Q&A The Marth Question and Answer Thread

[Vipermoon]

What is the best way to start a match with Marth? Should I make them come to me or go after the aggressively?

There is no best way because it depends on your mood, the stage, the other character, and their mood. As long as you don't start a match with Smash attacks you're doing it right.

Generally if they have projectiles you want to close as much distance as possible. Walk, don't dash, if you intend on perfect shielding your way through. If they aren't a character I can easily pressure, then usually I end up in the middle of the stage reacting to whatever they do first.

 

[jopro]

There is no best way because it depends on your mood, the stage, the other character, and their mood. As long as you don't start a match with Smash attacks you're doing it right.

Generally if they have projectiles you want to close as much distance as possible. Walk, don't dash, if you intend on perfect shielding your way through. If they aren't a character I can easily pressure, then usually I end up in the middle of the stage reacting to whatever they do first.

Oh ok thanks!

Does anyone have tips for the Marth vs. Fox match up? My friend plays Mr. McCloud at a very high level and I can never seem to beat him!

 

[cerealkiller]

Oh ok thanks!

Does anyone have tips for the Marth vs. Fox match up? My friend plays Mr. McCloud at a very high level and I can never seem to beat him!

Fox is tough. He's fast as hell and has projectile which is very annoying to Marth. Typically Fox start the matches against Marth by spamming the laser. You're forced to approach. My advice, always stay calm and try to stay close but keeping your distance by efficiently poking. Be alert and ready to anytime he uses his Up+B you use Counter, Fox and Falco hate that

 

[jopro]

Fox is tough. He's fast as hell and has projectile which is very annoying to Marth. Typically Fox start the matches against Marth by spamming the laser. You're forced to approach. My advice, always stay calm and try to stay close but keeping your distance by efficiently poking. Be alert and ready to anytime he uses his Up+B you use Counter, Fox and Falco hate that

Thanks so much countering their recovery is going to be great!

 

[Vipermoon]

Oh ok thanks!

Does anyone have tips for the Marth vs. Fox match up? My friend plays Mr. McCloud at a very high level and I can never seem to beat him!

Fox is tough. He's fast as hell and has projectile which is very annoying to Marth. Typically Fox start the matches against Marth by spamming the laser. You're forced to approach. My advice, always stay calm and try to stay close but keeping your distance by efficiently poking. Be alert and ready to anytime he uses his Up+B you use Counter, Fox and Falco hate that

I wouldn't say tough. Marth does well against Fox. It's probably 50 50 (Marth could even win but we don't see this matchup much in high level). This kind of MU says a lot considering Fox is pretty decent overall.

First thing is first, you completely out-range Fox. Now that we have that out of the way...

Fox's laser is extremely laggy, you can punish it from at least half a stage away so you shouldn't even bother to shield it. Marth has great edgeguarding tools that really shuts the spacie down when you get him off stage. You can counter the up B if you want but it's pretty easy to Dair, Fair, Bair, or Dolphin Slash that as well. If the fox tries to side B onto the stage Marth is equipped with disjoints to screw up his plans. It's a pretty easy read and all it takes is a well-timed tilt or smash attack to perform. But Marth gets back to the ledge for free against Fox. Fox is also light and a fast faller. I find up throw to still be very effective in killing despite the fall speed. And killing him off the side at low percents is extremely easy (like with forward dancing blade which easily combos him since the patch) because he is light and has bad horizontal air speed. Or try Upwards dancing blade and combo into the tipper when Fox is at kill percents (like 100%) so you have that. One of the largest problems with Fox (other than maybe approaching) is when you are at high percents Fox can do nothing to your shield. He doesn't have throw follow-ups or kill throws so you can potentially live a long time if you keep your shield handy. One huge thing you are IMMUNE to is Fox's jab. You can up B or Uair (and probably counter) out of the full jab combo (and we all know that Marth is deadly when he gets a falling Uair). Marth can also Up B and counter (and probably uair) out of Fox's famous 1-2 trap. The Fox player, knowing this, might even stay away from using jab.

With all that said, Fox can destroy Marth in a lot of ways just the same as he could wreck some other character. This post is meant to talk about what Marth can do.

Edit: Marth's forward throw follow-ups work against Fox and I find down throw follow-ups to work best against Fox and Falcon. So rejoice in some actual throw combos for this match-up.

 

[jopro]

I wouldn't say tough. Marth does well against Fox. It's probably 50 50 (Marth could even win but we don't see this matchup much in high level). This kind of MU says a lot considering Fox is pretty decent overall.

First thing is first, you completely out-range Fox. Now that we have that out of the way...

Fox's laser is extremely laggy, you can punish it from at least half a stage away so you shouldn't even bother to shield it. Marth has great edgeguarding tools that really shuts the spacie down when you get him off stage. You can counter the up B if you want but it's pretty easy to Dair, Fair, Bair, or Dolphin Slash that as well. If the fox tries to side B onto the stage Marth is equipped with disjoints to screw up his plans. It's a pretty easy read and all it takes is a well-timed tilt or smash attack to perform. But Marth gets back to the ledge for free against Fox. Fox is also light and a fast faller. I find up throw to still be very effective in killing despite the fall speed. And killing him off the side at low percents is extremely easy (like with forward dancing blade which easily combos him since the patch) because he is light and has bad horizontal air speed. Or try Upwards dancing blade and combo into the tipper when Fox is at kill percents (like 100%) so you have that. One of the largest problems with Fox (other than maybe approaching) is when you are at high percents Fox can do nothing to your shield. He doesn't have throw follow-ups or kill throws so you can potentially live a long time if you keep your shield handy. One huge thing you are IMMUNE to is Fox's jab. You can up B or Uair (and probably counter) out of the full jab combo (and we all know that Marth is deadly when he gets a falling Uair). Marth can also Up B and counter (and probably uair) out of Fox's famous 1-2 trap. The Fox player, knowing this, might even stay away from using jab.

With all that said, Fox can destroy Marth in a lot of ways just the same as he could wreck some other character. This post is meant to talk about what Marth can do.

Edit: Marth's forward throw follow-ups work against Fox and I find down throw follow-ups to work best against Fox and Falcon. So rejoice in some actual throw combos for this match-up.

Wow thanks this information is great!

 

[Vipermoon]

Wow thanks this information is great!

No problem dude

 

[CURRY]

I like how the Social thread pretty much replaced the matchup thread, lol.
I don't think this should go there, since I'm pretty sure you all have discussed this already, and I just can't find it...

How do you play against Shulk? I'm just so used to having a longer disjointed hitbox than most characters that I don't know how to deal with him.
I try to dash in and out of zones and wall people out if they try to go for something, but Shulk's zone is just so... huge. And it's not like projectiles where you can shield or jump over the zone depending on the situation and still stay safe from getting punished by the close-up game, because Shulk's zone IS his close-up game.
Yeah, Shulk is a spacer and doesn't do well at Ness-type range, but hopefully you got what I was trying to convey. The melee attacks and such.
I know that I should try to take advantage of the speed that we have over Shulk, but how?

Also, mentality to have during different arts is a huge plus.

EDIT:
Found the Shulk discussion in the social thread, but the discussion didn't look completely resolved...

 

[chococrow]

How do I play against luigi

 

[MASTER719]

If you Iai Counter off the side of the stage, facing the blast zone, do you get the stage spike?

 

[Vipermoon]

If you Iai Counter off the side of the stage, facing the blast zone, do you get the stage spike?

I don't see why not.

 

[Rashyboy05]

Can Marth autocancel with his aerials in this game?

 

[A_Kae]

Can Marth autocancel with his aerials in this game?

Nair autocancels on frame 1 and after frame 47
Fair autocancels after frame 36
Bair autocancels before frame 3 and after frame 32
Uair autocancels before frame 3 and after frame 38
Dair autocancels before frame 3 and after frame 55

Data from here: http://kuroganehammer.com/Smash4/Marth

So, yes, but the autocancel timings are not at all good.

Edit: Accidentally had Uair listed as Bair.

 

[Admiral_Dante]

So, I'm kinda pissed off... I just found out today that Marth can always f smash backwards out of his dash. Like, why the **** didn't anyone let me know?!? Bout to put this in my punish game on full force.

 

[Shaya]

I honestly don't know why I don't do it more often, I guess because the pivot game with ftilt or jumping is better reactively and dashing through people is hard.

 

[.Shìkì]

So, I've been playing Marth (and sometimes Lucina) since the game came out, (up until a few days ago soley against my siblings; I want to start playing FG now, so this has become a more pressing issue, hence this thread). Something that really, REALLY annoys me is that Marth's Dancing Blade sometimes simply does not work. It will make one or two hits, but then just reset and start from the first hit all over again, and it seems to majorly happen when the enemy spams smash-inputs. Is this normal or am i just pressing b too fast so it eats my inputs? Because I haven't had that happen to me ONCE when using Roys Double Edge Dance, it always works perfectly fine for me... And I love using DB (I know I really shouldn't, but still). And hitting 3-4 hits with Roy also seems to be a LOT more consistant. It really bugs me.

 

[Locuan]

@ .Shìkì , moved your post to the question and answer thread. Please use this thread whenever you have questions such as these.

 

[A_Kae]

So, I've been playing Marth (and sometimes Lucina) since the game came out, (up until a few days ago soley against my siblings; I want to start playing FG now, so this has become a more pressing issue, hence this thread). Something that really, REALLY annoys me is that Marth's Dancing Blade sometimes simply does not work. It will make one or two hits, but then just reset and start from the first hit all over again, and it seems to majorly happen when the enemy spams smash-inputs. Is this normal or am i just pressing b too fast so it eats my inputs? Because I haven't had that happen to me ONCE when using Roys Double Edge Dance, it always works perfectly fine for me... And I love using DB (I know I really shouldn't, but still). And hitting 3-4 hits with Roy also seems to be a LOT more consistant. It really bugs me.

Pressing Special too fast will stop dancing blade. In my experience, the earliest you can input is just before the sword trails disappear.

 

[Admiral_Dante]

I honestly don't know why I don't do it more often, I guess because the pivot game with ftilt or jumping is better reactively and dashing through people is hard.

I dash through people all the time... They're too busy rolling/spot dodging/shielding/jumping/etc. Few people i play with have a solid reaction based ground game. Still haven't played any matches yet, but I'm hoping I'll find this new found skill quite useful... Increased mobility on fsmash is probably one of the scariest things I can think of in this game. #Azenbutnotreally

 

[Vipermoon]

So, I'm kinda pissed off... I just found out today that Marth can always f smash backwards out of his dash. Like, why the **** didn't anyone let me know?!? Bout to put this in my punish game on full force.

I mean, it's a pivot Fsmash. Any character can do it. You can pivot anything. Grab, Ftilt, jump, whatever.

 

[Admiral_Dante]

I mean, it's a pivot Fsmash. Any character can do it. You can pivot anything. Grab, Ftilt, jump, whatever.

I mean, I know you can perfect pivot into anything, but i always thought the regular pivot was more limiting to your options, like grab, dash attack, ftilt and up smash.

Well then... Guess I'll practice more pivot stuff. Never realized I could get F smash out of it. Pivot d tilt would be amazing too...

 

[Vipermoon]

I mean, I know you can perfect pivot into anything, but i always thought the regular pivot was more limiting to your options, like grab, dash attack, ftilt and up smash.

Well then... Guess I'll practice more pivot stuff. Never realized I could get F smash out of it. Pivot d tilt would be amazing too...

Okay.

Oh and you definitely can't pivot dash attack lol that would be crazy

 

[Admiral_Dante]

Okay.

Oh and you definitely can't pivot dash attack lol that would be crazy

i was thinking of the thing where you dash then press forward then back to reverse your dash then you can dash attack and stuff.

Also, played some matches today and unfortunately didn't use pivot fsmash as a punish tool like i hoped, probably because of the characters I wast facing, and probably because I'm not there yet. Landed some sick hard reads though! I'll just keep this in mind, as I'm sure pivot fsmash has its uses...

 

[Vipermoon]

i was thinking of the thing where you dash then press forward then back to reverse your dash then you can dash attack and stuff.

Foxtrot > Dash Attack

 

[Admiral_Dante]

Foxtrot > Dash Attack

Ah, I see. How important would you guys say that foxtrotting is to Marth's game? I feel like I've been doing pretty well without really using it so far.

Also, is it worth it to learn perfect pivoting for Marth? Not really sure how much he gets out of it.

 

[Vipermoon]

Foxtrotting is important. It's easy to pull off and it's my main spacing tool for approaching an airborne oppenent with Fsmash. But it has many uses if you use your imagination.

In my opinion, unless you're C. Falcon PP isn't necessary. He has the longest one. Marth's is middle distance and I don't think he needs it.

 

[Quickhero]

Foxtrotting is important. It's easy to pull off and it's my main spacing tool for approaching an airborne oppenent with Fsmash. But it has many uses if you use your imagination.

In my opinion, unless you're C. Falcon PP isn't necessary. He has the longest one. Marth's is middle distance and I don't think he needs it.

I highly disagree; Marth really enjoys perfect pivot because it provides just enough space to get some nice tips, perfect pivot to immediate Dancing Blade, perfect pivot to jab, and perfect pivot to f-tilt are all fantastic options you can go from but even just doing a perfect pivot once in a while to get some distance can be really useful.

 

[Vipermoon]

You can cancel your dash into dancing blade. Absolutely no reason to use PP for it.

 

[Sir_Africa]

Hey guys quick question. I read in the basics thread that SH fair is pretty safe. My question is, do I have to retreat while doing it? Or can I SH fair towards my opponent? Is that even safe?

 

[Admiral_Dante]

Hey guys quick question. I read in the basics thread that SH fair is pretty safe. My question is, do I have to retreat while doing it? Or can I SH fair towards my opponent? Is that even safe?

SH Fair is NOT safe. However, if you do the fair fast enough out of your SH you can use DB, SB or DJ out of it before you land. So do one of those or FH Fair if you don't want to be shield grabbed to death.

 

[Sir_Africa]

SH Fair is NOT safe. However, if you do the fair fast enough out of your SH you can use DB, SB or DJ out of it before you land. So do one of those or FH Fair if you don't want to be shield grabbed to death.

Oh okay that's what I thought. Alright then thanks.

 

[Vipermoon]

Oh okay that's what I thought. Alright then thanks.

But retreating Fair is infinitely more safe than approaching Fair so try to retreat it.

The problem with Fair is if you fast fall in a short hop you get landing lag. And Marth jumps pretty high in his short hop and doesn't fall that fast so he leaves himself open.

 

[Admiral_Dante]

Anyone use nair offstage for gimps? I need to start using it more, and bair too. I always end up using fair. Actually, I feel like we should have a thread solely for discussing gimps against the gimpable characters... They're too good. Unleash the inner M2K.

 

[Vipermoon]

Anyone use nair offstage for gimps? I need to start using it more, and bair too. I always end up using fair. Actually, I feel like we should have a thread solely for discussing gimps against the gimpable characters... They're too good. Unleash the inner M2K.

Bair, Fair, and DS should be your main gimping tools. Nair is a laggy move with a few thin slices that are likely to miss so there are usually much better options. The uses of Nair and Dair offstage are strictly situational. Dair from a ledge double jump works great like it always has, though. Edit: obviously counter works amazing in some match-ups, like Ness

 

[CURRY]

Sh fair unsafe? Wut. That's been like, my main neutral game option. I just press backwards when I get close ad sh fair before the frames where Marth does a RAR. am I doing stuff wrong? I mean, fair is reaaalllyyy loooong. it always works for me against people who can't outrange the move easily.
Ehh. I'm on the crappiest connection I've had in a log time. ill watch some videos later.

edit: ahh. so shff fair. yeah, that's a questionable thing to use in the neutral, lol.

 

[Vipermoon]

Sh fair unsafe? Wut. That's been like, my main neutral game option. I just press backwards when I get close ad sh fair before the frames where Marth does a RAR. am I doing stuff wrong? I mean, fair is reaaalllyyy loooong. it always works for me against people who can't outrange the move easily.
Ehh. I'm on the crappiest connection I've had in a log time. ill watch some videos later.

edit: ahh. so shff fair. yeah, that's a questionable thing to use in the neutral, lol.

If you base your neutral game around it then you of all people should notice it's lack of safety. Surely you've been punished by it? They can roll behind you and have the frame advantage before you land. They can block with shield and simply drop shield into whatever they want. Spot dodge into punish. Sour Fair probably isn't even safe on hit at low percents.

 

[Admiral_Dante]

Sh fair unsafe? Wut. That's been like, my main neutral game option. I just press backwards when I get close ad sh fair before the frames where Marth does a RAR. am I doing stuff wrong? I mean, fair is reaaalllyyy loooong. it always works for me against people who can't outrange the move easily.
Ehh. I'm on the crappiest connection I've had in a log time. ill watch some videos later.

edit: ahh. so shff fair. yeah, that's a questionable thing to use in the neutral, lol.

I was about to say, lol...

Also, I'm finding nair's knockback to be really good for gimps... unfortunately it is a little laggy so they have to be higher or you have to use it just after dj'ing to recover.

Nair gives more knockback and at a better angle, which makes gimps easier for me so far.

 

[cerealkiller]

Sour Fair probably isn't even safe on hit at low percents.

I think I've experienced this, it's true. It's very sad. Also Dair on stage at low percent is a free hit for everybody. Very sad also given how much satisfaction that hit gives.

Guys, I don't know... weeks have passed since I've asked if I was the only one having trouble against Samus. I feel I've gotten so much better but for whatever reason I still can't deal with Samus. I put up a much better fight but any non-scrub Samus can beat me. I take my patience, I walk->shield the missiles, I bait the charged cannon, but then they pull that grab game and easy Upairs. I must have a mental block when I see a Samus lol I need a Samus main to practice.

 

[Admiral_Dante]

I think I've experienced this, it's true. It's very sad. Also Dair on stage at low percent is a free hit for everybody. Very sad also given how much satisfaction that hit gives.

Guys, I don't know... weeks have passed since I've asked if I was the only one having trouble against Samus. I feel I've gotten so much better but for whatever reason I still can't deal with Samus. I put up a much better fight but any non-scrub Samus can beat me. I take my patience, I walk->shield the missiles, I bait the charged cannon, but then they pull that grab game and easy Upairs. I must have a mental block when I see a Samus lol I need a Samus main to practice.

I haven't played a real samus main yet... Most of my friends are tier whores and wouldn't play her in a 1000 years. I'm not seeing why Marth couldn't handle her up close though, you shouldn't be getting grabbed-uair'd the entire match right? I bet there's more going on...

 

[Vipermoon]

Marth beats Samus you just need to practice the match-up