HSD is garbage in this MU:
- Luma sometimes gets out it
- Because Luma sometimes gets out of it, you're limited to the range you can do the move at. If you're too close to the ledge and Luma gets out, you can't bounce off Luma so you fall to your death
- The ability to angle default Drill Rush is invaluable for minimizing the window for punishment by aiming yourself to ledge-snap on rebound, land on a platform, or even fall through the platform for a mix-up landing.
HSD is cute for more projectile-based characters like Toon Link and Mega Man but it's a completely unnecessary risk against Rosalina and most other characters.
Shooting Star Bit is beat by jumping with 6 jumps and knocking Luma away with an aerial or tomahawk whatever.
I'm gonna re-post and flesh-out a previous post of mine on the Rosa MU from a couple weeks ago:
For the MKs and maybe few Rosalina that don't know, Luma has Knock-back-based Heavy Armor like Bowser but much weaker. Meta Knight has 8 moves that don't knock away Luma when it's at 0%:
- Grab Pummel
- F-Throw
- B-Throw
- D-Tilt
- N-Air (Knocks Luma away at 4%+)
- Up-Air (Knocks Luma away at 25%+)
- D-Air (Knocks Luma away at 30%+)
- Galaxia Darkness [Final Smash] (All hit-boxes completely ignore Luma dealing no damage LOL)
MK has to actively
try to not kill Luma. Even his Up- & Down-throws knock Luma away when he throws Rosa.
With MK's mobility options, he can dance around Rosalina's Jab wall and wrangle them into a position where MK can simply Dash Attack or DA to N-Air to KO Luma because MK's Dash Attack is stupid-safe and even crosses-up on shield. MK's F-Air & B-Air out-range and beats Luma's Jab and knocks Luma away. Additionally, as of a couple patches ago, F-Tilt knocks Luma FAR away making her Jab wall even less safe. Even MK's own Jab can be used to hit an idle Luma and knock it away. If I really want Luma dead and I have no safer options, I can Drill Rush into Luma and drag it with me to KO it from anywhere on the stage even if Rosalina herself shields the move; MK bounces off Luma on the final hit so I can even drag Luma off-stage and still recover via ledge-snap.
I preform well against Rosalina because I don't fear her. If MK messes up and Rosa shields his move, Luma at least gets knocked away so only Rosalina is punishing shielded moves. I could Nado Rosa's shield and, if it doesn't shield-poke, the worst I get punished with is a Solo Rosalina Smash Attack since the last hit of Nado knocks Luma away, and she now has a VERY low shield for MK to take advantage of because shielding a full Nado either shield-pokes or nearly breaks shields. An once it's down to solo Rosalina, she has no good options to keep Meta Knight out with his fast, reactionary play-style.
If Rosa tries to get cute and use Luma Shot to send just Luma out, Rosa has just fed Luma to a shark. I remember that a week ago, one of our local Rosalina threw me off-stage, I barely survived and was in the bubble, he predicted me to recover low so he threw out a fully charged Luma Shot to pressure me as I fell, I air-dodged past the Jabbing Luma then used 2 jumps to B-Air it into the blast-zone before returning to the stage. Obviously not a smart play by the Rosa but it goes to show that even under pressure, Luma doesn't survive in this MU without mama to protect it. Same goes for Rosalina herself tbh.
Effectively, Rosalina doesn't get a Luma for 70% of this MU. Luma gets knocked off-stage by MK far too easily. Rosa will be lucky to have 10 full seconds of consistently having a Luma. Rosa is constantly on the run waiting for Luma to respawn just to have a chance of boxing-out MK and MK is far faster than her. She has almost no options to wall MK out so once Luma's gone, no matter how she chooses to punish me for killing Luma, I'll return that damage five-fold.
Dimensional Cape makes Rosa's Jab & Smashes very unsafe, especially when edge-guarding MK. One wrong button press and "
FOOL!
", she's dead. MK can use Dimensional Cape to fake her out with the much safer non-attacking variant of Cape and either condition her not to Jab (literally scaring her from using her best option too often) or use it look for an input before committing to the Slash to punish her. We don't have to press the button for Cape Slash right away so we do have time to watch you movements invisibility before committing. Even if Rosa shields the move, once again, MK only gets punished by Solo Rosalina as Luma likely died from the knock-back from Dimensional Cape Slash. Unless she lands the killing blow on MK because of it, there is no situation in this MU where Rosalina gets a worthwhile trade because every trade, at best, results in Luma being knocked away.
Rosalina is a perfect weight & size that she gets Up-Air chained into the upper blast-zone VERY consistently at stupid-low percents. Even if I don't get the gimp, MK also has very powerful KO moves in F-Smash, Up-Smash, B-Air, Shuttle Loop, and Dimensional Cape so her light weight and size makes it rare to see Rosa live much past 100% against MK and one good Up-Air chain does at least 30~40% and that's not even counting the follow-ups MK can get by abusing Rosalina's floatiness and difficulty with landing. If Rosa loses neutral 3 times without Luma, that's probably her stock.
MK isn't afraid of Rosa in the air either. 5 mid-air jumps and a teleport with decent air speed makes MK very hard for Rosa to KO with Up-Airs. And if Rosa whiffs Up-Air because MK took the risk and FF air dodged, MK falls below her and gets a free Up-Air chain KO off the top.
Rosalina's recovery vs Meta Knight's edge-guarding. Oh boy. MK can either hang off the ledge and react with N-Air, B-Air, or he can Jab at the ledge and deal 10-12% before flinging her back off-stage for a second helping of Jabs or aerials. If she tries to recover high, MK can chase her landing and punish with a move of his choice. I prefer to use Dimensional Cape Slash to punish her landing like that as it will also beat Luma's Jab.
MK's better than Rosalina at KOing off the top on all her counter-picks so it would probably be best to CP MK to BF for the higher ceiling. Castle Siege is probably Rosa's best pick since Luma can't die easily on the 2nd transformation and it has the highest ceiling in the game. Delfino is also good because of its walk-offs saving Luma but the low ceiling can work against Rosa very easily. However, if MK gets two stage bans, Castle Siege and Delfino would be those bans imo.
I think this MU is a solid
-2 or
30:70 for Rosalina. I don't think it's quite unwinnable and I strongly believe there are things that either aren't common knowledge or maybe haven't been thought of yet that could swing things a little better for Rosalina. But right now, MK is by definition a CP to Rosalina. MK shuts down a huge portion of Rosalina's toolkit on-stage by either easily defeating/punishing her Jab wall or removing Luma much easier than any other character, he avoids her strong juggle-game entirely with air-speed + multiple jumps, he KOs Rosa off the top as early as 5%, and MK ruins Rosalina off-stage while Rosalina's own ledge-guarding options get her Dimensional Cape Slashed for attempting.
I think that, with MK usage on the rise, Rosalina mains need to consider picking up a secondary for this MU if something isn't figured out for her quickly.
