Smash Wii U If perfect shielding reflected projectiles again

[TSmasher1000]

So remember Melee when perfect shielding was known as power shielding and reflected projectiles? If we had such a mechanic it would definitely help with those needles from Sheik as well as the paralyzer shots from ZSS and some other projectiles. It might also help the approach game of some characters who have trouble approaching and get rekt by projectiles. So just a question, should we have power shielding again?

 

[CyberHyperPhoenix]

So remember Melee when perfect shielding was known as power shielding and reflected projectiles? If we had such a mechanic it would definitely help with those needles from Sheik as well as the paralyzer shots from ZSS and some other projectiles. It might also help the approach game of some characters who have trouble approaching and get rekt by projectiles. So just a question, should we have power shielding again?

You can reflect certain projectiles like Samus' charge shot if you hit the opponents shield at a certain angle iirc.

There was a gyfcat that demonstrated this on /r/smashbros, but I don't remember what the title was called, so I can't dig it up for you.

 

[TSmasher1000]

You can reflect certain projectiles like Samus' charge shot if you hit the opponents shield at a certain angle iirc.

There was a gyfcat that demonstrated this on /r/smashbros, but I don't remember what the title was called, so I can't dig it up for you.

Huh that's interesting. I've never heard or seen that. Does it also change ownership properties?

 

[Xermo]

It just redirects it based on the angle. It's still under samus's ownership and isn't a true reflect. A number of projectiles do this such as aura sphere or super missiles. It also exists in previous smash games.
I'd much prefer if powershield reflecting came back, but it's far too easy to powershield in this game; it'd destroy the projectile meta.

 

[Proteun]

Mega Man instant bottom tier

 

[Wintropy]

Considering how prevalent projectiles are and how easy powershielding is in this game, I don't think it's a good idea. It'd do more damage than it'd fix.

 

[Raijinken]

I'd be interested to see it in practice, but just from a theory stance, my thoughts:

A lot of already-bad or sub-best characters become worse. Samus, Robin, Falco, the Links, the Psykids, Mewtwo, Wii Fit, and the Pits all sound like they'd get it pretty rough. Mii Gunner would probably drop to worst character from near-worst character if one assumed high-skill near-perfect play.

Depending on the implementation, it may not even help that much against Sheik. If the active reflecting time was particularly short (not honestly acquainted with how many projectiles you could reflect per shield in Melee), you'd get one Needle back to Sheik for every several that hit your shield, and while that's more appreciable than zero, you still have the above list of characters who lost major parts of their neutral game to slightly hinder Sheik's, to say nothing of her vast array of other valid options compared to those mentioned.

Again, I'd be interested to see it and how it worked in practice, but just my straight hunch suggests that it would do more harm than good based on current standings. When you think about it, even Fox, with a fairly quick reflector, can't really depend on it against Sheik or Zamus just due to the downsides of being caught in reflector.

 

[MarioMeteor]

It does sound tempting. For Glory Links would be no more and Duck Hunt Dog would be unable to zone as effectively, which is good.

 

[Deleted member]

It does sound tempting. For Glory Links would be no more and Duck Hunt Dog would be unable to zone as effectively, which is good.

It is not good. Both Link and Duck Hunt Dog are not too great characters and reflective perfect shielding would tarnish these already meh characters.

 

[Wintropy]

It does sound tempting. For Glory Links would be no more and Duck Hunt Dog would be unable to zone as effectively, which is good.

That's undermining the very integrity of both characters. That's in the same vein as saying Meta Knight can't use his sword or Dedede can't use his hammer.

 

[BulgeTremmor]

That's undermining the very integrity of both characters. That's in the same vein as saying Meta Knight can't use his sword or Dedede can't use his hammer.

And let's not forget that it would destroy Dedede's main characteristic, Gordo.

 

[jmjb]

Mega Man instant bottom tier

you spelled villager wrong.

 

[Mario & Sonic Guy]

I do feel that giving perfect shields reflecting properties would make things unfair for the characters who rely a lot on their projectile games for stage control. If anything, it makes perfect sense to give only certain characters reflecting moves, so that way, characters like Link, Toon Link, Mega Man, Duck Hunt, or any projectile spammer, won't feel so useless.

 

[LancerStaff]

...and the Pits all sound like they'd get it pretty rough.

Actually, no. They're basically immune to reflectors already because they can just change the angle at the last second and it'll bounce away somewhere it won't hit anybody.

I do feel that giving perfect shields reflecting properties would make things unfair for the characters who rely a lot on their projectile games for stage control. If anything, it makes perfect sense to give only certain characters reflecting moves, so that way, characters like Link, Toon Link, Mega Man, Duck Hunt, or any projectile spammer, won't feel so useless.

It's hard to find a projectile we could apply this to without making it worthless... Basically all I can think of are Fox's lasers and Sheik's needles. Well, and the Pits' arrows I guess.

 

[Deleted member 269706]

TL;DR - It's not going to make anyone worse, it will just force them to play a smarter play-style.

Honestly I think it would be a pretty good change. So many of the characters in this game are projectile oriented, it would make it a bit more manageable to characters who don't have that luxury. People are acting like this addition would completely ruin the meta for projectile oriented characters which isn't true at all. What it would do is make spamming a lot less effective and force the projectile users to be smart about how they're using their projectiles. And projectile users would be able to utilize this as well. Let's say Toon Link power-shields a paralyzer shot from ZSS, stuns her, then follows up with a bomb to aerial combo. Or Falcon power-shields one of Luigi's fireballs and then follows up with a grab combo of his own.

On top of all this, in the heat of battle, the opponent won't always be able to power-shield. You may be in the air, you may be in the middle of an attack, you may be trying to recover. It's not like the opponent just going to be standing there power-shielding everything. The biggest "nerf" to anyone would be people who rely on campy styles. Stop acting like this would ruin projectiles and render them as "worthless". IT WON'T. People can already shield your projectiles, the only difference is that it would send it back at you, in which case you might actually have to react to it! My point is, it will just force you to play a less brain-dead game. Link would still have uses for his projectiles, Duck Hunt would still be able to do Duck Hunt things, and so on. I mean I don't see many people complaining about the Fox match-up just because he has a reflector (which just so happens to reflect things).

 

[TheJolteon]

So basically we are making Samus worse than she already right?

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

Power Shielding leading into reflecting would change the balance of the game ultimately.

Certain moves that reflect or heal off projectiles would lose value.

In turn you can deal with camping better for moves that are large hitting projectiles.

This might cause issues for some multi hitting projectiles where you reflect the whole think if you do it to the first part.

A lot of the balance in this game is based around some of these factors like that you can't reflect off a power shield.

Somethings to consider, I would lean on it not being a thing personally but it depends on the overall game. For smash WiiU, I would say no to that.

 

[LancerStaff]

TL;DR - It's not going to make anyone worse, it will just force them to play a smarter play-style.

Honestly I think it would be a pretty good change. So many of the characters in this game are projectile oriented, it would make it a bit more manageable to characters who don't have that luxury. People are acting like this addition would completely ruin the meta for projectile oriented characters which isn't true at all. What it would do is make spamming a lot less effective and force the projectile users to be smart about how they're using their projectiles. And projectile users would be able to utilize this as well. Let's say Toon Link power-shields a paralyzer shot from ZSS, stuns her, then follows up with a bomb to aerial combo. Or Falcon power-shields one of Luigi's fireballs and then follows up with a grab combo of his own.

On top of all this, in the heat of battle, the opponent won't always be able to power-shield. You may be in the air, you may be in the middle of an attack, you may be trying to recover. It's not like the opponent just going to be standing there power-shielding everything. The biggest "nerf" to anyone would be people who rely on campy styles. Stop acting like this would ruin projectiles and render them as "worthless". IT WON'T. People can already shield your projectiles, the only difference is that it would send it back at you, in which case you might actually have to react to it! My point is, it will just force you to play a less brain-dead game. Link would still have uses for his projectiles, Duck Hunt would still be able to do Duck Hunt things, and so on. I mean I don't see many people complaining about the Fox match-up just because he has a reflector (which just so happens to reflect things).

No... Not really. The Links almost can't use their boomerangs now because it's going to come back to bite them at least 70% of the time. Duck Hunt can't close in after a gunman bullet because now instead of forcing the opponent to react he has to react. (The main point of most projectiles not named Din's Fire BTW.) Can't shoot the can either after it's been reflected IIRC. Robin can't use Arcthunder without the constant threat of getting it reflected back at him and then he's getting Usmashed instead of applying shield pressure. Even Mewtwo and Samus would be at a severe disadvantage if their charge shot moves were reflected because they do massive shield damage.

And then the best projectiles wouldn't be effected at all because most of them can be shot quite rapidly. If Links PSes a needle, what's he get? 1%? If Sheik PSes an arrow, that's like 7% and now she can close the gap instantly. Nearly every top tier outright gains from this change.

Reflectors don't win matchups because they lose to everything besides projectiles. Fox doesn't reflect much of any of Megaman's moves because if he picks the wrong time he's getting hurt pretty badly. If it's tied to shielding then there's no risk involved whatsoever, besides being grabbed. Good thing Robin, Mewtwo, Link and Samus have good grabs right? *sarcasm*

 

[Deleted member 269706]

No... Not really. The Links almost can't use their boomerangs now because it's going to come back to bite them at least 70% of the time. Duck Hunt can't close in after a gunman bullet because now instead of forcing the opponent to react he has to react. (The main point of most projectiles not named Din's Fire BTW.) Can't shoot the can either after it's been reflected IIRC. Robin can't use Arcthunder without the constant threat of getting it reflected back at him and then he's getting Usmashed instead of applying shield pressure. Even Mewtwo and Samus would be at a severe disadvantage if their charge shot moves were reflected because they do massive shield damage.

And then the best projectiles wouldn't be effected at all because most of them can be shot quite rapidly. If Links PSes a needle, what's he get? 1%? If Sheik PSes an arrow, that's like 7% and now she can close the gap instantly. Nearly every top tier outright gains from this change.

Reflectors don't win matchups because they lose to everything besides projectiles. Fox doesn't reflect much of any of Megaman's moves because if he picks the wrong time he's getting hurt pretty badly. If it's tied to shielding then there's no risk involved whatsoever, besides being grabbed. Good thing Robin, Mewtwo, Link and Samus have good grabs right? *sarcasm*

You're post is assuming that the projectile users aren't capable of evasive or defensive maneuvers. If you throw a boomerang and someone were to perfect shield it causing it to go backwards, Link would have MORE THAN enough time to shield/jump/spot dodge or otherwise find another way to react to the situation. If he's just throwing it out in the neutral, chances are it's going to be shielded or avoided to begin with. If he throws it out while the opponent is airborne, or in the middle of an animation, he will still be able to do damage to them. Robin would still be able to use Arcthunder and Thoron so long as he didn't use it at a stupid time. I know he has a downthrow combo into arcthunder (I think it's arcthunder anyways), so it still works.

And the only top tier character who would really benefit would be Sheik (who I agree, really doesn't need it) but I honestly can't see how other top tiers actually benefit from this...Pikachu's thunder would be a hindrance to him as would ZSS's paralyzer to her. Rosalina's hardly ever shoot out Luma to begin with and Rosalina's starbit move would do a fair amount of damage back to her/luma. I'd like to hear some other examples.

 

[Raijinken]

You're post is assuming that the projectile users aren't capable of evasive or defensive maneuvers. If you throw a boomerang and someone were to perfect shield it causing it to go backwards, Link would have MORE THAN enough time to shield/jump/spot dodge or otherwise find another way to react to the situation. If he's just throwing it out in the neutral, chances are it's going to be shielded or avoided to begin with. If he throws it out while the opponent is airborne, or in the middle of an animation, he will still be able to do damage to them. Robin would still be able to use Arcthunder and Thoron so long as he didn't use it at a stupid time. I know he has a downthrow combo into arcthunder (I think it's arcthunder anyways), so it still works.

And the only top tier character who would really benefit would be Sheik (who I agree, really doesn't need it) but I honestly can't see how other top tiers actually benefit from this...Pikachu's thunder would be a hindrance to him as would ZSS's paralyzer to her. Rosalina's hardly ever shoot out Luma to begin with and Rosalina's starbit move would do a fair amount of damage back to her/luma. I'd like to hear some other examples.

There are already very few smart times for Robin to use his spells, and he already can't spam them for long by design. Arcthunder from a grab only works if you land his thoroughly mediocre grab, which you must now do... without the help of Arcthunder or Arcfire in neutral. His one option to pressure a shield in neutral now becomes a death-wish, pressuring his own slow self to leap (he's not very good at landing) or spotdodge (free punish for the powershielding opponent at some ranges), or put himself into a free combo for the enemy. Basically, your standards for a "stupid time" for Robin to use arcthunder or Thoron become "unless the enemy is in freefall, or has a poor reaction time."

Megaman would lose most of his neutral game tricks that aren't called dthrow->flamesword.

And we've mentioned Samus, whose bad projectiles are now even worse, and even more likely to result in self-harm.

Sheik gets silly, and all the other top tiers, like all characters, get a more-flexible reaction to projectiles. Reflect Mario's fireball, big whup, but if he reflects your attack and you're caught by it, he's a far better punisher than most projectile characters.

 

[Mario & Sonic Guy]

@Rawkstar: The standard Star Bits are NOT actual projectiles, so they can't be reflected, even if powershielding was able to reflect projectile attacks. Floaty Star Bit and Shooting Star Bit are considered to be projectile attacks though.

 

[GooberGaming]

I'd rather not see it in Smash 4.

I feel like it would make characters with reflectors less unique because everyone else can reflect projectiles by perfect shielding.

PLUS, level 9 cpu's willmake me rage quit because of how the read your inputs and perfect shield everything!! .

 

[LancerStaff]

You're post is assuming that the projectile users aren't capable of evasive or defensive maneuvers. If you throw a boomerang and someone were to perfect shield it causing it to go backwards, Link would have MORE THAN enough time to shield/jump/spot dodge or otherwise find another way to react to the situation. If he's just throwing it out in the neutral, chances are it's going to be shielded or avoided to begin with. If he throws it out while the opponent is airborne, or in the middle of an animation, he will still be able to do damage to them. Robin would still be able to use Arcthunder and Thoron so long as he didn't use it at a stupid time. I know he has a downthrow combo into arcthunder (I think it's arcthunder anyways), so it still works.

And the only top tier character who would really benefit would be Sheik (who I agree, really doesn't need it) but I honestly can't see how other top tiers actually benefit from this...Pikachu's thunder would be a hindrance to him as would ZSS's paralyzer to her. Rosalina's hardly ever shoot out Luma to begin with and Rosalina's starbit move would do a fair amount of damage back to her/luma. I'd like to hear some other examples.

Boomerang is that slow, though. And now every other time he uses it he's getting shoved off the stage.

Link wants you to shield or dodge or whatever. Projectiles have two goals: Doing damage, or forcing a reaction. This reaction is quite meaningless if Link has to react himself.

Sheik, MK, Captain Falcon, Ike, Mario, Luigi, Sonic, and Pit off the top of my head would benefit immensely. Then we have characters like Olimar who'd drop to bottom tier because now one mistimed smash means death.

 

[Deleted member]

It never actually dawned on me til this thread that it wasn't in this game. Honestly, my first impression would be that it would effect balance negatively, but the more I thought about it, the more I'm on the side of them making this mechanic return. It's very hard for so many characters to fight against those that have projectiles, and perfect shielding isn't enough for the slower characters.

If we could reflect with timing it correctly, it would allow us some form of approach other than just taking an ultimate defensive beating and hoping your opponent makes an error while you are wracking up damage trying to get in.

I feel the way it is now is actually imbalanced a bit, and something like this would make slower characters have better approaches.

 

[Ikenna]

I'd very much like that to happen with more fun to ensue out I it, but then I'd have to consider the feelings of players with projectile-reliant characters. I think we should be able to button map reflect specials to side-B, like Palutena's Reflect is. That way, it's easier to approach. Decreased endlag on certain reflect moves would also be ideal. My poll answer is definitely "yes" as in I'd like that to be a thing rather than "should." I'd selfishly like to see Mega Man eat more of his own zoning attacks.

 

[pupNapoleon]

I'm on the side that it should return... just not for every character.
This is just one more element that could make certain characters stand out more, and in canon. Ganondorf comes straight to mind on this point. Rather than an all or nothing approach, I think it could be a tool that is beneficial for several characters, along the lines of multiple-point-rage, wall-clinging, and super armor.
The more variation to characters, the better chances they have at an accurate summation of competitive balance.

 

[Shouxiao]

I think it would be very cool. A few projectiles that Rockman/ Mega man has might have to be exceptions to the rule.

 

[Chief Hotsuin]

Who's to say all projectiles should be reflected the same way? Or if they were to come back with the same power? For example, if you perfectly shielded Samus's Charge Shot (by far, her most reliable on stage kill option), she'd be punished severely for SLIGHTLY mistiming what l'm assuming was a frametrap or read ('cause throwing it out randomly is ridiculous), should it come back at full force or more, which is what all reflectors do. I'd like to see perfect shielding reflect projectiles, but make them weaker and slower, therefore being less punishing to the shooter for playing how they should. Plus, reflectors would stay just about as useful, since they quicken and amplify projectiles' power and stay out longer. In return, perfect shielding (or at least, perfect shielding projectiles), would be somewhat more difficult to employ. If the perfect shields aren't change like this, don't change them at all.




But this could bring up the possibility of a match of laser tennis or Gordo badminton until the projectile dissipates. Sounds fun, actually.

 

[Mario & Sonic Guy]

I still have some crazy memories from Melee, of myself getting KO'd by my own Bob-omb, all due to a level 9 CPU powershielding it right back at me. Thank goodness that that can't be repeated in Brawl and Smash 4.