When will this myth die.
I'm sorry, but i see people say this about G&W a lot, when it's honestly not completely true, the character actually has significantly more options that can be safe on block then people suggest as long as you're spacing properly.
Outside of Usmash (which is extremely safe on block, +4 on shield drop is no joke). Jab 1 is another grounded option that is fairly safe if spaced properly, only being -8 on OOS and -1 on shield drop, this means that it can be shieldgrabbed, yes, but that's only possible if you space it extremely poorly or the character in question has a huge grab range, if you space jab 1 properly, it should be pretty safe against the majority of the cast if spaced, and certain characters with slow oos options (for example say, lucas, even his fastest option isn't fast enough to get a guaranteed punish on G&W's jab oos afaik) don't have an offensive answer to it at all. Jab 1 has some pretty good reward too, as the rapid jab itself has pretty good damage output (although i wish jab 1 linked into the rapid jab a little more effectively) and it has viable mixups out of it such as grab, dtilt, and dash attack. On top of this, Jab 1's extremely fast FAF makes it pretty difficult to whiff punish as well. The Sweetspot of Fsmash can also be seen as somewhat safe if spaced to an extent due to the amount of shieldstun and shield pushback it causes as well (and even the sourspot has the same damage output as Mario's Usmash while G&W's Fsmash actually has less cooldown, meaning that even the sourspot of G&W's Fsmash is technically safer on shield than another smash attack that's often been deemed difficult to hard punish out of shield, wow!)
When it comes to aerials, *all* of his aerials except for Dair are capable of being somewhat safe on block if spaced/timed properly. the clean hitbox on Fair is +0 on shield drop and -7 on options used directly used oos, once again meaning it can be punished if spaced poorly but if spaced properly it should be safe on a decent chunk of the cast. the clean hitbox of Fair also has somewhat solid reward, doing a solid 11% a pop and actually having a few followups, including jab, grab, down tilt, dash attack, and even a second Fair depending on character and percent. On top of this, i'm going to need to test this out a bit more to remove any shadow of a doubt, but it seems like SH retreating Fair is somewhat safe on block *despite* the landing lag against a chunk of the cast (think slow characters and characters with poor traction, although some surprising results from faster characters are making me interested in testing a bit more). Weak Fair honestly isn't too terrible either, being -3 on shield drop and -10 on oos. As for nair, at the very least the first hit has the same safety on block as jab 1 when spaced and timed optimally (-1 shield drop, -8 oos), and all hits of Nair have some pretty solid reward on hit. the landing hitbox of Bair has identical shield safety to G&W's weak Fair, (-3 on shield drop, -10 oos) while also being capable of being spaced in a similar way. Just like Fair and Nair, the landing hitbox of Bair has pretty nice reward on hit as well, being capable of comboing into more Bair, Fair, Uair, Nair, or even Side B if you really want to try it at low percentages. Both hits of Uair are actually frame positive on shield drop, being +1 and +2 respectively, however, i'm skeptical on the ability to space it effectively though due to the hitbox placement, need to test that a bit more, for the record, both hits of Uair have some pretty good reward on hit as well, with the first hit of Uair having pretty much identical combo potential to the first hit of Nair on hit and the second hit also having combo potential at low percentages while also being a KO option at higher ones, however, i usually don't use it too much due to what i said before about being skeptical about the spacing as well as not wanting to stale Toot Toot too much.
On top of the actual frame data, there's also the issue of crossups to take into account. Due to the nature of some of his aerials, G&W is capable of crossing up shields rather easily while also remaining somewhat ambiguous about which side of the opponent he's going to land on (Nair and Bair are particularly good at this from my experience). So aside from his safety on block honestly not being that bad if you know how to go about it, the opponent will also have to guess which side G&W is actually going to land on when attempting to punish him oos in a lot of cases unless they have an option that can cover both sides with exceptional speed. Not just is this good for avoiding punishes, but it's also good for tacking on damage in a lot of cases, because if the opponent guesses wrong about whether you're going to cross them up or not, punishing their attempt to punish the move is certainly possible (as a non G&W example, think about Mr.R's usage of Bair).
So yeah, TL;DR while i don't think G&W's safety on shield is great, it's not as bad as many people make it out to be as long as you space properly instead of running into the opponent head on, and hopefully this post lets people know that that's the case x_x. Sorry if i came across as a little bit abrasive as well.
As for footstool combos, he does have one that's been known about for a while, and that's Dthrow--->Footstool---->weak Fair at low percentages on a certain amount of the cast. Something else to note is that pulling out the bucket cancels all vertical momentum from the footstool, although i'm not sure if any footstool combos can really come out of that considering how laggy it is (although it DOES give G&W enough of a frame advantage to effectively tech chase opponents if the opponent is close enough to the ground when they get footstooled! i'm not the one who discovered this, credit to mickey from the G&W discord for that, and i'm not sure if it's practical but it's a thing i guess).
)with the oil spill. Plus, if all goes wrong, you can always get that early percent down throw to Judge, which, if my math is correct, you can usually get 2/3 (?) off a stock (depending on weight/rage) which is about a 44-66% chance of hitting it in a 2 stock game, and a 66-100% (not literally 100) in a 3 stock game.
inbetween Robin and Bowser
