feardragon64
Smash Champion
Marth Mentality
A Brief Analysis of Marth’s Psychological Game
A Brief Analysis of Marth’s Psychological Game
Marth is a fictional character in the Fire Emblem series. He’s a guy. Yes, in fact he is a guy. But that’s not what I’m here to discuss. What I aim to talk about is who the player him or herself is. The person actually controlling Marth, and the psychology behind a safe Marth player. Note that I am not here to dispense wisdom concerning actual Marth tactics, nor am I here to elaborate on the mechanics of Marth’s character. This is solely a discussion on the analysis of the mental logic for a safe Marth player. Also, this is going to attempt to address to a wide audience of people(from noobs to not as noob but still noob) and dispel myths about how to play Marth. I'm not commanding you to play as I've suggested. I'm suggesting to you what myself, and what I believe the Marth boards thinks is an incredibly effective way to play Marth.
Firstly, it has been well established that defensive fighting in Brawl works. It just does and it’s an undisputable fact. Unfortunately, lesser informed(for lack of a better word) members of the community believe that Marth is incapable of being defensive because he lacks a ranged projectile of some sort. Allow me to correct this.
You’re wrong.
How’s that? Marth is used best as a defensive fighter. Defensive in the sense that he plays it safe. What do I mean by safe? The first priority is not taking unnecessary damage. The second priority is dealing damage. The BEST way to do this, obviously, is to be able to attack the enemy while not being able to be attacked. So how does someone with no projectiles accomplish this?
Oh ya, he has a sword.
Marth’s version of camping results from his ability to fight with RANGED MELEE COMBAT. Basically, think of it like this. You’re getting into a fight with a guy that has a 20 foot pole. You have to figure out how the hell to cover a good 19 feet distance where he can hit you, but you can’t hit him(assuming you can hit the guy about a foot away). That means he is 100% safe those 19 feet, while at the same time he can hit you. This concept probably sounds familiar to you. It’s also commonly referred to as spacing.
The crux of the psychology of a safe Marth revolves around perfectly spacing and general efficiency. Following Isai’s famous quote, “Don’t get hit.” Good Marth players seek to stay within the perfect range where Marth can attack the opponent but the opponent cannot attack Marth. Because of this, Marth utilizes what is known as poking tools to attack from a safe distance. Emblem Lord clearly explains this in the Marth Strategies thread:
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=164063
“"Once he gets close enough he can camp at a certain "optimal" range with SH fairs…”
Still, just having a poking tool does not suffice. Characters like R.O.B. or DDD have ftilts that outrange all of Marth’s attacks, so Marth must resort to finding an opportunity to attack based upon spacing AND timing. In other words Marth has to wait for the correct opportunity between attacks, spot dodges, etc. during which he can cover the distance(similar to the 20 foot pole example, only you’re attacking with a 15 foot pole now so there’s much less distance to cover). Luckily, Marth has a great run speed AND good aerial maneuverability. An obvious example of this would be DDD’s fsmash. Ike has a rather slow forward smash with lots of lag afterwards. Still, this move outranges Marth’s moves. The proper way a safe Marth(or any other character for that matter) should deal with this is either wait at the edge of the attack as close as you can get to the hitbox without actually touching it, and the moment the hitbox disappears(i.e. DDD drops the hammer), Marth dashes in and attacks the moment he can with the attack that deals the most damage but is still a guaranteed hit and leaves Marth safe.
Efficiency. Sounds hard to implement though right? It is. Marth is one of those “great on paper” characters who when you actually take to a battle, things don’t really come together as well as you’d hope. That’s because Marth has a very steep learning curve. When you pick up Marth, you will make mistakes constantly. There are only a handful of good Marth’s who are actually really skilled and play smart. Understand it, accept it, and work to be one of those Marth’s.
On this note, I’d like to add that you should realize that the Marth community is considered highly elitist. Why? It stems from the way that we deal with scrubs, i.e. people who complain about what is wrong with Marth with no attempts to fix it, people who post stupid questions and fail to understand the Marth is about playing not just smart, but logically. Almost everyone(though it rarely appears this way) has logic. If you want to be a good Marth player, think logically and perfect your skill. Again, as Emblem Lord so aptly puts it: ”Post garbage like that and prepare to be verbally abused.”
Anyways, enough of that. Moving on to the next section about Marth’s “meta-game.” That is brickwalls(so called by EL). A brickwall is the metaphorical manifestation of a literal “brick wall,” something you can’t seemingly get around. Marth’s spacing is his first and primary brickwall. When Marth constantly maintains a properly spaced distanced, a feeling of hopelessness is usually generated by the opponent. After all, how can they win if they can’t hit you? Good question, ask yourself that before your next match. Marth’s other brickwall is his ability to punish mistakes. Marth has a good move-set in that his moves range from a variety of purposes. Generally, dancing blades is the default punisher because it racks up damage. Shieldbreaker is another punisher, but a punisher for over-shielding. Obviously, this move results in a shield break which is often viewed as an instant stock at decent %’s. Dancing blades is also a punisher for spot dodgers because the moves can be chained together and timed so that spot dodgers will get hit in the frames during which they are vulnerable. Dolphin Slash, which has invincibility on frames 1-5 is another amazing punisher which(when used for defensive purposes), can even interrupt attacks and occasionally steal a stock. Counter is another punisher that punishes the opponent for being predictable. Obviously, Marth has a plethora of brickwalls to choose from.
Marth’s brickwalls serve the purpose of logically defeating an opponent. Making them question themselves, how can I win if I can’t hit him, or getting them to second-guess themselves about doing what could be their only viable defense against an attack(such as dancing blade conditions spot dodgers not to spot dodge a shieldbreaker or how a shielder can be conditioned not to shield and grab a short hopped fair). But if you want to accomplish all of this against a skilled player, a lot of patience has to be put in to bring EVERYTHING together.
I hope you understand after reading this why there are not many good Marth players. Many simply spam fsmash, a move that cannot reliably kill opponents due to start up and ending lag and the need to tip the attack. Others will resort to what is known as Melee Marth and simple spam SHFF(short hop double fair) approaching and not realizing how vulnerable they are during this tactic to a shield grab. Thus, a calm Marth has to make use of his poking tools like dtilt, his damage builders like retreating fairs and dancing blade(not used in the air), and his reliable kill moves(lol what reliable kill moves) like the final hit of dancing blades forward, a tippered fsmash, or dolphin slash, as well as his entire brickwall strategy. There’s a good reason why Marth has only 3 “bad” match-ups against god tier mk(20 point difference), top tier snake(10 point difference), and DDD(10 point difference). The rest of his match-ups are either his advantage or even. Marth doesn’t destroy anyone(mostly because he doesn’t depend on gimmicks like a chain grab), nor does he really get destroyed by anyone. If you play it safe, you can go really far with Marth.
tl;dr version:
1) Play safe.
2) Play smart.
3) Post smart.
10tipperedMarths
