FYI: Perfect Shielding does not decrease the amount of time you must shield and is overrated.

[Supermodel From Paris]

There's a funny wives' tale floating around the Brawl community and you hear it everywhere. Commentators say it on stream, people say it on these forums, and I'm a little confused as to where this particular little misconception came from. That misconception is that perfect shielding reduces your opponent's shield advantage by reducing shield stun and/or shield hitlag, when in fact it does neither.

Perfect shielding does three things:

1. Dramatically reduces (but does not eliminate) shield pushback, possibly to a static value,
2. Reduces your shield drop frames to 0, and
3. Reduces shield damage taken.

That means that if an attack is -5 on shield, it is also -5 on perfect shield. If you are going to attempt to shield grab something after perfect shielding an attack, your perfect shield was, from a frame data perspective, not helpful to you. If your character has a lower grab range or slides a lot (say, ICs, or Luigi), then perfect shielding might keep you in range of the opponent after shielding an attack, but for the rest of us, it does nothing.
Perfect shielding gives you a wider variety of safe out of shield options by effectively making any attack as effective as a grab out of shield, but since grab and jump out of shield already do not suffer shield drop frames, they do not make your grab (or jump) any faster.

A few examples:

• Perfect shielding Peach's auto-cancelled forward air (0 on shield) does not mean you can grab it. It is 0 on shield always, even if you perfect shield the forward air. Peach is always safe here. If you grab her after perfect shielding an attack, the Peach made a mistake (didn't jab you). Even if you are playing Marth and perfect shield and immediately up-b, Peach can shield first.
• Zero Suit's down smash is not punishable with a grab on perfect shield. Uncharged, it is -4 on block (not 0, Coontail, pls, stahp). At a good range, jab or dash away always beat grab unless you have a 5 frame grab, which will work if you're right in her face. The fastest grab in Brawl is AFAIK 6 frames, though Sheik's might be 5. Charged down smash is 0 on shield, meaning nothing beats it.

TL;DR:

Perfect shielding is overrated. Shield stun and shield hitlag are the same on a perfect shield as they are a normal shield. All it can do is make options that aren't grab as good as grab out of shield and avoid shield pushback that might deny a punish. Obviously perfect shielding is better than not perfect shielding, but it doesn't do half of what the Brawl community thinks it does.

Spread the word.

 

[smashkng]

What you have mentioned nothing about is that it also reduces shield damage to almost 0. Against someone who PS almost everything, it becomes very hard to poke their shield because then they can shield more stuff without the shield getting too small. For example PSing Tornado makes it much less likely to poke, which helps you to shield the entire move and then punish, when you otherwise would have been poked and sent into the air. Almost no shield push is still very useful, there are still very few moves that are as frame safe as ZSS' Dsmash. So many moves do have enough shield push to push you outside grab range of characters like even DDD when spaced right, but which can be shield grabbed when PS'd due to not sliding away, so saying that it does nothing is nonsense.

I also dunno who said PSing reduces shield advantage but whatever. But what's clear is that the advantages of PSing are still very good even if it doesn't increase frame advantage. You should watch 2013 Ally vids and notice how he takes advantage of PSing moves like aerials because he's a master of that.

 

[Supermodel From Paris]

Hey thanks, I knew I forgot something. Fixed. I also already mentioned the shield pushback, so I don't know why you're pretending like I ignored that.

This post is here solely to stuff the misconception that perfect shielding reduces blockstun

 

[ぱみゅ]

Don't you love when common/traditional misconceptions get proven wrong?
Nice thread SFP

 

[Bobwithlobsters]

Agreed it is overrated but essential for certain characters/mu's ie punishing people oos with zamus who is lacking in options there. Punishing with her tilts is a lot easier if you power shield. Also the removal of shield push is very critical for a lot of mu's and specifically characters like Ice climbers and luigi who can really struggle to punish moves ok shield without this feature.

Do agree people over rate how effective it is though.

 

[BlueXenon]

Is it possible to beat a good falco with out perfect shielding?

 

[Supermodel From Paris]

Is it possible to beat a good falco with out perfect shielding?

Strictly speaking, perfect shielding helps in the match-up, for example because each laser pushes you back less if you're trying to approach him and because you have to drop shield to walk, among other things.

I don't mean to imply the perfect shielding is never helpful. It is, and everyone should learn to use it, as it is a valuable tool. It is not the answer to dozens of situations people claim it is, however.

 

[smashkng]

Of course not everything can be punished even with PS. An example is a very well spaced Marth Fair which he can space outside shield grab range of almost if not everyone if perfect with it. Those who have tether grabs are too slow to be a reliable punisher to Marth's landing Fair on block. PSing is great not only to punish a lot of attacks, like laggier projectiles from closer distances and most ground moves (well spaced aerials tend to be safer because they're frame safer and can be spaced much easier than ground moves) but also as a defensive option in order to get out of pressure. For example when you near the edge and Marth Fair, if you shield without PSing you get pushed into the ledge, where you're still at a bad spot, but if you PS shield push is negated and you don't get sent back to the ledge and can often (unless well spaced usually) even get a punish on him and if not at least roll out of the trouble.
Walk to PS is very good against Falco's Lasers, especially with Marth who doesn't brake completely when he walks and PS. He can walk, PS (which reduces shield damage to barely any when it comes to projectiles like Lasers) and walk again whiles his walk accelerates to max speed really fast, faster than when he walks from speed 0 due to only braking slightly (in this case he doesn't really get pushed back, but his movement braking slightly) allowing him to keep his shield large and still get close to the opponent fast. Here PS is useful not because it allows us to punish Falco's landing laser (which is positive on block when fresh and perfectly autocanceled), but because shield push is negated and shield damage negated too. It allows you to shield almost an huge amount of lasers, take no damage from them and get closer to Falco much faster with a still almost full shield while putting pressure on the Falco, who's trying hard to keep you out.

There are 2 ways of practicing PS without having a partner to practice it with:
1 Get a turbo controller, set turbo on and with the toe hold for example B (to PS stuff like Mario Bros Fireballs, Falco/Wolf lasers, jabs).
2 If you don't have a turbo controller, go to Onett and try to PS the cars.

 

[infiniteV115]

I think PS might also reduce shield damage to a static value. I say this because I noticed that when doing Boss Battles on Intense, certain moves that would instantly break my shield on non-PS would leave me with still a fairly large shield (possibly full, idk) on PS.
Obviously these were moves with monstrous damage and knockback(I believe damage plays a factor in calculating shield damage)...because it's Boss Battles on Intense.

SFP, do you know if PSing the first hit of a multi-hit move, and shielding the rest simply because you held shield the whole time, still provides you with 0 frames of shield drop lag? Like, if I PS nado and I hold shield for the whole thing and the nado never leaves my shield, will I still have 0 shield drop at the end of it?

Also lemme guess; this thread was inspired after watching Salem at Winter Brawl 7 and hearing BC say that you can only shieldgrab ZSS' dsmash if you PS it?

 

[Shaya]

It's fine Power Shielding for Lyfe Society Members (basically Marth/Fox mains + SoCal + Ally), SFP doesn't know about/understand power shield chaining and the power of buffering.
It also has a nice sexy psychological affect.

To underrate gaining 7 frames on any action (poor yoshi) in your arsenal that isn't a generic OoS option and largely negating shield knockback as overrated is PAINFUL.

I do agree that people's perceptions of it's technical properties are skewed. But for reasons not so obvious, it does achieve nearly all the affects SFP pretends it doesn't. Power shielding ZSS' dsmash doesn't mean I get a guaranteed grab, but it does guarantee that anything other than you spot dodging (or dashing away) is going to get grabbed. Shields extend beyond your hurtbox, and power shielding things tends to force hitboxes to "snip you" earlier than intended and whilst not technically achieving an advantage over things like Peach's fair, there's a higher likelihood of it becoming less safe by that virtue and can quite feasibly negate peach's "Free jab" (you'd be amazed at what 1 frame can give you when you are confident with buffering; by 2 frames most character's initial dashes would be out of range of things like Peach jab). Furthermore, Peach's jab is good at shield poking, and Peach's tend to risk jabbing even if you shield with their slightly favourable odds

Reducing your shield damage is a lot more important than given credit for too. A lot of characters and player's frame traps are focussed on weakening the enemy shield and taking advantage of that. If I'm doing double dair nado with MK and one or more of those attacks get a PS off then suddenly that "trollolol shield poke" becomes TROLOLOLOL 20-30 frames of a PUNISHMENT OF YOUR CHOICE.

Moral of the story is

Power shield is still EXTREMEly underrated and mid/low level players would prefer to throw out the lazy "oh technically it isn't doing much" rather than actually becoming good at the game.

 

[Browny]

Who actually thought that PS'ing changes anything on the opponents side? Outside of a few commentators who get grilled for not knowing every aspect of every character.

I've been out of it for a while I know, but I've never heard anyone suggest that PS'ing does anything other than the three things you listed...

 

[infiniteV115]

I do agree that people's perceptions of it's technical properties are skewed. But for reasons not so obvious, it does achieve nearly all the affects SFP pretends it doesn't. Power shielding ZSS' dsmash doesn't mean I get a guaranteed grab, but it does guarantee that anything other than you spot dodging (or dashing away) is going to get grabbed.

So does regular shielding, if you're close enough (you know, cause either way it's -4 on block when uncharged)
You also forgot about ZSS' jab1 beating out the buffered grab option (and downB but lol). 4 frame disadvantage, frame 1 jab = hit them at least 1 frame before their jab comes out, because the fastest grabs in this game are frame 6.
idk why you mentioned PS-->grab of all things against ZSS' dsmash. If anything you should be mentioning PS --> jab/tilt that comes out in 4 frames or less (Falco jab, Snake ftilt, etc).
Regardless, trying to say something like (I know you didn't say this but I just want to put it out here and you provided such a nice segue for me to do so) PSing is a reliable way to net guaranteed punishes on ZSS' uncharged dsmash on shield is silly because in order to take advantage of a frame 4 window, you'd have to buffer the Snake ftilt out of the PS' shieldstun, and to do this you'd have to tap shield and let go right away (so that you PS the dsmash and don't hold shield any longer) and then input an ftilt without a frame of error, literally.
This is silly because if you're just going to be 'tapping' your shield like this, you put yourself at the risk of mistiming your shield because you were trying to PS and uncharged dsmash and eating a charged dsmash instead (or, if you shield the charged dsmash instead, hurray, 0 on shield)
With something like Falco's jab it's easier but still risky for the same reasons and being off by more than 2 frames is not unrealistic at all.

So TL;DR attempting to PS --> attack-that-is-4-frames-or-less punish on ZSS' uncharged dsmash on shield is a huge risk to take unless you're playing a ZSS who never mixes up the timing (ie charging) on her dsmash (which, assuming they're good, they SHOULD be doing because it becomes 0 on block when charged). You're better off just trying to regular shield it and then taking note of the ZSS' after-dsmash-on-shield habits (do they always jab1? Do they always run away? etc) and punishing those on reaction.

sry4rant.
I agree with the rest of your post about reducing shield push and damage being underrated, and I don't think PSing is overrated like SFP says it is but I do appreciate him trying to correct the misinformation that has been spread. I like your Peach fair-->jab example for demonstrating how useful the lack of shielddrop lag is, but it simply doesn't apply to ZSS' dsmash because that can be charged to mixup the timing and has a huge risk factor (for the non-ZSS) associated with it, whereas Peach's fair always comes out on frame whatever (15?16? idk the frame data on that move) of its animation.

 

[Shiny Mewtwo aka Jigglysir]

This whole thread can be summed up in one sentence:

Power Shielding is very good and not fully understood by most people.

 

[Shaya]

Grab was a bad choice. And I had to jump into a shower so I immediately was like "someones going to say jab/dtilt and going to **** me over" (grabs can outrange her jab1 though). In terms of grab - the shield knockback of dsmash is pretty good though. Regularly shielding it unless you're RIGHT ONTOP OF THEM is likely pushing you outside your grab range and will result in a big fat whiff. Which is a lot easier to ****.

So to negate my fail, my reword is something like "if you PS Zss's dsmash, her only means of not being worried about an immediate grab or a shield grab is dashing away or spot dodging"; whilst without that PS she gets a significant opportunity to REACT to their opponent's next action. If you don't PS ZSS's dsmash, she is almost always free to roll away.

 

[SaveMeJebus]

If you PS while using the c stick you could use any smash OOS. I think it's buffered

 

[TreK]

PSing is still better than shielding because jabs.

I'm not surprised at this info, as PS has to be a part of your strategy when you play Luigi, so you get to experiment quite a bit. But I have to admit that I assumed the wrong thing about it.

 

[Supermodel From Paris]

I do think perfect shielding is good.

Generally I think high-level and top-level players overrate it (because they assume it does **** it doesn't do) and low-level players underrate it (because they're bad).

Perfect shielding is strong and everyone should be able to do it with consistency. It is not a catch-all to shield-safe zoning moves.

 

[Grim Tuesday]

Who actually thought that PS'ing changes anything on the opponents side? Outside of a few commentators who get grilled for not knowing every aspect of every character.

My beef with those sorts of commentators isn't lack of knowledge, it's their confidence combined with lack of knowledge. If they aren't sure of something, they should point that out.

http://smashboards.com/entries/smash-commentating-quot-donts-quot.4217/