Advancing Megaman's meta with leafshield techonology

[p1ay6ack]

Can I just say how underused leaf shield is to most Megaman mains in this meta? (link to video at end)

I have played Nairo in his online tournaments, and I know Nairo is just having fun doing these tournaments, and everyone is too. and in this fun, I have used leaf shield technology and have taken a lead on Nairo getting him to high percents while I was still in the beginning digits. I ended up taking the first stock.

It was pretty cool how much leaf shield helped me take the lead and keep the lead, but as most megaman mains know, we suffer in the final moments to close out a stock, and Nairo ended up beating me.

Kudos to Nairo.

There was one Megaman called SonicMega at the Paragon event 9/5 and he used leaf shield to gain him major advantage in his matches. He beat a Shiek and a Yoshi player using this leaf shield technology. He was dominant in the shiek MU and was almost dominant against the Yoshi, considering Yoshi can outcamp us with eggs, but he managed the W and is in winners side of his bracket.

So what's the leaf shield technology?

I'm talking about the use of leaf shield to cover your opponent's landing on the stage. When you pop up your opponent with a grab, smash attacks, tilts, item throws, and they get thrown in the air, activate leaf shield, walk or run where they are about to land, shield or be at close range enough to chip them with a petal, this should lead your opponent to get hit and be in hitstun and this gives the perfect opportunity for grabs to throws to aeiral follow ups.

and guess what?

You can do it again. Rinse and repeat with leaf shield. And you can get creative and use tilts or smash attacks or condition your opp and get them offstage and leaf footstool them. I tried this on some people on For Glory. I got a JV3.

Ok, I'm hyping the leaf shield technology a bit too much. the tech is not without its flaws. But it can be a momentum changer in a match. And to the Megaman mains, this isn't new tech as it was already discovered, but it is very underutilized and its one of Megaman's best moves and this can definitely help grow Megaman's meta even further.

Video of this leaf shield technology: I specifically time stamped the past broadcast twitch link, so if you click on it, it will immediately take you to my match against Zucco, who is an amazing player and does body me consistently, but I gave him a run for his money in this match :b. http://www.twitch.tv/vitaminzk/v/12968837?t=41m41s

 

[xIvan321]

This goes without saying, but I'd like to see some video examples of what you mean in general with the post. With the leaf shield buff I could see a lot of new ways of using it seeing how its now completely reworked from hitlag and shielding properties. I haven't done much testing lately with it. Barely been using it at all, but maybe I should do what I did when I first played the game and just force it in every match and look at all the new potential I haven't seen.

I DO know against Yoshi you can toss a leaf shield and it will go through the eggs. I like that kind of defensive tactic sometimes, but as it turns out eggs are the easiest to just power shield, meaning camping with eggs isn't really all that effective. If it already isn't to begin with at long range, with mastery of perfect shielding it tells others you aren't playing games no more.

 

[Sneak Sneaks]

I mostly use leafshield when thrown away from stage since its hit box is use and its range is huge, it keeps my opponent from trying to gimp me (at least for a while) also when my opponent starts spamming projectiles and also when I desesperately need a grab

 

[Sorichuudo]

Agree with xlvan321, some videos would be nice.

But i have to say, i also feel i'm not using LS as much as i can, usually just use it to try and land safely.

 

[p1ay6ack]

Agree with xlvan321, some videos would be nice.

But i have to say, i also feel i'm not using LS as much as i can, usually just use it to try and land safely.

sure. no problem. I found a video and I'll edit the first post to have video included . one sec while i make the edits

edit: alright, the video link is up

 

[Sorichuudo]

sure. no problem. I found a video and I'll edit the first post to have video included . one sec while i make the edits

edit: alright, the video link is up

Ok, i have a good idea now. Not sure against Wario tho, if Zucco wasn't so frustrated he could use the bite when landing, but then again you could just roll back and grab him.

 

[CanadianMegaMan]

Pretty sure tech is short for technique in smash terminology, not technology, but other than that, good post.

 

[Rush 2112]

I've been using LS in this way for a while. I'll usually go for it when I'm losing, to try and even things out safely. I would suggest that Grab>at least 1 pummel>bThrow should be done every time. Maybe at low % try a Dthrow>Fair, but most of the time bThrow is going to do more damage. The amount of times you actually land a follow up from another throw isn't going to outweigh the amount of damage you will do by bThrow every time.

Works good against chars who like to rush you. Like Sheik or Shulk with speed boost. I can post some examples if I can find them.

A big part of this strategy is mixing it up. Eventually they will catch on so keeping your distance and throwing it should be done once and a while.

It's also important to know when to activate LS. Make sure you have time to not get punished while it's booting up. And always jump when you activate and think about what aerial movement will help. If they are far away you might want to move closer as you activate it to close the gap, or if they are a bit too close fall back so you don't get punished. Or position yourself based on where they are going to land. Maybe land yourself in range to do a roll, end up behind them, grab.

And don't forget that you can LS Lock just like Lemon Lock.

I used to think LS was lame but I'm glad I forced myself to use it and get good with it. Now the only useless move I think MM has is Dsmash heh I wonder if I'll ever start using it...

 

[Sneak Sneaks]

I've been using LS in this way for a while. I'll usually go for it when I'm losing, to try and even things out safely. I would suggest that Grab>at least 1 pummel>bThrow should be done every time. Maybe at low % try a Dthrow>Fair, but most of the time bThrow is going to do more damage. The amount of times you actually land a follow up from another throw isn't going to outweigh the amount of damage you will do by bThrow every time.

Works good against chars who like to rush you. Like Sheik or Shulk with speed boost. I can post some examples if I can find them.

A big part of this strategy is mixing it up. Eventually they will catch on so keeping your distance and throwing it should be done once and a while.

It's also important to know when to activate LS. Make sure you have time to not get punished while it's booting up. And always jump when you activate and think about what aerial movement will help. If they are far away you might want to move closer as you activate it to close the gap, or if they are a bit too close fall back so you don't get punished. Or position yourself based on where they are going to land. Maybe land yourself in range to do a roll, end up behind them, grab.

And don't forget that you can LS Lock just like Lemon Lock.

I used to think LS was lame but I'm glad I forced myself to use it and get good with it. Now the only useless move I think MM has is Dsmash heh I wonder if I'll ever start using it...

It works for rolls xD

 

[Rush 2112]

Do you mean if opponent keeps rolling? Yep

 

[Mr.Metal]

I personally don't think leaf shield is that good, in any case you can just give it the monado treatment and run from it until it runs out or simply punish it with a disjoint. The only people I've seen fall for leaf shield tricksies are people who are just not use to it, but I can assure you that once people figure it out it can become a free punish in many ways, if anything don't use it as much throw it here and there sure.

use it to edge guard or to cover ledge getup options since that's were its godlike, seriously just stand in shield with the leaf shield up near the ledge and you'll be covering normal getup, attack getup and jump getup, only thing they can do is roll and you can just grab them when they do.

 

[Sneak Sneaks]

Do you mean if opponent keeps rolling? Yep

Im really disappoint for dsmash.. the fact that it has more vertical range than horizontal is just stupid..

 

[xIvan321]

I'd consider the worst Mega Man could offer is between his roll and D-Smash. I really loathe the sour spot woes the move has, it either eliminates that, or shorten the end lag to a Metaknight F-Smash territory to make it more forgivable because as is, its not only unsafe on Shield, but on hit as well especially when you get the s-spot.

I'd make it a primary candidate to be buffed, and I'd also fix d-tilt so players can combo from it, make fair a lot like Lucina's auto cancelling from a short hop, decrease the end lag on metal blades, and the start up on crash bomber.

 

[p1ay6ack]

https://vine.co/v/etxptd33alL D1 put up Daiki, Japanese Megaman player, using leaf shield tech and getting a leaf lock into shoruyken

 

[Rush 2112]

https://youtu.be/bo-MF4qG8Yg?t=122

https://youtu.be/bfb2jWDTC-4?t=110 The second one is an example of unsafe spacing. I should have backed away or not did it at all.

 

[p1ay6ack]

https://youtu.be/bo-MF4qG8Yg?t=122

https://youtu.be/bfb2jWDTC-4?t=110 The second one is an example of unsafe spacing. I should have backed away or not did it at all.

on the first link, great use of the leaf shield from 91-128. you got your options covered and you notice how your opp desperatly tries to land? I think that's a great mind game that leaf shield enables us to have, because genreally whenver ppl are being juggled in the air they immediately want to land and counter attack and when they can't, their frustration shows and they are prone to making more mistakes. In turn, they'll get hit by a leaf petal no matter what if spaced well, and you'll gain a mental advantage over them.

on the second link, i see what you mean about the spacing. I think the more leaf shield is used, the more you'll know when to use leaf shield. I know from my observations of leaf shield's use that there's a hit lag frame window your opp expereinces in the air and depending how you read this and their next move should determine whether its safe to active leaf shield.

when your opp is in hit lag animation in the air, its good to calculate how close and how far your opp is from the floor of the stage. this is what i meant about reading your opp.

There's a higher chance to get them with leaf shield when they are closer to the stage wheras there's a lower chance to get them with leaf shield when they are farther away from the floor of the stage.take note how many frame windows they have to react as they are coming down in determining your move choice.

 

[Rush 2112]

I know this isn't a very good opponent. It just happened.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zooazAKqGSg

 

[p1ay6ack]

I know this isn't a very good opponent. It just happened.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zooazAKqGSg

this is pretty cool in the way that megaman can change playstyles. towards the end, the dk had to adapt to your non-leaf shield approaches and it was a bit late for dk to download you

 

[Dezmu]

A really good use of leaf shield I've found is for shutting down Pikas that use their Up+B to get in, once you toss the LS on they have to respect it. They can't just get in for free anymore and it helps to shut them down as long as it is out. Also if used right anytime Pika will try to start camping and tossing out neutral B's (Or jumping back/forward and tossing out Neutral B) the LS will just outright beat it.

On the edge LS becomes a god edging tool

 

[xIvan321]

true that, before the buff Mega Man would likely get grabbed from the leaf shield but now that happens never against Pikachu.

also Fox's side be gets spiked upon trade if you use it off stage.

 

[Erimir]

Random thought...

If they patched Leaf Shield so that you can use Rush while it's on... How helpful would that be? Would it be too powerful by enabling too much off-stage Leaf Shield shenanigans?

 

[Sorichuudo]

Random thought...

If they patched Leaf Shield so that you can use Rush while it's on... How helpful would that be? Would it be too powerful by enabling too much off-stage Leaf Shield shenanigans?

Not really, it would only mean that getting hit with it on while offstage would not be a death sentence. Having us being able to use normals with it up would also help out actually landing stuff like utilt/dsmash for kills, but considering we would have to get close it still wouldn't be nowhere near broken.

 

[Erimir]

Leaf Shield allowing normals might be too much... yes, you have to get close to use it to help land u-tilt/d-smash, but you also have the option to throw it at all times. It's already useful while preventing you from doing all normals, which is definitely not a minor downside, getting rid of that would be a bit much. Mega Man would be using Leaf Shield all the time if he has the space to, because there'd be little downside if your opponent can't punish the start up.

Allowing Rush seems like a pretty safe and helpful change though, making Mega less susceptible to gimps and SDs and improving his own gimp game.

If I was going to allow a normal attack, based on "flavor" (i.e. fitting with Mega's games), I would say to allow d-tilt, because you can slide with a shield up in every Mega Man game that has both sliding and a shield weapon. Leaf Shield technically wouldn't allow it, because you can't move horizontally at all with LS in MM2 (so if we suppose MM2 had sliding, it probably wouldn't work with LS)... but Skull Barrier and Plant Barrier both allow sliding with them up. That probably wouldn't be broken either, as d-tilt is not an especially threatening move. Even so, I could see FG Megas putting up Leaf Shield and sliding in becoming a thing as LS makes it less punishable.

Flavor is probably part of the reason Mega can't use Rush, since Rush is a separate weapon, you can't use a shield and then use Rush while maintaining the shield in any Mega Man game. But you can run with LS and throw SB and PB, so perfect fidelity is not required.

 

[Rush 2112]

Doesn't seem all that useful to discuss such a wacky hypothetical.

 

[Sorichuudo]

Leaf Shield allowing normals might be too much... yes, you have to get close to use it to help land u-tilt/d-smash, but you also have the option to throw it at all times. It's already useful while preventing you from doing all normals, which is definitely not a minor downside, getting rid of that would be a bit much. Mega Man would be using Leaf Shield all the time if he has the space to, because there'd be little downside if your opponent can't punish the start up.

Can't really agree since even if we could use normals with LS up, that wouldn't take the startup of the move, and using it without proper spacing would still result in you eating a heavy punish, plus most attacks just plow trough LS, allowing normals wouldn't change that.

Doesn't seem all that useful to discuss such a wacky hypothetical.

Indeed, but every single thread we have ends up having at least one hypothetical buff conversation lol.

That aside now, in a few recent matches online against Diddy, i'm think LS helps a lot. Maybe it was just me getting lucky, but the leaves stopped his side B at least twice, and also interrupted a few fsmash/upsmash that i was hit with.
It's good already that we can just use pellets to negate the bananas, but whenever i get some good spacing, having the MB in hand and a LS up seems to work better cause it stuffs the ocasional side B/roll attempt etc.

Have been using it a lot against Sonic as well, from what i've seen the only thing that goes trough the leaves is dtilt, not sure what else goes trough it.

 

[p1ay6ack]

I just found someone who pretty much abused leaf shield a lot in tournament mode. we did megaman dittos and the entire time, he put up leaf shield, he stayed at a distance, he threw it out, then he threw metal blade if i was close, and crash bomber if i was a bit far. If i approached him, he would use rush and I will chase him in the air, then he'll use his second jump, then land on rush again after escaping me in the air, and run away to the opposite side of the place. and rinse repeat.

things to note: he didn't bair, he didn't fair, he didn't up smash, he didn't down smash, he didnt fsmash.
only moves he used the entire match were leaf shield, metal blade, crash bomber, rush, grab out of shield, grab out of leaf shield, dash attack
occasialy he would use fsmash....out of nowhere tho.

I got an L cuz i got frustrated. It was a 1 stock tourny and it went to time. me 147% and him 90%.I stayed to see if he would win finals of the tourny. and he did win. his opp was diddy. the diddy lost to a leaf shield gimp and his up b wasn't enough to get him back on stage

so I'm thinking we could use this approach to megaman if we ever are in the lead, and we are just racking up percentage.

like if we have 2 stocks, and our opponent has 1 stock, and we use this strategy...cuz tbh, this strategy was solid and in my frustration, i made mistakes where he couldve capitlazed and punished hard with bairs upsmash.

 

[p1ay6ack]

I just tried this strategy after I got a 1 stock lead on a sonic 2 stock tourny online....
I got a sonic to give up e_e....
wat i did. I didn't approach, I did the strategy. just ran away and occosialy rack up dmg with leaf shield....i was at 2 stocks, 35%

i fought a lil mac, did the same strat....just gimped the poor fellow and ran away the entire game

Just did this to a shiek online, won the online tournament xD, dude this running away game with leafshield is as annoying as shiek needles. idk if im just not playing very good ppl, but it is defeintly frustrating for them. I got the shiek to 105% on his last stock, while i still had 2 stocks

 

[Rush 2112]

It's a viable strategy but I would never resort to that. It's kinda boring. I don't play just to win. I want to have fun, get better overall, and have intense matches. But that's just me. I'm also sick of people saying MM is a spammy camper. You're just perpetuating a negative stereotype haha

Sounds like you want to take LS from underused to overused xD

Imagine if LS didn't disappear until we threw it?

 

[Red Shirt KRT]

It is tough to get this strategy to work against faster opponents, the other thing (which some good players know and some don't). Is that many aerials and other attacks can hit us out of LS.

I'd they don't know it then they rarely try to attack is when it is up, if the do then they will punish us for using it.

I have had many matches where it has saved my bacon big time.

The biggest thing is making sure they can't hit you during startup.

 

[Sorichuudo]

I know it sounds boring, but in a tournament if i ever needed to stall time to win, i will do it.
That being said, i don't think this strategy is really that good. Online there is the microlag no matter how good your connection is, so sure, people would have a hard time dealing with it, but it can still happen. Bouncing around on rush all the time sounds dangerous, and there are a few characters we absolutely don't want to be above during a fight, and don't get me started on the fast characters.
I understand that the person doing this will be mixing it up, using his jump sometimes, air dodging some times etc, but still, one good guess from the opponnent and you are toast.

 

[p1ay6ack]

right. it is pretty lame to play like this. Sometimes you just got to do one of those lame things to get that W. I try to mix in some bairs, and upsmashes and diagnal metalblades every now and then to spice things up.

I got a realization. the thing that beats megaman are moves that beat out his pellets, leaf shield, fairs. I fought a really good lil mac and he pretty much f smashed my moves and when i tried to cut him with leaf shield on his way down to the stage, he just spammed smash attacks until they hit. I barely managed the win, but I had to be really read heavy and not committ too much and bait out his moves.

I'm trying to remember patterns in which opp moves beat ours, like opp moves that goes through pellets and hit us, that goes through leaf shield and hit us, the spacing you are when they beat our moves, the spacing they are when they fade away attacks us. the strategy is a bit hard to do on opps with reflectors, but you got to improvise and be safe. I'm learning now that I got to maintain a dash attack away from fox most of the time now. it sucks how safe that dash attack is

 

[Erimir]

I wouldn't worry about this harming Mega's reputation. There are a lot of people on FG who confuse "spam projectiles until you approach" (which is a good idea if your opponent is hard to approach, and, you know, isn't approaching) with "spam projectiles, run/roll away and spam some more" (much, much more common with FG Samus/Link than FG Mega Man, in my experience). A lot of them act like not running straight into their superior close-range game means you're bad...

And then there are the players who actually do spam...

So there will be that reputation regardless. Still, at least I've never seen someone with a prepared "Mega SPAM" tag or the like... they usually call me "SPAMUS" even tho I'm not playing as Samus. We can rest assured we'll always have a better reputation than her.

Doesn't seem all that useful to discuss such a wacky hypothetical.

Well, it didn't start out that wacky... Allowing Rush during LS is perhaps unlikely to be in a patch, but it's not a crazy outlandish idea, I don't think.

 

[p1ay6ack]

right? I feel this way too. I felt obligated to approach superior-close-range ppl because I don't want to be seen as a spammer,/runaway but now as i'm still sticking with mega, we have a tool that puts us in advantage and keeps ppl out. I'd rather take the W than an L.

A lot of them act like not running straight into their superior close-range game means you're bad...

btw, i never knew this but apparently if you have leaf shield + metal blade + you're falling down into the stage, you can throw metal blade down while still keeping leaf shield on. maybe this is a new mix up?

 

[Sorichuudo]

right? I feel this way too. I felt obligated to approach superior-close-range ppl because I don't want to be seen as a spammer,/runaway but now as i'm still sticking with mega, we have a tool that puts us in advantage and keeps ppl out. I'd rather take the W than an L.


btw, i never knew this but apparently if you have leaf shield + metal blade + you're falling down into the stage, you can throw metal blade down while still keeping leaf shield on. maybe this is a new mix up?

Yeah i thought this was common knowledge by now. It's on Chopper Dave's guide, with a LS up and MB in hand, you can press attack to throw the MB while keeping LS, or press special to shoot the LS first.

 

[p1ay6ack]

Yeah i thought this was common knowledge by now. It's on Chopper Dave's guide, with a LS up and MB in hand, you can press attack to throw the MB while keeping LS, or press special to shoot the LS first.

Yeah. I knew this. But what I'm saying is throwing the metal blade down while you are in the air. you should try it out. it covers alot of options when you are reading a get up from the ledge