Why is Mac so bad? (Or why am I playing HIM bad?)

[Kaiboiii]

Before release I was so pumped to play as Mac, he looked so good and fun, and being a avid fan of Punch-Out I love me some Lil' Mac! But it turns out he can't do much in fights, if you get knocked up even once you just keep getting knocked up over and over again which is really frustrating which also then leads to my death, I can't counter this what so ever. Am I just playing him bad or is he just overall a pretty bad fighter?

 

[ReddFloxy]

I really don't know, I tried playing him once and I was really terrible with him however my brother tried him out too and totally rocked me with him haha. I suppose you just gotta keep on practicing till you get the hang of him!

 

[A Lucky Person]

We won't know for sure if any character is bad for at least a few months. AMSA surprised everyone after years with Yoshi in Melee by taking a set off of M2K recently, and the same with Armada and Peach.

I've seen plenty of people do well with him, and I've seen many more do terribly. Keep your feet rooted on the ground, make it back quickly if you leave the ground, mind your counter (down B), mix up constantly, and don't side B to recover too early or you'll sink like a rock before you get enough horizontal movement.

Hit up the lab and practice a bit. Don't judge him too early.

 

[ROOOOY!]

if you get knocked up even once you just keep getting knocked up over and over again

Obviously you've met my neighbours.

 

[Holder of the Heel]

Am I just playing him bad or is he just overall a pretty bad fighter?

Have you seen Bwett play at Tourneylocator?

 

[Curious Villager]

I've moved the thread to the Little Mac boards. You would probably get more help there than the 3DS boards.

 

[ndayday]

I THINK I played you on For Glory. the pitfalls of beginners Macs:

dashing into shields
throwing random smashes everywhere (they have super armor, yes, but the cooldown leaves you susceptible to grabs/attacks)
over-using jolt haymaker
over-using counter
improper spacing
missing KO punch/not knowing reliable setups for it/not keeping safe when you have it and then losing it

The best way I have found to play Mac is very carefully. If they are on the defensive/trying to get you to the edge with grabs, approach with ftilt and dtilt. Don't get grabbed. If you're being thrown around in the air, haymaker apparently has super armor even in the air so you can get out of some combos but generally don't be in the air to begin with. If they're being offensive, your smashes have super armor and will destroy the approach.
Edgeguard like crazy. The edge is both a terrible and great place for Mac to be. If they're on the ledge, you are in control. If they roll, you can ftilt them. If they get up, you can fsmash. If they think they can just regrab the ledge/stay there, dsmash wrecks them. Aerial approaches are blocked by utilt and upsmash and fsmash tilted up.
Projectiles you shield, walk forward, shield, walk forward, ftilt if you can get it. Or you can jump over the projectile (in cases like PK Fire), land, and ftilt.

Basically...if you play Little Mac mindlessly you'll get no where. Everyone knows what he's going to do and knows that if he's offstage he's likely gone. Don't play into their hands and don't do what they want you to do.

 

[warionumbah2]

Gotta play careful he's not the type to completely rush in and end the fight in 2mins IMO.

When using Mac the best way to describe how he works is like a boxer IRL, you take your time, get hard hits when you catch your opponent slipping, you take a step back and gain your composer rinse and repeat. If someone combo's you and you're at high % you can dish out the same within a few hits so you shouldn't worry about percent gaps.

I think people rush in for kills due to his immense power but doing this will lead into easy kills, Ganon is a perfect example of countering Mac due to his F-tilt knock back. Always stay in the center don't chase your opponent near the ledge the stage is your boxing ring.

Here's a video of a Ganon player knowing how to counter a run off the mill Mac player who rushes in, he countered Mac easily avoid doing this.

Skip to 25:40 and watch from there.

 

[Kaiboiii]

Ok thanks guys I appreciate the help!
This thread was mainly me raging if I must admit because I wasn't quite doing well for my first time playing.

 

[F@lc0-san]

Like Wario said. Act like a real boxer. Stay calm, watch their movement. Pick your moments. Rack up damage, but don't go wild. Score as many points as you can, like a real boxer. Create opportunities to set up K.Os

On bigger characters his downtilt is a great combo starter.
Dash attack is great, but only if spaced well.
Front tilt is amazing. Learn to use this well. Mind spacing.

All his smashes are devastating, but have lag. Downsmash range is deceptive. use it to edgeguard.

K.O. Punch eats shields btw. it doesn't wreck them, it just ignores them completely.

Hope this helps.

 

[yahooda]

Don't jump. Little Mac isn't a cheetah, he doesn't pounce on his prey. He's more like a bear that just runs at things and punches them in the face.

 

[Gileril]

Mac has godly tilts. I f-tilted my way to being undefeated online with mac last night. Like others are saying, mac's aerials are terrible.... bair is passable sometimes. I think he's a really decent character.... main thing that could possibly break him is his bad recovery.

 

[A2ZOMG]

Gotta play careful he's not the type to completely rush in and end the fight in 2mins IMO.

When using Mac the best way to describe how he works is like a boxer IRL, you take your time, get hard hits when you catch your opponent slipping, you take a step back and gain your composer rinse and repeat. If someone combo's you and you're at high % you can dish out the same within a few hits so you shouldn't worry about percent gaps.

I think people rush in for kills due to his immense power but doing this will lead into easy kills, Ganon is a perfect example of countering Mac due to his F-tilt knock back. Always stay in the center don't chase your opponent near the ledge the stage is your boxing ring.

Here's a video of a Ganon player knowing how to counter a run off the mill Mac player who rushes in, he countered Mac easily avoid doing this.

Skip to 25:40 and watch from there.

I found those matches hilarious. What's the lesson learned? Ganondorf tolerates no disrespect.

I mean, it looked like shofu literally just started playing 9001x more dumb against the Ganon for like no reason. Threw out random Smashes for no reason and acted like he thought he wouldn't get shieldgrabbed or punished oos for doing anything reckless.

 

[warionumbah2]

I found those matches hilarious. What's the lesson learned? Ganondorf tolerates no disrespect.

I mean, it looked like shofu literally just started playing 9001x more dumb against the Ganon for like no reason. Threw out random Smashes for no reason and acted like he thought he wouldn't get shieldgrabbed or punished oos for doing anything reckless.

I said before the video that this is what you SHOULDN'T do. You literally typed out what a mac player shouldn't do cheers.

 

[A2ZOMG]

I was sorta trying to be humorous and agreeing. Sorry you missed that.

It's worth noting the matches BEFORE he goes against the Ganon actually aren't so terrible.

 

[Kaiboiii]

Well I improved my Mac by keeping in the middle of the stage, my counters are getting better and I can get some good combos and keep them off the stage with a dash + A.

The only thing I can't get straight is KO punch, can someone tell me good ways to set up a nice KO punch? I hit it sometimes, the best opportunity I found so far is when their falling after using all recovery moves then line up and bam they literally fall into their death.

 

[Nat Goméz]

I'll quote you one of the best Little Mac players:

Venks: "The KO Punch is not something you
just want to throw out with reads.
There are two really solid ways to
land it. One is off of block. If an
opponent uses an attack you would
normally shield-grab on block you can
KO Punch instead. Perfect for
punishing dash attacks or improperly
spaced aerials.
The second solid way to land the KO
Punch is via down-tilt. At low to mid
percents down-tilt combos into KO
Punch. To get the down tilt just play
safe and space well with forward tilts.
Eventually you'll get an opening off of
a roll or empty land/aerial dodge into
the ground. Your opponent has to
stay mobile because the KO Punch is
unblockable."

 

[Kaiboiii]

So if I have KO punch and counter my counter punch is the KO punch?

 

[bigbro2233]

I think Mac is a great character, just be sure to stay on the ground. If you're feeling daring, maybe you could take a jump and use an aerial attack, but that's it. Don't think you can just run up to all your opponents and destroy them. No, if they see you coming, they pretty much know you're trying to do. You have to keep them on their toes, mix up your strategy.

As for KO'ing, I think Mac's Smash Attacks are great, his best and most reliable finishing moves. His Special Moves are not really useful, especially the regular neutral B.

 

[Kaiboiii]

Yeah I started playing smarter, I usually dash towards then shield back avoid the attacking then forward + A them, if they get knocked off the stage I keep lunge hitting them off.

 

[chipndip]

Lil Mac is the most lop-sided, yet totally functional, example of balancing I've seen in my entire life playing any game, and I'm 21 playing games since I was 3-4. You really should just avoid being in the air...ever. Combos with him are lack-luster due to this, and for the most part, you want to just land some good pokes with his dash attack and f-tilt, with the occasional smash attack. His b-up does work as a combo ender, but it's as risky as it is swag-tastic. I'd avoid it.

This is me just throwing out a little "something-something" based on what I noticed I did wrong with him, as well as what I take advantage of when playing against him with characters I'm getting more mileage off of. I love using and , but is something I'm just not used to. I still wanna use him, but it's a challenge. I like him though.

 

[Jacob29]

I found those matches hilarious. What's the lesson learned? Ganondorf tolerates no disrespect.

I mean, it looked like shofu literally just started playing 9001x more dumb against the Ganon for like no reason. Threw out random Smashes for no reason and acted like he thought he wouldn't get shieldgrabbed or punished oos for doing anything reckless.

He was doing that for the whole video.

It just so happens the Ganon knew how to play

 

[Mono.]

1. Use your roll dodges offensively. Because of how great Mac's is, you can literally tech chase with them.

2. When people see a Mac running straight at them, they get very uneasy and will throw out some kind of move or do some kind of dodge. Take advantage of that, read your opponent, and start punishing accordingly as Mac is quite fast and a good deal of his moves are hard to punish/read when used correctly. Also don't forget to sometimes just run in and get to work to keep them on their toes. Pretty much download them as fast as possible.

3. B-reversed Jolt Haymaker catches a lot of people off guard because of how much of a complete, almost instantaneous change of momentum it is.

4. Pivot f-tilts are amazing. Please use them. Also space with Ftilt in general.

5. I think this has already been said but the ideal ways to land KO punch is Out of shield, dtilt between 20%-77% depending on character weight as a true combo, jab 1 --> KO is not a true combo but you should do this after you condition your opponent that you always will go for the complete jab combo, you WILL go through shields and I even went through a FE character's counter before. It's flat out unblockable.

6. Bait air dodges into the ground. Lots of opponents tend to do this because Mac's anti-air game is fantastic with his super armor upsmash. Air dodging into the ground has significant lag now universally, that's an ideal time to land a Fsmash or Dsmash depending on your spacing.

7. Be patient. You're a boxer. Boxers don't go in and go nuts without a good gameplan. Most players I find tend to be defensive against Little Mac until I get them to be offensive by playing their game. It's easy to get in someone's head with this character.

I'm running a 82% win rate on For Glory mode with these things in mind, which probably would be higher if I didn't convince myself that I wanted to play Lucina when Mac was there all this time. I personally don't think he's bad at all. Though take it all I said with a grain of salt as I only have online experience thus far.

 

[Jacob29]

How do you land d-tilt. Feel like its impossible to get it off in the neutral due to the lack of crouching during dash.

 

[Mario & Sonic Guy]

I did try out Little Mac a bit, but apparently that 1-hit KO punch of his ends up being all bark and no bite against stronger CPUs; I'd be fortunate to land even one punch against any of the Fighting Miis in Multi-Man Smash.

 

[Kaiboiii]

It's easy to land punches of the miis in Multi-Man on normal difficulty, and I can land KO punches on level 9 CPU's, although they lied as the punch isn't a instant KO.

 

[nyttyn]

That's not terribly surpising. It's hard to land any one move against CPUs since they both behave so erratically and can read your inputs.

The punch is also an instant KO only at a certain percentage. It has a metric CRAPTON of knockback, but even then it still requires at least some prior hurt to be a surefire KO (something like 20-40% on most of the cast, I think)

 

[Tino]

Not very surprising. I did had a hard time the first time I played as him but after lots of practice, I got used to him. All I did was stay on the ground and kept away from the edges as best as possible. The K.O. Uppercut was something I had to be very careful before executing it on someone (I would unleash it on one with the highest damage percentage).

 

[Woker!]

just dont jump

 

[GreenFlame]

Like others said, you can't just go full agressive with Mac as he is easy to predict if you do. I have a had a bit of practice with him and now I'm getting good, I generally like to roll around alot and surprise punch and use Jolt Haymaker at just the right distance if they are camping with projectiles/charging a projectile.

You may have noticed that Little Mac is quite fast in his rolls and in his dash, so you have to take advantage of that and use it to not get hit while racking up damage. If you're close to the opponent but still at a distance then a Dash attack can get them by surprise.

As for the KO punch, play extra careful while you've got it, but remember that you are the who's got the deadly move charged and not them, so keep the pressure up and strike at the right time when you're lined up with them.

So yeah, roll around and shield to not get hit, and surprise them with attacks. The idea of Mac is that once he's knocked off that's it, but the goal is to dodge everything you can with his lightning fast speed and not get knocked off in the first place.

 

[Qbopper]

3. B-reversed Jolt Haymaker catches a lot of people off guard because of how much of a complete, almost instantaneous change of momentum it is.

4. Pivot f-tilts are amazing. Please use them. Also space with Ftilt in general.

I understand the concepts here, but I'm not sure how to do them - how do you pivot properly? Is it dash > let go of pad > quickly move in opposite direction and attack?