Ok since I ended up being so late I'll make a new post haha
@
E.Lopez
Your observations/thoughts/understanding are pretty good. So I'll try to lay out what to focus on next
Btw to punish his Up B, just be confident and realize it takes a long time before kirby finally slams the ground and the shockwave comes out. Simple walk closer to him before shielding, so that you can try to dash attack (or dash grab if you think he will try to shield and he's too far away). I guess a lot of this game is knowing the timing and how much lag each move has for each character. Then you will be a much better player by knowing when you can smash and when you must do something extra to punish something (like scare him into rolling to give you enough time to punish him, whereas if he just stood there he wouldn't be punished).
Movement -
Your movement wasn't really bad, but if you compare it to Aerolink's you can definitely improve it a lot. I think this is actually a pretty easy, straightforward thing to improve, and something that benefits Palutena a lot. Compared to all the more abstract reading/game sense stuff, this is something that will surely help you improve.
You like to stay on the ground a lot. Trevonte does this as well. But the downside of this is that you have to be very quick to react and stop his ground approaches (jab or grab). At a few times you were throwing out jab1 a few times, but kirby would run in between them and punish you. You gotta be sure to react and get those jab1s on point, or...
Short hop more! A few times kirby rolled behind you and because palutena doesn't have quick tilts, she doesn't have a good way on the ground to deal with that. Here's where SHing comes in. If you short hop more, then if he tries to roll he may roll at a bad time and you will already be in the air, ready to DI. You DI backwards so you keep center stage and face outwards, and can punish his roll with a fair or a grab.
Or a combination of both X)
Also you could really push your stage control advantage. You're faster than kirby movement wise, so try to think of "kiting him". Play safe, and use the full length of the stage as your "safety". Think this: as long as you stay safe, if he's trying to approach you then you have multiple chances to punish/hit him while using the full length of the stage. If you are overly aggressive (that is, try to approach him but it doesn't work out) then you would "lose" this advantage/possibility of punishing him. This is huge I think. Many players don't understand how important this really is. If you can be patient, calm, and truly understand this concept, then this alone can be what allows in you defeating your opponent, who will be frustrated and impatient and confused as to what hes doing wrong (as he's used to just fighting you straight up and not playing a smarter game).
Here's an example: 1:30
This ties back into why it's so important not to overdo smash attacks. You have 90% stage control and he's cornered, but because you decided to go for a fsmash you completely lost stage control and lost the potential you could have done with it, all for the tiny chance you would get a good 16% (only 4 % more than something safer, like a short hop retreating back air).
Ex: 1:12
You go for a dash attack. His back is facing you so it would be decent to pressure him even if he shields with a dash attack, but you're a bit too far. It ends up failing. Even if you connected with his back shield, even though it may set up potential for future mixups he would be able to punish you with a smash attack. If you think of the bigger picture instead, you could kite him with the full length of the stage, and only when you establish some understanding of his movement or mindset during that time, you try to engage and punish him. There's a lot of stuff you could work on here, like specific movements and traps to flowchart your opponent into making mistakes, which is pretty advanced but something to think about.
Side note, it would be better if you tried going for a grab, and then while going for a grab you keep in mind the option that he rolls towards center stage as he does, so that you would be able to turn it into a pivot grab and cover both options (roll back, roll to the corner of the stage, shield). The timing is hard but it would force your opponent into attacking, which you could later mixup and punish with a dash attack or shield grab.
2:15
You try to throw out a fair, perhaps you wanted to poke his shield or you expected him to run at you and you wanted to disrupt it. First this isn't a very smart thing to do, as just before you used both your jumps. That is, it's unlikely the chance of him dash approaching you would be nearly as high as if you were more grounded (for example if you were short hopping around defensively and then threw out a fair to stop him from dash attacking or grabbing you). Indeed he decided to roll behind you as you were committed to the fair. Secondly this goes back to the stage control thing. You were able to to run up to the center and grab control and Kirby waited, losing the chance to get center. But since your aggressive move failed you ended up losing control again. Instead you could have just landed back on the ground and DI backwards, knowing that if he tried to roll to punish you you would be behind him and be able to punish him, and if he tried to dash at you you would be able to stop it with a jab. Try to think of ways to stop the most options with the least risk. It's hard to do it in game, but this you can actually prepare a lot before hand. While watching your replays just think of certain situations that get you stumped or put you in difficult spots and just think it out a little bit, do some image training or whatever or just practice the situations in your head while in training mode.
Overall there were a couple spots where you did do a decent move where you would fair and then land and then try to get away. One time it was done well, though you stayed in shield instead of immediately running back a bit (she's so fast, you really don't need to be up and close in shield like DDD to get a grab). I can't find this example but I saw it. Another time is at 1:19 where you fair, land, and then roll back, leaving you vulnerable. If you improve your reactions and familiarity of situations ( to reduce thinking time in game ), you should have DI'd backwards after the fair so you would be in safe distance. However if you fail to do that, the other options you could do are simply running backwards, jabbing/grabbing him (in this situation he didn't move), or the weird but perhaps smartest way with the biggest reward is running past him. As you're facing his back, he would not think at all you would simply run from his behind to his front, which would let you grab stage control again and leaving him cornered. No way would he be ready to throw out an attack in the opposite direction of you, and somehow know you would just run past him instead of pressuring him behind.
Some small other things:
If you're going to short hop nair, be ready to react to see whether you really need to nair or not. A lot of them whiffed or he stayed on the ground so it didn't work. This just takes practice and also being ready for the possibility of him jumping before hand, allowing you to react in time. It's a matter of just thinking of both possibilities in your head next time (him jumping or him not jumping) rather than being too optimistic and only focusing on him jumping as the only option.
Try to mix up your movements and have your back facing him sometimes when you're in neutral and throw out a back air, instead of just fairs.
Kirby is especially good to kite because he wants to be in your face, but he's not as good as closing the gap as say Luigi. So try to keep a distance and make him really chase you.
All of these things really comes down to simply acknowledging it, preparing your mind and tools/options before the game, and just practicing it more to get to know characters better and to be able to make things more second nature.
Although this isn't a vs Kirby game, this is one of my favorite games of Aerolink to learn from since Fox is a character that you also want to keep out and he's someone that wants to be in your face, and I think Aerolink's movements were pretty straightforward to understand but very effective even at such a high level. I watched this many times and I still learn more things. Pay attention to how he will use the length of the stage, running up and doing a short hop fair, but pulling back immediately with a fast fall and running backwards, to avoid any of Fox's approaches and to try to bait and punish him. He does it a lot but Fox still has a lot of trouble getting around it.
Also, early in game one he gets a knockdown situation with Fox at the left corner, and instead of overextending Aerolink stays a distance away from him, so he can punish any roll or get up attack he does. For some extra spice, he throws out a short hop fair to keep the Fox player in a pressured mindstate, but Aerolink doesn't forfeit anything by doing this, as he does it very quickly and is able to land back on the ground before Fox's getup response.
