A2ZOMG
Smash Legend
- Joined
- Oct 13, 2007
- Messages
- 12,542
- Location
- RPV, California
- NNID
- A2ZOMG
- Switch FC
- SW 8400 1713 9427
Yes, it does. As does Up-B out of shield, which I've already beaten to death a long time ago, and which fortunately everyone at least seems to acknowledge is quite useful.
When I first picked up Brawl Mario, I absolutely despised this attack. It's slightly on the slow side. And I was always annoyed how people outranged me with their faster or more powerful F-smashes (ie Marth's F-smash). Usually I resorted to Hyphen Up-smashes to KO my opponent and kept my F-smash there for the random damage tool.
I still don't think I'm a very good player, at least not in comparison to the people who consistently place on the AiB ladder or in tournaments. But the more I've looked into Mario's F-smash, the more I like it.
When playing guys like BO X7 and Matador, I was incredibly surprised how easily they could land F-smash on me when I randomly threw out Jabs or whatever attempting to poke at them. It began to hit me from there that Mario's F-smash did in fact have the most range of his ground moves, and its disjointedness was not to be ignored in close combat wars. I would literally start Jabbing, they would notice this commitment, and then F-smash me while I was desperately trying to poke them with faster attacks. In my experience playing other characters against Mario mains, I've gotten punished several times by F-smash for committing to rapid Jabs. That really struck me.
Of course, it's not like I never landed F-smash before I met these guys. How could I ignore that my opponent occasionally died at under 100% vs Mario, a character who reportedly sucks at KOs?
A short while into the release of Brawl, Sonic and Mario users discovered (and shared to Ganon and Falcon users) the stutter step F-smash, where you Smash backwards and C stick forwards to get more range on F-smash. Now, what we now know is that you only have to be facing backwards and C stick to do this. However this was pretty useful, although nobody actually went into detail about how much this actually benefits characters who have this. There is a random vid or two somewhere showing Sonic taking steps forward on FD using stutter step F-smashes, and that was about it (there is now a vid in our Mario guide that demonstrates this used to punish Marth's F-smash. Good job FireMario).
While we Mario mains continued to stick it out with the best character ever, I couldn't ignore awesome situations of Mario's F-smash trading or beating out some of the most ridiculously rangey characters. I believe Matador has at least one example of trading with something like Marth's well-spaced F-air. A while ago, I punished Snake's F-tilt and Mortar Slide with this and won a match on the AllisBrawl ladder this way, and I remember the person being very surprised by how good that spacing was.
A few months ago, I actually bothered to do testing. Vs Marth, a character who I started to believe had an iffy matchup with Mario. Marth is infamous for basically having the longest ranged F-smash after DDD, Ike, and Wolf, and moreover having a 10 frame F-smash. And if you aren't already aware, Mario's reverse F-smash outranges Marth's F-smash. Another small thing suddenly occurred to me that was awesome. Mario's regular F-smash has a lot of leanback on the charge stance, and abusing this to dodge Marth's F-smash also makes Mario outrange Marth's F-smash.
Don't get me wrong, Brawl didn't give us that much to work with on Mario. However it gave us more than most of us give it credit for. If people aren't already thinking like I am, they should eventually realize how much gamechanging potential this one attack has. The opportunities for landing this attack are definitely there, especially since most attacks in this game have around 20 frames of ending lag. It's Mario's real ticket into the range abusing wars that rule Brawl. And a good one at that due to its AMAZING range and great overall power (18% and up angle kills at like 90%? Good **** man!).
The more I've learned to incorporate this attack into my game, the better I've overall done in the few matches I've played. Mario mains, your F-smash, learn it, live with it, and love it.
When I first picked up Brawl Mario, I absolutely despised this attack. It's slightly on the slow side. And I was always annoyed how people outranged me with their faster or more powerful F-smashes (ie Marth's F-smash). Usually I resorted to Hyphen Up-smashes to KO my opponent and kept my F-smash there for the random damage tool.
I still don't think I'm a very good player, at least not in comparison to the people who consistently place on the AiB ladder or in tournaments. But the more I've looked into Mario's F-smash, the more I like it.
When playing guys like BO X7 and Matador, I was incredibly surprised how easily they could land F-smash on me when I randomly threw out Jabs or whatever attempting to poke at them. It began to hit me from there that Mario's F-smash did in fact have the most range of his ground moves, and its disjointedness was not to be ignored in close combat wars. I would literally start Jabbing, they would notice this commitment, and then F-smash me while I was desperately trying to poke them with faster attacks. In my experience playing other characters against Mario mains, I've gotten punished several times by F-smash for committing to rapid Jabs. That really struck me.
Of course, it's not like I never landed F-smash before I met these guys. How could I ignore that my opponent occasionally died at under 100% vs Mario, a character who reportedly sucks at KOs?
A short while into the release of Brawl, Sonic and Mario users discovered (and shared to Ganon and Falcon users) the stutter step F-smash, where you Smash backwards and C stick forwards to get more range on F-smash. Now, what we now know is that you only have to be facing backwards and C stick to do this. However this was pretty useful, although nobody actually went into detail about how much this actually benefits characters who have this. There is a random vid or two somewhere showing Sonic taking steps forward on FD using stutter step F-smashes, and that was about it (there is now a vid in our Mario guide that demonstrates this used to punish Marth's F-smash. Good job FireMario).
While we Mario mains continued to stick it out with the best character ever, I couldn't ignore awesome situations of Mario's F-smash trading or beating out some of the most ridiculously rangey characters. I believe Matador has at least one example of trading with something like Marth's well-spaced F-air. A while ago, I punished Snake's F-tilt and Mortar Slide with this and won a match on the AllisBrawl ladder this way, and I remember the person being very surprised by how good that spacing was.
A few months ago, I actually bothered to do testing. Vs Marth, a character who I started to believe had an iffy matchup with Mario. Marth is infamous for basically having the longest ranged F-smash after DDD, Ike, and Wolf, and moreover having a 10 frame F-smash. And if you aren't already aware, Mario's reverse F-smash outranges Marth's F-smash. Another small thing suddenly occurred to me that was awesome. Mario's regular F-smash has a lot of leanback on the charge stance, and abusing this to dodge Marth's F-smash also makes Mario outrange Marth's F-smash.
Don't get me wrong, Brawl didn't give us that much to work with on Mario. However it gave us more than most of us give it credit for. If people aren't already thinking like I am, they should eventually realize how much gamechanging potential this one attack has. The opportunities for landing this attack are definitely there, especially since most attacks in this game have around 20 frames of ending lag. It's Mario's real ticket into the range abusing wars that rule Brawl. And a good one at that due to its AMAZING range and great overall power (18% and up angle kills at like 90%? Good **** man!).
The more I've learned to incorporate this attack into my game, the better I've overall done in the few matches I've played. Mario mains, your F-smash, learn it, live with it, and love it.
