How to overcome Marth's range

[AceTechHD]

Hello, I main Marth in Smash 4 Wii U & 3DS. I have owned each game since day 1 (Oct 3 & Nov 21 respectively) and Marth's range has always bugged me. Whenever I bring up Marth's range someone always says get gud, play a different character, or stop complaining, but this is a real problem for me. I have over 600 hours invested in Smash 4 so I clearly like the game. EDIT: to clarify, my issue is that I continuously loose to people because Marth's range. From my experience his range simply doesn't threaten people. His moves can easily be blocked and when you're playing against a Sheik, Mario or any character that can KO you off a grab combo that becomes extremely frustrating. I also have issues confirming combos off of Marth's grab and since Marth's grab is pretty weak it's not a reliable kill option. Can anyone help my overcome this issue? Thanks.

 

[v3ga]

What issue? You gave no context to what you're saying. Marth has enormous range, you just want to try to keep enemies at bay right outside your hurtbox. This should go in the marth forums btw.

 

[AceTechHD]

What issue? You gave no context to what you're saying. Marth has enormous range, you just want to try to keep enemies at bay right outside your hurtbox. This should go in the marth forums btw.

To me his range is not enormous. Characters such as Little Mac, C Falcon, Cloud, Corrin, & Ryu can easily outrange him. The context to what Im saying is that I keep loosing against people I shouldn't be loosing to because I'm having trouble with my Marth.

 

[AceTechHD]

I will attach some footage from last year. I have improved since then but my play style is still very similar. If you wish to play me my NID is AceTechHD and my 3DS friend code is 2638 - 3061 - 8873

 

[LordShade67]

You're more likely to get critique here, BTW:
http://smashboards.com/threads/hero-kings-council-video-analysis.368553/

 

[ElementUser]

I will attach some footage from last year. I have improved since then but my play style is still very similar. If you wish to play me my NID is AceTechHD and my 3DS friend code is 2638 - 3061 - 8873

I'm sorry, but I don't see anywhere in that video where Sheik's range beats Marth. The one time that you think her reach was a little far was probably her Nair when she was recovering back on stage at 0:32, but your FSmash didn't even come out, and that's not her "outranging" any of your moves - it's because you probably didn't expect Sheik to suddenly reach that far from that distance.

 

[AceTechHD]

I'm sorry, but I don't see anywhere in that video where Sheik's range beats Marth. The one time that you think her reach was a little far was probably her Nair when she was recovering back on stage at 0:32, but your FSmash didn't even come out, and that's not her "outranging" any of your moves - it's because you probably didn't expect Sheik to suddenly reach that far from that distance.

That video is example of my skill (I'm not very good) not Marth's range. Marth's range in relation to the rest of the cast isn't where it should be. I could sit here and list the amount of characters that outrange Marth or have a similar range but I've done that before and would be very tedious.

 

[ElementUser]

That video is example of my skill (I'm not very good) not Marth's range. Marth's range in relation to the rest of the cast isn't where it should be. I could sit here and list the amount of characters that outrange Marth or have a similar range but I've done that before and would be very tedious.

I'm not sure what you're asking then - your thread title clearly focuses on his range, but then you talk about his neutral (and I'm guessing you want to ask questions about his neutral based on your last post & the last few sentences in your first post?)

Yes, you're right that Marth doesn't have great tools in neutral because he can't force people to approach if they don't want to, and a lot of times you have to approach them. Most of Marth's attacks are safe when tipping them on an opponent's shield - if you are getting perfect-shielded often or if you space incorrectly, then yes Marth's moves are much more punishable than untippered.

Other than spacing, what you can do is mix up your timings and change which move you throw out when you want to hit their shield, do empty hops in the footsies range, etc. His jab, Nair, Fair, air. Figure out the first actionable frame (FAF) in which you can output a move after doing another move. One example is a landing Nair into a DTilt - those 2 moves come out really quickly and is a very safe defensive wall with low lag & ending lag in between each move, but you have to know at what height to do the Nair correctly & the timing to properly buffer the DTilt.

Jab 1 into many things (including another Jab 1) also put a lot of pressure, since the opponent has an unclear time on when to drop shield if you space your Jab well enough. If you know they want to dash grab, then you can Jab 2 immediately after Jab 1. In general, once you get an opponent into a safely space Jab pressure zone, the only way they can really punish you is by perfect shielding into a quick move that can reach you.

Marth doesn't have many multi-hit moves: he only has Dancing Blades (pseudo-multihit move) and Nair (only 2 hits). Because Marth lacks active frame options, use Dancing Blades & Nair 1 & 2 to catch your opponent's spotdodges or to mess with when they lower their shield so that they don't always have the same expectation on when they can safely punish you.

Basically: once you know what Marth's options are, how fast you can use Marth's options, which actions have more active frames & which ones you can abuse the low endlag/fast FAFs moves to chain into other ones, you can use those to create pressure, which will force the opponent to think wisely and choose another option or get punished & comboed.

I also have issues confirming combos off of Marth's grab and since Marth's grab is pretty weak it's not a reliable kill option.

Yeah Marth's grab is pretty bad in terms of comboing. DThrow -> Bair, DThrow -> Bair work at low percents depending on DI, but you have to be able to act as quick as possible with the correct decision for it to be true at the low percents. For me, sometimes FThrow -> Fair works if they expect you to do a DThrow - UAir and DI in the wrong direction. Later on, DThrow to Dolphin Slash can be used to rack up damage at mid percents. Other than that, Marth doesn't really have anything to combo off his throws of & anything you do will be to read their landing/recovery options.

 

[AceTechHD]

I'm not sure what you're asking then - your thread title clearly focuses on his range, but then you talk about his neutral (and I'm guessing you want to ask questions about his neutral based on your last post & the last few sentences in your first post?)

Yes, you're right that Marth doesn't have great tools in neutral because he can't force people to approach if they don't want to, and a lot of times you have to approach them. Most of Marth's attacks are safe when tipping them on an opponent's shield - if you are getting perfect-shielded often or if you space incorrectly, then yes Marth's moves are much more punishable than untippered.

Other than spacing, what you can do is mix up your timings and change which move you throw out when you want to hit their shield, do empty hops in the footsies range, etc. His jab, Nair, Fair, air. Figure out the first actionable frame (FAF) in which you can output a move after doing another move. One example is a landing Nair into a DTilt - those 2 moves come out really quickly and is a very safe defensive wall with low lag & ending lag in between each move, but you have to know at what height to do the Nair correctly & the timing to properly buffer the DTilt.

Jab 1 into many things (including another Jab 1) also put a lot of pressure, since the opponent has an unclear time on when to drop shield if you space your Jab well enough. If you know they want to dash grab, then you can Jab 2 immediately after Jab 1. In general, once you get an opponent into a safely space Jab pressure zone, the only way they can really punish you is by perfect shielding into a quick move that can reach you.

Marth doesn't have many multi-hit moves: he only has Dancing Blades (pseudo-multihit move) and Nair (only 2 hits). Because Marth lacks active frame options, use Dancing Blades & Nair 1 & 2 to catch your opponent's spotdodges or to mess with when they lower their shield so that they don't always have the same expectation on when they can safely punish you.

Basically: once you know what Marth's options are, how fast you can use Marth's options, which actions have more active frames & which ones you can abuse the low endlag/fast FAFs moves to chain into other ones, you can use those to create pressure, which will force the opponent to think wisely and choose another option or get punished & comboed.



Yeah Marth's grab is pretty bad in terms of comboing. DThrow -> Bair, DThrow -> Bair work at low percents depending on DI, but you have to be able to act as quick as possible with the correct decision for it to be true at the low percents. For me, sometimes FThrow -> Fair works if they expect you to do a DThrow - UAir and DI in the wrong direction. Later on, DThrow to Dolphin Slash can be used to rack up damage at mid percents. Other than that, Marth doesn't really have anything to combo off his throws of & anything you do will be to read their landing/recovery options.

The point of this thread is: Marth's underwelmng range in Smash 4 compared to past Smash Bros games. In Melee for example Pikachu can't F-Smash right through Marth's F-Smash. lol, just the thought of it makes absolutely no sense how a character holding a longsword could be outranged by a small electric mouse. If Marth's range was for example just a hair shorter than Ike's range he could more easily use attacks without fear of getting comboed to death by some Sheik, ZSS, Diddy, or Bayonetta player. Let me make this clear, this thread is an opinion piece and I was hoping there was some trick with Marth that would help with my issue of being afraid to use any moves because I don't want to get bodied.

I'd say I am decent at landing tippers. I will experience trouble if the match has lag or if my opponent is using ZSS, Sheik, Diddy, or Bayonetta because those characters can take you from 0 to 30 percent in a blink of an eye (plus they are very fast and have a million approach options while Marth has like 2). Now most of that technical mumbo jumbo just went straight over my head, but from experience I can say Marth has very few (if any) moves that are safe on shield. Apparently Pikachu's F-Smash is impossible to punish too. lol same with his up B.

I have also had my fair amount of losses with Marth after I use my jab and the sword CLEARLY HITS the opponent but does nothing at all. I have no idea why that happens and it makes no literal sense how such a flaw was missed during development. My main issue with Smash 4 Marth is that things just don't work like I would want them to. I'm not complaining, I just need some help making my Marth better so I don't loose to every ZSS, Sheik, Diddy, and Bayonetta I run in to. There are a ton of issues I could bring up as well, but it all boils back to Marth's overall range being underwhelming and his range not being threatening. Just think about it this way, would you run up on Cloud the same way you'd run up on Marth? Personally I wouldn't. lol, cloud is a completely different story because I know his approach game is very good. He has projectiles, very good range, and a very fast jab combo that doesn't miss from time to time.

I hope I have made it clear as to exactly what I'm trying to say. It may seem like I'm "complaining" but thats simply not the case. lol, If I didn't like Smash 4 i'd just sell the game(s), but I do like Smash 4 so I continue to play the game(s) hoping I'll improve with Marth but low and behold I get destroyed by a spamming Pikachu player.

EDIT: Pre patch Marth

 

[ElementUser]

Locuan made a post in a thread right below yours recently linking to this: http://smashboards.com/threads/marth-data.379064/#post-18062624

Unfortunately, FSmash's range did get reduced and I dislike that too when it is one of your most high commital moves. But Marth's other moves have improved range from previous games. When you're comparing Marth's range to other characters' ranges in this game, I wouldn't use Marth's FSmash as a fair comparison (even though I agree that Marth's FSmash shouldn't be so short for its risk). Use Marth's other moves (Fair, Nair, DTilt, FTilt) instead for that purpose.

As far as visuals go, yes it's annoying for Marth & Lucina mains when their UTilt misses when it should hit. I think Vipermoon or someone else mentioned it could be a Z-axis issue. For Jab though, it might just be a visual desync because Marth players should know the hitbox location of Jab - it doesn't go all the way around you, but only covers your frontal area.

As far as improving goes, that takes time & a lot of practice. Have you tried labbing Marth just to take him out of a heated combat context to visualize & know the hitboxes, startup & the end lag of every move he has? Have you thought about Marth's options in various scenarios? Have you looked into working on movement options for Marth? I can now consistently do dashtrotting/extended dash dancing (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azRrqKUJ-5o), and it's an amazing tool in footsies if you master it.

Like every character, Marth also has some unique properties in some of his moves. His air Dancing Blades 1 has really low endlag, so sometimes I do short-hop to DB1 and treat it as a low-lag Fair. This can throw off your opponent's timing. Did you also know that air-DB1 also stalls you a bit in the air (most effective if you use it at the apex of your jump)? This can be used to slightly stall your recovery. Did you know Marth's Dolphin Slash (Up-B) has invulnerability on frames 1-5 when used in the air? And so on.

I didn't do much labbing when I started because I thought it was a waste of time - how much can I possibly learn when labbing?. Well, apparently quite a bit. I only got into labbing a bit because I dual main Peach, and labbing with her is fun. While labbing with Marth is not as fun as Peach, you do have the freedom and time (if you give yourself the time) to explore how you can mix up your movement and be more familiar with your options, because maining Peach taught me the great importance of mixups. I would say that labbing for knowing your options, hitboxes, endlag & autocancel windows, etc., is essential from time to time if you want to keep your gameplay fresh on any character & if you are serious about playing a character.

Basically, what I've been trying to tell you that other than having strong fundamentals (knowing what your character does with each move and their strong/weak points in various scenarios), you have to be good at mixing stuff up in general. Maybe those videos you posted aren't representative of your gameplay, but from a macro-decision making perspective, you have to be able to be less predictable so your opponent can't choose the right option all the time to punish you. Mixing it up & taking a bit of time to lab your character is how I became a better player.

Yes, I feel that you do have some legitimate complaints, but some of what you are frustrated about can be circumvented by becoming a better player. Marth could definitely use some objective improvements, but you cannot rely on patches or keep on making excuses, as that creates a bad mindset for improving your play as a whole.

 

[AceTechHD]

Locuan made a post in a thread right below yours recently linking to this: http://smashboards.com/threads/marth-data.379064/#post-18062624

Unfortunately, FSmash's range did get reduced and I dislike that too when it is one of your most high commital moves. But Marth's other moves have improved range from previous games. When you're comparing Marth's range to other characters' ranges in this game, I wouldn't use Marth's FSmash as a fair comparison (even though I agree that Marth's FSmash shouldn't be so short for its risk). Use Marth's other moves (Fair, Nair, DTilt, FTilt) instead for that purpose.

As far as visuals go, yes it's annoying for Marth & Lucina mains when their UTilt misses when it should hit. I think Vipermoon or someone else mentioned it could be a Z-axis issue. For Jab though, it might just be a visual desync because Marth players should know the hitbox location of Jab - it doesn't go all the way around you, but only covers your frontal area.

As far as improving goes, that takes time & a lot of practice. Have you tried labbing Marth just to take him out of a game context to visualize & know the hitboxes, startup & the end lag of every move he has? Have you thought about Marth's options in various scenarios? Have you looked into working on movement options for Marth? I can now consistently do dashtrotting/extended dash dancing (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azRrqKUJ-5o), and it's an amazing tool in footsies if you master it.

Like every character, Marth also has some unique properties in some of his moves. His air Dancing Blades 1 has really low endlag, so sometimes I do short-hop to DB1 and treat it as a low-lag Fair. This can throw off your opponent's timing. Did you also know that air-DB1 also stalls you a bit in the air (most effective if you use it at the apex of your jump)? This can be used to slightly stall your recovery. Did you know Marth's Dolphin Slash (Up-B) has invulnerability on frames 1-5 when used in the air? And so on.

I didn't do much labbing when I started. I only got into labbing a bit because I dual main Peach, and labbing with her is fun. While labbing with Marth is not as fun, you do have the freedom and time (if you give yourself the time) to explore how you can mix up your movement, because maining Peach taught me the great importance of mixups.

Basically, what I've been trying to tell you that other than the fundamentals (knowing what your character does with each move and their strong/weak points in various scenarios), you have to be good at mixing stuff up in general. Maybe those videos you posted aren't representative of your gameplay, but from a macro-decision making perspective, you have to be able to be less predictable so your opponent can't choose the right option all the time to punish you. Mixing it up & taking a bit of time to lab your character is how I became a better player.

I find Nair, DTilt, FTilt, and Fair to be easily blockable and punishable and sometimes just won't work so your forced to grab your opponent, and we've already gone over how weak Marth's grab game is so winning a game can become incredibly difficult.

 

[ElementUser]

I edited my post slightly, but most of what you read stayed the same.

Yes they can be "easily blockable and punishable" if slightly mis-spaced. However, this is assuming that your opponent knows you will go for an aerial and predicts that option & shields in place, or dashes/walks into shield, or powershields. Have you thought of sometimes not hitting where they are but try and hit where they will be or covering a space in front of you to be more defensive oriented? Again, keep yourself in footsies range so you don't give them space. Your moves might simply be unsafe because your opponent is expecting it, so do something else instead. Empty hop into a grab, put out multihit moves from Dancing Blade or a short-hop Nair, do a shorthop Nair 1 for the low endlag option so you can follow up into a jab, etc. Or, perhaps you are not immediately spot-dodging after your "unsafe move" if you did indeed tipper it and your opponent dash grabs you often.

Again, it comes back to how you can mix up your moves and your spacing, along with what combination of moves you put out. If your opponent is expecting a move, they tend to be much more easily punishable because they will choose the best option.

 

[AceTechHD]

I edited my post slightly, but most of what you read stayed the same.

Yes they can be "easily blockable and punishable" if slightly mis-spaced. However, this is assuming that your opponent knows you will go for an aerial and predicts that option & shields in place, or dashes/walks into shield, or powershields. Have you thought of sometimes not hitting where they are but try and hit where they will be or covering a space in front of you to be more defensive oriented? Again, keep yourself in footsies range so you don't give them space. Your moves might simply be unsafe because your opponent is expecting it, so do something else instead. Empty hop into a grab, put out multihit moves from Dancing Blade or a short-hop Nair, do a shorthop Nair 1 for the low endlag option so you can follow up into a jab, etc. Or, perhaps you are not immediately spot-dodging after your "unsafe move" if you did indeed tipper it and your opponent dash grabs you often.

Again, it comes back to how you can mix up your moves and your spacing, along with what combination of moves you put out. If your opponent is expecting a move, they tend to be much more easily punishable because they will choose the best option.

So pretty much you're saying I have to dash dance and learn incredibly complicated techniques just to beat a spamming Pikachu player? I would like to improve but I would like to start with what I'm doing wrong (which I can't figure out). I doubt dash dancing could help me defeat a Pikachu player constantly spamming F-Smash. Marth literally can't reach through that attack (which makes no sense). My movement is decent. I recommend playing me for yourself as chatting here won't prove anything.

 

[ElementUser]

So pretty much you're saying I have to dash dance and learn incredibly complicated techniques just to beat a spamming Pikachu player? I would like to improve but I would like to start with what I'm doing wrong (which I can't figure out). I doubt dash dancing could help me defeat a Pikachu player constantly spamming F-Smash. Marth literally can't reach through that attack (which makes no sense). My movement is decent. I recommend playing me for yourself as chatting here won't prove anything.

No, I feel like you're still missing the point. If you're providing videos that do not represent how you play, how well do you play then or how would we know how well you play/what your current problems are? Or why not give us an up-to-date video to critique instead of one that is older?

Anyway, feel free to PM me if you want to play.

 

[AceTechHD]

No, I feel like you're still missing the point. If you're providing videos that do not represent how you play, how well do you play then or how would we know how well you play/what your current problems are? Or why not give us an up-to-date video to critique instead of one that is older?

Anyway, feel free to PM me if you want to play.

No need to PM you. My NID is AceTechHD and my 3DS friend code is 2638 - 3061 - 8873