Improving Mario

[maelstrom218]

Well, for all the Mario players out there (I count 3), I'm sure you're thinking "since Brawl is coming out, shouldn't Mario get a serious facelift in terms of moves and techniques?" So, list things that you would like to be tweaked so that Mario would be better in Brawl than he currently is in Smash.

. . .of course, let's keep it realistic. It wouldn't be fun if we gave Mario a Shine now, would it?

For myself, I'd like to see Mario have a few things in Brawl:

- A f-smash that DOESN'T need to be sweetspotted
- A d-air that doesn't have horizontal knockback
- Increased grab range (similar to Luigi's or Fox's)
- A d-smash that can actually KO (like Doc's, for instance)
- Increased knockback on f-smash
- Give Mario Doc's current dash attack (bigger hitbox, knocks people up)

Sounds pretty reasonable to me. Anyone else want to list how Mario could change for the better?

[OoNoiRoO]

Just more **** RANGE

[Uncle Kenny]

He is my main too. I guess if he has the doc's weight and still had his agility (referring to high jumps) he would be better. I'm old fashioned so I would hate it if his moves were replaced.

[Meta_Owns_Ur_Mom]

Well, for all the Mario players out there (I count 3), I'm sure you're thinking "since Brawl is coming out, shouldn't Mario get a serious facelift in terms of moves and techniques?" So, list things that you would like to be tweaked so that Mario would be better in Brawl than he currently is in Smash.

. . .of course, let's keep it realistic. It wouldn't be fun if we gave Mario a Shine now, would it?

For myself, I'd like to see Mario have a few things in Brawl:

- A f-smash that DOESN'T need to be sweetspotted
- A d-air that doesn't have horizontal knockback
- Increased grab range (similar to Luigi's or Fox's)
- A d-smash that can actually KO (like Doc's, for instance)
- Increased knockback on f-smash
- Give Mario Doc's current dash attack (bigger hitbox, knocks people up)

Sounds pretty reasonable to me. Anyone else want to list how Mario could change for the better?
uh dude the only changes that need to be made on mario is switch stats with dr mario and take away dr mario and there

[SSJ4Kazuki]

Dr. Mario's cape is worse.
Fireballs should do 10% instead of 8%.

[xianfeng]

Mario is supposed to be the middle man that all other character's stats are based off leave him as he is

[fluffy]

or...his taunt should be him turning to oldskool 12-bit mario.

[Marshy]

This is easy, combine the best parts of Doc Mario with regular Mario, and keep Doc as an alternate costume.

I like fluffy's idea for the taunt, and give him his kick/bad*ss f-smash from SSB64. I always liked the idea that Mario could throw a punch, and he only has a couple in Melee.

[FlipTroopa]

This is easy, combine the best parts of Doc Mario with regular Mario, and keep Doc as an alternate costume.

I like fluffy's idea for the taunt, and give him his kick/bad*ss f-smash from SSB64. I always liked the idea that Mario could throw a punch, and he only has a couple in Melee.

You said it. Changing that smash bugged me sooo much.

[Ryu777]

Doc wont be returning, add the strengths of DOc with the strengths of Mario and you've got yourself right above samus in tiers.

[Chidosengan]

and give him his kick/bad*ss f-smash from SSB64. I always liked the idea that Mario could throw a punch, and he only has a couple in Melee.
Ahh the old f-smash....

*flashback*
*hits friend with f-smash*

me: Powie, b**** POWIE!!!!

*friend gets pissed*
*end flashback*

Ahh....good times,goooood times. Defenetly should come back.

[tirkaro]

or...his taunt should be him turning to oldskool 12-bit mario.
12 bit? 12 BIT??!! 12 ****ing bit? THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS 12 BIT!!!11111
only 8 bit, 16 bit, 32 bit and (rarely) 64 bit. no 12 bit nonsense!
*takes off the geek/nerd cap......of doom.*
but yes mario should turn into his 8 BIT form for his taunt.
also (if they use the diagonal b thing.) his upper diagonal should be a flying hammer spin and the lower diagonal should be a more bouncy fireball.
also they should merge dr marios stats with mario too.

[fluffy]

lol nice flashback chidosengan

**EDIT**
sry tirkaro, it was a huge mistake on my part. *hangs himself*

[highandmightyjoe]

No ones posted here for awhile but I was just thinking about what I wanted changed about Mario so I'll mention it here anyway. And be warned its a little long.

The most basic change I would want is a better taunt. Mario has the worst taunt in the game, with such a long duration that if you do it as you KO someone then they have time to respawn and start attacking you before its even done, that is just plain unacceptable and needs changed.

As far as his moves go, im going to assume that Doc is getting removed and will have elements of him and Mario combined into the new Mario. First off the Cape, already one of the best moves in the game so making it very much better just wouldn't be fair, but I would like mario to have Doc's cape in terms of hitbox, size, etc., but still be able to be used in recovery like marios. This would give his cape the mobility of the current Mario but with the better edge-guarding of Doc. Overall I think it would be a pretty good improvement but not to much to be unfair.

Second is his lack of KO moves. I have heard people say that they want the sweetspot taken away from his Fsmash, but I think this is a bad idea. Mario already has poor range and so the disjointed hitbox gives him a slight advantage there, also because of the disjoint it can be used to edge-guard against sweet-spotting. Basically, if it weren't disjointed it wouldn't be very good at all, and if they keep the disjoint then they'll probably keep the sweetspot, since im pretty sure that every disjointed attack in the game has one(i could be wrong though). So anyway what I would like done is to reduce the penalty for missing the sweetspot. Currently a non-sweetspotted Fsmash is something like 1/3 the effectiveness of a sweetspotted one. If this where increased to 2/3 then I think it would be alot better, so that instead of being a bad move thats really good if sweetspotted, it becomes an OK move thats really good if sweetspotted. Then theres the fireballs, this is a pretty simple one, just give them all the properties of Doc's pills. The trajectory, strength, pretty much everything about the pills is better than the fireball, so this would again give him an advantage that wouldn't be quite to much, so as to be broken.

Range is definately an issue for Mario and as I see it there really isn't much you can do about it. Improving the fireball would give him some better options for long range fighting, but his f-tilt is pretty much his only medium ranged move. Again I really don't see how this could be improved very much since he is pretty short so he really can't have that good of range with it still making sense, but maybe they could improve his d-tilt. Mario's d-tilt is pretty much useless, but I think it has potential. It has an OK range on it so increasing it a little would help with his range, and it also knocks the opponent slightly into the air which could be used to start combos if the lag weren't so bad so reduce the lag on it a little too.

Another thing that I would like to see worked on is Fair. People seem to have some mixed feelings on this move. The problem to me is that it is pretty much a spike that is useless for spiking, but decent at some other things. I really think they need to just pick one and go with it, either make it a better spike by reducing its startup and ending lag, or make it a better attack by again reducing the starting lag and also improving its combo potential.

A small issue is his recovery. I find Mario's recovery to already be pretty good, and it fits him very well. Mario is a very diverse character, and his reflects that by having alot of options but limited distance. The only issues I have are with his up-b. First of all is the up-b glitch. It is refered to as a glitch and because of that I feel it will likely be removed from Brawl, but I would like for it to remain as a normal feature of his up-b. If it weren't a glitch anymore and became just a normal aspect of the move then the timing would likely be made less strict for getting it to work. Also the Marios up-b is arguably the most useless in the game for anything other than recovering, so clearly I think that needs to have something done about it, and since he has few kill moves why not kill two birds with one stone and give the up-b some decent KO properties. Of course it would be silly to just give his up-b the knockback of a smash but I think that giving it a sweetspot similar to Luigi's might work, not neccessarily in the same place as Luigi, possibly at the peak of the attack or something like that, but I think it would make sense for him to have it. Finally, as I said Mario is the diverse character so I think his up-b should reflect that by having a greater ability to angle it, so you can jump at 30%/45%/60%, etc.

And finally just some small issues. As Maelstrom said I think it would be nice if his Dair didn't have that horizontal knockback, or at least not as much. His tornado is widely considered to be his worst attack and is only useful in recovery. Honestly, im okay with that. Looking at the move I really can't see anyway you could tweak it to make it otherwise, its just too long a duration with to much lag, and even if it didn't have those problems the damage and knockback aren't that great anyway, so just keep it as a recovery technique. Finally is his throws. Mario's throws are an important part of his game and for the most part are very good, however this is thrown off by his poor grab range. I think it would be enough to just slightly increase the range.

Some people may think that this is a really long list that gives him too many advantages, but let me defend my choices for a minute before I go. As of now Mario is pretty much at the bottom of the good character bin. If you seperated the characters in Melee into good and bad he would be the bottom character on the good list, and dangerously close to going to the bad one. So giving him alot of new advantages does not break him because honestly he NEEDS alot of advantages. Also he would still have certain downsides, like poor range, and even though I recomended giving his up-b KO properties and improving his Fair he would still be slightly lacking in KO moves, since the up-b is very situational and would likely never happen in a competetive match, and if Fair where made into a better spike it still wouldn't be incredibly helpful sense his edge-guarding is already good anyway. Also keep in mind that even though this list is long and gives him alot of advantages, many of those advantages are very small(slightly better range, slightly longer grad range, etc.). And as far as why I gave him some of the advantages that may have seemed unneccessary, I believe that he should be like this because he is meant to be played as the versatile character that can be played in several different ways and truly reflects the skill of the player. Therefore many of the items on this list where meant to make him more versatile and not just better. For example easier wall-jumping with up-b would not really improve his recovery distance, it would just make it more versatile, the same with increased ability to angle the up-b.

So anyway with all these changes I believe that Mario would likely be placed somewhere between the top of the Middle tier and the middle of the High tier. And if you still think that all these changes are to much just remember this. Mario is nintendos flagship character, and for all the years of fun he gave us the least we could do is give him a good standing in Smash Bros.

So anyway thats it. A little(actually a lot) longer than I had meant for it to be, but I think I said all I wanted. If your eyes are tired, I apologize.

[HiddenTiger]

Xianfeng already said what needed to be said here. Mario is the median, the character that sets the basis for determining how good or bad a character is. He doesn't need to be improved. He needs to stay righ there in the middle and set the standard.

[highandmightyjoe]

I disagree. I believe that Mario is intended to be the balanced character but that is not how he turns out. Just because he is an average character doesn't make him balanced, its just that he has about an equal list of good and bad points. To summarize what I said in my longer post, he has bad range, a terrible projectile(at least compared to pills), and he lacks KO moves. On the good side he has a good air game, good edge-guarding and above average recovery. What im recommending is making him more balanced by improving his weak points, and though it pains me to say it I guess it would only be right to weaken his strong ones. Improved range, strength and a better projectile at the cost of less air superiority(which is pretty much a combination of the 3 advantages I listed). So what im asking for is to actually make him into the balanced character he was meant to be. And of course the taunt has to be changed, thats just a given.