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Official Seizon Senryaku: Marth General
- Thread starter Shaya
- Start date
KTAR, he and Marss sent Seagull and False to Loser's side in doubles. Marss and Pugwest got really far, it was pretty exciting to watch.
Vipermoon
King Marth's most trusted advisor.
Oh okay. Are they fire emblem mains? I never heard of them
MintyBreeze
Smash Journeyman
Is Marth just strictly a mid-tier character? I can't tell if the general sadness about his ranking in here is because of the top tier match-ups or generally unfavorable match-ups.
HFlash
Future Physician and Sm4sher
Pretty much. For the most part, he beats low tier characters, and loses to pretty much every top tier. He doesn't have much going for him vs fast characters with good combo games. He is lacking combo throws, hitbox consistency on his sword (particularly the inner portion), and a reliable DB. A few changes here and there, and he'd easily be a top 15 character.
MintyBreeze
Smash Journeyman
Is he sort of in the same boat as Samus's, then? If so then that's really just a pity, Marth should be a h-risk < h-reward character in the right hands.
I tend to usually play as more defensive characters like Samus, R.O.B, Doctor Mario... But I tried out Lucina for a bit and strangely liked it. Would you say Marth is still a fun character to play as even if he has pretty big flaws? Because that's what makes or breaks a character for me, if I can have pure fun with them - that's pretty much the main reason I play Charizard.
I tend to usually play as more defensive characters like Samus, R.O.B, Doctor Mario... But I tried out Lucina for a bit and strangely liked it. Would you say Marth is still a fun character to play as even if he has pretty big flaws? Because that's what makes or breaks a character for me, if I can have pure fun with them - that's pretty much the main reason I play Charizard.
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HFlash
Future Physician and Sm4sher
Nothing feels better than tipping with Marth. I still play him just because he is fun to play, but not really for when I enter tournaments. A character being fun is subjective, THAT'S up to you 
.
.
Pugwest is a Marth main, Marss is a ZSS main. It was a Marth/ZSS team.
MintyBreeze
Smash Journeyman
Hmm... Just tried Marth out in training mode to see what his business is, and from what I can see... His options to start a combo look limited to U-Tilt and getting grabs, kind of like how Samus is relatively limited to her dash attack and D-Tilt. Marth looks like the hard-hitting defensive swordsmen to me now. Maybe he could use a dash attack that knocks people up like Dr. Mario.
Are there any cool things he can do with his sourspotted attacks? I know there has to be something cool that only Marth can do because of it, like, one jab to a grab or something. What I'm worried about is that when Marth stretches out to attack, that his arms are vulnerable.
Wait, sorry, I forgot something. The Charizard forums are having a Marth discussion now and I somehow got here without putting the two together at all. -_- In any case, I'll just leave it here. All of the match-up threads are free to be contributed to.
http://smashboards.com/threads/charizard-matchup-discussion-marth.424722/
Are there any cool things he can do with his sourspotted attacks? I know there has to be something cool that only Marth can do because of it, like, one jab to a grab or something. What I'm worried about is that when Marth stretches out to attack, that his arms are vulnerable.
Wait, sorry, I forgot something. The Charizard forums are having a Marth discussion now and I somehow got here without putting the two together at all. -_- In any case, I'll just leave it here. All of the match-up threads are free to be contributed to.
http://smashboards.com/threads/charizard-matchup-discussion-marth.424722/
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Pugwest
Smash Apprentice
Thanks, We were doing extremely bad in Doubles. It was probably our worst doubles performance since last winter. Synergy was off and we never did our signature combo which we are known for in our region.Pugwest , that was amazing, keep it up!
I was overall happy though, 16/256 was nice. Super super last hit game 3 vs Mister Eric. I did a wrong input and jabbed instead of up-smashing which would have sealed the deal.
Happy someone noticed us :D we'll be heading out to Genesis 3 so hopefully people at least recognize Marss.
I say hes @ High mid tier or Low high tier tbh. Around Rank 16-20. The character overall needs some small tweaks until he can be shown as a force. Personally I would want dancing blade to connect on half the cast (because character just don't get it by the 3rd variation or sometimes the up variation on the 4th) + more air mobility and finally make Dancing blade 1 not have what feels like more lag than just throwing out a up-smash.
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Vipermoon
King Marth's most trusted advisor.
Can you describe this signature combo for us please?
HFlash
Future Physician and Sm4sher
Marth doesn't have any throw follow ups from grabs except when both characters are close to 0% (dthrow to uair/bair). Otherwise, throws are only good for positional advantage up until uthrow kill percents.
Pugwest
Smash Apprentice
https://youtu.be/B8P9WPnd4WQ?t=2m50s
although we've "extended" it as of recently.
tagged wrong person woops lol. but the post above
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HFlash
Future Physician and Sm4sher
VERY NICE! That is some "wombo combo" worthy stuff haha. FYI: You can just "edit" your post as to not double post, and fix errors. It's in the bottom left corner of your post.
I'm still late getting my flight secured, but I'm probably heading to Genesis 3 as well. Would be nice meeting other Marth players!
Vipermoon
King Marth's most trusted advisor.
Good stuff. Too bad you usually need a 2 v 1 for this to work. But yeah you're a good team, I watched a couple of matches.
Vipermoon
King Marth's most trusted advisor.
It's been over 3 days so I'll have to double post, sorry.
But anyway, http://smashboards.com/threads/official-2015-melee-tier-list.425515/ congrats to our Prince for making 3rd in the Melee Tier List. He's already 2nd in Europe's list despite being nerfed in the European version of Melee.
It's great to know that he out-brokens some of the most broken characters in all of Smash. Though I personally see Jigglypuff at 3rd for Melee given Hungrybox results this year. This didn't really seem like much of a Marth year in my eyes.
But anyway, http://smashboards.com/threads/official-2015-melee-tier-list.425515/ congrats to our Prince
for making 3rd in the Melee Tier List. He's already 2nd in Europe's list despite being nerfed in the European version of Melee.It's great to know that he out-brokens some of the most broken characters in all of Smash. Though I personally see Jigglypuff at 3rd for Melee given Hungrybox results this year. This didn't really seem like much of a Marth year in my eyes.
- Dancing Blade 1/2 Hit 2-forward
- Hitbox 0/2 KBG 70 -> 30
- Hitbox 1 KBG 50 -> 30
- Hitbox 0/1/2 BKB 28 -> 30
- Dancing Blade 1 Hit 3-down
- Hitbox 0 Damage 3.0(3.325) -> 4.5(4.75)
- Hitbox 1 Damage 4.0(3.325) -> 5.5(4.75)
- Hitbox 0 Growth 60 ->28
- Hitbox 1 Growth 40 ->28
- Both hitboxes angle 20 -> 44
- Both hitboxes BKB 30 -> 50
- Hitbox 1 size 4.3 -> 4.6
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Jterr
Smash Apprentice
- Joined
- Oct 19, 2015
- Messages
- 189
- NNID
- PinoyPlayerJ
- 3DS FC
- 4167-4991-9631
"Out-brokens" lol its true. Melee is an unbalanced game in general but yeah congratz to the Hero-King. He'll probably stay in Top 5 in Melee for years to comeIt's been over 3 days so I'll have to double post, sorry.
But anyway, http://smashboards.com/threads/official-2015-melee-tier-list.425515/ congrats to our Prince
It's great to know that he out-brokens some of the most broken characters in all of Smash. Though I personally see Jigglypuff at 3rd for Melee given Hungrybox results this year. This didn't really seem like much of a Marth year in my eyes.
HFlash
Future Physician and Sm4sher
Vipermoon
King Marth's most trusted advisor.
The first hit is unchanged. Thinkaman is saying Dancing Blade and custom #2: hit-2 only had knockback changes. And then the extensive DB3 down changes which should be cool. But here's what I said in the patch notes discussion thread:
"I'm expecting that something else changed with Dancing Blade hit 2. There was nothing wrong with it's knockback growth (especially since at high percents the first hit already has too much knockback to start anything) so it's weird that they felt the need to touch it so drastically. Everybody knows by now that the second hit completely misses on most characters because it strikes too low. It's possible that the animation was fixed. Fingers crossed."
So idk, we'll see, but just touching 2nd hit knockback won't do anything.
We'll see then. I hope something does end up working in favor of a dancing blade fix.
Jterr
Smash Apprentice
- Joined
- Oct 19, 2015
- Messages
- 189
- NNID
- PinoyPlayerJ
- 3DS FC
- 4167-4991-9631
Unfortunately, not many crazy changes to Marth... They did change some things in dancing blade... but I wanted more. There's still hope in the next patch to put in Corrin and Bayonetta.
HFlash
Future Physician and Sm4sher
If it's any consolation, seems like Shulk got some massive buffs this patch, just as much if not more than the patch that came with massive Shulk patches back when the game first came out in Wii U last year. There's hope for the Emblem Lord!
Jterr
Smash Apprentice
- Joined
- Oct 19, 2015
- Messages
- 189
- NNID
- PinoyPlayerJ
- 3DS FC
- 4167-4991-9631
Marth deserves it, I mean he's the first hero of the Fire Emblem series. The Prince/King of Altea. Not like Melee broken Marth, just overall better Marth.
CURRY
Smash Journeyman
Edit: sorry about that, I was delirious and super bewildered about the fact that I was done with exams.
HS Senior year... man, all these mixed feelings.
And second semester won't even count anymore, wth.
Also, Cloud looks really fun and I want to buy him, but I don't have enough money on the eshop to do so. Eh.
EDIT:
I find it really hard to deal with Cloud using Marth. =.=
Then again, I STILL find it hard to play against Roy using Marth because I'm trash.
He gets so much more reward out of landing each hit than we do (HIS DANCING BLADE CLONE DOES SO MUCH DAMAGE). His speed isn't TOO bad and his range is really nice, AND he gets some lingering hitboxes.
And it seems impossible to shieldgrab his fsmash, I think you have to read his defensive option afterwards in order to punish.
Anyhow, I find that my way to deal with Cloud is to switch to Toon. And I have to zone the HECK out of him, which makes for a really slow, boring match.
However, without his LB, Cloud has a pretty bad recovery! The distance covered with non-LB up-B is shorter of course, but I also just read that he doesn't ledgesnap without LB.
And gimping is what Marth specializes in. But his up-B is also of the variety which spikes you if you're not careful, so... ehh....
Will try to abuse his lack of ledge snap next time though.
Have you guys found anything on Cloud vs. Marth?
HS Senior year... man, all these mixed feelings.
And second semester won't even count anymore, wth.
Also, Cloud looks really fun and I want to buy him, but I don't have enough money on the eshop to do so. Eh.
EDIT:
I find it really hard to deal with Cloud using Marth. =.=
Then again, I STILL find it hard to play against Roy using Marth because I'm trash.
He gets so much more reward out of landing each hit than we do (HIS DANCING BLADE CLONE DOES SO MUCH DAMAGE). His speed isn't TOO bad and his range is really nice, AND he gets some lingering hitboxes.
And it seems impossible to shieldgrab his fsmash, I think you have to read his defensive option afterwards in order to punish.
Anyhow, I find that my way to deal with Cloud is to switch to Toon. And I have to zone the HECK out of him, which makes for a really slow, boring match.
However, without his LB, Cloud has a pretty bad recovery! The distance covered with non-LB up-B is shorter of course, but I also just read that he doesn't ledgesnap without LB.
And gimping is what Marth specializes in. But his up-B is also of the variety which spikes you if you're not careful, so... ehh....
Will try to abuse his lack of ledge snap next time though.
Have you guys found anything on Cloud vs. Marth?
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FallenHero
Smash Ace
Vipermoon
King Marth's most trusted advisor.
No one knows about Shaya. Even his twitter has been inactive since the middle of October.Nice to see this thread is still active. Also why doesShaya not have an avatar? Have not seen him anywhere in Smashboards for a while now.
Edit: I miss him, that is for sure
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Star ☆
No Problem!
For those that are worrying, I've seen Shaya in person at least twice since he's stopped being active on Smashboards so I can assure you he is fine, probably just washed over with exams/work.
Pugwest
Smash Apprentice
OH hello, and that's really cool! I'll be sure to tell him hi for you the next time I ever see him lol.Small world.
DrRiceBoy
Smash Lord
I have a very hard time against Cloud as Marth. Anyone know what to do in this matchup? Cloud's long range and non-laggy moves are really hard to deal with.
FallenHero
Smash Ace
Right now it might be too soon to really have any solid MU knowledge/experience having to do with Cloud, but I wouldn't be surprised if Cloud has the advantage in it. If you can space them out and try to punish their attacks by grabbing out of shield you might be able to do well, but I don't think it would be a good idea to try to punish them unless they are close enough to get hit by a quick move out of shield. If you can get them offstage and they don't have limit charged up, you can hit them with a f smash from Marth or d smash from Mewtwo since Cloud's up b doesn't sweet spot the ledge. I kind of imagine that Marth vs Cloud might be a similar MU to a Marth ditto, but instead of the MU being even it is probably in Cloud's favor. I have only gotten to play with and against Cloud for a few hours last week and barely gotten to use Marth against Cloud, but I hope this helps.
Vipermoon
King Marth's most trusted advisor.
You have to gimp him (Marth is good at this) and bait him to attack first. Use shield heavily against him because his throws suck and his LB specials lose to shield. Everything else isn't under your control. Cloud is overtuned in some ways. Some of his moves (and his mobility... he runs faster than Roy) are unbalanced like his Uair. Marth has none of that in Smash 4 (other than rage Fsmash and dancing blade). You have to honestly beat him or gimp him.
Saki-
Reset Project
Yes. Question Mark.Not sure if pranked or if
Hmm, I'm not too keen on expressing personal things yet, I will get around to it at some point I'm sure.
In terms of business as usual (Marth), this diatribe written live now has been in the back of my mind for a while, full of negativity, I warn you not to read it if you think it will be worth getting upset [at me] over.
Overall Marth is still something I can't give up on and I enjoy playing him, but I think my decade of maining and mastering Marth is now inadequate compared to the year's development of every other better character. Come February (assuming no indications balance patches will continue), Marth will very likely be set in stone as a joke character in competition. I'm not looking forward to it. I think Roy's potential is still greater than we understand and he has room to develop while having the abilities to achieve more for less; if you really do like the play styles of Marth, learning to adjust to using Roy to do all the things you like is very likely worth the investment.
Despite all of that there is a long list of "meta" things I've come about to use that may not be common practice yet but I likely won't recall it all in a single instance. The DB3 down changes are pretty positive in my eyes as it may lead to more consistent tipper final hits on DB which will lead to kills. Jab into neutral air or dolphin slash is likely the ultimate 50/50 for it at best. Dolphin Slash as a tack on 7% for our vertical follow ups or to chase people jumping away is surprisingly good in practice. We should never be doing rising forward air as rising back air is noticeably safer and more useful. Dancing Blade is, after the shieldbreaker cut, our best move that we need to use constantly to keep up with the DPS and rewards of other characters. If you learn to time landing down air to hit at maximum horizontal range you get something which may lead to follow ups or a semblance of pressure. Back Air is our best choice for going for 2 frame vulnerability punishing, don't make the mistake of trying down air unless their recovery comes with no hitboxes. Playing facing backwards in 'neutral' due to the large amount of "good space" behind us in up air and back air, the mix up potential of DB1 and shieldbreaker, and little difficulty of grounded actions facing the right direction should be one's general focus; back air or up air out of shield on the late hit is very reliable for finding a follow up (ACing the up air, or if jumping and waiting a bit first before fast falling it is possible; even better).
In terms of business as usual (Marth), this diatribe written live now has been in the back of my mind for a while, full of negativity, I warn you not to read it if you think it will be worth getting upset [at me] over.
Marth to me isn't a redeemable character at this time. I've had a lot of ups and downs in thought, and despite me knowing his match ups against his cohort and various stronger characters of a certain archetype are noticeably positive, he does feel low tier to me.
I've all but rekindled my love of Marth as a character through Roy; and any exercise I go through points further towards him. Marth in smash4 is completely and utterly a subset of Marth in Brawl, the only areas this isn't the case are his slight gains in weight (but he's the lightest swordfighter after MK and for his data/abilities is way too light) and shieldbreaker. In a game where nearly everyone has better mobility due to the game's speed up, Marth moves the same as he did in Brawl with a significantly worse moveset.
Marth lacks rewarding game play in Smash4, as in the whole "I have a goal to advance and when it's achieved I not only feel good about it, it means I've beaten my opponent and outplayed them in a consistent way". Marth is completely devoid of such capabilities, and is one of the only few characters in the cast that I feel has no light at the end of a tunnel, even if he is overall stronger and more consistent than lower chars. The closest thing to this would've been shieldbreaker medium charge breaking shields, but we lost that full second set up with multiple escape routes in the shield change patch; FAIRLY to some extent, shieldbreaker is cancer on wifi. Counter is also essentially cancer in the context of wifi, a lot of our 'power' is loaded in moves that aren't remotely useful 95% against competent players in 1v1.
As I've been pushing Roy further, I've been thinking that Roy and Marth are "split" from Brawl Marth, and when you look at what S4 Marth is (and these conclusions were prior to Cloud's release, I'll get to that), a completely worse version of his previous self, and then look at Roy who has multiple gains over Brawl Marth and less things taken away than Brawl Marth, it's hard to think of Marth as not the "Dan" of Smash Bros; Cloud really sets this one in stone.
By looking at Roy's data and comparing it to Marth in S4/Brawl, it is pretty obvious to me that S4 Marth was very lazily put together, a heavy amount of copying and pasting with blanket changes/nerfs/removals. Roy on the other hand comes with larger hitboxes on his sword, with noticeably longer range than Marth's, maintained hilt hitboxes which are sizable, and comes with body hits which give consistent sweet spots in certain areas, travel in straight lines rather than following his sword and hence avoids a lot of the frustrations which we often have trying to play this character; **** missing or losing out because our moves aren't designed to hit other opponents (at least in contrast to other characters... including those as close to us as Roy). It's a very sad thing, and at this stage it's impossible to pretend it was an accident.
Heck, they could just copy Roy's extra 2-4 hitboxes per move, give them to us with the numbers adjusted (i.e. worse/as sour spots) and we'd have a significantly stronger character to use. Will we get this though? Chances are we won't if we haven't yet.
The only optimal choices Marth has in this game (dash movement, fast fall aerials), going by the numbers we have, is achieved by Roy, in some cases literally twice as fast.
His sword is reaching roughly 10-20% longer [example, Roy's jab reaching 12.2 units to Marth's 10]. "Oh but it's sour spots shaya, they suck"; to some extent that's besides the point, but I can assure you his tipper hits are lovely to work with. Roy has poor match ups with characters Marth can handle; he has little chance against Rosalina or DK yet Marth can deal with both reliably. But besides these, Roy will be doing exactly what Marth would want to do but with a lot more reward against everyone else.
Aerials which string together (how nice is a fair/bair with 5+ frames less end lag?), air times which don't leave massive 20-30 frame windows of vulnerability where we have 0 options. Reliable and long lasting bread and butter combos with fair (or other aerials) and down tilt into dancing blade (things we had in Brawl but will never combo in Smash4). Fairs chaining into fairs. A jab that gives us real follow ups. A grab game that has DI mix ups and follow ups or huge positional gains we can capitalize on. Optimal use cases that are "REAL" and not reliant on mix ups that resoundingly lose to shield or having superior mobility options.
For that reason, despite the longer start up of fair and less weaving time, Roy feels very good to use his aerials. There isn't really ever a question on whether he should just fast fall or wait it out. He's rewarded more for either choice, while Marth gets the same reward if he waits 20+ frames first.
The extra shield stun/push back and implicit safety of higher damage on tippers is ultimately mute when you're reaching about 1/7th further on these sour hits. Oh and doubly so if you have a sweetspot vertically above you almost an entire sword's length in reach/size away from you too.
Now Cloud's release has made me quite sad. Cloud has almost taken every single feature and capability of other sword characters (and also other good characters in general), and has received them in a stronger and better form.
When it comes to comparing Marth to Cloud specifically, there is not a single real thing I feel that Marth can do better than him. Marth's recovery has been almost as trash as Cloud's this entire time, yet people are still not fully capitalizing on this (why would they when they don't need to? you don't need to know the Marth match up in and out to beat him). Cloud weighs A LOT more, has the same start up as us with a bigger sword, a lot of range added to his attacks by stepping forward, significantly less cool down on everything he has compared to us, and has in 2 weeks achieved more than Marth has in an entire year+; at some point I'll go in length to describe how much Smash4 character design has reached League of Legends status (i.e. "how do we make someone new and exciting? oh I know, let's make their 4 abilities do 8 things instead of 4 like everyone else!"), but in particular Cloud's design makes me very very upset as a sword character enthusiast.
At least Roy has his better mobility and more rewarding + reliable sweetspots to match up with Cloud's braindead button mashing win approach.
Cloud's fsmash outranges shieldbreaker, yeah, the move that has Marth break his arm off from his elbow to have an extra moment of 25% extra range; his side-b is a better version of dancing blade, he has a lot better mobility and matches with super heavies. He doesn't lose to attrition because of his disgusting weight and ability to end stocks or make massive comebacks at any given moment (that don't have 40+ frames of end lag for your opponent to kill you in) when coupled with a charge ability and projectile. Spacing with him is a breeze because his attacks will beat out any other character, no random hand exposed completely in front of him several frames before hitboxes come along (dtilt, fair, jab, ftilt, etc), he will step forward just as much as Sheik does with forward air as he attacks before stepping backwards immediately after hitboxes end to make him immune to punishes unless you power shield. I actually don't want Cloud in this game competitively at all, he's the type of character to ruin it.
Everything we concluded was fair for Marth to not have so this game could be "good" exists on Cloud in arguably stronger ways in some instances than he was in Brawl.
I've all but rekindled my love of Marth as a character through Roy; and any exercise I go through points further towards him. Marth in smash4 is completely and utterly a subset of Marth in Brawl, the only areas this isn't the case are his slight gains in weight (but he's the lightest swordfighter after MK and for his data/abilities is way too light) and shieldbreaker. In a game where nearly everyone has better mobility due to the game's speed up, Marth moves the same as he did in Brawl with a significantly worse moveset.
Marth lacks rewarding game play in Smash4, as in the whole "I have a goal to advance and when it's achieved I not only feel good about it, it means I've beaten my opponent and outplayed them in a consistent way". Marth is completely devoid of such capabilities, and is one of the only few characters in the cast that I feel has no light at the end of a tunnel, even if he is overall stronger and more consistent than lower chars. The closest thing to this would've been shieldbreaker medium charge breaking shields, but we lost that full second set up with multiple escape routes in the shield change patch; FAIRLY to some extent, shieldbreaker is cancer on wifi. Counter is also essentially cancer in the context of wifi, a lot of our 'power' is loaded in moves that aren't remotely useful 95% against competent players in 1v1.
As I've been pushing Roy further, I've been thinking that Roy and Marth are "split" from Brawl Marth, and when you look at what S4 Marth is (and these conclusions were prior to Cloud's release, I'll get to that), a completely worse version of his previous self, and then look at Roy who has multiple gains over Brawl Marth and less things taken away than Brawl Marth, it's hard to think of Marth as not the "Dan" of Smash Bros; Cloud really sets this one in stone.
By looking at Roy's data and comparing it to Marth in S4/Brawl, it is pretty obvious to me that S4 Marth was very lazily put together, a heavy amount of copying and pasting with blanket changes/nerfs/removals. Roy on the other hand comes with larger hitboxes on his sword, with noticeably longer range than Marth's, maintained hilt hitboxes which are sizable, and comes with body hits which give consistent sweet spots in certain areas, travel in straight lines rather than following his sword and hence avoids a lot of the frustrations which we often have trying to play this character; **** missing or losing out because our moves aren't designed to hit other opponents (at least in contrast to other characters... including those as close to us as Roy). It's a very sad thing, and at this stage it's impossible to pretend it was an accident.
Heck, they could just copy Roy's extra 2-4 hitboxes per move, give them to us with the numbers adjusted (i.e. worse/as sour spots) and we'd have a significantly stronger character to use. Will we get this though? Chances are we won't if we haven't yet.
The only optimal choices Marth has in this game (dash movement, fast fall aerials), going by the numbers we have, is achieved by Roy, in some cases literally twice as fast.
His sword is reaching roughly 10-20% longer [example, Roy's jab reaching 12.2 units to Marth's 10]. "Oh but it's sour spots shaya, they suck"; to some extent that's besides the point, but I can assure you his tipper hits are lovely to work with. Roy has poor match ups with characters Marth can handle; he has little chance against Rosalina or DK yet Marth can deal with both reliably. But besides these, Roy will be doing exactly what Marth would want to do but with a lot more reward against everyone else.
Aerials which string together (how nice is a fair/bair with 5+ frames less end lag?), air times which don't leave massive 20-30 frame windows of vulnerability where we have 0 options. Reliable and long lasting bread and butter combos with fair (or other aerials) and down tilt into dancing blade (things we had in Brawl but will never combo in Smash4). Fairs chaining into fairs. A jab that gives us real follow ups. A grab game that has DI mix ups and follow ups or huge positional gains we can capitalize on. Optimal use cases that are "REAL" and not reliant on mix ups that resoundingly lose to shield or having superior mobility options.
For that reason, despite the longer start up of fair and less weaving time, Roy feels very good to use his aerials. There isn't really ever a question on whether he should just fast fall or wait it out. He's rewarded more for either choice, while Marth gets the same reward if he waits 20+ frames first.
The extra shield stun/push back and implicit safety of higher damage on tippers is ultimately mute when you're reaching about 1/7th further on these sour hits. Oh and doubly so if you have a sweetspot vertically above you almost an entire sword's length in reach/size away from you too.
Now Cloud's release has made me quite sad. Cloud has almost taken every single feature and capability of other sword characters (and also other good characters in general), and has received them in a stronger and better form.
When it comes to comparing Marth to Cloud specifically, there is not a single real thing I feel that Marth can do better than him. Marth's recovery has been almost as trash as Cloud's this entire time, yet people are still not fully capitalizing on this (why would they when they don't need to? you don't need to know the Marth match up in and out to beat him). Cloud weighs A LOT more, has the same start up as us with a bigger sword, a lot of range added to his attacks by stepping forward, significantly less cool down on everything he has compared to us, and has in 2 weeks achieved more than Marth has in an entire year+; at some point I'll go in length to describe how much Smash4 character design has reached League of Legends status (i.e. "how do we make someone new and exciting? oh I know, let's make their 4 abilities do 8 things instead of 4 like everyone else!"), but in particular Cloud's design makes me very very upset as a sword character enthusiast.
At least Roy has his better mobility and more rewarding + reliable sweetspots to match up with Cloud's braindead button mashing win approach.
Cloud's fsmash outranges shieldbreaker, yeah, the move that has Marth break his arm off from his elbow to have an extra moment of 25% extra range; his side-b is a better version of dancing blade, he has a lot better mobility and matches with super heavies. He doesn't lose to attrition because of his disgusting weight and ability to end stocks or make massive comebacks at any given moment (that don't have 40+ frames of end lag for your opponent to kill you in) when coupled with a charge ability and projectile. Spacing with him is a breeze because his attacks will beat out any other character, no random hand exposed completely in front of him several frames before hitboxes come along (dtilt, fair, jab, ftilt, etc), he will step forward just as much as Sheik does with forward air as he attacks before stepping backwards immediately after hitboxes end to make him immune to punishes unless you power shield. I actually don't want Cloud in this game competitively at all, he's the type of character to ruin it.
Everything we concluded was fair for Marth to not have so this game could be "good" exists on Cloud in arguably stronger ways in some instances than he was in Brawl.
Overall Marth is still something I can't give up on and I enjoy playing him, but I think my decade of maining and mastering Marth is now inadequate compared to the year's development of every other better character. Come February (assuming no indications balance patches will continue), Marth will very likely be set in stone as a joke character in competition. I'm not looking forward to it. I think Roy's potential is still greater than we understand and he has room to develop while having the abilities to achieve more for less; if you really do like the play styles of Marth, learning to adjust to using Roy to do all the things you like is very likely worth the investment.
Despite all of that there is a long list of "meta" things I've come about to use that may not be common practice yet but I likely won't recall it all in a single instance. The DB3 down changes are pretty positive in my eyes as it may lead to more consistent tipper final hits on DB which will lead to kills. Jab into neutral air or dolphin slash is likely the ultimate 50/50 for it at best. Dolphin Slash as a tack on 7% for our vertical follow ups or to chase people jumping away is surprisingly good in practice. We should never be doing rising forward air as rising back air is noticeably safer and more useful. Dancing Blade is, after the shieldbreaker cut, our best move that we need to use constantly to keep up with the DPS and rewards of other characters. If you learn to time landing down air to hit at maximum horizontal range you get something which may lead to follow ups or a semblance of pressure. Back Air is our best choice for going for 2 frame vulnerability punishing, don't make the mistake of trying down air unless their recovery comes with no hitboxes. Playing facing backwards in 'neutral' due to the large amount of "good space" behind us in up air and back air, the mix up potential of DB1 and shieldbreaker, and little difficulty of grounded actions facing the right direction should be one's general focus; back air or up air out of shield on the late hit is very reliable for finding a follow up (ACing the up air, or if jumping and waiting a bit first before fast falling it is possible; even better).
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