Marth Attack Power Differences (Brawl and Smash Wii U Comparison) UPDATED

[Bowserboy3]

Like me, some of you may have been wondering, "what is the difference in power in Marth's moves between Brawl and Smash Wii U"? I was very curious about this question; we see the term "Marth's tipper is stronger but sourspot is weaker" passed about a lot. However, is this really true? If so, on which moves? Are there any moves more powerful altogether during the transition? Well, I decided to test out Marth's moves and get the information. I'm sharing it here on the off chance that others may be interested. I hope this helps!


Notes and Rules:

• All moves were tested across both games on Lucas from the dead center of Smashville. Lucas has the same weight, gravity, and fall speeds across both games, so is the perfect test subject. Smashville also has the same blast zones.

• All moves were tested from the ground, apart from Tipper Up Smash, where Lucas jumped into the tip of the move every time.

• I only tested the Tip and the Sourspot Blade during these tests. Some moves have different damages and angles on the arm, but for consistency, I only ever tested the Tip and Sourspot (the blade).

• For Down Air, please remember that Brawl has 2 hitboxes (sourspot which is no spike, and the tip which is a spike), where as Smash 4 Down Air has 3 hitboxes (sourspot which is no spike, a specific spike frame which is frame 11, and the tip hitbox, that does not spike and functions like the sourspot, but deals more damage and knockback). I tested all hitboxes for these moves.

• Counter was tested on Lucas's Up Air, as the move is the same across both versions.

• Some moves were not included in the tests, including Jabs, Dancing Blade Down 4, Forward, Back, and Down Throws, as each of these moves were either too inconsistent, or far to weak for realistic percentages.

As a final note, this isn't so much of a KO potential thread, but just a way for us to gauge how much difference in power Marth's moves have between the two games, and showing KO percents is the easiest way to show power differences.

With that said, onto the percentages!

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Spoiler: Ground Normals

Forward Tilt

• Tip: 140%, Sour: 233%
  
• Tip: 116%, Sour: 239%

Up Tilt (front)

• Tip: 141%, Sour: 131%
  
• Tip: 121%, Sour: 174%

Up Tilt (back)

• Tip: 133%, Sour: 112%
• Tip: 136%, Sour: 194%

Down Tilt

• Tip: 316%, Sour: 378%
• Tip: 315%, Sour: 464%

Dash Attack

• Tip: 165%, Sour: 217%
• Tip: 164%, Sour: 216%

It's worth mentioning that Brawl Dtilt has 3 sourspots; the blade, the hilt and the arm, which all deal varying damages and knockback, where as Smash 4 has the same power along these hitboxes. For Brawl's Dtilt, I chose the most powerful sourspot, the blade.

Spoiler: Smash Attacks

Forward Smash (uncharged)

• Tip: 61%, Sour: 115%
• Tip: 55%, Sour: 114%

Forward Smash (full charge)

• Tip: 32%, Sour: 76%
• Tip: 30%, Sour: 76%

Up Smash (uncharged)

• Tip: 111%, Sour: 121%
• Tip: 71%, Sour: 110%

Up Smash (full charge)

• Tip: 71%, Sour: 78%
• Tip: 41%, Sour: 71%

Down Smash Front (uncharged)

• Tip: 102%, Sour: 121%
• Tip: 117%, Sour: 155%

Down Smash Front (full charge)

• Tip: 63%, Sour: 80%
• Tip: 79%, Sour: 112%

Down Smash Back (uncharged)

• Tip: 106%, Sour: 150%
• Tip: 78%, Sour: 120%

Down Smash Back (full charge)

• Tip: 68%, Sour: 103%
• Tip: 46%, Sour 82%

Of note, please remember that in Brawl, Down Smash Front is the strong hit, where as in Smash 4, Down Smash Back is the strong hit.

Spoiler: Aerials

Neutral Air (hit 2)

• Tip: 96%, Sour: 168%
• Tip: 114%, Sour: 188%

Forward Air

• Tip: 129%, Sour: 195%
• Tip: 130%, Sour: 210%

Back Air

• Tip: 112%, Sour: 154%
• Tip: 113%, Sour: 176%

Up Air

• Tip: 141%, Sour: 216%
• Tip: 130%, Sour: 190%

Down Air

• Tip (spike): 182%, Sour (no spike): 178%
• Frame 11 (spike): 185%, Tip (no spike): 144%, Sour (no spike): 178%

Spoiler: Specials and Up Throw

Shield Breaker (uncharged)

• Tip: 143%, Sour: 171%
• Tip: 120%, Sour: 198%

Shield Breaker (full charge)

• Tip: 34%, Sour: 41%
• Tip: 31%, Sour: 64%

Dolphin Slash (sweetspot)

• : 116%
• : 128%

Counter (tested on Lucas's Up Air)

• : 160%
• : 89%

Dancing Blade Side 4

• Tip: 108%, Sour: 139%
• Tip: %, Sour: %

Dancing Blade Up 4

• Tip: 105%, Sour: 135%
• Tip: %, Sour: %

Up Throw

• : 179%
• : 157%

And there you have it! Overall, Marth's tip is stronger, while the sourspot is slightly weaker.

There are some moves that are straight up more powerful in Smash 4 (Up Smash and Up Air are examples), and some that are straight up a bit weaker (Neutral Air and Dancing Blade Up 4, but it's worth mentioning his Neutral Air is still the most powerful Neutral Air in the game). Some moves have slightly stronger tippers, with virtually the same power sourspots (Forward Tilt and Forward Smash), and some moves have the same power tipper, but have slightly weaker sourspots (Forward and Back Aerials).

If anybody spots any problems, or has anything they want to input, just let me know (thanks again Vipermoon for your input).

 

[Vipermoon]

Great job, I have bad news though. Two things.

The first is that Brawl Mario has a much lower Fall Speed than Smash 4 Mario. Smash 4 Mario got one of the larger Fall Speed buffs in the transition to this game out of the others. You also have to look at Gravity, where in Mario's case it's the same story. Gravity is important with knockback because there is (in Brawl and Smash 4) an in-game adjustment after knockback is calculated that raises or lowers knockback for those with high or low gravity values, respectively. This is to prevent characters like Fox and Falco from having broken vertical survival like they do in Melee.

For apples-to-apples you would have to find a character with the same values in both games for Weight, Fall Speed, and Gravity. There are many character matches for Fall Speed and Weight but the only Gravity match is Lucas who also happens to have matches for the other two parameters (I just looked all of this up). Lucas is your guy.

The other thing is that there is a perfect way to do this. You can compare the actual knockback numbers of Brawl Marth and Smash 4 Marth, convert the Brawl data (thx @Shaya ) from hexadecimal to decimal and put them in this calculator. Still, it's tedious and not meant to be done for an entire moveset. The Lucas method works.

A long time ago, I tried this on Smashville (and on Hyrule Temple) like you except with Marth instead of Mario. This was before I realized that Marth had a different Weight, Fall Speed, and Gravity between the two games and their knockback values were apples-to-apples.

It's worth mentioning that Brawl has stage corner DI, momentum cancelling, and no rage, so everyone is realistically stronger than they were in Brawl but let's not let this stop us from testing crap anyway

 

[Bowserboy3]

Great job, I have bad news though. Two things.

The first is that Brawl Mario has a much lower Fall Speed than Smash 4 Mario. Smash 4 Mario got one of the larger Fall Speed buffs in the transition to this game out of the others. You also have to look at Gravity, where in Mario's case it's the same story. Gravity is important with knockback because there is (in Brawl and Smash 4) an in-game adjustment after knockback is calculated that raises or lowers knockback for those with high or low gravity values, respectively. This is to prevent characters like Fox and Falco from having broken vertical survival like they do in Melee.

For apples-to-apples you would have to find a character with the same values in both games for Weight, Fall Speed, and Gravity. There are many character matches for Fall Speed and Weight but the only Gravity match is Lucas who also happens to have matches for the other two parameters (I just looked all of this up). Lucas is your guy.

The other thing is that there is a perfect way to do this. You can compare the actual knockback numbers of Brawl Marth and Smash 4 Marth, convert the Brawl data (thx @Shaya ) from hexadecimal to decimal and put them in this calculator. Still, it's tedious and not meant to be done for an entire moveset. The Lucas method works.

A long time ago, I tried this on Smashville (and on Hyrule Temple) like you except with Marth instead of Mario. This was before I realized that Marth had a different Weight, Fall Speed, and Gravity between the two games and their knockback values were apples-to-apples.

It's worth mentioning that Brawl has stage corner DI, momentum cancelling, and no rage, so everyone is realistically stronger than they were in Brawl but let's not let this stop us from testing crap anyway

Ahh. I knew that increased gravity and fall speeds helped you resist knockback more, but I didn't think it would be too much overall.

However, knowing there is a character with exactly the same values across both games (Lucas), I'll go back and get 100% better results.

For now, I'll just write up what I got for Mario. Then, when I have got the Lucas data, I can just come here and change all the percents. That shouldn't be too hard overall.

Thanks for your help!

 

[Bowserboy3]

Ok, so I have now updated the OP with the data vs Lucas. This way, the results are a whole lot more reliable.

(however, my bad for missing the Dancing Blade stuff for Smash 4 Marth, those will come tomorrow)

 

[Vipermoon]

Very nice. Dtilt in Melee and Brawl has 3 sourspot hitboxes and they'll all different (smash 4 has 1 sourspot hitbox), it looks like you picked the strongest sourspot for Brawl which is fine but worth mentioning.

The back hit of Dsmash looks like a typo for Brawl. It does only 1% less than the front hit.

Edit: not a typo because I just remembered that the back hit has a 60 degree angle which would immensely increase the kill percent