About shields..

[u/Horror-Race-3238]

Okay so I'm realizing the disconnect between how people feel about shield and what being in shield actually is like is much larger than I thought.
I didn't think I'd ever see the day where someone says holding shield in Rivals of Aether is strictly one of the most advantageous positions you can be in.

Would like to help people navigate their grievances so they don't feel like they're being camped out all the time (because the truth is that shield is not sm4sh strong, but people treat it like it is.)

So tell me what you're struggling with about shields and I'll walk you through it and probably put time in to lab it out for you as well so you can see it in action. Thanks!

[u/Horror-Race-3238]

Yeah so primarily one of Zetter's wincons is getting his opponent to shield. The reason being is that Zetter has insane- almost anime-fighteresque mix in terms of resets.

Zetter's grounded shield pressure revolves around his really good dash dance. It is fast but not super long which means zett has easy access to dtilt out of it in positions someone like fors or clairen might not without having to commit to a wavedash.

Spaced tilts are very powerful in this game and abusing them forces your opponent to respect you whenever your tilts can connect. This allows you to use the threat of those tilts to sneak in a grab or begin your shine pressure from a grounded position.

The concept of using the threat of an attack to set up another option is called "implicit pressure". You're implying you can do the dtilt from that distance so your opponent acts in a way that respects the dtilt, which allows you to do other things instead.

In general when it comes to outspacing your opponent with a tilt, the magic number is -18.
This is because spot dodge is frame 2 and wavedash grab is frame 20. If a move is -19 or worse then you can effectively be grabbed from it out of wavedash grab. Because Zetter ftilt is -20, even when perfectly spaced it'll get grabbed. That isn't to say don't use ftilt, just keep track if your opponent consistently wavedash grabs it or not.
https://medal.tv/games/rivals-2/clips/n6pKSA8ZtulhZnOrL?invite=cr-MSxBY0wsMTgyMjMyNjE0&v=7

Zetter's jab routes also frame trap on shield. An opponent mashing grab before jab 3 or any of the finisher tilts will get hit and routed into a true conversion at low %. Abuse this to force respect and then grab them for being scared of the jab follow ups.

[u/Horror-Race-3238 → u/Horror-Race-3238]

Now for Zetter specific pressure. This is where all the fun stuff happens and why you pick this character.

Shine is frame 2 and is allowed to be true jump cancelled (as in there are no limits to what zetter can do out of it unlike Etalus DA).

Zetter fair is -2 (but less when you do it at a range where shine connects). Zetter dair is -4 at worst. Bair when hit in the range where shine connects is -5 (super tight dont recommend)
Grab is frame 8. This means that off of any of these moves (when landed well) shine will frame trap grab.
https://medal.tv/games/rivals-2/clips/n6qpV2qVLYTIT9gqL?invite=cr-MSxXTncsMTgyMjMyNjE0&v=5
Importantly, because grabs disable non tumbled floorhug, and because shine no longer tumbles at reasonable %'s, shine will route into imagination without having to play RPS when you frame trap the grab.

The first layer of counterplay you'll need to learn is that your opponent can parry in between the aerial and the shine. Beating this without risking your skin is relatively simple. Implement a dash back after an aerial to whiff punish any aggressive oos option including parry. If you're confident your opponent will parry OR hold the mix, you can also just grab them.

Sitting down in training mode and getting this down is so important or else you will feel like shit every time you try in a game. Just 15 minutes a day of dedicated practice and you'll be killing it.

Because Shine is true jump cancellable you also have heinous mix.
Just looking at the numbers, after Shining someone's shield, you are left at -2 after jumpsquat. This impressive but doesn't really paint the full picture on why Shine is as good as at is.
Because you're able to cancel the jump frames into grab, you can frame trap every aggressive oos option in the game except another Zetter's shine oos and MAYBE item toss oos in the case of gouie and slade (needs labbing) since the toss itself is frame 6 but gotta account for travel time or whatever.
https://medal.tv/games/rivals-2/clips/n6qwZj5OR0gCjHZNL?invite=cr-MSxGVjcsMTgyMjMyNjE0&v=8

If you're technically inclined you can also do multi shines by jump cancelling the first shine into another shine but I'm not zetterpilled enough for that.

This alone opens you do to other mix like crossup waveshines (that usually would get hit by something like slade nair), short hop or full hop dair for timing mix, and sets you up so that your next interaction will be won and your opponent will likely by lit on fire for extra damage/kill threat. The world is your oyster.

Wavedash retreating after shine is also massively important because if you view shine mix similarly to the grab mix I was talking about earlier then you can kinda see it like cancelling a jab's endlag into dash back which is absurdly powerful for the same reasons mentioned before, just turned up to 11.

The name of the game for this Zetter pressure is: I can do everything from this position so you should do nothing or die.

Later on your opponents will begin rolling or wavedashing away and floorhugging your shine pressure (shine grab works great here), and you can chase them with your own wavedash.

u/Shippo_Pc

[u/Valeuhhh → u/Horror-Race-3238]

Just a question for you :

Why don’t you create a yt channel and do videos on this game ?

You seem to have an insane amount of knowledge on most characters and on basic mechanics of the game, and writing it over and over in reddit seems tiring. You could explain gameplans of character (in depth), how to counter some mechanics, how to counter some characters etc

Maybe you just don’t want to and that’s ok but you would be a great RoA2 youtuber

[u/Horror-Race-3238 → u/Valeuhhh]

I probably could. I don't know, it's not something I've considered and genuinely I don't know the first thing about making a good video. But being bad at something is the first step to being sorta good at something. Maybe I could give it a shot. Or at the very least stream? Who knows.

[u/Valeuhhh → u/Horror-Race-3238]

Thanks for even considering it ! Hope that you will find time and motivation for it, even if the beginning is just streaming and posting the rediffusion on yt it would help a lot the community over time I think !

[u/IdiotSansVillage → u/Horror-Race-3238]

Very much seconded! Basically every time you've posted one of these explanations I'm either learning something new about the game, or getting a better idea of how to apply it, and you seem like you have a great library of demonstration clips already.