My Marth needs some advice, please

[Skylord]

I'm relatively new to Melee with AT's (I started learning them around the end of 2007). My Marth is obviously sluggish, but hey, I plan on playing this game for a few more years, so I might as well try to get better.

Any advice, constructive criticism, etc., is very much welcome.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXqmr0Cvrh8&feature=user

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVVV9ejDvyc&feature=user


I've uploaded a few more friendlies with the same Falco player (Oskurito), but I figured it's probably gonna take just one or two games for you guys to figure out my style and flaws.

(I apologize for the terrible quality and the annoying high-frequency screech in the background... you might wanna turn your volume off if you wanna avoid eardrum damage lol)

 

[ArcNatural]

Practice powershield timing. Even if you can't powershield well this will help you a ton.

You need to make the most of your time moving in between lasers. If your forced to shield early it cuts in your time for moving. Learning to powershield enables you to cut down on your shield time against lasers regardless of if you powershield or not. Dashing forward into an attempted Powershield to wavedash out or shffl will greatly improve your mobility and give you the feeling of at least I can move in this matchup again.

I hope you understand what I mean. The longer you stay stationary the easier it is for Falco to line up a shffl to shine that suits them. Wavedashing forward to shield right after a laser will throw off their l-cancel timing if they nair right after it and your in the beginning of their shffl as opposed to the end of it. Just an example of why moving and spacing is important.

Get comfortable with the hit lag of lasers. If you get lasered in the air close to the ground as they approach you can sometimes nail them with a fair right after the laser or at least airdodge. Also useful on the ground as you can time dashes, attacks, and wavedashes better after getting hit from a laser once you actually pay attention to the hit lag.

Learn to shffl out of shield and wavedash out of shield, not to mention roll every once in a while if you get caught in a pillar(if they pillar correctly on your shield rolling or get hit are your only options if they don't mess up). Both of these will give you more options. You see Falco double jump above you? Shffl an upair right out of shield to grab. You think Falco is going to approach after this laser? Wavedash backwards right after the laser to grab or attack his approach, or shffl a fair right after the laser to try to intercept his approach.

Take chances if you think they are going to RSHL. Lasers are predictable for the most part. They only serve to control space. If your right next to them shielding or otherwise (around at least a sword length)
many Falcos will often just RSHL. You can dash forward to dash attack, shield, etc. and often catch them trying to retreat. Osk did this a couple of times, often you just shielded or went the wrong way.

Last thing would be to learn proper spacing. A very common mistake when tech chasing is players try to just get that grab and not space it. Missing a grab against a spotdodge of Fox or Falco improperly spaced leads to a shine -> something. Trying to maximize Marth's grab range will at least minimize the chances of the shine hitting. If your too close and you don't know if your going to grab them before they recover do something else, like a stationary nair or wait for the spotdodge.

Also, if you hit Falco you need to take the initiative to learn what they do after getting hit so you can follow up. Letting them reset themselves often after finally getting through lasers and hitting Falco is bad. Does he CC shffls to shine? Space better. Does he roll spotdodge if he gets hit when you space? Go from there.

Your main issue is you get stuck in a stationary position too much. Minimize your downtime against lasers and you should improve.

 

[Skylord]

Talk about constructive criticism...

That post sure helped a lot, thanks! Well, Osk has a lot more experience than me and he's tech skill is very high, so a lot of the time I feel choked by his lasers, pillaring, etc.... By watching pro Marth players I see that getting the powershield timing right is very important. It's just that sometimes I feel like I can't even move properly. So yeah, I'll start working on your tips.

 

[ArcNatural]

Talk about constructive criticism...

That post sure helped a lot, thanks! Well, Osk has a lot more experience than me and he's tech skill is very high, so a lot of the time I feel choked by his lasers, pillaring, etc.... By watching pro Marth players I see that getting the powershield timing right is very important. It's just that sometimes I feel like I can't even move properly. So yeah, I'll start working on your tips.

If you look at any of my previous criticism I'm always like this. It's a lot easier to point out problems than they are to solve them.

Don't worry to much about actually powershielding them, you more concerned with moving before and after lasers. That said, the best way to improve your movement before and after is being as close to powershield timing that you can. Just ask Osk or someone to shffl lasers for a little bit for a couple of days to get used to what the timing roughly is. Then try dashing powershields and such. Believe me, even if you don't powershield them it still helps. Because rather than going "oh crap shield time" your actually thinking about wavedashing out of shield, or shffling out of shield. Basically you don't stop thinking, since your already looking towards your next move.

Once you get comfortable with moving before and after lasers the matchup gets a lot better.

 

[Smash G 0 D]

Skylord! Some basics you should work on:

-landing grabs
-JC grabs
-wavelanding
-fairs
-edge game
-nairs

Those are some that come to mind after I watch some of your vids.

First things first - landing grabs. Against Falco, grabs are nice. You can bring him to 50% for free. Also, once you get him in a grab while he's in the CG percent range (up to about 30%), don't screw up! Know all of the tricks to getting out of it and make sure you see it coming. Use Utilt when he DIs a little bit away, and sometimes you can grab again after that. Be creative. That was off topic.. Anyways. With Marth's grab range, you shouldn't have to go too far to land grabs. Use waveshieldgrabs, wavegrabs, shieldgrabs, pivot grabs, and everything else in your arsenal. Again, be creative.

Wavelanding! I love this. Especially at platform stages, Marth's wavelands are underrated. If you're directly under a platform and Falco is in front of you and the platform, you can full hop -> waveland -> fair him into a grab. Or fsmash. Be creative.. again. Also, wavelands can mix up your edge game. Ledgehop into a waveland into a grab or Dtilt or shield or something else.

Edge game. This is importanttt. Thankfully, edgeguarding Falco isn't that hard if you know what you're doing. I saw you using Dtilts to edgeguard Oskurito, but not much else. Don't be afraid to use your counter on his UpB. If he's in the midst of charging his UpB, don't be afraid to drop off the ledge and reverse Dolphin Slash him, if you know how to do it. You can even drop off and hit him with a SideB, and his fastfalliness will do the rest. Almost anything will work. Also, since his UpB doesn't have much range, edgehogs are quite efficient.

Nairs! All I have to say about Nairs is that you use too many of them. You ledgehop into them, SHFFL them, and a lot of other stuff. I counted several opportunities where a tipped Fair or Uair would have been a better option than the Nair.

That's another thing! Surprisingly, a lot of people don't use this to their advantage - tipped Fairs send your opponents more upwards, and non-tipped Fairs send them horizontally. I love this.. you have so many options. It's great.

I happened to notice that you like to use Ftilt as well.. I don't know if it's just me, but I don't really like that move too much. Sure it has a nice range, but you don't need that extra range against Falco that much when all of Marth's other moves already have a decent range. I noticed a few opportunities where a well-timed Fsmash would have been better than Ftilt.

I'll have to think more about what else to say, but that's all for now. Also, sorry I didn't read your post, Arc, so I'm not sure if I repeated anything.

Good luck with Marth

 

[Skylord]

More help, yay!

First of all, sometimes the falco DIs to the opposite side I'm looking AND really far away, which prevents me from landing an Up tilt (talking about when the falco is at 30+%). Sometimes the falco is at a high enough percentage to just F-smash tipper him while he's on his way down, but other times he just falls too fast. What should I do in those situations?

I notice that a lot of people seem to be talking about JC grabs and out of shield wavedashes. About oos WDs, well, I think they're not that useful. I think they're so useless that it always surprises me when someone does it to me, because on paper it looks really slow but in reality they're fast enough to catch you off guard. I guess I'm gonna have to start using them.

About JC grabs... What exactly is their utility? How good are they compared to extended grabs and regular grabs?

 

[Strong Badam]

Grabs while running have like.... double the frames of lag. JC grabs let you run towards an opponent (typically during a chaingrab but sometimes during your opponents landing lag depending on who you're facing) and then grab them and it is much less punishable if you miss.

 

[ArcNatural]

More help, yay!

First of all, sometimes the falco DIs to the opposite side I'm looking AND really far away, which prevents me from landing an Up tilt (talking about when the falco is at 30+%). Sometimes the falco is at a high enough percentage to just F-smash tipper him while he's on his way down, but other times he just falls too fast. What should I do in those situations?

I notice that a lot of people seem to be talking about JC grabs and out of shield wavedashes. About oos WDs, well, I think they're not that useful. I think they're so useless that it always surprises me when someone does it to me, because on paper it looks really slow but in reality they're fast enough to catch you off guard. I guess I'm gonna have to start using them.

About JC grabs... What exactly is their utility? How good are they compared to extended grabs and regular grabs?

Wavedashes oos is a major punisher of Marth Fsmashes, basically if you don't tipper the shield and they shield it it's a free grab for them. Just look at it this way, Wavedash out of shield sounds slow, but it's way faster than just dropping shield or rolling. You shield one laser and what are you going to do? Jumping/wavedashing oos are your fastest options. It's an incredible option, especially for Marth and his decent wavedash. Just running up, shielding to reverse wavedash can throw people off, expecting to hit your shield.

I don't know what your talking about with Falco to be honest. At 30-37% uptilt still hits, are you reverse uptilting? You need to reverse uptilt if they DI straight up, slighty in front, or behind you to regrab and you need to be quick with it. Fsmash is usually if they DI away around 45%, other than that just regrab.

Another important thing to note is if they DI behind you after 50% from an upthrow and you want to follow it up with a shffl combo. Make sure you Dash behind you HARD. I don't mean hard as in break the stick, but hard as in all the way to the opposite side as fast you can(providing your out of the lag of the throw of course). If you do it too slow you will lose some time to Marth turning around. If you do it quickly Marth ignores those turn around frames and goes immediately to a dash.

JC grabs replace a tiny bit of reach you gain from dash grabbing with much less lag. It's basically what he described above. If you do it right you do a sliding standing grab. Standing grabs are faster (because you don't have to waste 4-5 frames jumping) but JC grabs are used over dashing grabs in almost all situations.

 

[Skylord]

Alright, thanks for the information. Now that I play Marth I see that CG'ing from zero to death vs fastfallers is quite tricky to pull off... Some people make it look soooo easy.

 

[elvenarrow3000]

Ummm... dash grabs are not double the lag. Dash grabs (with Marth, and most other characters) are ten frames longer than standing grabs, which are thirty frames total.

 

[BrawlLover]

just keep at it man, don't give up until you get it right