∫unk
Smash Master
Sup everyone.
First, some disclaimers:
That being said, there's a serious deficiency of knowledge on Marth boards and the point is to improve everyone no matter how some Marth's think they're entitled to keep their knowledge because they "worked hard" to get it.
This is also beneficial for me to keep all my thoughts together.
I may organize the information into sections but mostly it's just going to be spewing random information.
WATCH YOUR OPPONENT: This improved my Marth more than anything else. Watch what your opponent does and pick up patterns, particularly after a "setup" move (throws, d-tilt, f-air). Most people just airdodge or jump. Both are punishable if not immediately then in the upcoming sequence (you have position advantage). Watch what they do after if they fall on the ground and try to get up. Watch what they do when you approach in your invincibility frames after you die. Take note of every single time they roll behind you (a significant weakness of Marth), recognize the spacing, and try to punish. Watch when they use their jump on recovery and try to hit them to force the up b.
Shield Conservation: Don't hold shield when you don't have to. That way when you actually do need your shield for multi hit attacks you won't get shield poked. Just click it then do something else. If you hold it you're going to get grabbed and u-thrown which is really bad for Marth.
Directional Influence: Basically, watch this vid. It explains way better than I can but DI is particularly important for characters with bad recovery like Marth: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hQIy7P7RWo&feature=related
Recovery: Please don't be dumb. Don't use a jump if you don't have to, don't up b without enough distance to land on the stage if they edge hog. When I say start high go low that doesn't mean land on the stage >_> that means don't just go low for no reason like I see a lot of Marths do. If you're getting hit don't always DI towards the stage cause that means you're also DIing into the ****.
Full hop aerials: If you slide your finger from Y/X to A (but press Y/X long enough so you full hop) you will do a f-air at the height of a short hop f-air but you'll do a full hop. The benefit of this is that you can horizontally space the first f-air but now that you're above them you're now vertically spacing. The reason why this works is because the opponent will still be horizontally spacing and will most likely do a short hop aerial and at that point you can ff and n-air or f-air them. If they do recognize and adjust be unpredictable when you come down and either cross over or retreat.
SH f-air: You can FF, do the f-air on the rise, f-air on the fall, do it approaching retreating or in neutral position. Basically there's a lot of mixups for the SH f-air alone that most Marth's aren't capitalizing on. Single f-air gives you the most options. The time where sh double f-air works is when the opponent doesn't expect the second attack. F-air also hits below you a little bit keep that in mind when you're spacing coming down from a high position.
B-air: If you do b-air right after your sh you can ff without lag or even do b-air f-air. Pretty good when you're retreating from a bad position they almost never expect the f-air.
Double Jumping Platforms: I mentioned this in my advance marth thread but really learn the spacing of cancelling your initial jump with your second jump to land on platforms the fastest.
Walk and Running: Amazing AT right? If you walk for a bit then run this change in movement catches people off guard. Walk away run back in if you're far away walk towards them then run etc. Do not dash if you're close unless you're going to punish lag because you can't shield while you're in a dash.
Charging Smashes/Shieldbreaker/D-air: These are your low to mid-high percent kills. This is what makes a game way easier to win with Marth if you land it. You will pick up on patterns after a few times of your setup move. How does Neo hit with a charge smash? because he knows where they're going. That said... these should only be attempted extremely rarily. I'm afraid to even write this out because you guys will try to "mindgame" people by charging stuff that has no chance of hitting.
Force Shield Drop: The opponent is forced to drop his shield when you push him off a platform or stage. This is why you can DB into a shield opponent near the edge and it will almost always hit on the last few hits especially if you do green version. If you attack someone on a platform and they're shielding near the edge they'll get knocked off and be in a tumbling animation. Most people don't tech when the land so you have a free shot if you know what's happening. Similarly when you get knocked off a platform while shielding you go into a tumbling animation but instead of teching when you land on the base stage you should u-air out cause it will hit them when they try to chase and it's way easier to do than teching it.
DB1 to Grab: This is a gimmick that I first saw RoyR use and can't be used all the time but sometimes works just do the first forward b then see what they do (usually it's shield) then dash forward and grab them pummel into the grab release and repeat. DB1 to Shieldbreaker also works.
Grab Pummel to Grab: When you're near the edge but not quite there you can pummel and force a ground break then dash forward a little and grab which sets up for the thing below.
Grabbing Near the Edge: When you grab someone near the edge just pummel them and when they break they'll drop and forced to jump and grab the ledge or up b. This lets you set up for your edge trap or if they happen to jump break an edge guard.
Dash to Pivotgrab: When you're close to someone they're basic response is to either grab you or spot dodge. You can avoid both by running behind and pivot grabbing (the time you're running behind is the time they're spot dodging). Pivotgrab's range is insane.
D-throw: Is insanely good and underestimated. Especially if you've already f-thrown on a stock, they will be conditioned to DI away from you but when you d-throw DIing away becomes DIing towards you. From here you can regrab, charge u-smash right after d-throw (as Neo did on Ninjalink), basically whatever you want they're landing right in front of you.
Powershielding: Some attacks come out at the same time regardless of who the player is... Either way most players have very easy attack patterns to read (but just mix up the spacing) which makes powershielding easy to do. For example almost all z-air characters airdodge before their z-air which makes it ridiculously easy to ps. If you're in a ditto ps a double f-air spamming Marth should be easy in the match. Remember to jump immediately out of the powershield cause even when you ps some attacks you don't have much time to punish it.
U-tilt: Don't forget about it's got good range off the top and it kills at decent percents for lighter chars. Beats GW d-air but watch out sometimes they slow the key as a mixup.
U-smash OOS: Learn it, use it, love it. Azen's Marth was wrecking people with this today at Cataclysm.
Lagging Semi-Close: The opponent can't shield in his dash so if you're lagging in that distance you're pretty safe to do a retaliation. For example if you f-smash another Marth but barely miss tipper they'll try to run in and punish so you up b them. There's ways around this so don't do it every time but it almost always catches people off guard because they forget they can't shield in the initial dash.
Misspaced DB: If they are too close or too far when the first db hits... just stop. They're going to either DI behind you or out of it. Grab or d-tilt after.
N-air: Last hit is super strong and *****. You can sometimes get people with a sh ff single hit n-air then you can use u-smash cause ppl don't expect to get hit by the weak hit and even if they shield they try to grab you right after (this is if empty sh grab is part of your game). If they're hanging on the stage you can also run off jump back and n-air right above the ledge if they do anything but a ledge attack they get hit and most ppl don't ledge attack.
Dash attack: Sometimes useful to get under stuff.
Always remember to limit your opponents options and give yourself as many as possible. PATIENCE!!!
First, some disclaimers:
- I promised that I would write up this thread but there's just a ton of information. I'm not writing out everything in one sitting. This will get updated as I go along.
- Some stuff I'm not going to write out because even if I told you you wouldn't understand but more importantly, Marth isn't a character you just read up and play. His learning curve is steep and is experienced based.
- I'm not the best Marth. I'm a Marth that's improving a lot and talking to the right people and getting the right experience to be able to make this thread.
- The best way to improve your Marth is to play good players and watch other good Marths. Do NOT just watch videos for the sake of seeing a Marth move fast. Almost every move of a good Marth is done deliberately so try to get inside that players mind as to why they're doing those move choices. This will be mentally exhausting but there's unique tricks with every good Marth that you can use if you just recognize them.
That being said, there's a serious deficiency of knowledge on Marth boards and the point is to improve everyone no matter how some Marth's think they're entitled to keep their knowledge because they "worked hard" to get it.
This is also beneficial for me to keep all my thoughts together.
I may organize the information into sections but mostly it's just going to be spewing random information.
WATCH YOUR OPPONENT: This improved my Marth more than anything else. Watch what your opponent does and pick up patterns, particularly after a "setup" move (throws, d-tilt, f-air). Most people just airdodge or jump. Both are punishable if not immediately then in the upcoming sequence (you have position advantage). Watch what they do after if they fall on the ground and try to get up. Watch what they do when you approach in your invincibility frames after you die. Take note of every single time they roll behind you (a significant weakness of Marth), recognize the spacing, and try to punish. Watch when they use their jump on recovery and try to hit them to force the up b.
Shield Conservation: Don't hold shield when you don't have to. That way when you actually do need your shield for multi hit attacks you won't get shield poked. Just click it then do something else. If you hold it you're going to get grabbed and u-thrown which is really bad for Marth.
Directional Influence: Basically, watch this vid. It explains way better than I can but DI is particularly important for characters with bad recovery like Marth: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hQIy7P7RWo&feature=related
Recovery: Please don't be dumb. Don't use a jump if you don't have to, don't up b without enough distance to land on the stage if they edge hog. When I say start high go low that doesn't mean land on the stage >_> that means don't just go low for no reason like I see a lot of Marths do. If you're getting hit don't always DI towards the stage cause that means you're also DIing into the ****.
Full hop aerials: If you slide your finger from Y/X to A (but press Y/X long enough so you full hop) you will do a f-air at the height of a short hop f-air but you'll do a full hop. The benefit of this is that you can horizontally space the first f-air but now that you're above them you're now vertically spacing. The reason why this works is because the opponent will still be horizontally spacing and will most likely do a short hop aerial and at that point you can ff and n-air or f-air them. If they do recognize and adjust be unpredictable when you come down and either cross over or retreat.
SH f-air: You can FF, do the f-air on the rise, f-air on the fall, do it approaching retreating or in neutral position. Basically there's a lot of mixups for the SH f-air alone that most Marth's aren't capitalizing on. Single f-air gives you the most options. The time where sh double f-air works is when the opponent doesn't expect the second attack. F-air also hits below you a little bit keep that in mind when you're spacing coming down from a high position.
B-air: If you do b-air right after your sh you can ff without lag or even do b-air f-air. Pretty good when you're retreating from a bad position they almost never expect the f-air.
Double Jumping Platforms: I mentioned this in my advance marth thread but really learn the spacing of cancelling your initial jump with your second jump to land on platforms the fastest.
Walk and Running: Amazing AT right? If you walk for a bit then run this change in movement catches people off guard. Walk away run back in if you're far away walk towards them then run etc. Do not dash if you're close unless you're going to punish lag because you can't shield while you're in a dash.
Charging Smashes/Shieldbreaker/D-air: These are your low to mid-high percent kills. This is what makes a game way easier to win with Marth if you land it. You will pick up on patterns after a few times of your setup move. How does Neo hit with a charge smash? because he knows where they're going. That said... these should only be attempted extremely rarily. I'm afraid to even write this out because you guys will try to "mindgame" people by charging stuff that has no chance of hitting.
Force Shield Drop: The opponent is forced to drop his shield when you push him off a platform or stage. This is why you can DB into a shield opponent near the edge and it will almost always hit on the last few hits especially if you do green version. If you attack someone on a platform and they're shielding near the edge they'll get knocked off and be in a tumbling animation. Most people don't tech when the land so you have a free shot if you know what's happening. Similarly when you get knocked off a platform while shielding you go into a tumbling animation but instead of teching when you land on the base stage you should u-air out cause it will hit them when they try to chase and it's way easier to do than teching it.
DB1 to Grab: This is a gimmick that I first saw RoyR use and can't be used all the time but sometimes works just do the first forward b then see what they do (usually it's shield) then dash forward and grab them pummel into the grab release and repeat. DB1 to Shieldbreaker also works.
Grab Pummel to Grab: When you're near the edge but not quite there you can pummel and force a ground break then dash forward a little and grab which sets up for the thing below.
Grabbing Near the Edge: When you grab someone near the edge just pummel them and when they break they'll drop and forced to jump and grab the ledge or up b. This lets you set up for your edge trap or if they happen to jump break an edge guard.
Dash to Pivotgrab: When you're close to someone they're basic response is to either grab you or spot dodge. You can avoid both by running behind and pivot grabbing (the time you're running behind is the time they're spot dodging). Pivotgrab's range is insane.
D-throw: Is insanely good and underestimated. Especially if you've already f-thrown on a stock, they will be conditioned to DI away from you but when you d-throw DIing away becomes DIing towards you. From here you can regrab, charge u-smash right after d-throw (as Neo did on Ninjalink), basically whatever you want they're landing right in front of you.
Powershielding: Some attacks come out at the same time regardless of who the player is... Either way most players have very easy attack patterns to read (but just mix up the spacing) which makes powershielding easy to do. For example almost all z-air characters airdodge before their z-air which makes it ridiculously easy to ps. If you're in a ditto ps a double f-air spamming Marth should be easy in the match. Remember to jump immediately out of the powershield cause even when you ps some attacks you don't have much time to punish it.
U-tilt: Don't forget about it's got good range off the top and it kills at decent percents for lighter chars. Beats GW d-air but watch out sometimes they slow the key as a mixup.
U-smash OOS: Learn it, use it, love it. Azen's Marth was wrecking people with this today at Cataclysm.
Lagging Semi-Close: The opponent can't shield in his dash so if you're lagging in that distance you're pretty safe to do a retaliation. For example if you f-smash another Marth but barely miss tipper they'll try to run in and punish so you up b them. There's ways around this so don't do it every time but it almost always catches people off guard because they forget they can't shield in the initial dash.
Misspaced DB: If they are too close or too far when the first db hits... just stop. They're going to either DI behind you or out of it. Grab or d-tilt after.
N-air: Last hit is super strong and *****. You can sometimes get people with a sh ff single hit n-air then you can use u-smash cause ppl don't expect to get hit by the weak hit and even if they shield they try to grab you right after (this is if empty sh grab is part of your game). If they're hanging on the stage you can also run off jump back and n-air right above the ledge if they do anything but a ledge attack they get hit and most ppl don't ledge attack.
Dash attack: Sometimes useful to get under stuff.
Always remember to limit your opponents options and give yourself as many as possible. PATIENCE!!!
Biggest letdown for me was the end of the Lucario vs MK match where M2k gimped Azen. 
