Emblem Lord
The Legendary Lord
- Joined
- Aug 11, 2005
- Messages
- 9,720
- Location
- Scotch Plains, NJ
- NNID
- ShinEmblemLord
- 3DS FC
- 3926-6895-0574
- Switch FC
- SW-0793-4091-6136
For those that don't know me, I am Emblem Lord. I did alot of analyzing when Brawl first dropped and freely shared strats and match-up knowledge. I consider myself a scholar, scientist, theorist and competitor of fighting games. I do not call myself a master or even an expert. I just claim to have a passion for learning, teaching and sharing.
I'm making this thread to share some of my thoughts. Really I want the Marth forums to come to a certain...realization. That realization is that you don't understand Marth the way you THINK you do. A few people do. Alot of them are high level players. But most of you don't. That's ok though. The important thing to remember is context and relativity. If you say Marth is worse or Marth is weak, you then need to ask yourself in what context is he weak/nerfed? Relative to whom is he weak/nerfed?
The nerfs that people are talking about are mainly his increased recovery on Short Hop Fast Fall Fair as well as a supposed range decrease. The range decrease thus far has been shown to be unfounded. No one has hard evidence really. It's alot of hearsay. The only explanation I have for that is quite reasonable. The lack of a c-stick combined with the smaller scale of Smash 4 on 3DS is most likely a huge factor in Marth players mispacing moves and not hitting their opponents how, when and where they want. Of course with testing and time it could be discovered that he did get a range nerf but thus far I have not noticed any such nerfs on his moves. Ok, so moving on.
Marth's fair has increased recovery. This has been shown and proven. Its easy to see. From Brawl Marth to this Marth its a nerf. Certainly. BUT, within the context of Smash 4. It's not a nerf. Why? Play with the other characters. EVERYONE has increased recovery on aerials. Not just Marth. And many characters have far worse recovery on aerials than Marth does. This means that the metagame or the way the game is played at the highest level, has shifted from aerial combat and footsies to ground based combat and footsies.
For those that don't know, footsies is the war to control the space thats between both combatants. It's usually that mid range when both characters are 1 to 2 character lengths apart. Marth excels at this. He always has in fact. Even in Melee this was his playstyle. But in Melee crouch cancelling existed so relying heavily on pokes could get him killed. Luckily he had high conversion off grabs and errant hits that led to huge damage combos. So his rushdown was rewarding enough for a Marth player to dedicate their play style to rushdown. But Marth is NOT a rushdown character.
Now you may say Marth is weaker because he no longer has all those conversions from grabs and can no longer combo with fairs. Yes, weaker compared to his past incarnations. But that doesn't matter. We are comparing him to the current cast in Smash 4. In this game Marth cant be CGed. Falco cant control space so easily with lasers. Diddy can only have one banana. MK has been toned down. See what I'm getting at? Relatively speaking he is actually ok because he no longer has to worry about tools from characters that gave him a hard time before, and alot of craziness has been toned down. If RCO lag is gone then that's even BETTER. Marth is fine relative to the cast.
He is not a combo monster, but he wasn't designed to be so. Exploits gave him those possibilities. Marth is an aggressive footsie/poking character. He controls space with his speed, mobility and range. A good term used in other fighting games is bull dogging. You push your opponent into bad situations and flow from those bad situations into another and another. You create trap situations that are difficult for your opponent to escape and leave you at advantage. You essentially lead your opponent to their own demise. Fei-Long in the Street Fighter 4 series as a great parallel example of this if you need a character in another fighting game to draw a comparison too.
Mikeneko does just this in Brawl and it works. This is what Marth is. Using precision, thought, and grace combined with incredible power when you play him, correctly and strike at the right moment.
As far as combos and set-ups, we will find those as we test and play the game. I'm not saying he is top tier. I'm saying he is solid and his ACTUAL gameplay has not changed and he will more then likely still beat on the characters he used to beat on. At this point I think his worst match will be no more then 4/6, but alot of the crazy nonsense that gave him problems before has been checked or removed.
Marth is looking solid and can still fair to control space and cover options while maintaining his positioning. His grabs still leave him with stage positioning even if follow-ups no longer exist. He is still a character that can dictate the flow of the match. That is Marth, The Hero-King.
I'm making this thread to share some of my thoughts. Really I want the Marth forums to come to a certain...realization. That realization is that you don't understand Marth the way you THINK you do. A few people do. Alot of them are high level players. But most of you don't. That's ok though. The important thing to remember is context and relativity. If you say Marth is worse or Marth is weak, you then need to ask yourself in what context is he weak/nerfed? Relative to whom is he weak/nerfed?
The nerfs that people are talking about are mainly his increased recovery on Short Hop Fast Fall Fair as well as a supposed range decrease. The range decrease thus far has been shown to be unfounded. No one has hard evidence really. It's alot of hearsay. The only explanation I have for that is quite reasonable. The lack of a c-stick combined with the smaller scale of Smash 4 on 3DS is most likely a huge factor in Marth players mispacing moves and not hitting their opponents how, when and where they want. Of course with testing and time it could be discovered that he did get a range nerf but thus far I have not noticed any such nerfs on his moves. Ok, so moving on.
Marth's fair has increased recovery. This has been shown and proven. Its easy to see. From Brawl Marth to this Marth its a nerf. Certainly. BUT, within the context of Smash 4. It's not a nerf. Why? Play with the other characters. EVERYONE has increased recovery on aerials. Not just Marth. And many characters have far worse recovery on aerials than Marth does. This means that the metagame or the way the game is played at the highest level, has shifted from aerial combat and footsies to ground based combat and footsies.
For those that don't know, footsies is the war to control the space thats between both combatants. It's usually that mid range when both characters are 1 to 2 character lengths apart. Marth excels at this. He always has in fact. Even in Melee this was his playstyle. But in Melee crouch cancelling existed so relying heavily on pokes could get him killed. Luckily he had high conversion off grabs and errant hits that led to huge damage combos. So his rushdown was rewarding enough for a Marth player to dedicate their play style to rushdown. But Marth is NOT a rushdown character.
Now you may say Marth is weaker because he no longer has all those conversions from grabs and can no longer combo with fairs. Yes, weaker compared to his past incarnations. But that doesn't matter. We are comparing him to the current cast in Smash 4. In this game Marth cant be CGed. Falco cant control space so easily with lasers. Diddy can only have one banana. MK has been toned down. See what I'm getting at? Relatively speaking he is actually ok because he no longer has to worry about tools from characters that gave him a hard time before, and alot of craziness has been toned down. If RCO lag is gone then that's even BETTER. Marth is fine relative to the cast.
He is not a combo monster, but he wasn't designed to be so. Exploits gave him those possibilities. Marth is an aggressive footsie/poking character. He controls space with his speed, mobility and range. A good term used in other fighting games is bull dogging. You push your opponent into bad situations and flow from those bad situations into another and another. You create trap situations that are difficult for your opponent to escape and leave you at advantage. You essentially lead your opponent to their own demise. Fei-Long in the Street Fighter 4 series as a great parallel example of this if you need a character in another fighting game to draw a comparison too.
Mikeneko does just this in Brawl and it works. This is what Marth is. Using precision, thought, and grace combined with incredible power when you play him, correctly and strike at the right moment.
As far as combos and set-ups, we will find those as we test and play the game. I'm not saying he is top tier. I'm saying he is solid and his ACTUAL gameplay has not changed and he will more then likely still beat on the characters he used to beat on. At this point I think his worst match will be no more then 4/6, but alot of the crazy nonsense that gave him problems before has been checked or removed.
Marth is looking solid and can still fair to control space and cover options while maintaining his positioning. His grabs still leave him with stage positioning even if follow-ups no longer exist. He is still a character that can dictate the flow of the match. That is Marth, The Hero-King.
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