BBR Weekly Character Discussion #26: Bowser

You know what I love about these topics? I play all of these ****ing characters, I suddenly feel more important.

Bowser sucks.

No, I'm serious. Gimpyfish was right all along, and he has nowhere to go but down. All of his great tools have done little/nothing to help him in the competitive metagame. His hardest matchups are almost all very popular, high/top tier characters. He struggles to get anywhere in bracket without at least one very good secondary (which of course begs the ever present question of all low tier mains...why play this character when my secondary does better?). He has a great OOS option, which is in my opinion, the only thing that keeps Bowser from being trash. Without fortress, he wouldn't be able to respond to pressure in any reliable manner and would just eat moves on his shield all day long until he died. He kills early, but not as early as characters like Snake or DK, since his stronger kill moves are more unreliable than his weaker, safer options. Flamethrower is pretty nice, but some characters just don't even give a **** about it. His Koopa Klaw tactics are very hard for many players to get around, which is interesting to me. People have so little Bowser experience that when they see this, they seem to almost freak out and not know what to do.

Whenever I come up against a good Bowser main (I go out of my way o play low tier mains, they're like the 300 spartans of the modern age), I adjust to this pretty quickly and just punish it with ease, it doesn't pose the same level of threat that many inexperienced players seem to think it does. Once you get past Bowser's gimmick and just play the "bait-punish" game with him, his effectiveness plummets. I would sadly have to say he deserves to go down more this next tier list. I think in current tournament results, he's something like the 4th worst already, and maybe only deserving of a couple of placements over that.

Adding onto Inferno's post, Bowser's recovery is like if you beat Donkey Kong's recovery with a baseball bat.

Bowser survives well into the higher percents so long as he doesn't get gimped (I bet Meta Knights smile whenever he's off of the level), but his recovery is so predictable and slow that he seemingly struggles to get back onstage.

I can't see Bowser moving up at all. There's very few Bowser mains now, and with given reason: He gets stomped on by very popular characters in tournament settings.

To sum up...


Strenghts: Grab release follow ups and a good out of shield option(Up B).
Weakness: Big target(easily hit), small hitboxes and bad recovery.
Matchups: Bad compared to the other character of his tier, and there are some currently placed below him that have better matchups.
Tournament perfomance: Terrible according to the Characters Rankings.

Conclusion: He shouldn't move up, maybe drop some spots returning to low tier.

I don't know why he was kicked out of low tier...he is definitely low tier. His only true asset (I have a feeling a spelled that wrong) is his up-b OOS. Nothing else is really good except for grab release shenanigans on walls.

I'm going to make a bold claim right now, and that's that Bowser is the 2nd worst character in the game. This guy needs to drop and far.

I'm just thinking in terms of match-ups. I think every mid tier or better character has a clear advantage over him and the only question is magnitude. Even characters like PT and Sonic just have so much more going for them than Bowser that I see them overall probably beating Bowser on the sheer quality gap. So among low tiers, Yoshi, Link, and Samus definitely camp Bowser to death. Ike shouldn't even be low tier because his jab is a better character than Bowser. Captain Falcon is really horrible, but one of the few good things about his moveset is that it's pretty good at exploiting large, low mobility characters... like Bowser. Speaking of being good at exploiting low mobility characters, Bowser is a dream come true for Jigglypuff. If he is up in the air for any reason, she destroys him and quite possibly ends it by gimping him. She can run away from him trivially if she wants to run the clock. I think it's pretty clear Jigglypuff beats Bowser. That leaves us with Lucas, Mario, and Ganondorf. Obviously Bowser beats Ganondorf by virtue of not being Ganondorf. I'd believe Bowser beating Lucas for a few reasons, but at best for Bowser that's going to be a small advantage. I'd be surprised if Bowser vs Mario is any better for Bowser than even. I don't think anyone else outside of Ganon himself is facing a match-up spread that bad.

Remember when considering Bowser's match-ups that he has a virtual auto-lose against King Dedede on top of everything else bad about him; it just raises a lot of questions about what this character could do. Not only does he not offer serious advantages, but if someone somehow were having trouble beating a Bowser main, he could counterpick King Dedede for a massive advantage. Bowser's consistent rock bottom tournament placements (his results are on the noise level, effectively zero) are no surprise to me, and I doubt they will ever change.

If people disagree over my Bowser analysis, I'd like to hear the competing logic, but I just look at this guy and think "who does he beat or even just go even with?" and end up thinking "he could very well be 2nd worst in the game".

Amazing Ampharos said:

I'm going to make a bold claim right now, and that's that Bowser is the 2nd worst character in the game. This guy needs to drop and far.

I'm just thinking in terms of match-ups. I think every mid tier or better character has a clear advantage over him and the only question is magnitude. Even characters like PT and Sonic just have so much more going for them than Bowser that I see them overall probably beating Bowser on the sheer quality gap. So among low tiers, Yoshi, Link, and Samus definitely camp Bowser to death. Ike shouldn't even be low tier because his jab is a better character than Bowser. Captain Falcon is really horrible, but one of the few good things about his moveset is that it's pretty good at exploiting large, low mobility characters... like Bowser. Speaking of being good at exploiting low mobility characters, Bowser is a dream come true for Jigglypuff. If he is up in the air for any reason, she destroys him and quite possibly ends it by gimping him. She can run away from him trivially if she wants to run the clock. I think it's pretty clear Jigglypuff beats Bowser. That leaves us with Lucas, Mario, and Ganondorf. Obviously Bowser beats Ganondorf by virtue of not being Ganondorf. I'd believe Bowser beating Lucas for a few reasons, but at best for Bowser that's going to be a small advantage. I'd be surprised if Bowser vs Mario is any better for Bowser than even. I don't think anyone else outside of Ganon himself is facing a match-up spread that bad.

Remember when considering Bowser's match-ups that he has a virtual auto-lose against King Dedede on top of everything else bad about him; it just raises a lot of questions about what this character could do. Not only does he not offer serious advantages, but if someone somehow were having trouble beating a Bowser main, he could counterpick King Dedede for a massive advantage. Bowser's consistent rock bottom tournament placements (his results are on the noise level, effectively zero) are no surprise to me, and I doubt they will ever change.

If people disagree over my Bowser analysis, I'd like to hear the competing logic, but I just look at this guy and think "who does he beat or even just go even with?" and end up thinking "he could very well be 2nd worst in the game".

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LOL

I just can't stop loling right now. Bowser doesn't get camped to death except by like tlink, the rest is all approachable.

Maybe don't agree with the reasoning 100%, but I agree with AA on the idea that bowser is 2nd worst. Bowser is quite horrid. Any move except Up B is easily anticipated and blocked. Block and punish, ggs. His grab release, which is one of his best setups, has some terrible range. Even his pivot grab is bad. I don't think bowser wins any matchups save for maybe Ganon. Even falcon runs even with him.

I think his overall range stops him from being 2nd worst. Maybe 3rd or 4th, but not 2nd worst.

His F-tilt is fast and has massive range. His up-b OOS WILL hit anything that isn't spaced perfectly on shield (assuming no disjoints), and his grab release to D-tilt will kill midweights at like...120% on the edge. His fair has tons of range, and he has one thing that most characters don't.

An air grab.

That gives him a VERY important aspect when approaching in the air. Against characters like DK or Luigi, if they are in the air approaching you, shield beats everything. Bowser can fall with a KK (Koopa Klaw) and beat shield. That makes him not 2nd worst. It's a pretty good mix-up.

I think triforce tier is still bottom 3 (Although not the same order), but bowser can be 4th.

When I think about Bowser... I think he has a lot of qualities that naturally put him above the low tiers...

But he doesn't really have the gimmicks to shine... he definitely has little to no... evens or close tos like most characters have in the cast at least (with characters that are higher than them on the tier list)...
but his match up spread is somewhat consistent throughout the cast outside of dedede.

.... somewhat like Link... imo..

Also I believe bowser's uair is the strongest in the game?

I was told by Vex awhile back that Bowser destroys Jigglypuff.
Above the fact that his ground game completely outranges and overpowers Jigglypuff's everything, I was told that Bowser gets a free uair from a grab release vs. Jigglypuff.

Bowser is a great character to use to beat people you're better than. That's about it. He has room for fancy play and nice reads, but it's such an uphill battle it isn't worth it competitively.

So where do you guys think he deserves to be on the tier list? Top of low? Bottom of low? Top of bottom? Bottom of bottom?

Perhaps somewhere near mid-F tier?
His lack of results in tournament, and lack real meta-game advancement tells me that he's just a very unpopular character, is outright terrible, or an unfortunate combination of the two.

Somewhere near mid-F tier would be reasonable, I'd think. Around where the current Captain Falcon and Samus currently are.

I think he is worse than Samus but still better than Falcon.

I still think Bowser is better than Ganon and Jigglypuff overall. don't know if he is better than Zelda, Captain Falcon, Link and Samus though

I really think Bottom tier should be larger, with Bowser sitting atop that, but of course, that might be selling him short. He seems to have better overall matchups with characters than the likes of Ganon, or Jigglypuff, or even Samus, but I honestly don't see him as better than Falcon.

I think hes better than falcon but not jigglypuff. I think jigglypuff has one of THE MOST underrated strategies in the game. How many jiggs' do u know that run away? If jiggs get a lead on you good luck trying to catch her.

Bowser should be low tier though thats for sure.

I think Bowser is better than Falcon, Jiggs, Zelda and Link, and light years ahead of Ganon. He might be tied with Samus. I think you guys are reactionaryily lowering him a bit too much because he's too high on the last list. I agree he should move down, but this guy is still better than a lot of the low tier characters.

He still has a lot of quick moves, some great gimmicks, and nice unique advantages (grab release stuff may not be guaranteed but it forces you into some tough spots) I think he's better than Falcon. It should also be noted that he's the heaviest character in the game, and has some really really strnog KO moves that are reasonable to land (up air for example) Bowser has a lot of terrible match ups but match ups outside of this are more favorable than Falcon's are. He's a better counter pick character.

He's probably low tier but I'd place him right up there with Samus.

I was under the impression that dk was the heaviest. Or at least the hardest to kill with momentum canceling?

Triforce tier is a silly concept because Zelda isn't a character. I also feel as though you guys are really underrating Link and Jigglypuff.

To respond to ESAM's arguments about Bowser, a few points. For one, a lot of characters are disjointed and couldn't care less about fortress OoS. Meta Knight, G&W, and Marth all just laugh at fortress OoS. Then you have the characters who will make it very, very hard for him to approach like Snake and Olimar, and then you have the characters with very high mobility who will just run away from him and sneak in quick hits as he desperately tries to hit them with anything (Pikachu and Wario). Fortress also does really horrible damage and knockback if it doesn't hit with the early hitbox, and it's really unsafe on block so Bowser has to be sure it's going to land before he can do it. I'm not sure there's any high tier character who can't somehow break a shielding Bowser, assuming they don't make major mistakes early on and let Bowser get a big lead.

Bowser's air grab is pretty great, but it's not very fast. Air to air, Bowser should be expecting to lose to most aerials with his side special if the other person has any sense of timing at all. In fact, it's ridiculously risky for Bowser to jump since virtually the entire cast outperforms him in the air. He's ridiculous juggle bait as well so once he gets into the air he's at risk of losing way more than the 18% he stands to gain by landing Flying Slam.

I'd also like to point out that Bowser has way more to fear than just King Dedede in terms of getting grabbed. Tons of characters have Bowser and DK specific cgs or cgs that are mostly low% only but work longest on Bowser. I know Pit can 0-50% Bowser with fthrows, and Peach can do the same with dthrows. Wario has a really nasty cg on Bowser with dthrow. ZSS has a cg on Bowser with fthrow if she can land a grab, but I'm not sure how long it lasts (I think 0-50%). I'm pretty sure Olimar can cg Bowser in his weird Olimar ways and that Pikachu's crazy cgs work better on Bowser than on the majority of the cast, and obviously Falco and ICs can cg him trivially. The funniest thing about Bowser's strength in landing grabs is that it's overly countered by a weakness to being grabbed himself. Even characters like G&W who can't cg him in any way get him up in the air for free off a grab which is just a really horrible position for Bowser.

I see the bottom of the cast panning out about like this:

Low tier

Jigglypuff
Yoshi
Link
Lucas
Samus
Mario
Captain Falcon
Bowser

Ganon Tier

Ganondorf

Zelda should be removed from the tier list, and Ike should be in mid tier. I think that takes care of the placement of all suspects. Lucas/Samus/Mario is really close and re-arrangeable, but this topic isn't about them.

As per Captain Falcon vs Bowser, I wouldn't mind Bowser above Captain Falcon putting Bowser as 3rd worst instead of 2nd worst. It seems kinda close to me. Bowser has his two good moves (up and side specials) while Captain Falcon has mobility and his one good move (uair). Both are very weak characters that lose to pretty much every good character but are still probably above Ganondorf due to a somewhat competent ability to fight other low tiers. The tipping point for me is that I suspect Captain Falcon beats Bowser in the direct match-up, but I can see it as close. I could also see dropping both into bottom tier and making a three character bottom tier of Captain Falcon/Bowser/Ganondorf with order not being that big of a deal.

gallax said:

I was under the impression that dk was the heaviest. Or at least the hardest to kill with momentum canceling?

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I'm not sure whether he is the hardest character to kill when it's used or not. This is probably true as his momentum cancel is great and he is the second heaviest character in the game. Bowser's indeed the first.

Bowser has the most launch resistance, but DK has a momentum cancelling up-b, so he has more survivability in general.

When DK uses that UP B near a blast zone he's a sitting duck for any kill move you want to use. It doesn't help much.

Bowser is really, really bad. Compared to most of the other low and mid-tier characters in the game, he has far less options and what options he does have are worse.

I'm going to agree with the sentiments that he has a few saving graces like Up-B out of shield, grab release shenanigans, surprisingly good aerial movement speed, and his extremely heavy weight, but those are all negated by his numerous other glaring weaknesses. Terribly recovery + easily gimped, issues with being camped due to his large size, and few viable up close options to counter characters with even decent close-range game.

I wouldn't go as far to say that he's second worst, but he definitely needs to drop. There are several characters in the present "low tier" that are definitely better than him.

Bowser's aerial movement speed is bad, not good.

http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=244329

His top speed is marginally above average, but he has bad acceleration. Similarly, once Bowser gets going on running he moves marginally faster than average, but his dash is the single slowest in the game. Bowser also has a horrible walk speed. All around, Bowser is low mobility; he's not nearly as badly off as Ganondorf, but the few good numbers on his side shouldn't obscure the story of the bad numbers that are holding him down.

He always seemed surprisingly mobile to me. I wasn't advocating that he was above average, he just seems to be more mobile than you would expect.

His jumping speed is a lot faster than Peach's. For example if there is an opponent in the air, Bowser is faster jumping up to hit them than somone like Peach is. Not sure what it's worth but his jumping speed doesn't seem to bad, which does help his mobility.

Another point of interest is, is that Bowser has pretty strong kill moves available to him...

Like listing off "points", he has things characters currently below him only dream of:

1. Several kill moves
2. RANGE
3. Out of shield options
4. Extreme weight
5. Grab release shenanigans.
6. Prior to the last rule set he was given a guaranteed win from a side b grab on the last stock.

Doesn't bowser's use of ISJR allow him to keep his mobility or not? I've always felt that when they use that they hardly slow down...

From my experience with it, I believe he moves near his top speed; he doesn't seem to slow down much at all.

I feel like Bowser is just a little bit better than Samus, and definitely ahead of Ganon/Zelda/CF/Link/Jiggs.

He sort of just outclasses them matchup and option wise. None of these characters really have the potential to rise any further, but Bowser, played correctly, does better against the cast than any of them, and is less gimmick based as compared to them as well.

wtf people saying bowser is maybe worse than samus, that's not possible because every character is better than samus xD such an horrible char lol.

I don't think bowser is that bad as her or as ganon, about what was said earlier, yes, Bowser does have an advantage over Jigglypuff, superior range that won't let puff approach, safe moves and killing potential ( lol utilt kills her at like 80).
Versus the top tiers he's pretty much screwed, yes he has chaingrabs on falco or MK, but they can utterly destroy him easily anyways. Wario chaingrabs him to ridiculous %, snake and diddy **** him as well and let's not forget ICs or D3. His only decent match-up there is Marth, which is still a disadvantage but Bowser has some moves that beat Marth's usual ones if spaced well and it's prolly the only top tier match-up he doesn't need to be like 10x times better than the other player to win xD.

He doesn't do that bad vs other people though, some characters like sheik may seem that destroy bowser but it isn't that bad. As ESAM said his range is really key for bowser and that stops him from sucking completely. With that he can beat many mid/low tiers that can't camp well enough and don't have enough range.

His air speed is pretty good, I don't remember the exact data but I was surprised such a grounded char had that mobility.

Still I agree Bowser should about 5th to 8th worst more or less, there's some chars like yoshi I don't really know how to place.

Yoshi is totally mid tier, as is Ness and Ike. Lucas should be the best low-tier IMO.

Bowser is right below samus IMO, with Jiggles, Link, Zelda, Ganon, and Mario beneath them

Bowser isn't so bad. He's sort of like Charizard in the way that he has some startlingly good properties on a few moves, but is a very linear character that gets juggled to death.

People need to abuse B-Reversals more, get better at spacing, and abuse the Koopa Klaw even more than they do now. Seriously, that move is among the best in the game.

Bowser is pathetic. When Link mains believe they have an advantage over another character, you know something's wrong.

While Bowser is heavy, this doesn't mean he's good at surviving. He's a huge target, which in a lot of matchups is a significant problem. His weight keeps many combos working until higher percents, yet his low fall speed makes his momentum cancel extremely unimpressive. In the air, he has, um, zero useful GTFO moves (like a lot of Ganon's options, F-Air is a lot slower and shorter ranged than playing against a Bowser who has outsmarted you might leave you thinking). On the ground, the opponent shouldn't get hit by the one GTFO move unless they space something very badly.

The core problem is the same as Ganon's: Bowser has zero reasonably safe options. Everything is either pitifully slow on startup or has punishable lag (or, more often, both). Like Ganon, successful reads will let Bowser hit hard, but Bowser himself is going to get hit harder and more often if his opponent just plays it safe.

Here's a post I wrote for the link mains on AiB about him:


Learn the range of Bowser's FAir and side-B. They're not that good, and a Bowser in the air is a Bowser who's not getting much done, ISJR or no. Once you have Bowser off balance, be aggressive in your attempt to keep him in the air.

This should seem odd coming from someone who plays Yoshi.. after all, the option to grab from the air is what makes Yoshi's aireal approach better than most. The thing is, Bowser winds up with the opposite problem of most characters - his aireal ATTACKS have such bad range and timings that Bowser's side-B is pretty much his ONLY good option to cover his landing, so we shouldn't need to BE shielding.

Bowser can set himself up defensively rather well, and the zone he defends is actually quite large because of his humongous size (though his attacks don't extend that far from his body.) So be patient. If Bowser is hanging out under a platform or in some other strategically favorable position, force him to come out with solid spacing and projectiles; don't go rushing in.

Final Destination is the stage to go with IMO. Nowhere for Bowser to hide, and large enough that Bowser can't defend the entire stage after getting you in the air. On the other end of the spectrum, I've had very bad experiences vs Bowser on Yoshi's Island.

Play this matchup carefully (maybe even to the point of being Toon Link [note: this is Arkivan for "Gay"] about it) and there isn't much to worry about. Bowser's notably better damage output per hit means little unless you do something unsafe.



If Link has a safe enough moveset that we can feel confident that we can keep Bowser at or beyond arm's length, I can only imagine how hard the mid and high tiers would shut him down.

Crow! said:

Bowser is pathetic. When Link mains believe they have an advantage over another character, you know something's wrong.

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Link mains also believe they have an advantage against Ivysaur. :/

B-Air is threatening enough to make you want to shield--Its range is solid and it hits really hard. Jab, F-Tilt, Up-B, and Forward-B all have reasonable speed and neat properties to abuse.

His projectile isn't terrible, either.

With good spacing, Forward-B is a pain to deal with unless you prepare for it specifically, which leaves you vulnerable to B-Air and D-Air. While these moves have horrible endlag, if you choose correctly, the opponent is left with a lot of damage and you're safe.

Bowser mains need to get their spacing right, sort of like how ROB has gotten better about B-Reversing moves and stuff.

Bowser's projectile is a lot worse than Charizard's - comes out notably slower, enough that an opponent playing it safe shouldn't be taking a hit from it, and in fact should generally have enough time to set up for a punish.

Crow! said:

Bowser's projectile is a lot worse than Charizard's - comes out notably slower, enough that an opponent playing it safe shouldn't be taking a hit from it, and in fact should generally have enough time to set up for a punish.

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It's four frames slower than Charizard's with a thicker flame. Is it really that big of a difference?

I think part of the issue here is that some of the other low tiers are being underrated. I think Link and Jigglypuff are just better than a lot of you guys seem to think they are (still low tier but better than thought). The low tiers are really not that bad in this game, and I think Bowser is so low mostly because I think just about all of the others have more virtues than him.

This will probably be more flushed out in the topics for other characters.

When it comes to being able to punish on reaction (and with what you can punish on reaction and what you could have been doing when the move was started and still be able to punish on reaction) 4 extra frames is a very big difference. Also, I think it's effectively a tiny bit longer than that (like 1 more frame), as Charizard's mouth gets into a superior geometry than Bowser's: Charizard's head leans forward, while Bowser stands tall.

Also, a thicker flame is a bad thing when it comes to dealing with a character trying to attack you before getting hit by them: it makes it easier to cancel the flame out; Charizard's flame is more likely to have some portion make it past. This combined with how much further the bottom-front hurtbox is on Bowser than on Charizard when they breathe fire further contributes to Bowser just being easier to deal with in that regard.

Charizard's fire breath is already on the cusp of usability IMO; it's pretty risky, and if things don't go just right you get hurt for it. I think Bowser's version goes a bit beyond that, to the realm of "if you are so much better than your opponent that you know this is going to hit, can't you do something better?" But then again, if you're playing as Bowser, maybe not...


Mind you, I don't think Bowser needs to go down far, but I don't think he's keeping up with the joneses in E tier.