Does Bowser Junior suck?

[bew]

So I've been playing Bowser Junior a lot recently. I have won about 80% of the games that I play online and no one seems like they can deal with him. Is that just because hes uncommon?

A lot of people have been saying that he is total ass.

I am at about 3.2 mil gsp with him.

 

[ALiBi212]

His rarity definitely helps because opponents aren’t as prepared, but 3.2 mil GSP is good stuff.

Right now, it’s hard to tell if any characters in Ultimate suck. The aggressive nature of the game combined with the new mechanics are allowing so much discovery with previously underrepresented characters. Chances are someone wins a major with Bowser Jr and suddenly everyone calls him S tier.

Good on you for playing a less popular character though. It helps the meta and community to have players unafraid to try mastering characters that may “suck.”

 

[peekpeek]

So I've been playing Bowser Junior a lot recently. I have won about 80% of the games that I play online and no one seems like they can deal with him. Is that just because hes uncommon?

A lot of people have been saying that he is total ***.

I am at about 3.2 mil gsp with him.

He sucks. He can collapse pretty hard when players realize they have anti-Kart weapons.

I'm pretty sure GSP is distinct per-character, so 3.2M GSP is just relative to other Bowser Jr.'s, across all game modes, and includes a bunch of players that have never bothered to really try the character.

My experience with Bowser Jr. is that I tend to play players with lower GSP, because BJr.'s scale is less competitive.

 

[ZoroCarlos]

I have Bowser Jr. in Elite Smash, but man, was he one of the harder characters to grind to that level... easily gimped, a horizontal recovery that can kill you if you're too close to the blast zone, a projectile that takes 20 years to come out, enemies now being able to shield to grabbing the Mecha Koopa very easily, kill moves with very low startup (I've found bair to be his best one though) and pretty mediocre damage despite how little he can do consistently.

I would buff the damage on his nair and the knockback on his ftilt primarily. Would be decent buffs without going too crazy.

 

[peekpeek]

I have Bowser Jr. in Elite Smash, but man, was he one of the harder characters to grind to that level... easily gimped, a horizontal recovery that can kill you if you're too close to the blast zone, a projectile that takes 20 years to come out, enemies now being able to shield to grabbing the Mecha Koopa very easily, kill moves with very low startup (I've found bair to be his best one though) and pretty mediocre damage despite how little he can do consistently.

I would buff the damage on his nair and the knockback on his ftilt primarily. Would be decent buffs without going too crazy.

I didn't play enough Smash 4 to understand this, but why is his Side-B regarded as his main comeback rather than coming in lower and using his up-B? Side-B is really easy to read.

 

[ZoroCarlos]

I didn't play enough Smash 4 to understand this, but why is his Side-B regarded as his main comeback rather than coming in lower and using his up-B? Side-B is really easy to read.

It's a good way to get back on stage ASAP. Say for example you and your enemy get launched in opposite directions at tge same time. You could make it back first. Side B also lets you cancel it with a jump, it's like Inkling's roller, so you get a free jump if you're recovering from bellow. Another reason is that at least if you get gimped it won't be out of the clown car, which is basically insta-death.

 

[peekpeek]

It's a good way to get back on stage ASAP. Say for example you and your enemy get launched in opposite directions at tge same time. You could make it back first. Side B also lets you cancel it with a jump, it's like Inkling's roller, so you get a free jump if you're recovering from bellow. Another reason is that at least if you get gimped it won't be out of the clown car, which is basically insta-death.

Oh, I did not know that the jump cancel was essentially a free jump. That's pretty awesome.

What is the best OOS option and best follow-up to F-smash hitting a shield? Is the tongue move (down-tilt) so good because it comes out fast and can't poke beneath a shield with its last hit?

 

[Arymle Roseanne]

I wouldn't exactly say he's bad but he has some noticable issues that can be problematic.

 

[MamaLuigi123456]

Bowser Jr. was pretty bad in Smash 4. He didn't have a whole lot of strengths, and the strengths he DID have were easily exploitable, and he had a lot of glaring flaws that made for one of the least viable characters in the game.

Things have changed in Ultimate though. 's mechanics have been retooled to be more consistent with the rest of the cast. He's a heavyweight, and a pretty mobile one at that. Decent air speed allows him to cover ground pretty quickly. Every one of his attacks is disjointed, meaning he can zone opponents out, especially when pressuring with forward and back aerial. Forward aerial has a lingering hitbox and back aerial can KO at higher percents. His throws aren't that great, but they're good for getting opponents off stage or, in other situations, using down throw's 15% to get an early lead or close the damage gap. Forward tilt and jab are also good spacing tools, and the latter is also good for chip damage.

Clown Kart Dash is easily his most versatile move. The drift can be a KO move at higher percents, but a jump-cancelled move can lead into other follow-ups like neutral, forward, or back aerial. It's also a pretty decent recovery tool, as you essentially get a free jump while covering some horizontal distance (just don't use it near the blast zone since you'll just back up into it). Clown Cannon deals a lot of shield pressure, but what you should be using for is forcing an approach and punishing them. Mechakoopas are pretty versatile as well, since there's dozens of ways to use it. They can be dropped off-stage for an edgeguard, grabbed and thrown as an item, force a shield, latch onto an opponent while you have them trapped in jab to deal extra damage, the list goes on. Of course, they can be used against you, but that's why you need to be clever with them. And when used with Clown Cannon, it can make pressuring horizontally pretty easy. Abandon Ship! gives him high distance, but he can still be gimped by weak attacks, where he will just fall to the blast zone. You typically want to recover horizontally with Clown Kart Dash and only use Abandon Ship! if absolutely necessary. The hammer swing after Abandon Ship! can also be a good KO move, and in conjunction with the Jr. Clown Car's explosion, it can catch opponents off guard if you can time it well enough.

Right now his main weaknesses lie in his sluggish frame data and his lack of ways to deal consistent damage without a read. Quicker characters like just have faster attacks and better combo potential, so they can easily push Bowser Jr. into disadvantage state. Then heavyweights like just overpower him and can KO him in just a few attacks, especially Bowser thanks to his tough guy mechanic that armors through his weaker attacks. He also doesn't have many safe KO moves since forward smash has a lot of startup and down smash has a lot of endlag, so he's pretty much forced to push opponents off stage and edgeguard to get a KO. His survivability can help him in some matchups, but in others it doesn't really matter.

He was one of my mains in Smash 4, and he feels a lot smoother in Ultimate. He's improved a bit, but he's still not that great at the moment. I'm hoping he gets buffed in the future, but I'm hard pressed to find where those buffs would go to.

 

[peekpeek]

Bowser Jr. was pretty bad in Smash 4. He didn't have a whole lot of strengths, and the strengths he DID have were easily exploitable, and he had a lot of glaring flaws that made for one of the least viable characters in the game.

Things have changed in Ultimate though. 's mechanics have been retooled to be more consistent with the rest of the cast. He's a heavyweight, and a pretty mobile one at that. Decent air speed allows him to cover ground pretty quickly. Every one of his attacks is disjointed, meaning he can zone opponents out, especially when pressuring with forward and back aerial. Forward aerial has a lingering hitbox and back aerial can KO at higher percents. His throws aren't that great, but they're good for getting opponents off stage or, in other situations, using down throw's 15% to get an early lead or close the damage gap. Forward tilt and jab are also good spacing tools, and the latter is also good for chip damage.

Clown Kart Dash is easily his most versatile move. The drift can be a KO move at higher percents, but a jump-cancelled move can lead into other follow-ups like neutral, forward, or back aerial. It's also a pretty decent recovery tool, as you essentially get a free jump while covering some horizontal distance (just don't use it near the blast zone since you'll just back up into it). Clown Cannon deals a lot of shield pressure, but what you should be using for is forcing an approach and punishing them. Mechakoopas are pretty versatile as well, since there's dozens of ways to use it. They can be dropped off-stage for an edgeguard, grabbed and thrown as an item, force a shield, latch onto an opponent while you have them trapped in jab to deal extra damage, the list goes on. Of course, they can be used against you, but that's why you need to be clever with them. And when used with Clown Cannon, it can make pressuring horizontally pretty easy. Abandon Ship! gives him high distance, but he can still be gimped by weak attacks, where he will just fall to the blast zone. You typically want to recover horizontally with Clown Kart Dash and only use Abandon Ship! if absolutely necessary. The hammer swing after Abandon Ship! can also be a good KO move, and in conjunction with the Jr. Clown Car's explosion, it can catch opponents off guard if you can time it well enough.

Right now his main weaknesses lie in his sluggish frame data and his lack of ways to deal consistent damage without a read. Quicker characters like just have faster attacks and better combo potential, so they can easily push Bowser Jr. into disadvantage state. Then heavyweights like just overpower him and can KO him in just a few attacks, especially Bowser thanks to his tough guy mechanic that armors through his weaker attacks. He also doesn't have many safe KO moves since forward smash has a lot of startup and down smash has a lot of endlag, so he's pretty much forced to push opponents off stage and edgeguard to get a KO. His survivability can help him in some matchups, but in others it doesn't really matter.

He was one of my mains in Smash 4, and he feels a lot smoother in Ultimate. He's improved a bit, but he's still not that great at the moment. I'm hoping he gets buffed in the future, but I'm hard pressed to find where those buffs would go to.

I agree with a lot of this. The first set of matchups you list is spot-in, but the next largest complaints should be about the characters that have easy moves that power through BJ's kart super armor. Link and Young Link are absolute nightmare matchups.

I don't think the heavyweights are that problematic for him, because his frame data is actually relatively good? I rely on mechakoopa bit more, and F-air and B-air don't feel like they are wildly outclassed like they are against .

He has very good ledge guarding options, and the kart peel-out can kill ~60%, and not even particularly close to the end of the stage. Down-throw isn't a kill move (low-power, ~20% angle), but gets people off stage so you can ledge guard them.

 

[MamaLuigi123456]

I agree with a lot of this. The first set of matchups you list is spot-in, but the next largest complaints should be about the characters that have easy moves that power through BJ's kart super armor. Link and Young Link are absolute nightmare matchups.

I don't think the heavyweights are that problematic for him, because his frame data is actually relatively good? I rely on mechakoopa bit more, and F-air and B-air don't feel like they are wildly outclassed like they are against .

He has very good ledge guarding options, and the kart peel-out can kill ~60%, and not even particularly close to the end of the stage. Down-throw isn't a kill move (low-power, ~20% angle), but gets people off stage so you can ledge guard them.

The thing with is that they all pretty much excel in all of Bowser Jr.'s shorcomings. Their frame data is better than Jr.'s, Boomerang, Arrows, and Bombs (especially Link's Remote Bomb Runes) are much more reliable for zoning and damage than Clown Cannon and Mechakoopa, and they simply have better, faster attacks to KO while Jr. is constantly struggling to land one of his own without a read. Doesn't help that recovering low is a bad idea since Link and Young Link specifically can shut you down with their meteor smash.

Toon Link is probably the easiest of the three to beat since his projectiles travel slower and can be more easily dodged, but it's still gonna be an uphill battle. Even though one of Jr.'s advantages is his disjointed attacks, the Links' swords easily outrange him, making it hard to really get in. is difficult to deal with for a lot of the same reasons, especially since PK Fire to down throw is a free 40-50%. Once he gets that kind of lead, it can be hard to come back.

 

[MamaLuigi123456]

Another thing to note is that while Jr.'s combo game isn't great, there are some combos that can easily net 20%+ damage if you can land them.

Up throw will be your main combo starter at earlier percents, as you can follow up easily with your aerials; you can use up aerial. up aerial -> up aerial, up aerial -> back aerial, turnaround up aerial -> forward aerial, up aerial -> up aerial -> neutral aerial, the list goes on. And since up throw has low knockback growth, you can keep landing these combos until about 40%-60%.

Up tilt is a pretty underutilized move for combos, as it puts the opponent in the optimal position for rapid jab. Forward smash can work as well, but it's far less reliable. Up tilt also combos into itself, though not as good as Mario or Dr. Mario's can due to the hitbox's position and slightly more lag. That said, you can still get an aerial or the aforementioned jab after up tilt.

And of course, Mechakoopa can set up for some combos in various ways. You can drop it on a recovering opponent, which pops them upward where you can follow with a forward, back, or down aerial. You can grab one and throw it at an opponent to follow up with an aerial. You can grab opponents while the Mechakoopa is out, have it latch on them, and forward or back throw just before it explodes to get some extra damage as well as make following up or, in the optimal situation, edeguarding easier. Clown Kart Dash can also pop opponents upward during the dashing hitbox, where you can jump cancel it and follow up with an up aerial.

His combos aren't guaranteed by any means but knowledge is power.

 

[scalpel]

Although very fun to play, I find that many other characters' moves out-prioritize Jr's. Instead of clashing, I often find other characters just outright overriding Jr's attacks. This often happens against sword users especially. So, objectively, Jr is inferior to many characters just from frame data alone.

But Jr has very good ledge guarding options, and this game heavily favors ledge guarding, so Jr makes up his viability in this way.

 

[Tairisinuse]

I'd say he's certainly not one of the easiest characters to play.
I feel like I get my best mileage out of the strange zoning options Bowser Jr. possess.
I've easily won two vs one with the tilts, nair, and non charged cannonballs. I swear forward tilt comes out lightning fast and has insane reach for such a silly looking attack. Also if you can catch someone in it his jab combo is terrific.
Not relying on any one combo or set up to get the job done and instead embracing the goofiness of his kit to just throw yourself at the enemy. Like I think I cycle through everything he can do every match to get the effectiveness outta him. I'm only a few points away from getting him into Elite Smash myself.

 

[Jebril]

He's a fun character that has a lot of bad tools if that makes sense. He has zoning options, off stages options, edge guarding options, defensive options, trapping options, etc. Just none of them are really that great, he's probably above average in zoning at the very least because of his disjointed aerials, I find that people have a hard time spacing against my F-Air and B-Air because of it. But again he ain't really the best even there, for instance try zoning an Ike and you'll probably get bopped, Ike's N-Air straight up beats Jr.s N-Air no matter how you space it.

As someone who mains him with Elite Smash score of 3.95+ million GSP my biggest suggestion to newcomers to the character are to play him like a zoning character, he's not really a combo character or a flashy character IMO. He relies on zoning and hard reads to essentially win games. He doesn't have any kill confirms which is going to suck, even with his throws your best kill throw is Back Throw and that's only going to start killing at like 140-150 at the edge lol.

I like D-Tilt a lot I think people underestimate how good it is, I use it to ledge trap and as a follow up to D-Throw, (you can chase their fall to D-Tilt if that makes sense). It's also pretty good at making you safe I've noticed, try F-Smashing to D-Tilt it's so fast and I've noticed so many people get hit by it. His cannonball is actually pretty good, I'd dare say it's better than his Koopaling TBH. Koopaling's kinda suck, they leave you open a lot, that's not to say you shouldn't be doing them as much as you can, but don't do them when there's edgeguard opportunities or if you're leaving yourself open. Koopalings are also immensely better in your hand rather than walking around, you can do a lot more with them and punish a lot of things with them from range since of how fast they are thrown.

His Up-B is kinda trash, even when it hits on stage it can be SDI'd out of the second hit making the explosion miss. It's good on certain characters recoveries such as maybe DDD or something depending on the angle, it's a good tool to use every now and then but honestly I mostly use Up B to get the hammer swing which is a lot better since it almost snuffs every other move I've noticed, it has a ton of priority.

His cart as well is kinda trash but then again it's a great mix up tool and an ok approach tool. Problem is it has such terrible priority in this game, it gets beat by almost everything, I mostly just cancel it to an aerial or an empty landing and don't bother actually using it. It's great for tech reads however and punishing moves you otherwise couldn't or at least getting you to a position where you can more aggressively punish a whiffed move. Spinning the cart generally sucks and if you typically do it offstage you're probably gonna die, but it's a good mix up and actually kills as well, it also has super armor. There's a ton of end lag on it so use it sparingly.

His aerials are all good IMO, B-Air is one of my favorite to hit it's so damn meaty when you hit the sweetspot (feels good man), but it has a ton of sour spots as well so be careful. At low percents against your opponent it's almost bad to hit an aerial against your opponent, I think it leaves you in a frame disadvantage if you hit a F-Air with your sourspot, meaning they can actually straight up punish you for hitting them with an aerial, again one of many reasons why Bowser Jr is a terrible character. His F-Air is still super good though, it's really disjointed and snuffs even sword fighters out, it's that good for zoning IMO. His N-Air is ok, almost every characters has the same concept N-Air in this game, it's amazing for punishing OoS and if you understand the fundamentals of Ultimate you should pretty much be doing it all the time to punish aerial landings OoS. It's the most consistent move in Bowser Jr.'s toolkit IMO. U-Air is overrated lol, it's good but people act like it's his bread and butter or something it's really not, it's fast Bowser Jr isn't exactly a vertical character, and the range on it isn't that impressive. It's good for some air combos here and there and links well to B-Air IMO typically but I don't exactly rely on it as essential for Jr's kit. D-Air is a good approach aerial but has significant end lag so be careful with it, it is good for applying pressure however.

As for the smashes, F-Smash is great and probably the best one, D-Smash is okay but so slow and while it seems meaty is actually weaker than your F-Smash lol, it's good for reading rolls though. U-Smash is inconsistent...I really hate what happened to it, it just seems worse than Smash 4. The range seems smaller and the moves seems slower, doing it next to someone no longer sucks them into it. I don't use it that much but it's okay....I guess.

Good luck.

 

[scalpel]

At low percents against your opponent it's almost bad to hit an aerial against your opponent, I think it leaves you in a frame disadvantage if you hit a F-Air with your sourspot

This is so true. Low percents is such a struggle. I hate love how anyone can just slap Jr around after Jr lands an aerial when they're at 0%. It's almost as if the opponent is covered in a bubble of protection long after their invincibility wears off from spawn, and you have to break that bubble each time before playing for real.

His Nair is so useful. It feels like it barely does anything, but it gives Jr a lot of control and pressure relief.
His projectile game is underrated. Wall of cannonballs and mechakoopa can be overwhelming, especially when full hop cannonballs are mixed into the rotation. Not proud of it, but I've juggled 3.8m GSP opponents from 0 to 100% before purely from walls of cannonballs and mechakoopa, no other attacks. The cannonballs have a deceptively long persisting hitbox; even when they're shielded, the hitbox is still active for a split second longer and it will still hit opponents if they drop their shield too soon after the first block. Cannonballs are great.

 

[scalpel]

try F-Smashing to D-Tilt it's so fast and I've noticed so many people get hit by it.

Thank you for this. F-smash to d-tilt seems to land every time. The f-smash bait is real.

 

[CircularSaw]

Thank you for this. F-smash to d-tilt seems to land every time. The f-smash bait is real.

Isn't F-smash to Jab combo reaches further and deals more damage ? I guess it's not as safe tho.

 

[scalpel]

Isn't F-smash to Jab combo reaches further and deals more damage ? I guess it's not as safe tho.

I used to follow up f-smash with jabs but found that it often whiffed due to the short range of the initial jab, then I'd be stuck in the rapid jab animation and vulnerable. The tongue is extremely quick and safe.

 

[MamaLuigi123456]

Isn't F-smash to Jab combo reaches further and deals more damage ? I guess it's not as safe tho.

Down tilt has less endlag and Jr. ducks inside the Jr. Clown Car, allowing his weak body hurtbox to disappear behind the Jr. Clown Car hurtbox.

 

[Jebril]

Down tilt has less endlag and Jr. ducks inside the Jr. Clown Car, allowing his weak body hurtbox to disappear behind the Jr. Clown Car hurtbox.

Also D-Tilt can actually kill at the edge earlier than you think I noticed. It has a surprising amount of horizontal knockback.