Instead of rolling, Link does ? out of shield

[Paquito]

Next up for my Link is breaking my rolling habit. What are his best options out of shield? What about good situational options?

 

[Sempai]

Up B, WD --> something, Nair

 

[HarryTheChin]

or if you are lucky enough to have a bomb in hand, you can throw it at them or try doing the riskier option of spotdodging until the bomb explodes

 

[THEDADPOOL]

Almost anything his oos options are well above average. Another is bair to get behind them and double jump bomerang/nair

 

[Sempai]

Almost anything his oos options are well above average. Another is bair to get behind them and double jump bomerang/nair

He can bair and still have time to jump out of a SH? Dam thats pretty good.

 

[THEDADPOOL]

Yeah it may be a little tough to time but its doable

 

[Sempai]

Most of the time Paquito, you want to Up-B OOS; not only is it a strong move, but it forces them to respect you a little more.

You then get the added bonus of the "threat" of it, so people will try to run up to you and shield to bait it out.

Then you can have some fun and use more of the creative options

 

[THEDADPOOL]

Most of the time Paquito, you want to Up-B OOS; not only is it a strong move, but it forces them to respect you a little more.

You then get the added bonus of the "threat" of it, so people will try to run up to you and shield to bait it out.

Then you can have some fun and use more of the creative options

yeah get the to respect up oos sometimes theyll even block if you condition them then you get a free grab

 

[Beorn]

>_> don't ever use up-b out of shield unless you know they did something unsafe. Most characters can easily shield if they do their aerials close to the ground and punish you very hard. The last thing you are going to do is scare your opponents doing this
often. You want them to forget you can do it. Then punish a mistake for the kill. Not let them know, so that they can bait it out and **** you up.
Using up-b oos is very very risky, even if you get the hit.

 

[sc458]

>_> don't ever use up-b out of shield unless you know they did something unsafe. Most characters can easily shield if they do their aerials close to the ground and punish you very hard. The last thing you are going to do is scare your opponents doing this
often. You want them to forget you can do it. Then punish a mistake for the kill. Not let them know, so that they can bait it out and **** you up.
Using up-b oos is very very risky, even if you get the hit.

So what do you suggest?

 

[Sempai]

>_> don't ever use up-b out of shield unless you know they did something unsafe. Most characters can easily shield if they do their aerials close to the ground and punish you very hard. The last thing you are going to do is scare your opponents doing this
often. You want them to forget you can do it. Then punish a mistake for the kill. Not let them know, so that they can bait it out and **** you up.
Using up-b oos is very very risky, even if you get the hit.

I guess thats true, You probably shouldnt use it till they get up to at least 60+%.

But if they are continually trying to bait you out, that might not be a bad thing, especially if thats their main focus.

Its better than melee, and melee links relied on it, so I mean. Its a good tool that a link main needs to have rdy.

 

[ITALIAN N1NJA]

It depends on the match up. Link's fastest option is Up b out of shield which is 8 frames. I believe SH Nair out of shield is 11 frames?(I need to check I'm not sure) Sometimes I will run up to my opponent a bit, shield, Wavedash backwards out of shield while still facing them, and jab to create an opening or just to keep my opponent out of my zone. Grabbing out of shield is great for punishing someone who does an attack on shield. Right as they land, grab them. This won't always work against characters who have options that work faster than your grab out of shield. Another option I learned from Hylian that is situational is this. If you short hop and back air, right before you land, instead of performing an L-cancel, you can waveland right before you hit the ground. The timing is tight but it has great versatility. It's great for pressuring shield with kicks at the proper spacing and then waveland away to bait out the opponent. Afterwards, you can punish accordingly. Hopefully this wall of text was helpful in some way.

 

[Paquito]

It didn't occur to me to wave-dash out of shield. I tried practicing this last night and got CRAZY FRUSTRATED.

I wasn't really aware of this before, but I always use L to shield, and also always use L to wave-dash. If I want to wave-dash out of shield, I need to start practicing doing it using R, and HOLY CRAP it's like learning to wave-dash from scratch again. lol

 

[EmptySky00]

Against a character with good pressure, you either wavedash OoS into get ****ed and combo'd to death,

or you sit in your shield and die into dying.

Link is a rock while in shield. And not the fun ones that you can throw at people's heads for being infidels. He only has explosive crops and tennis elbow boomerangs, which don't help with shielding. So ya.


Ok honest answer. Up B OoS is good if they really ****ed up by using something super unsafe. But this will do nothing against better players generally or faster characters. Wavedash OoS is probably his safest option depending on where the opponent is. full hop Nair OoS is ok if they're behind you and not a ****** because the hitbox dips down with his curled up leg and can hit them behind you easily while full hopping. Retreating Nair OoS isn't bad.

As a general rule for breaking the habiiiit toniiight~ of roll dodging all the time, when you get more experienced don't discount the value of rolling. It's still useful despite its risk, and it's a necessary maneuver in some situations (Fox shine pressure almost requires a buffered roll at some point to get out of so he can run to you and pressure you some more because **** life). The trick is to not use it as a form of transportation ("She's not rolling fast enough!" /realquotes) and to not reflex roll whenever your opponent is near you or when you're in neutral. One, Link's roll isn't very good so that will get you killed. Two, your opponent can and will kill you for doing it poorly. Just pick your dodges wisely and it's still very useful.


Edit: Link also has the fastest spot dodge in the game, so there's that.

 

[Vidiot825]

Against a character with good pressure, you either wavedash OoS into get ****ed and combo'd to death,

or you sit in your shield and die into dying.

Link is a rock while in shield. And not the fun ones that you can throw at people's heads for being infidels. He only has explosive crops and tennis elbow boomerangs, which don't help with shielding. So ya.


Ok honest answer. Up B OoS is good if they really ****ed up by using something super unsafe. But this will do nothing against better players generally or faster characters. Wavedash OoS is probably his safest option depending on where the opponent is. full hop Nair OoS is ok if they're behind you and not a ****** because the hitbox dips down with his curled up leg and can hit them behind you easily while full hopping. Retreating Nair OoS isn't bad.

As a general rule for breaking the habiiiit toniiight~ of roll dodging all the time, when you get more experienced don't discount the value of rolling. It's still useful despite its risk, and it's a necessary maneuver in some situations (Fox shine pressure almost requires a buffered roll at some point to get out of so he can run to you and pressure you some more because **** life). The trick is to not use it as a form of transportation ("She's not rolling fast enough!" /realquotes) and to not reflex roll whenever your opponent is near you or when you're in neutral. One, Link's roll isn't very good so that will get you killed. Two, your opponent can and will kill you for doing it poorly. Just pick your dodges wisely and it's still very useful.


Edit: Link also has the fastest spot dodge in the game, so there's that.

Totally agree with this for the most part, well put sky
Up b out of shield has too much startup and leaves you open, only to be used if they used an unsafe attack
I'd say out of shield... Always Nair, ALWAYS... But of course mix it up if you feel like it
And yea... If you're caught in shield with link good luck, I don't believe he has a very reliable attack out of shield (maybe Nair again, lol)
Instead of shielding with link you should zone, zone, and poke into combos. Point being, don't let them make you take that shield out if it doesn't have to be
And if you have the need to shield, don't forget about his Hylian shield for projectiles

As for what was said above, work on spot dodging... A lot

 

[EmptySky00]

The main issue with Nair OoS is that unless they're close enough to hug you and behind you, Nair tends to hit initially over their heads. Full hop Nair puts you in positional disadvantage on whiff depending on what you do after the move ends and how easily the opponent can catch you in the air. Nair OoS is also actually as slow as up B OoS (5 frame jumpsquat and 4 frame startup), so it still requires discretion.You can do a retreating Nair OoS and it might be a bit safer depending on the opponent's mobility and aptitude for punishment. The other problem is that Nairing OoS is a commitment. Not as much as up B OoS, but the move still lasts a long time, giving the opponent time to react and chase you down during it. WD OoS is a 15 frame commitment then you're free to do whatever. WD OoS is better for the most part depending on spacing. Analyzing the situation and choosing the correct option for what position you in is important. Especially when your OoS game is weak like Link's.

 

[Thor]

It depends on the match up. Link's fastest option is Up b out of shield which is 8 frames. I believe SH Nair out of shield is 11 frames?(I need to check I'm not sure) Sometimes I will run up to my opponent a bit, shield, Wavedash backwards out of shield while still facing them, and jab to create an opening or just to keep my opponent out of my zone. Grabbing out of shield is great for punishing someone who does an attack on shield. Right as they land, grab them. This won't always work against characters who have options that work faster than your grab out of shield. Another option I learned from Hylian that is situational is this. If you short hop and back air, right before you land, instead of performing an L-cancel, you can waveland right before you hit the ground. The timing is tight but it has great versatility. It's great for pressuring shield with kicks at the proper spacing and then waveland away to bait out the opponent. Afterwards, you can punish accordingly. Hopefully this wall of text was helpful in some way.

Is up+B frame 7 now??? I thought it was frame 8... and you jumpsquat (1 frame) and cancel for 8 frames... so frame 9... or is it frame 8? Also do you know the first frame it hits behind Link??? Don't have PM on me or understand debug when I did or I'd test it...

Also shorthop bair should auto-cancel if you don't fastfall it (you have to not fastfall to waveland). You can also SH bair -> Double jump -> X (so SH bair -> DJ nair is decent on someone with low shield or if they've been going for grab/jump OoS whenever you hit their shield).

In response to the OP... for what it's worth, I see a lot of Fox players try to wavedash to follow rolls in the midst of shine pressure. I do what I can to call them out on this... since a wavedash is a minimum of 14 frames (3 frame jumpsquat is minimum [Fox has this, Falco's is 5 so it's longer for him], I will often look to up+b someone out of shine pressure when they are above CC percents (so like 50% or so), since you can catch them wavedashing... I think this should from a frame data perspective even if the Fox is perfect. (I read Falco's shinegrab is +2 relative to an OoS grab [though that's Melee and Falco... so this may be miles off but I assume their shines on shield are the same and were carried over to PM because Melee] so his shine+1 frame of jumpsquat is +2 on shield, which would make shine+ Fox's whole jumpsquat zero on shield... then with 11 frame wavedash landing lag [at frame 1 you AD and so landing lag then takes 10 more frames = 11] and OoS up+b frame 8/9, we get them???)

This play is of course obscenely gutsy (very high risk, reward = ?), but it can work... here's a video of me fighting a Fox (skip about 6:30 in, unless you want to watch me fight a Marth) and I do it at least once, at 8:30 for instance [I get super cocky with the taunt and play really terrible my 3rd stock XD]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKxQo7EzPRc

I've improved some since then by getting a lot of advice from Melee Link boards and incorporating as much as I remember to work on (success include beating a PR Sheik in Melee, making the local PR in PM [relatively high up, around 6th], and [in terms of moveset choice] using more nair and a bit more fair/less fsmash) but I'm still not that good so my advice should probably be taken with a grain of salt (or the whole shaker???) [my play is probably cringe-worthy].

Link's options (with mostly cons):
-Roll (can get covered, you get smacked, pretty slow)
-Spotdodge (faster, but in same spot so if they keep dair/shine coming you definitely get hit)
- OoS nair/bair (kinda slow still, gets you a hitbox, no I-frames, airborne and somewhat lagless [if they back off, this is usually okayish])
- up+b OoS (similar issues, if they back off out of range you're getting hit with a smash attack)
- grab (kinda like up+B OoS, but beats shield, but slower and loses HARD to wavedash behind (which up+B beats?))
- throw bomb (you have to have a bomb... but fast, lets you shield or dodge after if needed, can follow up if the bomb hits)
- usmash OoS (also slow, heavy commitment, but hilarious if they mess up their pressure and fullhop into this) [seriously this should be your last option most of the time - slightly better than Melee but still no]
- wavedash OoS (Link's wavedash sux [in Melee it's third shortest after Zelda/Peach]... if Fox follows your wavedash you just get hit, but you're in perfect range for a jab or dsmash).
- Jump (you generally want the hitbox right away [so nair or something], but you could triangle jump with this or just escape to a platform?)

Although not exactly related to shield pressure escapes, my favorite OoS option is to dair someone when they do a rising aerial on shield - most common example is a Falco using a fullhop bair while you're on the battlefield platform - prime position to dair them since they're still going up and they can't put out a hitbox for a while.