SSBU/Palutena/Strategy

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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 Bair or Dash Attack 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 Autoreticle and Explosive Flame, 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.

AerialsNeutral is short for "neutral aerial"

Nair: Palutena's fastest move, and likely her most versatile. Nair has a variety of uses:

Combos
- Nair serves as both a great combo starter and combo filler. Catching the opponent while jumping or in the air with one of Nair's multihits or dragging up an opponent from the ground with it will allow for a followup with an Uair or another Nair depending on the opponent's DI and SDI, or a Bair or Fair to finish a combo or knock the opponent offstage. Get comfortable with the movement necessary to extend Nairs into themselves, as it will be used often.
  - Watch out in the Fox matchup, as at extremely low percents a single Nair will lead into fewer followups than the rest of the cast due to his falling speed.
Edgeguarding
- Simply dropping down from the ledge and using Nair is enough to reset an edgeguarding situation against many characters with linear recoveries, such as Ken or Captain Falcon. At really high percents using Nair like this may finish off a stock, but it's best used to buy some time to position for a Bair or Dair to secure the stock more reliably.
  - Against characters recovering below the ledge with a hitbox, like Mario or Lucina, forcing their recovery to trade with one of Nair's multihits will interrupt the recovery and essentially spike them if they are missing their double jump. This isn't 100% consistent but isn't difficult by any means. Be prepared to tech the side or corner of the stage if you decide to go for this.
Out of Shield
- Depending on the matchup, Nair 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, Nair 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 Dair OOS depending on the situation, or nothing at all.
Kill Confirm
- As if it didn't already do enough, Nair even has situational use as the start of a kill confirm. The very first hit of Nair has set knockback against grounded opponents, and will always pop them slightly upward. This can be a true combo into another full Nair combo or an Utilt to confirm a kill at high percents.

Bair: One of the most privileged moves in the entire game

Bair will be Palutena's primary landing option and one of her most common kill moves at high percents. It's decently fast at frame 8, quite safe at only -5 on shield, and to top it all off it gives Palutena arm invincibility from frames 7-10. this means it is one of the absolute best tools to contest other moves with, as many interactions that might otherwise end in a trade will instead simply allow Palutena to come out on top. Bair can be used as an air-to-air to beat out many other aerials, although the relatively significant aerial ending lag the move has (39 frames) may prevent the interaction from being much more than a reset of the situation. It is an excellent landing tool though, due to its aforementioned safety and invincibility as well as its long range making it difficult to punish even on parry. If someone wants to play against Palutena they must know how to deal with Bair.

Fair: General-purpose poke and combo extender

Palutena's Fair is a simple but effective aerial. It's just as safe on shield as Bair but starts one frame later and isn't invincible. This move serves its purpose very well as a landing poke in neutral, just like Bair, but unlike Bair it can be used as a confirm into Grab at low and mid percents, or in the middle of Nair combos to extend or finish them if the opponent is a little too far away for another Nair.

Dair: Situational neutral tool and standard spike

At frame 10, Dair is tied with Uair as Palutena's slowest aerial. Notably this move has no sourspot, meaning all hitboxes of this move will knock the opponent back in the same way. When used offstage, Dair is a relatively average spike that's only active for two frames and gets its job done. When the move is landed on a grounded opponent, however, they are sent in a strange angle upward and behind Palutena. At low to mid percents, this can combo into Bair and at very high percents (160% or so) this move will eventually kill off the top. Dair is also Palutena's OOS tool in situations when Nair won't connect, such as against shorter characters or specific moves that hit low to the ground (like the landing hit of Falco's Fair). When using it this way, remember that it is 5 frames slower than Nair and generally more situational in regards to what it can punish.

Uair: Massive juggling tool and kill move

Uair can be used to finish Nair combos or combo into one or two more Uairs with the help of a jump and a platform. Due to its large range, it is a great tool to keep the opponent in the air, and is even a relatively potent kill move. Use Palutena's threatening air accleration to quickly catch opponents who are trying to land off-guard with this move.
- Uair can also see some use in dragdown setups, as it will usually keep the opponent in front of Palutena and can confirm into a grab after landing.

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 Dash Attack is a frame 6 burst option that has the similar invincibility to Bair, and mixing up grabs on opponents who are eager to shield Palutena's aerial onslaught is a must, as it will lead to respectable low-percent combos with Down Throw and eventual kills with Back Throw.

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 Nair 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 Nair on shield though, as that can lead to a punish.
Both Bair and Fair 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 Bair or Bthrow. Fortunately for Palutena, these complement each other - opponents who are threatened by Bair 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 Bair. Uair 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.

Dthrow 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 Dthrow with Uair, as well as use Bair 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 Bair and Bthrow are not absurdly powerful in terms of knockback, and require good positioning (i.e. grabbing an opponent near the ledge) to start killing reasonably. Bair 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 Dair 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%, Dash Attack 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, Dthrow will begin to allow for followups or airdodge reads into kills around 90-120%, and a well-positioned Bair, Uair, or Bthrow 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), Dthrow becomes less reliable, and Palutena will have to rely on raw Bair and Bthrow for kills
Around 150-160%, Dash Attack begins to kill
Around 200% (god forbid), Uthrow 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.