Welcome! To those of you who are new, on this blog I talk about techniques and strategies that are popular in the competitive level of the game Super Smash Bros. Melee. If you are completely unfamiliar with this topic, please refer to my first ever post in which i explain the basic principles of the game. The knowledge on my blog builds off of prior knowledge, so some terms used in this post are explained in past ones! All of the super smash bros. specific terms are highlighted in red.
So last time I talked about many of the applications of the shine in Super Smash Bros Melee, but there are many more that I have yet to talk about! To start off this post I’ll talk about waveshining.
Waveshining (Fox)
Waveshining is a tech in which you preform a wavedash after a jump-cancelled shine. Below is a gif showing fox preforming a waveshine out of shield into a down tilt. While also showcasing a waveshine, this gif also shows two properties of the shine: it’s ability to be used directly out of shield, and how it’s lag free if you jump out of it.
Waveshining is mainly used to start and extend combos as it is a relatively safe option and the knockback isn’t too far meaning easy follow-ups. It also has a set knockback, meaning that no matter what percent the opponent is at the attack will always have the same knockback. This property, while also making it easy to learn quick follow-ups, allow for waveshines to be chained together, as shown below.
Due to this set knockback, waveshines can be chained together infinitely if preformed correctly.
Shine spike
A shine spike is preformed when Fox hits an off-stage enemy with his shine, and while this isn’t technically a spike, it certainly acts like one and is one of the strongest edge-guarding tools in fox’s arsenal. Below is Fox shine spiking another fox. You can really see the potential this move has; It can kill extremely early percent-wise.
This is used mainly as an edge-guarding tool, but can also be used to punish any mistake an opponent makes that sends them off-stage, and can be used to end combos that send opponents off-stage.
Why Not Falco?
Above I mentioned that shine spiking is a “Fox-only” tech, but if Falco also has the shine, as mentioned in the last post, why wouldn’t he also be able to preform this tech?
This leads into the main difference between Fox’s and Falco’s shine. Fox’s shine sends opponents directly away from him, which allows him to waveshine. Falco’s sends opponents upwards, which allows him to follow up with his aerials. While I may not cover any Falco-specific shine techs in this post, that could very well be a theme in a future post!
Finally I will leave you with a very interesting gif:
Here Westballz ( the red Falco player) seems to shine spike MikeHaze (the Fox player). From what I’ve told you so far, however, Falco’s shine sends opponents exclusively upward, so how did Westballz pull it off? Honestly I have no clue, most other “Falco shine spike” clips are right next to a ledge where fox could’ve easily bounced off of, but here there is no such ledge. So what do you think happened? Feel free to send any theories my way and thank you for reading!