Official Seizon Senryaku: Marth General

[A_Kae]

On hit advantage data for usmash

ID|0%|25%|50%|75%|100%|125%|150%|175%|200%
U-Smash (0,2)|29|39|49|59|69|79|89|99|109

---Advantage​

|-16|-6|4|14|24|34|44|54|64
U-Smash (1)|33|47|60|73|87|100|113|126|140

---Advantage​

|-12|2|15|28|42|55|68|81|95
U-Smash (3)|53|53|53|53|53|53|53|53|53

---Advantage​

|8|8|8|8|8|8|8|8|8

So, yeah, don't usmash at low percents. Or uthrow, for that matter. It's safe on hit (throw? whatever), but dthrow gets you real combos and does more damage instead of relying on gimmicky stuff that will only work once or twice at best, and get you punished badly every other time.

 

[Shaya]

So Up smash at 75% into up air for a killer combo right?
THE NUMBERS SAY IT IS POSSIBLE!~

:3

 

[SilverForUbers]

Haha I was joking about the Up Throw Up Smash thing. Of course don't do that in competitive play but if you're doing friendlies or something and just fooling around then go for it. xD

 

[A_Kae]

I figured it was probably something like that, but it has to be said.

-

So, how do you tell someone that Marth vs ZSS isn't 70:30 in Marth's favor?

 

[SilverForUbers]

So, how do you tell someone that Marth vs ZSS isn't 70:30 in Marth's favor?

Use ZSS against them and spam Zair.

 

[A_Kae]

Use ZSS against them and spam Zair.

I've done that (and similar stuff), but this person insists that zair (and zss in general) is 'too slow, laggy, low range, and weak'. And that Marth has no lag on his attacks and has nothing that's punishable on block.

I don't even know what to say at that point.

 

[Vipermoon]

Hahahahaha. Well this guy obviously has some bad experiences.

 

[A_Kae]

Yeah. It's the kind of thing where I'm not sure it's possible to actually teach him. He just wants to complain about stuff that has 0 actual truth to it, it seems.

Skill-wise, he's about your typical FG scrub. No concept of proper spacing, safety, or patience. I've been trying to teach him this stuff for a couple of days now, and I haven't had much luck.

 

[SilverForUbers]

I've done that (and similar stuff), but this person insists that zair (and zss in general) is 'too slow, laggy, low range, and weak'. And that Marth has no lag on his attacks and has nothing that's punishable on block.

I don't even know what to say at that point.

Maybe he's playing Brawl Marth and ZSS is Ganon.

 

[JingleJangleJamil]

Yeah. It's the kind of thing where I'm not sure it's possible to actually teach him. He just wants to complain about stuff that has 0 actual truth to it, it seems.

Skill-wise, he's about your typical FG scrub. No concept of proper spacing, safety, or patience. I've been trying to teach him this stuff for a couple of days now, and I haven't had much luck.

Don't worry about telling him what to do, maybe if you just keep playing against him and beating the **** out of him he will start to wonder what he is doing wrong and listen to what you were trying to tell him before. If he doesn't seem like the type who will learn from mistakes, maybe it isn't worth trying to turn a FG scrub into a competent player who knows what they are doing. What characters does he use?

 

[A_Kae]

Don't worry about telling him what to do, maybe if you just keep playing against him and beating the **** out of him he will start to wonder what he is doing wrong and listen to what you were trying to tell him before. If he doesn't seem like the type who will learn from mistakes, maybe it isn't worth trying to turn a FG scrub into a competent player who knows what they are doing. What characters does he use?

He does at least learn from some of his mistakes and he does genuinely want to get better, so he's not completely hopeless. Just beating him a lot like you said is probably the best way to get him to learn.

He uses ZSS mainly, also Sheik rarely.

 

[FallenHero]

Okay so from now on I won't be using @ JingleJangleJamil as my account. This is going to be the account I use from now on.

 

[PK Gaming]

Call it Placebo or post-patch hype what have you, but i'm having a lot more fun with Marth now that i'm aware of those hitlag changes. Seriously, the change to tipper fsmash has been so great.

 

[Shaya]

Yeah we're back to just spacing forward air to be pretty strong.

 

[HFlash]

It's a shame how good Robin's Down Throw became and we're still stuck with subpar throws that do way too little damage, have way too much endlag, and only has 1 follow up.

And to be specific, that 1 follow up is only guaranteed if both you and the opponent have 0-20 ish %. Like seriously, Marth with rage can't dthrow to uair a 0% opponent. Wth....

 

[Vipermoon]

It depends on the character. Mario for example can almost always air dodge at 0. Captain Falcon can't do anything until mid percents. Dedede takes so little knockback (hitstun) at 0% that you actually have to damage him a bit before it starts working.

 

[Saki-]

Q: Is ZSS Bthrow to the jumping spike true at certain %s on Lucina? I'm sure there was poor DI involved since it took me by surprised but I'm just curious.

 

[A_Kae]

Yes, as long as you don't DI out of it (down, I think?).

 

[Saki-]

All right, thanks. I'll see if any able ZSS' are available to help me find a way to not die to that again. ;-; Took me by surprise last weekend.

 

[SilverForUbers]

Isn't a Back Throw to Down B guaranteed unless you DI away? Like a DI mix up against people that tend to DI away from Down Throw.

 

[Shaya]

Also walking tipper down tilt on Marth is likely top three in this game.
MK, Diddy and himself.... tilt stick + turning around and walking down tilts are just... extremely god (not good, not godlike, just god). It's so fulfilling having Marth's down tilt hit below everyone's hitboxes and tippering people who just whiff you. And the way you get a tipper down tilt on someone's shield max range, and then another, and then the third always shield pokes? Priceless.

Also I feel like I've had some sort of mental epiphany on how to use down throw more effectively to trap. I think the realisation comes down to just how large our tipper hitbox is on up air compared to what you feel it should be (i.e. Brawl-esque) and it's entire plane sweeping arc. It's basically all about how one uses their mid air jump to follow the opponent's mid air jump air dodge (as otherwise they're getting done in by dthrow).
I guess like Brawl to some extent, Final Destination is one of our better stages (gives opponent significantly less mix up options for recovery and landing). Lylat may be better as it's effectively neo-battlefield for us; platforms that give auto tippers, set up in a way that just gives a second near constant level, not really differentiating much from Final D in trapping wreckage.

 

[SilverForUbers]

Also walking tipper down tilt on Marth is likely top three in this game.
MK, Diddy and himself.... tilt stick + turning around and walking down tilts are just... extremely god (not good, not godlike, just god). It's so fulfilling having Marth's down tilt hit below everyone's hitboxes and tippering people who just whiff you. And the way you get a tipper down tilt on someone's shield max range, and then another, and then the third always shield pokes? Priceless.

Also I feel like I've had some sort of mental epiphany on how to use down throw more effectively to trap. I think the realisation comes down to just how large our tipper hitbox is on up air compared to what you feel it should be (i.e. Brawl-esque) and it's entire plane sweeping arc. It's basically all about how one uses their mid air jump to follow the opponent's mid air jump air dodge (as otherwise they're getting done in by dthrow).
I guess like Brawl to some extent, Final Destination is one of our better stages (gives opponent significantly less mix up options for recovery and landing). Lylat may be better as it's effectively neo-battlefield for us; platforms that give auto tippers, set up in a way that just gives a second near constant level, not really differentiating much from Final D in trapping wreckage.

Not sure if I agree about Lylat. It's a good stage and all for Marth bc platforms being low, but the ledges are just so...bad. so bad. Ended up only getting 5th in my Local on my Marth solo run because I SD'd under the lip.

 

[Vipermoon]

Sour Dtilt at tumble KB percents is really hard to tech. Can be followed up with running Dolphin Slash (my favorite), Usmash, dash attack, fox trot cancel Fsmash, or something after their get-up method (shield, dash attack, back hit dsmash, dash grab, dancing blade). Of course none of this is new to Smash 4.

FD is okay but against characters that are good on FD it isn't (Sonic comes to mind but there are many others).

I definitely think Battlefield is best and Lylat is second best.

 

[FallenHero]

Lately I have been playing a lot better than I used to with Marth. It isn't really anything like my spacing being better or something, it is just that I started to use some new tools like shieldbreaker in the neutral a lot more than I used to and I've started to focus a lot more when I am playing. After I took my long break from smash, I just wasn't focusing in the middle of a game causing me to lose matches pretty badly. I feel like it was probably FG that conditioned me to not play at my full potential, since after a while I just really didn't need to try that much to win.

Sour Dtilt at tumble KB percents is really hard to tech. Can be followed up with running Dolphin Slash (my favorite), Usmash, dash attack, fox trot cancel Fsmash, or something after their get-up method (shield, dash attack, back hit dsmash, dash grab, dancing blade). Of course none of this is new to Smash 4.

FD is okay but against characters that are good on FD it isn't (Sonic comes to mind but there are many others).

I definitely think Battlefield is best and Lylat is second best.

I really don't have any experience playing on Lylat, since me and my friends all agree that the ledges are what will kill you most of the time on that stage making it not fun to play on for us. My favorite stage to play on with Marth is definitely battlefield.

 

[Shaya]

If you haven't played on lylat since 1.06 you've been missing out.
I SD just as often on lylat as I do any other stage; just the reason I SD is easier to blame on the stage in that instance than the truth of it: not timing recovery inputs properly.

Only very small select characters at (unfortunately still) random intervals should have issues. There's no more move cancelling shenanigans either. It's a very very solid stage and the wide-spread tournament standard of putting dreamland in the 5 starters over it has really gone to prove or show to me that once something is deemed "bad" in the players/communities mind, it will take hell and high water to change their opinion.

 

[Reizilla]

Battlefield is almost always my best stage, no matter what character I'm playing, but especially with Marth.

I feel like Marth is one of the characters least likely to get screwed by Lylat's ledges.

I'm going to try getting some vids for a critique this weekend. We'll see how that goes.

Edit: I agree with Shaya that Lylat should still be a starter. It should move up along with PS2.

 

[Shaya]

I thought ps2 would be great in this game seeing as random tripping was removed (negating ice transformation being over lame), and air stalling moves sending people upwards giving 60-90 second stalls on the fly transformation too (they also made your knockback increase a lot during that stage, so stalling above someone is STUPIDLY risky).

But the electric transformation.... is... unfortunately an abomination.
It was "janky" in Brawl but actually enhanced interactions between player's who knew how to deal with it. Stuff like walking negating the treadmill and the different ledges.
Now it's 200% a stall transformation only and a disgusting one at that; if you get stuck towards the ledges against a good zoner in centre stage you aren't playing a fun/fair game at all (likely to die), it's quite stupid.

 

[FallenHero]

Next time I get to play smash I'll see if I can convince them to play on Lylat.

MGSV is out right now and it really sucks that I can't play the game. The Internet has just become even more of a scary place than it was before. Wish me luck...trying to avoid spoilers for 3-4 months is going to be one hell of a challenge....

 

[SilverForUbers]

Idk. Maybe I'm just salty that I ended up getting caught under the lip somehow. xD

 

[Shaya]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HW0gaL7D2A

got youtube replay uploading working (apparently my wiiu having an 'inaccurate' date/time ****ed everything up, you have no idea how angry I am to find that out after A LARGE amount of searching for help/troubleshooting :<)

First stock is kinda nice, my mentioning of triple down tilt on shield is in this too towards the end. Grimacing a little at my shieldbreaker (mostly that charge into spot dodge, full-wifi-scrub #_#) usage and me getting mac smashed around the ledge like 30 times before getting back ground.

Tipper rising fair into dancing blade at 0% tends to combo too. But definitely not untippered.

 

[Saki-]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HW0gaL7D2A

got youtube replay uploading working (apparently my wiiu having an 'inaccurate' date/time ****ed everything up, you have no idea how angry I am to find that out after A LARGE amount of searching for help/troubleshooting :<)

First stock is kinda nice, my mentioning of triple down tilt on shield is in this too towards the end. Grimacing a little at my shieldbreaker (mostly that charge into spot dodge, full-wifi-scrub #_#) usage and me getting mac smashed around the ledge like 30 times before getting back ground.

It just makes me incredibly jealous as a Lucina player to have that push back and hit lag on your spaced aerials.

Edit: omg that dtilt push back, it put him in your preferred trap zone too. ;-;

 

[FallenHero]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HW0gaL7D2A

got youtube replay uploading working (apparently my wiiu having an 'inaccurate' date/time ****ed everything up, you have no idea how angry I am to find that out after A LARGE amount of searching for help/troubleshooting :<)

First stock is kinda nice, my mentioning of triple down tilt on shield is in this too towards the end. Grimacing a little at my shieldbreaker (mostly that charge into spot dodge, full-wifi-scrub #_#) usage and me getting mac smashed around the ledge like 30 times before getting back ground.

I actually feel kinda bad for the Little Mac player, especially when he got the sour K.O. punch so close to the ground. I wish I could play against you and the other Marth players, but I can't.

 

[Shaya]

I personally feel bad for Lucina now. With tipper moves being neutral hit lag on shield there's just way too much reward given to Marth for both well spaced and unspaced aerials everything to justify Lucina.. I now think she probably deserves a hit lag modifier between 0.8 to 0.9 to incentivize her again. Like Marth's tipper fair/dtilt combination is almost Brawl level potency (dtilt definitely is).

I'm near certain that down tilt trap at the ledge is basically a 90:10 situation. It's -11 on shield, and any shield dropping action will push them off stage, possibly to the ledge, and as invincibility on the ledge is based on air time prior, if that happens you can walk forward and down tilt their hand grabbing the ledge afterwards and they'll already be vulnerable.

You can also buffer a turn around dash (just flick the stick behind you) and let go and as long as you aren't holding the stick at the end frame you'll only turn around and not dash, allowing you to dtilt behind you from ledge rolls faster than they can act too.
[Learning this motion for buffering turn around down tilts is VERY VERY IMPORTANT]

 

[FallenHero]

Maybe I'll feel bad for Lucina when she stops being so damn rude whenever she wins. She is even rude to Robin who is her friend!

Seriously though, I agree that they need to make it so proper spacing is rewarded by making her moves safer on shield. The problem is that I think they would also need to change something about Lucina if they made her moves safer on shield to keep her from just being the same as Marth, but possibly better if they make her TOO safe on shield. @ Shaya I've looked it up and haven't really found anything that answers it, but what is a "hitlag modifier"? You mention it a lot in your posts here and I never know what it is. Also when you say buffer a turn around should the turn around animation from a dash happen, or should it be like a perfect pivot?

 

[Vipermoon]

I think Marth vs Little Mac is a 60-40 Marth and I'm not basing this off of FG Macs. The landing lag and hitlag buffs are extremely good in this MU because man does Mac know how to punish if you let him.

Shaya your Marth looks sweet (I have a similar pressure/slightly aggro play-style) and good use of double jump > Fair from the ledge. I really like this option. Of the double aerials, I do Fair > Nair 1, Fair > Uair, Fair > Fair, and the Fair > DB I just saw you do. They couldn't take away ALL double aerials! Especially with the double jump buff between games.

Separately, depending on the character I'm against (it could be really dangerous) I use some of the ledge stalling techniques that were spammed in Brawl. In particular, ledge drop Fair and if they shielded that, DS's hitbox will cover me and allow me to then get on stage for free.

 

[FallenHero]

I just realized that foxtrotting is a lot better to do rather than just doing a normal dash since you get less frames between the end of your initial dash and being able to shield. Of course this could also be useful for more than just that. Why did I not figure this out previously?

Edit: Wow I feel really dumb that I just found out you can block mid dash almost immediately if you don't stop your dash before shielding. This game has been out for almost a year and I didn't know this...

 

[A_Kae]

I just realized that foxtrotting is a lot better to do rather than just doing a normal dash since you get less frames between the end of your initial dash and being able to shield. Of course this could also be useful for more than just that. Why did I not figure this out previously?

Edit: Wow I feel really dumb that I just found out you can block mid dash almost immediately if you don't stop your dash before shielding. This game has been out for almost a year and I didn't know this...

But you know now. And that's what's important.

And since you asked about hitlag modifiers...

They're exactly what they sound like. Modifiers that change the amount of hitlag done. Most moves have a modifier of 1, but Marth has modifiers that aren't 1 on most of his attacks (0.7 on untipped and 1.25 on tipped, mostly).

The formula for hitlag is (((d/2.6)+5)*h). D is the damage that an attack does, H is the hitlag modifier. If the attack hits a shield, the defender takes hitlag as if the modifier was 1. The attacker takes regular hitlag unless the modifier is higher than 1, in which case the modifier is divided by 1.25 (before 1.1, the attacker used to take regular hitlag no matter what the modifier was).

Edit: And for hitlag itself if you're not familiar with that: http://www.ssbwiki.com/Hitlag

Also, Shaya, isn't dtilt -12 on shield? Both this and my own data have it as that.

 

[Shaya]

Has he updated for the hit lag on shield changes?

It should be only 1 frame worse than sour spot I believe. Which would make it -13. I'm likely poorly remembering brawl numbers as by virtue of down tilt having 3 less frames of hit lag on block and being 2 frames slower than brawl that it was 1 frame safer (which that should still be the case, but I thought it was -12 in brawl).

 

[A_Kae]

He hasn't updated for the hitlag change yet.

I thought you were talking about untipped before, sorry. Tipped is -13 now like you said.

 

[Shaya]

Although the situation I'm bringing up is still incredibly good. I'm not sure how many frames of disadvantage are lost by shield pushback holding on out of shield actions (can people jump still?), but it's enough to know that most people who try to roll forward screw themselves (by rolling like half the length) or if they do get through not being at enough advantage to not be turn around down tilted/jabbed/up tilted/grabbed.