Shellshocks, Bowser's Parry

[Synnett]

Shoutouts to Rognut for labbing this tech. "<>"


What is a Shellshock?
It is basically a mix of Yoshi's parry and Doc's Up B cancel, but more versatile and more lenient than both. Usually, when landing a grounded Up B, you get 13-17% and most often a neutral reset, since the move has a recovery time of about 75 frames after the hit. However, due to a series of VERY fortunate circumstances, you can force a winning trade, which will combo into a lot of things. This doesn't use any weird/advanced Melee mechanics, and is fully viable/learnable.


How do you I input this?
Crouch -> Jumpsquat -> Grounded Up B -> ASDI Down
Everything aside from the Up B is optional, but this is what makes it so consistent and deadly.

As the opponent is about to strike you with any aerial move, crouch and Up B. This is a tight timing, but you have about a 7 frames window if you're crouching / are in jumpsquat. Then, ASDI the hit down, and you can follow up with nearly the entirety of Bowser's arsenal. You can practice it with UnclePunch's Training Mode under the Shield Drop event thing.

It's really useful to know what makes this tech work to be able to use it properly, so read further if you're planning to use this tech.


How does it work?
Out of all the moves with i-frames (intangibility) in the game, only three have a following hitbox that does not overlap with the intangibility. This means that the intangibility frames run out, and on the next frame, the hitbox comes out. They are Samus' aerial Up B, Zelda's Neutral B, and Bowser's grounded Up B.*

Frame 0 to 5 of grounded Up B.

So an opponent can throw a move, phase through you without interacting with your hurtboxes since you're intangible, and on the frame the Up B hitbox come out, you trade with it instead of straight up beating it. While you get damage from the trade, it is insanely useful as it cancels your Up B animation entirely, and since Up B has a lot of hitstun, you are free to retaliate right away as Bowser can ASDI down pretty much anything into the 100%+.

Moreso, Bowser is a flat f*ck when crouching or during his jumpsquat. Bowser being taller during the Up B guarantees a trade, as Bowser's hurtbox will shift upwards into the opponent's hitbox. The Up B hitbox being taller than the Jumpsquat's hurtbox (and the standard crouch's) makes it more lenient and consistent.

Flat Bowser Squad: crouching on the left, jumpsquat in the middle and 5th frame of Up B on the right.

Another nice thing to know is that the Up B hitbox extends far out of Bowser's butt, and his tail doesn't have a hurtbox. You'd want to Shellshock facing away from your opponent if they have disjoint hitboxes, like Marth's Fair or Puff's Bair. It is also way more lenient and consistent to be facing away.

You have about a 7 frames window to hit the shellshock, and the window gets bigger the less relevant disjoint the opponent's move has. Fox's nair can be as many as a 9 frames window for an intentional trade. If you do a Up B without crouching in any way, you have a 2 frames window.


What is it useful for?
Defense against standard approaches, like Shffls, crossup aerials, falling aerials onto your shield. Insanely good option against Falco's laser -> aerial.
Example by Gasher: https://streamable.com/dqlk2l (True combo btw)

Getting shark'd on platforms, so Fox's Up Air, Falcon's Up Air and similar moves. You will suck them up onto the platform or above, and from there you can Down Smash or anything to punish them.
Example by me: Twitter clip

Late to edgeguard Marth? Run up there and Shellshock with his Up B. From there you can push him off stage with an aerial, or Up Air if he's over 70% to kill.
Example by me: Twitter clip

Bowser's Whirling Fortress is a kill move. Shellshock Puff's Back Air with the back side of your Up B to kill at very low percents. Since the animation cancels, she can't ASDI down into the second hit of Up B to survive.

You have a ton of frames to get a followup after the Shellshock, it's like a Falcon Stomp. There might be other uses for it too!


Where is it limited?

• You gain damage by forcing a trade.
• Eventually you have too much damage to ASDI down some moves.
• Some moves are too strong to get a meaningful punish, like Ganon's Fair.
• Missing it means you get punished, while doing a standard Up B OoS (Out of Shield) can be safer.
• You can't parry grounded moves.

Why isn't this more widely used?
The only documentation of this tech previously was by a drunk Rognut (Labby pappy) over two years ago in the Bowser Discord server. It wasn't documented anywhere else as far as I know. There's only a small fraction of the Bowser players that know about this tech too, and we never bothered to learn it.

This is Bowser's equivalent to the spacies' jump cancel shine, it is extremely good and any aspiring Bowser should learn this tech.

* Samus does not benefit from this as she is airborne when doing her aerial Up B, so she can't ASDI down. For Zelda, Neutral B's hitbox is too weak for any meaningful punishes, but she can do it in mid-air.

 

[donttouchme]

You can combo with Samus up b because they can't react to it. It's actually pretty sick looking I'm pretty sure swooper does it. I've also gotten it to work with Zelda up smash (trading a weak multi hit with fox aerial, cc and can combo into anything because they don't react and are forced to land).

For a while I thought you should parry everything as Bowser but there's a lot of scenarios where it's optimal to shield lol. I was getting whooped on for a while because I'd never shield and just try to up b everything and the spacies would just jump in double jump away.

I bet nobody knows this, but Bowser actually has two parries. One with his up b, and one with his down b. Its incredibly situational and risky but you can actually net yourself a frame advantage vs certain characters that use spikes (basically just Falco). Sometimes it's an optimal play to use a jump vs Falco and do an option select where if he down airs you he can't follow up and if he doesn't you get stage position.

So basically you get down aired in the air on purpose to take advantage of Falco thinking he'll be hitting you on the ground, by being in the air. As Bowser you don't really get to do this because your jump is so slow. However, if Bowser gets hit at any point in his down B, even the very first frame where he hasn't left the ground yet, it counts as being airborne, I assume this is because down be is a unique state in the game with special properties. So there are instances in which down bing into someone is optimal, AND Bowser's down b is a superior tool situationally than other characters possess for these interactions, because it is the fastest way in the game (second fastest are characters with 3 frame jump squats. Some up B's might do this too but I haven't labbed) to enter an airborne state from the ground. It looks insane when you pull it off.

 

[Synnett]

Ohh that's super interesting, thanks for sharing!

I shared some stuff about Samus' up B in the Samus discord server, where you could trade with Sheik's needle instead of shielding them. They weren't very responsive to the idea because both Samus and Sheik recover from hitlag on the same frame, so Samus didn't have a frame advantage doing this. I think they're stuck in their frame data lol. But yea, I lurk swooper's stream and he's definitely using it. It doesn't give Samus a frame advantage, but it breaks the flow of the game, which is good enough imo.

I've got the most success with shellshocks when I can see the move coming (flaco dair, fox nair/dair from afar), or when I'm getting combo'd and I can sneak a quick upB in between the hits. Works pretty well vs Falcon, it's a crazy reversal when you're getting techchased on plats. And it'll just kill Puff lol. The OG Bowsers (Gimpyfish ang gang) have had much more success with shellshocks than me, they have their reaction time down and it's really wild how well they can use it. Eventually...

Now for the grounded down B, that's exciting lol. I'm definitely seeing potential for teching stuff away, like flaco's dair ofc. I'm also curious if you could use it more offensively against projectiles. When you get hit by a projectile while grounded, you're stuck on the floor. I wonder if using down B to make you airborne then SDIing the projectile up could let you use your double jump. Maybe sheik's needles too? That'd be something to lab. The wild thing is that it's frame 1.

Thanks for bringing this up, I'll try to see if I can implement grounded down B into my play.