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Match-up discussion #23: Bowser

~ Gheb ~

~ Gheb ~

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Another match-up! This time it's Bowser

He's underrated. He has good options out of shield, lagless and powerful tilts and some wicked grab release options. Don't get grabbed! This is quite easy to get around, with - surprise, surprise - well spaced bairs. He's strong and can do some nasty stuff if he plays defensively.

Not too hard though, outcamp him, outspace him and outspeed him. He's hard to finish off, so keep your dsmash fresh...

60:40 Wolfs favour

discuss
 
Collective of Bears

Collective of Bears

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I would hesitate to say 60:40. In the transition from Melee to Brawl, Bowser became more like DK and less like Ganondorf. He's still big and slow, but don't think he doesn't have good options beyond laggy smashes. My advice is to stay close and hamper him with Tilts, A combos, SH Bair, and Shines. Try not to let him get a good hit on you with Fsmash or Usmash. 55:45, Wolf's favor.
 
¯\_S.(ツ).L.I.D._/¯

¯\_S.(ツ).L.I.D._/¯

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I say 60-40, Bowser can be pretty easy to gimp. I wonder: Do Bowsers ever use Side-B to recover if someone is trying to Gimp them? That could be helpful for him.
 
T

teekay

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I know it doesn't get used that much, but Wolf's falling upair is a really good move for setting up opponents and I think it's worth pointing out Bowser is one of the easiest in the game to hit with it.
 
Sesshomuronay

Sesshomuronay

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Bowsers sooo annoying. Im all for 50/50. Sure he doesnt have much to counter our blaster spam but all that does is tickle him. He can shield grab so much crap we can do its crazy with his big grab range. His out of shield up-b is good because we have nothing that can outspeed it. You guys forget about how the fire can gimp wolf too but thats mostly bad wolfs. Wolf does have a lot of good stuff to use against bowser but because of bowsers tilts and grabs I would say its even. Bowser has a better ground game than wolf with his tilts and whatnot. Wolf owns bowser in the air because bowser doesnt have that many means to get back on the stage fast and if he b-downs it means punishment. ALWAYS make bowser approach you, if you dont prepare to be shieldgrabbed.

I just dont feel that we have the advantage so its 50/50 imo.
 
ElPadrino

ElPadrino

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Bowsers Uair is beastly, and below Wolf is his main aerial weakness so it can be dangerous.
Just like Wolf, Bowser can auto cancel his Fair, after wich he can use any of his tilts or his standard A (wich is fast and has decent range and knockback for a standard A).

His recovery isn't that easily gimped, and even less by Wolf; what I mean is that unless you can get him fairly under the stage (dangerous territory for Wolf) he'll make it back, mainly because he has a good horizontal recovery and the new ledge autosweetspot helped him a lot.

His fire can rack up a lot of damage if you don't DI away fast, I havn't been able to Di behind Bowser while he's using his fire, not until his flames get really week, by which time I had taken a lot of damage.

Side B is almost lagless, it's a grab so no shield, it delievers a lot of damage, and if used fresh it can kill.
Not mentioning he can actually bowserside and win the match with it.

If you play it safe he should miss all his Down Bs, so punish him badly for it (though it can kill you if you're not ready).

Side smash, Up smash and Up tilt are all good finishers.

I'd say 55:45 or 50:50, Bowser is way better on the right hands than people give credit for.
 
Ishiey

Ishiey

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..... Captain Falcon is in Brawl?

Anyways, Bowser's size is useful for wolf because it means laser is harder to avoid and it's easy to FF uair to utilt and juggle and WoP. His tilts are dangerous, but this game should be played either in the air or just avoiding shieldgrabs. You can shine a lot too, I'd say its the best way to gimp bowser for wolf because IIRC fortress has great priority.
 
Shady Penguin

Shady Penguin

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I'll just transfer over what I said in the re-discussion thread.

"I seriously think Bowser is a neutral match-up.

Well-timed whirling fortresses can really cut down on spam, and he can punish most all of Wolf's moves out of his shield with a jab, tilt, grab, or fortress (His forward-b has nearly twice as much range as it looks to have).

Bowser's fire breath is a very threatening edge-guarding tool against Wolf since his recovery options are so stiff and predictable. One wrong move into it, and you can end up taking around 30 damage before being able to break free. It is also very bad for Wolf because it can often only be avoided by landing on the stage where Bowser can punish his landing lag with a powerful attack (Bowser's Dsmash comes out fast enough and can kill you rather early).

I have a good amount of personal experience with this match-up, and some other Wolfs wanting it around 50:50 while Bowser is such an obscure competitive character says something."
 
~ Gheb ~

~ Gheb ~

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Shady Penguin said:
Well-timed whirling fortresses can really cut down on spam,
Click to expand...
What spam? Blaster spam?

and he can punish most all of Wolf's moves out of his shield with a jab, tilt, grab, or fortress (His forward-b has nearly twice as much range as it looks to have).
Click to expand...
That would be true, if Wolf ever had to approach. This, however, isn't the case

Bowser's fire breath is a very threatening edge-guarding tool against Wolf since his recovery options are so stiff and predictable. One wrong move into it, and you can end up taking around 30 damage before being able to break free. It is also very bad for Wolf because it can often only be avoided by landing on the stage where Bowser can punish his landing lag with a powerful attack (Bowser's Dsmash comes out fast enough and can kill you rather early).
Click to expand...
You have a point here, however Wolf has more recovery options, than you give him credit for. He can't just Illusion Cancel back to the stage and slide away. In fact, this makes Wolf almost un-punishable when he lands on the stage.

I have nothing to say about the Fire Breath, except that you are right. But how much does it influence the match-up?

You still forget things like: Bowser can't punish a crossover fair, he has to be offensive (something he isn't so good at) and you can counter a lot with Shine...
 
Shady Penguin

Shady Penguin

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By spam, I mean Wolf's constant pressure. With good fortresses out of his shield, Bowser won't just be a punching bag.

As for punishing, Wolf doesn't have to approach to be punished for attacking. Once Bowser gets over to Wolf and stops the blastering, Wolf has to be very careful about what moves he can actually use against a Bowser who knows his stuff.

I think the fire breath does influence the match-up a good deal since it can rack up a ton of damage if it works, or often lead to a punished landing (Illusion canceling will be hard-pressed against well aimed fire).

As for a cross-over fair, do you mean Wolf doing a lagless fair and landing on the other side of Bowser? If that is what you're talking about, I'm pretty sure Bowser can punish it with the obsurd range of his f-tilt or over-b.

Wolf has the pressure advantage, and has the luxary of making Bowser come to him, but I'm nearly certain Bowser can punish better and will usually end up living to higher percentages (You're going to need a fresh d-smash if you want to kill Bowser even somewhat early for the most part).
 
castorpollux

castorpollux

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so tell me, what are we comparing in these match-up threads? the metagame? noob game? intermediate game? what are we comparing? In the end it doesnt matter though. Wolf beats bowser on all these levels. The best wolfs WILL beat the best bowsers. Ive set a level 9 wolf vs level 9 bowser for 2 hours and wolf came out significantly ahead in this as well so that should cover the noob level.

So please give me something more than "bowser can punish wolf better". Seriously... if a wolf does his WoW correctly, there isn't ever really a time a bowser can really land a kill move at all. Fire breath just isnt enough to convince me that bowser can actually fight 50/50 with wolf. He's just too slow
 
Flayl

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Using CPUs to judge your matchups is pretty terrible. As a Bowser main I'd say Wolf has the advantage, but by how much I can't tell. I'm an online only player.
 
~ Gheb ~

~ Gheb ~

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Wolf has many advantages online, you shouldn't use this for match-up data
 
castorpollux

castorpollux

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compared to how fast wolf can be played, bowser is a turtle

Flayl said:
Using CPUs to judge your matchups is pretty terrible. As a Bowser main I'd say Wolf has the advantage, but by how much I can't tell. I'm an online only player.
Click to expand...
yes i agree, but it was more to prove a point that we should be comparing the best wolfs vs best bowsers and see who wins more
 
Shady Penguin

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Castor, you have yet to make a point better than "Wolf players beat Bowser, and Wolf is faster."

I'm not even sure where you get this "Wolf players beat Bowser players on all levels" stuff from, but considering Bowser is practiced and used so much less than Wolf, this isn't even a fair basis for the match-up in the first place.

Wolf is faster, but what's your point? I'll just counter with the broad statement that Bowser is stronger. As for WoW, Bowser's up-b, over-b, and fair would like to say hi (a retreating fire breath can be quite nice too).

I'm looking at their moves and statistics, and you're just talking about how the players stack up.

I'm haven't won my case yet, but you've pretty much contributed nothing.
 
F

Fugu15

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I think it's 60:40 wolf. If you don't get caught off the stage into a flame and watch out for the OOS UpB's, wolf wall eats him alive. Also Bowser's grab release into a tilt is very effective against wolf. Once bowser gets off stage though, it's really easy to edgeguard him if he is coming back high with bairs and if he decides to drop low it's a pretty easy spike target.
 
castorpollux

castorpollux

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penguin, all i'm arguing is that it's def. not 50:50. I'm not really stacking player vs player. I'm stacking the current metagame of each characters against each other. I'm not ruling out the possibility that some new tactic might give bowser the edge over wolf someday, but Im just saying currently, wolf's metagame beats bowser's metagame and therefore the match-up should be in wolf's favor. saying bowser is less practiced isn't an argument for you either caz how practiced a character is, is very often correlated with how good the character is. You also can't look at moves and say a match-up is 50:50 caz anything that can be predicted, can be countered. for instance, I can't look at wolf vs metaknight and say well wolf can blaster/shine/pivot grab all of MK's approaches and therefore it is 50;50. As you can see, basing match-ups on moves IS ridiculous and shouldn't be the basis. Thus, the only viable way to measure a match-up between two characters is to compare the metagames, and the best way to compare two metagames is to see a wolf played at it's highest level (germ/lucien0 vs a bowser being played at it's highest level (whoever the best bowser is)
 
Shady Penguin

Shady Penguin

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castorpollux said:
penguin, all i'm arguing is that it's def. not 50:50. I'm not really stacking player vs player. I'm stacking the current metagame of each characters against each other. I'm not ruling out the possibility that some new tactic might give bowser the edge over wolf someday, but Im just saying currently, wolf's metagame beats bowser's metagame and therefore the match-up should be in wolf's favor. saying bowser is less practiced isn't an argument for you either caz how practiced a character is, is very often correlated with how good the character is. You also can't look at moves and say a match-up is 50:50 caz anything that can be predicted, can be countered. for instance, I can't look at wolf vs metaknight and say well wolf can blaster/shine/pivot grab all of MK's approaches and therefore it is 50;50. As you can see, basing match-ups on moves IS ridiculous and shouldn't be the basis. Thus, the only viable way to measure a match-up between two characters is to compare the metagames, and the best way to compare two metagames is to see a wolf played at it's highest level (germ/lucien0 vs a bowser being played at it's highest level (whoever the best bowser is)
Click to expand...

So you're saying Marth has an advantage against everyone in Melee because of M2K? I'm pretty sure match-ups aren't indicated that way.

Wolf is more practiced than Bowser because he is better, but that doesn't mean he has the advantage in this match-up (Otherwise Peach wouldn't be good against Olimar for example).

I'm not saying Bowser can stop everything Wolf does, but he has a lot of options to choose from, which is always a good thing. Also, how is basing the match-up on moves and statistics ridiculous when those are what make the characters play the way they do?

I'm not saying you can't disagree with me or that I win with no debate, but can you please contribute some hard evidence or logical opinions that affect this match-up?

Well, I've made all my points, so I have no more to put out. For the record, I'd now be fine with anything from 50:50 to 55:45 Wolf.
 
castorpollux

castorpollux

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**** it, i'm not even gonna bother. If anything, it's probably good that people think that bowser can really fight a good wolf. I would looove to battle more bowsers at tournaments. 30:70 bowser advantage woot woot!
 
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