Weird Marth Usmash on Bowser's shield glitch

[Pierce7d]

(The amount of random stuff I find is dumb.)

I need help. Something really random occurred in a match vs. Vex Kasrani (who should be back here btw.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHpDd19GzWs

These two Usmashes SHOULD'VE shield stabbed.

Instead, it does no damage, no stab, no shield push back, no shield reduction, and I felt like I connected (I know that sounds weird, but I AM Marth. I know how long something is suppose to take, if I'm going to connect or miss, if I'm going to tipper or not, and how long I'm going to lag. I FELT like I connected and I was in hitlag).

More importantly, notice the rising yellow lines in the shape of an arrow (the special effect hit lines). These lines only come out when you connect. Last I checked, they didn't show up if I hit a shield, though I'm not completely sure about that.

Seriously, it's weird. Help me check this out.

Possible theories:
Bowser maintained grab armor from his sideB, and it invoked some special property..
Bowser has unknown powers
The Usmash phantom shield stabbed
That was a crazy glitch that cost me a match (lol)

ALL OF MY THEORIES ARE STUPID. I'm going crazy. Please help.

 

[leafgreen386]

I actually said this out loud when I saw that video... "HUH? HOW???"

Could it be some form of PS? The shield looked like it was up too long for that, though... and I thought that if an attack overlays any part of a character's hurtbox that it shieldstabs, even if it hits part of the shield... plus you probably would've heard the distinct "clink" sound (unless you had sound off).

It definitely wasn't a phantom hit. There weren't any red sparks.

It has to be some kind of glitch, although the cause is probably going to be something quite bizarre...

I thought that maybe it was registering both hitboxes as hitting bowser on the same frame causing the game to (for whatever reason) ignore both collisions, but that doesn't make a whole lot of sense, either.

 

[Pierce7d]

I actually said this out loud when I saw that video... "HUH? HOW???"

Could it be some form of PS? The shield looked like it was up too long for that, though... and I thought that if an attack overlays any part of a character's hurtbox that it shieldstabs, even if it hits part of the shield... plus you probably would've heard the distinct "clink" sound (unless you had sound off).

It definitely wasn't a phantom hit. There weren't any red sparks.

It has to be some kind of glitch, although the cause is probably going to be something quite bizarre...

I thought that maybe it was registering both hitboxes as hitting bowser on the same frame causing the game to (for whatever reason) ignore both collisions, but that doesn't make a whole lot of sense, either.

Exactly, nothing makes sense. At all. The theory that makes the MOST sense is that he shielded it, but there's still heavy evidence against that. Bowser was shielding, but got shield stabbed, but still recieved no effects whatsoever, including shield effects.

 

[Levitas]

Did you consider the possibility of having phantom hit THEN hitting the shield?

But that doesn't look right either. I mean, that was pretty solidly a hit, and... crap.

hell if I know.

 

[infomon]

Unless I'm crazy, I'm pretty sure this is normal, and that I've been able to reproduce it. On tape, nonetheless, so I can upload a vid tomorrow and you can tell me if there's a discrepancy.

I thought that if an attack overlays any part of a character's hurtbox that it shieldstabs, even if it hits part of the shield...

From my brief tests, I think this is the assumption that's wrong. I'm pretty much ready to conclude that if a hitbox hits your shield, it clashes against the shield and the hitbox loses its ability to cause you damage; and that this takes precedence over hitting your hitbox. Otherwise, shield-stabbing would be way more common; there's no way you could shield MK's tornado. (Tornado's hitboxes come out farther on the sides/bottom than they look, which allows the tornado to easily overlap your hurtbox if you're just standing around; but if you're shielding, your shield can get way smaller than your character's visible body but still shield the hits of the tornado.)

It's not a powershield. The Upsmash was a little stale (wasn't it?), and Bowser's shield was buffered which is why it comes out early enough to not powershield. The Upsmash clashes with the shield so it ignores the hurtbox; if Marth was a little further away from the Bowser, then it would have shield-poked; likewise, you would have been okay if Marth's hitbox wasn't so bloody wide

Bowser is shield-pushed; it's easier to tell on the second hit, because in the first, Bowser's airdodging into the ground, and bowser's airdodge is.... misleading about where Bowser will be when he lands. I think the shield-push is also minimal (as well as the shield-reduction), simply because the Upsmash is a bit stale.

The "special effect" animations can happen if you hit a shield. You won't see it if it's powershielded or even if the shield is really big, at least in this case. It might be simply that if Bowser's hurtbox is in fact hit on the same frame that the attack clashes against his shield, the special effect animation happens as if to say "I hit a bowser!", yet as I mentioned the shield-clash happens instead of the shield-stab.

If you have a non-youtube version of that vid, it could help us all out, but like I said I think I have my own video now of this happening, if you'd like. But it didn't seem very hard to reproduce. Unless I'm completely crazy and totally missing something here......

 

[leafgreen386]

...and then infzy comes in and makes us all look like idiots.

I think the screwy part here is just how little shield damage bowser took. That shield was nearly depleted, and you could barely tell that he took shield damage from the hit at all. Does the usmash really do that little to shields?

 

[infomon]

Does the usmash really do that little to shields?

Yes, it does.

At least Bowser's, and at least when the Usmash is stale. Of course I dunno how stale it was in the vid, but the amount of shield-damage in the vid is consistent with my own tests.

Is there any difference between the different characters' shields? I'd read somewhere that there isn't (ie. they all take the same amount of damage to break), but without much description/explanation, and I never tested it myself. *shrug*

 

[SCOTU]

I'm pretty sure that's just normal behavior. It just looks weird because marth's usmash hitbox is stupid wide. Since it's really wide, it hit the bowser's shield, counting the hit as shielded, and thus the bowser didn't get hit.

Since a hit is shielded if and only if any part of the hitbox connects with the shield box.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

I think Yoshi's shield takes more damage to break, but I'm pretty sure all of the others take the same amount of damage to break. Of course, more shield properties than not don't apply to Yoshi so that hardly counts.

Also, do note that moves with multiple hitboxes are pretty good at shield stabbing. Any move with a tipper would be an example.

 

[infomon]

Also, do note that moves with multiple hitboxes are pretty good at shield stabbing. Any move with a tipper would be an example.

mmmm, what's the explanation for this?

 

[Pierce7d]

I just did some testing on this. I'll post results shortly.

 

[Pierce7d]

Alright, I finally took some time to do testing. I need to to more to further my studies, but I have a new theory.

As was stated, the hit effect lines (need a term for them) shouldn't come up if the Usmash connects with a shield.

So, I was checking it out. This is definitely a regular effect. What happened was, I usmashed, and the sword hitbox connected with his shield, which caused Bowser to shield the attack and take no damage. However, the foot hitbox connected shortly after, and shield stabbed Bowser, but did no damage, because the attack was shielded.

I think Marth's Usmash has a weird property, where the two hitboxes (feet and sword) check on each other. If one connects, the other adjusts itself to modify to the one that connected first. This is why if the feet hit a character into the sword, it's still registered as a two hit combo but deals the same damage as if only the sword hit.

Also, the sword of Marth's Usmash is abysmal garbage at shield stabbing for this reason. However, you can shield stab Bowser with Marth's Usmash even if he has twice as much shield than in the video, simply by connecting the feet hitbox first, so it will shield stop, without touching his shield with Marth's sword.

So, what I THEORIZED to happen was, Marth's Usmash hit shield, so it did no damage. The feet hitbox also connected, but they checked with the sword hitbox which said "Not this time dude, he shielded this attack." So even though the move actually hit, it did no damage. This is why we still have the hit effect lines, but no damage. Also, shield push is dramatically decreased when a shield is smaller, as far as I can tell. Since I didn't make a direct hit on the shield, it also didn't break, due to the footbox connecting. Marth's Usmash does much better shield knockback and shield damage on a full shield that it can hit better.

I wish I could use video and cool pictures to explain myself like you guys. I'm so jealous, lol.

 

[infomon]

About the foot hitbox vs. sword hitbox: Is this the way that tippers etc. work, that they're two separate hitboxes? This is why I asked above about tippers.... I'm not convinced that they're separate hitboxes; but simply different parts of a hitbox, which may have different properties. If they were really separate hitboxes, then shielding moves with tippers would be really hard, which ampharos indicates above, but I don't trust that's the case, I think it would be really noticeable if it was.

So I guess I think you're right, that the bottom "part" of Marth's Usmash hitbox thinks to do its hit-effect animation because it hit someone's hurtbox, but the whole attack is sheilded because at least one part of the hitbox overlapped a shield.

You seemed to suggest that direct hits on shields cause them to break better. Is this the case, that it matters how you hit the shield? Thus, can you angle your shield differently to avoid shieldbreaks (from say Marth's shieldbreaker)? Seems kinda odd.

As for amount-of-shield-push.... I wonder if shield-push directly corresponds to the amount of surface area that a shield loses from getting hit. And I wonder how a shield's size changes with respect to damage; smaller shields might shrink disproportionately slowly.... idk.

 

[Pierce7d]

About the foot hitbox vs. sword hitbox: Is this the way that tippers etc. work, that they're two separate hitboxes? This is why I asked above about tippers.... I'm not convinced that they're separate hitboxes; but simply different parts of a hitbox, which may have different properties. If they were really separate hitboxes, then shielding moves with tippers would be really hard, which ampharos indicates above, but I don't trust that's the case, I think it would be really noticeable if it was.

So I guess I think you're right, that the bottom "part" of Marth's Usmash hitbox thinks to do its hit-effect animation because it hit someone's hurtbox, but the whole attack is sheilded because at least one part of the hitbox overlapped a shield.

You seemed to suggest that direct hits on shields cause them to break better. Is this the case, that it matters how you hit the shield? Thus, can you angle your shield differently to avoid shieldbreaks (from say Marth's shieldbreaker)? Seems kinda odd.

As for amount-of-shield-push.... I wonder if shield-push directly corresponds to the amount of surface area that a shield loses from getting hit. And I wonder how a shield's size changes with respect to damage; smaller shields might shrink disproportionately slowly.... idk.

My wording was poor, probably due to my excitement of finding a solution that made sense. When I said "direct hit", I was merely referring to the fact that I didn't hit it exclusively, etc. I need to look into this more deeply.

Also, Marth's Usmash almost definitely has 2 different hitboxses, Upsmash isn't just one, though I'm sill unsure about tippers being a different hitbox. I never supported this theory, and still don't.

 

[AlphaZealot]

To me it just looked like the U-Smash was power shielded (hence no knockback). Both times you went inside of Bowser, meaning the U-Smash would have hit the shield instead of bowsers hurt box, had you spaced away from the center of Bowser you would have hit him I think.

I'm fairly certain the first hit was a power shield, if you look at it closely you can distinctly make out the power shield animation. On the second hit it looks like it was regularly shielded but its possible the frame was lost (recorded at 30 fps I'm sure) or it is possible the U-Smash was stale and simply wasn't enough to break the shield (this is supported because there is SOME push back from Bowser as result of the U-Smash).

1st stab: basically no notable push back, Bowser moves very very slightly backwards but it could have been left over momentum from being hit and then air dodging into the ground. On top of this the shield made that little 'pop' animation. I think it should be pretty clear the first U-Smash was simply power shielded.

2nd stab: Bowser moves roughly the distance between two arrows of FD and there is no visible power shield animation. I think this was simply a case of shielding and the shield not breaking (stale U-Smash?). The U-smash should not have hit Bowser, at best you should have broken his shield-and that is essentially the only wierd part of the video.

Basically what Infzy said.