Shield poke

"Poke" redirects here. For the smasher, see Smasher:Poke.

Marth using his down tilt on a shielding Pit, shield-poking his exposed foot on the third hit.

A shield poke, also called a shield stab, is the event of finding a damageable portion of a character slightly outside of their shield and striking it, therefore bypassing their attempt to shield. It is a fundamental part of shield pressure across the Smash series.

Overview

While a shield is up, the shielded character's hurtboxes are still active. As the shield depletes, parts of said hurtboxes can become exposed. An aware opponent can utilize this situation to their advantage and hit the character while their shield is still up, wasting their shielding effort and putting them at a positional and resource disadvantage. The attack's hitbox must not contact the shield to poke, otherwise it will be shield even if it looked like it should not.

Some characters are easier to shield poke than others. For example, Mr. Game & Watch's shield is small compared to his body size in Melee, Olimar's hurtbox size was increased in Ultimate's update 3.1.0 without his shield being properly enlarged to compensate, and Ganondorf and Donkey Kong are too large for a spherical bubble to cover properly. A character that is short and/or round (such as Kirby or Jigglypuff) can be hard to shield poke for similar reasons.

Some moves are more suited for shield poking than others. Multi-hit moves that are used at their maximum range can deplete a shield with the first few hits and then strike on the next few. The hitbox shape of a move also affects its shield poking viability; for instance, Marth's down tilt only hits very low to the ground, so it can hit an opponent's uncovered feet without accidentally touching their shield's center. Connecting a move with significant shield damage will render the user's next move likely to shield poke, though the target may just choose to drop their shield if it gets that low.

While shield poking can be useful, it is not always the ideal solution. For example, a shield poke can prevent a shield break, which closes off unique combo routes and potential KOs. Since shields can get rather small before they break, players will sometimes take a risk and allow themselves to get hit so their shield does not break, sometimes tilting their shield in a desired direction to make a poke even more likely. Their opponents needs to be precise with good aim and timing to get a shield break under these conditions.

Due to Yoshi's unique egg shield, which does not shrink and always covers his entire body, he cannot normally be shield poked. However, in Brawl, the very bottoms of Yoshi's feet hang out the bottom of his egg, which can be shield poked from below with very precise distancing.

This is a rough diagram on how shield pokes work. If the hitbox makes even slight contact with the opponent's shield, a shield poke will not occur.

Shield angling

If a player sees an incoming shield poke attempt, they may be able to shift the position of their shield to cover up the exposed area by slightly tilting the control stick, a technique referred to as shield angling. Tilting too far, too quickly will trigger a roll or sidestep, although in Ultimate, holding multiple shield buttons, a special attack button while holding a shield button, or a grab button alleviates this. This technique becomes harder to pull off successfully as a shield weakens/shrinks, and since dodging or sidestepping is usually more reliable if the defending fighter already sees an attack incoming and is low on shield, it doesn't see an exceptional amount of use.

Examples of well-known shield poking moves

• Kirby: Up tilt (Smash 64)
• Marth, Roy and Lucina: Down tilt
• Peach: Down smash (Melee and to a lesser extent, Brawl)
• Mr. Game & Watch: Back aerial and neutral aerial
• Meta Knight: Mach Tornado (Brawl), down tilt, Drill Rush, forward tilt
• Wario: Down aerial
• Steve: Up tilt