|Game & Watch Stratagems

Game & Watch
Stratagems​

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Bair

The bread and butter of Mr. Game & Watch, turtle renders a potential advantage at any point in its use-- convenient range, disjointed/lingering hitboxes, high priority, and a great damage delivery. Its what any player wants in a character. But despite all its merit, there are a few chinks in the armor. The universal option against bair is to shield, in fact, in most cases, it’s the only options for some characters, aside from running away. After letting turtle feed on your opponent a bit, see how they respond to its constant pressure. Do they wait it out with shield, and then chase the ending lag? Empty sh, and punish if you spot flinches, be it shield or spotdodge. Or execute your bairs at various points in time, it'll throw them off, allowing windows for other approaches, these are your salt wounds.

Rising Bair - Rising full hopped bairs are good since they leave you in midair, here you can punish any of your opponents reactions from your strong element.

If they _____ you should...

• Shield: DI enough to fine-tune your spacing so that when you FF bair or nair on the way down, you will be safe.

• Run/Roll Away: Pursue them offstage with your air game and further pressure with chef.

• Roll Behind: DI after lag and punish.

• Jump: Punish with your aerials.

• Spot dodge: Dair, FF bair, nair, or FF and grab, dtilt, dsmash, or fsmash.

• Attack: Follow through with a second FF'd bair, considering its priority will usually eat any would-be attack. And if you find yourself in a pitfall, either retreat an upb, or airdodge.

Shield Pressuring - Full Hopped bair is a very effective spacing tool that can be good for chipping away at shields; you can approach tightly with bair, and taper back to your previous position with another bair. In effect, it can leave little space for punishment if you cover your hurtbox with good spacing, considering if they attack, in most cases you will win out. While if they jump, you can follow their DI with your second jump and couple it with an aerial, then retreat to your initial post with bair; wax on, wax off. Its a strong wall that’s easy to shrink and grow, from rising into second jumps, and to narrowing into SH's.

Bair vs Invincibility Frames - If you’re against an opponent with flexible invincible frames, such as Marth and MK, you'll need to condition them. Post condition, you may be able to cross up with empty sh’s, and nair to get behind them. Upb'ing out of SH's can give you backdoor access, and bait them for easy pickets. Another little trick is to full hop, retreat a bair (focusing spacing at the beak), and do nothing (may need to SJ)... They'll often rush, looking for that ending lag, if they attempt a grab, just dtilt them, or if they attack, either bair, or angle your upb into their center of body, this goes for aerials too. Just take advantage of your different hitboxes depending on the situation.

Bair Crossup - Post condition, execute bair while approaching your opponent, facing forward. After, DI through them, and as you land, they will remain in hitstun. With your new inside position, slap them with smashes and tilts. This is a neat mix-up, despite its high risk. A safer option would be to bair, and ff so that you cancel the remaining animation before the landing hitbox appears, they continue to experience hitstun, so follow-up with just about anything.

Nair

Crossup - With your running approaches, after readying your foe, you can nair through them for a crossup, which can lead into anything from cheap grabs, to your ground and air game. FF'd nairs are even better because they pull your opponent down, and flops them to the floor; here your smashes, tilts, and specials are good follow-up, take advantage of the autocancel to pull-off KO's. Dsmash is your best bet since it covers either side of you, otherwise you need to keep watch of your foes DI.

Dthrow

The down throw isn't really that great of a techchase, to be honest, especially compared to Dedede's and Snake's. It generally takes good observation to use the dthrow trap on experienced players. Once you look at G&W's grab game, you'll see its high risk and reward. Its really a gamble, and I like guaranteed damage, even if it requires some elbow grease, such as uthrow. But if you fancy the dthrow, here are some tricks to tighten your trap.

Dthrow has many holes...

• Get-up
• Get-up Attack
• Roll Left
• Roll Right
• Tech
• Tech Left
• Tech Right

1. When you dthrow, pick a direction, and walk forward at a distance that puts you just out of range of your opponents get-up attack, while still in fair reach of a tipper dsmash. You may need to charge, depending on how your foe reacts. This covers get-up, get-up attack, and any roll/tech in your direction. It still remains 50/50.

2. Before you do anything after throwing...jab once. It'll catch your opponent if they try everything but a roll/tech, which reduces about 70% chance. When you nab them with greenhouse, follow suit with your ground game. The good thing is, if G&W jabs forward, and they DI behind him, the hitbox will still catch them, from there you can react and punish without trying your luck. Use this sparingly, or else they'll retaliate.

3. One of my favorite tricks to condition my opponent after dthrow, is to sit in my shield; its safe, and rather than trotting left and right, sticking your neck out, you have better odds. If they lay there, I can spank them with the majority of G&W's moveset, if they roll/tech forward, its easy chase, and if they roll/tech behind me, I let turtle off the chain to eat.

4. Lastly, as you know, dthrow on platforms is camp ****; you have free smashes, tilts, and a mean regrab, yada-yada. Anyway, something you should try next time you grab your foe on a platform, is to dthrow, then slip under said platform, eye your opponents reaction, jump, and follow-up with anything from aerials to specials. Its pretty sexy to surprise your opponent with a fair from under their *** that sends them off-screen.

Bucket

Some of you are under the impression (the lies!), that bucket is something that really shouldn't be exploited as a G&W player, for reasons like- its post lag is horrendous, your asking for punishment, etc. The only reason you should be getting Star KO'd for using bucket is at high percentages, which should never really happen. Try filling the tin at early percentages, not only will you have your bucket full of fresh projectiles, but a bit of damage isn't all that bad to start off with, I mean your not going to get torn by fully charged smashes or anything, and it'll be worth it in the end.

Absorbing Projectiles - If you encounter an approaching projectile and you want to feed the pail, run toward the edge and ledge-boost down-b. You will snag the catch as it enters your absorption radius, and gain a good stretch of spacing; way out of striking distance of your opponents entire moveset, while still in recovery reach.

"Or you could- cover the lag with chef spam, gimp recoveries, ledge drop bucket and let the magnet fetch the projectile (especially with Pika's, since its current follows the shape of the terrain). You can cancel the lag with water, or hop under a floating level, hug the base, and suck the projectile under the stage and into the bucket with the magnet-property, then easily recover with Up-b's sweetspot. You have to think, not just pull it out, and rely on a little hope and a prayer not to get ***** by charged smashes. And even if you soak up weak projectiles, a soft oil panic still does nice damage, a lot better than not using it at all!"

Use bucket INTELLIGENTLY!
Observe your foes patterns, and find windows to fill up.

Releasing -

• OOS
• When being CG'd
• Out of Grab Release
• Out of Jab
• Ledge Camp Mix-up
• Punish Roll/Spotdodge
• Edgeguard

...Etc. Oil Panic comes out on frame 1, and hits on 2, so as you'd expect, it can be utilized in many instances.

Dash Attack

DashA is a hermit-move for most G&W players, its often underused and left alone as a lousy slip-finger attack. However, I’ve grown to use the helmet, it’s just something I happened to carry over from Melee that has fit smoothly with my game. DashA is great at early percentages, if you initiate it ahead of time, and allow the last few, lingering frames to sock your enemy, you have a cut in excess lag, and ample time to follow up with Hyphen Smash, Fmash, Dsmash, Ftilt, Dtilt, or another DashA. To add, at higher damage, it hurls your foe at an elevated diagonal, which sets-up nicely for juggling. It can also buoy up during the act of a juggle; as an opponent is about to land, time DashA to hit at the moment they experience land-lag to lob them back above ground, this also works if they air dodge, allowing for the helmets sluggish hitbox.

When you hit with the ending frames and you make contact with a shield, quickly jab, dtilt, or grab. Since the remaining frames are severed when canceled, its only right to follow-up with your swiftest moves.

Dtilt Tech Chase

A little thing I’ve been looking at carefully for awhile now, is the dtilt techchase. It’s fairly comparable to the dthrow trap, though the diversities between the two are: an on-the-go exploit, small window to tech, and its ease of abuse. The negative aspect is that it is impossible to bring into play at early and mid damage rates. Manholes trap is in exercise at a certain percentage, then wears-off at another. These percentages usually appear at bordering KO damage, so it is perfect for landing fatalities.

The ploy is difficult to tech since your adversary doesn’t have a clue when G&W will dtilt, and if they don’t happen to tech, they enter the grounded animation. Taking advantage of your IASA frames, you can run with a follow-up, while your opponent experiences the frame disadvantage of recovering. Another neat thing is, depending on how long the duration of a tech chase is active (dependent on character/percentage), you can chain consecutive chases into one another without having to regrab. Your entire moveset is at your disposal during the chase, it really makes your foe think at a cluttered tempo. Here is the character info, they are organized by the percentages that the chase becomes equipped, and then how long they last…

• = Short Duration
• = Medium Duration
• = Long Duration
• = Immune

60’s
• Mr. Game & Watch: 60%-80%
• Squirtle: 60%-102%

70%’s
• Marth: 70%’s
• Ivysaur: 70%-82%
• Toon Link: 70%-82%
• Pit: 70%-88%
• Ness: 71%-89%
• Mario: 70%-90%
• Yoshi: 72%-95%
• Ice Climbers: 70%-100%
• Lucas: 70%-106%
• Metaknight: 70%-106%
• ZSS- 70%-106%
• Pikachu: 70%-108%
• Diddy Kong: 70%-118%
• Shiek: 70%-130%
• Fox: 70%-140%
• Falco: 70%-148%

80’s
• Luigi: 80%’s
• Robert: 80%-86%
• Sonic: 80%-108%
• Ike: 80%-110%
• Snake: 80%-110%
• Charizard: 80%-110%
• Donkey Kong: 80%-110%
• King Dedede: 80%-116%
• Link: 80%-122%
• Wario: 80%-122%
• Ganondorf: 80%-140%
• Bowser: 80%-140%
• Captain Falcon: 80%-150%
• Wolf: 80%-176%

Impervious
• Samus
• Kirby
• Peach
• Lucario
• Olimar
• Jigglypuff

Note:
If you can’t remember all this, just know to start throwing out some manhole at 60 and up.

Jab

Jab Set Up - Greenhouse is a hot steaming pile of garbage by itself, on the other hand, it is excellent when married with G&W's moveset. Being closely related to Fox and Kirby's, its initially your everyday jab until it gets going. If you're in spitting distance of your opponent, jab will temporarily lock them in a short radius, washing them in a quick rinse cycle; from hit stun, to standing position, to landing lag. Your foe has no idea when they can attack or escape, they are entirely reliant on SDI, this gives you an advantage, albeit small. At this time, you have a Swiss Army knife of punish options, subject to HOW they DI.

When an opponent is caught in a 'Jab Combo', notice when and where they DI. The instant you see them begin to escape, release the A button ASAP, this is so you have time to punish, rather than sitting in the buffer lag. This requires a hell of a reaction time, if you aren't quick on the draw, your foe has a chance at getting off scot-free. The following are your opponents options, and the appropriate counters.

Opponent SDI's behind G&W - As soon as you can, catch them with smashes for cheap KO's, utilt and dashA for a juggle set-up, or ftilt and dtilt when you need breathing room. You can also pivot grab to chain into dthrow/uthrow traps, and judgment hammer if you're feeling golden. Of course, you also have the privilege of resetting the jab set-up for greedy damage. If your victim is aggressive, walk forward just a little, and pop them with a tipper dsmash.

Opponent SDI's away from G&W - In this scenario, the second you see them fleet, immediately cancel the jab, depending on how this player has been acting prior (ex- teching away, spacing, playing defensively, camping), you may want to avoid holding A. Just tap it, lightly, several times, that way you're free to act quicker. As they DI- either dsmash, ftilt, dtilt, or dashA, these being your longest attacks, you have a better chance at contact, go for the quicker move depending on the character (ex- slow, fast faller, low priority, etc). You can also walk forward a bit for more range. If they enter shield before you can react, let turtle eat it, or run up and grab.

Opponent SDI's upward - Your opponent was stupid enough to DI vertically, now that they are off the ground, your entire air game is at home. Run toward your foe and brutalize with your aerials. You can also upb straight into their body if they try to attack. If they ff, dashA or ftilt to lob them back into the air, dsmash, fsmash for KO'ing, and dtilt for spacing. If they DI upward, and toward you, utilt, usmash, or use any of your aerials, and if you can, use chef for multiple hits. Air dodging is what you want, it allows your entire moveset by punishing the ending frames.

Being the fastest attack in G&W's moveset, coming out frame 4, with a measly damage output of 3%, you can set this up at just about any tight situation, since G&W's smashes frequently lose at very close ranges, this gives him a strength nose-to-nose, rather than upbing away. Also, keep in mind, bucket is accessible in all of these circumstances.

• Walk to Jab- Not very safe.
• Empty SH to Jab- Good post condition.
• Bair to Jab- Great if you spaced closely.
• Jab Oos- Usually wins due to its speed.
• FF'd Nair to Jab- Reliable.

Note: Jumping, crouching, and pressing B are the quickest ways to jab cancel. Also, Neutral A can quickly catch opponents with their pants down, this is most efficient during an aggressive playstyle, the change in tempo can land brief sucker hits.

Single Jab - Another neat aspect of greenhouse, just tapping A once can give you a slight advantage- hits on frame 4 of course, with 9 cool down, which is hard pressed to punish. This is just good to throw in every now and then, it can chain into pretty much anything- jump canceled jab > ff nair/dair, jump canceled jab > fair, jab > dsmash, jab > dtilt, jab > grab, etc. Single jab also has minor shield pressure capabilities.

On Stage Edgeguarding

Spacing - Game & Watch's on stage edgeguard is quite impressive, sharing characteristics of both Marth, and Snake. As you know, opponents occupying the ledge have little, and rather fragile recovery options- roll, get-up, jump, ledge attack, and ledge drop. This in itself is a trap. In order to seriously take advantage of having the higher ground, space yourself at equal distance of a tipped dtilt, and accordingly outside of your foes ledge attack. This alone will rule out the majority of their choices (get-up, roll, ledge jump, ledge attack).

Punishing Get-up, Roll, Ledge Jump, Ledge Attack - If they roll you could, punish the ending lag with your smashes, throw them into one of your grab traps, or flick them back off stage with dtilt and reset the scenario, or go into an off stage edgeguard. Its like an opponent deliberately teching toward you- free damage. If they regular get up, or perform a ledge attack, you're in a dash's distance to shield grab, or punish said ending lag with your disjointed moveset. As you know, most characters wouldn't dare jump out from the ledge considering G&W's air game. But if they attempt an attack after a ledge jump, walk up, and fly into their attack with Upb's i-frames, angling in or out for on stage juggle, or off stage edgeguard.

Punishing Ledge Drop - Your enemies options are now limited to a ledge drop, and depending on said character, this could be their weakest, or strongest choice, even if so, this still remains fairly punishable. If your foe is terrible on the ledge, and has noticed your tight spacing, they just might chance a ledge drop, using their second jump to airdodge onto the stage. Be expecting this, and punish with a dashA, or time another move during the vulnerable frames. If your foe has a excellent ledge game, such as MK and ROB's, spam chef. The foods, having random trajectory, but an all around centered range, will prohibit their flexibility, creating a pressure point, this can aid in setting up follow-ups if need be. Or alternate fsmash and dtilt for a wall that affords long lasting, and quick hitboxes. If the opponent stays on the ledge too long, stage spike with dash attack.

Knowing both your off, and on stage edgeguards can tack on quite a sum of damage, and make these map 'hot spots' very fearful for your opponent. This is an example of conditioning for stage pressure.

Discuss...​

Wow...very nice. I like the section about jabbing. In addition to what you said, jabbing is REALLY annoying to your opponent and can mess up his tempo.

We all know bair and nair eats away at shields, but Usmash also takes a HUGE chunk out of the shield energy.

You should add something here about using Fire (up b) more often. It works amazingly well, since its so fast and since it grants invincibilty frames. I tried using up b today and I almost three stocked my friend. He never got a chance to confront me on the ground, since I would always fight in the air. (Crossup dair, nair, then up b or a bair, then up b)

Thank you.
I didn't include sections for things I thought were considered well know by now.
Such as- Upb, Ledge Camping, Off Stage Edgeguarding, etc.

Edit: But, I just might write up a section for Upb, just so people use it correctly.

Are you sure an opponent can't airdodge out of a Dtilt instead of being forced to tech?

cutter said:

Are you sure an opponent can't airdodge out of a Dtilt instead of being forced to tech?

Click to expand...

Yes I'm sure, I think I told you that in the BR.
The percentages that I have up are the precise instances where they can only tech, or be forced to enter the grounded state.

Si gh.

what's disappointing?

The lack of response.

Epic read, thanks man. Why dissapointed?

Thank you, :}.

Neb said:

The lack of response.

Click to expand...

^This is why.
I was expecting a discussion.

Well you covered so much that there's not much else to discuss lol.

I expected that to happen, s'why I listed some topics to discuss after the read.

hmm...This is the same thing that happened with the Castle Siege discussion. One person posted after 5!!!! days...

Before I discuss about the topics, can you explicitly define what each of them mean?

• Dtilt Frame Trap - something about taking advantage of IASA frames?
• Pillaring - no idea what this is.
• Shield Pressure - bair, usmash? As in eating away shields?
• Escaping Traps & Breaking Walls - uhh...breaking walls? what?

K 2 said:

hmm...This is the same thing that happened with the Castle Siege discussion. One person posted after 5!!!! days...

Before I discuss about the topics, can you explicitly define what each of them mean?

• Dtilt Frame Trap - something about taking advantage of IASA frames?
• Pillaring - no idea what this is.
• Shield Pressure - bair, usmash? As in eating away shields?
• Escaping Traps & Breaking Walls - uhh...breaking walls? what?

Click to expand...

• Dtilt Frame Trap- This is still basically theory, but considering the IASA frames on dtilt, and G&W's disjointed hitboxes, I thought maybe there could be a sort of trap that punishes opponents by ranging, and out-prioritizing, rather than in most cases winning in sheer speed. Of course this would only work on characters lacking said traits. Its like playing rock, paper, scissors. Since its still just dispute, I wanted to sift this for its truency.

• Pillaring- Click.
So far, all we have is upb>dair, I wanted to see how far we could go with this.

• Shield Pressure- Yes, basically. Discuss different ways to eat away the shield,
and formulate strategies centered upon these methods.

• Escaping Traps & Breaking Walls- Click.
I want us to discuss ways to defeat these barriers.

Great guide Neb!

Another thing you could mention about the Nair is the fact that because you never touch the ground, you can 'chute out of it and be very safe. I like to nair shield, and then chute away. Sometimes, against characters that are easily shield poked I also like to nair, and then right as it ends dair, 5 almost-instant hits on the shield often pokes, and is difficult to punish if they aren't used to it/are used to the 'chute escape.

About Pillaring, it is good once you get into it, and you kinda have to learn the timing. I can use my height combined with Slowfalling my key to make sure it ends very close to the ground, and behind the shield. It is a very good but punishable tactic. It applies a lot of pressure but against characters with good strengths above them you are open for punishment.

Actually, not bad against the MKs I play, but not quite fast enough to be relied upon or used heavily.

Thanks for the links Neb, they were very helpful. Here's my ideas...they are all theoretical and have not been tested.

Dtilt Frame Trap:

G&W's dtilt has 0 frames of cooldown and 2 frames of shieldstun, according to the farm data thread. It takes 6 or 7 frames to drop the shield or to jump out of the shield, so if G&W spaces properly, he should remain safe, even if powershielded....in theory. Do you know of anyway I can actually test this out?

Pillaring:

Isn't this just shield pressure?

Shield Pressure:

Up b -> crossup dair. I suppose you could follow up with jab if you are facing the right way. The only thing they could do is hold their shield or drop their shield and DI out. Dair as 15 frames of landing lag and 2-3 frames of shield stun. Along with the 6 or 7 frames to get out of a shield, that leaves your opponent are 6 frames to punish you. If they spotdodge, jab will hit them. If they try to roll towards you, you can cancel jab and punish them. If they roll away from you, nothing happens. You might be able to follow up with SH nair if they don't move. Maybe you could repeatedly SH and dair (jump and dair at the same time, do you dair when you are really close to the ground). That would chip away at your opponent's shield, leaving them with the options that I just stated. I don't know if it will work, I'm sure they can roll out of it or something, but that leaves you open to "techchase" them...just an idea.

How many frames does it take for spotdodge and roll to come out?

Prefectly spaced bairs and crossup nairs work wonders at eating away shields, as we all know. Usmash also takes a huge bite out of shield energy.

Escaping Traps & Breaking Walls:

Dair will usually get you out of juggle traps, but against some characters (marth...), their uair beats out yours. Airdodging usually screws you over since they tend to bair out an airdodge and then punish afterwards. I guess you could FF a nair or DI to the side and bair, but those probably won't work either. Umm...I'm not to sure about escaping traps...let me think on this for a while.
Projectile traps are too easy...

...I'll finish talking about this later...I'm tired -_-

That old Dtilt data is false:
(12:21:31 PM) HotGarbage: turns out I was hooooribly wrong about his dtilt having zero cooldown
(12:25:22 PM) HotGarbage: dtilt lasts 25 frames
(12:25:27 PM) HotGarbage: hitbox is out 6-15
(12:27:19 PM) HotGarbage: you can perform another action on frame 26

apparently hot garbage said that he was wrong about some of the dtilt frame data, i guess it does have cooldown or something? you'd have to ask him

edit: dam n you esc

Hylian said:

Oil Panic comes out on frame 1, not 2.

It hit's on 2 though .

Click to expand...

Whoops, thank you.
Fixed.

BUMP.
10lazyasses

so...what are we discussing about now?

Lets discuss a shield pressure game for G&W.
Yes, No?

sure. Any ideas besides bair, nair and usmash?

Your going about it wrongly.
We aren't so much discussing what moves deplete the shields energy, but how to force opponents too shield, and ways we can use these particular attacks together, so that we can punish, consistently. This makes a character defended, otherwise defenseless, as a result of shield stabbing. It also makes G&W's moveset that much more difficult to withstand, and can possibly shatter shields for cheap damage.

But to answer your question, another addition would be fsmash. It melts the shield a fair amount, and the cooldown is covered by the torch's lingering hitbox. So...

• Bair
• Nair
• Fair
• Dair
• Usmash
• Fsmash
• Judgement 3
• Judgement 7
• Judgement 9
• Oil Panic

Be in their zone! If you are too far away, they won't be forced to shield. Empty short hops at the enemy makes them shield. Condition them. Fly at them with nairs, and dairs, this will show them that if they don't shield, they are gonna eat attack. From there, they should shield alot.

Problem is, in using these nairs and dairs, you could get punished. Conditioning isn't worth it if you die to an u-tilt, or lose a stock in the process.

So, the dilemma we are left with is safe pressure, we need safe pressure that forces the enemy to shield.

ME MUST DOOP WALK. No srsly, any ideas?

Forcing them into shielding an anticipated attack is always nice.

Nair is fantastic at sheildpressuring; you can jump up to a platform, Nair, deplete their sheild and DI away to avoid punishment. I try to deplete their shield enough so you can shieldstab with another attack or Fair.

Some characters like DDD also have a tendency to get shieldstabbed a lot

Also, if you KNOW they're just going to shield an incoming approach, grab them.

I say we should talk about UpB and neutral B.

OHHHHHH Now I get it...Sorry...

If you run at them with a crossup nair, they'll have to shield and they won't be able to shield grab you at the end.

I agree with Phloat. If you constantly pressure them by not giving your opponent any space, he will be on the defensive and probably shielding a lot (possibly hoping for a shield grab).

Another thing is..

If you SH nair their shield, and you think another hit will poke it, you can dair just as the move ends and hit two more times! This is good against characters that can run away to replenish said shield.

Just be careful, if you hit the C stick down too soon, you will FF the nair and get punished.

For releasing bucket, you might want to put it after a d throw. I believe the hit box can come out fast enough before they can do any teching of any sort.

They can DI behind you to avoid the bucket...If they don't do that, the bucket will probably kill them.

A good way of baiting the shield is to use chef, this is because it pressures your foe into a reaction of self-defense. Just jump back, flip two or three foods while at bay, then re-approach with an attack that wears out the shield. Either they wait out the assault, or eat it. If you weaken a fair portion of their guard, you now have a few seconds to stab your opponents hurtbox, using the bulk of your moveset, without impediment. This is where a smarter aggro-play can be exercised.

Moves that are often shielded

• Nair
• Dair
• Dtilt
• Chef
• Bair
• DashA
• Grab Release

Despite my previous views on chef, I beginning to incorperate it more into my game. It obviously shouldn't be spammed, but it does create a temporary wall of priority to keep your distance from your opponents. Shoot 2-3 pieces (as you said) and watch how they react.

Just throwing an idea out there, your opponent can't shield grab you while they are shielding you jab. So if you nair them and follow up with a jab (assuming they are shielding the nair). They will either have to continue shielding (which is stupid) or they will have to take the hits and try to DI out of it. You might able to cancel the jab and follow up with another move (They will most likely try to shield/roll after getting out of the jab.). - It's just an idea.

K 2 said:

They will either have to continue shielding (which is stupid) or they will have to take the hits and try to DI out of it. You might able to cancel the jab and follow up with another move (They will most likely try to shield/roll after getting out of the jab.). - It's just an idea.

Click to expand...

This has definitely worked for me before. The jab is very good for shield/spotdodge pressure and as soon as your opponent is pushed away in their shield or they start to take hits and DI, you can knock'em with a quick dtilt, utilt or even a smash if they spotdodge on reflex.

K 2 said:

Just throwing an idea out there, your opponent can't shield grab you while they are shielding you jab. So if you nair them and follow up with a jab (assuming they are shielding the nair). They will either have to continue shielding (which is stupid) or they will have to take the hits and try to DI out of it. You might able to cancel the jab and follow up with another move (They will most likely try to shield/roll after getting out of the jab.). - It's just an idea.

Click to expand...

Yeah, its a great mix-up, and eats up the shield rather quickly.
This is really nice for punishing an opponent that is conditioned to shield grab after dair.

Do the nair -> Jab too much will get you shieldgrabbed... Unless you are landing behind them and turn-around jabbing them... Which has its dangers.

hmm...good point phloat.

Maybe do a cross up nair and see how they react?

If they try to shield grab (stupid move, only noobs will do this), you can punish them with a smash and condition them to hold on to their shield.

If they drop their shield and try to punish you, umm...maybe hit them with a nair or another quick attack (you're facing backwards towards your opponent). You could condition them to hold onto their shield for a followup attack.

If they roll away, nothing happens. You might be able to techchase?

If they roll to you (lol), smash them.

These are just ideas. I doubt much of what I say is actually viable, but maybe one of these ideas might prove to be something useful.

That's why I said its a good mix-up.
Nothing you'd use repetitively.

True.

Watch Hylain's vids. If you have, watch them again =D.

He uses the nair so god**** well, but I feel like that is partly because of ZSS's slow grab. Against characters like Lucario, spacing is the most important element, his grab range is awful.

So, remember that everything said in here is general and matchups's specifics > General rules.