Melee is a 13 year old game. Yet as time has gone on, more and more advanced techniques have been incorporated into standard gameplay. Game mechanics such as shield dropping, ledge canceling, sdi, pivoting, and multi-shining(jump canceling) have now become standard techniques in today's metagame.
While these game mechanics are now being incorporated into everyday gameplay, one technique in particular has yet to be mastered: the light shield. Even though lightshielding has been known about since the inception of melee, it is basically unused in today's metagame except in between stocks and as a means to check if your triggers are messing up. With this said, I hope to show to you possible uses of lightshielding in an everyday match, starting with the technique seen below.
(sorry for low quality, it's hard to screencast dolphin w/out lag when your computer sucks.)
What I am promoting is the use of the lightshield in order to shieldgrab 20xx shield pressure. Here's a quick breakdown of what is actually happening: Fox is doing frame perfect 20xx shield pressure on marth's shield(thanks achilles). The marth player uses the l or r trigger to pick how concentrated the light shield is. Fox's nair pushes back marth's shield. Fox l-cancels and does a frame perfect shine. However, the added pushback from fox's nair on the light shield forces marth out of shine range. Marth shieldgrab's fox after the whiffed shine.
Like most advanced techniques, light shield grabbing is not as easy at it may first appear. Here are a list of factors that are present in a real match and must be accounted for to properly use this technique.
1. the technique is easier against falco and is much easier if you have a long grab range
2. your character does not have an infinite shield
3. fox/falco may have horizontal momentum when performing a nair
4. it's hard to get a perfectly sized light shield
Here are some tips to deal with these factors.
1. In order to perform this technique, you have to know your character's grab properties. For example, yoshi or samus's grab are be to slow to grab fox or falco. To add to this, fox and falco have different hitboxes for their shines and it is thus easier to use this technique vs falco since fox's shine has longer horizontal range. Shield di and/or shield asdi may be useful to get the correct spacing after fox/falco's nair to position yourself for a grab.
2.. This is actually the least worrying of the above factors. You should try to limit shielding as much as possible against spacies anyways. In addition, the light shield is bigger than your character's normal shield which means that even with a partially damaged shield, this technique will work(though the intensity of which you press the trigger will change).
3. Fox or falco can choose to overshoot a nair. This is not as much of a problem if you are playing against falco who does not have as much aerial mobility as fox. This seems to be a big problem, but dealing with this comes down to one important factor: spacing. If you are using a character such as marth, falcon, fox, or ic's with a good dash dance/wavedash, you should be spacing yourself behind fox's nair range anyways. Meanwhile, if you play peach/puff/falco/sheik, you have your own methods to keep fox out(spaced aerials/lasers). I highly recommend trying out shield pivots with this technique, as this will properly allow you to position yourself to lightshield fox's nair. There is also the option of converting to the light shield after the first nair-shine if you have a high enough shield.
4. A huge limiting factor of this technique is that it is incredibly hard to get the correct combination of light shield size and shield di. There are so many different sized light shield sizes that are available. In addition to this, variables such as how weak your shield is and fox/falco's forward momentum make the intensity of which you must press your trigger change drastically. This technique is incredibly useful, but will be hard to master.
Overall, light shield grabbing 20xx shield pressure may become a useful technique in the future. Marth is clearly best suited to use this technique with his large grab range and good dash dance game. Meanwhile, character's with small shields and/or short grab range such as pikachu will struggle to make use of this technique although it is possible with less room for error.
PS: I would love to provide frame data to reinforce what I'm saying, but there is not a shieldstun calculator present that works on light shielding(if you hit a light shield, there is more shield stun than hitting a regular shield)
PSS: Light shielding can beat shine grab w/out commiting to a roll
While these game mechanics are now being incorporated into everyday gameplay, one technique in particular has yet to be mastered: the light shield. Even though lightshielding has been known about since the inception of melee, it is basically unused in today's metagame except in between stocks and as a means to check if your triggers are messing up. With this said, I hope to show to you possible uses of lightshielding in an everyday match, starting with the technique seen below.
(sorry for low quality, it's hard to screencast dolphin w/out lag when your computer sucks.)
What I am promoting is the use of the lightshield in order to shieldgrab 20xx shield pressure. Here's a quick breakdown of what is actually happening: Fox is doing frame perfect 20xx shield pressure on marth's shield(thanks achilles). The marth player uses the l or r trigger to pick how concentrated the light shield is. Fox's nair pushes back marth's shield. Fox l-cancels and does a frame perfect shine. However, the added pushback from fox's nair on the light shield forces marth out of shine range. Marth shieldgrab's fox after the whiffed shine.
Like most advanced techniques, light shield grabbing is not as easy at it may first appear. Here are a list of factors that are present in a real match and must be accounted for to properly use this technique.
1. the technique is easier against falco and is much easier if you have a long grab range
2. your character does not have an infinite shield
3. fox/falco may have horizontal momentum when performing a nair
4. it's hard to get a perfectly sized light shield
Here are some tips to deal with these factors.
1. In order to perform this technique, you have to know your character's grab properties. For example, yoshi or samus's grab are be to slow to grab fox or falco. To add to this, fox and falco have different hitboxes for their shines and it is thus easier to use this technique vs falco since fox's shine has longer horizontal range. Shield di and/or shield asdi may be useful to get the correct spacing after fox/falco's nair to position yourself for a grab.
2.. This is actually the least worrying of the above factors. You should try to limit shielding as much as possible against spacies anyways. In addition, the light shield is bigger than your character's normal shield which means that even with a partially damaged shield, this technique will work(though the intensity of which you press the trigger will change).
3. Fox or falco can choose to overshoot a nair. This is not as much of a problem if you are playing against falco who does not have as much aerial mobility as fox. This seems to be a big problem, but dealing with this comes down to one important factor: spacing. If you are using a character such as marth, falcon, fox, or ic's with a good dash dance/wavedash, you should be spacing yourself behind fox's nair range anyways. Meanwhile, if you play peach/puff/falco/sheik, you have your own methods to keep fox out(spaced aerials/lasers). I highly recommend trying out shield pivots with this technique, as this will properly allow you to position yourself to lightshield fox's nair. There is also the option of converting to the light shield after the first nair-shine if you have a high enough shield.
4. A huge limiting factor of this technique is that it is incredibly hard to get the correct combination of light shield size and shield di. There are so many different sized light shield sizes that are available. In addition to this, variables such as how weak your shield is and fox/falco's forward momentum make the intensity of which you must press your trigger change drastically. This technique is incredibly useful, but will be hard to master.
Overall, light shield grabbing 20xx shield pressure may become a useful technique in the future. Marth is clearly best suited to use this technique with his large grab range and good dash dance game. Meanwhile, character's with small shields and/or short grab range such as pikachu will struggle to make use of this technique although it is possible with less room for error.
PS: I would love to provide frame data to reinforce what I'm saying, but there is not a shieldstun calculator present that works on light shielding(if you hit a light shield, there is more shield stun than hitting a regular shield)
PSS: Light shielding can beat shine grab w/out commiting to a roll
