A2ZOMG
Smash Legend
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- Oct 13, 2007
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I just thought I'd write a semi-well-organized guide to the small details and big ones about Mario's Up-B, which is easily one of his most important moves to understand.
Recovery:
As a recovery move, it's just average. The distance is nothing to write home about, it has good priority, but if you do it wrong or DI badly against the wrong attack, it's easily edgehogged. It does have very good priority and the ability to stagespike at respectable knockback, and it autosweetspots the ledge.
One thing that has not been discussed yet though is that Mario is a character who retains a landing lag animation after sweetspotting the ledge with his Up-B. This is called a Recovery CarryOver Lag (RCO lag). This landing lag animation is about the same length as normally landing on the ground after using the Up-B, and it's enough to get you punished before you are able to shield an attack. After sweetspotting the ledge, you will retain this landing animation the next time you jump and land on the ground. If you jump and air dodge towards the ground, you will also retain this landing lag animation, so basically, once you make it to the ledge, it's a real issue trying to get back on stage without getting punished.
How to work around RCO Lag:
The obvious way to work around this is get back on stage as soon as possible before your opponent can chase you down, and manually remove the lag with a quick shorthop.
If you land on the ground with an aerial attack, it erases your RCO lag too. Mario has a few aerials with what seems to be less landing lag than his RCO lag. N-air, B-air, and U-air should come to mind, and if you can space those well and hit your opponent away, problem solved.
Keep in mind, landing on the ground while using a special attack (B moves) DO NOT erase RCO lag unless they are attacks that put you in freefall stage. However, sometimes it is preferable to use B-moves as a temporary work around to get to the ground since they might have a landing animation with less lag than your RCO lag, and because they might just be really good attacks to hit your opponent with.
Using Specials to Temporarily Bypass RCO Lag:
Fireballs are a great way to attempt ledge recoveries. They essentially autocancel with zero landing lag as you land on the ground and the projectile is helpful in deterring your opponent from attacking you. Now the problem is once you are on the ground from a Fireball recovery, you still must find time to eliminate your RCO lag, but if you can get your opponent away from you, this shouldn't be a problem.
Cape doesn't really help here, except if you want to do a B-air recovery. Do this by doing a ledgedrop Cape as if you were to Cape stall, but instead of doing that, jump back and attack with your back aerial.
Looking for a use for the FLUDD? I think this should be explored. Try jumping back on stage and charging the FLUDD. This does not eliminate your RCO lag. The objective here however is to temporarily avoid the lag and have an opportunity to land on the ground and quickly shield, spotdodge, or roll to avoid an attack from an edgeguarder. Be careful that you don't air dodge while charging your FLUDD, because landing with an air dodge will initiate the RCO lag.
After all of this, it comes down to mindgames.
Using Mario's Up-B Offensively:
Mario's Up-B comes out frame 3, and has invul frames on startup. Frame 3 is very fast, same frame Snake's Jab comes out on, and the invul frames helps you at having a shot at blocking out other fast attacks and counterattacking.
If you have Tap Jump on, try shielding, and Smashing Up, and then pressing B, and you will jump cancel your shield and Up-B. If you have Tap Jump off, you must initiate a jump and THEN Up-B quickly to do this. Very awesome defensive tactic if you can read your opponent's spacing right. The great thing about this though is that you can use the high priority of the Up-B and invul frames to beat out other annoying attacks. I have been able to beat the Mach Tornado with this attack. Can anyone else besides me say BROKEN?
Several of Mario's attacks COMBO into this attack. U-air -> Up-B and D-throw -> Up-B are a few examples.
Like Roy's Up-B from Melee, you can also angle the direction Mario's Up-B goes. If you tilt forward after initiating Mario's Up-B, it will go more horizontally (like, at a 40* angle or so). If you tilt backwards, you can angle Mario's Up-B to go almost straight upwards. Keep in mind that if you Smash backwards early on upon initiation, you reverse the direction the Up-B goes. On battlefield, learning to up-angle the Up-B is very useful, because if you can master that, you can Up-B and land on the top platform, and ending lag will be minimal.
Anyhow, I hope this guide helped you. Have fun Smashing with Nintendo's best character ever.
Recovery:
As a recovery move, it's just average. The distance is nothing to write home about, it has good priority, but if you do it wrong or DI badly against the wrong attack, it's easily edgehogged. It does have very good priority and the ability to stagespike at respectable knockback, and it autosweetspots the ledge.
One thing that has not been discussed yet though is that Mario is a character who retains a landing lag animation after sweetspotting the ledge with his Up-B. This is called a Recovery CarryOver Lag (RCO lag). This landing lag animation is about the same length as normally landing on the ground after using the Up-B, and it's enough to get you punished before you are able to shield an attack. After sweetspotting the ledge, you will retain this landing animation the next time you jump and land on the ground. If you jump and air dodge towards the ground, you will also retain this landing lag animation, so basically, once you make it to the ledge, it's a real issue trying to get back on stage without getting punished.
How to work around RCO Lag:
The obvious way to work around this is get back on stage as soon as possible before your opponent can chase you down, and manually remove the lag with a quick shorthop.
If you land on the ground with an aerial attack, it erases your RCO lag too. Mario has a few aerials with what seems to be less landing lag than his RCO lag. N-air, B-air, and U-air should come to mind, and if you can space those well and hit your opponent away, problem solved.
Keep in mind, landing on the ground while using a special attack (B moves) DO NOT erase RCO lag unless they are attacks that put you in freefall stage. However, sometimes it is preferable to use B-moves as a temporary work around to get to the ground since they might have a landing animation with less lag than your RCO lag, and because they might just be really good attacks to hit your opponent with.
Using Specials to Temporarily Bypass RCO Lag:
Fireballs are a great way to attempt ledge recoveries. They essentially autocancel with zero landing lag as you land on the ground and the projectile is helpful in deterring your opponent from attacking you. Now the problem is once you are on the ground from a Fireball recovery, you still must find time to eliminate your RCO lag, but if you can get your opponent away from you, this shouldn't be a problem.
Cape doesn't really help here, except if you want to do a B-air recovery. Do this by doing a ledgedrop Cape as if you were to Cape stall, but instead of doing that, jump back and attack with your back aerial.
Looking for a use for the FLUDD? I think this should be explored. Try jumping back on stage and charging the FLUDD. This does not eliminate your RCO lag. The objective here however is to temporarily avoid the lag and have an opportunity to land on the ground and quickly shield, spotdodge, or roll to avoid an attack from an edgeguarder. Be careful that you don't air dodge while charging your FLUDD, because landing with an air dodge will initiate the RCO lag.
After all of this, it comes down to mindgames.
Using Mario's Up-B Offensively:
Mario's Up-B comes out frame 3, and has invul frames on startup. Frame 3 is very fast, same frame Snake's Jab comes out on, and the invul frames helps you at having a shot at blocking out other fast attacks and counterattacking.
If you have Tap Jump on, try shielding, and Smashing Up, and then pressing B, and you will jump cancel your shield and Up-B. If you have Tap Jump off, you must initiate a jump and THEN Up-B quickly to do this. Very awesome defensive tactic if you can read your opponent's spacing right. The great thing about this though is that you can use the high priority of the Up-B and invul frames to beat out other annoying attacks. I have been able to beat the Mach Tornado with this attack. Can anyone else besides me say BROKEN?
Several of Mario's attacks COMBO into this attack. U-air -> Up-B and D-throw -> Up-B are a few examples.
Like Roy's Up-B from Melee, you can also angle the direction Mario's Up-B goes. If you tilt forward after initiating Mario's Up-B, it will go more horizontally (like, at a 40* angle or so). If you tilt backwards, you can angle Mario's Up-B to go almost straight upwards. Keep in mind that if you Smash backwards early on upon initiation, you reverse the direction the Up-B goes. On battlefield, learning to up-angle the Up-B is very useful, because if you can master that, you can Up-B and land on the top platform, and ending lag will be minimal.
Anyhow, I hope this guide helped you. Have fun Smashing with Nintendo's best character ever.
