Meta Link's Metagame Thread (Informative Quotes Can Be Found in the OP)

[Deleted member]

I found an interesting new Gale Boomerang AT:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnrAkUvkR8c
If you space the Gale Boomerang so the attack has just ended the wind will catch and pull the opponent without going past them. The spacing is consistent and can be adjusted with tilt or smash strength throws.

This is one of my favorite things to do with an opponent.

Typically it ends up happening when they're offstage, so I do end up pulling them back to the stage, but that often leads to a tilt or Smash Attack given to the opponent for damage.

At times I've also noted with this phenomena that it can pull an opponent recovering past the ledge, so if you get lucky and catch them using their Up Special or something, you can punish them as they fall back to the stage in a helpless state after missing the ledge.

It's quite satisfying.

 

[Zelkam]

I'm having issues playing Link vs Pikachu in this game, I can usually adapt to faster characters when I play as Link but it seems like Pikachus just wreck me. (Same goes for every other game but I digress lol).

Check out the Pikachu matchup thread. That's the place to discuss the Pikachu matchup.

I found an interesting new Gale Boomerang AT:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnrAkUvkR8c
If you space the Gale Boomerang so the attack has just ended the wind will catch and pull the opponent without going past them. The spacing is consistent and can be adjusted with tilt or smash strength throws.

I haven't experienced this yet, that's kinda neat. I imagine it would be a bit more difficult to perform on a moving opponent, but it might have some potential.

 

[Rizen]

I actually experimented with this in brawl
http://smashboards.com/threads/unbreakable-spirit-using-link-in-brawl.325062/
(ctrl f, search for '005A'. Darn image shack deleted all my screenshots )
except in Brawl the end of the forward motion wind would push the opponent and in SSB4 it starts pulling them. The range might be a bit farther but I imagine tilted boomerang throws up, strait, down and ground bounced all have the exact same horizontal distance where the pull starts and same goes for smashed throws but farther out.

 

[Zelkam]

I posted my matches with Lawz in the video thread

http://smashboards.com/threads/video-critique-thread-25th-january.369394/page-8#post-18485239

The reason I'm posting it in here is because I wanted to draw attention to Lawz usage of z-drop bombs and soft bomb throws. The stage control that the bombs had, coupled with the occasional boomerang, really felt like it limited my options during the matches. Honestly, the only times I felt like I was capable of doing anything is when Lawz let up on bombs and started going more aggro.

Also, he pulled off a really sweet footstool>bomb>Nair>Dash Attack combo in the first match

 

[Rizen]

The stage control that the bombs had, coupled with the occasional boomerang, really felt like it limited my options during the matches. Honestly, the only times I felt like I was capable of doing anything is when Lawz let up on bombs and started going more aggro.

This is what I mean about Link needing to play passive and not full aggro. Link has really good stage control but bad attack start-up relative to other characters.

 

[Deleted member]

This is what I mean about Link needing to play passive and not full aggro. Link has really good stage control but bad attack start-up relative to other characters.

This is what I always emphasize when teaching players new to Link.

Link (IMO) is all about controlling his space and his opponents space/movement.

Particularly with his projectiles, so that he can open them up to hit with something that can kill/deal good damage.

That's how I see/approach playing Link at least.

 

[Elessar]

This is what I mean about Link needing to play passive and not full aggro. Link has really good stage control but bad attack start-up relative to other characters.

This is what I always emphasize when teaching players new to Link.

Link (IMO) is all about controlling his space and his opponents space/movement.

Particularly with his projectiles, so that he can open them up to hit with something that can kill/deal good damage.

That's how I see/approach playing Link at least.

While I agree with this, I think that it has to do a lot with MU. Versus rush down chars, yes, play passive, dominate the stage and force a bad approach so you can punish, because if you approach you will get punished. However with bait and punish chars like Ganondorf it might be good to play a bit more aggro, but always in a very defensive way.

However, I want to emphasize, as always, that Link can go melee now. This does not equate to "be full aggro all the time", but rather, don't be afraid to use your sword. This is important because in brawl you only used to sword as a last defense and to kill, but not here. We need to use the sword more, while retaining stage control and playing defensively.

 

[Fox Is Openly Deceptive]

So a thought occurred to me this morning. But let's review the basics first. When you grab the ledge there is a small period of time in which you cannot do anything. When someone gets trumped, there is a small period of time in which they cannot do anything. In order to punish someone who is trumped then, you must grab the ledge at almost the exact same time as them so that by the time they get kicked off, your period of time on the ledge in which you cannot move has already been used up. Seems fair enough.
Now add to this picture the fact that when you tether to the ledge, you can act immediately and you don't have any period of time on the ledge in which you cannot do anything. You see where this is going?

Take the situation where someone is on the ledge and you Tether to the ledge such that your timing isn't perfect (your timing doesn't have to be perfect i.e. you can do it at any point, not just the very moment after they grab the ledge) you reel it in, then when you grab the ledge they get trumped (they can be trumped any time after their period of time in which they cannot act has run out). Well did you know that in this situation you have a guaranteed D-air spike on every character?
Different characters have slightly different trump distances and archs that they travel, but this difference is not enough to make any difference. If you Tether Trump then immediately hit away from the ledge and double Jump Dair, it is impossible for the opponent to escape being spiked regardless of what character they are playing. Of course, this situation can be avoided by simply avoiding the trump, but still, you can see how this situation might occur, and knowing exactly what to do should you find yourself in this situation could easily win you the game.

Now if you Tether the ledge and your timing is perfect, i.e. you reel the tether in and grab the ledge just after they grab the ledge, you find yourself in a very advantageous position.
Even though you can act immediately, if you chose to stay on the ledge till the opponent can act and if they don't buffer a ledge option, they will be trumped and you can get that guaranteed Dair spike.
If you immediately stand up, the opponent is still forced to buffer a ledge action otherwise they will be trumped. Note that hitting away from the stage to let go of the ledge does not count as a buffered ledge option, and any attempts to do so will simply get you trumped. While I don't believe at this stage that you have anything guaranteed out of a trump in this situation with you standing up and all, it is still clearly advantageous. They cannot re-grab the ledge or they will be stuck on the ledge with no invincibility frames this time around (yelling please hit me), and you are by this time in complete control of your character and ready to punish them when they try to return on-stage.
Seeing as they will likely want to buffer a ledge option in this situation and seeing as you've already stood up, you are now in a prime position to punish whatever option they choose. This is very different from simply standing near the edge while someone is on the ledge because now you know that they must choose a ledge option and you also know exactly when it will come out. They have the option of immediate ledge roll, ledge hop, ledge attack, or stand up. I'll leave it up to you to decide how to react in this situation.

[Is 'Tether Trump' too boring of a name?]

 

[Dumbfire]

That is great, will test.

 

[Zelkam]

[Is 'Tether Trump' too boring of a name?]

It should be called 'Zaw Trumping', clearly.

Seriously though, this sounds really good. I'm definitely gonna test it out when I get the chance.

 

[Fox Is Openly Deceptive]

Cool. Well let me know what you think once you've tried it. I haven't had the chance to try it against any human opponents yet. It's all been theory testing. I just hope it's something that can reasonably be implemented in a real match.

 

[Elessar]

It should be called 'Zaw Trumping', clearly.

Seriously though, this sounds really good. I'm definitely gonna test it out when I get the chance.

No, Zaw trumping is only the frame perfect version of Tether trumping.

 

[Rizen]

Interesting. This would be good paired with gale guarding since Link needs to be offstage and facing the ledge anyway. Hop or drop offstage>boomerang backward to turn Link and bounce it off the stage>tether the ledge>go for the trump.

 

[ZSaberLink]

Btw, any interesting Smash Wii U Link strats come from APEX? I noticed even the people who placed w/ Link in their name didn't play Link in the tourney (NinjaLink as Megaman, etc.) =(.... but with 700+ people playing Smash Wii U, I figure there were at least a few Links playing?

 

[Elessar]

Btw, any interesting Smash Wii U Link strats come from APEX? I noticed even the people who placed w/ Link in their name didn't play Link in the tourney (NinjaLink as Megaman, etc.) =(.... but with 700+ people playing Smash Wii U, I figure there were at least a few Links playing?

Sadly nothing so far since the only Link to be featured in the stream was Kirin and he didn't do anything new. Let's see once replays start surfacing.

 

[ZSaberLink]

Sadly nothing so far since the only Link to be featured in the stream was Kirin and he didn't do anything new. Let's see once replays start surfacing.

That's unfortunate. Out of curiosity do you guys know who Kirin played against? Like character wise?

 

[Lawz.]

That's unfortunate. Out of curiosity do you guys know who Kirin played against? Like character wise?

It was a Sonic

 

[Fox Is Openly Deceptive]

This video was just posted in the xat. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWmtA1VCHWY
Check it out. We need to test the **** out of this. First of all, is it legit? Does DI affect it? Then what percentage does it work on for the whole cast? What moves can we finish it with? Get testing. Get to work.

 

[link7]

This video was just posted in the xat. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWmtA1VCHWY
Check it out. We need to test the **** out of this. First of all, is it legit? Does DI affect it? Then what percentage does it work on for the whole cast? What moves can we finish it with? Get testing. Get to work.

Yea, I've seen him use it on stream. It looks legit on most characters.

 

[kxiong92]

I remember a post regarding this in the jab confirm thread. I used this against @mackman during the WiFight Club tournament if I remember correctly. Like the video have stated, it seems to work on most of the cast. Link can do it to Marth around 25% (I remember doing it to my brother's Marth multiple times) until kill percentages. And for fast falling characters like Falco and Fox, it does not work until very high percentage because I know that Jab1 to dsmash won't work on Falco until around 160%.

 

[ZSaberLink]

So kxiong, how situational do you think this infinite is? I honestly find it hard enough to get the person in position and then continue it, since I don't think it's 100% guaranteed or something.

 

[TheReflexWonder]

It looks easy as hell once you get the timing down; his Jab cancel is noticeably easier than other characters, and hitting Jab1 at any range will allow you to do it if you start at the right percents.

If you have Tilt Stick, you can just hold Down and press Down-Back/Down-Forward with the C-Stick (at a 45-degree angle) repeatedly. You even get feedback for the right timing; if you're doing it too early, you'll buffer an F-Tilt.

 

[Zane the pure]

A lovely day for a visit from Reflex is it not? And he came bearing useful data? Many thanks, thou art a gentleman and a scholar.

@ link7 and I tested the stupid Up-b exploit and the results were pretty ugly.
So if it wasn't already readily apparent, don't spin attack near the ledge, if someone blocks it Link will slip off performing aerial spin and completely ignore the ledge. Facing center stage there's a chance they can push you offstage into special fall, and facing the blastzone you'll just get put on the ledge

Not too disastrous, but it is something to take note of.

 

[kxiong92]

So kxiong, how situational do you think this infinite is? I honestly find it hard enough to get the person in position and then continue it, since I don't think it's 100% guaranteed or something.

It is not an infinite because it stops working when their percent get high. For example, it stops working on Jigglypuff once her percent gets too high(I don't know the actual percent) because she gets pop up from the jab. At this point, she could nair or possibly fair out of it. The percent for it to stop working on Jigglypuff is significantly lower than Falco and Fox since she's very floaty and falls very slow.

 

[Fox Is Openly Deceptive]

I should note before I go on. There have been two proposed ways to make Jab cancelling easier. The first is to hold diagonally backwards which allows you to Jab while crouching, and the other is to hold down with the joystick and hit diagonally down with the A-stick. Of these two methods, only the latter actually helps. If you use the diagonally down and backwards joystick method, you have to wait till Link has crouched all the way back down again before you are able to jab, otherwise a F-tilt backwards will come out. So you can think of this tech as the final nail in the coffin of the 'c-stick or a-stick' debate. I personally am going to switch to a-stick because of this. Also, if anyone is worried about this being too difficult, it's nothing compared to the Brawl Jab Lock. The Link mains have got this.
(Note that the a-stick does not work well in training mode slower speeds, so all of the following was done the old fashioned way with 1/4 hold, crouching and a lot of patience.)


Here's what I've tested so far in training mode.

In the video it said that Diddy starts at around 50% but if you're frame perfect, you can start it at 40%. At 39% Diddy will shield the next Jab. [50% is probably a more realistic percentage to go by of course because of human error, but I'm using 40% for testing purposes.]

I used this to test whether DI affects things. I had Diddy taunt and then hold down so that there would be DI downwards with no crouch cancelling affecting the knockback. I was still able to get it to work on 40% with Diddy unable to shield if Link did it perfectly. This is not too surprising seeing as DI isn't going to have much effect on such a small knockback move. A single SDI input downwards likewise seemed to have no effect.


I then tested to see how it works on all characters.
For now I'm just going to test starting percents. Note that the following percents assume that Jab is not stale and that Link is on the same percent.

Mario can double Jump out at 0%. Clearly it helps if they are forced to land. We'll be seeing a lot of this I'd wager. Actually, I'll just list all the characters who, along with Mario, can double jump to escape this at 0% right here.
Luigi, Peach, Yoshi, Rosalina, Bowser Jr (your DJ will get Jabbed if you don't immediately airdodge, and if you mess it up you're in a tough spot), Wario, DK, GnW can Up-B out (DJ gets Jabbed), Mac, Link, Zelda, Tink, Samus, Pit, Marth, Ike, Robin, DHD, Kirby, DDD, Pikachu (DJ gets Jabbed but Pika can Up-B after that to avoid the next Jab or just DJ immediately airdodge), Lucario, Jiggs, ROB (DJ gets Jabbed but ROB can Up-B after to avoid the next Jab or just DJ immediately airdodge), Ness (will get the DJ jabbed unless you immediately airdodge (if you mess it up you're screwed)), Villager, Olimar, WFT, Shulk (even in shield stance), Dr Mario, Dark Pit, Lucina, Pac-Man, Sonic (DJ will get Jabbed, so just DJ and immediately airdodge or Up-B out), Gunner/Sword (DJ will get Jabbed but you can Up-B after to get out or just DJ and airdodge immediately)

Edit: Note that there is another post I made further on that details what percent the Jab tech does work on the above characters.

Now I'll put all the interesting characters that this actually works on below with their starting percents. Note that the percents given are assuming that Link is frame perfect so you may want to add on like 10 to 20%.
-Bowser: Works from 0%
-Diddy: Works from 40%
-Sheik: Works from 64%
-Ganon: Works from 5%
-ZSS: Works from 47%
-Palutena: Works from 11%
-MK: Works from 28%
-Fox: Works from 62%
-Falco: Works from 62%
-Charizard: Works from 2%
-Greninja: Works from 67% (Greninja can just use Shadow Sneak to escape as it can be used during hitstun)
-C Falcon: Works from 58%
-Mega Man: Works from 27%
-Brawler: Works from 11%

Edited for Greninja update.

 

[Sabaca]

Tether Trump doesn't work , because your opponent is immune to trumping when he buffers a get up option and a good player will always buffer a get up option when he sees you trying to tether trump.

 

[Fox Is Openly Deceptive]

Tether Trump doesn't work , because your opponent is immune to trumping when he buffers a get up option and a good player will always buffer a get up option when he sees you trying to tether trump.

But a perfectly timed tether trump followed by a buffered stand up will put you in an advantageous position even if the opponent buffers a ledge option.

 

[Rizen]

We've known about jab 1 cancels for a long time but it's good to know that it chains consistently into it's self on some characters and at what %s. Frame 7 jab is a great kill setup. This brings up chains like Bomb>footstool>FF land>jab and Nair/Zair>jab.
I'm curious if characters can eventually DI out though.

PS the reason I had trouble jab canceling into Dsmash before is I would hold the C stick and, unlike Brawl, the smash would charge. Newbies be sure to flick the C stick for quick smashes. Embarrass

 

[TheReflexWonder]

In Brawl and Smash 4, you cannot use traditional DI to alter the trajectory of moves that aren't strong enough to put you in tumble, and SDI is too weak on the Jab to matter. After a certain percent they'll get popped up too high for it to combo, but you can just kill them before that point via a Smash.

 

[Sabaca]

You even have to put cstick on tilts and use it to do the jabs in order to be frame perfect , because you can't buffer the crouch and also can't press down and jab at the same time without cstick. So you lose at least 1 frame inputting the crouch, if you do it without cstick.
EDIT: i think i am wrong. You probably can't cancel the crouch frame 1 so what i said would be redundant.

 

[TheReflexWonder]

Are you sure you can't hold Down-Back and just tap A, for those of you who like Smash C-Stick too much? Link doesn't have a crawl, after all. It might work in much the same way as long as you don't miss the timing.

 

[Sabaca]

Oh ye that works too. Although i find it harder for some reason.(using the pro controller)

EDIT: We need someone to test our best/earliest kill options out of the jab combo on those charakters.
EDIT2: let's call this ChainJab (CJ)

 

[Rehnquist]

From a weight to effective % ratio, I'm wondering why MK's % is so low considering zss and fox have similar weight and fall speed. It makes me wonder why its so low (is my data on fall speed off or something?)

 

[Sabaca]

Yes your fallspeed data is off. At least on Fox. MK and ZSS are similar , but ZSS is taller and lands earlier so she can shield on percentages over 28% while MK can't.

 

[Rehnquist]

Yes your fallspeed data is off.

Dam, it might have a typo or something (which means there might be more typos as I collected it myself)

Is there a thread with the listed fall speeds to compare my numbers to?

 

[Zelkam]

Dam, it might have a typo or something (which means there might be more typos as I collected it myself)

Is there a thread with the listed fall speeds to compare my numbers to?

Go to the competitive thread section and look in the smash academy. There should be one in there.

 

[Rizen]

I think the best description is jab cancel lock.

 

[Izaw]

I've known this for quite a while now :/ I'm sure it'll be fixed in a patch as well, I'm sure all infinites are not meant to be in game.

Also characters with fast up B, like MK, Marth, Mario etc. can easily Up B out of this..

 

[Zane the pure]

If the combo counter is going up while this is being performed there is no way they can escape it as it is a true combo. The one thing they could've done in games prior is SDI, but seeing as the relative weakness of SDI doesn't affect this lock in the slightest: if they escape it they are beyond the proprer % or you screwed it up.

But thanks Izaw, that is important to keep in mind for those chars if incase one does slip up as this trick can be somewhat strict. I do hope you do not construe this as criticism for that is certainly not the intention. Thank you and may the triforce be with you. I also like your mention of their options because Link can Jab cancel to Guard as a mixup to bait reactions, especially if the chars you listed Up-b and are left wide open.
Many thanks indeed, and we should begin working this into strats until it is patched or not.

 

[Elessar]

If the combo counter is going up while this is being performed there is no way they can escape it as it is a true combo. The one thing they could've done in games prior is SDI, but seeing as the relative weakness of SDI doesn't affect this lock in the slightest: if they escape it they are beyond the proprer % or you screwed it up.

But thanks Izaw, that is important to keep in mind for those chars if incase one does slip up as this trick can be somewhat strict. I do hope you do not construe this as criticism for that is certainly not the intention. Thank you and may the triforce be with you.

Actually the combo counter doesn't go up, which in theory means they can escape it, but apparently most can't.