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

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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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