Marth Q&A Thread (To replace new thread spam)

[Espi]

It has come to my attention that a lot of new players are posting new threads to ask questions. I don't blame them, but this makes the forum very ugly. So I've decided to make a brand new Q&A thread. So if your looking for an answer to a question that you might have, post it here!

 

[Mobius_]

I'll go first with a general question that applies to what I'm learning now

C-sticking SH double Fairs.
I've always just used the A button and some precise joystick movement if I needed to slow my horizontal speed.
My biggest issue is that I can barely reach the C-stick in time for even left facing double Fairs. Should I just use the A button for right-facing double Fairs? Is there some method of speeding up my hands?

 

[Espi]

I'll go first with a general question that applies to what I'm learning now

C-sticking SH double Fairs.
I've always just used the A button and some precise joystick movement if I needed to slow my horizontal speed.
My biggest issue is that I can barely reach the C-stick in time for even left facing double Fairs. Should I just use the A button for right-facing double Fairs? Is there some method of speeding up my hands?

I had the same problem when I started playing. The problem with using A only is that you can't do retreating SH Double Fairs. It may be easier, but you are more limited. Just keep practicing it with the C-Stick, and It should come naturally.

 

[Xyzz]

For left facing ones you can just hit the c-stick with any part of your thumb. The base of your thumb is perfectly capable of pushing the stick to the left, no need to get the tip of your thumb involved

 

[Gannonspetmoblin]

A decent tradeoff I found, back when I couldn't do this reliably with the c stick, was to use the a button for the first fair and then the c stick for the second, so I could still move backwards after starting the first fair. I don't really think you need to practice this technique specifically; if you use sh aerials regularly you'll be able to reach the c stick faster and faster until doing shdf's becomes innate. I generally find advancing shdf's more useful anyways, which you don't need to c stick.

 

[Sleepy Driz]

Do most people use c-stick for aerials or not? I've been using c-stick so that I can control my momentum with the control stick better and do things like retreating fair but I've been told it's better to use A + control stick for most aerials.

 

[Gannonspetmoblin]

Do most people use c-stick for aerials or not? I've been using c-stick so that I can control my momentum with the control stick better and do things like retreating fair but I've been told it's better to use A + control stick for most aerials.

Not counting difficulty/consistency in execution, the C stick is always preferable to pressing buttons, the only time I can think of that you'd want to use the A button would be for nairs or if you're playing a mode where the C stick controls the camera, obviously. I really can't think of any way the A button is superior.

Edit: By the way, isn't this pretty much the same concept at the stickied "Ask Dr. Peepee" Thread?

 

[Espi]

Not counting difficulty/consistency in execution, the C stick is always preferable to pressing buttons, the only time I can think of that you'd want to use the A button would be for nairs or if you're playing a mode where the C stick controls the camera, obviously. I really can't think of any way the A button is superior.

Edit: By the way, isn't this pretty much the same concept at the stickied "Ask Dr. Peepee" Thread?

Unfortunately, no one uses that thread anymore. Clean start.

 

[AirFair]

what is marth's best OOS options? I'm new to that concept.

 

[Gannonspetmoblin]

what is marth's best OOS options? I'm new to that concept.

Marth's not known for his great OOS options, his best are probably grab and roll. Grab when you see an opening, roll when your opponent's pressure is beating out your grabs. If the opponent's attack pushes me away so that I can't grab (Ganon's forward B, Samus' fsmash, etc), I'll usually go for a wd oos and either grab or fsmash depending on their percent.

One thing that I think I do more than 99% of Marths is dolphin slash oos; Marth has trouble killing at higher percents and this is an oft-forgotten tool of his to combat that. Now, it's incredibly situational. I only use it when the opponent is in a lot of lag, and generally when there's a high platform above me. If it misses, the opponent has to guess whether you land on the platform or fastfall through, and some characters don't have the vertical mobility to punish the top platform anyways. Just be sure to reverse it so the strong hitbox lands. Don't over-use this though, I use it VERY rarely, and when I do it's usually to punish something with a lot of lag, the kind of thing I'd punish with a rest as Jigglypuff oos. I do honestly think that in some situations this is the optimal response, though over-reliance on it is super lame.

Ultimately, though, oos options shouldn't be as much of a concern for you as a Marth because you should use your superior movement to avoid damage. See a falco descending on you with dair? Just dashdance away from it and grab when he lands. Or throw out a u tilt/uair and intercept him.

 

[AirFair]

Pretty dumb question, but are auto cancelled nairs preferable to non auto cancelled nairs that you have to L cancel?

 

[solracels]

Hi everyone, I've been playing against a fox main and i always have trouble zoning him out abd i feel like i keep my distabce or i will get rekt by lazurs, how can i fight against a fox, is there any atack that sort of counters him?

 

[Mobius_]

Another question
Will playing P:M Marth help out my Melee Marth?

 

[Espi]

Another question
Will playing P:M Marth help out my Melee Marth?

Not really. PM Marth is much easier to play imo, so when you go back to Melee Marth, ur gonna suck. But your Melee Marth will help your Pm Marth.

 

[Gannonspetmoblin]

Pretty dumb question, but are auto cancelled nairs preferable to non auto cancelled nairs that you have to L cancel?

I wouldn't say auto cancelled nairs are very useful at all. While yeah, you have less landing lag that way, you might as well consider all the time between the last hitbox of the nair and you landing on the ground to be lag. In that case, you'll have less lag if you land and l-cancel just after the second hitbox comes out. Any Marth playing against mid/high level players will quickly learn that a high, shielded nair is going to get punished every time. Even if it lands, you probably won't be able to get anything else out of it. I would say that it might be good if you're doing a defensive nair, trying to catch your opponent as they come to you, however then the real reason you'd be nairing early and hanging in the air wouldn't be for the auto cancel, but for the hitbox placement.

An auto cancelled fair could be good as a mixup if your opponent is expecting you to double fair, though.

Hi everyone, I've been playing against a fox main and i always have trouble zoning him out abd i feel like i keep my distabce or i will get rekt by lazurs, how can i fight against a fox, is there any atack that sort of counters him?

Sounds like you just need general advice in the matchup, and more practice with the game overall. This probably has enough info for you to go off of for the time being. There's no magic move that totally destroys him, you're just gonna have to practice.

Another question
Will playing P:M Marth help out my Melee Marth?

EHHHHH kind of, basically what ESPI said. I'm not gonna say he's EASIER, (because I lose to breez in PM lol), but he's definitely different. The movement feels all whack, sort of jerky and less fluid, and most players prefer one game over the other. You can get away with more stuff in PM too (ledge sweetspots and fthrow to fsmash in particular). On the whole I think it would help more than hurt to play him in PM, but it's not a good substitute for melee practice.

 

[FlashG]

Another question
Will playing P:M Marth help out my Melee Marth?

While I don't think it necessarily hurts to play P:M Marth since the character is very similar, you may start to rely on things in P:M that simply don't work in Melee. IMO you can spam SH double Fair on your opponent a LOT easier than in Melee, and it may just be me, but I think Marth's Dair has a much bigger hitbox which makes spikes way easier. If you jump from game to game a lot, you may run into some trouble if you don't constantly remind yourself of what game you're playing.

Edit: I think this thread is and excellent idea btw

 

[AirFair]

Hey @ FlashG you are from Houston too? that's cool! maybe we could play sometime.

 

[cpctheman]

Is there any reference or guide to acronyms for this game? It gets hard to understand some of the posts when I don't know the language :/ I know I'll get them all eventually but a handy reference or guide could be helpful

 

[AirFair]

All the terms:
http://smashboards.com/threads/wave...the-terms-read-first-update-12-23-2007.42749/

A beginner guide to melee in general:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_6o5NHvI9P8-qHp2M8w1gDzL_-JNonEE81Mh4ulY1PY/edit

 

[cpctheman]

Thanks so much! You rock!

 

[SeeJayWolf]

Another alternative is to use the Z button to do SHDF either appoaching or retreating.

Anyone have any tips vs Ganon and Peach?

 

[Gannonspetmoblin]

Another alternative is to use the Z button to do SHDF either appoaching or retreating.

Anyone have any tips vs Ganon and Peach?

All righty, I'm not good enough to give full matchups on these, but here's some tips I've found helpful. I'm much better at the Peach MU than Ganon, so keep that in mind.

PEACH

• Don't approach with aerials often, her dash attack will beat you out.
• Dashdance/wavedash around, if she approaches, dodge and punish, if she pulls a turnip, run in and dtilt.
• Learn to run out of dtilt with your IASA frames. Know when to follow up the dtilt and when to back off. Be sure to make every hit a tipper.
• Be sure to always keep your spacing, crouch cancel dsmash can be nasty.
• Don't try too hard for combos or get too offensive offstage, she's too light and floaty to fall for that stuff
• Keep her in the air with uthrow + uairs, try to burn her double jump/float. Mix in some empty shorthops and the like to bait these out of her.
• Ken combo at mid percents is awesome, and probably one of the only ways you'll be killing her under 100%
• Utilt and especially Dsmash will kill before Fsmash in some situations, be sure to keep these in mind.

GANON

• Learn Fox
• Learn Sheik (jk)
• Once again, keep your spacing. Ganon is heavy and will be able to react after being hit a lot of the time.
• Nairs can combo into one another quite nicely iirc.
• Abuse your speed, it's really your only advantage here. Ganon has a monstrous range and can accelerate quickly with his great waveland, so don't underestimate how far you need to be from him.
• An offstage Ganon must be a dead Ganon. Dtilt, Fsmash, Fair or Bair offstage, reverse Dolphin Slash, and ledgehop Dair all work well. Be careful of your spacing on your aerials because it's easy to get grabbed by his up b when he recovers. Edgehog also works wonders against him.
• Recover as low as possible. Ganon's reverse uair destroys you and everyone else, and he can go pretty far out with it. You'll have to sweetspot the ledge too, or else you'll be killed pretty easily.
• Seriously, just go Fox.

 

[AirFair]

tips on the ledgehop dair? can't seem to get it right.

 

[Espi]

tips on the ledgehop dair? can't seem to get it right.

Make sure that you are using X/Y to jump not tap jump and A for the Dair.

1. Drop directly downwards with the analog.
2. Press X/Y+ A instantly while still holding down.
3. Smash the analog left/right depending on which side you are on.

 

[Gannonspetmoblin]

Hmm, honestly, I'm not too good at ledgehop dairs, haha. I think you just need to practice it. I just tried out fighting lv 1 Ganon/Falcon to practice, but they tend to recover really high which makes it impossible to practice. IDK, they can't really affect their vertical movement, only horizontal, so after a while you should just be able to anticipate where they'll be and time the dair correctly.

Or did you mean what espi addressed, that you actually have trouble performing the dair and landing onstage?

Maybe I can make some short videos of ways of doing things to illustrate my points, if there's any interest. It would display my level of competency at the game, anyways, so nobody over/underestimates me

Also, thinking of that question about short hop double fairs, i should mention that you can actually substitute the second fair for a uair. This has the advantages of 1) hitting your opponent up for an easier followup upon landing, and 2) coming out in front of you before you land instead above you like fair, so you can be a bit more late with the input. I nearly always go for these, they work like a charm!

 

[Espi]

The timing is all about practice.

 

[AirFair]

That's cool. So what are some tips for the Sheik matchup, as I hear it's a bad one?

 

[FlashG]

Do whatever it takes to get Sheik above you, she has a particularly hard time coming down, and Marth is incredible when he is below his opponent. Don't get grabbed. Ever.

 

[linkoninja]

Anything else? What are good options at the ledge? Sometimes when I take the ledge and she recovers onstage I can't seem to get the punish. I don't really know why. I guess its cause I try and F-Smash her offstage again. Should I just down-throw her back off or what do you guys like to do?

 

[AirFair]

Usually F smash or Down tilt are the most reliable.

 

[Gannonspetmoblin]

Anything else? What are good options at the ledge? Sometimes when I take the ledge and she recovers onstage I can't seem to get the punish. I don't really know why. I guess its cause I try and F-Smash her offstage again. Should I just down-throw her back off or what do you guys like to do?

If you can't get the fsmash after she lands onstage from an up b you just have to move faster. Get used to wavelanding quickly onstage as soon as you see she didn't go for the ledge. Your punish should mostly depend on her percentage. Low % should be a grab, either throw her back offstage or upthrow + uptilt into a juggle. At a high % fsmash would be worth it (whatever percent would be enough to send her further offstage than a dthrow.) On DL, if she lands on the platform the best you might be able to get is a uair, but that's not too bad.

As for overall tips on the MU,

• Uthrow to utilt/uair is a true combo on her at some percents, check out kadano's guide for this
• Approaching is generally a bad idea, she can tilt through you, dash attack, cc dsmash, shieldgrab, aerial needle to grab, etc. Marth likes to play hard to get and make the ladies come to him
• Sheik might throw standing needles if you keep your distance from her, just shield these or jump over them, they're not too much of a threat as she's immobile the whole time. Just be patient
• When Sheik approaches it'll almost always be a dash attack or grab, just dashdance around this and grab > uthrow.
• Always grab the ledge vs Sheik's recovery, you don't ever want to give that up to her. It's easy enough to punish as she lands. Be sure to ledgestall to keep your invincibility, Sheik likes to fair or up b people who hang on for too long.
• Stay disciplined and play the neutral game conservatively, spam is very easy for Sheik to deal with in my experience (See EK vs Amsah for this)
• Just work on being a better Marth. The lower the level of competitive play, the more this MU is in Sheik's favor. PPMD showed that Marth has a winnable matchup vs her, but he certainly has to earn it. As you start off this matchup will seem impossible, but it's definitely one that gets better, not worse, over time

 

[FlashG]

Anything else? What are good options at the ledge? Sometimes when I take the ledge and she recovers onstage I can't seem to get the punish. I don't really know why. I guess its cause I try and F-Smash her offstage again. Should I just down-throw her back off or what do you guys like to do?

Everything @ Gannonspetmoblin said is really useful. I think taking the ledge when edgegaurding Sheik is extremely important, and you should never let her get it for free. I find myself using ledgehop Uair into another applicable aerial depending on her percent and DI which seems to do the trick. Ledgedash Fsmash is excellent as well if you time it properly, she has about half a second of landing lag after her up-b which leaves a bit of room for error if you don't do it perfectly.

 

[FlashG]

I see a lot of people throw around the term "fundamentals" a lot when it comes to Marth, and any character really. The broadness of this term may vary from person to person. What do you think are the most fundamental aspects of marth's game, and the game in general?

 

[Gannonspetmoblin]

I see a lot of people throw around the term "fundamentals" a lot when it comes to Marth, and any character really. The broadness of this term may vary from person to person. What do you think are the most fundamental aspects of marth's game, and the game in general?

OOH, nice question! This word gets thrown around a lot, but almost nobody ever defines what it is; people usually just imply what it's not. I suppose there's no actual agreed-upon definition of the term, but I'll give it my best.

I feel like humans have 3 major components: the will, the intellect, and the body. These 3 components work in tandem for nearly every activity. The will demands something, the intellect finds a way to carry out that will, and the body implements that strategy. For Smash, you can divide these 3 aspects into motivation, decision-making, and technical skill. Motivation doesn't require much discussion, everyone here has a motivation to play and improve at Smash, I take it. Technical skill, to me, encompasses pretty much everything you do with your controller. Walking forward? Technical skill. Spamming fsmash? Technical skill. These aren't good on their own, but being able to perform any technique consistently constitutes technical skill in my mind. You could probably divide this category further into technical consistency and range of techniques (ideally the two would overlap completely).

Fundamentals, I feel, are everything between these 2 points of motivation and execution that occur within the game. Still, this covers a breadth of things. I'd say to a degree all aspects of fundamentals are important to every character, but as you imply, some characters lean more heavily on certain fundamental skills than others. First, I'll list all the categories with examples that I can think of, though it's probably not an exhaustive list.

• Positioning: Keeping center stage, platform camping, standing beneath platforms to protect from aerials, moving around the stage, taking the edge vs a recovering sheik, spacing (basically positioning when the characters are at a close range)
• Move selection: Choosing attacks that will lead into more damage/combos, using strong attacks only to kill at the right percents, approaching with relatively lagless moves to avoid being punished
• Mindgames: Forming a habit and then breaking it once your opponent has adapted (Conditioning), faking out your opponent (DI left, tech right; empty shorthop to grab; run up to shield), predicting your opponent's decisions (Reading)

Now again, these skills are important for every character, but almost all characters have a focus. Marth, with his great range and movement options focuses mostly on positioning. Move selection is important, but fairly easy to learn with Marth, most of his moves pretty easily divide into the "killing" and "combo" categories, though you may have to know the percents where some moves transition from one to the other. Mindgames are important, but he doesn't depend on them nearly as much as slower characters like Bowser or Ganondorf.

To end, I want to address the big "fundamentals vs tech" debate. I think people acting as if these are on opposite ends of the spectrum are pretty stupid, saying things like "solid fundamentals beat tech skill any day". Fundamentals/tech is not a 75/25 split. It's not even a 50/50 split, it's pretty much a 100/100 split. Want to know what pure tech skill looks like? The 20XX drillshining Fox CPU. Roll past him for the easiest JV5 stock of your life. Want to know what pure fundamentals look like? PPMD's brain in a jar. He knows exactly what to do but can't perform anything. Without one, the other is literally useless. Like I mentioned at the top, tech skill is not only flashy or difficult to perform maneuvers. Wavedashes/dashdancing are technical. Chaingrabs on fox are technical. Short hop fairs, IASA dtilts, utilts without jumping first, all these things fall under technicality despite not being difficult to do. This is why players like Borp (or maybe just Borp fans) bother me, just because they draw from a small pool of techniques doesn't mean they're untechnical. Borp's timing is incredibly precise and most of his movements are executed just as he means them to be. His Sheik is not pure fundamentals, it's just a Sheik who eschews some (I'd not even say half) of her options.

Anyways, I hope this helped, I did spend way too much of this post talking about what fundamentals AREN'T, but I feel it all needed to be said.

 

[FlashG]

Wow! Excellent answer. I definitely agree with you on the tech skill vs fundamentals debate. They are two aspects of the game that cannot be separated no matter how hard you try (Shoutouts to Borp}

 

[Espi]

Tech - Skill + Fundamentals = Profit.

 

[AirFair]

Hey so I went to go play at a weekly tournament recently and was beaten (unsurprisingly considering how new I am) by a fox/falco in both of the matches that I played. What are tips for playing against the spacies? This question is probably asked alot and I have seen some various answers, but what are the best ways to approach and defend against them. One specific question I have would be about Falco's SH Lasers.
Thanks.

 

[Quig]

I was going to ask a similar question. More specifically, how can I avoid getting hit by lasers without going airborne and making myself extremely vulnerable. I've been using WD out of shield a lot and that seems to work but I was hoping I could get some suggestions for other options.

 

[FlashG]

WD OoS is excellent, and is my go-to option. Obviously powershielding is the best option but you have to ask yourself if you think you can be reliable with them. I don't really trust myself to be very consistent with them so while I do try to powershield, I don't base the entire matchup around it. I believe I heard M2K once say that you shouldn't be too afraid to tank lasers here or there. His reasoning was that if falco combos you it's pretty much gonna be 30%+ on you every time, and 1 or 2 decent combos from falco is going to kill you, so a few percent is negligible. Also, remember that even one WD OoS is enough to throw off Falco's spacing on his approach. If your opponent can't adapt to that it's practically a free win.

 

[JNova]

Spacing is the keyword on how to approach Falco's laser, but I'm pretty sure there are already dozens of threads on how deal with Falco's SHL, just google it or something lol.
But really, dont shield right away if he lasers you. Most of Falco's SHL approaches are really unsafe, but become safe if you shield. Take the shots like a man and watch carefully how the Falco approaches after he lasers you. That's the main key to how to counter these approaches.
After Falco SHLs he has these options:
Shine
Jab/Tilts
Aerial
Dash away
Wavedash
Grab

Those options are only important depending on the range he lands after the SHL and where you are.
So, for example, if Falco lands right before you in a way where he cannot shine you, but can jab, tilt, grab or your something, you have 2 options: Shield or Grab. Shield beats jab/tilt/Aerial (Shield beats Aerial at this point because, he HAS to do a rising Aerial to be fast enough not to get grabbed and a rising Aerial gets Shieldgrabbed). Grab beats his Grab or if he does a mistake (like shine even tho it won't hit).
Of course, if you shield his approach in this range you have to be really careful when you shieldgrab him. If he Jabs you, he can do the 2nd Jab to beat your Shieldgrab or he can grab you if you stay in your shield waiting for the 2nd Jab or Shine.
At this point the rules of basic shield pressure and how to avoid/counter it applies here.

Be sure to always keep in mind, Falco has the upper Hand, because he can watch your reactions and adjust to that, BUT if you can get that juicy grab he is/should be dead or in a really akward postion. Sometimes you want to buffer a roll to avoid giving too much informations on how you deal with Falco's Shield Pressure, but dont overdo it


What really helped me in this MU as Falco and as Marth is to watch carefully high-level Players and how they react in these situations and be really detailied about that. If there is an option, put the Youtube video on slow-mode and watch carefully, when they are doing what and why it works.

EDIT: oh, what I wrote doesn't include the fact that you can powershield his lasers. If Falco SHLs in your Grab-Range you want to do PS Grab, but be careful. Smart Falcos (or scrub Falcos who cant SHL right) will fake out an SHL approach by doing a real delayed Laser which doesnt come out and you will find yourself stuck in your shield)