SSBU/Defense

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Shield

Shielding is an key mechanic to keep yourself alive.

After shielding an attack, the defender will enter a state called shieldstun where they are unable to do anything. Both attacker and defender will experience pushback of varying amounts, depending on the damage dealt and whether the attack was parried.

How to Shield

Press or and hold either trigger button to put up the character's Shield.

Shield Options

While in shield and not in shieldstun, you have a few options to exit shield and counterattack. Such options are described as Out of Shield(OoS) options.

Exiting shield results in a universal shield drop lag of 11 frames. Players will usually opt to bypass this shield drop lag by using Jump, Grab, Up-Bs or Up-Smashes, as they reduce the lag between dropping shield and attacking.

Good offensive OoS options are ones that have

1. Fast Startup
2. Wide Hitboxes

Offensive Out of Shield Options

Type	Notes	Effective Startup
Jump Attacks	Has 3F of Jumpsquat before startup of attack.	Startup of Aerial Attack + 3F Jumpsquat
Up-B	Has no shield drop lag.	Startup of Up-B
Up-Smash	Has no shield drop lag.	Startup of Up-Smash
Grab	4F of shield grab lockout.	Startup of Grab + 4F
Shield Drop Attack	11F of shield drop lag. The slowest option.	Startup of attack + 11F

Other than these offensive options, you also have the ability to Spotdodge, Roll and Jump towards or away to escape shield pressure.

Shield HP

File:SSBU ShieldHP.png

After shielding an attack or while holding down shield, your Shield HP will deplete. This is indicated by the shield decreasing in size.

Areas of the character's body that the shield does not cover will be vulnerable to shield poking. You can tilt your shield in various directions with the Analog stick to better defend against exposed areas of the character's body. Only Yoshi is immune to this phenomenon, as their shield does not change in size but rather darkens after taking damage.

If the shield's HP hits 0, the character's shield will break.

Shield Break

You'll be eating a big punish.

If the shield takes too much damage, your character will enter a shield-break animation. During this animation, your character launched up, then falls down before entering a stunned animation. The stun animation will end after the opponent uses an attack that makes you flinch, or a period of time passes.

During this period, you are completely inactionable, leaving you vulnerable to a big punish. However, you can mash to marginally decrease the period you are stunned for.

Shield breaks are often done by chaining together several attacks with small gaps between shield stun, or by landing attacks that deal high enough shield damage like Marth's Shield Breaker.

The exception to this scenario is Jigglypuff, who will instantly be KO'd when their shield breaks.

Perfect Shield (Parry)

File:SSBU Parry.png

Drop shield when the attack connects. Your character will flash white

After shielding for at least 3 frames, drop shield when the opponent's attack connects(5 frame window)

The defender will flash white and their eyes will glow yellow, with a special sound effect played. You are locked out of perfect shielding attempts after shielding an attack normally for 3 frames after shieldstun ends.

The benefits of Perfect Shield

• No Shield Damage

• Increased hitlag, giving time to react and punish

• Reduced pushback for the defender

• Bypass shield drop lag, giving the defender more options for punishing

• Attacker is generally more minus.

Think of parrying as a minigame: you time your shield release to when the opponent's attack hits. For multihitting moves, you generally want to parry the last hit of the move as it always comes out on a consistent timing. However, this does not apply for all multihit moves(insert moves that can and cannot here)

Perfect Shielding attacks can allow you to punish moves that were either:

1. Safe on block
2. Unsafe on block but have a lot of pushback that made them unpunishable OoS

How to use: Take attack's on shield and add it to the number listed in advantage

Frame advantage the defender gets from Perfect Shielding

Type of Attack	Advantage
★Direct Non-Projectile (e.g: Most Sword Aerials)	-3
Indirect Non-Projectile (e.g: Zero Suit Samus D-Smash, Bayonetta Smash Attacks)	-12
Direct Projectile (e.g: Snake, Isabelle U-Smash)	+8
Indirect Projectile (e.g: Most Projectiles like Wolf Lasers )	-1

• ★Although this number might seem small, reduced pushback and bypassing shield drop makes it worth to parry.

For more detailed explanation on perfect shielding's frame data and why these numbers are the way they are, you can check out SSBWiki here

Takeaways

• Parry normal hits, don't parry projectiles.
• Not all multihit moves can be parried on the last hit

Dodges

Other than shielding on the ground, there are other evasive manouvers that you can take to avoid attacks. They are useful to get out of shield pressure, make an opponent's attack whiff or escape an airborne string of attacks.

Rolls

File:SSBU Roll.png

Roll away to reposition yourself away from the enemy

Press or and flick the Analog Stick Left/Right /

Spot Dodge

Spot Dodge to avoid enemy attacks

Press or and flick the Analog Stick Down

Air Dodges

File:SSBU AirDodgeNeutral.png

Neutral Air Dodge

File:SSBU AirDodgeNeutral.png

Directional Air Dodge

While Airborne, press or with or without moving the Analog Stick

(PlaceHolder)

Directional Influence (DI)

While in hitlag, move and hold the Analog Stick in a direction

(PlaceHolder)

Smash Directional Influence (SDI)

While in hitlag, move the Analog Stick

(PlaceHolder)

Shielddrop Shield-grab lockout Invincibility Intangibility Dodges Airdodges Rolls Spotdodges Staling Armor super armor heavy armor Damage based KB based Subtractive Hit-Based Passive armor Defensive Specials Counters Reflectors Absorbers