SSBU/Palutena/Strategy

Gameplan
Palutena's above-average movement stats and best-in-class aerials allow her to move around her opponents in neutral while staying relatively safe and either wall them out or directly interrupt their approaches with buttons like or  that are designed to successfully contest other moves. After getting the right hit in neutral the horizontal angles of most of her aerials and the long low-percent combos she's capable of allow her to consistently achieve an advantage state, where she shines. Palutena has a couple projectiles in and, but these should usually be reserved for use in advantage or when far enough away to avoid getting punished for their startup- or end-lag. Overall, achieving mastery of Palutena's exceptional aerials - as well as understanding when to go for a grab instead - will allow for oppressive safety on shield and conversions into damaging combos or advantage state.

Neutral
As stated, Palutena's neutral heavily relies on her aerials. Each aerial comes out somewhere from 5 to 10 frames and has its own uses. Getting comfortable with each aerial will allow for maximized combos and neutral wins.

Of course, the fact that her aerials are used so commonly means that opponents will be expecting them, and only using aerials generally isn't quite enough to win with Palutena. Her is a frame 6 burst option that has the similar invincibility to, and mixing up  on opponents who are eager to shield Palutena's aerial onslaught is a must, as it will lead to respectable low-percent combos with  and eventual kills with.

Shield Pressure
Palutena's aerials allow her to have a very solid air-to-ground pressure game, but ground-to-ground it can be relatively lackluster. The vast majority of her shield pressure centers around the fact that opponents will want to shield while Palutena is in the air, and that some of her aerials can be very difficult to punish even on shield or parry. Understanding how an opponent responds to this will allow exploitation of defensive options.
 * If an opponent becomes too willing to shield, empty-hopping to bait it out and grabbing will take advantage of this.
 * It's a common strategy for Palutena players to short-hop overtop an opponent's shield while using as it will begin a combo if it the opponent stops shielding and the multihits are tough to directly challenge from this position. Be sure not to land the last hit of  on shield though, as that can lead to a punish.
 * Both and  can be extremely hard to punish when spaced well, even on parry. Use these moves as your main low-commitment pokes.

Taking Stocks
The vast majority of stocks taken by Palutena will be via or. Fortunately for Palutena, these complement each other - opponents who are threatened by will likely shield when Palutena is in the air, which is vulnerable to being grabbed. Opponents who are scared of getting grabbed may throw out preemptive attacks or jump, both of which are vulnerable to. is also a respectable kill move - especially combined with Palutena's high jumps and air acceleration - for catching opponents trying to escape by jumping over Palutena. Understanding where and when to strike in response to an opponent's defensive habits is crucial for taking stocks.

is a crucial part of Palutena's gameplan when taking stocks. There are more details in the Setplay page, but being able to react to an opponent's poor DI off of with, as well as use  after the throw as quickly and consistently as possible, are keys to finishing stocks before the opponent's percent becomes unreasonably high.

This relatively simple gameplan at kill percents comes with a couple downsides, however. Both and  are not absurdly powerful in terms of knockback, and require good positioning (i.e. grabbing an opponent near the ledge) to start killing reasonably. in particular is likely to be very stale by the time it becomes a viable kill move due to the fact that it's a big part of Palutena's gameplan in all phases of the game. Aside from a read with moves like offstage or a smash attack, Palutena lacks the sort of killpower to take stocks particularly early, generally finding her kills around 100-120%, or higher. If an opponent is good at evading Palutena's most common kill options, it can become very hard to finally take a stock without an extended disadvantage state, which gives the opponent chances to escape back to neutral. At very high percents like 150-160%, also begins to kill off the top of the stage, offering a relief for players unable to find a kill otherwise.

In general:
 * Palutena will be unable to kill without a gimp at low percents
 * Shouldn't be actively looking for kills until around 90%, disregarding very high-risk smash attacks or early spikes offstage
 * Depending on the character, will begin to allow for followups or airdodge reads into kills around 90-120%, and a well-positioned, , or  will start killing raw at the upper half of those percents
 * As percents climb into 130% and higher (and earlier if Palutena has accumulated a decent amount of Rage), becomes less reliable, and Palutena will have to rely on raw  and  for kills
 * Around 150-160%, begins to kill
 * Around 200% (god forbid),  will start killing

Palutena shines most in advantage, and staying there as long as possible will quickly speed up the process of finding kills. Again, see the Setplay page for more.

Disadvantage
Palutena's disadvantage is fairly average - she is helped by her decent movement stats and ability to Warp Cancel, allowing her some extra mixups while landing.

Recovery

 * is a teleport recovery, meaning that it is intangible (and invisible) after Palutena disappears. This means that she can through an opponent to make it back to the stage, or in some scenarios make it ambiguous whether or not she is recovering directly to the ledge or past it.
 * Keep in mind that grabbing the ledge from above will prevent getting . ing downward to the ledge will allow Palutena to grab it safely.
 * While this is a good technique to use, it can be very risky as holding down for too long could result in Palutena missing the ledge entirely and falling to the bottom blastzone. Practicing and getting used to the timing of will help prevent this.

Landing

 * Palutena's aerial stats - decent air speed and excellent air acceleration - give her a decent amount of leniency when trying to land, allowing her to potentially weave around an opponent's juggling options and attempts to catch a landing.
 * also gives an extra landing option in the form of Warp Canceling, which can skip some of the process of trying to land by canceling the ending of on an edge.
 * This is a valuable tool but it can be punished if read or reacted to, so be careful not to use this too often.

Getting off ledge

 * Palutena's high jump height makes ledge jumping slightly better for her, but as with every ledge option it can be punished if read correctly.
 * Jumping from ledge while buffering will result in a short-range flame placed next to the ledge, where an opponent may be trying to ledgetrap.
 * This may seem like an excellent option, but if the opponent is above or in front of the flame when the move goes off, they will be in prime position to punish Palutena hard, as she is in endlag from until the move completes.
 * If the flame connects on the opponent's shield, the last hit of the move is only -2, meaning even if Palutena lands right next to the opponent it is very likely they will be unable to punish her. Keep this interaciton in mind when using this option, as it will immediately result in both characters standing right next to each other and both able to act at (more or less) the same time. If the opponent believes they can punish with a shieldgrab or other out-of-shield option, Palutena could use a defensive option to avoid this and get a punish of her own.

Combo breaking
Palutena doesn't really have a move to directly break combos with - you'll have to rely on and  like the common folk.

Out of Shield

 * Depending on the matchup, may either be an OOS option that's situational at best, or one that can almost give Palutena the matchup advantage on its own. Against characters with slightly above-average height, especially heavies,  is a very reliable, low-risk OOS tool that will make the opponent very wary of misspacing their moves. Against characters of average height or lower, however, Palutena may need to settle for  OOS depending on the situation, or nothing at all.
 * is also Palutena's OOS tool in situations when won't connect, such as against shorter characters or specific moves that hit low to the ground (like the landing hit of 's ). When using it this way, remember that it is 5 frames slower than  and generally more situational in regards to what it can punish.

Great

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Good

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Volatile

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Meh

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Bad

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Neutral

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Combos

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Juggling

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Edgeguard

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Ledgetrap

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Landing

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Recovering

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Tips & Tricks

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