Marth Dos and Don'ts

[DariusM27]

Just a quicklist for possible newcomers to Marth, from my personal opinion.

-Never play with lag online. If you do, don't be near loved ones for the next 4 to 8 hours, until rage wears off. It's not worth it, just jump off.

-Never play ballstothewall aggressive only or super mega campy only with Marth. You are not safe whan you are always "forced" to approach, and you are not safe when they approach constantly while you apply no pressure.
You are safest when they are forced to keep guessing.
If they camp, just play hard to get or hide off the ledge or something, and hope you can catch them off guard.
Even if it's Diddy or Pika jumping circles around you, play hard to get to try and frustrate them into some kind of opening, because you may not get one otherwise if they are very good.
If they are mega aggressive, that's kind of in your favor, if you make the right decisions.

-Never spam dash short hop fair. It will leave you wide open to getting clobbered, hard.

-Input errors, Wiffed punishes, SDs, and miss spaced attacks and landings - WILL result in a loss. You're either doing things right, or you're probably losing badly.

-This one is the most obvious, but never ever falling fair right into someone's shield grab range. Stay as close to tip range as possible, or reverse momentum with neutral b, use jump to evade, fastfall, roll, land into grab, spotdodge, ect.

-Never let off the pressure, unless they are camping you out with superb effectiveness, as I said before. Try to always have a "safely" spaced tip in their face, go for grabs/pivot grabs, be on point with your shield/dodge game.

-Don't neglect using shieldbreaker, especially if you've tact on some shield damage with your tips. It can be used in so many ways to mix up the opponent.

-Don't be afraid to take calculated risks. Sometimes your only oppening is a hard read dash pivot grab, dash neutral b, or dash turning side b.

-If possible, do an unexpected counter every now and then to keep them guessing, but don't use counter at the expense of a much safer and more tactically effective option.

-Occasionally try charging dsmash, usmash, or fsmash to catch counter attempts (Freaking Bayo)

-Master Fsmash. It's Marth's trump card, his chance to even the game in an instant when he's down. If you don't have Fsmash, you don't have anything, imo.

-Learn every possible thing Marth can do from ground to air, and air to ground. There's a situation for every move he has. Using his air/ground options well, and smartly and patiently navigating the neutral, is somewhat Marth's only ticket to having a chance against very good top tier players.

-If the oppenent tends to use airdodge, abuse the heck out of that. Wait for airdodges and punish. If they don't airdodge, chase aggressively, corner, and attack. Or dash into shield and react, based on the situation.

If anyone has anything to add to this list, go for it.

*Edit* adding more suggestions below.



-Don't expect to beat opponents out by walking up to them into shield, spacing ftilt, dtilt, nair, sh fairs, and jab, and expecting to be able to react safely into a spot dodge, shield, or jump. Some characters can do this (Sheik, Cloud), Marth can't.
As indicated before, you simply can't stay stationary when using Marth, against most of the cast.
One of ZeRo's recent vids where he's talking about his fiance', he is basically taking this approach with Marth, and it fails magnificently.
I think a good "safe" reset neutral space for marth is JUUUST outside the dash attack/dash grab range of your opponent, and you should advance and retreat to this space.
Walking up is definitely a good option sometimes, but it easily puts you at high risk.
But that distance should usually allow for you to keep the pressure up while also not getting eaten alive by chars with better frame data. A well timed ftilt from this distance is often well rewarded against dash happy characters.

-Below there is a comment about optimizing rising nair and nair spacing in general. CHECK IT OUT! It's pretty great.

 

[grooveninja]

"Never play with lag online. If you do, don't be near loved ones for the next 4 to 8 hours, until rage wears off. It's not worth it, just jump off."

This is true. I can never do the things I intend to with Marth like I can with Ike online with lag.

Thanks for this list!

 

[DKGrayson]

Awesome post dude.

Has made me realise that I do more than one of those things in some form or another!

Do like the charged f smash to bait counters recently, especially vs FG Corrin!

 

[BaPTraPLaP]

Just a quicklist for possible newcomers to Marth, from my personal opinion.

-Never play with lag online. If you do, don't be near loved ones for the next 4 to 8 hours, until rage wears off. It's not worth it, just jump off.
That is just basic smash advice. Don't see how it specifically pertains to Marth. By the way rage only wears off when you finally lose that stock.

-Never play ballstothewall aggressive only or super mega campy only with Marth. You are not safe whan you are always "forced" to approach, and you are not safe when they approach constantly while you apply no pressure.
So mix it up know when to apply pressure and when not to.
You are safest when they are forced to keep guessing.
So mix it up...
If they camp, just play hard to get or hide off the ledge or something, and hope you can catch them off guard.
Camping ledge it just a bad option especially as Marth this game's neutral is mainly about stage control don't give it up just in hopes of catching them off guard.
Even if it's Diddy or Pika jumping circles around you, play hard to get to try and frustrate them into some kind of opening,
So baiting...
because you may not get one otherwise if they are very good.
What...? If they are good they won't fall for baits they won't give you an opening.
If they are mega aggressive, that's kind of in your favor, if you make the right decisions.
Good job. But to be honest I rather play a shiek or fox that doesn't run all over me.

-Never spam dash short hop fair. It will leave you wide open to getting clobbered, hard.
Not really at tipper distance it is pretty hard to punish just spamming the same option in neutral is a bad idea.

-Input errors, Wiffed punishes, SDs, and miss spaced attacks and landings - WILL result in a loss. You're either doing things right, or you're probably losing badly.
Yeah input errors sort of screw any player over.

-This one is the most obvious, but never ever falling fair right into someone's shield grab range. Stay as close to tip range as possible, or reverse momentum with neutral b, use jump to evade, fastfall, roll, land into grab, spotdodge, ect.
Marth is about spacing. Shield pressure in general is about spacing. B-reversing in their face is not a good option for marth shield breaker has too much lag. Yes empty hops are good.
-Never let off the pressure, unless they are camping you out with superb effectiveness, as I said before. Try to always have a "safely" spaced tip in their face, go for grabs/pivot grabs, be on point with your shield/dodge game.
Marth is a zoning, spacing character. His pressure is perfectly spaced moves.

-Don't neglect using shieldbreaker, especially if you've tact on some shield damage with your tips. It can be used in so many ways to mix up the opponent.
Yes mix ups can be good or they can be bad. Shield breaker is really more an option to say "stop sitting in shield." But more so a proper spacing tool. As at tipper distance it is rather safe unless power shielded.
-Don't be afraid to take calculated risks. Sometimes your only oppening is a hard read dash pivot grab, dash neutral b, or dash turning side b.
Reads should be based off of noticing habits in your opponents. Pick up on your opponents habits then read them. Calculated risks should have more reward. I prefer tipper forward smashes.

-If possible, do an unexpected counter every now and then to keep them guessing, but don't use counter at the expense of a much safer and more tactically effective option.
Counter is really a good edge-guarding tool. A better combo breaker option is up-b. Both leave you pretty open. Again every move can be good as a mix up.

-Occasionally try charging dsmash, usmash, or fsmash to catch counter attempts (Freaking Bayo)
Counter mix ups only apply to five characters in the game three that don't use their counter that much at all.
-Master Fsmash. It's Marth's trump card, his chance to even the game in an instant when he's down. If you don't have Fsmash, you don't have anything, imo.
Yes a smash attack is good to master. The entire move set of a character is good to master. Marth is what you want to master not f-smash.

-Learn every possible thing Marth can do from ground to air, and air to ground. There's a situation for every move he has. Using his air/ground options well, and smartly and patiently navigating the neutral, is somewhat Marth's only ticket to having a chance against very good top tier players.
See you even say it here! But this advice I can't really find anything wrong with.

-If the oppenent tends to use airdodge, abuse the heck out of that. Wait for airdodges and punish. If they don't airdodge, chase aggressively, corner, and attack. Or dash into shield and react, based on the situation.
Yes reading air dodges is good. Dashing in to shield limits your options. The only time you should go into shield is if they land with a hit box on top of you. In smash 4 you are at a major advantage with your opponents above you.
If anyone has anything to add to this list, go for it.

Yes I just want to say I don't believe this deserves an entire thread.
Edit: Sorry forgot to add my reasons.
Some of this is just general smash advice.
Most of this is saying mix up your options. Mix ups are not good options. They are something to do so you are not spamming the same options.
You want to know stuff about marth read a guide, learn marth, and practice. This situational advice can help in some specific cases.

 

[DariusM27]

Yes I just want to say I don't believe this deserves an entire thread.
Edit: Sorry forgot to add my reasons.
Some of this is just general smash advice.
Most of this is saying mix up your options. Mix ups are not good options. They are something to do so you are not spamming the same options.
You want to know stuff about marth read a guide, learn marth, and practice. This situational advice can help in some specific cases.

I'm adding more suggestions in the original post.

Of course people can read a guide and practice, but there's no inter-dialogue there, at least not in the public threads section. I'm using this thread to have direct discussions with fellow Marth players about 1.1.4 strategies, and share/pool current meta strategies of Marth from other players, and talk about what seems to work now and what doesn't.
I feel like it's wasting space talking about whether or not a thread is wasting space, especially since a few people already said they've benefited from the post. Isn't that what Smashboards is about :/

 

[MeteorSpike]

when in doubt, f.smash!
give them the 'for glory' special
*also, up-taunt to f.smash is a combo: the taunt dulls their ability to reason, leaving them open to attack

always land with d.air
it looks so cool when it spikes that you will become the local town hero

don't bother edgeguarding; when someone's offstage, just walk up to the ledge and mash that d.tilt
it's bound to hit someday

always horribly misspace and mistime those rushed u.air attempts after a throw
the sight will be so jarring that it will stun your rivals to the point of being dumbfounded and unable to fight you any longer

please don't actually do any of this

 

[Vipermoon]

By this way, this is False's Marth that I talked about. He isn't a Marth main, you probably heard of False of course though I'm not sure if you did.

The Fox wasn't aggressive enough. He didn't try as hard as he should have to punish landings, didn't empty short hop/full hop fast fall enough to bait&punish, and did some other things wrong but yeah, I really like False's Marth. He uses Tilt stick btw, and Mr. E as well said on Twitter I think 2 weeks ago that he switched to C stick attack and is working on adapting to it.

__________________________________________________________________________
I'm not a fan of some of the advice.

- Counter is for edgeguarding and for when something reactable (slow move, projectile) is coming at you and/or you'd like to invincible. You should otherwise throw it out after reads. If you're sure you opponent will do something, throw it out once, expect that they will adapt after that so don't do it again in the same situation. Maybe add an edgeguarding and single read only disclaimer?

- Absolutely don't try charging his laggiest moves hoping the other player is incompetent. This honestly sounds like a guide for winning in FG in its current state rather than a guide for getting good with Marth.

- In the shield grab range bullet point, mention that cross-ing up the shield is really good. It's making your opponent think you're doing something unsafe. False in the video does this a few times when coming from the ledge and landing in general.

- Master Fsmash, yes. Randomly throw it out. No. You aren't saying randomly throw it out when you're losing, but it's either implied or you're not saying to not do it (depends on what the reader thinks lol). Maybe mention that Fsmash is a punish move, period. It punishes something. Roll, spot dodge, something laggy on shield, air dodge, edge stuff, whatever. In that way, it's a trump card. Having a punish that fast-ish and powerful is a trump card.

 

[DariusM27]

By this way, this is False's Marth that I talked about. He isn't a Marth main, you probably heard of False of course though I'm not sure if you did.

The Fox wasn't aggressive enough. He didn't try as hard as he should have to punish landings, didn't empty short hop/full hop fast fall enough to bait&punish, and did some other things wrong but yeah, I really like False's Marth. He uses Tilt stick btw, and Mr. E as well said on Twitter I think 2 weeks ago that he switched to C stick attack and is working on adapting to it.

__________________________________________________________________________
I'm not a fan of some of the advice.

- Counter is for edgeguarding and for when something reactable (slow move, projectile) is coming at you and/or you'd like to invincible. You should otherwise throw it out after reads. If you're sure you opponent will do something, throw it out once, expect that they will adapt after that so don't do it again in the same situation. Maybe add an edgeguarding and single read only disclaimer?

- Absolutely don't try charging his laggiest moves hoping the other player is incompetent. This honestly sounds like a guide for winning in FG in its current state rather than a guide for getting good with Marth.

- In the shield grab range bullet point, mention that cross-ing up the shield is really good. It's making your opponent think you're doing something unsafe. False in the video does this a few times when coming from the ledge and landing in general.

- Master Fsmash, yes. Randomly throw it out. No. You aren't saying randomly throw it out when you're losing, but it's either implied or you're not saying to not do it (depends on what the reader thinks lol). Maybe mention that Fsmash is a punish move, period. It punishes something. Roll, spot dodge, something laggy on shield, air dodge, edge stuff, whatever. In that way, it's a trump card. Having a punish that fast-ish and powerful is a trump card.

Situationally, charging a smash attack can be the best possible kill option. It's a tactic used by pros, occasionally. Ryo comes to mind. Obviously only if you have a very good read. Certainly not a spamable strategy. People do fall for it though, even good players. It's just a hard read, and perhaps not even that if you know your opponent's quirks :/

You mentioned the cross up shield thing, so that should do for people who want to read the thread. I said other people should add whatever they want.

Fsmash is not only just a punish move period, imo. It's a crazy powerful kill move that comes out really fast for how strong it is. If you only use it as a punish move, then it isn't being used optimally.
It can be great anti air, if you have the timing down.
Just don't wiff it or use it mindlessly, obviously.
Dash to dash cancel tipper fsmash can do wonders, given the right time and spacing. Nair 1 to fsmash is a legit string worth using, and true combos around 85% or less with any rage at all.

These are my suggestions on Marth, feel free to add your different view or disagree, but it's kind of pointless to argue over vauge generalities while conflating them with specific situations, since there may be a situation for just about anything. Like, walk up slowly, and down smash, lol.

 

[Vipermoon]

I guess my definition for punish move is more broad. If you're in the air within tipper Fsmash range and you get Fsmashed, you're technically being punished I guess...?

But yes, combo into tipper Fsmash is another thing. The move that came before the Fsmash is the punish.

 

[grooveninja]

While not quoting posts because I'm on mobile, just want to mention that yes all the opinions here helped me, even the ones that disagree with the main post. I feel that they all kind of encourage me to see what advice works for my play style and what advice is better left for someone else.

Since not all players have the same playstyle and not all players agree with each other, this "general advice/opinions on marth" thread could be used to help an aspiring marth player to come up with his own play style.

.... Of course this is just my opinion XD

But seriously thanks everyone for the info I'm learning alot here

 

[SirLink]

By this way, this is False's Marth that I talked about. He isn't a Marth main, you probably heard of False of course though I'm not sure if you did.

The Fox wasn't aggressive enough. He didn't try as hard as he should have to punish landings, didn't empty short hop/full hop fast fall enough to bait&punish, and did some other things wrong but yeah, I really like False's Marth. He uses Tilt stick btw, and Mr. E as well said on Twitter I think 2 weeks ago that he switched to C stick attack and is working on adapting to it.

False's Marth is looking better than ever. He got a lot from Up-B out of shield in this set. Reminded me that it's something I need to do more often. I don't do it as often as I should because I sometimes mess up the reverse Up-B to punish behind me, like at 0:24 in this set. Now if only we had your Up-B fixes, it would be so lovely.

The way False ended the set was just pure hype. I knew he was going to go for it after the Jab->Dtilt. What is this, Melee?

I bet I'm not the only one who cringed so hard when one of the commentators was like "Dthrow->Upair connecting now thanks to the new patch."....and that was at low percents too, not the "kill confirm" that so many people think we have now.

 

[Vipermoon]

False's Marth is looking better than ever. He got a lot from Up-B out of shield in this set. Reminded me that it's something I need to do more often. I don't do it as often as I should because I sometimes mess up the reverse Up-B to punish behind me, like at 0:24 in this set. Now if only we had your Up-B fixes, it would be so lovely.

The way False ended the set was just pure hype. I knew he was going to go for it after the Jab->Dtilt. What is this, Melee?

I bet I'm not the only one who cringed so hard when one of the commentators was like "Dthrow->Upair connecting now thanks to the new patch."....and that was at low percents too, not the "kill confirm" that so many people think we have now.

A reply to each of your paragraphs:

This^

This^

And this^

 

[DariusM27]

A comment relevant to the thread "Do's and Don'ts"
-This comment explains how to connect both hits of rising nair, on characters as short as Diddy or taller, starting from 0%!
I realized something very important about our nair.
I knew for a while now rising nair works best from a walk, not a run.

Basically, before I was running towards opponent, connecting perhaps a bit of the first hit, but then missing the second hit until around 60% or so.

That is because once I input the nair, I then DI'd through the opponent. Simply don't DI at all until both hits of nair connect.

So, if you want to connect both hits of nair, and you have the time and spacing, all you have to do is - walk or run towards opponent - let go of the DI/Analog stick just BEFORE you jump towards opponent into rising nair - don't DI AT ALL until after both hits connect.

This really helped my control of nair a lot! I'm sure some of you guys already knew this, but just sharing just in case other's didn't know, like I didn't

Edit*
There is also a way to connect both hits without having to let go of DI/analog stock before the jump, so basically, being able to run towards opponent and jump straight into rising nair to connect both hits at 0%.
So, here's how it works.
If you don't let go of DI to stop the run before jumping, then right after you input nair, you need to instantly DI the opposite direction.

This method may be more difficult to make as consistent, but it can work just as well as the other method once mastered, I think.

Plus, DIing away may be the safe option in many cases anyway, such as if they shield your approach. Cool stuff!

Doing rising nair still doesn't always connect, like if the first hit connects on a fastfaller like Roy at 0%, the second will miss, until 30%. And you could just connect the second hit instead, intentionally missing the first. But using nair this way is definitely a great way to make rising nair work on grounded opponents.

It also seems to wiff more often when the opponets hitboxes are lowered due to walking and running, for obvious reasons

I'd definitely say that the second input method is superior than the first, for many reasons. It works out of shield in close quarters combat, and the first input method really doesn't work as well without some space. And the second input method has the nice defensive retreating di.

To add another option, running - letting go of DI before jumping into rising nair - instantly DIing away, also has a very nice/most effective retreating effect.


**Extra Edit - If you have rage, rising nair works on even fastfallers! Yay!



-On a related note, and similar to what I said in the original post, but just to state for emphasis, don't run into sh falling nair hardly at all, as that can be shield grabbed or punished easily enough. Instead, perhaps run, then DI away, then falling nair, so that you are falling straight down instead of into the opponent.




Going to the video that was posted, he uses Marth pretty solid, up till Fox starts jabbing against his shield. He waits until the kicks are over, drops shield, and fsmashes. A simple reverse dash cancel fsmash would have sealed the stock, and the spacing was clearly too close and needed to be further back. That's a missed free ko, clearly.

He makes the same mistake later when he misses an easy pivot fsmash and dash attack input error instead, probably because he's using tilt cstick setting. If he insists on using that button layout, and he isn't 100% consistent with pivot fsmash, he should go for a bair or reverse neutral b.

But I agree, the Fox really wasn't playing optimally, not good offense or defense by any means.

And that KO at the end was totally a YOLO "It's the last stock and I'm way ahead so let's see if this works" nonsense. Lol.

 

[Vipermoon]

I looked at the youtube channel more and apparently Mr. E was at the same tourney.

him vs False using a much better character... Ryu
him vs Dugan in LF (right before False's match that I already posted) and it looks like False is next to him coaching. This is the real Fox MU. It's freakin tough. He spends the whole set playing catch up, even when he gets stocks or takes a game, it's not convincing. Oh and Mr. E switches to Smash stick mid set, nothing really changes.

The next week False isn't there and Mr. E sticks with tilt stick:
winners finals
grands
Doesn't do much better. It's really tough to time these edgeguards and you can't get it every time. But wouldn't this be so much easier if you get the edge guards!? I'd say the single biggest (non-player) issue is Marth's lack of inner hitboxes. You can't even trade with this stuff.

Edit: this isn't the point of this post but with False being a better player in general (they faced eachother, False won. Then they faced the same guy, False won), I'd say hands down False is the best Marth

 

[DariusM27]

I looked at the youtube channel more and apparently Mr. E was at the same tourney.

him vs False using a much better character... Ryu
him vs Dugan in LF (right before False's match that I already posted) and it looks like False is next to him coaching. This is the real Fox MU. It's freakin tough. He spends the whole set playing catch up, even when he gets stocks or takes a game, it's not convincing. Oh and Mr. E switches to Smash stick mid set, nothing really changes.

The next week False isn't there and Mr. E sticks with tilt stick:
winners finals
grands
Doesn't do much better. It's really tough to time these edgeguards and you can't get it every time. But wouldn't this be so much easier if you get the edge guards!? I'd say the single biggest (non-player) issue is Marth's lack of inner hitboxes. You can't even trade with this stuff.

Edit: this isn't the point of this post but with False being a better player in general (they faced eachother, False won. Then they faced the same guy, False won), I'd say hands down False is the best Marth

Mr E might have been rusty because he'd been using Sheik a lot lately.

 

[DariusM27]

A comment relevant to the thread "Do's and Don'ts"
-This comment explains how to connect both hits of rising nair, on characters as short as Diddy or taller, starting from 0%!
I realized something very important about our nair.
I knew for a while now rising nair works best from a walk, not a run.

Basically, before I was running towards opponent, connecting perhaps a bit of the first hit, but then missing the second hit until around 60% or so.

That is because once I input the nair, I then DI'd through the opponent. Simply don't DI at all until both hits of nair connect.

So, if you want to connect both hits of nair, and you have the time and spacing, all you have to do is - walk or run towards opponent - let go of the DI/Analog stick just BEFORE you jump towards opponent into rising nair - don't DI AT ALL until after both hits connect.

This really helped my control of nair a lot! I'm sure some of you guys already knew this, but just sharing just in case other's didn't know, like I didn't

Edit*
There is also a way to connect both hits without having to let go of DI/analog stock before the jump, so basically, being able to run towards opponent and jump straight into rising nair to connect both hits at 0%.
So, here's how it works.
If you don't let go of DI to stop the run before jumping, then right after you input nair, you need to instantly DI the opposite direction.

This method may be more difficult to make as consistent, but it can work just as well as the other method once mastered, I think.

Plus, DIing away may be the safe option in many cases anyway, such as if they shield your approach. Cool stuff!

Doing rising nair still doesn't always connect, like if the first hit connects on a fastfaller like Roy at 0%, the second will miss, until 30%. And you could just connect the second hit instead, intentionally missing the first. But using nair this way is definitely a great way to make rising nair work on grounded opponents.

It also seems to wiff more often when the opponets hitboxes are lowered due to walking and running, for obvious reasons

I'd definitely say that the second input method is superior than the first, for many reasons. It works out of shield in close quarters combat, and the first input method really doesn't work as well without some space. And the second input method has the nice defensive retreating di.

To add another option, running - letting go of DI before jumping into rising nair - instantly DIing away, also has a very nice/most effective retreating effect.


-On a related note, and similar to what I said in the original post, but just to state for emphasis, don't run into sh falling nair hardly at all, as that can be shield grabbed or punished easily enough. Instead, perhaps run, then DI away, then falling nair, so that you are falling straight down instead of into the opponent.




Going to the video that was posted, he uses Marth pretty solid, up till Fox starts jabbing against his shield. He waits until the kicks are over, drops shield, and fsmashes. A simple reverse dash cancel fsmash would have sealed the stock, and the spacing was clearly too close and needed to be further back. That's a missed free ko, clearly.

He makes the same mistake later when he misses an easy pivot fsmash and dash attack input error instead, probably because he's using tilt cstick setting. If he insists on using that button layout, and he isn't 100% consistent with pivot fsmash, he should go for a bair or reverse neutral b.

But I agree, the Fox really wasn't playing optimally, not good offense or defense by any means.

And that KO at the end was totally a YOLO "It's the last stock and I'm way ahead so let's see if this works" nonsense. Lol.

Here is a ditto where I use the input described above. Along with some otherwise sloppy play.

Edit - I did some testing today, found out that if Marth has rage, it works even more consistently, even on fastfallers. Updated and edited original post.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVbjqj8wylQ

 

[DariusM27]

-Another interesting thing I came across. Another "Do" to add to the list.

-Before 1.1.4, sh db1 to arial attk (short hop dancing blade) timing was slightly different. Since the db was buffed to be 1 frame faster across the board, Marth's db comes out quicker, and causes him to be slightly lower to the ground.
Being lower to the ground may cause you to miss follow up attacks you may otherwise have gotten.
But I realized today that if you go for a somewhat full hop db1 instead, it seems to cover more area, makes marth move further upward and forward, hits opponent with the bottom of the initial blade, and then allows for good offensive or evasive options, relative to sh db.
Maybe sh db is best in very close quarters, or as an out of shield option, but as an advancing/aggressive option, I am liking the full hop db

That's just me.

Another small thing is that close quarters sh db1 pushes opponents away at the very base of the attk, right next to Marth, and seems space well into nair1 or fair, whereas before patch it tended to push them out of range entirely, so Marth isn't punished as severely in this way for base hit jump db1s anymore, which is a plus.

 

[DariusM27]

I made a video showcasing some movement options that Marth has.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXbuNwNeW5I

0.01 Turning jabs
0.14 Dash jabs dash attk without crouchcancl
0.24 Dash jab reverse jab
0.36 Dash dtilt watch smoke dissipate or Dash attk
0.55 Dash dtilt perfect pivot dtilt, repeat 1.03 Dash utilts. Sliding dash utilts, jab, and dtilts
1.25 Retreating jabs and dtilts 2.10 Retreating dash infinite walk approach option
2.20 Nair1 dtilt, retreating jab Now I'll talk about each move in detail.

Marth takes more time and frames to dash into shield than many other characters. Marth's dash into shield...sucks, in a relative sense.

This limits his neutral game in more ways than I can list right now.

This video is an attempt to make up for his inability to dash into quick attacks out of shield, by instead dashing into attacks as fast as Marth can and using spacing and sword disjoint to project him.

These ground movements are optimized for speed and mobility.

They are almost all seldom used movement input options, because the chance inputting a mistaken dash attack is high if you haven't practiced and mastered them. Please excuse the input error dash attacks I did.

Dash jab can help gain frame advantage, and used in this way can create constant offensive and defensive pressure.

Considering it's one of Marth's fastest, safe, and more effective moves, it pays off to be able to input it fast.

The key to doing dash jab is to
1. quickly tap and release dash,
2. Watch the dash smoke dissipate and/or use dash sound as timing reference
3. Input a crouch and release it (crouch cancelling)
4. Jab If you don't input a crouch after dashing, the chance of doing a dash attack is much higher.

Same input principle applies to dash dtilt, make sure to tap and release dash, or you will mis-input dash attacks like I did a few times

This is why I'm sharing this video. To point out that these inputs might not be intuitive or commonly used, but they can create advantages for Marth once mastered. And he needs everything he can get.

These are the fastest ways to use consecutive moving jabs and dtilts. Many Marths dash into shield to space his jabs and tilts, and other Marths exclusively use walking to set up his jabs and tilts.

The way I did dtilt Dash perfect pivot dtilt was as follows. (controller set to a+b = smash)

1. Dtilt with A while almost simultaneously inputing B, continue holding both buttons
2. Dash back.
3. Dash back again and tap C stick the opposite direction of the dash, to create a perfect pivot
4. Release buttons, do a dtilt, repeat.

You definitely don't have to do this the way I did, there's probably more ways of doing it. This way just works for me.

Sliding after a dash has a small window where you can buffer input a 'sliding' utilt, jab, or dtilt.

I feel this can give a tactical advantage, instead of all the frames it takes to shield, drop shield, and then use one of these moves.

Retreating Jabs and dtilts are input as follows.
1.Tap and release dash
2. Watch dash cloud dissipate
3. Buffer turn into walk
4. Jab or dtilt, (or shield, utilt, ftilt, ect)

Retreating movements can really help Marth make up for the fact that other characters out class him, as you can using the stage to position yourself and lead the opponent into your range.

As with retreating jabs, the retreating dash to infinite walk is meant to cover Marth's defensive bases at all times, ideally.

Pressured from attacks? Walk forward into shield and retaliate.
Opponent coming in for the grab? Dash backward and punish the missed grab.
Enemy approaching from above? Since you are walking you can place a well timed jab or utilt from either side they are coming from, which either hits or frame traps.

Lastly, I like using Nair 1 in this way, I just think it gives me some feeling of fast offensive pressure and control into the landing. It can be shield punished though so avoid using it at point blank range.

I think some of these tricks are still not fully explored. If you have anything to add, please do. In any case, it's fun to try new things.

Edit -
I talked about buffering sliding tilts and jabs. I just realized you could also dash slide into ftilt, so that might be helpful also. I have a feeling that this ftilt might make a great option for people who are waiting to punish Marth for dashing into shield.