Melee to P.M. What to know?

[Hunybear]

I've been playing melee competitively and only mess around with P.M. What do i need to know going into P.M. competitively. Like advanced movement, match ups, things that worked in melee that don't there, Things that are new in P.M. that cant be done in melee. Stuff like that. Is the meta game different in P.M. compared to melee? How so? What are the ins and outs of P.M. Marth. If u could link me to comprehensive guides that'd be really helpful too.

 

[elisekimchi]

Not much has changed. He plays pretty much the same but there are some new brawl techniques that are somewhat useful. Reverse aeriel rush is pretty good near the edge and dacus is very very situational. There isn't lightshielding in PM so marthkiller doesnt exist. Just play marth how you would in melee and learn the new match ups.

 

[Kaoak]

Not much has changed. He plays pretty much the same but there are some new brawl techniques that are somewhat useful. Reverse aeriel rush is pretty good near the edge and dacus is very very situational. There isn't lightshielding in PM so marthkiller doesnt exist. Just play marth how you would in melee and learn the new match ups.

Marth killer does exist, light shield isn't necessary and ASDI was added in 3.5

 

[Preacher]

You'll have to deal with projectiles a lot more in PM. Marth performs as well as he does in melee except the cast is capable of dealing with him better so he's overall not as great compared to melee. For all intents and purposes he's the same but the engine makes him a bit more floaty (which is more beneficial than anything else). Certain things from brawl work in PM like reverse aerial rush. As far as matchups go there are about 40 characters in PM with about less than 5 being not viable so you have almost 5 times the amount of mathups to learn though most of the melee cast is untouched. Zelda is different, Dk is a bit different, roy is completely different, but fox and falco are the same and so on.

As it stands there is no guide to Marth in PM from melee though I am working on one so if you have any in depth questions message me.

 

[Retrolistic]

Grab much more cause it's so freaking good in PM. If you think grabbing was good in Melee, it's just even stupider in PM 3.5 (regardless of the nerf) it's just so good. If people don't know how to DI Marth's grab, it's like a free F-smash most times and I just feel it's smoother to do on PM personally.

 

[Hunybear]

What about match ups. Like who should i be watching for. Who am i good against.

 

[Preacher]

Link is difficult because he basically wins the neutral game at the start. Projectiles are just something you have to get around at the start, and link has a lot of them to interfere with your spacing. Once you get used to the match up it becomes easier but his up B spikes at the feet so learn to sweet spot the ledge.

DK is difficult because his tilts are faster and longer than marth's. Off of one grab he can up throw to punch and kill at 60% if he lands it. His recovery has higher hitboxes but you can still spike him out of it and he can be juggled. Just don't whiff attacks against DK because his punishes are stupidly powerful.

DDD is another character with tilts that can out space Marth. He is hard to gank some times because of all his jumps. His back air can gimp Marth forever. And once he's at that magical percent where Marth can't reliably kill he lives almost as long as Jigglypuff. All in all I'd say the match up isn't really difficult, but DDD has an advantage on large stages.

MewTwo can juggle Marth with his tilts and aerials and is very floaty so he's hard to combo. Though I'm not sure how the match up is now with his nerfs, but in 3.0 the MU was literally 90/10 in Mewtwo's favor.

Chrarizard has a comparable range on attacks and grabs, but have less lag than marth's. He's slower than Marth, but still punishes well. His grabs are hard to kill with if you DI them well, but they can control position about as well as marth. He also has a few ways to get back to the ledge, making it a bit difficult to edge guard.

Kirby may be bad, but I havn't had extensive fights against Kirby players. His agility is something to rival Marth and he has a much better good moveset than melee and brawl. Typically they'll tempt you with bait and punish games, but if you don't fall for it he can be K.O.ed at mid percents from a tipper. Beware the dash attack and inhale gimps

Marth can be trouble because of the same reasons in melee

everyone else is an even match up or worse with the exceptions of the melee cast. Though fighting Sheik is a bit easier and so is fox due to marth's minor buffs and their nerfs.

 

[Kuya the Red]

Ok with Marth here are some stuff that i learned that is different from PM and Melee.

1) SH fair is easier in Melee. In PM you have to do either of two things to have Marth's SH fair become an exact copy of Melee Marth's SH fair. You either perform SH fair from a crouching position or oos (Out of shield). Why? because if you don't Marth will jump a bit too high with his Short hop to make SH fair effective. SH fair'ing from crouching or oos will fix this. takes a little bit to get used to, but not hard.

2) "Ken" combo works like a charm in melee. In PM you have to be a little creative with Marth's combo because his fair sends opponents farther than he did in melee, making it harder to link a Dair right after Fair.

3) Grabbing with Marth was slightly nerfed in PM. Most people wont see it, but I do. You can no longer grab people slightly behind marth like you can in melee and his Dash Grab range has been shortened. What you need to do to make this not matter for marth players is to practice JC (jump canceled) Grabs. JC grabs with marth is a godsend to a good player. It has much less lag and because it uses marth's standing grab, Marth's range will be as long as ever. It also puts momentum in marth so he slides a bit when doing it. To JC grab, you have to input jump and 2 or 3 frames later input grab. this cancels his jump and then he performs a standing grab. Why is this important? because you get to dash dance and perform a standing grab out of dashing instead of a dash grab which has much less range, speed and far more lag. Enjoy.

4) Not sure if you can do this in melee, but i thought id mention it anyways. You can grab the ledge with a reverse Up B near the apex of the Up B.

5) I find tippers to be a bit harder to get in PM than in Melee. Others might argue against it, but ive been playing for a while and I notice the difference.

Other than those He's pretty much the same! A carbon copy! Enjoy PM and enjoy change grabbing spacies!

 

[Hunybear]

Link is difficult because he basically wins the neutral game at the start. Projectiles are just something you have to get around at the start, and link has a lot of them to interfere with your spacing. Once you get used to the match up it becomes easier but his up B spikes at the feet so learn to sweet spot the ledge.

DK is difficult because his tilts are faster and longer than marth's. Off of one grab he can up throw to punch and kill at 60% if he lands it. His recovery has higher hitboxes but you can still spike him out of it and he can be juggled. Just don't whiff attacks against DK because his punishes are stupidly powerful.

DDD is another character with tilts that can out space Marth. He is hard to gank some times because of all his jumps. His back air can gimp Marth forever. And once he's at that magical percent where Marth can't reliably kill he lives almost as long as Jigglypuff. All in all I'd say the match up isn't really difficult, but DDD has an advantage on large stages.

MewTwo can juggle Marth with his tilts and aerials and is very floaty so he's hard to combo. Though I'm not sure how the match up is now with his nerfs, but in 3.0 the MU was literally 90/10 in Mewtwo's favor.

Chrarizard has a comparable range on attacks and grabs, but have less lag than marth's. He's slower than Marth, but still punishes well. His grabs are hard to kill with if you DI them well, but they can control position about as well as marth. He also has a few ways to get back to the ledge, making it a bit difficult to edge guard.

Kirby may be bad, but I havn't had extensive fights against Kirby players. His agility is something to rival Marth and he has a much better good moveset than melee and brawl. Typically they'll tempt you with bait and punish games, but if you don't fall for it he can be K.O.ed at mid percents from a tipper. Beware the dash attack and inhale gimps

Marth can be trouble because of the same reasons in melee

everyone else is an even match up or worse with the exceptions of the melee cast. Though fighting Sheik is a bit easier and so is fox due to marth's minor buffs and their nerfs.

Omg Thanks a lot! Is there any advice you could give me on beating some of marths harder match ups. Especially DK

 

[Hunybear]

Ok with Marth here are some stuff that i learned that is different from PM and Melee.

1) SH fair is easier in Melee. In PM you have to do either of two things to have Marth's SH fair become an exact copy of Melee Marth's SH fair. You either perform SH fair from a crouching position or oos (Out of shield). Why? because if you don't Marth will jump a bit too high with his Short hop to make SH fair effective. SH fair'ing from crouching or oos will fix this. takes a little bit to get used to, but not hard.

2) "Ken" combo works like a charm in melee. In PM you have to be a little creative with Marth's combo because his fair sends opponents farther than he did in melee, making it harder to link a Dair right after Fair.

3) Grabbing with Marth was slightly nerfed in PM. Most people wont see it, but I do. You can no longer grab people slightly behind marth like you can in melee and his Dash Grab range has been shortened. What you need to do to make this not matter for marth players is to practice JC (jump canceled) Grabs. JC grabs with marth is a godsend to a good player. It has much less lag and because it uses marth's standing grab, Marth's range will be as long as ever. It also puts momentum in marth so he slides a bit when doing it. To JC grab, you have to input jump and 2 or 3 frames later input grab. this cancels his jump and then he performs a standing grab. Why is this important? because you get to dash dance and perform a standing grab out of dashing instead of a dash grab which has much less range, speed and far more lag. Enjoy.

4) Not sure if you can do this in melee, but i thought id mention it anyways. You can grab the ledge with a reverse Up B near the apex of the Up B.

5) I find tippers to be a bit harder to get in PM than in Melee. Others might argue against it, but ive been playing for a while and I notice the difference.

Other than those He's pretty much the same! A carbon copy! Enjoy PM and enjoy change grabbing spacies!

What about SH double fair and down throwing floaties into F-Smash. Like little marth tricks like that.

 

[Signia]

What about SH double fair and down throwing floaties into F-Smash. Like little marth tricks like that.

I'm in the same sort of situation as you and this what feels different from a playing (and winning ) two small P:M tournaments:

The biggest wtf was his throws. They seem to launch at different angles. The chaingrab on Fox feels so incredibly different it almost lost me a tournament. Whatever the chaingrab on Wolf is, it's probably worth knowing, as well.

Dthrow seems to not launch as far behind Marth. Dthrow Fsmash seemed to hit a lot more often. It's possible that my opponents' DI choices were poor, but no DI choices would result in the weird angles I was seeing.

Tippers seemed easier to get, to me. I was getting pivot tipper F-smashes all the time. The different look of the game might screw you up, though. I was also getting lots of tipper fair and utilt strings and things seemed to combo together more easily, and I'm not really sure why.

I don't really know P:M matchups at all, but from what I gathered in the past, Diddy and Roy can be upthrow utilted at low percentages, hilariously enough (I know this because Roy can be uthrow utilted in Melee from 0% and Diddy has a similar fall speed and weight).

But the general strategy I've been running for Marth to fall back on in the absence of matchup knowledge, which you might not be used to because you're used to fighting spacies in Melee, is to approach with WD dtilt, dash JC grab, and shield-stopped fair/tomahawk mixup (but mainly spam that dtilt) and punish their attempts to get around that. Dtilt is not easy to punish without some top tier speed if you tilt forward and shield or dash away, and the same goes for fade-away fairs/nairs. Their options are usually to try jumping at you, which Marth can usually just jab/side-B them out of, or dash away from.

If they outrange Marth, their careful spacing needed to beat out Marth certainly won't be safe to well-spaced dash dancing and punishing.

Projectiles? Shield and WD out, and in general stay on the offensive.

Don't know how to kill anyone that you can't edgeguard or kill from combo to Fsmash? Never forget about side-B->utilt and up-B, and dair as a starter.

From grabs either be good at tech chasing and fthrow/backthrow (Marth's tech chase is underrated imo) or upthrow them and don't let them down.


It's really hard to deal with this strategy. But by this theory, your tough matchups will be where:
-You can't combo them from throws
-You can't trap them easily from below (this is usually where you need to tech chase them)
-You can't tech chase them
-You can't edgeguard them (you probably won't know how anyway)
-They have great ways around dtilt and fair

 

[Hunybear]

I'm in the same sort of situation as you and this what feels different from a playing (and winning ) two small P:M tournaments:

The biggest wtf was his throws. They seem to launch at different angles. The chaingrab on Fox feels so incredibly different it almost lost me a tournament. Whatever the chaingrab on Wolf is, it's probably worth knowing, as well.

Dthrow seems to not launch as far behind Marth. Dthrow Fsmash seemed to hit a lot more often. It's possible that my opponents' DI choices were poor, but no DI choices would result in the weird angles I was seeing.

Tippers seemed easier to get, to me. I was getting pivot tipper F-smashes all the time. The different look of the game might screw you up, though. I was also getting lots of tipper fair and utilt strings and things seemed to combo together more easily, and I'm not really sure why.

I don't really know P:M matchups at all, but from what I gathered in the past, Diddy and Roy can be upthrow utilted at low percentages, hilariously enough (I know this because Roy can be uthrow utilted in Melee from 0% and Diddy has a similar fall speed and weight).

But the general strategy I've been running for Marth to fall back on in the absence of matchup knowledge, which you might not be used to because you're used to fighting spacies in Melee, is to approach with WD dtilt, dash JC grab, and shield-stopped fair/tomahawk mixup (but mainly spam that dtilt) and punish their attempts to get around that. Dtilt is not easy to punish without some top tier speed if you tilt forward and shield or dash away, and the same goes for fade-away fairs/nairs. Their options are usually to try jumping at you, which Marth can usually just jab/side-B them out of, or dash away from.

If they outrange Marth, their careful spacing needed to beat out Marth certainly won't be safe to well-spaced dash dancing and punishing.

Projectiles? Shield and WD out, and in general stay on the offensive.

Don't know how to kill anyone that you can't edgeguard or kill from combo to Fsmash? Never forget about side-B->utilt and up-B, and dair as a starter.

From grabs either be good at tech chasing and fthrow/backthrow (Marth's tech chase is underrated imo) or upthrow them and don't let them down.


It's really hard to deal with this strategy. But by this theory, your tough matchups will be where:
-You can't combo them from throws
-You can't trap them easily from below (this is usually where you need to tech chase them)
-You can't tech chase them
-You can't edgeguard them (you probably won't know how anyway)
-They have great ways around dtilt and fair

Omg thank you. This was really helpful. When i dont know a match up i just punish mistakes untill it's over. lot's of baiting and d-tilt.

 

[DethM]

Thoughts on the Tink matchup? It's hard to decide and I'm not fully sure, but I think Tink wins. Very dependent on the Tink's style at the moment.

 

[ShamRochi]

I don't realize much different. Not that I can think of at least.

 

[Sora Keyblade Master]

Ok with Marth here are some stuff that i learned that is different from PM and Melee.

1) SH fair is easier in Melee. In PM you have to do either of two things to have Marth's SH fair become an exact copy of Melee Marth's SH fair. You either perform SH fair from a crouching position or oos (Out of shield). Why? because if you don't Marth will jump a bit too high with his Short hop to make SH fair effective. SH fair'ing from crouching or oos will fix this. takes a little bit to get used to, but not hard.

2) "Ken" combo works like a charm in melee. In PM you have to be a little creative with Marth's combo because his fair sends opponents farther than he did in melee, making it harder to link a Dair right after Fair.

3) Grabbing with Marth was slightly nerfed in PM. Most people wont see it, but I do. You can no longer grab people slightly behind marth like you can in melee and his Dash Grab range has been shortened. What you need to do to make this not matter for marth players is to practice JC (jump canceled) Grabs. JC grabs with marth is a godsend to a good player. It has much less lag and because it uses marth's standing grab, Marth's range will be as long as ever. It also puts momentum in marth so he slides a bit when doing it. To JC grab, you have to input jump and 2 or 3 frames later input grab. this cancels his jump and then he performs a standing grab. Why is this important? because you get to dash dance and perform a standing grab out of dashing instead of a dash grab which has much less range, speed and far more lag. Enjoy.

4) Not sure if you can do this in melee, but i thought id mention it anyways. You can grab the ledge with a reverse Up B near the apex of the Up B.

5) I find tippers to be a bit harder to get in PM than in Melee. Others might argue against it, but ive been playing for a while and I notice the difference.

Other than those He's pretty much the same! A carbon copy! Enjoy PM and enjoy change grabbing spacies!

This man is a professional marth player in terms of knowledge, straight from Melee. I say this because I started on Melee aswell with my Marth. And I can assure you the "Tipper Range" Has been nerfed in PM. I honestly believe the only people who notice it are the "Melee Marth Mains" Ive modded several of my characters PSA and change attacks and other things accordingly.

I'll give an example of what I saw and how it works. I'll use Marth's FSmash in this example. And break it into easy to understand terms. In this example the forward smash has 4 active hit boxes, and only 1 out of those hit boxes will give you the tipper. ( This was the change made to brawl Marth, carried over into PM) In melee out 2 out of those 4 hit boxes would give you the tipper. So you had a 50 percent chance to land a tipper in melee. In pm you only have 25 percent chance to land a tipper. I also notice that change on the down air as well. The tipper had I want to say at least a 1.3 if not ( 1.5 ) hitstun brawl, that carried over to PM 3.0 for bit but then it was removed later. I however, I don't agree with this, because it makes it harder to tell if you actually get the tipper now. And I do believe even in melee, it had some degree to hitstun on it, and would often leave a trail of smoke when you tipper-ed someone at mid to higher damage.

I couldn't figure out the other changes to marth until you mentioned them, because I would always debate PM was bad compared to "Melee Marth" and with this combined post, I believe these are all the major changes. I've never seen " Melee Marth " PSA file data, so I was never able to confirm my hypotheses on the data or not, but hey its just a theory, a game theory...?

I

 

[Strong Badam]

I'll give an example of what I saw and how it works. I'll use Marth's FSmash in this example. And break it into easy to understand terms. In this example the forward smash has 4 active hit boxes, and only 1 out of those hit boxes will give you the tipper. ( This was the change made to brawl Marth, carried over into PM) In melee out 2 out of those 4 hit boxes would give you the tipper. So you had a 50 percent chance to land a tipper in melee. In pm you only have 25 percent chance to land a tipper. I also notice that change on the down air as well.

This is really wrong. Marth has a few moves where two hitboxes tipper, such as Up-Tilt and Dash Attack, but as a general rule he gets one "tipper" hitbox in both Melee and PM, and certainly not on F-Smash or Dair. You can open up Melee character files using MasterHand the same way you would use PSA, although it's read-only, so this is verifiable by the masses. All of Marth's hitbox data (including what is and isn't a tipper) has been ported from Melee for PM, with the only exception I'm aware of is Up-Smash's tipper hitbox being positioned better (a buff).

 

[SSBM_Sora]

Keyblade master at it again? I swear i should just change my tag from sora lol but its stuck D:

 

[Sora Keyblade Master]

This is really wrong. Marth has a few moves where two hitboxes tipper, such as Up-Tilt and Dash Attack, but as a general rule he gets one "tipper" hitbox in both Melee and PM, and certainly not on F-Smash or Dair. You can open up Melee character files using MasterHand the same way you would use PSA, although it's read-only, so this is verifiable by the masses. All of Marth's hitbox data (including what is and isn't a tipper) has been ported from Melee for PM, with the only exception I'm aware of is Up-Smash's tipper hitbox being positioned better (a buff).

I already stated it was just a theory.

 

[TreK]

The halved ledge occupancy means it's much harder to edgehog Marth in PM
No lighshield makes it harder to do a Marth killer but it still is possible if you tilt your shield diagonally down and release the control stick after getting hit. However, some characters' shields are too small and get stabbed easily, and even if it doesn't, you can sweetspot optimally to miss their shields.
You can airdodge during IASA frames now, which means you can waveland your sh bair, and a whole bunch of other things.
There are a bunch of Brawl ATs that made the transition. The most important ones to learn imo : reverse aerial rush, b reverse, and anything item related.
There is a new way to pivot, it's done by doing a light input like you'd do for a shield drop. This lets you pivot dtilt, pivot utilt and pivot fsmash much more consistently even when you're not frame perfect... At the cost of not being frame perfect.

And then there are a bunch of changes I'm not actually sure are changes because I don't play Melee, like sideB leading into sideB3 and utilt on floaties for easy kills.

And finally, while it's okay in some matchups to just do Marth things and dash dance camp a bunch, in PM there are about 30 to 35 characters that you actually have to respect and learn the matchup. If you go in with only Melee fundamentals and you aren't M2K you're probably going to get rekt by things most PM players have a pretty good idea how to shut down like tether recoveries, Lucario's combos into sideB spikes, Snakes's grenade trades, Bowser's armored moves, etc...
There's a lot more matchup knowledge to have and a lot of Melee vets are quick to judge the game as gimmicky when they mostly just lack the information. Think about how much time it took you to learn the falco matchup, and multiply that by 30, basically.

 

[sneakytako]

Is marth Dair different than melee in terms of KB? Or maybe the brawl physics engine works differently? I feel like marth dair feels closer falco dair in terms of followups after hitting them on the stage.

 

[Honor]

Along the same lines, it's been years since I've played M and am just now getting back into it.

My question is: Is staling in the air with DB any different in PM than in Melee? In Brawl you could still do it but the input was different. Is it the same in Melee and PM?