Yoshi's imperfect shield

[muddykips]

this is kind of a spur-of-the-moment thing, so this probably isn't gonna be the most professional / concise thing in the world. also, if this has already been tested out (i'd imagine it has?) then sorry for bringing it up again, but i couldn't find it already discussed anywhere else.

ANYWAYS: i made this thread to prove how yoshi's perfect shield is basically poop

i did a test where i compared yoshi's shield with approximately an average smash 4 shield; i used megaman for this, since he strikes me as a pretty average character in terms of shape and size, his idle animation is static, and i'm too lazy to test out other characters. the test involved slowly inching up in front of little mac's jab1, and seeing:

1) how close yoshi / megaman can be to little mac while also not getting hit by his jab
2) how close yoshi / megaman can be to little mac WHILE IN SHIELD while also not getting hit by his jab

after doing so, i'd compare the difference in distance between 1) and 2) after letting little mac and yoshi / megaman fall into idle animation. this difference is how much extra room each character is given to perform a perfect shield.

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here's the full list of pictures i took while doing this. left side proves that jab1 [barely] doesn't hit, while right side shows how far each character is while in idle.
PS: megaman's shield has full hp, and while it may look like the jab landed, there was no actual collision, just a lot of glare from the shield manifesting.

Spoiler: evidence1.zip

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and here's the right side pictures photoshopped on each other to show how much of a difference their shield makes in terms of distance. it's not pinpoint precise, since i don't have a capture card + camera zooms very slightly depending on how close characters are, but it's pretty accurate.

first, megaman:

Spoiler: megman

to proportion the images right, i used megaman's idles as reference points, since megaman is a statue

in comparison to his idle, megaman can shield a good bit further away while being just out of reach of little mac's jab.

what this means is, that is how far megaman's shield extends in front of his body; in other words, that is how much space megaman is given to perfect shield an attack while standing still. so say for instance, villager is flying at him with nair; megaman could throw out perfect shield about 6 frames before villager would land the hit, because his shield extends past his hurtbox. he doesn't need to wait until villager is 3 frames away from hitting him.



now yoshi.

Spoiler: yoshee

yoshi and little mac both wiggle around a bit in their idles, so i used little mac's icon in the bottom left for reference.

i tried my best to get them in the exact same pose for both pictures, but yoshi and mac both ended up leaning forward a bit in the post-shield picture, so i left some leeway.

but even with that leeway, it turns out yoshi technically has to be closer to little mac in order to perfect shield his attack; yoshi's shield really is smaller than his actual body. there is no extra space given for yoshi to perfect shield, so in order to get a perfect shield, yoshi would have to activate shield within 3 frames of a move landing that would otherwise hit him; if he activates earlier, then it's a regular shield. and if he's too late, then he's going to get hit.


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the conclusion i reached from this is that yoshi's perfect shield is the only one as risky / difficult to execute as perfect shielding tends to be advertised. in order for us to land a perfect shield, we truly need to activate shield within 3 frames of an attack that would otherwise hit us, since our shield has no range. if we want to go for a perfect shield, then we need to risk getting hit.

whereas with literally every other character, their shield allows them to land a perfect shield as long as the opponent is attacking within their shield's range. against lingering or multihit moves in particular, this means that other characters can technically activate shield earlier than us and still get a perfect shield.

tldr; our shield kinda sucks.


EDIT: also, i tested to see if yoshi's perfect shield has a larger area than yoshi's regular shield. it doesn't.

 

[Cat8752]

Did I have anything to do with the creation of this thread <3

*</3

 

[100AngryTurtles]

Thanks for the info! Im glad you did the research to prove me wrong

 

[YoshiYoshi]

Cat8752 - You're not the first to notice, but one of the brave few to speak up. Maybe having someone else discuss the matter gives the topic legitimacy.

I'm glad someone has finally done the testing on this. Shield radius is Yoshi's greatest drawback at a high level. You'd assume that a character that has a bad perfect shield would have an insane offensive game to compensate. Yoshi's offensive game might be insane, but it's not quite enough to make up for the severe defensive short-comings and deliberately clumsy aspects of his design.

It should also be mentioned that the vertical distance of Yoshi's shield radius is also bad. His head above is jawline must retreat into the egg. The introverted shield is a unique aspect to Yoshi's design.

Maybe I don't know what I'm talking about and Yoshi can parry in this game like in other games but I haven't had any luck try that, not that I ever knew how to do it in the first place.

 

[Egg.]

Cat8752 Maybe I don't know what I'm talking about and Yoshi can parry in this game like in other games but I haven't had any luck try that, not that I ever knew how to do it in the first place.

Parrying is only a Melee thing (and 64 to a lesser extent), it's just taking advantage of invincibility frames on the startup of shield paired with the ability to jump-cancel this part of the shield animation.

 

[Delta-cod]

I approve of this science.

Crouching should help alleviate this problem, right? I remember in Brawl Snake was able to abuse his amazing crouch to get easy powershields against aerials. The process should work like this:

1. Yoshi's hurtbox is reduced while crouching (vertically, at least).
2. When shielding starts, we should recover our standard (crappy) shield radius for powershielding
3. The difference in these hurtbox sizes allows us to wait longer before needing to shield, giving us more leeway than our shield currently provides for a PS.

The takeaway being perhaps we should crouch more. Especially if you're looking to shark someone's landing, crouching puts you out of the way of their aerials and lets you PS > punish their attempts. Crouching also doesn't add complexity to the inputs we'd probably want to use in these cases: Ftilt, Usmash, dash grab, utilt, etc.

Similarly, crouching would be more useful if fielding someone's approach who likes to use the air.

 

[muddykips]

(i forgot to mention; i used a point in yoshi's idle animation where he's leaning further back than usual, so that yoshi could truly get as close as possible to mac's jab. so if you count the other animations where yoshi is leaning forwards, then his shield goes all the more into his body...)

anyways, while the crouching thing makes sense, especially since we have a crawl, that's assuming we're trying to get a perfect shield while standing still; i'm not sure how many instances a good player would feel obliged to throw themselves at us while we're sitting in place. (it's not like we play sonic or cloud)

instead, shielding out of a run seems to be what people usually do. the reason i measured shield range in terms of standing still is because... it was easiest to measure, lol.

in fact it's a lot more reliable for any character to powershield while running, yoshi included, since the momentum makes your shield slide along the ground, which gives it some extra "range". i don't know how much of a slide each character has, or even if there's a real difference in their slide distance; but even if yoshi were to slide a bit further than normal, i figure that's offset by the fact that other characters automatically angle their shield in front of themselves when they cancel run with shield (since you can keep holding the stick forwards), which gives them even more range. if someone has a capture card and wants to go figure out the maximum distance each shield reaches after exactly 3 frames of sliding, maybe that would be good too?

actually, come to think of it, angling the shield forward was something else i probably should've taken into account, since that means our shield has comparatively even worse range than i originally thought. also, doesn't angling your shield give it more durability or something?

all of that said though, using our crouch / crawl more definitely sounds like it would have use? i just don't give myself opportunities to do that since my playstyle is more based on always playing an active role, so i'm not really one to gauge how effective that would be if we incorporated it. but anything that can help improve our defensive gameplay DEFINITELY can't hurt.

EDIT: actually, we could also crouch out of walk; that way we're not sitting still. maybe we should walk more, too?

 

[Sinister Slush]

There's definitely different slide distances for characters depending on their weight/speed when shielding (You think D3 or jiggly is gonna slide the same distance as Yoshi or Sonic?)

Angling shield doesn't give more durability, it just gives that false image of it since it's blocking more moves when people are telling themselves "it should be shieldpoking by now" but that's if someone is just keeping their shield in the center with no angle at all.
A good way to measure distance would be omega Sonic stage since it has blocks.

I sadly don't have the money to shell out for a capture card, but even if I did I'd prolly buy the games I been wanting since Wii/DSi days instead.


Should also mention crouching helps people live longer. We found the Yoshi meta boys to fix his neutral, walking/crouching to powershield easier and live longer.

 

[Delta-cod]

anyways, while the crouching thing makes sense, especially since we have a crawl, that's assuming we're trying to get a perfect shield while standing still

Can you not initiate a crouch out of a run? I know dash animations keep us locked, but past the initial dash I was under the impression you could crouch whenever.

 

[Cat8752]

You can't cancel your crouch with a run, but I suppose we could initial dash -> crouch. Crouching sounds a little gimmicky overall, it makes us way less mobile, although I do agree that crouching and walking are underutilized tools. Still, when you're crouching it alerts the opponent you're up to some shenanigans.

 

[muddykips]

yeah, i'm pretty sure crouching out of run is only possible in melee. it's probably a good thing that it's not in this game, otherwise characters like diddy or ryu would have insane neutrals with run up > dtilt...

but even if we can't crouch directly out of run, maybe some alternative would still work okay?? does anyone happen to know what the quickest way to stop a dash is / how long it takes until you can perform an action i.e. crouch? i'd find out myself but i don't have access to my wiiu right now >_o

 

[Pixel_]

maybe some alternative would still work okay??

PP crouch, I guess, but I'm pretty sure you have to use Bidou to do that.

 

[Egg.]

Spot-dodge is decent out of run since you slide a bit, but I don't think there's any way to reliably cancel run into a crouch. The fastest way is to just hold down, and you'll crouch after the skidding animation.

Also, I have a capture card but I'm not really sure how to accurately set up a situation that tests Yoshi's shield location after the slide versus another character. Just eyeballing it in on Omega Windy Hill Zone at 1/4 speed, it seems like Yoshi slides about 4 squares after putting up his shield, with his shield reaching the end of the 4th square about. I tried doing the same with Megaman, and though his body only slides about 2 squares, his shield extends a bit past the 4th square after coming to a stop, so it seems other characters may have a slight advantage with running powershields.

 

[muddykips]

coming to a stop isn't what should determine range, though; perfect shield is only active the first 3 frames. being able to determine how far each shield reaches after exactly 3 frames is why someone with a capture card needs to be the one to do this :B

since it's coming out of a run, i'd imagine the relevant hurtboxes would become however far yoshi's hurtbox goes during run animation, and ditto for whoever is being tested against yoshi.

also, if weight / speed are the only factors that determine how far you slide, then pit seems like the best character to use for comparison, since his run speed is 25th and weight is 29th. as far as i can tell, he has the most average runspeed / weight ratio of the entire cast.

so, i guess; go into training mode and set speed to 1/4th WITH L pressed, so that you can get yourself on the exact frame where the front of yoshi / pit's running hurtbox aligns with one of Windy Hill's squares; start recording at that point, and before pressing L again, hold down shield as well. then it's just a matter of looking at the footage frame by frame and figuring out how far each character's shield reaches on frame 3 of shield being activated.

yoshi should still be in that weird not-actually-in-shield animation that seems to last about 5-6 frames, but as far as i can tell, the tip of yoshi's nose reaches about as far as the edge of yoshi's shield does. so in the before and after pictures, just compare the difference in location between the tips of yoshi's nose, and as for pit, the difference in location between his face and the front edge of his shield.

also, now that i think about it, i wonder if more than 3 frames of yoshi's not-actually-in-shield-yet animation are capable of perfect shielding, since the animation itself is more than 3? would anyone know a way to see if yoshi can perfect shield on frames 4 / 5 (/ 6) as well?

 

[Egg.]

OK, I can try to set this up, just give me a day or two because school and stuff. Should the regular camera just be used, or would the fixed camera angle be better?

Also, I think that Yoshi only perfect shields for the first 3 frames like any other character even when he's still in "getting into shield" animation, but I'm not 100% sure.

 

[muddykips]

it's up to you tbh, but i'd imagine if you're measuring by the squares on the ground, then it's probably better to have the camera zoomed onto the character. whatever ends up working out the best, though.

also yeah, it probably isn't more than 3 frames, but i like to think i'm wrong and it turns out our shield has some hidden saving grace mechanic or something :B

 

[Duffy]

yeah, i'm pretty sure crouching out of run is only possible in melee. it's probably a good thing that it's not in this game, otherwise characters like diddy or ryu would have insane neutrals with run up > dtilt...

but even if we can't crouch directly out of run, maybe some alternative would still work okay?? does anyone happen to know what the quickest way to stop a dash is / how long it takes until you can perform an action i.e. crouch? i'd find out myself but i don't have access to my wiiu right now >_o

Yoshi can approach with any standing option--including crouching--by using u-turn. This is an incredible movement option that I feel many Yoshi's don't use enough. https://youtu.be/Jfkip-BwL_w This video demonstrates how u-turn can be used, however, they don't mention Yoshi who IMO has the best u-turn in the game. Yoshi's u-turn covers a long distance, about the length of one foxtrot, and can be canceled with ANY standing option including jab, tilts, crouching, dashing etc.

 

[Egg.]

Sorry about the delay, I ended up having a lot more school work to do than I thought. Anyway, here's the results of testing Yoshi's running shield vs Pit's. First an overall picture, with starting positions of both characters on top and powershield positions (after 3 frames) on the bottom.

Looks pretty bad even on first glance... here's the distance for Yoshi's running powershield first. Black line is initial location, and blue line is after 3 frames of shielding.

And then here's Pit's running shield after 3 frames compared to his initial position:

In terms of number of squares, Yoshi's powershield is about 1 square behind where his initial hurtbox is, while Pit's powershield ends up being 4 squares in front of where he starts. So yeah, Yoshi kinda gets screwed over by his bad posture and big nose when it comes to running powershields.

Guess we just gotta

 

[muddykips]

nice, that looks really clean! the differently-colored lines was a good idea too.

also that's... pretty bad for yoshi. i know we lean forward pretty far while running, but i didn't know it was THAT bad. :x

judging by those results though, we technically should almost never be getting perfect shields; yet when i was messing around while originally making this thread, i was pretty consistently able to slide into mac's consecutive jab1 and manage to perfect shield it.

so if yoshi really has less shield range even after 3 frames of sliding, then he might have more than 3 frames available to him for perfect shields. i'm gonna try and test it out after classes (or if someone else wants to, go ahead; i'm just gonna use little mac's jab against different parts of yoshi's shielding animation and see what frames activate perfect shield).

EDIT: nope, i was wrong; yoshi only has 3 frames to activate shield, just like everyone else. and the reason why i was able to perfect shield little mac's consecutive jab1 with sliding shield is because his jab1 has like a 5 frame pause in-between jab1s where there's no hitbox, so what ended up happening was i would run into that space within that 5 frame pause and then activate shield; if it were an uninterrupted hitbox, i would have been literally unable to perfect shield it. so there goes that theory.

 

[Delta-cod]

So honest thoughts here: why don't we crawl backwards at people? Our hurtbox is non existent since our nose is no longer there, plus we get better PS use.

The limiting factor would be speed, I'd imagine. Is there a delay between crouching into a walk/run when compared to moving from a stand still? If not, maybe we should just start booty-shaking at people.

 

[Sinister Slush]

I'm pretty sure it's cause crawling is slow and if we wanna attack someone, best we can do is a reverse downb.
At that point, why don't we just bidou/PP towards them so while we're going towards an opponent we always turn our back away from them.

 

[Delta-cod]

I'm pretty sure it's cause crawling is slow and if we wanna attack someone, best we can do is a reverse downb.
At that point, why don't we just bidou/PP towards them so while we're going towards an opponent we always turn our back away from them.

Ftilt? Reverse Utilt? Turn around jab? Jump Nair? Egg Lay? Jump Uair? Usmash? Reverse Down B is pretty bad compared to all that.

 

[Sinister Slush]

In terms of if they just run up and shield against us, though jump nair/uair seems fine.

 

[Pixel_]

Ftilt? Reverse Utilt? Turn around jab? Jump Nair? Egg Lay? Jump Uair? Usmash? Reverse Down B is pretty bad compared to all that.

I tried this in an actual battle just because:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wxvo2YMRNqM

Dunno if I'm overdoing it (I'm not using tilt stick so it might be hard to do some of those), but Down-B is the best option since you can't react to it as much as aerials. In my match's case, the guy I'm against started grabbing, and I'm pretty sure you can't spotdodge out of a crawl without Bidou.

Still, since Yoshi's nose isn't increasing his hitbox anymore, this makes Down-B feel like it has a bigger hitbox. Either way, though, I think backwards crawling would help Down-B more than shielding, since the opponent can easily grab you while your mobility is decreased.

Of course, I might've overdone it in the 2 matches I tried it out in, since I used it as literally my only approach option.

 

[Delta-cod]

I tried this in an actual battle just because:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wxvo2YMRNqM

Dunno if I'm overdoing it (I'm not using tilt stick so it might be hard to do some of those), but Down-B is the best option since you can't react to it as much as aerials. In my match's case, the guy I'm against started grabbing, and I'm pretty sure you can't spotdodge out of a crawl without Bidou.

Still, since Yoshi's nose isn't increasing his hitbox anymore, this makes Down-B feel like it has a bigger hitbox. Either way, though, I think backwards crawling would help Down-B more than shielding, since the opponent can easily grab you while your mobility is decreased.

Of course, I might've overdone it in the 2 matches I tried it out in, since I used it as literally my only approach option.

That match was pretty funny, not gonna lie.

Some takeaways I got: It helped you powershield out his falling aerials when he was looking to land, which was neat.

The Down Bs seemed to be pretty effective.

Like wow, you seemed SO far away from him there but the Down B that happened immediately after this connected. Moving Yoshi's nose out of the way is a pretty big deal.

I didn't see any attempts for Ftilt? Did you try for it or did you just not get around to trying it out here? Similarly, I take it all the Egg Rolls were meant to be Egg Lay? It looked like it would work in those spots and input errors just got you.

A lot of the issues with grabbing could be mitigated by being more preemptive. You caught him a bunch of times with Down B when he was going in for it. I'd imagine a safer poke, like Ftilt, would achieve a similar effect.

Anyhow, it looks like crawling backwards might actually be useful, and maybe it should see some use mixed in with more walking/pivoting/whatever you crazy kids are doing these days.

Thanks so much for this Pixel, it's great to see the approach tested out in a real match. Was this on Wifi, by the way?

 

[muddykips]

...it does make a lot of our options more awkward, tho. if we crawled super fast along the ground, that'd be one thing, but dramatically reducing our ground speed in addition to making our regular options take 1-3 frames longer (since you gotta stand up / turn around) isn't much justification for halving our vertical hurtbox. we're not gnw / jiggly either, so theres not many grounded moves our crouch could evade in the first place...

also, isnt crawling backwards slower?

anyways crouching / crawling seems like more of a defensive / mixup tactic than neutral / offense; what about bidou stuff, though? i'm not really well versed in what bidou can make happen, but i'm sure there's some movement jank in there we could use.

EDIT: also yeah, walking. somehow i keep forgetting you can walk in smash.

 

[Pixel_]

That match was pretty funny, not gonna lie.

Some takeaways I got: It helped you powershield out his falling aerials when he was looking to land, which was neat.

The Down Bs seemed to be pretty effective.

View attachment 102971

Like wow, you seemed SO far away from him there but the Down B that happened immediately after this connected. Moving Yoshi's nose out of the way is a pretty big deal.

I didn't see any attempts for Ftilt? Did you try for it or did you just not get around to trying it out here? Similarly, I take it all the Egg Rolls were meant to be Egg Lay? It looked like it would work in those spots and input errors just got you.

A lot of the issues with grabbing could be mitigated by being more preemptive. You caught him a bunch of times with Down B when he was going in for it. I'd imagine a safer poke, like Ftilt, would achieve a similar effect.

Anyhow, it looks like crawling backwards might actually be useful, and maybe it should see some use mixed in with more walking/pivoting/whatever you crazy kids are doing these days.

Thanks so much for this Pixel, it's great to see the approach tested out in a real match. Was this on Wifi, by the way?

I didn't do Ftilt and stuff because I forgot I had the option. It was an offline match, so lag wasn't a factor or anything.

...it does make a lot of our options more awkward, tho. if we crawled super fast along the ground, that'd be one thing, but dramatically reducing our ground speed in addition to making our regular options take 1-3 frames longer (since you gotta stand up / turn around) isn't much justification for halving our vertical hurtbox. we're not gnw / jiggly either, so theres not many grounded moves our crouch could evade in the first place...

also, isnt crawling backwards slower?

anyways crouching / crawling seems like more of a defensive / mixup tactic than neutral / offense; what about bidou stuff, though? i'm not really well versed in what bidou can make happen, but i'm sure there's some movement jank in there we could use.

EDIT: also yeah, walking. somehow i keep forgetting you can walk in smash.

Bidou allows PP into crouch, spotdodge out of crouch, and dash attack out of crouch. I'll have to test if you can dash attack backwards, but I doubt it.
EDIT: Nope, can't dash attack backwards while shielding. We'll have to settle for the other options.

 

[Pixel_]

I didn't see any attempts for Ftilt? Did you try for it or did you just not get around to trying it out here?

Oh right, forgot to talk about this; I tried it out a little while back. Whenever I tried to crawl backwards and Ftilt the other way (the way Yoshi's tail is facing), it ended up in a jab. This is actually kinda interesting and I tried to use it for the Jab1 > Jab1 > Jab1 combo, but it's too inconsistent to work (sometimes if you get the angle a bit off, it ends up in an Ftilt, though for some reason it doesn't work without doing the jab first).

Basically, it's hard to Ftilt while crawling backwards without standing up again. If you get the timing just right, though, Ftilt after standing up seems like a pretty good option out of a backwards crawl. Try it out yourself and you'll see what I mean about the jab.

 

[Delta-cod]

Oh right, forgot to talk about this; I tried it out a little while back. Whenever I tried to crawl backwards and Ftilt the other way (the way Yoshi's tail is facing), it ended up in a jab. This is actually kinda interesting and I tried to use it for the Jab1 > Jab1 > Jab1 combo, but it's too inconsistent to work (sometimes if you get the angle a bit off, it ends up in an Ftilt, though for some reason it doesn't work without doing the jab first).

Basically, it's hard to Ftilt while crawling backwards without standing up again. If you get the timing just right, though, Ftilt after standing up seems like a pretty good option out of a backwards crawl. Try it out yourself and you'll see what I mean about the jab.

I actually went to my old dorm to mess around with crawling backwards for a bit. Competition level isn't the greatest, but I had some interesting observations.

I started off with C-stick set to tilts, hoping I could cheat my way to reverse Ftilts. This doesn't work without standing up, you just get the jabs, as you said. So I stopped using tilt stick.

I found reverse Down B REALLY effective. I'm sure when people catch on it's less effective, but people tend to be really surprised by the range it has. Plus, my opponents were playing kind of scared because they thought something was fishy with what I was doing, so they might not have put forward the best offense to break the crawl. Still, I can't think of many options that beat out Down B with the range that it has besides shield, which is a nice thing to have. It lets you mix in with a Dash Grab here and there.

I tried some Ftilting but found I had trouble doing the input. I'm out of practice, so there's that. But honestly I think Down B might just be better unless you're whiffing completely.

I found crawling/crouching while my opponents were in the air/falling at me to be quite good. The easy powershields made intercepting landing aerials really easily, and they even just put me out of the way of plenty of spacing moves. Specifically, I had a good time against Marth/Jiggs in this regard. I imagine that punishes in these situations could be really good. But I'm kinda bad and not used to powershielding, so I didn't get too much off of it.

The tradeoff with crouching against falling opponents (when in advantage) is that I focused really hard on looking for landing aerials and not going up to intercept them. I definitely missed some punishes where they just empty landed due to the way I was focusing, but I think it could be mixed in elegantly with normal juggle strategies.

Also, the inputs for this crawling are KILLER on your thumb if you're not using a padded analog stick. My thumb hurt so bad after a while. Constantly holding down+right/left was no joke.

Overall though, I think there's some potential here for experimentation. It seems to have good use against primarily aerial opponents and opponents that don't have great forward reaching moves, so we can intercept with down B. But that's just some theory.

 

[muddykips]

hey, i've been playing corrin more lately, and i'm starting to use PP fsmash a lot. it helps him offensively, since by PPing he can move his charging fsmash hitbox around to catch opponents. it got me thinking about applications with yoshi...

our fsmash is also special in a way; not that we have a hitbox while charging, but we pull our hurtbox extremely far back, which can help us evade a lot of attacks. PP not only adds mobility to this, but also utility; we can move away from / towards an opponent, and throw out fsmash in either direction (as opposed to fsmash out of run, where you can only fsmash backwards). it also takes only 2 frames extra setup, as opposed to something like u-turn.

anyways, i'm posting this here as a possible alternative to shielding; since our shield is rarely able to perfect shield, and just raw shielding means we're stuck there for a bit, why not instead move our hurtboxes and evade the attack outright, similar to movement options we already discussed... but this time with a charging fsmash, so that we can counter back immediately?

 

[Sinister Slush]

Can't we do pivot Fsmashes without needing to PP. Like ftilt at least, not saying PP won't give more distance but yeah.

 

[Pixel_]

Can't we do pivot Fsmashes without needing to PP. Like ftilt at least, not saying PP won't give more distance but yeah.

Pivot Fsmash doesn't give the lean back without PP, though, does it? I mean, it's not as helpful if you're behind the opponent.

 

[Cat8752]

hey, i've been playing corrin more lately, and i'm starting to use PP fsmash a lot. it helps him offensively, since by PPing he can move his charging fsmash hitbox around to catch opponents. it got me thinking about applications with yoshi...

our fsmash is also special in a way; not that we have a hitbox while charging, but we pull our hurtbox extremely far back, which can help us evade a lot of attacks. PP not only adds mobility to this, but also utility; we can move away from / towards an opponent, and throw out fsmash in either direction (as opposed to fsmash out of run, where you can only fsmash backwards). it also takes only 2 frames extra setup, as opposed to something like u-turn.

anyways, i'm posting this here as a possible alternative to shielding; since our shield is rarely able to perfect shield, and just raw shielding means we're stuck there for a bit, why not instead move our hurtboxes and evade the attack outright, similar to movement options we already discussed... but this time with a charging fsmash, so that we can counter back immediately?

Charging smashes vs MK before he DAs us could be a thing. Either he gets hit by the smash or we get knocked back too far for him to follow up. Few players would actually have the discipline to stop their run and wait to punish the smash.

 

[DJlive]

Just realized it's more of a double edged sword. It makes longer range attacks easier to perfect shield but not shorter range.

 

[Cat8752]

How would long range attacks be easier to perfect shield?

 

[Pixel_]

Just realized it's more of a double edged sword. It makes longer range attacks easier to perfect shield but not shorter range.

Fsmash, backwards crawling, or Yoshi's shield?

 

[muddykips]

...there's absolutely no advantage to yoshi's shield having no range. i'm not sure why long range attacks would be easier to perfect shield regardless?

the only thing we can perfect shield as well as other characters are moves that manifest in a spot instantly e.g. farore's wind or din's fire. otherwise it has to be something really fast, like fox lasers or spindash(?), for our perfect shield to even be on par with the rest of the cast.

 

[DJlive]

Fsmash, backwards crawling, or Yoshi's shield?

Shield

I'm thinking, it might be more forgiving if far range since you can do it more out of reaction.

 

[Verdigris]

Of course the lack of range hurts Yoshi's ability to PS. Indeed, it's a serious drawback.
But what about the reduction of the hurtbox while shielding ? I mean, attacks that will hit any regular shield won't necessarily hit Yoshi's, and therefore Yoshi could punish before any other character ; don't you think so ?

 

[Pixel_]

Of course the lack of range hurts Yoshi's ability to PS. Indeed, it's a serious drawback.
But what about the reduction of the hurtbox while shielding ? I mean, attacks that will hit any regular shield won't necessarily hit Yoshi's, and therefore Yoshi could punish before any other character ; don't you think so ?

Eh, I don't think that the range will affect much. It might mean that Yoshi will miss his OoS punish less than any other character since the blocked attack will have to be close by in order to be blocked, but if the other character has a faster punish in terms of frames, it'll probably end up working better anyway, if I understood your question correctly.

Actually, would we be able to dodge attacks rather than shield them due to the hitbox reduction? I have a feeling that it's too small of a difference, but what do you guys think?