Pressuring Marth (Situational Awareness)

[Denjinpachi]

Hey, so I wanted to ask a little bit about some bits of information that I've been getting from different players in the Marth MU. I realize that it is beneficial to keep Marth either in his shield, or keep him in the air. So my basic situations that I want more clarification on are as follows:

-Approaching from neutral:
When I approach a marth that is lacking in Power Shielding, but dash dances a lot, would it be safe to take the more "Fox" like approach, and just perform aerials deep into the dash dance? Or continue to laser as he runs away from me? Or would attempting to stop his turn back to me with a jab be better over all?

-Pressuring the shield:
Is it always better to go for shine grab if marth is consistently blocking all of my shield pressure? Or should I save it soley as a mix up? Also, is it better to pressure Marth with a cross up aerial so I can pressure his shield from behind him?

-Follow up on U-throw:
Does the percent always vary for when I should chase with a F-Air? Should I always attempt to hit him after I throw him? Or wait for him to try to come down and punish? Which Is better overall?

If you guys could help me out, or throw in any form of pressure that would also be beneficial, I'd really appreciate it. Thanks!

 

[FE_Hector]

-Approaching from neutral:
If he's not PSing, I think that it's a good idea to push him into the corner to make it as easy as possible to hit him. If you want to go in with a dair or a nair, though, there's nothing strictly wrong with that.

-Pressuring the shield:
I'd mix up shine nair, dubshine nair (both faded), shine grab, and dubshine grab as those are your safest options. I'm a bit lame in the sense that I don't like risky, sub-optimal options in this situation.

-Follow up on U-throw:
I actually don't think that uthrow is always your best option. If fthrow or bthrow could get you much-needed stage positioning or even put them offstage, go for it. Otherwise, mix in uthrow uair, bair, dair, nair, and even grab. You've got a lot of amazing tools, so why always use the same one?

 

[`Rival]

Hey, so I wanted to ask a little bit about some bits of information that I've been getting from different players in the Marth MU. I realize that it is beneficial to keep Marth either in his shield, or keep him in the air. So my basic situations that I want more clarification on are as follows:

-Approaching from neutral:
When I approach a marth that is lacking in Power Shielding, but dash dances a lot, would it be safe to take the more "Fox" like approach, and just perform aerials deep into the dash dance? Or continue to laser as he runs away from me? Or would attempting to stop his turn back to me with a jab be better over all?

-Pressuring the shield:
Is it always better to go for shine grab if marth is consistently blocking all of my shield pressure? Or should I save it soley as a mix up? Also, is it better to pressure Marth with a cross up aerial so I can pressure his shield from behind him?

-Follow up on U-throw:
Does the percent always vary for when I should chase with a F-Air? Should I always attempt to hit him after I throw him? Or wait for him to try to come down and punish? Which Is better overall?

If you guys could help me out, or throw in any form of pressure that would also be beneficial, I'd really appreciate it. Thanks!

-Approaching from neutral:

you can try to throw aerials deep into their dash dance, but when you fight marth players with really good reactions (or players who are looking at your visual cues that let them know you want to overshoot aerials), they are probably gonna eventually find the counter-tactic. it's the same for lasering as he dashes/wavedashs away. so it's good to mix in both tactics, and to mixup how you lead into your aerials/lasers to throw them off. i'm personally not a fan of jab but i see why it can work and why it can be good

pressuring the shield:

this is more of a yomi type question so i don't think there is an actual 'correct' answer. it's like this:
if they are always throwing out rock, and i am always winning with paper, do i keep throwing out paper regardless? or do i throw out scissors or rock in anticipation of them finally getting annoyed and deciding to switch it up?

follow up on up throw:

i like to mix up both - using my aerials depending on their di and percent, and also letting them fall down and punishing how they decide to descent. what is "better" can depends on your goals and how your opponent deals with the situation. for example if you grab marth at low percent and your goal is to getting him past a certain percent threshold to make other moves safe, then upthrow--->aerial might be your best bet. if you are trying to zone marth into a specific spot for any reason, or exploit a pattern coming down, then maybe it'll be better if you throw them and then zone them to the position you want. I mean you could also do this after upthrow--->aerial as well, but by mixing up how you do things you always have the element of surprise and the chance of catching them off guard.

 

[Denjinpachi]

-Approaching from neutral:

you can try to throw aerials deep into their dash dance, but when you fight marth players with really good reactions (or players who are looking at your visual cues that let them know you want to overshoot aerials), they are probably gonna eventually find the counter-tactic. it's the same for lasering as he dashes/wavedashs away. so it's good to mix in both tactics, and to mixup how you lead into your aerials/lasers to throw them off. i'm personally not a fan of jab but i see why it can work and why it can be good

pressuring the shield:

this is more of a yomi type question so i don't think there is an actual 'correct' answer. it's like this:
if they are always throwing out rock, and i am always winning with paper, do i keep throwing out paper regardless? or do i throw out scissors or rock in anticipation of them finally getting annoyed and deciding to switch it up?

follow up on up throw:

i like to mix up both - using my aerials depending on their di and percent, and also letting them fall down and punishing how they decide to descent. what is "better" can depends on your goals and how your opponent deals with the situation. for example if you grab marth at low percent and your goal is to getting him past a certain percent threshold to make other moves safe, then upthrow--->aerial might be your best bet. if you are trying to zone marth into a specific spot for any reason, or exploit a pattern coming down, then maybe it'll be better if you throw them and then zone them to the position you want. I mean you could also do this after upthrow--->aerial as well, but by mixing up how you do things you always have the element of surprise and the chance of catching them off guard.

Whats the usual percent I want to get Marth at to where I can reliably uthrow-->aerial him to kill him? in the 100's? (Assuming battlefield is the constant stage for these comparisons.)

 

[FE_Hector]

To be honest, because of DI and SDI and all that jazz, there really aren't guaranteed BnB combos off of Falco's throws like there are for a lot of other characters. I generally find it easier to uthrow uair around 110-130% against my bro's Sheik, though, and the two characters are of comparable weight.

 

[Denjinpachi]

I feel it. I might try to go with the F-throw B-throw mix ups.

 

[Klemes]

Hey, so I wanted to ask a little bit about some bits of information that I've been getting from different players in the Marth MU. I realize that it is beneficial to keep Marth either in his shield, or keep him in the air. So my basic situations that I want more clarification on are as follows:

-Approaching from neutral:
When I approach a marth that is lacking in Power Shielding, but dash dances a lot, would it be safe to take the more "Fox" like approach, and just perform aerials deep into the dash dance? Or continue to laser as he runs away from me? Or would attempting to stop his turn back to me with a jab be better over all?

-Pressuring the shield:
Is it always better to go for shine grab if marth is consistently blocking all of my shield pressure? Or should I save it soley as a mix up? Also, is it better to pressure Marth with a cross up aerial so I can pressure his shield from behind him?

-Follow up on U-throw:
Does the percent always vary for when I should chase with a F-Air? Should I always attempt to hit him after I throw him? Or wait for him to try to come down and punish? Which Is better overall?

If you guys could help me out, or throw in any form of pressure that would also be beneficial, I'd really appreciate it. Thanks!

1. If the Marth isn't powershielding, why stop lasering ? Just be careful not to fall for some tricks like Marth's dash attack under lasers (just shoot low lasers, or shield and punish if you read it). He DD a lot, but lasers effectively stop him in his tracks ! All in all, heavy laser game will put him in his shield, which is very good and leads to your second question.

2. Mix it up. Not only to keep him guessing, but also because a grab is hardly what gives you the most as falco. Basically at low% you want a shine, at mid% you want an u-tilt (not gonna get it out of shield-pressure though), and at high percent you want a strong hit to have him off stage.
So yeah nair>shine>nair (fade away) is good, laser>d-tilt is good (often pokes his feet, and he can't shield-grab you without shield DI if you're spaced correctly), doubble shine>WD behind Marth is good (or WD back if you have him cornered). The goal is either to poke him (Marth's shield isn't great), or punish his OoS option, which will often be a buffered roll. You can punish roll in with f-smash, shine, nair... roll away it's trickier, dash attack can work, or you can laser while closing the distance with your SH, prepared to catch his jump and setting up corner pressure.
But shine-grab is also very very good, because it's pretty guaranteed, borderline free sometimes. So let's move on to our throw follow ups !

3. u-throw is falco's best throw. However, the other can be useful as well. f-throw is good to throw him off stage, or even throw him in the corner to get center-stage. d-throw is janky, best to do it sometimes and bet on the miss-tech (especially on platforms). b-throw is pretty bad too, I don't know too much about it tbh.
u-throw>fair is great on Marth at low%, does very good damage when you get multiple hits, and it's not easy to avoid for Marth. u-throw is also great at setting up shine-wavelands on platforms, so watch where he's gonna land !
u-throw>kill move like bair, uair, nair, dair (u-throw>dunk is my absolute favorite falco combo hehe), or shine>bair ! Keep in mind that falco's u-throw is far from being as reliable as fox's : Marth is sent high, with low stun, and he can DI/SDI really far away : so most of the time he would be able to act before you reach him, allowing him to fair you or DJ to evade. What is great to do if you get hit or miss his DJ a few times is to u-thow, FH to bait him to either fair or DJ, FF. You basically force a reaction from him : he cannot do nothing and simply let himself get hit when you jump to him like that. After that, immediately counter attack during his lag if he faired (shine-bair should do nicely), and if he DJ, try and cover the ground/platforms to hit him off stage with no jump : he's pretty much dead then.

 

[FE_Hector]

d-throw is janky, best to do it sometimes and bet on the miss-tech (especially on platforms). b-throw is pretty bad too, I don't know too much about it tbh.

If we're talking janky, then try to maybe go for dthrow dsmash on some plats. The left plat on DL, the tree on Pokemon (assuming poor DI), and the plats for the Water Transformation on Pokemon all pretty much guarantee the dsmash (I think) due to the small sizes of the plats. Come to think of it, it might also work on the FoD platforms.

If you're wondering why I made the first suggestion, the left plat on DL is actually smaller than the other 2.

 

[Denjinpachi]

If we're talking janky, then try to maybe go for dthrow dsmash on some plats. The left plat on DL, the tree on Pokemon (assuming poor DI), and the plats for the Water Transformation on Pokemon all pretty much guarantee the dsmash (I think) due to the small sizes of the plats. Come to think of it, it might also work on the FoD platforms.

If you're wondering why I made the first suggestion, the left plat on DL is actually smaller than the other 2.

I did not know that. Like, at all.

 

[FE_Hector]

I haven't actually TESTED any of that, but I mean... it should work, I'm pretty sure.

 

[Klemes]

If you're wondering why I made the first suggestion, the left plat on DL is actually smaller than the other 2.

Whaaaaaat ? Why ? I don't even... It's so stupid !

 

[FE_Hector]

Whaaaaaat ? Why ? I don't even... It's so stupid !

I can't deny that. Seriously though, look at the map. It is noticeably shorter. That's also why wavelanding on that plat from ledge is so hard.

 

[Denjinpachi]

Well, would ya look at that.

 

[FE_Hector]

I would if I had access to 20XX.

 

[Denjinpachi]

I would if I had access to 20XX.

Do you not have a wii? its easy to do it with a wii and an SD card. theres a straight up v3.0 20XX version you could get and play for free.

 

[FE_Hector]

We have 2 Wii's at home. One of them doesn't support gamecube controllers or memory cards, and the other one is in my parents room and off-limits 90% of the time. I have a CRT and a gamecube in my room and practice solely on vanilla Melee right now, though that will be slightly improved as soon as my 20XXTE memory card arrives. So in short, the phrase "if I had access to 20XX" is entirely accurate.

 

[Denjinpachi]

We have 2 Wii's at home. One of them doesn't support gamecube controllers or memory cards, and the other one is in my parents room and off-limits 90% of the time. I have a CRT and a gamecube in my room and practice solely on vanilla Melee right now, though that will be slightly improved as soon as my 20XXTE memory card arrives. So in short, the phrase "if I had access to 20XX" is entirely accurate.

Aahhhhh okay. Well, people have been noting the receipt of their TE cards, so it should definitely be there soon man.

 

[FE_Hector]

Aahhhhh okay. Well, people have been noting the receipt of their TE cards, so it should definitely be there soon man.

Yeah, I'm relatively sure it should arrive within the next week. To my understanding, the biggest reason it hasn't arrived yet is due to the winter storm that ****ed up like half of the East Coast over the weekend.