Offense versus defense has been a big point of contention early in smash 4's metagame with quite a few topics on these boards alleging that defense is significantly stronger than offense in this game. I really disagree and find offense to be quite strong, and I noticed that a lot of the complaints (especially about things like rolls) seemed to stem from a lack of familiarity with the engine more so than from a particular flaw in the engine itself. In order to help fix that problem, I've put together a guide to overcoming overly defensive play in smash 4, available in both video form and text form. This will eventually be a two part guide that also goes into putting together an effective offense, but for now, here's the guide about countering excessive defense:
Before we get into this guide, there are two basic fighting game concepts everyone has to understand. I will be talking a lot about frame data and frame timings in this guide so everyone needs to know what that means. A frame is just 1/60 of a second and is the smallest unit of time that exists in Super Smash Brothers; I simply use the word frame to refer to an amount of time and will use frames as the standard unit of measure throughout. The other big idea is human reaction time, and that's less widely understood. In order to punish anything in a fighting game, you first must see something happen on screen, mentally process what you've seen, and physically press a button to execute a counterattack. This takes time. If you are looking for one very specific thing and have one very specific response ready, you can do this in 12-13 frames which really is a hard limit (the human brain very simply cannot go faster than this, and if you're over 40, you'll actually go slower). If you have to consider what you're seeing between multiple possibilities and must carefully choose a response, that will add a few more frames of thinking time depending on your skill as a player (more skill means less extra time spent), but generally you should be able to react in the upper teens of frames to those kinds of situations. If you are surprised by something totally outside of your expectation but are an alert player otherwise, you probably are reacting in 25-30 frames... but you could of course be caught sleeping and react arbitrarily slowly which is the only possible way moves like Falcon Punch ever connect.
With that in mind, there are three fundamental types of defense a player could employ: grounded evasion (rolls and spotdodges), aerial evasion (jumping around airdodging), or simple blocking (relying on the shield). All three are very counterable by a sharp offensive player, but each requires a somewhat different response.
Grounded evasion, particularly rolls, is a topic I've seen a lot of complaining about, but in reality, rolling is very easy to punish. Executing a roll locks a typical character into a forward or backward movement for 30-35 frames (less time for someone like Little Mac) that has invincibility in the middle of the animation but not at the very beginning or for a fairly lengthy chunk of the end (usually 8-10 frames vulnerable at the end). This means that if you're specifically looking for a roll, you have around 20 frames to punish after you factor in your human reaction time.
If an opponent rolls toward you, generally down smash is the simplest way to get a decent punish. On most characters (everyone except Robin, Zero Suit Samus, and probably Mewtwo), down smash hits on both sides so you don't have to be sure of where the roll will end up in particular, and down smashes generally hit with very useful timing to punish rolls. For instance, Mario's down smash hits on frame 4 with the first hit and frame 14 with the second hit, giving you two chances to hit very different timing windows on a bad roll from the opponent. Some characters like Donkey Kong hit all at once with down smash, but these tend to hit at very useful middle values in speed and are generally every bit as practical as the double hit down smashes for roll punishing.
Of course, that's just the easy answer for a good punish. If you have a very good read on where your opponent will end up, you often can land an even bigger power move. Mario could forward smash again; it hits on frame 15 which is a bit slower than even the back hit of down smash and doesn't cover nearly the space, but it hits a lot harder so if you know you can hit with it you can realize a much better pay-off when your opponent foolishly rolls toward you, and you can hit the c-stick either forward or backward to cover rolls that cross you up and ones that don't. Of course, some slower characters will not be able to easily smash rolls due to just not starting up smashes in under 20 frames, but those characters usually have very powerful tilts or special moves that can be used for the same purpose. Likewise, you could also be time crunched due to being surprised by the roll and reacting slowly, but even if you take 20 frames to react, that still leaves you over 10 frames to connect with a punish which is more than enough time to get out most jabs, tilts, and grabs. You should be able to punish rolls toward you every time if the opponent is rolling toward you in neutral, and that makes rolling forward a very dubious option indeed.
Some opponents will instead roll away, and while that is definitely much harder to punish since the opponent will not be in position to be hit by most melee attacks, it's still not a good option. Rolling away even if unpunished generally worsens the stage position of the rolling character since it represents a move toward the edge and away from center stage. Stage position is a huge concept in competitive smash game theory that I cannot cover in full depth here, but the short version is that if you're at the ledge and your opponent is beside you, you have very few movement options (only right at your opponent or off-stage) while your opponent can move anywhere on the stage and further your opponent has far more to gain than you from landing a hit in that position since you'll be easily pushed off-stage or even launched fatally into the blastzone while your opponent must be launched across the entire stage before facing the same danger. Knowing that, don't fear rolling away from the start since your opponent is just worsening their position while not gaining any offensive threat against you at all.
Of course, you actually can punish roll away specifically, and that makes things even worse for the rolling character. You could just use a projectile to hit all the way over there, and projectile-centric characters like Link, Robin, R.O.B., or Villager will be more than happy to do this and get free pressure if not outright hits in response to the timid retreat. If you want to punish with something more aggressive, that's on the table too. If you're chasing an opponent who rolls away, just dash attack. The dash attack will let you slide forward with a hitbox in front of you in a generally quick manner, and on every character in the game, this is a very effective way to get some free damage on an opponent who decided rolling away was a good idea. Of course, if you have character specific stuff, it gets even better; moves like Falcon Kick/Raptor Boost, Flare Blitz/Dragon Rush, Bowser's Dash Slam/Dash Slash, or Palutena's Super Speed can easily allow those specific characters to punish roll away even harder.
Now that you're hopefully convinced rolling is really not a very strong option, let's talk about spotdodges. Spotdodges are at least faster than rolls; they tend to finish in under 30 frames. However, spotdodge doesn't have the movement of rolls, and that means that the only way it can evade attacks is by using the invincibility frames. Further remember that human reaction time works both ways. Attacks cannot be spotdodged on reaction if they are faster than 12-13 frames to start up; it's simply impossible. This means spotdodges can only be used to evade attacks as a prediction (read: a guess) or in reaction to especially slow moves, and as an attacker, both situations are easily avoided.
If you aren't happy with how easy it is to fake out a spotdodging opponent, specific counters exist as well. On most characters, just jabbing into a spotdodge tends to pay off; the spotdodge will avoid the early hits of the jab combo, but the invincibility probably ends before the later hits connect. Holding "A" on the characters who just spam their first jab by doing this makes it even easier; hold one button and for free get a full jab combo to hit. Of course, Ganondorf and Zelda have single strike jabs, and some characters like Bowser have jabs with slower timing that can easily miss the punish window on the spotdodge. However, any persistent move will work; Bowser can use down tilt or breathe fire, and Zelda could deploy her phantom. Jab-like moves such as Marth or Lucina's Dancing Blade or Meta Knight's forward tilt are also great options here. Even if you get caught smashing which is mostly a bad thing, you can charge the smash to wait out the spotdodge invincibility and hit the cooldown VERY hard. Stuffing spotdodges is very easy, and indeed, spotdodging is the weakest of the defensive options.
Some opponents will recognize the flaws in grounded evasion and instead turn to aerial evasion; this was a very strong strategy in Super Smash Brothers Brawl so it makes sense to try here. First of all, the countermeasures that worked in Brawl do work here. Airdodges take in the 30s of frames to complete much like rolls so you can follow opponents up into the air, wait for an airdodge, and hit the ending lag with an attack of your choice (almost all aerial attacks are fast enough so pick one based on situation). You can also just use a persistent move like Mario's down aerial that will cover the invincible time of the airdodge and then some. The early hits may whiff, but the airdodge won't stay invincible enough to dodge the later hits and you'll get some damage. Of course, this can be a bit tough to put into practice; defensive opponents will airdodge in reaction to your movement and will be moving themselves while airdodging around, but you can get some good hits if you learn to play this game well.
Super Smash Brothers for Wii U, however, has something special that wasn't in Brawl; airdodges now have landing lag. This opens vast new doors for punishing airdodges as now you can very easily challenge from the ground. Simply put some persistent hitbox on top of the evasive opponent right before they land; Bowser and Charizard breathing fire is certainly the simplest case. Just drop the move and consider the opponent's options. If the opponent doesn't airdodge, the move hits right before they land. If the opponent does airdodge, the airdodge avoids it for a moment, but then they land and suffer airdodge landing lag. This lag prevents your foe from blocking, and the persistent move hits then. It is absolutely impossible for the airdodging opponent to avoid damage in that situation. While breathing fire might be the simplest answer, many moves can accomplish the same purpose. Long range pokes like Donkey Kong's forward tilt or Zero Suit Samus's Plasma Whip work great, good projectiles like Duck Hunt's can or Palutena's Explosive Flame will create the trap, and smash attacks that project far away from the user like the forward smashes of Mega Man, Mii Gunner, Olimar, and Shulk can be devastating. This changes the basic risk-reward on jumping around airdodging; every time you take to the skies you have to land eventually, and every time you land in a non-aggressive manner your opponent might set this kind of trap.
That just leaves shielding, and while shielding is overall the strongest of the defensive options as it has the least commitment and many attacks are unsafe on block, it too has many of the same flaws as the other defensive options. Holding shield is a thoroughly non-viable option in this game; a held shield will continually shrink, and while shielding your attacking and movement option are greatly constrained as you cannot walk or run and can only instantly begin to grab, up smash, or up special for an attack. This means that relying on shielding is really about shielding in response to an enemy attack, and that's where the reaction time problem strikes again. It's just not possible to block on reaction any attack that is faster than 12-13 frames, and that covers most jabs, tilts, and aerials. This means that sitting there shielding can only really pay off if the opponent either relies on slow moves to attack or attacks in predictable patterns, both problems that can be easily avoided by the offensive player. Be cautious that the defensive players will often use your movement as a tell for when to shield; if you always attack the moment you move into range, that is very predictable and can result in some excessively successful blocking by your opposition.
Even more, shielding has the simplest counter-measure of all in this game: grabbing. Grabs (or special moves with grab properties like Yoshi's Egg Lay) bypass shields regardless; no matter how cleverly a blocking opponent is timing his shield, a grab will simply win. Be very familiar with the speed and range of all of your grabbing options, and use them alongside a diverse and unpredictable offense to make shielding not pay for any who would stand against you.
There's so much more you could study and learn about countering defense in this game, but this should be more than enough information to give you a good idea about what you need to do to make overly defensive players lose to you every time. You will need to study your character's particular options in depth to know your character specific best moves to use to punish all of these things; I rely upon Dantarion's early version of Master Core for my frame data needs:
http://opensa.dantarion.com/s4/mastercore2/
This can be tough to interpret right now, but if you know how to read it, the frame data for all significant non-special attacks is right there for the taking (and special move stuff is possible to find but requires great expertise). If you find this intimidating, there's a good chance your main's character board will be able to give you something more easily human readable on this topic.
I hope you guys enjoyed the guide, and I hope now you feel more confident in challenging defenses. Of course this guide was pretty reactive, talking entirely about punishing an opponent's defensive moves. Part two will talk about being pro-active, about putting together a coherent and competent offense that will make you a true threat as a player.
Before we get into this guide, there are two basic fighting game concepts everyone has to understand. I will be talking a lot about frame data and frame timings in this guide so everyone needs to know what that means. A frame is just 1/60 of a second and is the smallest unit of time that exists in Super Smash Brothers; I simply use the word frame to refer to an amount of time and will use frames as the standard unit of measure throughout. The other big idea is human reaction time, and that's less widely understood. In order to punish anything in a fighting game, you first must see something happen on screen, mentally process what you've seen, and physically press a button to execute a counterattack. This takes time. If you are looking for one very specific thing and have one very specific response ready, you can do this in 12-13 frames which really is a hard limit (the human brain very simply cannot go faster than this, and if you're over 40, you'll actually go slower). If you have to consider what you're seeing between multiple possibilities and must carefully choose a response, that will add a few more frames of thinking time depending on your skill as a player (more skill means less extra time spent), but generally you should be able to react in the upper teens of frames to those kinds of situations. If you are surprised by something totally outside of your expectation but are an alert player otherwise, you probably are reacting in 25-30 frames... but you could of course be caught sleeping and react arbitrarily slowly which is the only possible way moves like Falcon Punch ever connect.
With that in mind, there are three fundamental types of defense a player could employ: grounded evasion (rolls and spotdodges), aerial evasion (jumping around airdodging), or simple blocking (relying on the shield). All three are very counterable by a sharp offensive player, but each requires a somewhat different response.
Grounded evasion, particularly rolls, is a topic I've seen a lot of complaining about, but in reality, rolling is very easy to punish. Executing a roll locks a typical character into a forward or backward movement for 30-35 frames (less time for someone like Little Mac) that has invincibility in the middle of the animation but not at the very beginning or for a fairly lengthy chunk of the end (usually 8-10 frames vulnerable at the end). This means that if you're specifically looking for a roll, you have around 20 frames to punish after you factor in your human reaction time.
If an opponent rolls toward you, generally down smash is the simplest way to get a decent punish. On most characters (everyone except Robin, Zero Suit Samus, and probably Mewtwo), down smash hits on both sides so you don't have to be sure of where the roll will end up in particular, and down smashes generally hit with very useful timing to punish rolls. For instance, Mario's down smash hits on frame 4 with the first hit and frame 14 with the second hit, giving you two chances to hit very different timing windows on a bad roll from the opponent. Some characters like Donkey Kong hit all at once with down smash, but these tend to hit at very useful middle values in speed and are generally every bit as practical as the double hit down smashes for roll punishing.
Of course, that's just the easy answer for a good punish. If you have a very good read on where your opponent will end up, you often can land an even bigger power move. Mario could forward smash again; it hits on frame 15 which is a bit slower than even the back hit of down smash and doesn't cover nearly the space, but it hits a lot harder so if you know you can hit with it you can realize a much better pay-off when your opponent foolishly rolls toward you, and you can hit the c-stick either forward or backward to cover rolls that cross you up and ones that don't. Of course, some slower characters will not be able to easily smash rolls due to just not starting up smashes in under 20 frames, but those characters usually have very powerful tilts or special moves that can be used for the same purpose. Likewise, you could also be time crunched due to being surprised by the roll and reacting slowly, but even if you take 20 frames to react, that still leaves you over 10 frames to connect with a punish which is more than enough time to get out most jabs, tilts, and grabs. You should be able to punish rolls toward you every time if the opponent is rolling toward you in neutral, and that makes rolling forward a very dubious option indeed.
Some opponents will instead roll away, and while that is definitely much harder to punish since the opponent will not be in position to be hit by most melee attacks, it's still not a good option. Rolling away even if unpunished generally worsens the stage position of the rolling character since it represents a move toward the edge and away from center stage. Stage position is a huge concept in competitive smash game theory that I cannot cover in full depth here, but the short version is that if you're at the ledge and your opponent is beside you, you have very few movement options (only right at your opponent or off-stage) while your opponent can move anywhere on the stage and further your opponent has far more to gain than you from landing a hit in that position since you'll be easily pushed off-stage or even launched fatally into the blastzone while your opponent must be launched across the entire stage before facing the same danger. Knowing that, don't fear rolling away from the start since your opponent is just worsening their position while not gaining any offensive threat against you at all.
Of course, you actually can punish roll away specifically, and that makes things even worse for the rolling character. You could just use a projectile to hit all the way over there, and projectile-centric characters like Link, Robin, R.O.B., or Villager will be more than happy to do this and get free pressure if not outright hits in response to the timid retreat. If you want to punish with something more aggressive, that's on the table too. If you're chasing an opponent who rolls away, just dash attack. The dash attack will let you slide forward with a hitbox in front of you in a generally quick manner, and on every character in the game, this is a very effective way to get some free damage on an opponent who decided rolling away was a good idea. Of course, if you have character specific stuff, it gets even better; moves like Falcon Kick/Raptor Boost, Flare Blitz/Dragon Rush, Bowser's Dash Slam/Dash Slash, or Palutena's Super Speed can easily allow those specific characters to punish roll away even harder.
Now that you're hopefully convinced rolling is really not a very strong option, let's talk about spotdodges. Spotdodges are at least faster than rolls; they tend to finish in under 30 frames. However, spotdodge doesn't have the movement of rolls, and that means that the only way it can evade attacks is by using the invincibility frames. Further remember that human reaction time works both ways. Attacks cannot be spotdodged on reaction if they are faster than 12-13 frames to start up; it's simply impossible. This means spotdodges can only be used to evade attacks as a prediction (read: a guess) or in reaction to especially slow moves, and as an attacker, both situations are easily avoided.
If you aren't happy with how easy it is to fake out a spotdodging opponent, specific counters exist as well. On most characters, just jabbing into a spotdodge tends to pay off; the spotdodge will avoid the early hits of the jab combo, but the invincibility probably ends before the later hits connect. Holding "A" on the characters who just spam their first jab by doing this makes it even easier; hold one button and for free get a full jab combo to hit. Of course, Ganondorf and Zelda have single strike jabs, and some characters like Bowser have jabs with slower timing that can easily miss the punish window on the spotdodge. However, any persistent move will work; Bowser can use down tilt or breathe fire, and Zelda could deploy her phantom. Jab-like moves such as Marth or Lucina's Dancing Blade or Meta Knight's forward tilt are also great options here. Even if you get caught smashing which is mostly a bad thing, you can charge the smash to wait out the spotdodge invincibility and hit the cooldown VERY hard. Stuffing spotdodges is very easy, and indeed, spotdodging is the weakest of the defensive options.
Some opponents will recognize the flaws in grounded evasion and instead turn to aerial evasion; this was a very strong strategy in Super Smash Brothers Brawl so it makes sense to try here. First of all, the countermeasures that worked in Brawl do work here. Airdodges take in the 30s of frames to complete much like rolls so you can follow opponents up into the air, wait for an airdodge, and hit the ending lag with an attack of your choice (almost all aerial attacks are fast enough so pick one based on situation). You can also just use a persistent move like Mario's down aerial that will cover the invincible time of the airdodge and then some. The early hits may whiff, but the airdodge won't stay invincible enough to dodge the later hits and you'll get some damage. Of course, this can be a bit tough to put into practice; defensive opponents will airdodge in reaction to your movement and will be moving themselves while airdodging around, but you can get some good hits if you learn to play this game well.
Super Smash Brothers for Wii U, however, has something special that wasn't in Brawl; airdodges now have landing lag. This opens vast new doors for punishing airdodges as now you can very easily challenge from the ground. Simply put some persistent hitbox on top of the evasive opponent right before they land; Bowser and Charizard breathing fire is certainly the simplest case. Just drop the move and consider the opponent's options. If the opponent doesn't airdodge, the move hits right before they land. If the opponent does airdodge, the airdodge avoids it for a moment, but then they land and suffer airdodge landing lag. This lag prevents your foe from blocking, and the persistent move hits then. It is absolutely impossible for the airdodging opponent to avoid damage in that situation. While breathing fire might be the simplest answer, many moves can accomplish the same purpose. Long range pokes like Donkey Kong's forward tilt or Zero Suit Samus's Plasma Whip work great, good projectiles like Duck Hunt's can or Palutena's Explosive Flame will create the trap, and smash attacks that project far away from the user like the forward smashes of Mega Man, Mii Gunner, Olimar, and Shulk can be devastating. This changes the basic risk-reward on jumping around airdodging; every time you take to the skies you have to land eventually, and every time you land in a non-aggressive manner your opponent might set this kind of trap.
That just leaves shielding, and while shielding is overall the strongest of the defensive options as it has the least commitment and many attacks are unsafe on block, it too has many of the same flaws as the other defensive options. Holding shield is a thoroughly non-viable option in this game; a held shield will continually shrink, and while shielding your attacking and movement option are greatly constrained as you cannot walk or run and can only instantly begin to grab, up smash, or up special for an attack. This means that relying on shielding is really about shielding in response to an enemy attack, and that's where the reaction time problem strikes again. It's just not possible to block on reaction any attack that is faster than 12-13 frames, and that covers most jabs, tilts, and aerials. This means that sitting there shielding can only really pay off if the opponent either relies on slow moves to attack or attacks in predictable patterns, both problems that can be easily avoided by the offensive player. Be cautious that the defensive players will often use your movement as a tell for when to shield; if you always attack the moment you move into range, that is very predictable and can result in some excessively successful blocking by your opposition.
Even more, shielding has the simplest counter-measure of all in this game: grabbing. Grabs (or special moves with grab properties like Yoshi's Egg Lay) bypass shields regardless; no matter how cleverly a blocking opponent is timing his shield, a grab will simply win. Be very familiar with the speed and range of all of your grabbing options, and use them alongside a diverse and unpredictable offense to make shielding not pay for any who would stand against you.
There's so much more you could study and learn about countering defense in this game, but this should be more than enough information to give you a good idea about what you need to do to make overly defensive players lose to you every time. You will need to study your character's particular options in depth to know your character specific best moves to use to punish all of these things; I rely upon Dantarion's early version of Master Core for my frame data needs:
http://opensa.dantarion.com/s4/mastercore2/
This can be tough to interpret right now, but if you know how to read it, the frame data for all significant non-special attacks is right there for the taking (and special move stuff is possible to find but requires great expertise). If you find this intimidating, there's a good chance your main's character board will be able to give you something more easily human readable on this topic.
I hope you guys enjoyed the guide, and I hope now you feel more confident in challenging defenses. Of course this guide was pretty reactive, talking entirely about punishing an opponent's defensive moves. Part two will talk about being pro-active, about putting together a coherent and competent offense that will make you a true threat as a player.
