The following is an archived post from the Amiibo Dojo. It has been uploaded to the Exion Vault for referential purposes and retains its original publication date; some of the post’s links may not function currently or exist at all.

Explosive perfect shield is one of my favorite bonuses in all of Super Smash Bros. It’s strong, it’s useful, and it can help defensive amiibo secure wins. Unfortunately, there are a lot of trainers out there that believe it’s “broken”. They believe it’s overpowered. Uncompetitive. Too strong. I strongly disagree with this notion, and today, I’m going to tell you why Explosive perfect shield is not broken.

First, let’s start off with some general information about the bonus. Hence its name, Explosive perfect shield is a bonus that creates a weak explosion whenever you perfect shield. The explosion itself does 15% of damage (before considering the amiibo’s attack power, and the victim’s defense points) and noticeable knockback. It’s easy to see why some people may think the bonus is broken, but when you start to look into the bonus, how it works, and how to counter it, you will find that it’s actually not as strong as you may have anticipated.

What is Explosive perfect shield?

Let’s start off with some general information about the bonus. Hence its name, Explosive perfect shield creates a weak explosion whenever your amiibo perfect shields an attack. The explosion itself does 15% damage (before factoring in the user’s attack points and the victim’s defense points) and noticeable knockback. On the surface, yes. This bonus is broken. Amiibo perfect shield a lot, and for that to do damage is huge. But if you start to look into the bonus and what it does, you’ll quickly realize that it’s very “beatable” and not nearly as broken as it seems. Next, we’re going to talk about some drawbacks of using Explosive perfect shield.

Drawbacks of Explosive perfect shield

• A well-trained amiibo can handle Explosive perfect shield just fine. This is a big one. A lot of poorly-trained amiibo get caught by the bonus, and their trainer doesn’t want to deal with it, so they’ll just cast the bonus aside and deem it broken simply because they don’t want to put forth the effort. In reality, if you have your amiibo face an opponent with Explosive perfect shield, it’ll learn to become more careful – it won’t throw out random attacks, it’ll make calculated decisions when it comes to attacking.
• If the user of EPS perfect shields a disjointed hitbox, the opponent takes no damage. Some of you may not understand what I just said – let me give you an example. My Lucas amiibo’s favorite move at the moment is his forward smash, where he pulls out a stick and swings it. If this stick hits an explosive perfect shield, the stick will “absorb” the explosion and Lucas himself will not take any damage or knockback. If a character like Ness or Marth uses their forward smash and it gets blocked by an opponent with Explosive perfect shield, their weapon will absorb the blast and they’ll be unaffected.
• The explosion itself rarely gets KOs anywhere other than the ledge. The main use of Explosive perfect shield is as an edge-guarding tool. Let’s say my Ness amiibo is going up against my Bowser amiibo, who has Explosive perfect shield. Bowser hits Ness with a forward smash, and he goes flying off-stage and grabs the edge. Bowser will walk over and wait at the edge, while Ness hangs onto it. If Ness gets up with a ledge attack, Bowser will perfect shield it and very likely get the KO. This scenario is the main way that your amiibo will get KOs with Explosive perfect shield. It all comes back to the well-trained amiibo tidbit: if you prepare your amiibo to deal with the bonus, it will be able to handle it. One measure you can take is to never recover with a ledge attack – use a roll instead.
• Explosive perfect shield’s knockback is completely negated by super armor. One example of a character who has super armor on certain attacks is Little Mac. If one of his smash attacks hits an Explosive perfect shield, he’ll take damage, but will not flinch nor take knockback. This goes for all moves with super armor – some more examples are Charizard’s Rock Smash, Ganondorf’s Warlock Punch, and Roy’s Blazer.
• Explosive perfect shield itself does not make it any easier for your amiibo to get the perfect block. All this bonus does is create an explosion. If your amiibo can’t block with good timing, you’ll find that Explosive perfect shield is kinda useless on it. You still need to teach your amiibo to block perfectly. If its timing isn’t perfect, there’s no explosion. In order to maximize the effects of Explosive perfect shield, you’ll need to put a good bit of work into your amiibo.
• You can break through exploding shield merely by grabbing. This is true for shields in general – you can simply grab through it, even with the Exploding perfect shield bonus equipped. Amiibo like Link, Lucas, and Zero Suit Samus, who have long-ranged grabs, can easily latch onto opponents without fear of taking explosion damage.
• Explosive perfect shield is countered by defense. If your amiibo doesn’t attack, its opponent will have nothing to block. Basically, if you can teach your amiibo to rely on its own defense, there’s less of a chance that it randomly attacks. It’ll make calculated decisions to help it avoid taking damage from explosive perfect shield.

And there you have it. That’s why Explosive perfect shield is not broken. If you simply prepare your amiibo for Explosive perfect shield, you’ll find that it’s not overpowered at all and actually very beatable. If you have any questions about Explosive perfect shield or amiibo training in general, you can email me at amiibocloud@gmail.com! Alright, we’re all done here. Thanks for reading!

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