[Amish] A farmer's guide to squirtman

There's no fucking super armor on Squirtle

^^^Dad

he only has armor on Nair, D-smash, F-smash, Crawl-Tilt, and Side-B (withdraw), and it's all light armor or weaker so it becomes negligible after reaching mid%s except in the case of very low KB attacks like some projectiles, jabs, or flub hit aerials.

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my personal best explanation of squirtle as a character

and some commentary tips that I think would be really useful.

All characters have at least two kinds of turning animations: regular turnaround (called Turn in Melee's debug mode) and run turnaround (called TurnRun in Melee's debug mode).

^^^source

I'll be talking referring to TurnRun as turnaround from now on out, it's not regular turnaround (or just Turn) like when marth turn-utilts to juggle fox back and forth. In melee running turnaround when canceled would have you keep facing the direction you were running, in PM you switch directions as soon as the turnaround begins (hence why RAR is possible). Squirtle's turnaround is extremely special, it's referred to as ShellShift.

Foremost, squirtle is all about ShellShift, or SS in shorthand. SS is squirtle's turnaround animation, what happens to all characters when you try to turn around during run. In fact, a RAR or Reverse Aerial Rush is the global technique for jumping during this animation to approach with B-airs.

What makes squirtle's turnaround unique is that it has 2 "momentum boost" windows at the beginning and end of the move. ShellShift is 21 frames long, the momentum boost windows are frames 1-5 and 15-21. The 2nd thing that makes squirtle's turnaround unique is that a small (as in negative disjoint like rest) hitbox appears on frames 9-12 of the move (right in between the two momentum boost windows).

Just like any character's turnaround, you can jump cancel the animation at any time, this means you can JC a grab or U-smash to slide great distances during the 1st boost window, and during the 2nd window when turnaround can be canceled at any frame you can slide great distances with almost any grounded move. To describe canceling SS during either of the momentum boost windows we say squirtle "hydroplaned" the move, this goes back to brawl terminology where hydroplaning was first discovered.

When squirtle jumps into the air out of the 1st hydroplaning window, we call it the SlingJump, though SuperRAR also works because it is still technically a RAR. This is an extremely important movement tool for squirtle, as it allows him to jump horizontal distances equal to capt falcon (while being floaty so he can edgeguard like a boss).

When squirtle jumps into the air out of the 2nd hydroplaning window, we call it a ShellSling. During a slingjump squirtle (ideally) never actually enters his shell, while for a shellsling squirtle would be always inside his shell before the jump. ShellSling is arguably just as important as SlingJump because it gives you bigger momentum boosts (though much later, a full wavedash (15 frames) later, and even then the peak boost are frames 19,20) meaning you can jump cancel grab and slide massive distances (see the composite image from the SS infographic. Because it's sliding a grounded move out of a hydroplaning window, we call ShellSling JC grab "Hydrograb" instead of ShellSling grab to stay consistent with the concept of hydroplaning.

Hydro-grabbing is an incredibly important tool for squirtle, and arguably the main reason his grab game is pretty good despite his poor range. If you looked at the composite image of hydrograb's coverage you'll see how potent SS can be as a mixup in neutral.

A good way to think of squirtle's movement is Luigi on the ground and Capt Falcon in the air.

His physics are floaty/lightweight

Lightweight:

25-30) Diddy/Ivysaur/Roy/ZSS/Toon Link/Wolf [85]

31-32) Squirtle/Sonic [82]

33-36) Falco/Lucas/Pikachu/Pit [80]

and he's floaty

Floaties:

26. Wario [1.85]

27. Ness [1.83]

28-32) Charizard/G&W/Ivysaur/Mario/Squirtle [1.7]

33) ROB [1.65]

34-36) ICs/Kirby/Luigi [1.6]

37-38) Mewtwo/Peach [1.5]

39-40) Samus/Zelda [1.4]

41. Jigglypuff [1.3]

^^^source

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Slingjumps are when Squirtle launches forward without a turnaround. The turnaround in the shell is called a shellshift.

Squirtle's biggest strength is obviously movement. Some common kill moves include:

• U-smash. This can be done with a turnaround cancel (called TACUS or RHUS, and looks a lot like a DACUS) or shellshift (Hydroplane U-smash, when Squirtle does a turn around and then the U-smash). Distinguishing between these correctly on commentary gets you bonus points. It can be setup with either a hard read or something like crawl attack.

• Down-throw.

• Forward air. This can be comboed into from forward throw IF the opponent DIs the throw poorly, meaning the fthrow is a mixup that can score the fair kill.

• Up-B near the top of the stage. Usually comboed into from an up-air string and acts similarly to Falco's off-the-top Firebird kill.

• Aqua jet is an attack like Luigi's shoryuken, where side-B activates a strong blast at very close range if Squirtle uses side-B while inside the opponent. It is a pretty impressive/hype kill move IMO. In addition, Squirtle kills offstage with nairs, bairs, and fairs pretty well, usually using a slingjump or shellshift to do so; it takes some precision to do well.

There's a lot more to Squirtle too, but I'm pointing these things out because I've seen a lot of commentators mostly give up or sit back on commentating matches with Squirtle. Being knowledgeable educates a lot of people and can help improve peoples' understanding of the character.

^^^orangegluon

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compiled from this thread on r/SSBPM