At the end of the Super Smash Bros. 4 metagame, Marth found himself at the very top of our tier list. Powerful finishers, a solid recovery, and an excellent damage-racker in Dancing Blade eclipsed the movesets of every other character. Marth has fallen off significantly in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, and now struggles to contend even for a mid-tier ranking. For more information on why that is, go give his wiki page a read. Otherwise, let’s jump right into today’s training!
Special thanks to GamerJohn and Random Fire for contributing Marth’s training information!
Spirits
If Spirits are your thing, then you’re in luck: this is the section for you! If you’d rather not use a Spirit team, you’re welcome to skip ahead to our training sections — either competitive or Raid Boss. To those of you new to amiibo training, you might want to read our full Spirits guide to develop a basic understanding of how they work in this game. Then, when you’re done, you can come back to this section and read up on Marth’s best Spirit builds:
- Banned bonuses: Marth’s best setup is a simple one: Armor Knight plus Weapon Attack ↑. Alongside stat points, this setup bolsters the power of Marth’s tipped hitboxes to nuclear levels. The FP’s movement speed will be slightly reduced, so if you’d like to patch that up you can use Move Speed ↑ over Weapon Attack ↑ — however, you’ll be sacrificing lots of power.
- Tournament-legal bonuses: Marth’s second-best setups is also rather simple: Weapon Attack ↑, another Weapon Attack ↑, and Air Defense ↑. You could try Critical-Health Stats ↑ or Move Speed ↑, if you’d like, but the build we provided works just fine as-is. With this, Marth’s entire moveset becomes roughly 20% stronger; he’ll also take about 30% less damage from attacks while he’s airborne.
- Raid Boss bonuses: If you’re going for a Raid Boss and don’t want to use something like Armor Knight, you can go with Weapon Attack ↑, Air Defense ↑, and Move Speed ↑. As mentioned earlier, Air Defense ↑ lowers the damage Marth takes while he’s in the air, even if he’s struck with a move that can only be executed on the ground (like an up smash). Pretty handy! You can also try fitting in Shield Damage ↑ somewhere in there, too.
Once you’ve picked your three bonus effects, you’ll have to round out your FP’s stat spread. We recommend either a balanced build (2100 / 2100) or a slightly more offensive one (2500 / 1700). Once that’s all said and done, you’ll need to make sure your FP’s Spirit-type is Neutral. If it’s anything else, then it runs the risk of losing Spirit-type matchups if it ever fights other FPs later on down the line. Be careful!
Competitive Training
Marth’s optimal training strategy is similar to Lucina’s, but with one key difference: tipper hitboxes. As tough as it sounds, you do need to try your best to hit those sweetspots, as Marth’s AI does consider its spacing at higher levels. As we’ll soon discuss, Marth can afford to go off-stage as often as he wants! Here’s what an optimized Marth amiibo’s moveset looks like, then:
- Forward smash and forward tilt are your top priorities. When using these moves, space them as far away as you can to try and teach the FP to land their tipped hitboxes. Forward tilt can cover platforms, and is better than up tilt and up smash for doing so — that being said, make sure you use more forward smash than forward tilt. Use down tilt as well, but less often than both forward smash and forward tilt.
- Grabs are another crucial component of Marth’s kit. At close range, grab your FP and fire off an up throw. Immediately afterward, strike with as many up airs as possible — preferably the tipped versions. Mix in some down throws every so often to activate hard-coded combos at later levels. When you’re launched upward, you can use down air and forward air to secure your landing spot. A few back airs work too, though you’ll want to prioritize down and forward air most of all.
- When you launch your FP off-stage, you’ve got several edgeguarding options. Forward air and down air work best, even if you’re not able to land the sweetspot on the latter. Drop-down back airs are strong as well!
There are several moves that are important to completely avoid during training! These include down smash, neutral air, Shield Breaker, Dancing Blade, and Counter. Marth’s AI doesn’t link both hits of its neutral air very well, and Dancing Blade and Counter often miss and leave the character vulnerable to punishment. If your FP hits you with these attacks, you should probably quit the match and try again. You can always play matches in slow mode if you find that your amiibo keeps hitting you with moves you don’t want it to learn! Remember to try your best to connect as many tipper hitboxes as you can. Take a look at the trail on Marth’s sword for a better indicator on where these hitboxes are placed!
As a character, Marth relies on “luck” a bit more than Lucina — the word “luck” is in quotations because we really mean “spacing”. Even if you land tons of tipper hitboxes, your FP won’t always do the same depending on the kind of situation it’s in. With this moveset setup, Marth becomes a fearsome juggling machine capable of finishing off an opponent with just a few moves (assuming their tippers connect). This moveset is fearsome with Spirits on, as Marth’s tipped forward smash becomes even more powerful.
Raid Boss Training
Slacker alert! Our Raid Boss Marth guide is actually completely identical to our Raid Boss Lucina guide. If you notice identical wording, there’s a reason for that: the wording is indeed identical. As always, we have a general training guide available for those of you wanting to learn more about FPs first, so be sure to give it a read! Here’s a complete list of every move you should teach your Marth FP:
- Lots of neutral options here! Forward tilt, neutral attack, grab, some up tilt and down tilt, and then some short-hopped aerials. These include forward air, neutral air, back air, and up air. When using short-hopped air attacks, don’t use the short hop macro (which is the jump button and the attack button at the same time) — FPs don’t recognize aerials when their opponent uses them via the button shortcut. Press the jump button and then the attack button.
- When both you and your FP are in the air, you can attack with any of your aerial moves. You can use down air too, but you’ll want to avoid spiking with it on-stage lest the AI start to spam it.
- Up tilt, up air, and forward smash are your anti-airs. Up smash is a bit too thin to function as a consistent anti-air; in other words, its horizontal range is too small. You can also use forward smash and a tiny bit of dash attack for grounded KOs.
Though off-stage play is recommended for Marth against other FPs, it is not recommended for a Raid Boss. As you may know, Marth’s up special kind of halts and kills his momentum after its final hitbox, and it’s in this moment that an opponent can follow up and strike with a meteor smash. For that reason, it’s best to avoid edgeguarding off-stage where Marth is left vulnerable. The same goes for Lucina, too!
Wrap-Up
As far as amiibo training goes, Marth is both easy and difficult to raise at the same time. He only has to use a few moves, but those moves need to be properly spaced for maximum damage. Though the AI does sort of “teach itself” its tipper hitboxes, you’ll need to learn them too — and that’s easier said than done. If you have any questions, please consult our Discord community! Check out our donation box if you’d like to help support the site, too. Until next time — happy training!
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