Help dealing with c-stick buffering options?

[LazyPurple]

Recently, I've been trying to up my shield pressure game as Falco, and I'm at the point where I can mix-up my pillar timing and go from down-air into a semi-consistent double shine. I can also shine grab consistently. Just today, I installed the 20XX hack pack in order to train even harder, and set the CPU to do "random c-stick buffering" options, and now I'm pretty confused.

No matter how late I delay my L-cancelled dair, I notice that the CPU is able to roll away or spot dodge before my shine comes out. I already thought that shield pressure was complicated enough with the guarantee of an initial dair to shine, but am I right in saying that the shield pressure game starts the second your dair hits? Or am I just not accurate enough with the timing of my shine after dair? Should I even worry about the spot dodge option?

The issue of spot-dodging aside, my main question is how am I supposed to follow up on a roll out of shield while I'm focusing on shield pressure? What should be my go-to roll punish, and can I react to a roll or do I have to read when they're going to do it? Thanks.

 

[MALVM MALVM]

It's really important to fast fall and l-cancel the dair as well as to hit with it very late and get the shine out as soon as you can. I don't know which of these is giving you problems in terms of keeping pressure on their shield. Remember, Falco doesn't have guaranteed shield pressure; the mindgames aren't done.
On that note, you can't cover rolls if you're focusing on their shield. You have to predict, react, or whatever to them rolling out. If they're buffering a roll it's actually kinda helpful because you know that as soon as their shieldstun ends they'll roll and you can punish. Otherwise, it's a matter of prediction, but if you know how they're feeling you can guess what they want to achieve oos. Your roll punish depends on where they are and where you are. I'd recommend a launcher like shine, dair, or utilt at low % and a kill move like fsmash(hard prediction) or bair at high %.
Welcome to smashboards!

 

[LazyPurple]

Hey Malvm, thanks for your time. It's great to see all the advice you post on these boards for people.

I now realize that I don't really need to worry about a buffered spot dodge, since pretty much any follow-up attack will catch them out of it. However, I'm still struggling to deal with buffered rolls. I understand that I should be trying to hit launchers like shine/utilt, but I can't wrap my head around how you are supposed to catch a roll during the 15 or so frames of vulnerability. Even when I hit a shine on the CPU's shield, hard read its roll by double wavedashing in a direction, and shine immediately, the CPU is able to get its shield up before the shine connects. I've had limited success with landing a delayed dair on the CPU's shield, followed by an immediate dash in a direction and shining the CPU just as its roll finished. I also was able to land a dair on the CPU's shield straight into a hard-read dair in the direction I think it might roll. In both of these options, I neglect to shine after landing my dair, which I imagine is unsafe. I couldn't even imagine trying to land an uptilt in these 15 frames of vulnerability.

There's clearly something I'm not getting about how to transition from shield pressure into punishing a roll. Is it just generally unsafe/flashy? Could you walk me through your thought process/movement when predicting a roll, or is there some tutorial on shield pressure that I'm missing?

Thanks a bunch, and sorry for my noobiness

 

[OninO]

I think, like a lot of melee things, it comes down to conditioning/observation. You have to have some indication that rolling is your opponents preferred option and then gamble on it. You can cover some options but in the end you're always making a choice about what options those are. For example, Dair->Shine the back of their shield to wavedash away covers a roll behind you, but will probably make a follow up harder as they're likely to have been sent in the opposite direction if shine connected.

 

[LazyPurple]

Good point OninO. Is there any way to go from a shine on shield to covering the roll away from you? Rolling away seems pretty safe to me, unless you frame trap them with a double wavedash to grab, since they'll only have a few frames out of their roll which is probably only enough to respond with a shield.

I'm mostly just confused with how glorified shield pressure is and how people make it sound like getting a roll out of your opponent is apparently godlike. All in all it sounds really limited and based on super hard reads.

 

[OninO]

If you wave-shine into the shield you can chase roll away from you, but this loses out to if they just hold shield then grab you. I think shield pressure is misleadingly over-rated.

 

[Oskurito]

I think if done correctly, double shine hits them out of roll or spot dodge, I think shine grab can come out in time but I'm not sure (will test with 20XX and post some gifs later). Like MALVM said, there are also mindgames involved in this, and some prediction from your part, you can always guess where they'll roll and wavedash there then punish with grab or shine if you're quickly enough to hit them before their shield comes out (a roll has invulnerability frames in between the start and the end)