I agree with you that bowser is alot better than most people think (that he is utter and total garbage). He is only slightly worse than the characters above him in the tier list, but I think even you would admit that Bowser is still in the bottom 4 worst characters.
You failed to mention Bowser's two main advantages:
1)No one is used to playing against bowser. There just aren't that many decent bowser players around for people to learn Bowser's strengths (and how to avoid them) and his weaknesses (and how to punish them)
2)They severely underestimate Bowser. They don't think Bowser stands a chance in a serious match up so they don't play completely seriously. They also think that if someone picks Bowser they are obviously a noob so even more reason not to have to try. What they don't realize is that Bowser is not actually THAT much worse and this catches them off guard.
(However these things also works against him. Once someone is used to Bowser, they know what combos work and how to get past his tricks, they will make life for Bowser extremely difficult. Also since no one takes Bowser seriously its very hard to find people who will take you seriously enough for long enough to train properly)
I could write a very detailed Bowser guide, but its very hard to get good w/ him and I'd rather have people avoid the headache and just stick to a character with an easier learning curve and potential. Anyway your "essay" has been bothering me for too long so here goes.
First off let me say that bowser is NOT slow, he is laggy, there is a HUGE difference. most all of bowsers moves (that you will be using) are fast...
Bowser IS slow. And laggy. Most of his (ground) attacks are slow and and his maneuvaribility is bad. His forward and back aerials, though pretty good in speed, have lots of lag. You go through all bowser's attacks but fail to mention the most important aspect, his movement (and for good reason I guess)! Bowser's spot dodge is horrible. It lasts almost twice as long as most other characters and he is hit-able for a greater percentage of it (2nd smallest percentage of invincibility frames). His body is so huge that even if you dodge a projectile you can still can get hit by it as you are coming out of the dodge! Now this in and of itself isn't so bad if it weren't for the fact that his rolls are also the worst(shortest average distance in the game and least percentage invincibility frames) AND his wavedash is super slow due to him having the longest jumping animation in the game(9 frames, almost twice as long as most characters in the game). While its true that Bowser's running speed is average, anyone who's run speed is slower has either a super fast wavedash, good projectiles, an aerial game better than Bowser's, or a combination of the above. Also it is extremely difficult to powershield projectiles with Bowser because his shield does not extend beyond his head/shell much. This means that anyone with a projectile (most characters in the game) has a serious advantage. Anyway all this adds up to the fact that every character can play defensively or use projectiles against bowser and just wait for him to attack and/or react to their movements and then punish Bowser. Even if he was "NOT slow" as you claim, do you think that being super laggy is something that can be easily overcome? Playing against a defensive player means you HAVE to make the first move which the opponent can avoid and counter attack pretty easily because of all the lag bowser has on everything.
there is no defense he cannot beat
Bowser is not any better at getting past defensive maneuvers than any other character in the game. I'd say he is worse because of his bad maneuvarability and lack of a good projectile. However, if you are talking about using the aerial grab, this mainly works as a surprise factor since people generally are not used to playing against bowser. If you play someone who is expecting it then its SLOWNESS and laginess can both be easiy punished. If you are talking about using
the flame on spot dodgers...
Again it is only good for the surprise factor and once someone is expecting it you will be punished bad for doing it. Even IF you get them in the fire, more than half the time they can either roll out or DI out and hit you before your lag is over. The fire damage is horrible unless you play against someone who sucks at DI or is cornered.
he also comes complete with combo breakers both in the air and on the ground to keep him safe
Combo breaker"S"? he only has one combo breaker and thats his up+b. His neutral air hits on the 8th fram and is almost 2x slower than almost everyone else's (mostly 3-5 frames till the hitbox comes). Using the up+b in the air as a combo breaker will also leave you very open to a second assault since it lasts so long.
he has high priority, invincibility frames on many attacks (mostly 'shell'
attacks) hes quick, albiet laggy
High priority? Do you know how priority works in this game? It is how much your hitbox extends beyonds your "self hurt" box (but really they are spheres not boxes). Bowser has relatively bad priority on his moves except the fair, uair, uptilt,and dsmash. Invicibility on "many" attacks? he has invincibility on only 2 moves: the up+b and the up smash. The up smash has 2 invincibility frames and they are very hard to use since its in the middle of the animation and its hard to time. When an opponent is coming from above you, this move is very risky to use because if they double jump/dodge right before you hit them, you will get punished. The rest of the frames of hitting on the upsmash has HORRIBLE priority, the hitbox actually lags behind your self hurt box unlike almost every other move in the game where the hitbox extends beyound where you can get hurt. You WILL get hit if you don't hit with the invincibility frames and they are attacking.
Tilts
anyone who has faced a bowser has a fear of the knuckle.
...
the ftilt is one of hte best edgeguarding tools there is
...
his ftilt is surprising because of its overwhelming range power and speed
No one fears the knuckle, at least they shouldn't. At 12 frames for the first hit, this "tilt" comes out as slow as most characters SMASH attacks(some characters actually have faster smashes than his f-tilt!), and guess what? Its not strong compared to them. Yes it is stronger than most f-tilts but most tilts come out twice to three times as fast! The fact that most f-tilts are fast, have good range, and have little knock back is what makes them good for combos and cheap kills over the edge. The range of bowser's f-tilt is not that much better considering bowser's overall worse maneuvarbility.
Bowser's tilts also come out fast, his utilt comes out as fast as his jab, which is just as fast as everyone elses jab.
Half true. U-tilt hits on frame 7 (which is about average and which is why the u-tilt is one of his better moves) and his jab comes out on 7. However this is no where near most characters jab speed. More than half the characters in the game have a jab speed of 2-3 frames making his 2-3 times slower! His jab speed is only faster than m2's and zelda's who have MUCH better range than his (he does not extend his hand that far beyond his big head). The time it takes to hit with the 2 jab combo is ever slower (9 frames) which is almost 3 times as slow as most other peoples 2nd jab hit (not including the fact that their first hit came out faster). Did I mention that his jab is slower than most character's TILTS? His jab sucks so please don't mention it.
bowser's bread and butter, as everyone knows, is his fair. HUGE range, HUGE knockback, great damage, VERY fast, low lag. (yes i said low)
Low lag? Not exactly sure what you mean by that but when it is l-cancelled it has
the MOST landing frames of any fair in the game(tied w/ dk's). Though its not too much worse than the average you still don't want to miss the l-cancel. Nevertheless I agree that this is one of his better moves.
Bowser can do two FULL JUMPS off the stage, fair somebody, and still return.
What is the point of saying this? Most characters can do this and/or
they don't need to to kill people.
Bowser's bair ... while not fast compared to his fair, it is still plenty quick.
The B-air is only 1 frame slower than the fair.
some people complain about the lag, an l cancelled bair doesn't have very much
lag, perhaps compared to a few moves it could be called 'laggy' but other
characters deal with this kind of lag all the time and they get off fine, as does
bowser
L-canceled doesn't have very much lag? 17 frames of lag when l-canceled is "not very much"? And because it last so freaking long after the hit stops you pretty much have to l-cancel every time you do it unlike other characters laggy aerials. Of course Link's dair is laggier but it is also a move w/ much better priority. Anyway bair is one of bowser's good moves so I don't want to make it seem like it sucks.
Bowsers nair is faster than his fair
...
and has very little lag
They both start hitting on the same frame actually, frame 8. It has the most
landing lag of all neutral airs in the game. L-canceled it has 2 frames less lag
then the bair....
to be honest, the speed of said smash attacks shouldn't be an issue, as you will simply NOT be throwing these moves about randomly waiting to be punished for them.
Yes they are an issue. The fact that they come out so slow means that you can't use them as often. Its like saying the warlock punch is good but you have to make sure you hit with it...
all of said smashes have invincibilty frames, ridiculous priority
Of the three smashes only the upsmash has invincibility frames. Other than that its priority is bad as I mentioned earlier.
the usmash's priority simply cannot be beatten from above. it will not be hit through if timed right by ANY arial. link's dair = NO PROBLEM for a bowser thats expecting it.
I would like to see a video of you doing that in a real match please. And also include the hundred and one times you get hit trying to do it.
fsmash is a disjointed hitbox with great range
In no sense of the word does the fsmash have a "disjointed" hitbox. The hitbox barely even goes past his head. And the horizontal range on it is pathetic for a forward smash. Sure it hits pretty much completely in front of him vertically, but most characters can aim their smashes to get nearly the same effect (plus they have much more horizontal range).
NO other character has the ability to grab an opponent from teh air.
As was mentioned by other people in this thread already other characters can grab from the air too. Falcon, Gdorf, Yoshi, and kirby all have air "grabs". If you're gonna argue about the semantics and say kirby's suck is not a grab, that is pretty ridiculous. Imagine someone saying "No other character than g&w has a credit card in the air!!!".
example. your bowser, your fighting a falco, you get an fthrow off the edge to him at 30%. he is dead. (against a good bowser of coruse) NO exceptions PERIOD
Wow bowser can kill falco at low percentages once he's off the stage, but who CAN'T?
bowser's up b ... is the 2nd fastest move in the game next to a shine at only 4 frames
There are many moves in the game that come out in 4 frames or less(jabs mostly). But since you are invincible in the first few frames before the attack, in essence it hits on the first frame (you are not invincible on the first attack frame). Just thought I'd point that out
bowser's up b...has an INITIAL RANGE that is larger than the hitbox for link's upb IIRC
Actually its closer to HALF the size of link's up+b.
Overall, Bowser's moves may be powerful but they are not proportionately strong for their slowness and laginess. If move A is 2x as slow as move B, how much knockback/damage should it have? You might say it should be 2x as much but you would be wrong. The longer windup a move has, the less oportunities you have to use it AND you simultaneously give your opponent more time to react to the move. Damage/knockback should be *exponentially* linked with windup but this is not the case with Bowser. It is also why the warlock punch is useless. Since it has so much windup, it should pretty much kill at 0% but it doesn't. (Actually I think that with that much lag if it took off 2 stocks w/ 1 punch that would be more fair but thats not really possible is it?
)
Also having lots of moves that do double damage is alot worse than have 2x as fast moves w/ half the damage for 3 reasons:
1)The way this game works priority, weak attacks will clank strong attacks (if they dont outright hit first)
2)You can hit with fast attacks exponentially more often than you can hit with slow attacks
3)Strong attacks will have good knockback but eliminate the chance of combos. Weak attacks do worse damage by themselves but can be combo'ed to do MUCH more damage than any strong attack by itself and usually those combos can end with a strong attack to have good knockback.
Bowser's moves don't have just too little damage/knockback for their slowness, they also ironically have too much knockback(ie its nearly impossible to combo with him)!
Bowser's standing grab is the 5th slowest in the game to actually start grabbing (after the likes of samus and link) and also the 5th laggiest... but also the 4th shortest range! Sometimes the game comes down to a grab battle and bowser with his bad grab and even worse spot dodge will almost always lose. And the worst part is his throws do not set up for combos/kills anywhere near as good as most other characters. Sure you can play mind games with his throws but this will only work for so long before your opponent realizes the proper way to tech/di. As you mentioned though his dash grab is good.
He also is very heavy, making him able to survive for surprising amounts of
time.
Bowser's size makes him super easy to combo (as you mention at the end of the essay). Also, he's pretty easy to chain grab which is devastating in the right hands. The fact that he weighs the most really doesn't help him too much because even though he will last to higher damage percentages, its just easier to get him up there (you're heavy so when you get hit you don't go as far away, so its easier to combo you plus he's a bigger target). Also sometimes its not necessary to get him to high percentages to KO him because his recovery is very bad against people who are familiar with it. His B+up has the worst vertical recovery in the game and its path is very predictable making you very susceptible to spikes/meteors/projectiles(as you mentioned). Basically any (weak) move that hits even a little downward or just plain horizontally will decimate his recovery (espescially if the opponents is proficient at edgehogging, which ain't that hard to do). If Bowser does make it back to the ledge his rolls are too long and easily punished by those who know its limits. Also his jump from the ledge is useless except on yoshi's story. When at 100 damage or more (which isn't too hard to get Bowser to) Bowser starts to have even more trouble (Granted everyone starts to have more trouble over 100 damage but not as much as Bowser does).
And yes I know bowser's strengths, I won't deny that he has some and I agree with alot of what you said. I don't want this thing to come off as me hating bowser, afterall I don't just main Bowser... he is the only character I use. I just felt that you were doing a dis-service to the general smash boards reader by giving out so much false information and giving such a biased atittude of him. So think of this as me trying to present an overall more balanced view of Bowser.