Marth (SSBB)/Down aerial

Overview

Marth does a forward to backward downward sword slash. When tipped, it is a meteor smash with high base knockback. However, the sweetspot is significantly smaller than the sweetspot in Melee and as such the move is drastically less useful overall. The end of the swing is slightly easier to tip with, so a RAR may help sweetspot it. With very low start-up (6 frames), it is the second fastest meteor smash in the game (Falco's and Fox's down aerials are faster by one frame). It is a risky edgeguarding move, however, as it has very high ending and landing lag and the sweetspot cannot be consistently landed, especially on more competent players. Potential setups exist, but most are highly unreliable; one setup in particular though, landing the sweetspot out of a grab release, is notable for being more reliable and feasible in competitive play. However this setup is extremely character specific - working only on Meta Knight only. Furthermore the setup is only fatal if Marth grabs Meta Knight at a very specifc distance from the ledge. As such, all things considered, the move overall has very little impact on Marth's competitive potential. The move does 12% at the base and 14% when tipped.

Footstool spike

Marth edgeguarding using a forward aerial to the footstool spike, then a stage spike to punish the opponent's meteor cancel. To perform it, Marth must short hop a footstool jump and immediately perform a down aerial while facing the same direction as his opponent. This will allow the tip of his sword to hit and meteor smash the opponent.

Marth's footstool spike (using a footstool to setup the move) is also a method of sweetspotting the attack, though this is unreliable, because of the difficult read needed to land the footstool.

Some characters are difficult or impossible to vertical space, as their falling speeds are too great. It is impossible to vertical space on Donkey Kong, Diddy Kong, Captain Falcon, Ike, Marth, Ivysaur, Ganondorf, Pikachu, Peach, Zelda, Sheik, Sonic, and Wario. However, it still works by footstool jump 2 times or more for a tipped down aerial to hit. It works best on small, light characters, such as Kirby, Meta Knight, and Jigglypuff, but even Bowser can be vertical spaced with little difficulty.

After testing, it has been confirmed that the combo can be used on certain characters, such as Link or Toon Link during their up special move.

Toon Link is able to meteor smash with this technique, although his does not blend fluently like Marth's. It is about stunning the opponent to set up for the spike frames at the beginning of Toon Link's down aerial.

Meta Knight is also able to perform a footstool jump to down aerial combo, but instead of spiking, the opponent is semi-spiked away. This can be used to gimp and stage spike, but a down aerial on its own is usually preferred.

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This article or section may require competitive expertise. You can discuss this issue on the talk page or edit this page to improve it.

Vertical spacing tutorial video

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Marth's moveset

Neutral attack (1 · 2) · Forward tilt · Up tilt · Down tilt · Dash attack · Forward smash · Up smash · Down smash
Neutral aerial · Forward aerial · Back aerial · Up aerial · Down aerial
Grab · Pummel · Forward throw · Back throw · Up throw · Down throw
Forward roll · Back roll · Spot dodge · Air dodge · Techs
Floor attack (front) · Floor getups (front) · Floor attack (back) · Floor getups (back) · Floor attack (trip) · Floor getups (trip)
Edge attack (fast) · Edge getups (fast) · Edge attack (slow) · Edge getups (slow)
Neutral special · Side special · Up special · Down special · Final Smash