Shield Stopping

[jollypong]

I've see falcons and marths use this technique a lot but does fox have any use for it? Does anyone use shield stops in their gameplay?

 

[1000g2g3g4g800999]

I use it in tech-chase situations and when spacing against other characters or players that use short hop nair approaches to quickly stop when I have my spacing. I also use it win conjunction with shield drop nairs and fairs to precisely place a safe retreating aerial, or run at an opponent and do the same. Fiction also uses shield stops pretty frequently when he plays Fox.
It's great out of a DD because it's easier to use than a pivot for a spaced grab or usmash, and allows you to go farther back away and farther back in than you would have pivoting. You can also stop right out of range of an opponent and aerial, usmash, or be ready to grab their grab, or grab and avoid certain spotdodge punishes much like Marth, though it's not as good. You can also shield stop roll to get out of certain pressure situations with a end position and timing people will be less used to (and running to make them take some action and then just avoiding it is pretty big in this game).

 

[Catchy]

I use it in tech-chase situations and when spacing against other characters or players that use short hop nair approaches to quickly stop when I have my spacing. I also use it win conjunction with shield drop nairs and fairs to precisely place a safe retreating aerial, or run at an opponent and do the same. Fiction also uses shield stops pretty frequently when he plays Fox.
It's great out of a DD because it's easier to use than a pivot for a spaced grab or usmash, and allows you to go farther back away and farther back in than you would have pivoting. You can also stop right out of range of an opponent and aerial, usmash, or be ready to grab their grab, or grab and avoid certain spotdodge punishes much like Marth, though it's not as good. You can also shield stop roll to get out of certain pressure situations with a end position and timing people will be less used to (and running to make them take some action and then just avoiding it is pretty big in this game).

How/Is shieldstopping better than wavedashing?

 

[1000g2g3g4g800999]

If you mean to stop on a dime, it's quite a bit faster (1 frame to shield vs character's jumpsquat + 10 frames landfallspecial) but you can't do it in the first few frames of dash (in which case, you probably didn't need to dash, or could have pivoted). You don't have all the same options out of it, but perfectly spacing grabs, aerials, and upsmashes on approach is very helpful. If you intend to move again, wavedashing in place is better. Dropping shield by releasing the button is 15 frames of lag for Fox. The other, obvious benefit of shield stop is that holding shield a little longer allows you to block attacks headed your way where you'd get hit out of wavedash. Shieldstopping also has less room to mess up. You could accidentally slide a little with a wavedash by messing up your angle, though this isn't that likely. You can also of course, cancel a shield stop with a wavedash, and it would be only 1 frame slower than if you just did the wavedash.

 

[BO/\K]

Shield stopping + shield DI/angling towards is great. Getting pulled in by your opponents attack can set you up for a grab, upsmash, or quick nair oos.

 

[Diana's Safe Landing]

Shield stop bair for zoning!

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

You can take space and protect it with: dash forward, dash back, immediately shield, sh bair.

I also find shield stopping to be an acceptable substitute for pivots, eg in chaingrabs.

Other than that I just use it for positioning, when I want to stop on a dime. This comes up in a bunch of small situations. Eg, when falcon is recovering high and trying to mix you up, you can dash back towards middle then shield stop and react (he will probably fade back to edge after seeing you dash).

 

[Cthulhu's Underling]

I've only experimented with it; never actually got around to incorporating it into my play. But it is certainly useful.