Super Smash Bros. Ultimate introduces a new mechanic to the decades old platform fighting series: the parry, a familiar entry from many other fighting games, from traditional 2-D fighters like Street Fighter or Tekken to indie platform fighters like Rivals of Aether. The mechanic triggers in the five frames after a fighter drops their shield; if hit during this span, the opponent goes into stun, allowing the parrying fighter to counterattack.

The use of this technique in close quarters combat is clear: parry an opponent landing with an aerial, and you can often counter with either your strongest ground move or best combo starter. But the use of parrying against projectiles is a bit less obvious. The player throwing the projectile does not suffer the same parry stun as they would from a melee attack, meaning a parry on a projectiles doesn't guarantee a clean counterattack. And since the window on parrying is fairly small -- five frames is all of 1/12th of a second in Smash, a 60 frame-per-second game -- it might seem like parrying a projectile isn't worth the risk of eating the hit if timing is off.

This question is particularly relevant for my character, Duck Hunt, whose gameplan revolves around his three special moves, all projectiles. How scared do I have to be of a player who is capable of parrying my specials? The clay pigeon attack in particular has great combo potential, but also nearly a second of end lag that leaves Duck Hunt completely open for punishes if the opponent can jump over it in time. The clay pigeon is safe when it hits an opponents shield, though, as the pressure from the projectile and the gunshot hitboxes that follow leave the opponent without the time to get through. But would a parry allow them to punish?

I quickly got my answer. Down B (the organization I commentate and play for) held its first weekly Smash Ultimate tournament the Thursday after the game’s release, and I played against yeti in Winners Quarters. yeti was one of the few players to show proficiency with the parry mechanic early on, and I shouldn't have been surprised when, under a minute into the first game, he punished my clay pigeon toss with a parry:

He didn't get much off of it -- just a grab, and I held away on the throw to avoid the follow-up. But it sent a message early in the set: I can't just throw the clay to prevent ground approaches. When we talked about it later, yeti said his approach with the parries was as much about seeing what would happen as anything else as we feel out this new system. But I think it will turn out to be a critical part of dealing with zoning. Shield in this game is a scary option to rely on for a few reasons. Shields deplete quickly and regenerate slowly, at least compared to the last entry in the series, Smash for Wii U. And dropping shield, at least when you don't get a parry, results in an 11-frame cooldown, four more than was suffered in the previous Smash.

Clay pigeon is a complicated move to illustrate this with, given its multiple hits and the freedom of the Duck Hunt player to detonate the shots at will. It'll be easier if we use another zoning tool, and one that'll be more relevant to the community to boot: Richter and Simon's side-special, his cross. Cross is a menace of a projectile, boomerang-esque and covering tons of horizontal space with high enough priority to beat most approaching attacks or opposing projectiles. If you can't deal with it, you're probably going to lose to one of the many Belmonts you'll see in any given bracket, at least in this early meta. You can see Richter using his cross (as well one of his other strong projectiles, his axe) below:

Jumping over the cross seems like the obvious answer, but the Belmonts' netural-special is a high-arcing axe that just so happens to cover most jumps over the cross. A good Belmont player will do his best to make you feel like you need to stay grounded. But eat too many projectiles on shield and you eventually will be forced to either jump or risk having your shield poked or broken. Or, the Belmont will work his way in and grab, and their forward and back throws do a surprising amount of knockback and give them extremely valuable stage control.

Projectiles in Smash Ultimate do not damage shields nearly as heavily as other moves, but as with any hit on shield, it will still freeze the opponent. Cross freezes opponents in shield for 10 frames. To drop shield and run -- away from or at the opponent -- takes another 11 frames. The only way to cancel these shield drop frames is to jump, which is the exact scenario we're trying to avoid in the first place. We're not trying to eat the forward-airs or axes the Belmonts will throw out when we inevitably jump. As this (admittedly choppy attempt at a) frame-by-frame video shows, you’re stuck in place for a significant chunk of time when the cross hits your shield.

A parry, however, allows you to get out of shield without dealing with either the shield freeze frames or the shield drop frames, saving at least 21 frames over sitting in shield. That may not sound too valuable, but if the Belmont is preemptively throwing axe or jumping forward-airing in anticipation, those 21 frames allow you ample time to run under these attacks and punish if they are too greedy. These videos from training mode aren't perfect, but I think this shows the difference between eating the shield stun and getting to dash after the parry pretty well. Note how close you can get to Richter before his cross even returns to him:

Even if the Belmont is patient and doesn't push a laggy button after getting their cross parried, they lose the pressure granted as the cross freezes you on shield. The player successfully parrying finally gets to cover valuable ground, too, as you can dash out of parry, an option that isn't granted out of shield, as yeti showed above. Another example comes in this friendly match against Vega, another local Smash player, in which he punishes one of my clay pigeon tosses after parrying it:

It's no Daigo Moment 37, but these are extremely valuable parries to avoid the pressure projectile characters like Duck Hunt and the Belmonts rely on to enact their game plans. In fact, in the above clip, a big reason I got hit was that I was expecting Vega to be locked into shield after the clay pigeon hit him.

Fear of parrying projectiles is understandable, as it’s a difficult input to time and getting hit for doing it too early can easily dissuade a player from trying again. But as zoning gets more and more sophisticated, I think it will become necessary to parry projectiles at the top level. The freedom of movement the mechanic allows is too great to ignore, and breaking up the pressure zoners can create is always critical to overcoming their walls of pain. Even if you haven’t mastered the parry yet, don’t dismiss it — it might just give you the opening you need against these characters.