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Hydrant Water and Shielding Opponents

BSP

Smash Legend
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I'm making a thread for this because it's important and we need to have this documented somewhere that's easily accessible.

For those of you that don't know, Pac-Man's Fire Hydrant shoots out water spurts that will push all fighters whether or not they are shielding. A more obscure aspect of the water is that it is affected by rage. When Pac-Man is damaged, the hydrant water's push is stronger, even to the point of pushing shielding opponents off of ledges. Since shield is something that gives Pac-Man a hard time and you know that you'll be taking some damage in your matches, it'd be good to know at what % you can be sure your hydrant water will push your opponent off of the ledge.

This will be a work in progress since the process is quite tedious. If you do testing on your own on a character that hasn't been done, please post the results.

NOTE: Rage does not take effect in training mode. Pac-Man's hydrant water will only push the 0% characters off of a ledge in training mode because of this. To test properly, you must be in a vs. mode.

List so far is below. The listed % is the minimum damage that Pac-Man must be at in order for his hydrant's water to begin pushing that specific character off of ledges even if they're shielding. Your opponent's % does not matter.

Water spurts do not change over distance.

Vertical Water spurts will lift opponents out of shield at any %.

:4sheik:: 61%
:4peach:: 83%
:rosalina: : 41%
:4fox:: 40%
:4falcon:: 114%
:4sonic: : 90%
:4zss:: 58%
:4mario::4drmario:: 89%
:4pacman:: 79% (yes, your own water will push you off at 79%)
:4luigi:: 69% ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
:4metaknight:: 38%
:4diddy:: 75%
:4pikachu: : 39%
:4ness:: 85%
:4yoshi:: 105%
:4wiifitm:: 97%
:4villager:: 101%
:4bowser: : Never
:4ryu: : 120%
:4kirby:: 0%
:4jigglypuff: : 0%
:4feroy:: 93%
:4gaw:: 0%
:4mewtwo: : 0%
:4lucario: : 124%
:4rob:: 129%
:4samus: :135%
:4dk:: Never
:4dedede: : Never
:4ganondorf:: Never
:4falco:: 56%
:4olimar:: 40%
:4greninja: : 76%
:4megaman:: 117%
:4marth: : 73%
:4lucina: : 73%
:4pit::4darkpit:: 87%
:4littlemac: : 61%
:4zelda:: 55%

:4charizard: : 138%
:4link:: 128%
:4tlink:: 81%
:4duckhunt:: 66%
:4bowserjr:: 121%
:4wario2:: 145%
:4palutena:: 90%
:4myfriends:: 117%
:4robinf:: 88%
:4shulk:: Normal/Speed/Jump/Buster = 101% ; Shield = Never ; Smash = 46%
:4lucas:: 76%

Courtesy of Sinji:

:4bayonetta:: 52%
:4corrinf:: 110%
:4cloud:: 105%
:4ryu:: 120%








What type of terrain you're on (Grass, metal, etc.) doesn't change anything.


Before you get too happy with this, two things to note about edge slips:

If a character is forced to slide off of an edge with their back towards the edge , they'll go into their edge slip animation. Long story short, they're stuck in a bit of lag and you can hit them with anything.

If a character slides off of an edge while facing it, they'll be in their neutral air state. In other words, they can do any aerial option normally available. Keep this in mind.

Of course, we all know that run up -> shield is a popular option vs Pac-Man. You shouldn't have to worry about the latter situation too much.

Example: https://youtu.be/r4PC12pGTAg?t=152

The technique happens in the last 20 seconds, so don't watch the whole thing if you're just looking for that. Yes it's for glory (the guy was decent though), but it gets the point across. We can be aware of the % this begins happening and take advantage of it. Again, we also need to look at doing edge cancelled smashes like this.

You might be thinking, "BSP, the guy could've rolled and you would've missed." What if we're holding Key though? Then we can punish rolls for 28%.
 
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PEPESPAIN

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This thread is REALLY important. I did a couple of times, put a trampoline near the ledge, put a hydrant on the middle of the stage and the water pushed my opponent to the red trampoline because he was shielding on the ledge

Does Opponent damage affect or only PAC-MAN damage??
 
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ToxoT

Smash Apprentice
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Oct 10, 2014
Messages
108
i use this as a mindgame against my opponents when i charge an fsmash against a hydrant so the water pushes us both back and they get hit after falling off the ledge
 

Zage

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Messages
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Maryland
Weird. I specifically remember being able to test this in training mode, and it was dependent only on opponent's percentage. This might explain some of those seemingly pointless changes to Pac-Man last patch.
 
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BSP

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Zage Zage PEPESPAIN PEPESPAIN

I'm not sure if the opponent's % affects whether or not they'll get pushed off. My original testing for this came from the fact that the water would sometimes push Pac man off, and other times it wouldn't. Testing showed that rage is the reason for that.

Opponent % could be a factor, since the knockback growth for hydrant isn't 0. However, the base knockback is weight based, which I think is basically set knockback in this game.

Good example of relevance of this: Yesterday at the weekly training session, I visibly charged a key while my opponent was next to a ledge, placed a hydrant, and jumped behind him. He held shield, and I threw the key the moment the water pushed him off of the edge into his edge slip animation . Every answer to this situation (roll, spotdodge, jump, etc) is punishable if we predict accordingly, but the main point is that it directly answers holding shield.

i use this as a mindgame against my opponents when i charge an fsmash against a hydrant so the water pushes us both back and they get hit after falling off the ledge
This is something else that needs to be looked at, because the following water will ledge cancel your smash, making the attempt safe. I prefer Pinky/Clyde so that I can cover rolls though.
 
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Splebel

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BSP BSP since you're looking into this. About a week ago I was playing around with grabbing an opponent and having the hydrant push us both off for a grab release and I would be able to footstool them. It's not consistent though. Do you know if I can make it consistent? I found that Pac-Man usually flies away if he just grabbed the opponent and they flying off.
 

verbatim

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Mar 29, 2015
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Could you go a bit more in depth on your positioning on that, whenever I get a grab while being pushed by the hydrant I prefer to pummel once or twice while they're confused and throw them at an unexpected angle (dthrow back towards the hydrant or upthrow if they aren't in backthrow kill % yet).
 

Splebel

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Could you go a bit more in depth on your positioning on that, whenever I get a grab while being pushed by the hydrant I prefer to pummel once or twice while they're confused and throw them at an unexpected angle (dthrow back towards the hydrant or upthrow if they aren't in backthrow kill % yet).
Close enough that the hydrant water will push you and the opponent off with the opponent closer to the ledge.
 

ZeoLightning

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this brings me to something i'm trying to master as a PAC-MAIN who's a bit more aggro. Using the Hyrant water to change my momentum, but knowing the %'s for when it pushes opponents as well as pac man is good to know
 

BSP

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Can confirm that the opponent's % is not a factor in whether or not they get pushed off. I had Fox at 300% on BF in smash mode and the water wouldn't push him off. The moment I got Pac-Man to the % specified above, he was pushed off. Unfortunately this means we don't have this technique until we take a sufficient amount of damage, but it's still good to know.
 

PEPESPAIN

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BSP BSP What do you think about this? It is similar a what we are looking for....

Video Removed
 
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BSP

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BSP BSP What do you think about this? It is similar a what we are looking for....

I don't see that happening often, but nice.

I'm more so looking for abusing the fact that we know people are going to shield and punishing them for it.
 

Froggy

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Close enough that the hydrant water will push you and the opponent off with the opponent closer to the ledge.
I once took 4 stocks off my opponent doing this purely by accident. It's definitely something we should look into.
 

BSP

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Zage Zage I did find that four characters will get pushed off at 0%. Maybe they're the ones you saw get pushed off in training mode?
 

BSP

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1.1.4 had rosalina, sheik, zss, and maybe someone else get lighter. This weight change affects the hydrant water cutoff %. Rosa is down to 41% from 45%.
 

Fruit_Hax

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Mar 23, 2016
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kind of related, but I have been able to true combo nair at low percents after the hydrant pushed me off while down throwing. Other times it would shove them off at a wierd angle. I know chomping is a factor, but even when I wasn't chomping it would still do i sometimes. Any ideas?
 
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