Perfect Shielding

[NastyNate]

Is there ever a reason why you wouldnt want to perfect shield? I know IF you did, it would be very rare times, but i was thinking along the lines of spacing, since you dont move when you perfect shield. Do pros ever expect / read that some1 will perfect shield? Maybe your by the edge and purposely want to be knocked onto the ledge? Im an average player, so i only ask this at the top level of play

 

[EbAgItachi]

Do pros ever expect / read that some1 will perfect shield? Maybe your by the edge and purposely want to be knocked onto the ledge?

Sometimes using a light shield is better than trying to power shield because of situations like the one you stated. I actually use that one all the time to get invincibility for lasers or anything else off the ledge. There's also shield tilting, which is super useful if you want to mess up someones L-cancel timing. But you can't tilt your shield and power shield simultaneously, so you have to know which situations call for a certain response.

If a Falco is being hyper-aggressive with Dairs, you might find it more useful to mess up his L-Cancel timing with a light/tilted shield -->Grab. If a Marth is being spammy with Fsmashes, powershielding can actually be a pretty safe option.

 

[Vestboy_Myst]

i can't think of a point in which powershielding wouldn't be preferred. its rare enough that it is never expected, and even if it was it still is the quickest reaction to an incoming attack possible.

Sometimes using a light shield is better than trying to power shield because of situations like the one you stated. I actually use that one all the time to get invincibility for lasers or anything else off the ledge.

what would you say the best way to lightshield quickly is?

 

[EbAgItachi]

Well, once you get to the higher levels of play you'll actually see A LOT of power-shields, so it's not as rare as may think. By putting your shield up at "random" times, you can bait reactions and habits out of your opponent. Also like I said before, shield tilting is an amazing tool to utilize, but you can't do it if you're only trying to power-shield everything. A good mix of power-shielding certain close range stuff and lasers/light shielding/and shield tilting will make you feel like an impenetrable wall against a player who's not so accustomed to seeing that stuff. Also keep in mind that you can tilt your shield while flexing it to create even more crazy mixups.


Get accustomed to the different degrees of your shield. They all come out at the same speed but you can "flex" your shield depending on what the situation is by how hard or light you're holding a trigger. Like if you notice someone accidentally does a sloppy dash attack into your shield you don't really want to lights shield because the lighter your shield is, the further back an attack will send you, so just hard shield --> shield grab. On the opposite side of that, if you're on the edge of a platform and you know they're going to try to hit you, put up a light shield and if they hit you, you use that property to your advantage and their hit pushes you off the platform, creating a free escape.

 

[rpotts]

Is there ever a reason why you wouldnt want to perfect shield? I know IF you did, it would be very rare times, but i was thinking along the lines of spacing, since you dont move when you perfect shield. Do pros ever expect / read that some1 will perfect shield? Maybe your by the edge and purposely want to be knocked onto the ledge? Im an average player, so i only ask this at the top level of play

You actually slide as far as you would from your lightest light shield (like you get from holding z) and you still take the same amount of shieldstun, but you pop out of shield immediately in a neutral state so you can use tilts and smashes and b moves other than just upsmash and upb. Since you slide farther you may not want to powershield as Yoshi or Luigi as they have low traction and slide very far from perfect shielding, generally out of range of shieldgrabbing or other OoS options.

 

[Splice]

If you tilt your shield towards the projectile/attack, is that effective on frame one? Can this be used to make power shielding easier or safer?

 

[Nicco]

Powershield everything
Lightshield marths recovery

 

[Superspright]

Out of the first few frames of your dash is usually the safest time to try to PS a projectile--it usually covers a 45 degree arc behind your back, but typically doesn't protect the feet. Good Falco's will aim at your toes on your retreat.

 

[SAUS]

Powershielding I think could replace light shielding, but you need to be able to hard shield. Without hard shield, you can't do as much stuff out of your shield, so you will miss a lot of punishes. Also, going for all powershields is kind of ridiculous. You can get a lot - particularly on projectiles - but you can't expect to powershield every attack made against you.

 

[KirbyKaze]

Power shielding lowers traction a lot so often doing it will prevent you from being able to punish incoming attacks simply because you'll be pushed too far for your counterattack to reach. Or it might push you onto the edge if you're cornered. Etc.

Power shielding is mostly useful because it can protect from an attack without requiring you to hold shield after, allowing for the use of your ground attacks for counterattacking. For characters like Peach Samus and Sheik with high quality normals this is obviously very appealing. That said, this is a different type of defense in contrast to regular shield because you're forfeiting the benefit of WD OOS and various other movement options & positioning tools. It's not really interchangeable because your goal is to get a counterattack more than it is to hold position or protect yourself.

 

[X WaNtEd X]

I'm not pro, but sometimes what I'll do is power shield jab with ganon because it comes out 4 frames faster than a shield grab and there's not really anything my opponent can do if they land their attack in range of my jab. The problem is landing it consistently and it's often not even that useful because people will try to space attacks so you can't get shield grabbed. But often they will get hit because they won't be expecting the jab, which has more range than my grab. However, if they land their attack behind me, like good captain falcons should do with shiffld nairs, then I don't have anything to combat that and if they know the MU well enough, they could try to bait out a powershield jab and punish me for it behind if they can l cancel the nair, pivot and do whatever in time. Or they could just pull a stomp real quick I guess.