Today was my first experience using Marth in Smash 4. I went to a local tourney in San Antonio at Ultra Arcade, had good turnout, around 50 people or so. Being a marth main from Brawl marth was of course the first person i picked up.
Right off that bat I could feel that Marth was different: he actually felt slower in a game thats suppose to be "faster than brawl but slower than melee" than his brawl self. The tipper hitboxes and range all seemed the same, I didn't try out jab though, and I like the new shieldbreaker.
Aerials were...very underwhelming. Having to commit so early in a jump unless it was a full hope really stunk and made approaching a pain in the @$$. I felt like empty hopping is going to be MUCH more important in smash 4 due to their being little/no lag upon landing, allowing you to act out of it very quickly.
Maybe it was the tv I was using or maybe a new buffer window, but I definitely could not act/move as fast as I wanted too. I also struggled with basic inputs alot, causing me to miss many, many, punishes );. Many times I would have a pivot grab read and dash backwards and try to grab, but marth would dash and do a crappy dash skid, and something bs would come out instead. Or I would land and whiff a grab, and try to act out of it but things just wouldn't come out. The closest example to what I felt would be a brawl player playing pm for the first time and trying to move in general/buffer/dash dance pivot. It feels as if there is new timing for things I'll have to get used too.
I got 7th out of about 50 people at the tourney today, and I'm not upset about my performance. The two people I lost too, a falcon named Shade and Santi the TL main from brawl (who used diddy) both had been playing on the 3ds version since it came out, and I felt outteched and outknowledged rather than outread/outplayed. The only reasons both sets were close actually was because of my reads as marth otherwise I wouldve got destroyed.
Santi was the one who sent me into losers, and he used diddy both games. He used fairs to "anti-air" me and condition me to shielding so he could get grabs. I quickly caught on and used dtilt to poke him out, but he started doing dashing shield and I would try to pivot grab but that usually failed to come out/whiffed because nerfed grab range I believe(?). My main issues with this matchup was that Diddy really didn't take too much of a risk approaching/could approach freely because his fair seems to have gotten buffed (faster/more range/wayyyy less cooldown). He could literally short hop fair land short hop fair land as many times as he felt like, which he would do until he was in about midrange then either shield/tilt/roll. Rolling hurt alot me alot because many times i would try to ftilt/fair him before/after he faired, but he would land immediately and be able to act before my move's cooldown ended. ); I also felt like I had to make 10x as many reads as him because he had grab->up-air up-air up-air...and it also killed at high percent. He probably got 120% off of grab to upairs not including kills...Free damage vs damage I actually had to "earn". That mu was the only time I felt like I was actually playing a better character.
Shade, the falcon, I had very fun matches with. By this time I had realized that "rushdown Marth" doesnt really exist in this game, especially with how strong simply shielding is and buffered roll->roll and nerfed grab range and lag on aeriels and DB not connecting all the time and having to commit harder etc etc so I played more zoney/defensively...
First game he took pretty convincingly, I learned that his dtilt can screw you over big time if you jump at him offstage and his dash grab...is freaking AMAZING. I would be under the right side of bf, scared af to approach cuz Marth is bad at approaching now (imo) and he would dash grab me in air/as I was landing BEFORE MY FAIR CAME OUT down air to up air up air....
he'd also bait me to do stuff by full speed running/dashing at me (he runs so fast ;- then rolling backwards...repeatedly. In brawl i would just close the distance safely and box him in a corner but in this game it seems like I'll have to do that by walking...just his dash grab is so fast and covers soooo much area. It's really really good. Wish Marth had that ;<
2nd game I won mainly because he sd and I edge guarded the SHIZ outta him...3rd game he took me to delfino and guarded me to death because I wanted to force myself on stage and not be in the water...then took my second stock because I was in the water );
Looking back, I should've been more patient...and I need to learn what marth can do safely in the air. Also what viable tools he has in footsies...when i'm near the opponent in smash 4 its so bad...we usually whiff grabs/attacks just looks so nooby (ik first game people adjusting)
It's a bitter pill for me to swallow going from offensive marth in brawl (offensive=you control the pace of match, FORCE/SCARE you opponent into doing stupid/readable stuff/ then capitalizing big time) and if that didn't work back a little bit to throw them off. in this game...it doesnt' seem like you can do that. even if marth has the "perfect defensive/zoning" game, the opponent still gets to choose when to come in. and if they guess right...you're in for a world of hurt. the burdens on you to set up your wall perfectly. and in this game that's much, much harder and like I said you're not making the opponent play your game...they can easily sit back and wait for you to mess up, vs you being in their face making them mess up. Marth is definitely not the best character in this game, and I definitely believe he is worse (significantly or not I don't wanna say yet) then in brawl.
Nike, a brawl marth main, was also there with me and he watched me go marth vs people and I watched his marth vs people. He also played a diddy and...it was ugly. I think that newer marth mains will have less difficulty using him due to their mindset being "untainted" by melee/brawl, and they could bring fresh new ideas to marth.
Pivot ftilting is a nice new "addition" to his wall but again...nothing is helping marth actually get in and stay in. Invincibility on ledge options seems buffed (saw a luigi ledge jump and fair vs my fair as he was under bf's left platform and his fair hit me while mine went through him...) so edgeguarding definitely seems harder, as well as people being able to double jump and land 100 miles away from marth from the ledge.
I will still main Marth in this game, though will definitely have secondaries vs the "top tiers" (leaning towards shulk/sheik) as "pretty much every mu being even/close to even" definitely doesnt seem the case in this game anymore. He was to commit to so much more than many people (evident more vs "top tiers" and in high level play) and the risk/reward isn't nearly as great. His footsies game will have to be more ground based and guess what, a dashing shield will probably beat most of your options and once you catch onto that a dash to backwards roll will leave you whiffing and second guessing. It feels way to easy for opponents to get in on Marth, and it makes me wonder how Sakurai idealized Marth to play in this game. I'd love to ask him....
Thanks for reading, feel free to comment/critizise/add on!(:
Right off that bat I could feel that Marth was different: he actually felt slower in a game thats suppose to be "faster than brawl but slower than melee" than his brawl self. The tipper hitboxes and range all seemed the same, I didn't try out jab though, and I like the new shieldbreaker.
Aerials were...very underwhelming. Having to commit so early in a jump unless it was a full hope really stunk and made approaching a pain in the @$$. I felt like empty hopping is going to be MUCH more important in smash 4 due to their being little/no lag upon landing, allowing you to act out of it very quickly.
Maybe it was the tv I was using or maybe a new buffer window, but I definitely could not act/move as fast as I wanted too. I also struggled with basic inputs alot, causing me to miss many, many, punishes );. Many times I would have a pivot grab read and dash backwards and try to grab, but marth would dash and do a crappy dash skid, and something bs would come out instead. Or I would land and whiff a grab, and try to act out of it but things just wouldn't come out. The closest example to what I felt would be a brawl player playing pm for the first time and trying to move in general/buffer/dash dance pivot. It feels as if there is new timing for things I'll have to get used too.
I got 7th out of about 50 people at the tourney today, and I'm not upset about my performance. The two people I lost too, a falcon named Shade and Santi the TL main from brawl (who used diddy) both had been playing on the 3ds version since it came out, and I felt outteched and outknowledged rather than outread/outplayed. The only reasons both sets were close actually was because of my reads as marth otherwise I wouldve got destroyed.
Santi was the one who sent me into losers, and he used diddy both games. He used fairs to "anti-air" me and condition me to shielding so he could get grabs. I quickly caught on and used dtilt to poke him out, but he started doing dashing shield and I would try to pivot grab but that usually failed to come out/whiffed because nerfed grab range I believe(?). My main issues with this matchup was that Diddy really didn't take too much of a risk approaching/could approach freely because his fair seems to have gotten buffed (faster/more range/wayyyy less cooldown). He could literally short hop fair land short hop fair land as many times as he felt like, which he would do until he was in about midrange then either shield/tilt/roll. Rolling hurt alot me alot because many times i would try to ftilt/fair him before/after he faired, but he would land immediately and be able to act before my move's cooldown ended. ); I also felt like I had to make 10x as many reads as him because he had grab->up-air up-air up-air...and it also killed at high percent. He probably got 120% off of grab to upairs not including kills...Free damage vs damage I actually had to "earn". That mu was the only time I felt like I was actually playing a better character.
Shade, the falcon, I had very fun matches with. By this time I had realized that "rushdown Marth" doesnt really exist in this game, especially with how strong simply shielding is and buffered roll->roll and nerfed grab range and lag on aeriels and DB not connecting all the time and having to commit harder etc etc so I played more zoney/defensively...
First game he took pretty convincingly, I learned that his dtilt can screw you over big time if you jump at him offstage and his dash grab...is freaking AMAZING. I would be under the right side of bf, scared af to approach cuz Marth is bad at approaching now (imo) and he would dash grab me in air/as I was landing BEFORE MY FAIR CAME OUT down air to up air up air....
he'd also bait me to do stuff by full speed running/dashing at me (he runs so fast ;- then rolling backwards...repeatedly. In brawl i would just close the distance safely and box him in a corner but in this game it seems like I'll have to do that by walking...just his dash grab is so fast and covers soooo much area. It's really really good. Wish Marth had that ;<
2nd game I won mainly because he sd and I edge guarded the SHIZ outta him...3rd game he took me to delfino and guarded me to death because I wanted to force myself on stage and not be in the water...then took my second stock because I was in the water );
Looking back, I should've been more patient...and I need to learn what marth can do safely in the air. Also what viable tools he has in footsies...when i'm near the opponent in smash 4 its so bad...we usually whiff grabs/attacks just looks so nooby (ik first game people adjusting)
It's a bitter pill for me to swallow going from offensive marth in brawl (offensive=you control the pace of match, FORCE/SCARE you opponent into doing stupid/readable stuff/ then capitalizing big time) and if that didn't work back a little bit to throw them off. in this game...it doesnt' seem like you can do that. even if marth has the "perfect defensive/zoning" game, the opponent still gets to choose when to come in. and if they guess right...you're in for a world of hurt. the burdens on you to set up your wall perfectly. and in this game that's much, much harder and like I said you're not making the opponent play your game...they can easily sit back and wait for you to mess up, vs you being in their face making them mess up. Marth is definitely not the best character in this game, and I definitely believe he is worse (significantly or not I don't wanna say yet) then in brawl.
Nike, a brawl marth main, was also there with me and he watched me go marth vs people and I watched his marth vs people. He also played a diddy and...it was ugly. I think that newer marth mains will have less difficulty using him due to their mindset being "untainted" by melee/brawl, and they could bring fresh new ideas to marth.
Pivot ftilting is a nice new "addition" to his wall but again...nothing is helping marth actually get in and stay in. Invincibility on ledge options seems buffed (saw a luigi ledge jump and fair vs my fair as he was under bf's left platform and his fair hit me while mine went through him...) so edgeguarding definitely seems harder, as well as people being able to double jump and land 100 miles away from marth from the ledge.
I will still main Marth in this game, though will definitely have secondaries vs the "top tiers" (leaning towards shulk/sheik) as "pretty much every mu being even/close to even" definitely doesnt seem the case in this game anymore. He was to commit to so much more than many people (evident more vs "top tiers" and in high level play) and the risk/reward isn't nearly as great. His footsies game will have to be more ground based and guess what, a dashing shield will probably beat most of your options and once you catch onto that a dash to backwards roll will leave you whiffing and second guessing. It feels way to easy for opponents to get in on Marth, and it makes me wonder how Sakurai idealized Marth to play in this game. I'd love to ask him....
Thanks for reading, feel free to comment/critizise/add on!(: