Powershielding: the future of brawl???

[Johnny Blitz]

I was messing around with powershielding in training mode today and i got to wondering how much of a role does powershielding play in the advance level of play. when i consider the possibilities of powershielding i cant help but think of street fighter: third strike where parrying is a vital part of top level play. im not saying powershielding = parrying but i think it could be a big part of brawl after a few years when the meta game has had time to evolve.

heres some videos of what im trying to examplify

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1z8Ul6kKWY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8s1dzQxBg-A

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDi97mOrCmM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXZ_2ZE9meY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0gGjgphq2Q

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LpwXVUWKf4

added 5/14:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMSHfJW87GA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MER3i1EcT4Y

 

[Mike_Echoes]

Powershielding will surely be something every pro will use. Much how the Melee Power Block was incredibly useful, this is more so IMO.

Practice it, than surprise your friends when they try to Falcon Punch/ Any strong move against you

- MykE

 

[xS A M U R A Ix]

You honestly don't even need power shielding on anything except attacks with massive push back. Normally simply shielding / dropping the shield into whatever attack is enough.

 

[Johnny Blitz]

i beg to differ, shielding n unshieldin is quick yes, but powershielding has ZERO lag., and top levels of play every milisecond matters

 

[FalconPunch]

This is Brawl were talking bout.

 

[ducky285]

The powershield is much like the parry in Street Fighter 3 and Slash-Back in Guilty Gear XX: Accent Core and will be used as such. It's high-risk/high-reward defensive tactic but it only works if you take advantage of it.

 

[S2]

Well, the fact that you can attack out of a powershield without lag does give it a lot of potential.

Here's a current problem though, games like Street Fighter 3 are built around the parry system. The point of the battle system is to use and get good with parries.

Brawl has the powershield, but its not a mechanic that the battle system is based around. I'm not downplaying its usefulness, simply stating that Brawl was not built around abusive powershielding.

If a few players get abnoxiously good with it and it becomes something that wins tournaments due to the massive advantage of having mastered it, the competetive scene will probably change. We don't know how much of an impact this move would have competitively if some players got good with it. It could be revolutionary, it could be simply situational.

Powershielding had awesome potential in Melee as well, but ultimately it was so hard to master technically (to repeatedly doing it on demand) that it never really was a focus of importance.

We haven't really seen powershield abuse in Brawl.

 

[Johnny Blitz]

ah but the game is still very new

 

[AlAxe]

Power shielding is surely useful but you try to powershield everything. Why take the risk in powershielding a falcon punch when you can just f-smash the falcon while he charges up. It's probably best used to get through projectile spam such as pit's arrows or falco's lasers.

 

[Juggalo]

I think proper air dodging will end up having more of an effect on competitive play than power shielding

 

[1HKO]

I beg to differ as if we could actually reliably powersheild everything then grabs would be the meta and well MK would pwn and strike fear into the hearts of all. that is a big IF

 

[LinkSpecialist]

Anyone else here love powershielding a hammer followed by a grab? Feels sooo good.

 

[DanGR]

It could be revolutionary, it could be simply situational.

i agree with the latter

 

[Tyr_03]

In most cases it's not that necesary. You can usually just put your shield down and hit with a fast aerial or even do a dash grab. Sheild stun is practically non existant in Brawl so it's not really an issue. In a few cases powershielding is going to help but most of the time you just don't need it.

 

[FeArTeHsMaSh]

Shield grab covers all your needs in Brawl. Especially since any form of combos in Brawl seem to come from grabs, such as infinites.

 

[SamuraiPanda]

Powershielding is much easier and much more useful than many of you are making it out to be. Why is powershielding a projectile better than shielding it, dropping the shield, and moving forward? Think of the answer to that question. Now realize that this applies to any attacks as well. Very useful, and will become essential in a few years time.

By the way, powershielding things can be easier than you think. For example, you don't have to powershield all 3 of Snake's jabs, just the last hit, which you CAN powershield despite getting hit by the first two hits if your opponent is off even by a little with his timing (and assuming he doesn't hold the A button to do the jabs).

 

[Steamroll3929]

Also you all forget that while slow Snakes fsmash slides you back to far to immediatly punish Snake. THe same is true with Lucario's smashes, but with powershielding there is no shield sliding thus you are free to immediatly punish them.

 

[Yuna]

The powershield is much like the parry in Street Fighter 3 and Slash-Back in Guilty Gear XX: Accent Core and will be used as such. It's high-risk/high-reward defensive tactic but it only works if you take advantage of it.

It's not very high-risk since the worst thing that can happen besides getting hit is that you normal shield it (and if you're any good, you'll just normal shield almost every botched powershield).

This has zero cost, as opposed to Slash-Back. Whiffing a Powershield will result in:
* You getting hit (if you shield too late)
* You shielding normally (if you shield too early)

The frame window is quite large. In other fighting games where there is no cost to Just Defending, doing it wrong puts you at considerate risk. Like Parrying in Street Fighter II: 3rd Strike. You have to push forward to parry, while you push backward to block. You cannot do both and have botched parry lead to a normal block.

For another, in some games, botched Just Defends will have any hits you suffer during the cooldown count as a counter-hit, like in Soul Calibur. Counter-hits inflict more damage and increase stun-time, making combos that wouldn't work on normal hit work. Some also launch differently, allowing for more devastating juggles.

This is my all intents of purposes broken.

 

[RT]

Powershielding in this game is broken.

Seriously.

If you react to every powershield you do in a match (grab or jab/tilt), you'll gain such a huge advantage.

 

[Devil7]

how does power shielding work on moves that continually deal damage like zelda's smashes. It seems to me that it would be like normal shielding for moves like hers.

 

[smashmanic123]

I know that if you powersheilds game and watch's turtle you won't get poked or hit by the last knockback part of the turtle, so I would say that the same could be said for zelda smashes.

 

[Vro]

Altho good for some attacks, I can't see a place to powershield everything. I'm sure it's useful to do, because there's no reason not to do it, but I wouldn't say it's the future of Brawl.

 

[Yuna]

Altho good for some attacks, I can't see a place to powershield everything. I'm sure it's useful to do, because there's no reason not to do it, but I wouldn't say it's the future of Brawl.

It's pretty easy to do now and quite important as it has no shield knockback and shieldstun (or shielddropstun).

It's like Just Defending in any other game (Guard Impacts in Soul Calibur, Parries in Street Fighter III), only a bit different, safer and in a lot of cases, better. Especially for those with good grab-combos.

 

[aznxk3vi17]

Altho good for some attacks, I can't see a place to powershield everything. I'm sure it's useful to do, because there's no reason not to do it, but I wouldn't say it's the future of Brawl.

That's a slightly flawed statement. You say that there's no reason to not powershield, yet you can't see a place for it.

Ideally, every time you shield, you powershield. There is absolutely no drawback to this, you will always have an advantage after powershielding as opposed to simply shielding. Thus, the perfect player (one who never loses, unrealistic but this is just a hypothesis) will never use a regular shield. Every time the player wishes to block an attack, they will powershield.

Of course, this doesn't mean that dodges are worthless. Powershields do nothing versus throws. The perfect player will know when to powershield and when to dodge. Well, even flawed players know this, but they can't pull it off 100% consistently. Problem with the perfect player is that it requires them to have reflexes like a CPU player, and the ability to read minds (a CPU player, basically).

 

[br4n]

situational

 

[Johnny Blitz]

im sure no one thought fox's speed could be controlled quite like it was towards the end of melee at the start of melee. fox in melee takes a lot of timing and precision. this is very similiar.

 

[A2ZOMG]

Honestly I think Powershielding will be used a lot in coming days.

I just don't see people deliberately trying to powershield as of now. Considering that the window for that is fairly large, I think some good players will manage to find more gamebreaking strategies for EVERY character once they can deliberately powershield.

 

[Vyse]

Yeah.

It was like the big uproar about DI back in the day. Everybody and their friend was trying to learn how to best maximize their DI when it first became a big discussion point. The same went with ledge-teching.

This will be the same once it becomes a big enough talking point, and we begin to see some videos of people who are consistently powershielding. I know I'm probably going to start trying this when I play next. I agree that the window for powershielding is enormous, and will be a great way to punish RARers I think. (And Ike : D )

I think this will bring auto-cancelling to the fore, (If brawl doesn't already require the existence of auto-cancelling).

EDIT: Saying it's situational may be true in the short term. But like Yuna said. The frame range is way bigger (Not to mention safer) than say SF II: 3rd strike, and I've seen people parry 10+ hit combos.

 

[skellitorman]

Powershielding is very important in Brawl. Not only does it does it have no lag, and not knockback, but it does not hurt your shield at all which is extremely important when your opponent tries to hit you hard then do a move that goes through your shield. Having realized this the first day I played Brawl I have been practicing it ever since then. Now I powershield the majority of my opponents attacks that I shielded. All the types of defenses have different properties and should be used in different situations.

Imagine this situation. Any character vs. Wolf. Wolf used projectile three times which all got powershielded, then when i got close wolf used forward smash, then dsmash, which both ended up getting powershielded. Leaving me free to punish. After powershielding all his projectiles for a whole match he hardly ever used them again. I did this to a friend yesterday so yes it is possible.

I would like to say that powershielding is easier the bigger your shield is, so you have to make sure that your normal shield doesnt get hit or it becomes weaker and smaller, making it harder to powershield. Just try to make sure you have a fully recovered shield when you powershield.

Also I forgot to mention that I conveniently changed my shield button from L or R to Y ( i use X for jump) because it is physically faster to press the Y button which results in me shielding more efficiently especially when i have to shield quickly from an attack and I barely powershield. People don't be stupid and give excuses, trying to rationalize that powershielding is not worth learning because of whatever excuse you guys have been giving, just learn to powershield. Its not that hard.

 

[R!S3]

It's not very high-risk since the worst thing that can happen besides getting hit is that you normal shield it (and if you're any good, you'll just normal shield almost every botched powershield).

i agree with yuna and panda

even if you miss the timing you can still shield the attack regularly...

very useful...

 

[Yuna]

EDIT: Saying it's situational may be true in the short term. But like Yuna said. The frame range is way bigger (Not to mention safer) than say SF II: 3rd strike, and I've seen people parry 10+ hit combos.

Parrying set strings in SF III: 3rd Strike is different from Power-shielding, though. Each time you parry a move, the opponent gets more cool-down on said move.

Let's say Chun-Li uses her 2nd Super, Double Quarter-circle forward + Kick. She does 10 kicks with one foot, then 10 kicks with the other. If you parry any of these hits, she'll lag more before she does the next one. There's also a set timing to her kicks with or without parry.

Each time you try to pull parry it, the timing will be the exact same.

 

[Vro]

That's a slightly flawed statement. You say that there's no reason to not powershield, yet you can't see a place for it.

When I said that, I meant that there's no drawback to it, but I can't see it defining the shape of the game. It's good and easy to do, but not imperatively significant.

 

[Doval]

Powershielding won't become the future of Brawl because a pro player won't be predictable enough that you have the leisure of seeing his attack coming and time a powershield. In addition to that, you also can't afford to wait for powershield opportunities, and if you devote too much of your focus to trying to powershield things, you're an easy target for a grab.

It's a good tech, it just won't become a predominant tactic as opposed to actively countering the opponent's attacks instead of trying to force a powershield to punish.

 

[Koga]

Powershielding won't become the future of Brawl because a pro player won't be predictable enough that you have the leisure of seeing his attack coming and time a powershield. In addition to that, you also can't afford to wait for powershield opportunities, and if you devote too much of your focus to trying to powershield things, you're an easy target for a grab.

It's a good tech, it just won't become a predominant tactic as opposed to actively countering the opponent's attacks instead of trying to force a powershield to punish.

It has more uses than just to counter stuff. Its just a really good tech to do in general, powershielding is the fastest way to deal with something.

If someone gets their timing and reflexes down to where they can powershield most or all of the attacks an opponent can throw at them, they will be at an advantage.

Yeah they can grab but this is assuming they're in grab range, otherwise powershielding benifits the sheilder more.

 

[Doval]

You're assuming someone can reach a state of Nirvana where they can see the start-up of any move and react with a powershield. It's too big of a gamble to even look for powershields. It detracts from your focus too much, and not every move is punishable anyways. A pro player won't telegraph his moves and will constantly mix up his game, ruining any possible attempts to look for a powershield as well. And even if you acquired god-like reflexes, a pro player would simply stop approaching with things that can be punishable by powershield, just like we currently do our best not to fall into chain grabs.

And it's not always the fastest way to deal with something. Sidestep, rolling or jump+air dodging can sometimes be better.

I'm not saying it's bad. It's a very good technique. I'm just saying you can't plan ahead for a powershield, so it won't be a dominating technique. You also can't make your game revolve around a powershield, because you miss out on too many opportunities to mess up your opponent in other ways. So it won't be a dominating technique. I'm sure pro players will learn to react to the few powershields they pull off, but don't expect to see people powershielding left and right in a couple of years. It's just not how the game flows.

 

[Koga]

You're assuming someone can reach a state of Nirvana where they can see the start-up of any move and react with a powershield. It's too big of a gamble to even look for powershields. It detracts from your focus too much, and not every move is punishable anyways. A pro player won't telegraph his moves and will constantly mix up his game, ruining any possible attempts to look for a powershield as well. And even if you acquired god-like reflexes, a pro player would simply stop approaching with things that can be punishable by powershield, just like we currently do our best not to fall into chain grabs.

And it's not always the fastest way to deal with something. Sidestep, rolling or jump+air dodging can sometimes be better.

I'm not saying it's bad. It's a very good technique. I'm just saying you can't plan ahead for a powershield, so it won't be a dominating technique. You also can't make your game revolve around a powershield, because you miss out on too many opportunities to mess up your opponent in other ways. So it won't be a dominating technique. I'm sure pro players will learn to react to the few powershields they pull off, but don't expect to see people powershielding left and right in a couple of years. It's just not how the game flows.

I don't put anything past pro players, if something can be done it will be done.

I don't think the powershield will be used for anything besides just being a powershield, and its more of a reflex thing than anything else.

 

[Rapid_Assassin]

You're assuming someone can reach a state of Nirvana where they can see the start-up of any move and react with a powershield. It's too big of a gamble to even look for powershields. It detracts from your focus too much, and not every move is punishable anyways. A pro player won't telegraph his moves and will constantly mix up his game, ruining any possible attempts to look for a powershield as well. And even if you acquired god-like reflexes, a pro player would simply stop approaching with things that can be punishable by powershield, just like we currently do our best not to fall into chain grabs.

And it's not always the fastest way to deal with something. Sidestep, rolling or jump+air dodging can sometimes be better.

I'm not saying it's bad. It's a very good technique. I'm just saying you can't plan ahead for a powershield, so it won't be a dominating technique. You also can't make your game revolve around a powershield, because you miss out on too many opportunities to mess up your opponent in other ways. So it won't be a dominating technique. I'm sure pro players will learn to react to the few powershields they pull off, but don't expect to see people powershielding left and right in a couple of years. It's just not how the game flows.

I managed to powershield almost everything in Melee, where it was harder to do. It's more of a timed reaction type of thing. If I see an attack coming at my face, I could either powershield it, move out of the way, dodge it, roll, normal shield, in situational cases out prioritize it, or get hit with it. Powershielding is generally the least punishable of those options, unless the attack I see is a grab, or I wanted to do move anyway. It's not that I'm "looking for powershields" but that "my opponent is attacking, time to shield" and I time it correctly so it powershields.

 

[Adi]

Just another reason to stay on the defensive and camp lol.

 

[ShadowCosmos]

Not to mention that it's much MUCH easier to power sheild this time around than in melee. It really is more about instinctive reflexes as opposed to planning for it. At the same time you can 'train' it like you do when you first start out playing (you practice pressing X or Y for jumping and after awhile it becomes second nature).

Sure it's not easy to powershield everything but it is a lot easier than you guys are making it out to be.

 

[Crizthakidd]

i dont think too many people will obsess over it. sure practice it a few times u know get it down nicely but not a thing like l cancel