughably slow compared to Mario. If he misses with almost anything with Mario close by there's a good chance he'll get punished. His tilts barely have more range than Mario's. He has good pokes in the air through Fair and Bair,
but they're very risky to use on ground opponents and have lag. So does Nair, especially if he lands in it. Uair
is his safest aerial, but also the lowest-ranged one and thus prone to being beaten by tornado, which sucks for him
since it's also one of his best kill moves. Plus, how is Duck Hunt hard to gimp? Grabbing the edge is the only
safe way he can come back if knocked far is to grab the edge. Good DH players may use the can to cover them,
but that isn't always available. Otherwise, you can hit them with almost anything when they use their up b. It's just
a matter of timing.

Jumping is a very good idea against Duck Hunt when you can contest none of his aerials directly and he basically gets a free grab if he positions correctly. If Mario had scary aerials to deal with, this would not be a terrible matchup, but he doesn't. You also seem to fail to realize that you just stated that Duck Hunt reliably takes away stage control from Mario by just simply throwing the can. That is precisely why the matchup is bad.

His attack speed is laughably slow compared to Mario's? Not sure where you get that. Most of his moves, even his Smashes on average range around 8 frames startup, and his Jab is 4 frames but has good range that can compete with someone like Ike's Jab. His tilts are not unsafe on block, and have better range and damage than Mario's. More importantly, he has very fast aerials including his 6 frame N-air and 7 frame F-air/B-air and 6 frame U-air. His slowest moves are F-smash at 12 frames, which has really massive range and has to be respected, and D-air which is 14 frames but beats a lot of aerials directly.

One thing you should keep in mind is that Duck Hunt is extremely short, which makes it very difficult for Mario to space against him. Against short characters, you would ideally prefer to get in on the ground, but Duck Hunt makes that extremely difficult because the can and Clay Pigeon troll that really hard.

Yes as I stated, Duck Hunt's recovery is punishable, but Mario has a problem in that most of his options for punishing it don't hit very hard. His best chance of KOing Duck Hunt offstage is by stage spiking, which isn't guaranteed fundamentally. More often, you will have to score KOs onstage because eventually he will get back to the stage after you edgeguard him.

I also want to say you can hit the can back at Duck Hunt and even better you can do it with fireballs. At that point DHD has to physically hit the can to send it anywhere. And I don't see how FLUDDing DHD off the stage should be taken as a negative.

The can COUNTERS fireballs, just to clarify, and so do most of Duck Hunt's specials in general. Also moving up to hit the can is particularly dangerous when you factor short range, meaning your spacing has to be very precise for that to be an option.

 

[meleebrawler]

Well, OK, when I said that Duck Hunt's moves were slower, I meant their end lag was worse than Mario's.
Especially the smashes. He can't throw out moves safely like Mario can up close. His aerials are very
useful to him if he uses them properly, but, contrary to what you may believe, Mario's air game is
much more threatening, not because of the damage his aerials do, but how fast they are, Fair aside (is reverse
aerial rush not a thing?) When Mario gets in, Duck Hunt has a lot of trouble getting away, short of self-destructing
with the can.

Honestly, I think playing Ganon is giving you skewed perceptions on what threatening aerials should be.
What kind of damage should Mario's have without invalidating or buffing Luigi's moves to insane levels?

So his can counters fireballs? Well, what can Duck Hunt do hiding behind a can at any
reasonable distance? Discs are blocked by can and so is the gunman. It's a stalemate at worst for Mario.

So yes, Duck Hunt's neutral game is better than Mario's, but for a smart Mario is definitely far from impossible
to overcome.

 

[A2ZOMG]

Mario's Smashes are also unsafe on block so...no I don't see why you made that point.

Mario has to play fairly respectfully against Duck Hunt's aerials when juggling, and Clay Pigeon also can safely stop a lot of aggression when chasing him. Duck Hunt primarily has trouble in the negative state offstage and when above characters with disjointed aerials. Mario can beat or trade with Dair with Usmash, but he doesn't have many other good KO options in this matchup.

You argue RAR Bair is an option against one of the shortest characters in the game. I disagree because it is clearly not very safe except in specific circumstances. More important is when being juggled or edgeguarded, you aren't easily going to have Bair available to space with either. Also for the record, I believe Duck Hunt is also extremely difficult for Ganon because similarly, his aerials are bad against short characters. Neither of them have strong approaches.

Mario needs frame data buffs above anything else, when his combos are currently both character and percent specific, and overall less frame tight than things other characters have. Dsmash, Nair, and Uair should do 1 more damage. With those changes, his punishes not named Usmash wouldn't be laughable. More important is not being very frame tight on strings.

Vs Duck Hunt I believe is made more tolerable with customs, with Shocking Cape and Fast Fireballs. Shocking Cape actually eliminates projectiles and serves as a disjointed aerial. Fast Fireballs are self explanatory.

 

[meleebrawler]

How the heck does Duck Hunt's slow as **** Dair beat
any of Mario's aerial assaults? He'd have much better luck trying that
quick Nair you mentioned.

When you say better frame data, do you mean more hitstun on attacks? Because
it's stated again and again that Mario's moves are among the fastest in the game, outdone
only by his brother. Seriously, if you're looking for awesome combos just
play Luigi. You're asking for things that exist in different characters because
it makes each more unique. Mario might not have tons of guaranteed followups that lead to big
damage, but his mobility and attack speed give him more opportunities to strike
than you'd think. Duck Hunt is all around slower moving than the plumber, meaning it
can be quite difficult for the mutt to regain control without a well-placed attack.