Okay, I was thinking about this for a while, and I decided to actually sit down and come up with a plan/solution for it. This is basically a trick to make it much harder for your opponent to L-cancel... and in some cases, just SHFFL aerials at all.
If you don't like long explanations, then skip to the bottom; the technique is concisely described in pretty font colors.
We've all pretty much known that the IC's, having two shields, can mean the opponent must adjust for two different sets of hit-stun. But I decided to delve into a little study on how their shields work, with light shielding, hard shielding, and direction, and how we can ruin our enemy's lives.
So first off, as a preliminary for people who don't know, I'll explain how hit stun works.
If you hit ANYTHING in this game, your character lags. You actually freeze in place. It's pretty easy to see if you use a powerful move against a group of Shy Guys on Yoshi's Story. The lag, however, only applies to the characters hitting and the characters being hit. What does this mean?
A couple things. One is that it makes moves last longer. So as an IC player, you need to be careful when you use Nana as bait, because if she gets hit, then the enemy's attack will take a bit longer to finish. If you want to punish you have to account for that time.
Second is that when an attack hits somebody, it freezes. This means all its hitboxes are stuck in one place until hitstun ends, at which point it starts going again. But an attack moves. It's hitboxes travel around a bit. This means it's possible to hit things that are close together at different times.
The third thing to note is that hit stun changes L-canceling and fast fall timing.
With all that knowledge, we, as IC's, can make people hate us.
But Wobbles, how can you do this with shields?
I'm glad you asked,s conveniently placed disembodied voice. By making one shield bigger than the other through light shielding, you make it so that the lighter shield gets hit first. This stalls the attack and adds hit stun. It then hits the smaller shield, which adds more stun. This can drastically change the timing of an L-cancel or fast fall. If they attack really deep in your shield, however, this won't work, because they'll still hit both shields simultaneously.
But how do we make the shields different sizes?
Well, it seems to work out conveniently for the IC player, because all you have to do is shield a little slower than normal. If you start off with a light press of the R or L button, then Nana and Popo will light shield. As you hold it down farther, however, Popo will use the heavy shield while Nana continues to light shield! This works until you fully press in the button, at which point Nana goes to a complete heavy shield.
If you combine this neat trick with shield direction -- just lightly press a direction on the joystick while you shield, and move your shield-- you can make the opponent hit the different shields at different times. This pretty neatly RUINS their muscle memory.
Also, on another note, because the aerial or tilt or smash will stall, you could theoretically roll behind the opponent while they have hitstun. This could be very tricky.
The only problem is that it takes a few frames longer than normal to set-up. But if you wavedash into shield with the intent of taking an aerial on your shield, then you have the advantage of planned aggression, and you can probably get away with it.
tl;dr?
If you press L or R lightly, then slowly press it harder, you will make Nana's shield bigger than Popo's. This makes attacks have more lag stun and makes it harder to L-cancel, and fast fall.
If you don't like long explanations, then skip to the bottom; the technique is concisely described in pretty font colors.
We've all pretty much known that the IC's, having two shields, can mean the opponent must adjust for two different sets of hit-stun. But I decided to delve into a little study on how their shields work, with light shielding, hard shielding, and direction, and how we can ruin our enemy's lives.
So first off, as a preliminary for people who don't know, I'll explain how hit stun works.
If you hit ANYTHING in this game, your character lags. You actually freeze in place. It's pretty easy to see if you use a powerful move against a group of Shy Guys on Yoshi's Story. The lag, however, only applies to the characters hitting and the characters being hit. What does this mean?
A couple things. One is that it makes moves last longer. So as an IC player, you need to be careful when you use Nana as bait, because if she gets hit, then the enemy's attack will take a bit longer to finish. If you want to punish you have to account for that time.
Second is that when an attack hits somebody, it freezes. This means all its hitboxes are stuck in one place until hitstun ends, at which point it starts going again. But an attack moves. It's hitboxes travel around a bit. This means it's possible to hit things that are close together at different times.
The third thing to note is that hit stun changes L-canceling and fast fall timing.
With all that knowledge, we, as IC's, can make people hate us.
But Wobbles, how can you do this with shields?
I'm glad you asked,s conveniently placed disembodied voice. By making one shield bigger than the other through light shielding, you make it so that the lighter shield gets hit first. This stalls the attack and adds hit stun. It then hits the smaller shield, which adds more stun. This can drastically change the timing of an L-cancel or fast fall. If they attack really deep in your shield, however, this won't work, because they'll still hit both shields simultaneously.
But how do we make the shields different sizes?
Well, it seems to work out conveniently for the IC player, because all you have to do is shield a little slower than normal. If you start off with a light press of the R or L button, then Nana and Popo will light shield. As you hold it down farther, however, Popo will use the heavy shield while Nana continues to light shield! This works until you fully press in the button, at which point Nana goes to a complete heavy shield.
If you combine this neat trick with shield direction -- just lightly press a direction on the joystick while you shield, and move your shield-- you can make the opponent hit the different shields at different times. This pretty neatly RUINS their muscle memory.
Also, on another note, because the aerial or tilt or smash will stall, you could theoretically roll behind the opponent while they have hitstun. This could be very tricky.
The only problem is that it takes a few frames longer than normal to set-up. But if you wavedash into shield with the intent of taking an aerial on your shield, then you have the advantage of planned aggression, and you can probably get away with it.
tl;dr?
If you press L or R lightly, then slowly press it harder, you will make Nana's shield bigger than Popo's. This makes attacks have more lag stun and makes it harder to L-cancel, and fast fall.
