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A King's Quest For Respect: The Bowser Matchup Thread

Dumbfire

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DI the second hit to bring yourself in the best position. And from there cointniue the game.
The most lag is between first and second so you should really focus on punishing there. Also if the second hit doesnt trip you can DI and SDI up to try and avoid the second hit sometimes but meh is Bowser, I dont really know.
 

Flayl

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If you klaw him out of cypher he can just C4 himself, grab is harder/impossible for Snake to do that because of the grab-release trajectory.

My point is if Klaw would grab him out of cypher you were better off BAir'ing him.
 

Cassius.

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I don't see how that was a joke <_< I mean, klaw is still very useable in the MU and it can still be used to gimp snake...I mean, what if you're in the air facing the wrong way? I can't wish for bowser to turn around mid air and BAir..although I could klaw to change my direction I'm facing and JUMP AGAIN AND BAIR DOHOHOHOHOHO...

bad joke?
 

B!squick

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Yeah we're totally done with that write up for the Snake match-up after all this... well, I can't really call it a discussion since we didn't, you know, discuss anything. What should I call it? :S

But anyway, we're no way near ready to move on to Diddy and at this rate we never will be. In fact, I think I'll go change the title to reflect that...

 

CaLibUr_1337

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Just seemed to me that everyone was done talking about it so I thought I'd suggest a different char for now. Please explain why bowser boards are so inactive.
 

B!squick

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Well, it helps if people actually play the character. At all. In terms of popularity, Bowser is near the bottom of the Brawl cast, despite being better than other more popular characters.

I wish it weren't so. I get tired of double posting every other week, lol.

 

MrEh

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Bowser is probably the least popular character in the game.

And when you're used less then Jiggs or Zelda, that's saying something.
 

Zigsta

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Point taken although I'm interested in what more people have to say about the snake match up.
I'll say personally, I only have Snake MU experience against decent Snakes at best, so I'm staying out of this discussion. I only contribute to MU discussions if I've played at least one top-level player with Bowser.
 

CaLibUr_1337

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I've been told that I should just catch with an AD and immediantly throw nades with the c-stick back at Snake. In all honestly I just need to predict f-tilts and I should be ok against snake in my area. Also predicting DACUS will help me a lot. What can we do when Snake is in the sliding animation?
 

B!squick

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Not sure. Fortress comes to mind obviously. Klaw. I don't have any friends that play Snake. At all. So my experience is slim to none.

 

Dumbfire

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I've been told that I should just catch with an AD and immediantly throw nades with the c-stick back at Snake. In all honestly I just need to predict f-tilts and I should be ok against snake in my area. Also predicting DACUS will help me a lot. What can we do when Snake is in the sliding animation?
You can also just time a Nade grab by pressing a at the right time or z catch instant throw him from the air, but Snake can cook the grenades too so make sure you pay attention to him.
Maybe we can Jab Snake out of DACUS?
 

Cassius.

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I'm not sure if "when Snake DACUSes I'll jab!" will be on your mind at all times.

The game isn't that simple...and you won't be completely stationary the whole game to probably get off a jab.

but, if/when you do, have fun.

also sorry for being so inactive, im up at school now and this is a crucial year, so i probably wont be on as much.

What you COULD do is shield when he comes in your direction with the DACUS and punish accordingly. Or just klaw, idk.
 

Flayl

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Keep it simple and fortress OoS. Once you gain a lot of experience, you can start doing more flashy stuff like shield backwards and use the appropriate option for the spacing of the DACUS, but that's not something you can learn by reading about it.
 

CaLibUr_1337

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By shield backwards do you mean tilting it towards you? XD

I guess it's all about timing. If I were to have epic prediction skills I could F-smash him out of that sliding animation but that would require quite a bit of luck to pull off. Fortress OoS once again seems the safest thing to do. I'll try Klaw and F-tilt next time I'm in a match.
 

Flayl

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No I mean literally turning your back on Snake, DACUS makes Snake go through characters so if you're ever going to shield-grab him out of it you need to be facing the other way. I have no idea if Bowser's grab is actually fast enough to do that though.
 

bigman40

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Agreed with Flayl. I think Bowser could grab him, but it's a tight window before you miss (plus it's different depending on where Snake does it). Stick with OoS Fortress since it hits twice, then when you want to learn other options to punish it, turn around and shield just before it lands (I'd know since Yoshi can't powershield correctly facing characters :()
 

Flayl

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Following my motto of "because nobody else will", I took an indepth look at the bowser v Olimar matchup:

Facts
He can shieldgrab FTilt unless it's perfectly spaced
He's actually better off just spacing the grab, it outranges FTilt
Gimpy combo doesn't even work because he can shield immediately when the grab hitbox disappears
Just in case you didn't know you can't hit pikmin that are commanded to grab, you can however interrupt the grab by hitting Olimar
UAir, FAir UTilt and USmash cannot hit you if you space klaw correctly against a grounded Olimar
However if Olimar is at the same-ish altitude as you he can beat Klaw with a Yellow FAir and if your spacing isn't perfect a blue FAir will do the job
If you're spacing the klaw properly a grounded UpB will hit you frame 17
Olimar's movement during the initial frames of UpB is too subtle
Only reliable way to see it coming is to watch out for the pikmin converging on Olimar
Olimar's UpB sound comes out frame 7
Bowser's airdodge is only invincible frame 4, that means you would need a reaction time of 6 frames to sound or 12 frames to the pikmin grouping
The conclusion is that unless you have really good visual reflexes you have to read the olimar player's habits or mix up randomly in order to succesfully airdodge the UpB
Getting Pikmin off of Bowser's face is a nightmare: AA, Up-angled FTilt, FAir, BAir, NAir, ledge attack and fortress don't work, UTilt most of the time just scrapes them. DTilt, Dash Attack and UAir work.
Red pikmin can go through Bowser's firebreath, purple pikmin get stuck for a while then die, every other pikmin just "bounces" off and doesn't die...
If you're breathing fire horizontally (best option at close range) Olimar can SDI towards you and hit you with an UAir. I didn't manage to get FAir to work but it should, wrong positioning I guess.

Theory
If you manage to knock Olimar offstage you actually have a pretty good edgeguard game against him compared to most of the cast. If he's recovering from above: Klaw beats whistle armor, so you can jump and try to go for that and have an optioned prepared for his airdodges. If he recovers from far away/below ledge drop fortress beats purple pikmin toss, then it's just a matter of hanging onto the ledge. You don't even need to time invincibility frames if you're not at a high %.
Air-release Klaw isn't guaranteed, but he can't punish you for trying.

So the best approach to the matchup seems klaw hopping mixed with crossup fortresses/grounded klaw. Bursts of firebreath can maybe be used as a spacing tool if it doesn't make Bowser a target for pikmin toss. if pikmin get stuck to your face UAir it off, otherwise use NAir/Fortress.

Either way it looks pretty bad, I'd call it 30:70
 

Zigsta

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Perfect timing, Flayl--I just got a set recorded against an Olimar and was hoping for some critiquing when it gets up, haha.

I think our fsmash outranges either his pivot grab, grab, or fsmash. I know I predicted one of them with an fsmash, and it worked.
 

KingKong_ad

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I dont think its bad I will try to write about that match up later and trying to find logic to talk about the match up too.
 

Sky Pirate

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Pardon me for poking in where I don't belong, but it seems REALLY bad for Bowser.
With good pikmin organization, I found that I could almost completely lock Bowser down by alternating Purple tosses and different attacks (depending on the pikmin). Unfortunately, we didn't save one of those replays, so I can't show you what I mean. T_T
With mediocre to poor organization, it's still easy to get a good 50-70% on Bowser via grab combos and pikmin toss (he seems to have a hard time getting pikmin off without getting punished) and tether-gimps make life quite hard for Bowser.
But wow, I didn't even THINK to use UpB against him. ._.

Zigsta, it MIGHT have been a Fsmash that wasn't at max range. Olimar has no priority on his pikmin attacks (which is Olimar's REAL weakness), so you might have knocked the pikmin away with the first hit and followed through to hit Olimar with the rest of the attack.
Could also have been a grab (he has no grab armor either), but it would be standing grab rather than pivot grab.
I don't know much about Bowser's range, though. I'm just throwing out possibilities.

Also, Zigsta did some sort of wacky delayed jab to Fair gimp voodoo to me. Might be something to consider. :p
 

Zigsta

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Olimar's tether makes me sad. :(

And I was waiting for you to up B me the entire time, CloverLeaf, haha. You have no idea how much I was watching you when I was in midair!
 

Sky Pirate

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I'm going to combine "it was late" johns with "it wasn't a MM" johns AND "I would have figured it out eventually" johns to form a MEGAJOHN!!! more powerful than any of the Braves.

...sorry, on a bit of a transforming robot kick and caffeine high right now.
 
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