Marth (SSBU)/Forward tilt

Hitbox visualization showing Marth's forward tilt.

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Overview

Summary: The main uses of Marth's forward tilt are as:

a safer alternative to smash attacks for fishing for kills against high percent targets,
a more reliable mid platform kill option than Marth's smash attacks, without risking being in the air or using his up smash,
a mid percent followup to falling (often, short hopped) aerials
and a lower execution requirement follow-up to down tilt tech chases.

Marth's smash attacks may seem appealing for finishing stocks, but tipper forward tilt is much more reliable to hit, as it is faster, takes less time to recover if whiffed, and has more range in many practical applications. Even if a smash attack lands, if it is not tippered then the recovery time can prevent follow-ups, and if it misses entirely then Marth becomes vulnerable. Therefore, Marths having trouble with safer kill consistency should try to use forward tilt more often in place of, in particular, forward smash and up smash. Notably, it can be used for finishing stocks if used from the ground aiming at middle level platforms of stages such as Battlefield and Pokémon Stadium 2. However, caution should be taken when using it on Yoshi's Story and Dream Land, where there can be more vertical distance between the ground and the middle height platforms. In these, forward tilt can be used in conjunction with up tilt and Marth's aerials to keep people above you, which is a sound game plan in many of Marth's matchups.

At lower percents, it is inadvisable to use forward tilt in the neutral game especially against faster characters capable of disrupting Marth's space control. In particular, untippered forward tilt has almost no follow ups against most such low percent targets due to its recovery frames, and Marth may lose the subsequent frame data race to continue pressure, forcing him to shield. Furthermore, the nature of dashing and variety of high range characters in Ultimate makes dashing back out of this situation often troublesome. Seek to use it either as described above, i.e. as a kill option, or as a followup to a fast falled aerial, the most useful of which being neutral air (which when tippered, fast falled, spaced and timed correctly is Marth's safest move on shield) or forward air (for dealing with opponents that may be approaching above, but so quickly that forward tilt's rising arc would be too slow to challenge). Alternatively, forward tilt can be a followup to Marth's tech chases that are often started with down tilt. If you are uncomfortable with your reaction time at first, you can use forward tilt instead of Marth's smash attacks to punish some missed techs (though the reader is informed that Marth's down smash is a very common and often reliable follow-up to a down tilt tech chase).

Hitboxes

ID	Damage	Angle type	BK	KS	Radius	Bone	Offset			H×	SDI×	T%	Sound	Hit bits	Hit part
0	9.0%	Standard	30	70	3.5	sword1	1.0	0.0	2.5	0.7×	1.0×	0%	Slash	All	All
1	9.0%	Standard	30	70	3.0	armr	0.0	1.0	0.0	0.7×	1.0×	0%	Slash	All	All
2	12.0%	Standard	55	85	3.5	sword1	1.0	0.0	7.7	1.25×	1.0×	0%	Marth Sword	All	All