SSBM/Marth/Introduction

Introduction

Marth is a mid range monster. Being rewarded for proper spacing like no other character with his tipper mechanic (where he deals increased damage and knockback when hitting his opponent with the tip of his massive sword), an obscenely large grab range which can convert into touch of death combos, and the best grounded movement option in the game by far in his dash, there's a reason Marth has been a consistent sight at the highest levels of play throughout Melee's history.

When Marth dashes, he leans forward dramatically. This causes a Low ProfileA move or action that greatly shrinks a character's hurtbox, to avoid certain moves that would hit a normal stance otherwise. effect wherein everything besides his ankles instantly move out of the way of any attack or grab that might be coming his way. This, along with by far the best disjoint and grab of any top tier, and the ability to instantly threaten these all in conjunction with each other mid dash, combine to make him feel almost impossible to open up in neutral.

Furthermore, due to his gigantic sword, Marth has an extremely oppressive and difficult to escape advantage state. Being below the other character, or juggling them, is always good in Melee. For Marth, it's checkmate.

However, Marth is nearly as easily juggled as he is potent at keeping you above him. Think of Marth as a porcupine, if you're under him there are no spikes protecting him. There is also the infamous "Marthritis", where if a Marth player misses an edge guard or drops a combo, finishing their opponent's stock will be much harder than you might initially suspect. This is because he doesn't have great stray hit kill moves to throw out to minimize his losses. Finally, tricky movement from his opponents can cause him to misspace, a potential death sentence for a Marth.

In summary, Marth elegantly dances around his opponents, striking from far outside of their range and seeming to remain virtually untouchable in neutral. However, once he's hit or grabbed things can go from bad to worse very quickly.

Strengths

Weaknesses

A Big Sword Big, completely disjointed hitboxes mean that Marth walls out the majority of the cast, and forces everyone else to work around his buttons. Strong Advantage State: Marth can keep someone in the air or in the corner and is able to edgeguard most of the cast very effectively Movement: A low dashdance and long wavedash give Marth phenomenal mix ups in neutral and make him very hard to hit. Grab: Probably the best one in the game. High range and reward, excellent out of ASDI down. What more could you want? Tons Of Hitboxes To Work With: Different properties and angles depending on what part of Marth's sword hits gives him access to a variety of options to punish.

Difficulty At Ledge: A max 4 GALINTShorthand for "Grounded Actionable Ledge Intangibility", which is the number of actionable intangible frames after a ledgedash ledgedash and few invincible options out of it lets characters challenge Marth safely and keep him in the corner. Moderate Weakness To CC: Even spaced Marth’s main neutral tools can be favourably called out with fast movement out of CC or by moving inside of sourspot range. Bad Shield: Marth's normal shield leaves large parts of his hurtbox exposed even at full shield health, making him more susceptible to shield poking than most other characters, and his slow attacks leave him with very few good out of shield options against opponents who respect shieldgrab.

Note: Hitbox Priority is especially relevant to Marth, and his framedata heavily features information on specific hitboxes.