Improving your patience so that you don’t go in too hard will definitely help. Between fast, safe, grounded options and invincibility on key attacks, Terry can mash his way through reckless approaches. Do your best to stay in the midrange, space those Fairs and Bairs, be on the lookout for his burst options (dash attack, Burning Knuckle, Crack Shoot) and his invincible Input Down B, and only go in hard if you have a combo confirm/strong advantage position. Terry’s no slouch in midrange, but he out-buttons Palutena up close unless she’s airborne.
Not mention Palutena is also a solid bit quicker than Terry, letting her control the pace of the match more. Between that speed, your reflector, and your own long range options, you can aggravate Terry from a distance if you want to, so long as you’re smart about it and the space permits.
Spot Dodge into everything is another patience tester, one that I struggle with a bit myself. I of course don’t know the specific interaction leading to it that you’re struggling with, but here’s a few things I would try to keep in mind:
- If you ever think you should dash grab to punish something, you should probably be dash attacking instead. Checking Palutena’s data, this is extra true; dash attack is faster, much more active, is invincible in some parts, and if you miss the punish, there’s a lot less endlag.
-Palutena’s tilts aren’t SUPER great, but they do have a lot of active frames, making them solid at beating dodges. That said, they’re also quite punishable if Terry just holds shield, so stay aware.
-And if you’re SURE he’s gonna spot dodge the punish, you can wait just that extra moment to go for it. Plays back into the patience aspect, but boy it feels good when they dodge right into your FSmash.
Another key thing about Terry is that his recovery is fragile. Not outright bad, mind you; he has a lot of options to maneuver back to ledge, and if you guess poorly you might eat a Power Dunk into the blast zone. But if he needs to use multiple specials, ONE of them will have punishable endlag if you know where he’s going, and Rising Tackle doesn’t snap to ledge until the move is close to finished. If you can continually swat him offstage, you may be able to take him out before he can use his Super Special Moves.
If he DOES get to use them...well, confirms are confirms, but if you DO manage to block one, they’re his most unsafe on shield attacks (though depending on distance, Power Geyser can still be tougher than expected to punish). Hit him hard if you block one.
Believe it or not, I’ve only fought a handful of Palutenas as Terry, so this is a bit more general, but I hope it helps a little!
