Shield Pressure!

[Kully]

Ok, I am really confused about Shield Pressure. I thought I understood it at least to a marginal degree, but I was sadly mistaken. I just don't get it.

With space animals, I understand that the current meta game dictates that one must shield pressure with shines dairs and the like, after an opponent has put up their shield. Why don't they just grab, since a grab can penetrate a shield? I know this sounds like a silly question to some, but I really am wondering what is to be accomplished by this pressure.

If anyone can enlighten me as to the core reason for shield pressure, please do so. Also, I want to know what exactly is shield pressure. How does it work? I know KirbyKaze did some frame data post on this, but could someone direct me to a link or thread or post something on this thread that explains

a) how shield pressure works in general

b) what is the motivation behind it

Thanks a lot.

 

[BTmoney]

Ok, I am really confused about Shield Pressure. I thought I understood it at least to a marginal degree, but I was sadly mistaken. I just don't get it.

With space animals, I understand that the current meta game dictates that one must shield pressure with shines dairs and the like, after an opponent has put up their shield. Why don't they just grab, since a grab can penetrate a shield? I know this sounds like a silly question to some, but I really am wondering what is to be accomplished by this pressure.

If anyone can enlighten me as to the core reason for shield pressure, please do so. Also, I want to know what exactly is shield pressure. How does it work? I know KirbyKaze did some frame data post on this, but could someone direct me to a link or thread or post something on this thread that explains

a) how shield pressure works in general

b) what is the motivation behind it

Thanks a lot.

a)
Shield pressure is overrated at higher levels. It is a good pub stomping technique but usually is sub-optimal. If your character has a stupidly good grab like Fox, uthrow, then just grab or shine grab. It's pretty idiotic not to unless you are explicitly trying to push the opponent off stage. I firmly stand by that. Falco is slightly different but either way I am not a proponent of extended shield pressure, it isn't something you really need to worry about it when you have the option to grab or just space your aerials on shield. It's a tad saddening, this isn't an insult to you at all, that people think they need to sporadically roll their face on their controller rather than have any sort of decision making. If you want to be flashy fine but take it for what it is.

b)
Pressure is very hard to deal with unless you are acquainted in it or comfortable aginst it. Even then you are likely going to make some mistakes against it. That being said I don't think people understand how exploitable it is and I for the life of me don't understand why you wouldn't shine grab (as Fox) when his upthrow, follow ups, and positional gain as are good as they are.

Read everything after the link to this post:
-Fox Advice/Questions Topic-

 

[Bad Cupboard]

Wow ado that's so wrong
If you just grab every time they're going to punish you for it
Grabs are WAYYY more punishable than shines and dairs

 

[BTmoney]

Wow ado that's so wrong
If you just grab every time they're going to punish you for it
Grabs are WAYYY more punishable than shines and dairs

What are you talking about? That doesn't even make sense, elaborate.

http://www.smashboards.com/threads/shield-pressure-frame-data.278616/

Be sure to account for the windows where you can be punished, stale moves, shield SDI, shield DI, and frame imperfection. Also shine->grab is tighter than most pressure strings and it also gives you arguably a gain better than anything shield pressure could net you, other than you pushing them off stage.

 

[Bad Cupboard]

You're missing the point
If you see a grab coming it's insanely easy to avoid and punish it
So if you always just grab shield then you're gonna get punished
You have to mix it up

 

[Qzzy]

I think Ado is talking about following up the initial attack(s) that did hit the shield with grab instead of attacking more and risking a mistake in timing/spacing. He's not talking about approaching with a naked grab.

To the OP, I'm under the impression that some/most(?) Falcos prefer shield pressure for the eventual hit b/c Falco's grab doesn't lead into as much compared to his attacks.

Depending on the situation, Fox's throw doesn't lead to anything way awesome either because of character choice, really good DI and/or really good smash DI.

I don't play the Spacies, I just browse too much for an inactive player. How it all works beats me.

 

[BTmoney]

You're missing the point
If you see a grab coming it's insanely easy to avoid and punish it
So if you always just grab shield then you're gonna get punished
You have to mix it up

I think you're missing the point. It doesn't matter if you know they are going to shine grab. You're in your shield, you're in the disadvantaged position. It is tighter than most if not all pressure strings other than a double shine.

If you want to use your own logic, don't shield pressure because they know you're gonna do it. That really doesn't hold any water.

If you place your nairs or whatever aerial low and you shine, your shine is going to beat their OOS option 99% of the time. Spot dodging and rolling are different, every space animal pressure string is subject to being spot dodged or rolled out of if you buffer it during shield stun but that's not what this is about (although it's another reason why you shouldn't be so reliant on shield pressure). If your shine is going to beat their OOS option they can A. try to do whatever they want and get shined or B. stay in shield. If they stay in shield any longer you might as well grab. Like I've said before shine->grabbing is a very tight action and chances are you aren't going your fit your OOS option within the few frames you have to do so. It is effectively less susceptible to being beaten by an OOS option than extended pressure which gives your opponent bigger windows more often.

As a rule of thumb nair/dair/bair+shines have bigger holes just by the confines of the game. After you perform an action, you're in lag (i.e. you can't have your nair hit shield, then nair again on the way down with the same nair to cover you). You can shine and early aerial or shine and late aerial or somewhere in between. No matter what you do there is gonna be a best case scenario (using perfectly fresh, timed, and spaced moves, which is unrealistic in the first place) a 7-15 frame window (so larger) to get punished. Double shines do have some value as a mixup if you have opt for pressure for some reason but that is a whole different story.

If I did the math correctly, with a fresh shine there is a 5 frame window (someone correct me, I don't know if you can initiate a jump squat option on the same frame you being to jump) for you to be punished so basically they're going to have to do something frame perfect and also react perfectly to stop you from shine grabbing if you spaced your first aerial correctly. Or at least they're going to have to do something more perfect than if you're doing standard aerial shine pressure. All of that being said: uthrow that combos into uair/death/positional gain is way, way, way better than hitconfirming a stray hit that might not even come and exposes you to more danger.

If you're opponent keeps losing to shield pressure great. But it is overrated and there are better options

1. Not hitting their shield in the first place if you're Fox (I don't have Falco theory for you)
2. Spacing you're aerials on shield so you're much safer and you have much more control of them and the stage
3. Shine grabbing

Umbreon would say that 1. is the correct solution but I think it's a little too hard to play that perfectly. Also you can't avoid a grab on reaction. Unless you're reaction time is less than .1167 seconds (average being +/1 .2) and you somehow do a 0 frame action lol. You can react to a forward dash or anticipate a grab but ultimately you are making a guess and a commitment.

 

[SpiderMad]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=deCqTaSpzzM#t=351s

 

[Bad Cupboard]

You know you can buffer spot dodges and rolls, right?
If you know they're going to grab then you can literally just hold down on the c-stick and avoid it, then punish
And by your logic, they should be grabbing every time, so it's going to be easy to avoid it
Frame data is nice but it doesn't mean anything if you know what they're going to do. Avoiding the situation entirely > getting out of a situation
The beauty of shield pressuring is while it's not frame perfect, you can mix it up and react to what they do much better than if you just grab. If you grab and they avoid it, you're boned. But if you're mixing up your shield pressure then there are loads of things you can do (including punishing a spot-dodge that's intended for a grab)

It goes back to the old saying: The best option isn't always the best option.

 

[BTmoney]

Avoiding the situation entirely > getting out of a situation

I seriously give up. Take the hint and apply it.

 

[Bad Cupboard]

No, you're right. I give up. I agree, I should do the same thing every time, there's no way that can go wrong

 

[BTmoney]

Your argument gets weaker when that's all you have to respond with. I don't know if you care at all, I don't exactly care if you do but you are wrong in multiples ways, at best not considering all options, and are a little more ignorant to the game than you might think (oh I'm so abrasive).

Playing in such a way where you can guarantee hits not on shield > if you're Fox impossing stage control and or spacing your aerials on shield I weight those about equally as good > grabbing/shine grabbing > shield pressure

Look at the level of danger and worst case scenario vs. best case scenario of each (and the level of control you have in each situation) and what you leave on the table.
Or trying playing the game if you think you're going to spot dodge every grab.

You said it yourself rofl. Avoiding a bad situation in the first place (getting grabbed or nair'd out of your pressure) is better than whatever you do to get out of it (when should have done the above).

edit:

If you want more look at how Dr. PP handled Armada in his shield today. He spaced everything and made all of his pokes threatening and extremely hard to punish. It's not coincidental at all.

 

[Bad Cupboard]

I think you need to play the game if you think you're going to land the same grab in the same situation every time.

edit: I never said you should have bad spacing. I'm saying that mixing up what you do is essential in almost every situation in Melee. This one is no exception. You think if Dr Pee Pee just shine grabbed every time he would have won?

edit edit: Just in case there's a miscommunication (and I don't think there is), I'm not saying grabbing or shine grabbing a shield is a bad idea. I'm saying you can't get away with it every time and there's a very good reason why good players don't only choose that option.

 

[BTmoney]

When you do traditional shield pressure (in the way you're trying to defend):

1. You make a commitment you don't have to when you are in the advantaged position (you're not in your shield and your opponent is relatively scared and they are shielding)
2. You forfeit stage control
3. You give your opponent multiple windows to reverse the situation or reset neutral
4. You forgo grabbing for whatever reason which is easier, safer, and nets you more gains
5. You chose to gamble for a stray hit that you may or may not hitconfirm
6. If you do hitconfirm, whatever the best case scenario is just as good or inferior to your grab follow up but more dangerous and sporadic
7. You hope your opponent makes a mistake when you had control already
8. You chose not to safely pressure their shield with spacing

It's 2013, people are getting smarter.
I've said all about I have to say now so if nothing else comes up I'm about done here. Is shield pressure bad? No. Are there much better and more consistent things you can do? Without a doubt. Pick your best options.

Edit:
Did you look at what spidermad posted?
People are getting better vs shield pressure anyways.
Why give your opponent options when you don't have to?

 

[Bad Cupboard]

When I say shield pressure I'm referring to something like Westballz does, where you hit the shield a couple times, mixing up waveshines, dair shines, nair shines, and multishines then getting out and potentially punishing a reaction. I'm not saying you should just mash fast attacks until you get shield grabbed or naired or something.
This kind of pressure is beneficial because
1. You're putting them in a high pressure scenario
2. You're eating their shield, discouraging shield use in the near future and possibly allowing for pokes
3. If done right it's relatively unpredictable (unlike GRAB EVERY TIME)

You said earlier that I fall back on the same argument every time. That's because it's an extremely important argument because literally the worst thing you can do is be predictable. Predictability gets you read, which gets you killed.

Out of curiosity, do you have a link to a video where someone beats a good player's shield by grabbing it every time? Characters like Bowser that can't really be shield pressured in the first place excluded, of course.

edit: yes, I saw what spidermad posted. Spaced aerials on shield is very good, I never said it's not. It IS, however, lower risk, lower reward compared to Westballz styled pressure.
Also, I'm headed to bed now. If you respond I'll reply tomorrow.

 

[Binx]

When you do shield pressure you are generally doing very non committal safe attacks on a shield, generally to force a roll and punish that roll.

So if you have good aerials than you can space on shield that works fine, if you arent fox falco or peach though you probably want to focus on smaller mix ups into grabs or crossups on shields instead of really long hard strings of attacks.

And for the record Ado you are very, very wrong.

 

[Ixninjax]

Ok, I am really confused about Shield Pressure. I thought I understood it at least to a marginal degree, but I was sadly mistaken. I just don't get it.

With space animals, I understand that the current meta game dictates that one must shield pressure with shines dairs and the like, after an opponent has put up their shield. Why don't they just grab, since a grab can penetrate a shield? I know this sounds like a silly question to some, but I really am wondering what is to be accomplished by this pressure.

If anyone can enlighten me as to the core reason for shield pressure, please do so. Also, I want to know what exactly is shield pressure. How does it work? I know KirbyKaze did some frame data post on this, but could someone direct me to a link or thread or post something on this thread that explains

a) how shield pressure works in general

b) what is the motivation behind it

Thanks a lot.

(Aimed at fox mostly since Falco's shield pressure benefits are pretty obvious).

I assume your talking about "pillar" type shield pressure; all it is is using shffld aerials with shines on an opponents shield in an effort to "pressure" them.

(Although any action that causes your opponent to shield (and/or stay shielded) can be counted as "shield pressure," such as dash dancing).

The point of any kind of pressure (including "pillar" type shield pressure) is to find a habit you can exploit in your opponent.

When you shield pressure (pillar type) your opponent, they will either:

1) Keep shielding
2) Try and grab you
3) Roll/spot-dodge
4) Other OOS option (wavedash, shine/aerial OOS)
5) Wait

Based on what they do, you adjust.

1) Keep shielding ----> Start grabbing
2) Try and grab you ----> Mix up your pillar timing (or do really low aerials if they tend to grab after them)/double shine/shine grab
3) Roll/spot-dodge ----> Dash dance then punish
4) Other OOS option (wavedash, shine/aerial OOS) ----> One of the above
5) Wait ----> Shield stab through pillar/shine grab

Shield pressuring is not necessarily better or worse than grabbing, it's just a another tool used to control the pace of the match; it's job is to create openings for you to punish, not just be done mindlessly.

(Although I'm super guilty of doing so).

Hope this helps!

 

[Bones0]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=deCqTaSpzzM#t=351s

This is funny because he could have just grabbed him and fthrown him off stage to take the stock.

 

[noobird]

I don't think grabbing nets you more gains as falco... look at pp vs mango this past weekend for an example. that being said, i can't say that replacing all of pp's grabs with standard shield pressure strings would have resulted in a net gain for pp

however, even as fox, grabbing isn't always the best option. grabs take time also, and they can be punished after a spotdodge. on the other hand, smart shield pressure results in either a poke, a roll from the opponent, or them trying something oos. the last two both result in you getting a free punish. correct me if i'm wrong, but if you miss a grab and they roll, you can't follow up.

 

[BTmoney]

Lookie here
Wow this works for Falco?
Wow even Mango's doing it? But Mango's aggressive!

Closing points:

With Falco you get much better upside with shield pressure than you do with Fox. Enough to where I'd say simply mix up safe pressure strings (i.e. double shine waveland back, low aerial->shine-> early aerial fadeaway, shine grab etc.) OR space your aerials on shield with Falco OR simply maintain stage control and keep their OOS options unfavorable. edit: or cross them up


With Fox. Just ****ing do anything else. Threaten with non committal movement and punish a mistake, maintain stage control, space bairs on shield, grab them, shine grab. Uthrow is good.

You have some concepts, videos, posts, and framedata.
The better and smarter your opponent is the more dangerous and overrated shield pressure gets.
Don't give your (good) opponents options when you have all the control. Why make a 100-0 situation 60-40?
I'm done here

 

[hectohertz]

okay just to play theory fighter here, if fox is multishining your shield, can you buffer a roll out of it, or will you be stuck in shieldstun?

what about falco?

 

[BTmoney]

okay just to play theory fighter here, if fox is multishining your shield, can you buffer a roll out of it, or will you be stuck in shieldstun?

what about falco?

Here Dude

Yes, you can roll out after the 2nd shine for both characters (or do an especially fast OOS move like a DK or Samus up B, or spot dodge inbetween them). If shine is stale then you can roll out of Falco's double shine before the second shine even comes out (as in only stale enough to lose 1 frame of hitstun/shieldstun). I'm not sure if Fox's shine gets stale enough to lose two frames of hitstun/shieldstun.

If it does, you can roll before his 2nd shine comes out. If you can't then you can roll after the 2nd shine since IIRC no action (so even multi shining) he can do after a 2nd shine can beat a roll other than him guessing you're gonna roll in a direction.

Red frames are the frames where you can act, you can buffer jumps/spotdodge/roll while in shield stun, and rolls are invincible on frame 4 (meaning you need 3 frames to be able to move) and spot dodges are faster than rolling iirc you are invincible on frame 2 or 3. Versus normal shield pressure really as long as you roll while you're in hitstun you're good.

 

[Iron Dragon]

I think the problem here with the people in FAVOR of shield pressure aren't realizing that doing it with Fox is completely different to doing it with Falco.

It's better with Falco because the risk/reward ratio is significantly higher in the reward department. If you just break it down to the SIMPLEST terms possible, think about what Fox really gets from shield pressure. Not much, so you baited a roll, big whoop. In that time you probably could have just shine grabbed and gotten uthrow uair for the same kill/whatever it was. Baiting a roll doesn't really give you any positives to a situation with Fox whose general basis for high level play is based on getting a grab.

It's a bit different for Falco, his basis for doing good things is based on a shine, because yes it leads to death combos if executed properly.

Think of it like this, if you're Marth and you're in shield, if Fox shield pressures you and even if he goes for shine grab you can grab between the shine and the grab, get hit by the shine, so then Fox's grab whiffs and it leads to....nothing for Fox. Now think of the same scenario for if Marth tried this vs Falco and got hit by the shine. Not exactly the same is it? So...yeah.

That being said I pretty much agree wholly with Blacktician/Ado.

 

[BTmoney]

I think the problem here with the people in FAVOR of shield pressure aren't realizing that doing it with Fox is completely different to doing it with Falco.

It's better with Falco because the risk/reward ratio is significantly higher in the reward department. If you just break it down to the SIMPLEST terms possible, think about what Fox really gets from shield pressure. Not much, so you baited a roll, big whoop. In that time you probably could have just shine grabbed and gotten uthrow uair for the same kill/whatever it was. Baiting a roll doesn't really give you any positives to a situation with Fox whose general basis for high level play is based on getting a grab.

It's a bit different for Falco, his basis for doing good things is based on a shine, because yes it leads to death combos if executed properly.

Think of it like this, if you're Marth and you're in shield, if Fox shield pressures you and even if he goes for shine grab you can grab between the shine and the grab, get hit by the shine, so then Fox's grab whiffs and it leads to....nothing for Fox. Now think of the same scenario for if Marth tried this vs Falco and got hit by the shine. Not exactly the same is it? So...yeah.

That being said I pretty much agree wholly with Blacktician/Ado.

Dveownajapqbxlpabwiwk. Thank you.

 

[EpixAura]

I feel like at Evo, we saw a lot less shield pressure from PP and Mango. PP is a fairly grab-heavy Falco in the first place, but even Mango was really abusing Fox's Uthrow->Uair, whereas in the past, he would usually just opt for shield pressure. Perhaps Armada's ridiculously strong OoS game made him reconsider.

I've always felt like shield pressure was really a bit overrated, but I had thought that was just because I sucked at it. Still, now that I really think about it, I feel like shinegrabs may be the overall better option for both Fox and Falco.

Instead of using shinegrabs as an occasional mixup during shield pressure, it actually makes more sense to make shield pressure a mixup while making shinegrab the more standard option. Fox in particular would probably benefit from this, but it may even be a better option for Falco. At the very least, I think shinegrabs and short-but-sweet Westballz style shield pressure are probably better than longer pressure strings, although they could still be used for mixups. I have to say, usually if the shield pressure doesn't convert to something early in the pressure string, the enemy manages to roll out of it safely.
Well, this is mostly just theorycraft going by what I know about the frames, but I don't even know those all that well, so take it with a grain of salt I guess.