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This article is about Marth's appearance in Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U. For other uses, see Marth.

Marth is a veteran fighter in Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS/Wii U, revealed on November 8th, 2013. His design is now mostly based on his appearance in Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon, which is the 2009 remake of the first Fire Emblem game released in 1990.

Marth currently ranks 11th on the tier list. This is due to receiving a large number of nerfs that caused him to become slower and gave his attacks less damage and more ending lag compared to previous iterations. He is still one of the more agile characters, but is nowhere near as agile as before. His recovery was buffed somewhat, as Shield Breaker gains more horizontal distance in midair and Dolphin Slash gains greater height, although it already gained considerable height before. Marth has a multitude of good spacing tools and kill set-ups that were recently discovered, and thanks to his helpful buffs in patch 1.1.4, this resulted in a higher placement in the tiers.

Attributes[]

Strengths[]

  • Powerful Smash Attacks.
  • Very agile, with fast movement speed as well attack speed.
    • His dash animation also allows him to dodge some attacks as his stance is low.
  • Has a Meteor Smash: Down Aerial.
  • Has a counterattack.
  • Damage and knockback is greatly increased if at the tip of the sword.
  • When tippered, his Neutral Aerial is the strongest in the game, in terms of damage output and knockback.
  • Excellent juggling potential.
  • Shield Breaker inflicts a huge amount of shield damage, destroying them completely if fully charged.

Weaknesses[]

  • Attacks must connect with the tip of his blade in order to deal more damage and knockback. Otherwise they're very weak.
  • Many of his attacks have high ending and/or landing lag.
  • Few follow up options after throws.
  • Shield Breaker can be predictable and easy to avoid.

Changes from Brawl[]

Marth is one of the characters who received the most considerable nerfs in the entire game, with his combo and KO potential being greatly decreased. He got very few buffs that improve his recovery. Because of that he is a much more defensive character, relying mostly on counters and punishing.

Appearance-wise, Marth has more detailed structure to match his most recent games. His cloak and robe have a more cyan tone of blue and are longer; however his cloak is not as wide as in Brawl. His pauldrons (shoulder guards) are also more round while his boots have a different design. Overall, Marth has a younger, more "delicate" appearance.

Attributes[]

  • Slightly heavier than in Brawl.
  • Slightly thinner, having a smaller hitbox.
  • Slightly slower air speed.
  • Slightly faster dash speed.
  • Base jump is lower, but second jump is higher.
  • Increased ending lag in many moves.
  • Slightly decreased damage in many attacks.
  • Tipped attacks are slightly harder to hit.

Ground Attacks[]

  • Up Tilt, Down Tilt, Forward Smash and Dash Attack deal less damage.
  • Down Tilt has higher ending lag.

Air Attacks[]

  • Neutral, Forward and Back Air Attacks deal less damage.
  • Forward and Up Aerials have more landing lag.
  • Forward, Back and Up Air Attacks arcs are wider by the end of the attacks.
  • Down Air Attack's Meteor Smash is much harder to land, requiring the tip of blade to hit during the middle of the swing. The animation is also different.

Grabs and Throws[]

  • Grab range is decreased.
  • All throws have higher base knockback.
  • Down Throw now causes vertical knockback.

Special Attacks[]

  • Shield Breaker deals much more shield damage and gives more horizontal boost when used in midair, even when uncharged.
  • Dancing Blade has a longer animation, but the hits connect better.
  • Dolphin Slash is much weaker, even when sweetspotted. However, it covers higher vertical range.
  • Counter has more damage and knockback scaling, increasing it's KO power against enemies at low percentages.
  • Critical Hit takes slightly more time to startup.

Moveset[]

The damage variations (X% ~ Y%) refer to Marth's "strong sword tip" ability.

Ground Attacks[]

Normal[]

  • Standard Combo: Slashes twice upward. 5%, 3% ~ 6%, 6%
  • Side Tilt: Slashes broadly in front of him. 7% ~ 10%.
  • Up Tilt: Slashes in an upwards arc. 4% ~ 7%.
  • Down Tilt: A quick stab low to the ground. Unlike other Smash Bros. games, Marth no longer moves forward as he attacks. 6% ~ 8%.
  • Dash attack: Slashes in front of him. 11% ~ 13%

Smash Attacks[]

  • Forward Smash: Slams sword to the ground.

Uncharged: 15% ~ 21% Fully charged: 20% ~ 28%

  • Up Smash: Thrusts sword upward. The ability deals more damage if Marth lands the hit on a ground opponent.

Uncharged (air): 11% ~ 14% Fully charged (air): 16% ~ 20% (Needs confirmation)

Uncharged (ground): 18% Fully charged (ground): 25%

  • Down Smash: Swipes the area around him, forward and then backward. Similar to Link and Pit's down smash.

First slash: Uncharged: 7% ~ 10% Fully charged: 7% ~ 14%

Second slash: Uncharged: 10% ~ 15% Fully charged: 14% ~ 20%

Other attacks[]

To be added

Aerial Attacks[]

  • Neutral Air: Slashes twice in front of him horizontally, then slashes once at his back. It is very likely that both slashes will hit in front of him. First frontal slash: 2%, second frontal slash: 5% ~ 9%, back hit: 6% ~ 9%
  • Forward Air: Slashes quickly in a forwards arc. 6% ~ 11%
  • Up Air: Slashes upwards in an arc. 7% ~ 13%
  • Down Air: Slashes in a downward arc. 9% ~ 16%. Can meteor smash with good timing.
  • Backward Air: Slashes upwards at his back. 7% ~ 13%

Grabs and Throws[]

  • Pummel: A quick kick. 2%.
  • Up throw: Hurls enemy upward. 4%.
  • Foward throw: Ditches enemy on the ground. 4%.
  • Backward throw: Ditches enemy to his back. 4%.
  • Down throw: Slams opponent on the ground. 5%.

Special Moves[]

Marth's Special Moves
Melee Brawl 3DS/Wii U Ultimate
Standard Special Shield Breaker
Side Special Dancing Blade
Up Special Dolphin Slash
Down Special Counter
Final Smash โ€” Critical Hit

Marth's Custom Special Moves
Custom 1 Custom 2
Standard Special Storm Thrust Dashing Assault
Side Special Effortless Blade Heavy Blade
Up Special Crescent Slash Dolphin Jump
Down Special Easy Counter Iai Counter

Taunts[]

Up Taunt: Marth points his blade to the sky, which flashes.

Side Taunt: Marth swings his blade in front of him, then sheathes it.

Down Taunt: Marth brings his blade to his neck, swings it diagonally down, points it straight up, and swings it diagonally down again, all the while saying, "ใฟใ‚“ใชใ€่ฆ‹ใฆใ„ใฆใใ‚Œ๏ผ" "Minna, miteite kure!" which is Japanese for "Everyone, please watch me!" or officially in Fire Emblem Fates English dub as "My prayers are with you!"

In competitive play[]

In the early lifespan of Smash 4, players quickly recognized the changes and nerfs to Marth's moveset, with players mostly criticizing on his range; while still notable, and even improved in some aspects from Brawl, it was nowhere near as impressive due to other characters receiving significant range increases. This culminated in Marth being widely regarded poorly early on; however, Marth received small buffs in balance patches, and by the time of updates 1.0.8 and 1.1.0, Marth received some notable buffs that helped mitigate some of his initial issues, which contributed to the growth of his playerbase, thanks to dedicated players such as False, Mr E and Pugwest. While Marth's results were still poor overall, the buffs improved his perception as a character, culminating in him being ranked 41st on the first 4BR tier list.

Marth would continue to improve with time, and gained his most significant buffs in updates 1.1.3 and 1.1.4. These buffs, supplemented with previous ones, allowed Marth's game to flow far more consistently, and allowed his playerbase to gain significantly better and more consistent results. As an example, Fuwa was able to achieve strong placings in Japan, a region considered to be difficult for him to earn high results. In the USA and Canada, Mr E was able to place 5th at KTAR XVII, 17th at GOML 2016 and 13th at EVO 2016 (defeating ZeRo 2-1 in the latter tournament), while Pugwest placed 17th at Pound 2016 and EVO 2016, and False placed 17th at GOML 2016, with such finishes prior to the patch being almost unspoken of for him. Most notably, MkLeo begun bringing in his share of highlights: this included 1st place at Smash Factor 5 while using Marth through a majority of the tournament, and notably resetting the Grand Finals bracket against Mr.R's Sheik 3-0. Overall, Marth gained between the 12th and 16th best overall tournament results from patch 1.1.4 to present time, and all of these traits allowed Marth to rise to 19th on the second official tier list, gaining the second largest rise between the first and second tier lists.

While his placement on the second tier list was considered to be fairly accurate, some top players (e.g, ZeRo and Dabuz) believed Marth to be too low, and his increasing tournament success further called his placement into question: Leo won Canada Cup 2016 after beating Ally in very close sets of Grand Finals with Marth, he beat ZeRo 3-0 at 2GGT: ZeRo Saga in Losers Semi-finals and turned around a harsh deficit in Grand Finals against Larry Lurr using only Marth, and he won GENESIS 4 using Marth for the entirety of Top 8 (although he used Cloud exclusively prior to this). These even stronger results have helped Marth rise further in the third and current tier list, at 10th place, this tier rise being the third highest between the second and third tier lists.

However, while Marth has continued to perform well in the current metagame and has achieved strong results, his current placement has been recently disputed due to some smashers viewing Leo as the only Marth player to place very high at major tournaments, while Leo himself has used his other main, Cloud, more frequently over Marth. Mr E had also began to use Lucina more often in tournament. In addition, characters ranked below him on the tier list such as Corrin have placed higher than Marth in tournaments as of late. As a result of this, Marth dropped one spot to 11th place, now sharing the spot with Ryu. In spite of these slight downturns, he has tremendously improved throughout the competitive lifespan of the game, and is one of the characters that had its meta developed the most, alongside Mewtwo.

Other features[]

To be added

Trophy descriptions[]

Marth
The first hero from the Fire Emblem series, Marth is the prince of Altea and descendant of the hero Anri. In Smash Bros., he's known as an exceptional swordfighter, swinging his blade with grace. Striking with the tip will maximize the damage dealt. Teach aggressive foes a lesson with his strong Counter move.
  • Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light (Japan)
  • Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem (Japan)
Marth (Alt.)
Marth's side special Dancing Blade is a four-stage attack. Aim and time your strikes carefully! The tip of his sword does the most damage. For his up smash, Justice Sword, he thrusts his blade into the air. You can use it to block attacks from above and launch nearby foes.
  • Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light (Japan)
  • Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem (Japan)
Critical Hit (Marth)
Marth raises his Exalted Falchion to the sky and then rushes forward to deal an incredibly powerful blow, almost certainly KO'ing anyone and everyone who gets hit! When it's used in the air, he'll fly forward a certain distance. On the ground, however, he'll only dash to the edge of the platform he's standing on.

Costume Gallery[]

Marth Palette (SSB4)

Gallery[]

Gallery[]

Trivia[]

  • In Roy's reveal trailer, Marth can be heard speaking when counterattacking Robin's attack, despite only grunting in-game.
  • Before, Marth would keep his Japanese voice as his games never came out in North America as opposed to Ike, the only Fire Emblem character up to this point to have an English voice because Ike's games not only were released in English, but he already had an established English voice actor. However, despite the release of Shadow Dragon in the NTSC region, Marth did not get an English voice actor in this game.
  • Marth, Roy and Cloud are the only characters to speak Japanese in every regional release of Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS/Wii U.

External links[]

FireEmblemSymbol Fire Emblem universe
Characters Marth (Melee  ยท Brawl  ยท 3DS/Wii U  ยท Ultimate)
Roy (Melee  ยท 3DS/Wii U  ยท Ultimate)
Ike (Brawl  ยท 3DS/Wii U  ยท Ultimate)
Robin (3DS/Wii U  ยท Ultimate)
Lucina (3DS/Wii U  ยท Ultimate)
Corrin (3DS/Wii U  ยท Ultimate)
Chrom (Ultimate)
Byleth (Ultimate)
Side Characters Assist Trophies Lyn  ยท Black Knight  ยท Tiki
Mii Fighter Costumes Chrom  ยท Black Knight
Background characters Claude von Riegan  ยท Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd  ยท Edelgard von Hresvelg  ยท Rhea
Others Anna  ยท Sothis
Stages Castle Siege  ยท Arena Ferox  ยท Coliseum  ยท Garreg Mach Monastery
Item Killing Edge
Music List of Music (Fire Emblem series)
Collectibles Trophies Melee Trophies  ยท Brawl Trophies  ยท 3DS Trophies  ยท Wii U Trophies
Stickers List of Stickers (Fire Emblem series)
Spirits List of spirits (Fire Emblem series)
Masterpieces Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light  ยท Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem
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