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

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Recovery

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Landing

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Getting off ledge

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Combo breaking

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Out of Shield

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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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