Browny
Smash Hater
THIS IS A COPYPASTA OF AN ESSAY I WROTE YEARS AGO ABOUT AURA SPHERE. THE EXACT SAME APPLIES TO SHADOW BALL IN SMASH 4 I JUST SWAPPED CHARACTER NAMES AROUND. MEWTWO MAINS SHOULD TAKE NOTE. THERE WILL BE PARTS THAT MIGHT MAKE NO SENSE BECAUSE THEY ARE BRAWL/LUCARIO SPECIFIC, YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO FIGURE THOSE OUT.
*The following is not an essay on how to use Shadow Ball, its about threatening your enemy with it. Throwing out Shadow Ball to hit your enemy is simple and effective, but frustrating your opponent into getting hit by them over and over again is a very powerful tool I believe Mewtwo can use to sway a lot of matchups in his favour by varying degrees.*
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When people think of Mewtwo, something that is often spoken is how much they hate the shadow ball. In the same style of Sheik's edge-guarding, having a shadow ball, even partly charged, can often be enough to reduce a characters options to 1; airdodge it or die. It seems a simple enough strategy to combat but its so much more devastating than theorycrafters will ever give it credit for. As a low % spammable projectile it works great to get easy, safe damage and at full charge it is a legitmate KO move. But that's merely what the shadow ball is, at a face value DDD's gordos and needles are superior. The hidden power, and extremely powerful at that, lies in what the shadow ball does; instil fear.
What I'm about to go into is theorycraft yes, but I also speak from experience of what people say when they play against my Mewtwo. Every single person gets angry playing against it and the reason why is all too common; they just keep on getting hit by shadow ball. So allow me to explain how I use shadow ball and why people fall into it.
The thing which makes shadow ball, in my opinion, so incredibly devastating, is how it ties into Smash 4's approach-and-retreat playstyle. Almost all characters in Smash 4 rely heavily on approaches (when they need to of course) which are safe on block (Yoshi bair, ZSS nair) or especially safe on whiff when retreating (Ness fair, DK bair). Damage is typically done in 'chips' and the situation is reset over and over again until someone loses a stock then the game changes drastically. Most of the good characters can do this safely without any fear of being punished. The enemy must anticipate an aerial approach if they are to counter with a projectile due to the risk of an aerial airdodge-punish by the approaching player which is often heavily disadvantaged for the projectile thrower due to the typical low damage of projectiles. Even if they do predict it well, many aerials will simply beat projectiles and continue to hit the enemy. With the obvious exceptions of Diddy's bananas, stitchface, gordo etc. it is not too large of a risk to approach a projectile spammer.
Mewtwo however makes the situation much more difficult for other characters and the scales are tippled heavily in his favour when he has a full charge shadow ball in hand. You have to consider how many options this shuts down for characters. Someone like Yoshi can normally throw out fairs all day long as they are completely safe on whiff while retreating. This tactic wrecks so many characters and is one of the best bairs in the game; vs Mewtwo normally these are his options, All of which are very safe
1) Fair to challenge an aerial approach from Mewtwo, which will beat/outdamage any Mewtwo attacks
2) Wait from an anticipatory reaction from the Mewtwo (such as fsmash), delay, then fair or...
3) Retreating fair spamming if he has a % lead.
But now what happens when Mewtwo has a full charge shadow ball waiting?
1) The shadow ball will outprioritise the fair and Yoshi takes a lot of %.
2) Hold shield and beware of an egg lay, you can avoid it on reaction. Afterwards...
3) Mewtwo simply waits for Yoshi to use his second jump and place the shadow ball directly underneath him, making the shadow ball unavoidable by catching landing lag frames.
Suddenly Yoshi's safe options have reduced by 2. The only thing he can do which doesn't risk eating an shadow ball it is to simply not fair at all since he will run out of stage eventually by retreating fair spamming. PATIENCE IS THE KEY. When Mewtwo can reduce his opponents options to not being able to safely use their best attack, while remaining safe, he's got a good thing going on. An important note is that the effectiveness of this is HIGHLY dependant on the other characters movement speed and acceleration, it gets increasingly difficult to abuse shadow ball vs fast opponents or ones with fast long range moves. Its shadow ball's major weakness imo.
I am going to reiterate this time and time again because it is just so fundamentally important. FULL CHARGE shadow balls are the difference. 'Baby shadow balls' and half-charges are useless because they are outprioritised and clank/cancel with other attacks. Remember the rules of priority with projectiles, to beat a projectile you must either attack it completely with a perfectly spaced disjointed hitbox, or do within 10% of it. At 26%, full charge shadow ball can only be cancelled by attacks that do 17% or more! Most characters dont even have a single attack that does that much! Further to this when an enemy throws a projectile at you, the full charge is so much faster that it will rip right through the enemies attack and hit them. Seriously, try this vs a Pikachu. Have a Pikachu counter a baby shadow ball with thunderjolt and see what happens. Now try to counter a full charge shadow ball. The SB will eat the thunderjolt and smack pikachu in the face before he can even bring up shield. Do it to every other projectile!
FULL CHARGE
FULL CHARGE
FULL CHARGE
OK now back to the main points...
Mewtwo can force this against so much of the cast its insane. I can list other attacks which typically wreck most of the cast do to their pure safety, however turn into very risky moves vs Mewtwo who sits in anticipation with a full charge shadow ball and punish with almost no risk to himself. Peach/Ike fair, Sheik/DK/G&W/Sonic/Luigi/Kirby/TL bair, All of those attacks will be overridden by a full charge shadow ball if they connect and have just enough commitment such that if they attempt to space it such that it is safe on whiff, you can either punish the attack lag (G&W bair, Ike fair) or camp the landing lag (Luigi/DK bair) quite easily.
Now look at those attacks I listed and tell me what other high/top tier characters can do about it. How does Luigi deal with peach's fair? Does Sonic have any reliable answer to Yoshi's bair spamming? Nothing Mewtwo has is guaranteed but the fact that he has one universal tool which doubles up as a KO move to limit characters best attacks, sometimes completely, is worth so much more than people ever give it credit for.
Of course this implies a neutral state between players, you wont always be on the ground with an full charge shadow ball. That's where the chip damage style of Smash 4 comes into play. Melees shadow ball was stupidly powerful, didnt stale but it was too hard to hit with. With Smash 4 the knockback is nerfed but it charges faster. What is most important though is how many chances you now have to charge one up per stock. In Smash 4 you will often have more than enough time to charge one and reset the situation if you just missed one. Mewtwo thrives off Smash 4's slow nature similarly to Luigi. This is why I get so angry watching peoples Mewtwo players jumping around, acting flashy and doing everything except charge a shadow ball. Every single encounter for chip damage to be laid onto either character should have a shadow ball at the ready. With Mewtwo's great evasive game, escaping a whiffed shadow ball scenario to charge another should be utilised as often as is safely possible imo.
TL;DR version, shadow ball shuts down characters options. When you remove a characters options, they become predictable. Sheik is great because she can remove options every single second of gameplay with her projectiles. Mewtwo can not only removes options (he completely negates peaches float, shadow ball will hit her out of her airdodge), he punishes with a KO move. Some other attacks in the game share a similar trait, Bowser is a fantastic example. He completely removes the option to attack his shield and attempt to pressure him, and he will punish with a KO move.
So that's my interpretation of WHY shadow ball is a great move, but now we get onto the HOW.
Mewtwo's best friend in Smash 4 and an extremely important game mechanic which must be mastered to be a top player. Grabbing and smash attacking people out of landing lag is simple enough, but its what turns shadow ball into one of the best projectiles in the game. Forcing the enemy to think twice before making an approach is one thing, but making them think three times if the result is losing a stock is worth far more.
Its quite simple, when the enemy is about to land once they have run out of jumps, shoot the shadow ball such that they will land on it. While some characters like Wario/Jigglypuff can simply move to the side or Metaknight tornado, majority of characters without reflectors/absorbers will be forced to airdodge into the ground since no attack can override the shadow ball reliably. While some attacks actually can, the timing/spacing on these attacks required, combined with the speed of shadow ball, I'd honestly rather they try to attack it, my money is on the shadow ball winning and if I lose, the situation is reset, charge another shadow ball. If I win, I have done huge damage, enemy is offstage, charge another shadow ball.
With the only option left an airdodge into the ground, the shadow ball becomes unavoidable as it will catch the landing lag. Nowhere on the stage is safe. Airdodging into the ground in Smash 4 is an absolutely awful option, its worse than ever before. This is your key to victory with Mewtwo. You wield the single most devastating punish IN THE ENTIRE GAME for a mechanic that the enemy will suffer from multiple times per stock.
Consider this situation. Yoshi is up in your face and bairs you while retreating, waiting for a hit confirm. If he sees you stay in shield, he is going to retreat if it hits hes going to keep going. Now for most characters, they are going to really struggle to punish this move. In fact for most slow characters, this is a 100%, completely safe spammable move on block. Only the fastest characters can punish with a dash attack, grab or something like needles. With a full charge shadow ball ready, you just removed that option completely as it will result in him taking a fat 26% and possibly dying if you release the shadow ball out-of-shield and Yoshi has become more predictable.
Bam. You have rendered one of the most powerful, safe, spammable attacks in the entire game as a liability. Yoshi has lost a major tool in most matchups.
Another great aspect of shadow ball is the sheer annoyance factor. No one likes getting hit by things they believe they should have dodged. When you are punishing regularly with a 26% attack with it that's one more step in conditioning your opponent to dodge the shadow ball from now on, reducing their options. How many times do you expect a Kirby is going to eat shadow balls before they realise bair is no longer an approaching option in the matchup and is forced to use his far worse approaches?
Don't get me mistaken, I do not think shadow ball is the answer to all of these problems. The enemy can mix-up their approaches often and avoid it without too much trouble. However only certain characters have this luxury against Mewtwo. These may simply be Mewtwos harder matchups. But for everyone else, this tool is godlike.
Shadow ball allows Mewtwo to punish an extremely wide variety of the best moves in the game. No character in the game has such an extremely powerful attack which beats and punishes the retreating tornado, banana toss, lasers, DK's bair reliably. But remember its not the fact that you CAN beat those attacks, its that they are no longer 100% safe. Its a slight annoyance if a typically safe tactic can be stopped by toon links boomerang, its downright scary if it will cost you the stock.
The next criticism is how is shadow ball any better of a projectile compared to Sheik's needles or fireballs? They both have overriding priority and are fast enough + damaging to discourage those attacks. The benefit of shadow ball is the sheer size of the hitbox, its ability to hit through spotdodges, extremely easy to hit out of landing lag, can snipe people offstage, has huge shield knockback/damage while the major downside being its threatening ability to KO is diminishes rapidly, while other projectiles can be staled all day long. This however I believe doubles up and once again makes it far stronger than other projectiles. It is often completely unavoidable and will send the enemy offstage. Thats always a good thing which shadow ball has over all other projectiles, but on top of that now the enemy has to recover while you have another shadow ball ready. You play the shutting down options game again, needles and laser are completely inferior to shadow ball's potential offstage pressure. Shadow ball may not be the best projectile in every situation, but it is undoubtedly the best across all scenarios if you ask me.
So the final compromise I think, is if it is worth spamming full charge shadow ball as much as possible, staling it and making it useless to KO with if you could throw 1 out unpredictably and get an easy KO in the many unavoidable situations? Well that IMO ties in directly to who you are up against. If we consider someone a like Peach who cant KO reliably until around 130 and will die by almost all of your aerials and smashes at mid %'s, fire away. You need shadow ball to shut her float down as much as possible. Vs someone like Wario though trying to hit him with a smash without dying at around 110% is not easy at all and shadow ball isnt exactly good at stopping his high-angle aerial approaches. In this situation, keeping one ready for a surprise KO may indeed be your best option. But test what works for you? In the end...
The moral of the story is, ALWAYS HAVE A FULL CHARGE SHADOW BALL. If you are not about to be hit by an enemies attack, charge one up. There is no excuse for ever wasting time doing nothing, waiting for an enemy to approach/recover/respawn or anything which doesnt not involve attacking you when you should have a full charge shadow ball charging up or ready. You have one of the most powerful tools in the game; use it often. Know the enemies options, reduce them, read and punish.
*The following is not an essay on how to use Shadow Ball, its about threatening your enemy with it. Throwing out Shadow Ball to hit your enemy is simple and effective, but frustrating your opponent into getting hit by them over and over again is a very powerful tool I believe Mewtwo can use to sway a lot of matchups in his favour by varying degrees.*
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When people think of Mewtwo, something that is often spoken is how much they hate the shadow ball. In the same style of Sheik's edge-guarding, having a shadow ball, even partly charged, can often be enough to reduce a characters options to 1; airdodge it or die. It seems a simple enough strategy to combat but its so much more devastating than theorycrafters will ever give it credit for. As a low % spammable projectile it works great to get easy, safe damage and at full charge it is a legitmate KO move. But that's merely what the shadow ball is, at a face value DDD's gordos and needles are superior. The hidden power, and extremely powerful at that, lies in what the shadow ball does; instil fear.
What I'm about to go into is theorycraft yes, but I also speak from experience of what people say when they play against my Mewtwo. Every single person gets angry playing against it and the reason why is all too common; they just keep on getting hit by shadow ball. So allow me to explain how I use shadow ball and why people fall into it.
The thing which makes shadow ball, in my opinion, so incredibly devastating, is how it ties into Smash 4's approach-and-retreat playstyle. Almost all characters in Smash 4 rely heavily on approaches (when they need to of course) which are safe on block (Yoshi bair, ZSS nair) or especially safe on whiff when retreating (Ness fair, DK bair). Damage is typically done in 'chips' and the situation is reset over and over again until someone loses a stock then the game changes drastically. Most of the good characters can do this safely without any fear of being punished. The enemy must anticipate an aerial approach if they are to counter with a projectile due to the risk of an aerial airdodge-punish by the approaching player which is often heavily disadvantaged for the projectile thrower due to the typical low damage of projectiles. Even if they do predict it well, many aerials will simply beat projectiles and continue to hit the enemy. With the obvious exceptions of Diddy's bananas, stitchface, gordo etc. it is not too large of a risk to approach a projectile spammer.
Mewtwo however makes the situation much more difficult for other characters and the scales are tippled heavily in his favour when he has a full charge shadow ball in hand. You have to consider how many options this shuts down for characters. Someone like Yoshi can normally throw out fairs all day long as they are completely safe on whiff while retreating. This tactic wrecks so many characters and is one of the best bairs in the game; vs Mewtwo normally these are his options, All of which are very safe
1) Fair to challenge an aerial approach from Mewtwo, which will beat/outdamage any Mewtwo attacks
2) Wait from an anticipatory reaction from the Mewtwo (such as fsmash), delay, then fair or...
3) Retreating fair spamming if he has a % lead.
But now what happens when Mewtwo has a full charge shadow ball waiting?
1) The shadow ball will outprioritise the fair and Yoshi takes a lot of %.
2) Hold shield and beware of an egg lay, you can avoid it on reaction. Afterwards...
3) Mewtwo simply waits for Yoshi to use his second jump and place the shadow ball directly underneath him, making the shadow ball unavoidable by catching landing lag frames.
Suddenly Yoshi's safe options have reduced by 2. The only thing he can do which doesn't risk eating an shadow ball it is to simply not fair at all since he will run out of stage eventually by retreating fair spamming. PATIENCE IS THE KEY. When Mewtwo can reduce his opponents options to not being able to safely use their best attack, while remaining safe, he's got a good thing going on. An important note is that the effectiveness of this is HIGHLY dependant on the other characters movement speed and acceleration, it gets increasingly difficult to abuse shadow ball vs fast opponents or ones with fast long range moves. Its shadow ball's major weakness imo.
I am going to reiterate this time and time again because it is just so fundamentally important. FULL CHARGE shadow balls are the difference. 'Baby shadow balls' and half-charges are useless because they are outprioritised and clank/cancel with other attacks. Remember the rules of priority with projectiles, to beat a projectile you must either attack it completely with a perfectly spaced disjointed hitbox, or do within 10% of it. At 26%, full charge shadow ball can only be cancelled by attacks that do 17% or more! Most characters dont even have a single attack that does that much! Further to this when an enemy throws a projectile at you, the full charge is so much faster that it will rip right through the enemies attack and hit them. Seriously, try this vs a Pikachu. Have a Pikachu counter a baby shadow ball with thunderjolt and see what happens. Now try to counter a full charge shadow ball. The SB will eat the thunderjolt and smack pikachu in the face before he can even bring up shield. Do it to every other projectile!
FULL CHARGE
FULL CHARGE
FULL CHARGE
OK now back to the main points...
Mewtwo can force this against so much of the cast its insane. I can list other attacks which typically wreck most of the cast do to their pure safety, however turn into very risky moves vs Mewtwo who sits in anticipation with a full charge shadow ball and punish with almost no risk to himself. Peach/Ike fair, Sheik/DK/G&W/Sonic/Luigi/Kirby/TL bair, All of those attacks will be overridden by a full charge shadow ball if they connect and have just enough commitment such that if they attempt to space it such that it is safe on whiff, you can either punish the attack lag (G&W bair, Ike fair) or camp the landing lag (Luigi/DK bair) quite easily.
Now look at those attacks I listed and tell me what other high/top tier characters can do about it. How does Luigi deal with peach's fair? Does Sonic have any reliable answer to Yoshi's bair spamming? Nothing Mewtwo has is guaranteed but the fact that he has one universal tool which doubles up as a KO move to limit characters best attacks, sometimes completely, is worth so much more than people ever give it credit for.
Of course this implies a neutral state between players, you wont always be on the ground with an full charge shadow ball. That's where the chip damage style of Smash 4 comes into play. Melees shadow ball was stupidly powerful, didnt stale but it was too hard to hit with. With Smash 4 the knockback is nerfed but it charges faster. What is most important though is how many chances you now have to charge one up per stock. In Smash 4 you will often have more than enough time to charge one and reset the situation if you just missed one. Mewtwo thrives off Smash 4's slow nature similarly to Luigi. This is why I get so angry watching peoples Mewtwo players jumping around, acting flashy and doing everything except charge a shadow ball. Every single encounter for chip damage to be laid onto either character should have a shadow ball at the ready. With Mewtwo's great evasive game, escaping a whiffed shadow ball scenario to charge another should be utilised as often as is safely possible imo.
TL;DR version, shadow ball shuts down characters options. When you remove a characters options, they become predictable. Sheik is great because she can remove options every single second of gameplay with her projectiles. Mewtwo can not only removes options (he completely negates peaches float, shadow ball will hit her out of her airdodge), he punishes with a KO move. Some other attacks in the game share a similar trait, Bowser is a fantastic example. He completely removes the option to attack his shield and attempt to pressure him, and he will punish with a KO move.
So that's my interpretation of WHY shadow ball is a great move, but now we get onto the HOW.
Landing lag frames.
You will learn to love these more than anything else in the game.
Mewtwo's best friend in Smash 4 and an extremely important game mechanic which must be mastered to be a top player. Grabbing and smash attacking people out of landing lag is simple enough, but its what turns shadow ball into one of the best projectiles in the game. Forcing the enemy to think twice before making an approach is one thing, but making them think three times if the result is losing a stock is worth far more.
Its quite simple, when the enemy is about to land once they have run out of jumps, shoot the shadow ball such that they will land on it. While some characters like Wario/Jigglypuff can simply move to the side or Metaknight tornado, majority of characters without reflectors/absorbers will be forced to airdodge into the ground since no attack can override the shadow ball reliably. While some attacks actually can, the timing/spacing on these attacks required, combined with the speed of shadow ball, I'd honestly rather they try to attack it, my money is on the shadow ball winning and if I lose, the situation is reset, charge another shadow ball. If I win, I have done huge damage, enemy is offstage, charge another shadow ball.
With the only option left an airdodge into the ground, the shadow ball becomes unavoidable as it will catch the landing lag. Nowhere on the stage is safe. Airdodging into the ground in Smash 4 is an absolutely awful option, its worse than ever before. This is your key to victory with Mewtwo. You wield the single most devastating punish IN THE ENTIRE GAME for a mechanic that the enemy will suffer from multiple times per stock.
Consider this situation. Yoshi is up in your face and bairs you while retreating, waiting for a hit confirm. If he sees you stay in shield, he is going to retreat if it hits hes going to keep going. Now for most characters, they are going to really struggle to punish this move. In fact for most slow characters, this is a 100%, completely safe spammable move on block. Only the fastest characters can punish with a dash attack, grab or something like needles. With a full charge shadow ball ready, you just removed that option completely as it will result in him taking a fat 26% and possibly dying if you release the shadow ball out-of-shield and Yoshi has become more predictable.
Bam. You have rendered one of the most powerful, safe, spammable attacks in the entire game as a liability. Yoshi has lost a major tool in most matchups.
Another great aspect of shadow ball is the sheer annoyance factor. No one likes getting hit by things they believe they should have dodged. When you are punishing regularly with a 26% attack with it that's one more step in conditioning your opponent to dodge the shadow ball from now on, reducing their options. How many times do you expect a Kirby is going to eat shadow balls before they realise bair is no longer an approaching option in the matchup and is forced to use his far worse approaches?
Don't get me mistaken, I do not think shadow ball is the answer to all of these problems. The enemy can mix-up their approaches often and avoid it without too much trouble. However only certain characters have this luxury against Mewtwo. These may simply be Mewtwos harder matchups. But for everyone else, this tool is godlike.
Shadow ball allows Mewtwo to punish an extremely wide variety of the best moves in the game. No character in the game has such an extremely powerful attack which beats and punishes the retreating tornado, banana toss, lasers, DK's bair reliably. But remember its not the fact that you CAN beat those attacks, its that they are no longer 100% safe. Its a slight annoyance if a typically safe tactic can be stopped by toon links boomerang, its downright scary if it will cost you the stock.
The next criticism is how is shadow ball any better of a projectile compared to Sheik's needles or fireballs? They both have overriding priority and are fast enough + damaging to discourage those attacks. The benefit of shadow ball is the sheer size of the hitbox, its ability to hit through spotdodges, extremely easy to hit out of landing lag, can snipe people offstage, has huge shield knockback/damage while the major downside being its threatening ability to KO is diminishes rapidly, while other projectiles can be staled all day long. This however I believe doubles up and once again makes it far stronger than other projectiles. It is often completely unavoidable and will send the enemy offstage. Thats always a good thing which shadow ball has over all other projectiles, but on top of that now the enemy has to recover while you have another shadow ball ready. You play the shutting down options game again, needles and laser are completely inferior to shadow ball's potential offstage pressure. Shadow ball may not be the best projectile in every situation, but it is undoubtedly the best across all scenarios if you ask me.
So the final compromise I think, is if it is worth spamming full charge shadow ball as much as possible, staling it and making it useless to KO with if you could throw 1 out unpredictably and get an easy KO in the many unavoidable situations? Well that IMO ties in directly to who you are up against. If we consider someone a like Peach who cant KO reliably until around 130 and will die by almost all of your aerials and smashes at mid %'s, fire away. You need shadow ball to shut her float down as much as possible. Vs someone like Wario though trying to hit him with a smash without dying at around 110% is not easy at all and shadow ball isnt exactly good at stopping his high-angle aerial approaches. In this situation, keeping one ready for a surprise KO may indeed be your best option. But test what works for you? In the end...
The moral of the story is, ALWAYS HAVE A FULL CHARGE SHADOW BALL. If you are not about to be hit by an enemies attack, charge one up. There is no excuse for ever wasting time doing nothing, waiting for an enemy to approach/recover/respawn or anything which doesnt not involve attacking you when you should have a full charge shadow ball charging up or ready. You have one of the most powerful tools in the game; use it often. Know the enemies options, reduce them, read and punish.
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