Powershield or Parry? Which do you prefer?

[Swordmaster102]

So many people have different opinions about the shield mechanics in the Smash Brother series, but which do you believe is best for the franchise?

Powershield/Perfectshield or Parry?

Powershielding/Perfectshielding involved activating your shield as an attack hits you, while Parrying involves dropping your shield as an attack hits you.

 

[Quillion]

Parry, no question there. It makes it so that the "perfect guard" mechanic is much more difficult to pull off by accident.

 

[Xelrog]

I never seem to have time after a parry to do anything. The animation just takes too long, and it feels useless in the vast majority of cases. I preferred powershielding, myself.

 

[Swordmaster102]

In a way, I want to say that the parry mechanic actually punishes people with slower reaction times. With a projectile heading your way at high speed, you also have to invest more time to perform a parry. A powershield was instant, and it didn’t punish those with slower reaction times as heavily.
If I’m wrong though in anyone’s opinion, feel free to correct me.

I’ll go ahead and say that I myself have a slower reaction time than most players, so parrying is not often an option in my gameplay.

 

[Mario & Sonic Guy]

Perfect shielding is definitely easier to time properly than parrying, and you can quickly retaliate right back as well (assuming that your fighter has quick attacks or grabs to use).

 

[Xelrog]

In a way, I want to say that the parry mechanic actually punishes people with lower reaction times.

When you say "lower reaction times," do you mean faster or slower?

 

[Swordmaster102]

When you say "lower reaction times," do you mean faster or slower?

I mean slower. By the time seeing something on the screen to you being able to retaliate based off of information gathered. Since perfect shielding was when you “activate” your shield vs “dropping” it, you could react to something and perfect shield more efficiently than the latter.

 

[saiyan.]

This is highly subjective, obviously but in my opinion it is circumstantial. Both are useful and are better to use in certain scenarios.

 

[Uffe]

Perfect shield. It's still called perfect shielding in this game, it's just people refer to it as parrying now because you can basically counter out of it if you time it correctly. However, if we were to have something like S4 perfect shielding, it would be easier to pull off, but with how the movement in this game is, I don't think you'd be able to just perfect shield everything immediately like you were able to in S4, because in Ultimate, when you do a dash and go for a shield, your block doesn't come out quickly.