An Overview on Reflector (Shine)

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Introduction

Ellohay.. I’m Shy! This was originally supposed to be a video, but I’m unsure if it’s reasonable for me to work on a video project with an expected length of 20 minutes. Now, for now, it’s a write-up (with images and gifs that also took forever)! There’s a small amount of info reserved to Patrons and Twitch subscribers, but like the Double-Poof video, most things will be included. I hope you can learn a lot from this. ^^.

This is An Overview on Reflector, a set of moves that the community refers to as “Shine.” This may be a little long, but it should be a fairly easy read and I’ve included a Table of Contents to make navigation a little easier. Whether or not you play Fox or Falco, even if you think you know everything about Shine, I still recommend that you read through the entire overview because there is a lot of information I had to test for (it also functions as a sort of documentation). This overview will briefly cover Shine’s frame data and then move on to various interactions and applications.

Table of Contents - Basic Frame Data & Functionality

- Various Ways of Inputting Shine

- Shine Pressure

- Reversing Advantage & Escaping Pressure

- Shine Turnaround

- Shine Stall

- Edgeguarding

- Combos

- Reflecting Projectiles

- Bonus Sections

○ Falco’s Shine Spike against Yoshi

○ Shine Landing

○ Shine Gliding

○ Armada Shine

○ Fox Shining Rolls on Platforms

- Closing

Basic Frame Data & Functionality

Naturally, Shine is infamous for its speed, intangibility, and incredible versatility. Both Fox and Falco’s Shines can be used to aid in combo’ing, edgeguarding, shield-pressure, turning around in various states, stalling momentum to mix-up timings, landing on platforms, escaping disadvantageous states, reflecting, performing all-sorts of weird tech, and obviously—reflecting. That was a bit of a mouthful, Shine really is a useful special. Regardless of which character you select, on the first frame of Shine, the character becomes intangible and Shine’s hitbox is active for a single frame.

Two frames of lag follow and after frame 3, the move begins reflecting, can be turned around, and can be jump cancelled.

When turning around, the reflect bubble persists, but the space animal is placed in 3 frames of lag before being able to jump-cancel or turn back around.

When using Shine in the air, the user’s vertical velocity is stalled at 0 for 4 frames before adding .2667 to their fall speed on every frame until the character reaches their maximum normal falling speed, which is 2.8 and 3.1 for Fox and Falco respectively.

In contrast to the common range differences between Fox and Falco, even though the reflect bubble of Falco’s Shine is bigger, Fox has a larger Shine hitbox. This causes some issues for Falco and serves as a great boon for Fox, but that will come up later.

Falco’s Shine deals 8%, tumbles, and launches his opponent up and away at an 84 degree angle, making it an incredible combo tool⁠—allowing him to abuse his massive jumps and variety of powerful combo tools at almost any percent.

Fox’s Shine deals a lesser 5% and has set knockback, sending his opponent away at a 0 degree angle, effectively turning it into a devastating semi-spike when offstage and combo tool when on-stage. Depending on the victim’s weight, it may or may not cause a knockdown (which can be teched if predicted or attempting to put up Shield)!

Various Ways of Inputting Shine
Although one can simply input Shine while they’re standing, walking, or in an actionable airborne state—it’s important to know how to quickly, consistently use Shine on other occasions.

Run Cancel Shine is the first of three methods that allow you to use Shine while dashing. There are two main actionstates involved in dashing: Initial Dash (referred to as DASH within the game) and Run (RUN). Although the minimum-duration and distance of Initial Dash varies by character—Fox and Falco’s initial dashes (DASH) can both be cancelled into RUN after frame 11 if the player makes an input of at least X=.625 (X≥.625) in the direction they were dashing (holding the stick forward will do this). If the player holds a value less than .625 (X<.625) while running, they will enter RUNBRAKE. This laggy animation can be cancelled by crouching, which can then be cancelled by another move such as Shine. This is called Run Cancel Shine. Space animals can technically Shine directly from RUN, but it's tight and will fail if the player doesn't input down and B on the same frame. Cancelling with crouch is usually done for consistency.

There are two methods for inputting Shine during Initial Dash. Pivot Shine is the first. As the name suggests, it’s executed by pivoting just before inputting Shine. During Initial Dash, a player can Dashback by performing a smash input (X≥.8 within 2 frames from neutral) in the opposite direction, however, if the player inputs X≥.8 for only one frame, their character will enter TURN (smash turn) and not actually Dash in the opposite direction. This Turn animation can be interrupted with Shine.

I’ve also written much more in-depth explanations of Dash & Run Mechanics if you would like to know more.
The second, but far more common method is Jump-Cancel or, JC Shine. Although it is called a “Jump-Cancel,” it is not a true Jump-Cancel (does not interrupt jumpsquat). Whether from another Shine or any other actionstate in which one can enter jumpsquat (KNEEBEND), the space animal should jump and on the last frame of their jumpsquat (Fox: 3f, Falco: 5f)—input Shine. They will stall just above the ground and after the first frame of their velocity dropping or their second actionable frame, they will become grounded again.

This means that there is always at least two actionable, airborne frames when performing Jump-Cancel Shine. Also, if the space animals turn around during their short airborne stall, they will simultaneously use the same frame to land and to continue their turn—effectively cutting out 1 frame of the turn animation. Naturally, they also have the option to tap-jump or input-jump within a 2 frame window before landing to guarantee a double-jump (DJ).

Doubleshine is a technique that mixes Jump-Cancel Shine with Shine’s ability to be Jump-Cancelled. Doubleshine is performed by interrupting Shine with a Jump-Cancel Shine. Doubleshine is often used as fast, safe shield-pressure for calling out jumps, Rolls, and Grabs.

When Doubleshining a Shield, there is some inherent risk because—if they predict the space animal’s timing, the defender can often Shield SDI away to avoid the second Shine and follow with a punish. Falco suffers from this more often than Fox because of his Shine’s smaller hitbox, but this issue can be avoided as long as Falco avoids Doubleshining whenever he does not have approaching velocity.

Because this technique utilises Jump-Cancel Shine, Fox’s Doubleshine is two frames faster than Falco’s. This difference is not usually relevant since both characters can catch rolls and neither can catch Spotdodges, but it means that Fox has some extra leniency when trying to Shine a Roll. There are two noteworthy exceptions to these rules. Fox is able to Shine Falcon’s Spotdodge if he has any approaching momentum (or if he is behind him) and Jigglypuff’s Forward Roll is able to escape both characters’ Doubleshines.

Although they may not all be true “Doubleshines,” two Shines can be used in other ways. As Fox, Doubleshining an opponent above you can add extra damage before combo’ing into an Upsmash and Doubleshining an opponent at the ledge can be used to edgeguard as well. The first Shine will push the victim offstage and the second one will Shine-spike.

When near the top blastzone, Falco can KO floatier characters by combo’ing one Shine into another aerial Shine. Sometimes this will be two aerial Shines with a short delay; sometimes a grounded Shine into an aerial one will suffice. This is a very useful kill setup that can make the smaller vertical blastzones of Yoshi’s Story and Pokemon Stadium a boon against Peach, Jigglypuff, Samus, and Marth.

Multishining is simply an extension of Doubleshining and describing it as a “JC Shine Loop,” would be accurate. Multishines are executed by repeating performing JC Shines out of one another.

Shine Pressure
Shine is a vital part of spacie shield-pressure because it allows them to place a hitbox in-between consecutive aerials as well as leaving them in slight frame advantage (Fox: +2, Falco: +3) for other actions. It helps prevent reversal situations, deal extra damage to their opponent’s Shield, and can catch the opponent’s escape options. After each Shine, the space animal can choose to wavedash, Grab, aerial, Jump-Cancel Shine (and occasionally jump or double-jump).

If they wavedash, they should choose to move away or through their opponent depending on the matchup. For example: When standing next to Marth, neither Fox, nor Falco can Shine-Wavedash away from him, but both can go through him.

This can get somewhat complex because it varies based on the characters’ positioning and velocity before the Shine, but I’ve made a simple chart for both spacies when they land a stationary Shine on their opponent’s Shield before inputting a long wavedash in either direction. If you’re subscribed to me on Twitch (Prime works) or on Patreon, you can find that chart in my supporter-Discord.

When performing Shine-Aerial pressure, with each repetition, the space animal chooses how they will time their aerial and the defending player can either wait or attempt to read the space animals’ timing and respond accordingly. Although there are many different possible aerial timings, for the purposes of this write-up, I will simplify them into two categories: Early and Late aerials.

Early aerials leave the space animal most vulnerable if Shielded, and unless they are paired with retreating drift, they can be grabbed by almost any character. Those without fast grabs, like Samus, may have other options.

Early aerials’ advantage is their speed—protecting them against all but the fastest offensive options. Additionally, it allows them to safely disengage as well as punish jump and Grab Out-of-Shield.

Even if the defender is able to escape by rolling, the spacie maintains frame advantage and can attempt to chase their opponent down (exact values for FP Shine-Nair/Dair as each character is available in my supporter-Discord). It’s also worth noting that if both spacies execute their shine-aerials as fast as possible, Falco will always catch the fastest buffered spotdodges while Fox will not. Naturally, late aerials function in reverse. They leave the space animal vulnerable throughout their jump, but yield the most advantage if they connect with a Shield or an opponent.

For Falco, the latest aerials are -2 (-3 in practise) or neutral (+0) on Shield, for Down-Air and Neutral-Air respectively, meaning that the opponent can act at the same time or one frame earlier than Falco. Luckily, Shine is frame 1, so Falco’s following Shine will come out before any out of shield options except Samus’ Up-B Out-of-Shield. Fox’s Nair has the same frame advantage as Falco’s, but his Down-Air, or “Drill,” functions a bit differently. It’s a long-lasting multi-hit, so its usage during shield-pressure is a bit more complex. If Fox does his Drill frame-perfectly, he can still get the best possible frame advantage by buffering his fastfall during the third hit of the move (buffer during 4th hit if 1-2 frames late).

Fox’s Drill deals 3% with each hit, so, at best, it is -6 on Shield. His Drill-Shine can still beat grabs and most aerials out of shield (ex: Sheik SH Nair), but requires a strict timing and he has a harder time covering rolls unless he waits for them. The only issue that comes with early, lingering Drill, is that Fox is giving his opponent multiple chances to SDI away from the move and potentially punish him.

A late Drill will incur the normal penalties of a late aerial, but will reduce the number of SDI opportunities. Shine-Aerial shield-pressure can get a bit more complex when more timings and reads are introduced, but I will not be covering those in this write-up because this is simply meant to detail Shine itself (and is not intended as a Shield-pressure guide).

Jump-Cancel Grabs can also be performed out of Shine. Simply input Grab during jumpsquat. Shine leaves the spacie in slight frame advantage, so JC Grabs will catch most offensive options as well as punishing a held Shield. By directly punishing the opponent for holding shield, it’s likely that one can encourage them to act sooner out of shield in the future. Jump-Cancel Grab can be universally avoided by Rolling or Spotdodging after the Shine.

Falco’s Shine inflicts one extra frame of shieldstun and is actually taller, so their Shine Grabs are not the same. Frame 5 options (or something f6 intangible like Falco’s JC Shine) will beat Fox’s Shine-Grab and Frame 4 options will beat Falco’s (so Falco cannot beat his own Shine-Grab).

Interestingly enough, Sheik is the only character who can consistently buffer jump to avoid both characters' Shine-Grabs. By simply holding up on the C-stick, after Shine hits her Shield, she can simply fullhop out of Fox’s Shine-Grab. If one times their C-stick release so that she shorthops, she can still avoid Fox’s Shine-Grab while also getting a true punish. By performing a “triangle-jump” (late waveland), she can even punish with her own Grab.

For Falco, if he’s not close to her with approaching velocity, she can fullhop out of his Shine-Grab as well. Luckily, Falco’s Shines will often be approaching and he can simply add a small amount of walking between a late-aerial and a Shine. Fox can also fullhop out of an opposing Fox’s Shine-Grab, but only if Fox is not sliding towards him (no fast walks or running shines).

Reversing Advantage / Escaping Pressure
Since Shine creates a hitbox and becomes intangible on the first frame, it can be used to escape combos or reverse incredibly disadvantageous situations. Although escaping combos is difficult because both of the space animals are so easy to combo, these situations definitely still appear. It’s also important to recognise when a spacie is right next to an opponent and can take the initiative with Shine. Take note from Leffen and look for similar situations in your own matches.

A different, far more common case of a space animal using their shine to escape pressure can be seen in Shine Out-of-Shield (OoS). Shine Out-of-Shield is simply a Jump-Cancel Shine performed from Shield.

As covered earlier, Fox’s Shine OoS is active and intangible on frame 4 while Falco’s becomes effective at frame 6. Due to their intangibility, an opponent’s punish or counter-hit often has to come out on frame 3 to beat Fox’s Shine or on frame 5 to catch Falco’s. Fox and Falco can also utilise those unskippable airborne frames that occur when doing JC Shine. If they buffer (or time) a double-jump, they can choose to waveland immediately, move to a platform, or simply mix up their landing. This can make it very difficult to whiff-punish a missed Shine OoS. As a space animal, look out for any unsafe moves. There might be a lot of them.

Shine Turnaround
The ability to turn around in Shine is incredibly useful for both Fox and Falco. After being in Shine for 3 frames, the spacie can input the opposite direction to spend 3 frames turning around. When used in the air, Shine’s turnaround tends to be used before wavelanding onto a platform. When on the ground, it can be used to turn oneself around before wavedashing (to ledge/pre-aerial), jumping, or inputting an aerial, second Shine, or JC Grab like used by KJH here:

Shine Stall
As stated in the first section of this overview—When using Shine in the air, the user’s vertical velocity is stalled at 0 for 4 frames before linearly adding .2667 to their fall speed on every frame until the character reaches their maximum normal falling speed,  which is 2.8 and 3.1 for Fox and Falco respectively.

Shine Stall is most often used as a timing mixup when trying to recover. This might be most commonly seen when a spacie is thrown offstage by Captain Falcon or Marth. By mixing up the spacing, timing, and length of a Shine stall, the spacie forces their opponent to make a guess and cover a specific location and set of timings.

Shine stalling is also used when edgeguarding, usually to delay their aerial or feign pressure and bait a response from their opponent (ex: particular drift or a DJ aerial). Shine stalling is also occasionally used in an attempt to outlast their opponent when neither can recover (or even stall for a teammate’s help in doubles). If used in this manner, the space animal should actually repeatedly input Shine rather than holding it. This is because Shine’s linear fall-speed remains active until Shine is completely over, even if the move is in its release animation. Restarting Shine resets their fall speed to .2667.

Edgeguarding
Edgeguarding is one of the greatest strengths attributed to Fox’s Shine. Accurately dubbed the “Shine Spike”—due to its 0 degree angle and high amount of set knockback/hitstun when hitting an airborne, it serves as a very consistent, powerful semi-spike.

Falco’s Shine is smaller and launches upwards, so it’s not as powerful for edgeguarding, but it can still be used in a similar manner. If Falco Shines an opponent and retreats toward the stage with a rising Down- or Back-Air, the opponent will get hit by the aerial if they do not DI away. If they do DI away, they are sent further offstage and can be easily KO’d with a followup edgeguard. It’s important to note that Shine-Aerial edgeguards are often inferior to simple aerial-based edgeguards because they’re SDI-dependent.

Combos
Although Shine is an essential combo-tool for both characters, they use them pretty differently. Depending on a character’s weight, Fox’s Shine may or may not tumble the victim (refer to the chart from earlier). If they are heavier than NTSC Marth’s weight—87 units, they cannot be waveshined and will be put into a tech situation upon touching the ground.

After Shining these characters, Fox can either set up a techchase or attempt a Jab Reset.

Assuming the victim does not tech the Shine or won’t SDI up on the jab, I’ll list the percent ranges for which Fox can Shine to Jab Reset vs Fox and Falco. Although Fox can technically Jab Reset other characters like Pikachu or PAL Marth, they can simply hold up on the C-stick to escape (while still being able to pick get-up options normally). Falco can also perform this if his opponent lands on a platform, but his  stronger Shine shifts the percent window.

-----------------------

Fox:

- Fox: 0-26%
- Falco: 0-27%

  No ASDI up

- Pikachu: 0-24%
- Marth (PAL): 0-4%

Falco:
- Fox: 0-23%
- Falco: 0-24%
- Falcon: 0-17%
-----------------------

On characters for which Shine does not cause a knockdown, Fox can wavedash out of Shine into aerials, Upsmash, Grab, or another Shine. Although landing a Shine is usually good, it’s particularly strong as a low-commitment combo starter and kill-confirm when playing against these characters.

Falco’s Shine, unlike Fox’s does not have set knockback and sends the victim up and away at an 84 degree angle. Falco’s Shine is paired with so much hitstun that he can still follow up if he whiffs a Shine-Grab. Fox does not get this advantage, but he will often push his opponent to ledge or back to neutral.

Falco’s massive jumps and versatile moveset allow him to hit almost any move after Shine, so his best options change drastically when shifting platforms or matchups. I will not be going in-depth on his combos in this write-up, but some common followups include “pillars,” (seen below with Marth) aerials, more shines, and smash attacks. Spend some time training and watching top-level Falcos to explore combos from Falco’s Shine.

Reflecting Projectiles

Despite this special’s name having been pulled from this function—actually reflecting projectiles is one of the least common uses for Shine. After the initial 3 frames of Shine, the reflecting bubble activates and remains as long as Shine is held, even if the user turns around. It can be used against any character with a projectile, but usually, it only used sparingly, against the likes’ of Peach’s Turnips and Charge Shot.

Bonus Sections

Falco’s Shine Spike on Yoshi
Yoshi’s Double Jump grants him knockback armour, letting him tank hits and intercept with an attack of his own. It functions by subtracting 120 from any knockback he receives. If the result is negative, he will not flinch, but if it is positive—he will take the difference in knockback (ex: 150-120 = 30kb)

Even at 0%, Falco’s Shine deals just over 120 knockback to Yoshi, so he can psuedo-”Shine Spike” Yoshi, even while Fox cannot. Yoshi takes very little hitstun, so he can drift in and airdodge toward the stage, but he is very limited. If Yoshi begins an action just before Falco Shines him, he will be launched normally (and can use it to aid in recovery), but it can be covered by jumping out of Shine with a retreating Dair.

Shine Landing
Utilising Shine’s stalling properties, with good timing, a space animal can stall right above a platform and quickly land to perform a grounded action out of their Shine.

I’ll be comparing Shine-Land Grab to the traditional waveland Shine-Grab. In these instances, that means both space animals fullhop and DJ right before wavelanding down. This gives them more consistency (relocking ECB, if you don’t understand that, you can watch my video on it).

Here, on Battlefield, Shine-Landing makes each spacie’s Shine hit 12 frames earlier, but this leaves a larger gap between Shine and the following action (14f gap for Grab vs 9f in waveland-Shine). If the spacie intends to Shine-Land into a JC Shine, they will still have the advantage, but it’s otherwise unsafe to perform on Shields. If the speed from Shine-Landing would have been enough to confirm a Shine, the space animal should have simply jump-Shined into a DJ waveland before following up.

Shine Gliding

Almost exclusively used with Fox, Shine Gliding is a simple use of Shine’s stalling property. By performing a Run Shine at the very edge of a platform (the stage is a big platform), Fox will keep much of his horizontal momentum and fall slowly, allowing him to DJ far offstage while facing whichever direction he chooses. Falco can perform this technique, but it’s not as useful due to his relatively slow running speed.
Armada Shine

Popularised by Armada, the “Armada Shine” is an edgeguard, in which, as Fox—he targeted the last 10 frames of Fox’s Up-B start-up with a Shine Spike. When in the start-up of Firefox (Up-B), Fox creates flames that can make it difficult to interrupt him. Despite the consistent visual, right before he releases Firefox, the hitboxes disappear and there are 10 vulnerable frames.

Shining Rolls on Platforms (Fox)

It’s likely that you’ve seen this before; Fox sets up a platform-techchase (vs a spacie) and as they roll towards the edge, he Shines them and they go flying off-stage. If Fox’s opponent does not know how to deal with the situation, this is an incredibly good one and should be abused, but it’s actually very easy to escape. By holding inward on either stick (ASDI), they will always slide-off. They can quickly retaliate with an attack or simply fastfall / double-jump to ledge.

Closing

Wuaw, you made it (or skipped, which is ok!) to the end! Thanks a lot for reading through my extensive overview of Shine. This was a bit of a cursed project and took a very long time, but I hope you found it useful.

If you don’t mind a bit of self-promotion, please check out my Twitch stream—it’s a pretty relaxing environment where we’ll lab/test stuff in Melee, soon play Netplay (with a cool bot to make things smoother), play some other games, and listen to music. If you want to support me, you can subscribe there to get 5 cool emotes for Twitch and 7 in Discord (as well as access to the info sections of my Study Discord). Also, if you're reading this within a few hours after I've published it, I'm probably streaming!

I also have a Patreon if you don’t care about emotes/want to give me something more directly. It also gives access to that Discord.

Finally, you can get updates for this sort of stuff on my Twitter and you can watch my videos over on my YouTube channel. There’s currently some content like this on the channel, but in the future, I’ll be doing some alternative content ^^.