Marth's weaknesses

[Hype]

Is having a bad matchup against the two best and most overused characters in the game a weakness?

It does kind of suck. I've learned to play well against MK, but I still suck vs snake.

 

[Emblem Lord]

Marth vs Snake is either even or very close to even.

Marth can put Snake into very bad situations.

 

[AdmiralComrade]

can i say.. about his sword length agasint MK is... CRAP xD i cant even get to MK with any moves! esp trying to shield roll past him and he does a D-smash that just ticks me off

yeah.. he dies from DK so fast.. ugh.. juggling.. u got that..

does suck on wifi = weakness?

does... this count? People who havent played marth yet thinks marth is OP xD stupid stupid people...

AND since perfect shielding is alot easier in brawl (well i think so) ur F-smash can get nulled pretty easily.

^ too add more MK d tilt out ranges u too and u trip sometimes which is gay

and edge guarding some people is impossible sumtimes like MK and falco if he does B> (if he does ^b then theres no problem) and yeah... u just get gimped instead

 

[Punishment Divine]

Marth vs Snake is either even or very close to even.

Marth can put Snake into very bad situations.

Maybe it's just because I haven't found the correct way to play the matchup despite reading your advice on it EL, but it seems to sway in Snake's favor not a lot, but about 5-10%. Jesus **** is Mortar Sliding annoying because as you said, Marth above his opponent has few choices and that magical slide sends you in that uncomfortable upwards area. Nades are always annoying, too, and his upsmash as well and both also set you up for an undercarriage assault.

Gimping is nice, and spike a low recovering Snake is made of w1n but Snakes ground game with those ******** *** tilts is GAHHH

 

[Emblem Lord]

Get Snake on the ledge or in the air and you can rack up damage with ease.

I have taken Snakes from 0 to 60 with little effort.

 

[NESSBOUNDER]

I never said u-tilt was safe. Like...ever.

F-tilt is safe depending on the character. Against MK, Sonic or faster characters then no, it's not. But characters like with more average speed can't really punish a fully spaced f-tilt on block.

Punish with a jab or a tilt? No.

Running grab or dash attack is all anyone can really get.

Consider a fast, ranged tilt such as the one belonging to Snake (ftilt) or Samus (Dtilt)

These sorts of tilts can hit if Marth's Ftilt is blocked.

Ftilt is safe on characters who don't have this kind of tilt or smash I guess.

Also, I don't know what it is about Marth's jab, but why would anyone want to use his jab when they could use dancing blade? It just seems like such a wimpy and pointless move to me. Perhaps you can use it to stop projectiles, but are there any other uses for it?

 

[AdmiralComrade]

snake cant really attack from below.. unless its a B-air so yes once u get him into the air he has to come back down asap xD

but.... yea.............................................. back on topic xP

 

[Punishment Divine]

snake cant really attack from below.. unless its a B-air so yes once u get him into the air he has to come back down asap xD

but.... yea.............................................. back on topic xP

It is on topic, because it's definitely a weakness if he has a rough matchup against Snake and MK. And he can actually come down with his down b and his dair too, down b being more annoying but that's besides the point.

What would be the most effective way to get him into the air?

 

[Emblem Lord]

Save this talk for match-up discussion.

Also I will update the first post with Marth's bad dash grab.

 

[Shaya]

snake has utilt and his uair is satisfactory...

 

[grandmaster192]

Biggest weakness to me -- outside of his kill moves, of course -- is that his hit boxes don't stay out long enough. This sucks! Characters like Rob or DDD can dodge anything you throw at them. Heck, dodging is BS against Marth period. I hate it! I wish his hit boxes where bigger.

 

[NESSBOUNDER]

Just to retread on my earlier statement about Ftilt being unsafe: I did some more testing and Samus can hit Marth with her Fsmash after blocking Ftilt.

Samus!

Fsmash!

Just imagine what characters with faster attacks could do.

Also: while dancing blade may eat up shields, it also has very low pushback on block. Doing a DB at close range and having it blocked is an easy shield grab for the opponent. I'm still testing if any characters can do release jabs or counters.

 

[¯\_S.(ツ).L.I.D._/¯]

Ike is solid: That in of itself does suck, but it has a greater affect on his gameplay.

Marth is weak from the bottom.

I will add that now.

OK, ya that's what I meant, lol. But yeah, he really is weak from the bottom because unlike, say ROB, you can't freely use Dair while you are over the stage because you will definitely get punished, probably with a charged smash attack (not fully charged).

 

[OmegaXF]

EL it'd be nice 2 hear ya opinion on this.
With the constant change on Marths metagame one of his biggest weakness is that most players are caught up trying to mix his playing style up. I've seen the way you play and it's excellent no doubt. You really live up to the name. But to me it seems that you have adopted a very defensive ground game that transfers into an offensive aerial game. Not bad at all, but people are constantly talking about Marth could be played Melee style but it's best not to. Is that the real cold truth that Melee Marths have to change their playing style to compete at tourny level? The way people talk about Marth now gives you a variety of ways to throw Marth out on the field and the new physics of the game force you to change startegies at times. but because of the way Marth is now, does he truely need to change his playing style to compete with the OP and Campy characters?

 

[Steel]

Yes, don't play him like melee. This is a different game.

 

[AdmiralComrade]

^ second that. i tired playing him like melee and tbh.. u "cant" play him like melee

 

[OmegaXF]

Yes, don't play him like melee. This is a different game.

That sucks for a lot of mainers.....well other than that the consistency of the player plays a big part on Marths end. As all Marthers know F-smash is your friend and enemy. Using F-smash to punish wears it out but sets up your opponent for the dreadful edge game. Saving F-smash until your opponents percentage is high enough allows you to kill even if it isn't a tipped hit. It would be at its max power and even if you threw out F-smashes during the match, they only decay if they connect. But then again it will tamper on the way people play Marth. I still believe Melee Marth has a chance but I know he isn't the best Marth to be played at the moment.

 

[grandmaster192]

What, exactly, is a melee Marth?

When I watch videos of M2K's Marth then watch a guy like Danimals play, Brawl Marth and Melee Marth look a lot alike. A friend says I play Marth too much like the melee version. What's funny about this is I never played melee. LOL

I don't see the difference. All the really good Marth's I've seen play a lot like M2K's Marth.

 

[OmegaXF]

What, exactly, is a melee Marth?

When I watch videos of M2K's Marth then watch a guy like Danimals play, Brawl Marth and Melee Marth look a lot alike. A friend says I play Marth too much like the melee version. What's funny about this is I never played melee. LOL

I don't see the difference. All the really good Marth's I've seen play a lot like M2K's Marth.

Because of the physics and the new shielding system which seemed to have gotten a buff. Melee Marths are sometimes the ones that come in with a lot of aerials and still depend on a heavy aerial game. I say this because people say I have a Melee type Marth so Im going on what I know. I guess you could say a Brawl Marth is more patient and opens up their options and using a mixture of ground game and aerial game. Thats just me though. Somebody might have a different opinion.

 

[meepxzero]

Marth is exactly where he was in melee. Hes dangerous in the right hands and should be highly feared. I never was scared of marth unless if it was azen/neo/m2k/ken just because they knew how to space flawlessly and put u in really bad situations where marth shines the most. You are pretty much an idiot if u think ull have an easy time against a good marth he will wreck ur **** lol.

Marths overall weaknesses are mainly his weak grabs.... He has a good grab game if used properly its just not worth it when it only does 4%. Helps with spacing but its also real easy to walk away a few steps just to space. Im still wondering if its hurting or helping my game using grabs more cuz lately i havent played as well as i use to when i started marth but it could be the result of everyone im playing just getting better.

Then another one is people with fast rolls. Some rolls are fast to the point where you have to predict ahead and punish accordingly as opposed to seeing the roll and punishing. This is mainly for lucario/metaknight/ and slightly the same for DDD. Marth is probably the best character to punish people who roll, but with less delay after roll people can get in just by rolling and jabbing u giving u no time to counter it.

 

[Emblem Lord]

Marth doesn't have to predict anyone's roll.

http://smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=183816

Also about the hitbox thing. This is more of a characteristic of his fighting style. It's not so much a weakness.

Also NESSBOUNDER, are you testing Marth's f-tilt on a perfect shield or a regular shield? Pretty much anything is punishable on perfectshield. There is no effin way Marth can be hit with Samus's F-smash if she normal shields the f-tilt.

I generally disregard a PS when talking about how safe things are because I consider a PS to be like a Parry in Street Fighter 3. Pretty much everything is unsafe on parry, just like pretty much everything is unsafe when PSed.

When an F-tilt is done on a shield at the tip the shield push back is enough to keep characters from punishing with Marth unless they have a quick punishing move.

But I said this before...f-tilt isn't his main poke.

And I'm really interested in why you seem hellbent on proving that Marth isn't that safe or w/e. You don't even play him.

rofl.

 

[¯\_S.(ツ).L.I.D._/¯]

Yes, because " It seems Emblem is such and such" implies that, right?

No keyword or anything...

Sudsy, please go away. You aren't really contributing constructively to this helpful conversation in any way.

 

[Sudsy86_]

Emblem, your post was lonegr, so I'll get these out of the way first.

QUOTE=Cril;4953546]i dont get it. this sudsy guy admitted to having only played marth for 8 days yet you guys think his opinions on marht are worth enough to argue against. [/QUOTE]

Played? I said "mained"--as in was a primary character of mine. I've played a good Marth since Melee, I just don't necessarily prefer any characters over another, so I can't say I now main him. My play with him as a non-mainer of him isn't worse, and I was a good main with him because of my familiarity.

My opinions on him would most likely be invalid because of my inference, not the experience itself. I've spent more time with him than any other character ( except Mario and Shiek) over the past five years.

 

[Sudsy86_]

I'm sorry, but Sudsy seems to think Marth's metagame revolves around tilts. He needs to look into the pressure marth can put on the shield.

I should have specified that I wasn't talking about anything specific. The means by which you would realistically attack people IS tilt, jab, aerial, combinations, in general. Circustancially it will of course vary, but that covers most of the area in which Marth actually gets attacks in.

I didn't make any mention of shield pressuring because, again, I was talking in general about his offense. I've played Marth since Melee came out, I'm very familiar with him, but I thought it was implied by my post that I was talking in general. I'm not ignorant, I just don't think the reasoning provided for certain qualities are very pragmatic, considering they overwhelming don't seem to think of the opponent's best option at certain times either.

I could very well be wrong, I just don't think the reasoning provided is truly valid.
Spacing, power, and speed are all great, but they don't do jacksquat if your opponents play around you if it's an explicit strength. ( not that marth necessarily has those traits, I was just throwing out basic ones) I admit that even my reasoning isn't fully circumstancially based, and that is my fault.

Dancing blade tears up spot dodging and shields (shield poking easily with the five stab hit at the end), shieldbreaker will bring someone's shield to the size of an uncharged aura on Lucario if it doesn't break it.

Tears up? Theoretically? Yes, if you assume the opponent WILL get caught in it. In that case, any character could have a valid argument for him. When should you do dancing blade? When your close? In that case, your opponent should already thinking to get away from Fsmash, dtilt, jab, or fair, so the move itself isn't so much as the cause for success here as your opponent's mistake is.

When in range AFTER you press the button? In this case, if you're not planning on getting out of the way ( which is typically a bad decision against Marth), and shield, you will be placed in a bad spot. Of course, again, the success of the move in this case is too heavily depending on an opponent's mistake: there are a couple of moves that you might as well use in these two cases--dancing blade isn't necessarily a better option than a couple others.
If you're fortunate enough to have your opponents to make a mistake, I don't even see dancing blade yielding better results than dtilt, dtilt, jab and/ or fairs, especially since the circumstances make your opponent open for it to work, regardless if it's an often used combo or not.

I don't know. I can't help but credit SAFE Marth play and opponent's mistakes for the Marth play I'm visualizing from the majority of posts here: the circumstances really seem to be great enough for ANY character to do well in, not just Marth and his distinctive qualities.

Maybe that's my bad.

 

[Remzi]

My main problems are as follows, most of these are already in your list.

-Bad landing lag on Bair and Dair, which pretty really limits when you can use either. Dair for a spike, and bair for a surprise attack or for edgeguarding.

-Bad recovery. Not much distance, one dimensional, easy to edgehog. Only redeeming feature is that if the opponent messes up an edgehog at high %'s it can lead to a stage spike.

-Non-tipped attacks completely blow in terms of knockback, most notably fsmash.

-Throws are bad besides fthrow, and they all suck in terms of damage

-Light

-Still needs a projectile

-Hard time against campers

-Lots of startup lag on Fsmash

-USmash has bad knockback

I know I missed a lot, but I'm just naming the ones off the top of my head

 

[Emblem Lord]

Honestly Sudsy alot of what you are saying is just assumptions and conjecture. It's obvious you don't play with Marth enough and that you really don't know him.

Marth is a good character anyway you look at it, and his gameplay let's him do well. Marth doesn't need to rely on his opponent making mistakes. In any fighting game the more easily a character can control their opponent the better as well as being able to break their opponents control Marth excels at both catagories. How else could he win tournaments or do well in them? Marth can force his opponent into situations where they are limited in their options and he has a much greater chance of getting in damage. This is not unique of Marth. This is true of all good characters of all good fighting games. He has good range, solid kills moves, good punishers, good edge guarding, etc.

He is just good.

What else is there to say?

I gave you reasoning, but as I thought you can't be convinced.

Let's agree to disagree.

 

[NESSBOUNDER]

Emblem Lord: Pff I play and am interested in just about every character. Because of this I simply can tell that Marth's attacks aren't as safe on block as other characters.

And I wasn't testing using a PS. I made sure to test it on a normal guard. And regardless of how good your spacing is, Fox has time to block it and punish with a running upsmash.

You've said a few times that this move is generally safe on block (even though you do say that it's not an approach move) and I just want you to know that this is false.

You don't seem to want to consider unsafe attacks to be one of Marth's few weaknesses, when I consider it to be his most obvious. He's somewhat simillar to Raphael in Soul Calibur in that regard.

I mean...look at Marth's approach options on the ground. Dtilt, Fair and a single jab are his only truly safe attacks. Even his aerials can be shield punished by a lot of characters besides having low landing lag, and while Dancing blade is awesome, it does have lag issues too.

 

[Emblem Lord]

I should kill you for comparing the noble ruler of Altea to that bottom tier trash.

Honestly, though I don't use f-tilt to poke shields. No one should. D-tilt is all Marth needs. Heck Snake is less safe on block then any of the high tiers, cept for maybe D3. Doesn't mean he isn't a beast.

Overall Marth is pretty safe. Is he THE safest? Nope.

But when you look at the moves he should use to poke..d-tilt and fair mostly, then yeah. So what if he doesn't have a ton of safe tools. Neither does G&W and again....he is still a beast.

Seriously though don't compare him to Raphael. That guy has WAY more problems then few safe moves.

And having alot of safe options is a MUCH bigger deal in the Soul Caliber series. In Smash you can get away with only one or two safe approaches/pokes. In Soul caliber this is not so.

But honestly, saying that Samus can do an F-smash after a fully spaced f-tilt on shield is a little nuts. Sorry but that is just ridiculous. She takes a bit too long and Marth could just roll away.

But..it doesn't matter because f-tilt isn't his poke. lol.

And if you want to go on rants about being unsafe..dude...NO ONE is safe on block when fighting Marth. LOL.

He can punish pretty much anything.

 

[NESSBOUNDER]

No, on a properly spaced ftilt on a shield, Samus's fsmash doesn't have the range to hit Marth. However, her fsmash's hitbox comes out BEFORE Marth can raise his shield. So theoretically, anything faster or as fast as her Fsmash can hit Marth after a block if it has the range. (Snake ftilt for example. Ow)

Why are we worrying about Fsmash anyway? Heck, she can hit Marth with her Dtilt -her most common KO move- after blocking ftilt. I only used Fsmash as an example because it's not that fast.

It's amazing what you can find in 1/4 speed training mode.

And fine, I know it was a little mean of me to compare Marth to Raph. If I wasn't on a Wii I would have made sure to add a little "Except unlike Raph, Marth is good" but the post limit is ew.

And I'm not stupid enough to argue that Marth can't punish well. He has a 4 frame attack that does 16 damage.

 

[Emblem Lord]

Again, I don't think Samus has the speed to walk up to Marth in time without him being able to buffer a roll, shield or up b. The shield pushback on blocked f-tilt is actually good, which gives Marth enough time to roll so he can avoid all but the fastest punishment options.

Again I'm not saying he can't be punished. He certainly can. But only the fastest attacks would do it. She MIGHT be able to dash attack him.

But....so what?

It's not a poke move. lol.

It's more of a brickwall tool and anti SH approach tool.

Fair and D-tilt is all Marth needs. And Dancing Blade seems to shield stab often enough to warrant use as an approach. Plus people tend to spot dodge on reaction when Marth dashes at them.

 

[NESSBOUNDER]

Gah, but it's possible! I tested it like 5 times. Samus's fsmash's hitbox comes out before the lag (buffered inputs included) ends.

I know it's not important since ftilt's not a poke, but this just shows why.

Seriously though, my data's not wrong. I'm going to go test this again and while I'm at it, I'll sus out dancing blade and Fair.

 

[Emblem Lord]

So you are saying that you don't think Marth could roll away?

FYI I have tested it as well vs characters like Fox and yeah they can punish it with ease, but only because he is so fast. Slower characters or characters who lack fast punishers won't have as much success. You also have to take into account that his opponent has to shield drop and then run up to him. This takes extra time. Extra time that gives Marth a chance to go through his cool down lag and then block or roll.

But...it's not his main poke.

LMAO!!!!

 

[Swordplay]

LoL I main Link and Marth and I gotta tell you....some of Marth's so called weakness's aren't that bad.
Marth is one of those character that has a lot of average things going for him. Not to many weakness's not to many strengths. Combined with disjointed hitbox's hes pretty good.

Don't even try to complain about average rolls and average recovery's. You want to see a bad recovery? go play Link (the low tier trash EL speaks of) and you shouldn't find any more room to complain.

the only reasonable weakness I find in marth is the first one EL pointed out. no safe kill move.

Alot of my kills come from my dolphin slash (up special) as it is fast and has a lot of knockback. I only use it if I combo out of it. I find trying to mindgame useful like instead of finishing your Dancing Blade go into dolphin slash you might get punished but that is why it is a mind game, not a true combo.

but seriously I played this samus today who was pretty good. Although I ended up winning it took awhile because samus stayed alive all three lives until like 200%. UGH i do wish marth had 1 spammable kill move.

 

[NESSBOUNDER]

A spammable kill move would break him to bits.

Anyway, I'm back with my results. Not only does the hitbox from Samus's fsmash come out before Marth can move (normal sheild, tippered ftilt) but there's even a few frames of excess, meaning that it's possible for even slower moves to get through.

Anyway, unless you have inhumanly good reflexes, Dancing Blade is unsafe on block if the opponent has a decent roll or spot dodge.

Fair however is still fine so long as it's performed as close to the ground as possible, making Marth's two safest moves his dtilt and fair.

Another odd thing about shield breaker: slightly after a powershield, there's a thing I like to call the "strong shield", characterised by a "glossy" sheen. The sheild takes damage but doesn't shrink as much as if it were a dull shield. Marth's B seems to ignore it, because I was playing against a CPU who strong shielded 4 hits of DB then took an uncharged tippered shieldbreaker. Despite his shield LOOKING like it was almost full, it broke. Weird...

 

[Emblem Lord]

Marth would **** this game if he had a spammable kill move honestly. I understand why they didn't give him one.

Also good work on f-tilt.

Still doesn't matter though.

ROFL.

Also what is weird about Shieldbreaker ****** a shield?

 

[NESSBOUNDER]

Marth would **** this game if he had a spammable kill move honestly. I understand why they didn't give him one.

Also good work on f-tilt.

Still doesn't matter though.

ROFL.

Also what is weird about Shieldbreaker ****** a shield?

It just seemed to **** the shield TOO hard. Like...spiky iron handcuffs in a secluded back alley on a cold winter's night kind of hard.

Normally, an uncharged shieldbreaker on a strong shield wouldn't break it unless said shield was at least half-sized.

*mumble mumble I'll go test it mumble*

I feel like Dr. Stein from Soul Eater. OMG DISSECTIONZ!1<3

 

[adumbrodeus]

I should have specified that I wasn't talking about anything specific. The means by which you would realistically attack people IS tilt, jab, aerial, combinations, in general. Circustancially it will of course vary, but that covers most of the area in which Marth actually gets attacks in.

The thing is, Marth's tilts and aerials excel at this.

Especially dtilt which is a wonderful brick wall creating tool AND a safe poking move.

Combined with range and disjointed hitboxes, his moves allow him to attack safely against the majority of the cast.

I didn't make any mention of shield pressuring because, again, I was talking in general about his offense. I've played Marth since Melee came out, I'm very familiar with him, but I thought it was implied by my post that I was talking in general. I'm not ignorant, I just don't think the reasoning provided for certain qualities are very pragmatic, considering they overwhelming don't seem to think of the opponent's best option at certain times either.

Shield pressuring is offense...

I could very well be wrong, I just don't think the reasoning provided is truly valid.
Spacing, power, and speed are all great, but they don't do jacksquat if your opponents play around you if it's an explicit strength. ( not that marth necessarily has those traits, I was just throwing out basic ones) I admit that even my reasoning isn't fully circumstancially based, and that is my fault.

Range (spacing is how you utilize range) is the actual attribute, and yes, nothing does anything unless they're utilized. However, they improve on the basic character, and a character with them is going to be better then a character without them.

Tears up? Theoretically? Yes, if you assume the opponent WILL get caught in it. In that case, any character could have a valid argument for him. When should you do dancing blade? When your close? In that case, your opponent should already thinking to get away from Fsmash, dtilt, jab, or fair, so the move itself isn't so much as the cause for success here as your opponent's mistake is.

He said "punish", if your opponent spotdodges or rolls, there are vulnerability frames which you can use to guarantee a hit with dancing blade.

Same with when you shield an attack.

So, you don't play offensively with dancing blades (unless they're shielding with most chars), you use it to punish an opponent's mistakes.

Tilts, fair, bair, and nair are used offensively.

When in range AFTER you press the button? In this case, if you're not planning on getting out of the way ( which is typically a bad decision against Marth), and shield, you will be placed in a bad spot. Of course, again, the success of the move in this case is too heavily depending on an opponent's mistake: there are a couple of moves that you might as well use in these two cases--dancing blade isn't necessarily a better option than a couple others.
If you're fortunate enough to have your opponents to make a mistake, I don't even see dancing blade yielding better results than dtilt, dtilt, jab and/ or fairs, especially since the circumstances make your opponent open for it to work, regardless if it's an often used combo or not.

It refreshes moves, is more finely controllable, can poke through shields, can actually punish roll/spotdodging, has a very short start-up time, does good damage...

Need I go on?

That's why you use dancing blade.


In general, it's what makes certain things a mistake against Marth.

I don't know. I can't help but credit SAFE Marth play and opponent's mistakes for the Marth play I'm visualizing from the majority of posts here: the circumstances really seem to be great enough for ANY character to do well in, not just Marth and his distinctive qualities.

Maybe that's my bad.

Then you don't understand, most characters don't have poking moves with Marth's range, most chars can't punish roler/spot-dodgers with such efficency, need I go on?

 

[OmegaXF]

It just seemed to **** the shield TOO hard. Like...spiky iron handcuffs in a secluded back alley on a cold winter's night kind of hard.

Normally, an uncharged shieldbreaker on a strong shield wouldn't break it unless said shield was at least half-sized.

*mumble mumble I'll go test it mumble*

I feel like Dr. Stein from Soul Eater. OMG DISSECTIONZ!1<3

Oww....I didn't know things could get ***** that hard. And Dr.Stein is by far a godly character.

 

[NESSBOUNDER]

Oww....I didn't know things could get ***** that hard. And Dr.Stein is by far a godly character.

SOUL...TWIN LANCE!

*10capslock using Steins on a swivel chair.

 

[SummerObsession]

Why don't you use DB offensively? It comes out in 4 frames which is quicker than Tilts, bair, and nair. If your tilts, bair and nair are gonna hit I'm sure Db will hit as well as it comes out faster. It gives you those extra frame that could mean a perfect shield by the opponent. I use DB aggressively and defensively. It's not the safest move, but due to its quick nature its an great aggressive tool.

Marths biggest weakness are his weak, slow, and laggy untippered smashes. Some times its so hard to kill someone, and when you finally do connect with the Fsmash it dosent even kill them because it wasn't tipper and now your F-smash will be even weaker which makes it even harder to kill them. Maybe a regenerated Fair from DB would be a good kill move... Marths throw are also WAY too weak, and he's too **** light.