R.O.B. Matchup Analysis #10 - Palutena

[GwJ]

Request by: Zephyrnereus

Go at it

 

[Wintropy]

Default Palutena can reflect stuff, Autoreticle is a good spacing / pressure tool against a big target like R.O.B., f-air is a great spacing tool, stay out of her face (jab, grab, smashes, aerials), be wary of gimping (R.O.B.'s recovery is super easy to gimp if read properly), custom Palutena has access to rushdown tools like Super Speed and Lightweight, making it easier to close the gap and hit home.

Her smashes are slow and readable, Reflect is very easy to predict, she is a spacing goddess and will kill with Hallehoo-Ha (d-throw -> u-air) at high percents. Approach with caution, apply pressure and spacing appropriately.

 

[al-LAYN]

She can really capitalize with Light Weight + Super Speed to get early kills with her d-throw into up-air. Theoretically speaking, her HOO HAH should be impossible to avoid if Light Weight is active. Otherwise, if it isn't or if Customs aren't on, you can easily DI out of it, however, d-throw > up-smash is another follow up popular with Palutena mains given how much vertical space it covers.

Vanilla Palutena is easier to deal with (obviously). Her Reflect (like mentioned above) is quite predictable, and her Counter is garbage. Gimping and Uair are her main approaches to get the kill, not just with ROB, but in general. She has other means to get the kill, but those are mostly situational/dependent on some good reads.

 

[asmodeus]

Palutena's reflects are predictable. If you can't deal with it, shLaser down should be safe for ROB.

She may try to harass ROB with spaced Fair to prevent him from Nair. It can be quite surprising. Just improve spacing and it should be okay.
I don't like T&C in this match up.

Without custom, I would say 55-45 ROB's favor.

 

[Jams.]

Always DI away from Palutena's dthrow. It prevents every follow-up except fair at medium and high percents. Don't ever DI in at high percent or you'll risk getting usmashed and being very sad.

Her OoS options are fairly slow, so nairing her shield is safe if you space around her grab. Nair also outspaces every aerial she has except fair, which loses out in disjoint. I find that nair is a really good tool in this matchup (as it normally is).

Her recovery is pretty safe. I usually find it better to use time to set-up a ledge trap with gyro instead of committing to an edgeguard. You could try using dair to hit her during ledge grab vulnerability; it rarely works, but there's really no risk in trying. When recovering, I've found going low and going to the ledge is a fairly good idea. Her dair is pretty mediocre and uair can usually eat through it. She also can't commit too hard for low edgeguards, because she falls fast and her aerials are fairly laggy, so you can stall her out with upb and force her to drop the edgeguard.

I also think one of Palutena's greatest weaknesses is her inability to land kills safely. Just DI away from dthrow, respect RAR bair (the range isn't that great, and it can be fairly predictable), airdodge intelligently against uair and usmash (she can't easily bait airdodges because ROB is more mobile in the air) and play safe to not fall into her smashes. You can live to really high percent, and then kill her with rage uthrow very early.

 

[Syde7]

Played a pretty solid Palutena this weekend and lost. He got 2nd, I got 4th. They were close games, last stock/last hit pretty much, and the MU felt even-ish. Mostly MU unfamiliarity on my end, but I did feel there were areas where ROB as a character struggles. Some notes I took away... discuss at your leisure, take what you will from them:

• Single Jab -> Grab feels like a really good option from Palutena, and feels more "guaranteed" (From Palutena's perspective) on ROB than it would vs other characters due to ROBs size/weight/fallspeed, and also more "guaranteed" (From ROB's perspective) than other characters who use a single jab to set up for a grab . I wound up getting suckered into this most often, and couldn't really find a way out of it. I know that if your jab comes out faster than her's, it will disrupt it. But, as I said, I found myself getting flustered by that. So, vs. her I don't really think its about "frame advantage on shield vs. grab" as opposed to "frame advantage on shield vs. jab" when using things like N-air, F-air, or Tilts.
  
• Her dash attack out prioritizes like... every move in the game. B-air out prioritizes quite a bit as well.
  
• ROB (as always) gets handled by Palutena from below due to N-air and U-air. Not quite as bad as he does in some MU's... but rather in a very "par for the ROB course" amount.
  
• In regards to something @ Jams. mentioned... she can go low enough to land the gimp if she knows what she's doing. If ROB tries to recover low she can do a simple run-off N-air just before/just as we start the up+B and cause us all sorts of trouble (possibly gimping, draining fuel, and at higher percents looking for straight out KO's or possible stage spikes dependent on our DI).
• Also, keep in mind that she can warp cancel, so it makes her a bit more "slippery" on plat'd stages than she would otherwise normally be. Add that to her warping shenanigans, and she can run circles around ROB if she's smartly played.

I'd give it close to 50:50... and would be happy to call it 55:45 in either character's favor.

 

[faderpotater]

As someone who enjoys playing both rob and palate a I feel the match us is possibly slightly in palutena's favor just because his large size makes landing her kill moves and general footages a bit easier. If running reflect then a smart palutena should be able to shut down lasers and the occasional top if it is shot far. I think the best options rob has is trying to out space palutena in footsies, if you don't get hit by her aerials you should be able to punish with your own.

 

[FalKoopa]

Her slow and lingering reflector can be a pain at times. Auto-reticle is a good harassing tool and there's her absurd Up Smash, which can catch you off guard.

However she's large herself, has slow tilts, and isn't really good at edgeguarding (I think.) I tend to struggle with it because I'm unfamiliar..., but it's probably even-ish.

 

[faderpotater]

I'm still learning but I have trouble edgeguarding low recoveries, if customs are on palutena has super scary high recovery edgeguard, I have heard for low edgeguarding her best bets are run off Nair and bair. So look out for that.

 

[JosePollo]

Palutena's reflects are predictable. If you can't deal with it, shLaser down should be safe for ROB.

Keep in mind that Palutena's reflect stays out longer than her animation does, so she's able to act while the wall is out, meaning she can throw out another reflect before the first one disappears to maintain a constant wall of reflection.

Always DI away from Palutena's dthrow. It prevents every follow-up except fair at medium and high percents. Don't ever DI in at high percent or you'll risk getting usmashed and being very sad.

Her OoS options are fairly slow, so nairing her shield is safe if you space around her grab. Nair also outspaces every aerial she has except fair, which loses out in disjoint. I find that nair is a really good tool in this matchup (as it normally is).

Her recovery is pretty safe. I usually find it better to use time to set-up a ledge trap with gyro instead of committing to an edgeguard. You could try using dair to hit her during ledge grab vulnerability; it rarely works, but there's really no risk in trying. When recovering, I've found going low and going to the ledge is a fairly good idea. Her dair is pretty mediocre and uair can usually eat through it. She also can't commit too hard for low edgeguards, because she falls fast and her aerials are fairly laggy, so you can stall her out with upb and force her to drop the edgeguard.

I also think one of Palutena's greatest weaknesses is her inability to land kills safely. Just DI away from dthrow, respect RAR bair (the range isn't that great, and it can be fairly predictable), airdodge intelligently against uair and usmash (she can't easily bait airdodges because ROB is more mobile in the air) and play safe to not fall into her smashes. You can live to really high percent, and then kill her with rage uthrow very early.

Lightweight allows Palutena to follow up her down throw with anything, even at high percentages. If you get grabbed at around 100% and Lightweight is on, you're as good as dead. But, yes, always DI away from her down throw; fair is never going to kill unless you're at like 500%.

Up air also beats out ROB's nair on disjoint, so ROB has to be careful about nairing above Palutena or risk getting caught in a kill move.

Yeah, don't try to edge guard Palutena. She has too many recovery mix-ups. Better to just outright kill her from the stage. She's light and has a lot of laggy moves so Up smash OoS can kill her around 95% with no DI (earlier if Lightweight is active) if the Palutena player isn't playing safe. Don't try to dair the ledge, because the start-up and landing lag on the move will just get you up aired. She can up air onto the stage off of a Super Speed, too, so it's best to just hang back and let Palutena get back on stage. Her dair is garbage, so she can easily be pressured from beneath, which plays into one of ROB's strengths, especially with the fast UpB, but Super Speed can easily get Palutena out of harm's way.

Going in for the kill is even harder for Palutena against ROB because projectiles nullify Super Speed and she can't reflect them, as Super Speed replaces her Reflect. Auto-reticle can force ROB to recover high, which can lead into getting up aired, so watch out for that. As for low edgeguards, Palutena can go REALLY low with Lightweight, as Lightweight doubles her jump height, speed, AND air mobility, while also halving her falling speed. She can get up to 3 nairs (her longest-lasting aerial) out while falling with Lightweight before she dies on the lower blast zone.