Optimal Shield Pressure Strings?

[Mattyboy]

So my biggest problem as Samus is that I rely heavily on grab once people get comfy in their shields against me. Since I don't want to get into the habit of throwing the grapple beam around too much since I'm trying to remove as much risk from my playstyle as possible, I've been working on safer options when people are shielding.

My two questions about options Samus has while people are shielding are

1. Should I be doing jab-down-jab pressure in order to force people to make sloppy out of shield decisions, or should I be bomb-wavelanding to threaten shieldbreaks?

2. In bomb-waveland strings I've been doing bomb-waveland-bomb-waveland-Dsmash, should I just working on being able to do this as fast as possible or should I be doing a different string all together?

 

[JerkPhil]

If you've got a good controller it's easy to jab cancel without pressing down. Do a jab and hold the stick diagonally down in the opposite direction. With this you just need to press A. Practice the timing.

Bomblands/wavebombs are not just good shield damage and potential shield breaks. Use them to move around your opponent's shield as well.
Example: jab -> bomb -> waveland behind -> turn around -> attack from behind
The bomb will make their shield smaller, so it's easier to shield poke with Dtit, dFtilt or Dsmash.

 

[Mattyboy]

Is it faster if you hold down and away than if you press down between each jab? How far do you have to push the stick diagonally?

Thanks for the input

 

[JerkPhil]

I'm not sure about the frame data, but I think holding down and away actually is potentially faster as we skip the crouch animation (if there is any).

I'm not sure it matters. I pushed it all the way when I had a better control. The white controllers doesn't seem as well calibrated as the purple and black ones from my experience.

 

[343]

when I tilt down/away I tend to get reverse dangled ftilt or dtilt so I just crouch, but I'm pretty sure it's slower unless you're frame perfect with the crouch -> jab

 

[tauKhan]

I'm not sure about the frame data, but I think holding down and away actually is potentially faster as we skip the crouch animation (if there is any).

No, holding diagonally down still technically works exactly the same as just pressing down and release: You crouch on IASA to end jab, before jabbing again. Holding down and away just lets you to not dtilt while still inputting crouch. It might be 1 frame faster, if you can jab to immediately cancel the crouch on frame 1, I don't know whether or not that's possible though.

In practical use, holding diagonally is both easier and probably a little faster to do, because it's easy to waste frames when releasing the stick.

 

[JerkPhil]

Yeah the down and away angle is different between controllers. When my old controller wasn't so worn out, it never failed. As I used it more and more, the nicks were worn away, so it was really hard trying to find the precise angle. Now I'm using a white controller, and it only works in one direction. The controller isn't calibrated correctly.

 

[Mattyboy]

So I just tried doing the down-away jab pressure and it is SO MUCH FASTER! Thanks for leveling up my Samus guys!

 

[ycz12]

Watch vids of Darrell if you want to see bomb pressure, I think he's one of the best at it and I'm still trying to integrate some of his stuff. One thing he does sometimes is bombdash > Charge Shot. Often your opponent will panic and jump after the bomb, and if their shield is already weak it may actually break.

Here's a question I have: How good is d-air > up-B on shield? When I do it against non-Jigglypuff characters, it shieldstabs nearly all the time, so it seems like a good low-risk low-reward type option. But it seems like it just gets hard-countered by lightshield?

 

[JerkPhil]

I've never tried Dair -> upB. I thought even full shield would push them away enough.

I found a nice thing vs Peach some months ago. Get hold of a Mr. Saturn.
Missile cancel -> Mr. Saturn is guaranteed shield break.

 

[343]

if the dair doesn't push them far (aka if they're not really slidy) and there's a platform (preferably the middle platform) above me, I really like dair -> upb; I agree that it seems to stab a loooooot.

 

[Kmac0]

Shield pressure is so difficult
Honestly I'd rather go for the grab once they're in their shield. Especially Sheik and Falcon, because they both love to approach with Shield, and you can also get some decent mileage off of grabs.

If you managed to get them to shield on a platform, then I'd probably opt for a bomb waveland grab, or a series of jabs. Although it's mostly dependent on which character you're fighting.

I feel grab is super important for Samus's harder matchups, as it works well for conditioning your opponents to be less liberal with their shields. And if you notice that the Sheik player you're fighting doesn't know how to DI your d-throw, that's when you go really big with the f-smashes.

 

[Litt]

Watch vids of Darrell if you want to see bomb pressure, I think he's one of the best at it and I'm still trying to integrate some of his stuff. One thing he does sometimes is bombdash > Charge Shot. Often your opponent will panic and jump after the bomb, and if their shield is already weak it may actually break.

Here's a question I have: How good is d-air > up-B on shield? When I do it against non-Jigglypuff characters, it shieldstabs nearly all the time, so it seems like a good low-risk low-reward type option. But it seems like it just gets hard-countered by lightshield?

Dude dair is actually +2 on shield, you dont even need to up b if you do it properly into a later ff L cancel because you can go into jab pressure before your opponent can react, can even go into a fsmash or dsmash if you know your opponent is going to try a grab OoS and you spaced it correctly

 

[Litt]

if the dair doesn't push them far (aka if they're not really slidy) and there's a platform (preferably the middle platform) above me, I really like dair -> upb; I agree that it seems to stab a loooooot.

Some new pressure I have been trying out, is full hop retreating cross up fair when opponent is shielding on platform, into jab, into fall through platform to rising up air into bomb onshield into --> A. waveland dtilt/dsmash, B. shield poked nair in middle of shield, C. Wait for the late nair, L cancel, into shai drop rising fair for shield poke, D. Late nair into up smash back to back on shield for characters as tall or taller for guaranteed shield poke, E. shield poke dair

 

[343]

are there any opportunities for the opponent to shield drop aerial you during this elaborate string? lol

and if you're really going for the shield break, seems like bomb waveland -> more jab pressure would be good too

it's cool that you have such a long string of pressure options thought out lol

 

[Litt]

are there any opportunities for the opponent to shield drop aerial you during this elaborate string? lol

and if you're really going for the shield break, seems like bomb waveland -> more jab pressure would be good too

it's cool that you have such a long string of pressure options thought out lol

I mean... DUHHHH its not perfect pressure... not even multi shines are.... but they flow together and are quick enough that if an opponent has not been exposed to that string before they will get caught, and the rising up air covers the first shield drop attempt which most players do... they dont wait to be pressured for too long on a platform.... :/ :/

 

[ycz12]

Did you guys know that standing bomb on shield -> u-air will aerial interrupt on Dreamland from the main stage to a side platform?

The problem with using this in practice is that you can't drop immediately after an AI, since you're in your landing animation, so the fastest way to get back down to continue pressure is... buffering a shield and then shield dropping through the platform. #20xx

If anyone can make a video of them looping bomb -> AI -> shield drop, three or more times in a row at a decent speed, I'll Venmo them a dollar.

 

[343]

sure

bear with me on my noob question now: what do you do if you _do_ score a shield poke / punish the shielddrop with uair? Can you follow up, or do you just try to reset to better position after hitting them?

This is a problem I have in general with shield pressure, I guess: if I do jabs -> ftilt I feel distinctly unsatisfied even if the ftilt hits (though I guess knockdowns are good), but if I do jabs -> some laggier move, they shield and I get destroyed.

edit: this post was directed @ Litt

 

[JerkPhil]

Ycz, have you tried Isai-dropping after the AI. I think that's what I'm doing...

 

[343]

I think what he's saying is that the "optimal" fastest way to drop is by buffering shielddrop because you don't need the walk-forward frame for the Isai drop

 

[ycz12]

I think what he's saying is that the "optimal" fastest way to drop is by buffering shielddrop because you don't need the walk-forward frame for the Isai drop

Yeah, exactly. Although, can you drop through on the first frame of walking? It might end up being the same speed as shield dropping. But it also forces you to move a little bit horizontally, which makes it harder to line up whatever you're planning to do next.

 

[343]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKf...vE&feature=iv&annotation_id=annotation_325807 shielddropping is 5 frames, isai dropping is 8... because you have to do a 3-frame squat in order to drop through the platform from stand lol

so I was wrong about the reason

 

[Litt]

Did you guys know that standing bomb on shield -> u-air will aerial interrupt on Dreamland from the main stage to a side platform?

The problem with using this in practice is that you can't drop immediately after an AI, since you're in your landing animation, so the fastest way to get back down to continue pressure is... buffering a shield and then shield dropping through the platform. #20xx

If anyone can make a video of them looping bomb -> AI -> shield drop, three or more times in a row at a decent speed, I'll Venmo them a dollar.

Acutaully you can drop after an AI with an shai drop