Sangoku
Smash Master
Hello everyone.
The purpose of this thread is to gather all the information we need to know about shields. I don’t think I have already seen any thread dedicated to shields yet and I don’t know if the Backroom is making its own, but as it is a rather tedious and long subject to investigate on I don’t think most people want to spend too much time doing it. That’s why I decided to open my mupen64 and try to discover some stuff.
This thread is mostly orientated in frame data, but I’m obviously less experienced and talented than our great AntD, even though he was part of a well-known conspiracy.
/!\ For now it is still under construction /!\
1 Introduction
2 Shield's Properies
...2.1 Generalities
...2.2 Shields are draining over time
...2.3 Shield's recovery
3 Attack Specific
4 Shieldbreak
...4.1 How to shieldbreak
...4.2 Recovery from shieldbreak
5 Escaping Shieldbreak
6 Special Shield: Fox's shine
7 Requests / To Come
8 Credits
**************************************************
1 Introduction
As you all know the shield comes out by pressing the z trigger and its purpose is to protect from the opponent’s attacks. It however doesn’t work for grabs (including: Captain Falcon’s upB, Kirby's neutral B and Yoshi's neutral B). The shield can have several colours depending on who is using it. Player 1 will have a red shield, player 2 a green shield, player 3 a blue shield and player 4 a gray shield.
2 Shield’s Properties
2.1 Generalities
If you keep holding your shield you will see it’s getting smaller and smaller even if nobody hits in it. Indeed the shield has a certain “stamina” and breaks if you hold it too long. This process is accelerated by opponents hitting your shield. This was obviously put into place to prevent shielding abuses. All shields are equal. I think it is important to emphasize on that point (which is only true to a certain extent). Indeed, Jigglypuff’s shield may seem bigger than Captain Falcon’s, which it is but its stamina isn’t bigger. So you can already forget reasoning like “Jigglypuff has a better shield to compensate the punishment she gets if it breaks”. The only exception is Yoshi. His shield doesn’t get smaller, but only darker and takes 5 frames to come out, while the others’ take 2 and during these 3 frames of lag you are actually parrying. This means Yoshi’s shield has a better stamina than others, by 3 frames. So I guess we can really conclude all shields are equal as a good approximation.
Now when your shield has been reduced in size (either after being attacked, or after some time) it won't cover the full body of your character. This means you can get attacked even if you're shielding. You can prevent that by tilting the stick in a direction resulting in orientating your shield. Again Yoshi's shield is the exception as his never gets smaller: his shield always provide a full body protection. Here is a table with the complete values:
| Mario|Donkey Kong|Link|Samus|Yoshi|Kirby|Fox|Pikachu|Luigi|Captain Falcon|Ness|Jigglypuff
Shield radius|260|330|260|330|Special|270|280|288|270|290|320|400
2.2 Shields are draining over time
Now let’s try to determine the total “stamina” of a shield. The smallest unit of shield reduction is by letting it drain. It takes 880 frames (which is about 14.67 seconds) to break “naturally” and every one unit is taken away each 16 frames (about 0.267 seconds). Here we can introduce a new unit that I called Health Point in obvious reference to RPGs. Therefore the shield has 55 HP and loses 1 HP every 16 frames.
2.3 Shields’ recovery
If each time your shield was weakened you had to live with it until your next stock, it wouldn’t be fun and the shield wouldn’t be of a great use. That’s why the shield is recovering when you don’t use it.
The first HP recovered follows a strange rule. Basically each player has a counter variable that keeps track of the frame count for shield recovery. By default, the value starts at 10 when you start the match. When your shield health is below 55, it then starts subtracting the frame counter by 1 each frame (while you're not holding the shield button). Lets say that you start shielding while the counter was at 4, as soon as you let go of the shield button, it will start subtracting from where you left off. So the counter will go to 3 in the next frame. When the counter reaches 0, you recover 1 shield HP and the counter goes back to 10. This means that the first shield HP actually takes 1-10 frames, depending on where you left off. The second HP recovered comes after the 10th frame. Then it’s once again one more HP each 10 frames.
Last thing to mention in this section is that hitting or getting hit doesn’t help recovering your shield. The only important factor is the time you’re playing without it.
3 Attack Specific
Here I tried to look at each attacks specifically to see the effect of attacks on the shield. Concerning the power an attack has on the shield, I gave the number of HP drained but I also introduced another unit: the Number Needed to Break (or NNB) which might be more convenient to use (as one of the purpose of attacking a shield is to shieldbreak). These numbers only refer to the actual attack strength on the shield and does not include any time drain reduction. The number in brackets is staled moves, as it also affects the power a move has on the shield. However a move doesn’t get staled when hitting the shield only, it has to be already staled (after having hit the enemy) then attack the shield. I tried to define the shieldstun (SS) of each attack too, but the way I counted was rather subjective. When you hit a shield the first frame you’re hitting it, it becomes silver. I then counted the number of frames since the silver frame until the disappearance of the shield. I could also have counted the number of frames after the shield reduction (as the shield gets reduced after having been hit), but I think it’s more precise the way I did it. Note that while you're in shieldstun your shield doesn't get the time drain reduction.
/!\ under construction: I’ve only started doing it /!\
NNB= Number Needed to Break ; Power in HP ; SS= ShieldStun
Luigi
| Power in HP| Number Needed to Break| Shield Stun
jab| 2, 2, 4 | |
dash attack| 2 each hit | |
upb (in) | 25 |3|
upb (failed) | 1|55|
nb | 7|8|
db (beginning) | 15|4|
db (end)| 18|4|
dsmash|17|4|
usmash | 19|3|
fsmash (up, normal, down)|16, 15, 14|4|
nair | 14|4|
dair | 3 each hit ||
uair | 12|5|
fair | 16|4|
bair | 16|4|
dtilt| 7 |8|
utilt | 10 |6|
ftilt (all directions) | 10|6|
taunt | 1|55|
Mario
| Power in HP| Number Needed to Break| Shield Stun
jab| 2, 2, 4 | |
dash attack| 13 | 5|
upb (first hit)|5 ||
upb (next hits) | 1|55|
upb (last hit) | 3|
nb | 8|7|
db | 1 each hit||
dsmash|17|4|
usmash | 19|3|
fsmash (up, normal, down)|18, 17, 16|4|
nair | 14|4|
dair | 3 each hit ||
uair | 12|5|
fair | 16|4|
bair | 16|4|
dtilt| 12 |5|
utilt | 10 |6|
ftilt (up, normal, down) | 14, 13, 12|5,4|
Donkey Kong
| Power in HP| Number Needed to Break| Shield Stun
jab |4, 4 |
dash attack| 13 | |
upb (beginning)| 13 ||
upb (end) | 4||
nb | 16||
nb (fully charged) | 48||
db |7||
dsmash|19||
usmash | 25|3|
fsmash (up, normal, down)|22, 21, 20|3|
nair | 15|4|
dair | 13||
uair | 12|5|
fair | 17|4|
bair | 15|4|
dtilt| 8|7|
utilt | 13 ||
ftilt|13, 12, 11||
Link
| Power in HP| Number Needed to Break| Shield Stun
jab (quick)|5,3,1 ||
jab (slow)|5,3,4||
dash attack| 14 | |
upb (beginning, grounded or aerial)| 16 ||
upb (end) | 8||
nb | 10||
db (bomb throw: strong, weak, explosion) |8, 5, 5||
dsmash|16||
usmash | 7, 3, 12||
fsmash |20|3|
nair | 10||
dair | 16||
uair | 16||
fair (beginning, end)| 20, 12||
bair | 10 each hit||
dtilt| 12||
utilt | 10 ||
ftilt|17||
Samus
| Power in HP| Number Needed to Break| Shield Stun
jab |3, 7||
dash attack (aka Windmill of Fury)| 13 | |
upb |4 each hit||
nb | 4-27||
db |10
dsmash (strong, weak) |16, 14||
usmash | 11 each hit (lol)||
fsmash |20, 18, 16||
nair (strong, weak)| 16, 13||
dair | 14||
uair | 2 each hit||
fair | 5 each hit||
bair |14||
dtilt| 13||
utilt | 8 ||
ftilt|12, 10, 9||
Captain Falcon
| Power in HP| Number Needed to Break| Shield Stun
jab |3, 3, 4, 1 ||
dash attack| 13 ||
upb|/|/|/
nb | 24||
db |19||
dsmash (strong, weak)|16, 14||
usmash | 17||
fsmash |19, 18, 17||
nair | 16||
dair | 14||
uair | 16||
fair | 10, 12||
bair | 16||
dtilt| 11||
utilt | 9, 14 ||
ftilt|15, 13, 11||
Ness
| Power in HP| Number Needed to Break| Shield Stun
jab |2, 2, 4 ||
dash attack| 13 ||
upb|30, 7||
nb | 5||
db |/|/|/
dsmash |19||
usmash | 17||
fsmash |18||
nair | 14||
dair | 15||
uair | 15||
fair | 13||
bair | 16||
dtilt| 3||
utilt | 7 ||
ftilt|11, 10, 9||
Yoshi
| Power in HP| Number Needed to Break| Shield Stun
jab |3, 5 ||
dash attack| 12 ||
upb (strong, weak)|20, 10||
nb | /|/|/
db |18||
dsmash |14||
usmash | 18||
fsmash |18||
nair | 14||
dair | 4 each hit||
uair | 15||
fair | 18||
bair | 16||
dtilt| 10||
utilt | 12 ||
ftilt|13||
Kirby
| Power in HP| Number Needed to Break| Shield Stun
jab |3, 4, 1 ||
dash attack| 11 ||
upb|8, 7||
nb | /|/|/
db |20|3|
dsmash |18||
usmash | 16||
fsmash |18||
nair | 15||
dair | 3 each hit||
uair (beginning, end)| 10, 2||
fair | 2 each hit||
bair | 16||
dtilt| 19||
utilt | 14 ||
ftilt|11, 10, 9||
Fox
| Power in HP| Number Needed to Break| Shield Stun
jab |4, 4, 1 ||
dash attack| 11 ||
upb|21||
nb | 7 (6)|8 (10)|
db |5 (4)|11|
dsmash | 14 (11)||
usmash | 16 (12)||
fsmash |17||
nair | 14||
dair | 2 each hit||
uair | 2, 13||
fair | 12||
bair | 12||
dtilt| 12 (9)||
utilt | 9 (7)||
ftilt|11, 10, 9, 8||
Pikachu
| Power in HP| Number Needed to Break| Shield Stun
jab |2 ||
dash attack| 12 ||
upb|/7|/|/
nb (air, grounded)|11, 8||
db (thunder, aura)|13, 18||
dsmash |16||
usmash | 18||
fsmash |18||
nair | 14||
dair | 13||
uair | 10||
fair | 3 each hit||
bair | 16||
dtilt| 12||
utilt | 11 ||
ftilt|11, 10, 9||
Jigglypuff
| Power in HP| Number Needed to Break| Shield Stun
jab |3, 4 ||
dash attack|11 ||
upb|/|/|/
nb |33||
db |20||
dsmash |16||
usmash |18||
fsmash |17||
nair | 14||
dair | 3 each hit||
uair | 16||
fair | 13||
bair |13||
dtilt|10||
utilt |10 ||
ftilt|8||
4 Shieldbreak
...4.1 How to shieldbreak
/!\under construction/!\
...4.2 Recovery from shieldbreak
So your shield has been broken and your character is dazing. Now how do you recover? It takes 546 frames (=9.1 seconds) since you touch the ground to recover. Counting the time after the character touches the ground and not right after shieldbreak is important, since the recovering time is actually starting when you touch the ground and not before. This means that if you land on a platform when your shield gets broken, it will take a couple of frames less. This also mean that if Jigglypuff gets her shield broken under the **** tent of Hyrule, it will take more time than others since she's "flying" against the roof of the tent.
This amount of time (546 frames) is reduced when you already have damages. In fact the number of frame is reduced by the exact percentage you have. Imagine you have 95 % when your shield is broken. Then it will take 546-95=450 frames to recover. This rule applies until you have 400 %. Beyond that point, the reduction is always 400 frames.
Now you actually can accelerate this process by button mashing. Indeed. Each time you input a button 4 frames are reduced from the initial 546 frames (assuming you're at 0 %). The buttons that can be used for that purpose are: A, B, R, Z or tilting the joystick. Concerning the latter fully tilting it will have the same result as pushing another button. If you tilt half way, half the frames are reduced (2 instead of 4). Other buttons don't work (L or C). Finally, note that pushing multiple buttons at the same time won't help in the recovery process. Two inputs at the same time have the same impact as one.
When you finally recover from your shieldbreak, your shield has 30 HP. This is independent of the time you took to recover, always 30 HP.
5 Escaping Shieldbreak
6 Special Shield: Fox's shine
The shine is Fox's special "shield". It comes out by pressing down B. The first frame is an attack, then it has the property of reflecting projectiles. Even though it comes out really quickly, when you leave the buttons, the shine still stays for a long time, long enough to get punished by your opponent. That's why we use another feature to use it efficiently: the shine is automatically cancelled when you land somewhere (ground or platform). The trick is then to jump and immediately shine after, so that your jump is cancelled by the shine, which is itself cancelled by the landing. In theory, you need to shine 3 frames after jumping, which is really short. If you use a standard nintendo 64 controller (which you should >=(), a common technique is to slide with your right thumb from left c to b while holding down. Be carefull though, this is to use the attacking function of the shine. If you want to reflect a projectile and you're not precise enough to time it perfectly, you might want to make your shine a bit longer on purpose (by sliding slower for example).
When you reflect a projectile, the latter will then hit your opponent (if it touches him obviously), which is nice. And even nicer, the projectile gains in power! Both the percentage and the knockback are affected. The increase in strength follows the following formula: multiply the initial percentage by 1.8, round off to the greater integer (in other words apply the ceiling function).
In the same way the shield can get broken, the shine has also a certain amount of HP. Fortunately, the shine's HPs recover automatically after each attack. This means that the only way to break it is to hit it with a projectile powerfull enough to break in one hit. This can also be obtained with two Fox shining back a projectile until it gets strong enough. The number of HP of the shine seems also to be 55 (thanks to The Star King for the researches), but we don't seem to be able to confirm it. We know it is between 49 and 56, so it's highly probable that 55 is the right number.
There is a special case where the shine won't reflect the projectile, here's the description (if it's too confused, just tell me and I might try to make a video of it):
if fox one reflects a projectile on fox two and fox two reflects it back, fox one has a 15 frames animation (of the first reflection) during which the projectile re-reflected by fox two won't be reflected again.
Concretely, have from the left to right: orange fox, blue fox, blue samus (team battle with teams attacks off). If samus shoots, the shot will be reflected by orange fox to the right (as usual), then by blue fox to the left and orange fox won't reflect it again if it comes within those 15 frames (the shot will just go through him). On the 16th frame, the shot is reflected. However, the reflection goes in the direction the shot is on the exact 16th frame. Which means that if the shot has travelled enough distance to get to the left half of the shine, the shot will be "reflected" in the same direction as it was going initially. The power increases as normally (multiply by 1.8, apply the ceiling function), but the direction doesn't change. Orange fox turns arond (to face left), as if someone had shot from his left.
This non-reflection phenomenon only occurs when the same projectile as the one reflected by the first fox comes again. It is either possible when another fox (in our example, blue fox) reflects the projectile back on the first one. Or with a red shell getting back on Fox by hitting a wall. However if you have two projectile coming within a short interval (say shorter than 15, doesn't matter exactly), both will get reflected. Even if they come from the same direction (that was tested with two Samus' shots of different height so they don't get anihilated when the first is reflected).
Easily put, this just means that a projectile that has been reflected cannot be reflected again by the same Fox, during the first 15 frames.
7 Requests / To Come
So as I don't have time to work on the thread for now, I decided to make this section so I'll be sure not to miss something. I basically made a list of what things are to come next, based on people suggestions.
- Finishing the frame data table
- Figuring out how the first HP recovers >_>
- Shieldbreaks (examples, how difficult and how situational they are)
- Shield deflection
8 Credits
This guide was initially started by me and then Blue Yoshi joined me. And a few years later, Madao, our savior joined me as well!
Thanks also to the following contributors:
-Blade689
-th3kuzinator
-Johnny_C13
-Firo (who provided a better and more formal method to compute the HP loss)
-Tambor (who taught me the TAS basics)
For the requests:
-Chariot9999
-battlecow
-The Star King
-DMoogle
**************************************************
As you can see, this is far from being finished but I thought I'd post what I did already. The next update will probably not be before the 10th of June as I frankly don't have time until then. If you have any suggestions, comments or tips feel free to share them! Also if there are confused parts, english mistakes or things you want me to investigate on don't hesitate!
The purpose of this thread is to gather all the information we need to know about shields. I don’t think I have already seen any thread dedicated to shields yet and I don’t know if the Backroom is making its own, but as it is a rather tedious and long subject to investigate on I don’t think most people want to spend too much time doing it. That’s why I decided to open my mupen64 and try to discover some stuff.
This thread is mostly orientated in frame data, but I’m obviously less experienced and talented than our great AntD, even though he was part of a well-known conspiracy.
/!\ For now it is still under construction /!\
1 Introduction
2 Shield's Properies
...2.1 Generalities
...2.2 Shields are draining over time
...2.3 Shield's recovery
3 Attack Specific
4 Shieldbreak
...4.1 How to shieldbreak
...4.2 Recovery from shieldbreak
5 Escaping Shieldbreak
6 Special Shield: Fox's shine
7 Requests / To Come
8 Credits
**************************************************
1 Introduction
As you all know the shield comes out by pressing the z trigger and its purpose is to protect from the opponent’s attacks. It however doesn’t work for grabs (including: Captain Falcon’s upB, Kirby's neutral B and Yoshi's neutral B). The shield can have several colours depending on who is using it. Player 1 will have a red shield, player 2 a green shield, player 3 a blue shield and player 4 a gray shield.
2 Shield’s Properties
2.1 Generalities
If you keep holding your shield you will see it’s getting smaller and smaller even if nobody hits in it. Indeed the shield has a certain “stamina” and breaks if you hold it too long. This process is accelerated by opponents hitting your shield. This was obviously put into place to prevent shielding abuses. All shields are equal. I think it is important to emphasize on that point (which is only true to a certain extent). Indeed, Jigglypuff’s shield may seem bigger than Captain Falcon’s, which it is but its stamina isn’t bigger. So you can already forget reasoning like “Jigglypuff has a better shield to compensate the punishment she gets if it breaks”. The only exception is Yoshi. His shield doesn’t get smaller, but only darker and takes 5 frames to come out, while the others’ take 2 and during these 3 frames of lag you are actually parrying. This means Yoshi’s shield has a better stamina than others, by 3 frames. So I guess we can really conclude all shields are equal as a good approximation.
Now when your shield has been reduced in size (either after being attacked, or after some time) it won't cover the full body of your character. This means you can get attacked even if you're shielding. You can prevent that by tilting the stick in a direction resulting in orientating your shield. Again Yoshi's shield is the exception as his never gets smaller: his shield always provide a full body protection. Here is a table with the complete values:
Shield radius|260|330|260|330|Special|270|280|288|270|290|320|400
2.2 Shields are draining over time
Now let’s try to determine the total “stamina” of a shield. The smallest unit of shield reduction is by letting it drain. It takes 880 frames (which is about 14.67 seconds) to break “naturally” and every one unit is taken away each 16 frames (about 0.267 seconds). Here we can introduce a new unit that I called Health Point in obvious reference to RPGs. Therefore the shield has 55 HP and loses 1 HP every 16 frames.
2.3 Shields’ recovery
If each time your shield was weakened you had to live with it until your next stock, it wouldn’t be fun and the shield wouldn’t be of a great use. That’s why the shield is recovering when you don’t use it.
The first HP recovered follows a strange rule. Basically each player has a counter variable that keeps track of the frame count for shield recovery. By default, the value starts at 10 when you start the match. When your shield health is below 55, it then starts subtracting the frame counter by 1 each frame (while you're not holding the shield button). Lets say that you start shielding while the counter was at 4, as soon as you let go of the shield button, it will start subtracting from where you left off. So the counter will go to 3 in the next frame. When the counter reaches 0, you recover 1 shield HP and the counter goes back to 10. This means that the first shield HP actually takes 1-10 frames, depending on where you left off. The second HP recovered comes after the 10th frame. Then it’s once again one more HP each 10 frames.
Last thing to mention in this section is that hitting or getting hit doesn’t help recovering your shield. The only important factor is the time you’re playing without it.
3 Attack Specific
Here I tried to look at each attacks specifically to see the effect of attacks on the shield. Concerning the power an attack has on the shield, I gave the number of HP drained but I also introduced another unit: the Number Needed to Break (or NNB) which might be more convenient to use (as one of the purpose of attacking a shield is to shieldbreak). These numbers only refer to the actual attack strength on the shield and does not include any time drain reduction. The number in brackets is staled moves, as it also affects the power a move has on the shield. However a move doesn’t get staled when hitting the shield only, it has to be already staled (after having hit the enemy) then attack the shield. I tried to define the shieldstun (SS) of each attack too, but the way I counted was rather subjective. When you hit a shield the first frame you’re hitting it, it becomes silver. I then counted the number of frames since the silver frame until the disappearance of the shield. I could also have counted the number of frames after the shield reduction (as the shield gets reduced after having been hit), but I think it’s more precise the way I did it. Note that while you're in shieldstun your shield doesn't get the time drain reduction.
/!\ under construction: I’ve only started doing it /!\
NNB= Number Needed to Break ; Power in HP ; SS= ShieldStun
Luigi
jab| 2, 2, 4 | |
dash attack| 2 each hit | |
upb (in) | 25 |3|
upb (failed) | 1|55|
nb | 7|8|
db (beginning) | 15|4|
db (end)| 18|4|
dsmash|17|4|
usmash | 19|3|
fsmash (up, normal, down)|16, 15, 14|4|
nair | 14|4|
dair | 3 each hit ||
uair | 12|5|
fair | 16|4|
bair | 16|4|
dtilt| 7 |8|
utilt | 10 |6|
ftilt (all directions) | 10|6|
taunt | 1|55|
Mario
jab| 2, 2, 4 | |
dash attack| 13 | 5|
upb (first hit)|5 ||
upb (next hits) | 1|55|
upb (last hit) | 3|
nb | 8|7|
db | 1 each hit||
dsmash|17|4|
usmash | 19|3|
fsmash (up, normal, down)|18, 17, 16|4|
nair | 14|4|
dair | 3 each hit ||
uair | 12|5|
fair | 16|4|
bair | 16|4|
dtilt| 12 |5|
utilt | 10 |6|
ftilt (up, normal, down) | 14, 13, 12|5,4|
Donkey Kong
jab |4, 4 |
dash attack| 13 | |
upb (beginning)| 13 ||
upb (end) | 4||
nb | 16||
nb (fully charged) | 48||
db |7||
dsmash|19||
usmash | 25|3|
fsmash (up, normal, down)|22, 21, 20|3|
nair | 15|4|
dair | 13||
uair | 12|5|
fair | 17|4|
bair | 15|4|
dtilt| 8|7|
utilt | 13 ||
ftilt|13, 12, 11||
Link
jab (quick)|5,3,1 ||
jab (slow)|5,3,4||
dash attack| 14 | |
upb (beginning, grounded or aerial)| 16 ||
upb (end) | 8||
nb | 10||
db (bomb throw: strong, weak, explosion) |8, 5, 5||
dsmash|16||
usmash | 7, 3, 12||
fsmash |20|3|
nair | 10||
dair | 16||
uair | 16||
fair (beginning, end)| 20, 12||
bair | 10 each hit||
dtilt| 12||
utilt | 10 ||
ftilt|17||
Samus
jab |3, 7||
dash attack (aka Windmill of Fury)| 13 | |
upb |4 each hit||
nb | 4-27||
db |10
dsmash (strong, weak) |16, 14||
usmash | 11 each hit (lol)||
fsmash |20, 18, 16||
nair (strong, weak)| 16, 13||
dair | 14||
uair | 2 each hit||
fair | 5 each hit||
bair |14||
dtilt| 13||
utilt | 8 ||
ftilt|12, 10, 9||
Captain Falcon
jab |3, 3, 4, 1 ||
dash attack| 13 ||
upb|/|/|/
nb | 24||
db |19||
dsmash (strong, weak)|16, 14||
usmash | 17||
fsmash |19, 18, 17||
nair | 16||
dair | 14||
uair | 16||
fair | 10, 12||
bair | 16||
dtilt| 11||
utilt | 9, 14 ||
ftilt|15, 13, 11||
Ness
jab |2, 2, 4 ||
dash attack| 13 ||
upb|30, 7||
nb | 5||
db |/|/|/
dsmash |19||
usmash | 17||
fsmash |18||
nair | 14||
dair | 15||
uair | 15||
fair | 13||
bair | 16||
dtilt| 3||
utilt | 7 ||
ftilt|11, 10, 9||
Yoshi
jab |3, 5 ||
dash attack| 12 ||
upb (strong, weak)|20, 10||
nb | /|/|/
db |18||
dsmash |14||
usmash | 18||
fsmash |18||
nair | 14||
dair | 4 each hit||
uair | 15||
fair | 18||
bair | 16||
dtilt| 10||
utilt | 12 ||
ftilt|13||
Kirby
jab |3, 4, 1 ||
dash attack| 11 ||
upb|8, 7||
nb | /|/|/
db |20|3|
dsmash |18||
usmash | 16||
fsmash |18||
nair | 15||
dair | 3 each hit||
uair (beginning, end)| 10, 2||
fair | 2 each hit||
bair | 16||
dtilt| 19||
utilt | 14 ||
ftilt|11, 10, 9||
Fox
jab |4, 4, 1 ||
dash attack| 11 ||
upb|21||
nb | 7 (6)|8 (10)|
db |5 (4)|11|
dsmash | 14 (11)||
usmash | 16 (12)||
fsmash |17||
nair | 14||
dair | 2 each hit||
uair | 2, 13||
fair | 12||
bair | 12||
dtilt| 12 (9)||
utilt | 9 (7)||
ftilt|11, 10, 9, 8||
Pikachu
jab |2 ||
dash attack| 12 ||
upb|/7|/|/
nb (air, grounded)|11, 8||
db (thunder, aura)|13, 18||
dsmash |16||
usmash | 18||
fsmash |18||
nair | 14||
dair | 13||
uair | 10||
fair | 3 each hit||
bair | 16||
dtilt| 12||
utilt | 11 ||
ftilt|11, 10, 9||
Jigglypuff
jab |3, 4 ||
dash attack|11 ||
upb|/|/|/
nb |33||
db |20||
dsmash |16||
usmash |18||
fsmash |17||
nair | 14||
dair | 3 each hit||
uair | 16||
fair | 13||
bair |13||
dtilt|10||
utilt |10 ||
ftilt|8||
4 Shieldbreak
...4.1 How to shieldbreak
/!\under construction/!\
...4.2 Recovery from shieldbreak
So your shield has been broken and your character is dazing. Now how do you recover? It takes 546 frames (=9.1 seconds) since you touch the ground to recover. Counting the time after the character touches the ground and not right after shieldbreak is important, since the recovering time is actually starting when you touch the ground and not before. This means that if you land on a platform when your shield gets broken, it will take a couple of frames less. This also mean that if Jigglypuff gets her shield broken under the **** tent of Hyrule, it will take more time than others since she's "flying" against the roof of the tent.
This amount of time (546 frames) is reduced when you already have damages. In fact the number of frame is reduced by the exact percentage you have. Imagine you have 95 % when your shield is broken. Then it will take 546-95=450 frames to recover. This rule applies until you have 400 %. Beyond that point, the reduction is always 400 frames.
Now you actually can accelerate this process by button mashing. Indeed. Each time you input a button 4 frames are reduced from the initial 546 frames (assuming you're at 0 %). The buttons that can be used for that purpose are: A, B, R, Z or tilting the joystick. Concerning the latter fully tilting it will have the same result as pushing another button. If you tilt half way, half the frames are reduced (2 instead of 4). Other buttons don't work (L or C). Finally, note that pushing multiple buttons at the same time won't help in the recovery process. Two inputs at the same time have the same impact as one.
When you finally recover from your shieldbreak, your shield has 30 HP. This is independent of the time you took to recover, always 30 HP.
5 Escaping Shieldbreak
I figured something out about getting out of shields. I did the tests with Jigglypuff only so far, so this may or may not affect other characters (it does NOT affect Yoshi, but probably affects everyone else).
When you bring up your shield, you must endure 8 frames of no-shield-stun frames before it can disappear. This means if you bring your shield up for one frame and let go, you will go though your “shield dropping” animation, but will have your shield up for part of the animation. If you hold your shield for 20 frames then let go of shield, as soon as you let go, you will drop your shield. The shield dropping animation is the same length of time. The only difference is how long you shield during the animation.
Things to note: There are 4 ways you can get out of this animation early (with no extra shielding frames): Jump (including up-smash and up-B out of shield), Roll, Grab, and Platform Drop. These will make you leave your shield the frame after you press it. Keep in mind that to do any of these actions, you must be holding down the shield button for it to work (i.e. hold Z and press C, R/A, left/right stick, down stick), otherwise you will enter your standard shield dropping animation.
Now how does this affect shield break combos? Well, lets assume you hit someone’s shield the frame it comes out with an attack. If they try to let go of shield by doing nothing (just simply dropping their shield), they are essentially giving you 8 frames of grace while breaking their shield (as they must endure 8 no-shield-stun frames before their shield disappears). So lets say you are breaking their shield and mess up your timing (or the moves takes too long) and hit them 7 frames after they are able to do something, you will still hit their shield. (They could have escaped this shield hit by doing the yellow text above).
However, lets assume that somebody relies on letting go of shield to get out of their shield. How does this affect shield break combos? Well, as I said, you must endure 8 no-shield-stun frames before the shield disappears. So lets say you hit someone two frames after they shield, then your next attack comes two frames after they are out of shield stun from your first hit, they now have 4 frames left to endure. Once they last their necessary frames of no-shield-stun, their next frame of no shield stun will have them not shielding. What does this mean? Well, assuming most people let go of their shield to escape shield break combos, this means that several “standard” combos that are done may in fact not be viable combos (or are much harder than they seem). Keep in mind that at any time when the shielder is out of their shield stun frames, they can instead do what is in the yellow text to leave earlier (so during the two frames between the first and second hit, they could have jumped out of their shield, for example).
Example:
Lets take Jigglypuff using Jab on another Jigglypuff on a platform. Lets assume that the jab hits on the 1st frame of the shield coming up (therefore none of the no-shield-stun frames have passed). The attacking Jigglypuff will endure 18 frames of attacker end lag before they are able to do anything. If the Shielding Jigglypuff does nothing, their shield will be up for 22 frames (shield stun ends on frame 14, 14+8=22), therefore giving the attacking Jigglypuff a 4 frame window where they can still hit the shield. However, the shield stun ends in 14 frames. So in reality, the shielding Jigglypuff actually has a 4 frame advantage on the attacking Jigglypuff (though keep in mind they are in a shield, so their options are limited). One option Jigglypuff does have is platform dropping on frame 15, then resting on frame 16, thereby getting a rest hit in before the attacking Jigglypuff is able to act (and the rest WILL hit). Keep in mind, as stated in the yellow text, you MUST hold your shield, then perform the action (so in this case, hold Z, then down, B).
So in other words, letting go and doing nothing is NOT the best way to escape shield break combos (and getting out of shield in general). In fact, aside from continuing to shield, it is actually the worst option. The best way to escape shield break combos, ironically is to keep holding down on shield, and doing one of the options in the yellow text (jump, roll, grab, platform drop). One way to do this is to hold shield down, then mash the C-buttons.
I will simplify this later.
When you bring up your shield, you must endure 8 frames of no-shield-stun frames before it can disappear. This means if you bring your shield up for one frame and let go, you will go though your “shield dropping” animation, but will have your shield up for part of the animation. If you hold your shield for 20 frames then let go of shield, as soon as you let go, you will drop your shield. The shield dropping animation is the same length of time. The only difference is how long you shield during the animation.
Things to note: There are 4 ways you can get out of this animation early (with no extra shielding frames): Jump (including up-smash and up-B out of shield), Roll, Grab, and Platform Drop. These will make you leave your shield the frame after you press it. Keep in mind that to do any of these actions, you must be holding down the shield button for it to work (i.e. hold Z and press C, R/A, left/right stick, down stick), otherwise you will enter your standard shield dropping animation.
Now how does this affect shield break combos? Well, lets assume you hit someone’s shield the frame it comes out with an attack. If they try to let go of shield by doing nothing (just simply dropping their shield), they are essentially giving you 8 frames of grace while breaking their shield (as they must endure 8 no-shield-stun frames before their shield disappears). So lets say you are breaking their shield and mess up your timing (or the moves takes too long) and hit them 7 frames after they are able to do something, you will still hit their shield. (They could have escaped this shield hit by doing the yellow text above).
However, lets assume that somebody relies on letting go of shield to get out of their shield. How does this affect shield break combos? Well, as I said, you must endure 8 no-shield-stun frames before the shield disappears. So lets say you hit someone two frames after they shield, then your next attack comes two frames after they are out of shield stun from your first hit, they now have 4 frames left to endure. Once they last their necessary frames of no-shield-stun, their next frame of no shield stun will have them not shielding. What does this mean? Well, assuming most people let go of their shield to escape shield break combos, this means that several “standard” combos that are done may in fact not be viable combos (or are much harder than they seem). Keep in mind that at any time when the shielder is out of their shield stun frames, they can instead do what is in the yellow text to leave earlier (so during the two frames between the first and second hit, they could have jumped out of their shield, for example).
Example:
Lets take Jigglypuff using Jab on another Jigglypuff on a platform. Lets assume that the jab hits on the 1st frame of the shield coming up (therefore none of the no-shield-stun frames have passed). The attacking Jigglypuff will endure 18 frames of attacker end lag before they are able to do anything. If the Shielding Jigglypuff does nothing, their shield will be up for 22 frames (shield stun ends on frame 14, 14+8=22), therefore giving the attacking Jigglypuff a 4 frame window where they can still hit the shield. However, the shield stun ends in 14 frames. So in reality, the shielding Jigglypuff actually has a 4 frame advantage on the attacking Jigglypuff (though keep in mind they are in a shield, so their options are limited). One option Jigglypuff does have is platform dropping on frame 15, then resting on frame 16, thereby getting a rest hit in before the attacking Jigglypuff is able to act (and the rest WILL hit). Keep in mind, as stated in the yellow text, you MUST hold your shield, then perform the action (so in this case, hold Z, then down, B).
So in other words, letting go and doing nothing is NOT the best way to escape shield break combos (and getting out of shield in general). In fact, aside from continuing to shield, it is actually the worst option. The best way to escape shield break combos, ironically is to keep holding down on shield, and doing one of the options in the yellow text (jump, roll, grab, platform drop). One way to do this is to hold shield down, then mash the C-buttons.
I will simplify this later.
6 Special Shield: Fox's shine
The shine is Fox's special "shield". It comes out by pressing down B. The first frame is an attack, then it has the property of reflecting projectiles. Even though it comes out really quickly, when you leave the buttons, the shine still stays for a long time, long enough to get punished by your opponent. That's why we use another feature to use it efficiently: the shine is automatically cancelled when you land somewhere (ground or platform). The trick is then to jump and immediately shine after, so that your jump is cancelled by the shine, which is itself cancelled by the landing. In theory, you need to shine 3 frames after jumping, which is really short. If you use a standard nintendo 64 controller (which you should >=(), a common technique is to slide with your right thumb from left c to b while holding down. Be carefull though, this is to use the attacking function of the shine. If you want to reflect a projectile and you're not precise enough to time it perfectly, you might want to make your shine a bit longer on purpose (by sliding slower for example).
When you reflect a projectile, the latter will then hit your opponent (if it touches him obviously), which is nice. And even nicer, the projectile gains in power! Both the percentage and the knockback are affected. The increase in strength follows the following formula: multiply the initial percentage by 1.8, round off to the greater integer (in other words apply the ceiling function).
In the same way the shield can get broken, the shine has also a certain amount of HP. Fortunately, the shine's HPs recover automatically after each attack. This means that the only way to break it is to hit it with a projectile powerfull enough to break in one hit. This can also be obtained with two Fox shining back a projectile until it gets strong enough. The number of HP of the shine seems also to be 55 (thanks to The Star King for the researches), but we don't seem to be able to confirm it. We know it is between 49 and 56, so it's highly probable that 55 is the right number.
There is a special case where the shine won't reflect the projectile, here's the description (if it's too confused, just tell me and I might try to make a video of it):
if fox one reflects a projectile on fox two and fox two reflects it back, fox one has a 15 frames animation (of the first reflection) during which the projectile re-reflected by fox two won't be reflected again.
Concretely, have from the left to right: orange fox, blue fox, blue samus (team battle with teams attacks off). If samus shoots, the shot will be reflected by orange fox to the right (as usual), then by blue fox to the left and orange fox won't reflect it again if it comes within those 15 frames (the shot will just go through him). On the 16th frame, the shot is reflected. However, the reflection goes in the direction the shot is on the exact 16th frame. Which means that if the shot has travelled enough distance to get to the left half of the shine, the shot will be "reflected" in the same direction as it was going initially. The power increases as normally (multiply by 1.8, apply the ceiling function), but the direction doesn't change. Orange fox turns arond (to face left), as if someone had shot from his left.
This non-reflection phenomenon only occurs when the same projectile as the one reflected by the first fox comes again. It is either possible when another fox (in our example, blue fox) reflects the projectile back on the first one. Or with a red shell getting back on Fox by hitting a wall. However if you have two projectile coming within a short interval (say shorter than 15, doesn't matter exactly), both will get reflected. Even if they come from the same direction (that was tested with two Samus' shots of different height so they don't get anihilated when the first is reflected).
Easily put, this just means that a projectile that has been reflected cannot be reflected again by the same Fox, during the first 15 frames.
7 Requests / To Come
So as I don't have time to work on the thread for now, I decided to make this section so I'll be sure not to miss something. I basically made a list of what things are to come next, based on people suggestions.
- Finishing the frame data table
- Figuring out how the first HP recovers >_>
- Shieldbreaks (examples, how difficult and how situational they are)
- Shield deflection
8 Credits
This guide was initially started by me and then Blue Yoshi joined me. And a few years later, Madao, our savior joined me as well!
Thanks also to the following contributors:
-Blade689
-th3kuzinator
-Johnny_C13
-Firo (who provided a better and more formal method to compute the HP loss)
-Tambor (who taught me the TAS basics)
For the requests:
-Chariot9999
-battlecow
-The Star King
-DMoogle
**************************************************
As you can see, this is far from being finished but I thought I'd post what I did already. The next update will probably not be before the 10th of June as I frankly don't have time until then. If you have any suggestions, comments or tips feel free to share them! Also if there are confused parts, english mistakes or things you want me to investigate on don't hesitate!