[MU] Robin

[Ieven]

Do you have any tips versus Robin ? This matchup is really really hard for me. His projectiles seems to have a huge hitbox and he gimp Link so easily ...

 

[Vonzar the Soulrender]

Do you have any tips versus Robin ? This matchup is really really hard for me. His projectiles seems to have a huge hitbox and he gimp Link so easily ...

So i've been playing Robin a hell of a lot. Of course a good amount against my fellow Link players and I'll give you some tips.

1. Patience: you have to choose the right time and use projectiles at the right time, you can't just create a wall against Robin because (s)he'll just Thoron you.

2. Correct Projectile: Link's projectiles flat out beat Robin's. They are faster and have the ability to cover more area, more quickly. Bombs placed correctly absolutely devastate Robin's projectile game, along with a fully charged arrow when Robin tries to use Arc Fire from too far away.

3. Sword Spacing: Link out ranges and out speeds Robin in every aspect of swordplay. If you're in on a Robin, use your massive range advantage with the sword to take him out

4. Safety: If you are at high damage against Robin, don't take any risks whatsoever. One single fsmash, dsmash, or bair, will mean a stock, Robin laughs at your DI.

5. Grabs: If you're in melee range on a Robin, they will know your sword outranges them, but Robin's grab also has one of the worst ranges in the game and some of the highest recovery frames. If Robin misses a grab feel free to punish with your own grab or even a smash attack.

6. Dat Uair: Always be aware of Robin's uair. It has great range and great hitboxes, it also juggles very well at low percents and kills easily at high percents. Many Robin's will even SH -> uair, because it's that good. Uair will beat all your aerial approaches unless you're directly underneath Robin.

7. Offstage: This is probably the biggest issue. Robin's nair knocks away Link at an incredibly bad angle. One hit will usually mean that you will not recover. Always pull a bomb while offstage, or have enough space to throw a rang at Robin. if you're recovering low and the opponent goes low, have a bomb or pull a bomb and just upB early if you have to, the bomb may explode just in time to save your life. Also do be aware that Robin has two meteors available to him, dair and upb can both meteor/spike Link while offstage.

That's all I can think of right now, hit me up with any further questions. I don't know if there's a MU thread but if there is, please add this info.

 

[The Merc]

I have a few things i would like added to your Robin MU match up thread of that's ok.

1. It's not just his Nair you have to worry about with gimping. His BS Fair can also a good gimping move

2. His Levin Sword Fair and chain into its self at low %

3. You guys also forgot to add that his used up Tomes and Lebin Swird can be throw and have reasonable KO power

That's all I have got for now, I will tell you guys anything else I know about Link vs Robin

 

[Deleted member]

Since I'm a frequenter of the Robin boards I've played enough Link/Robin matches to satisfy a man a lifetime.

MU: Robin wins 55:45 (IMO)

Some notation:
L!Fair, L!Uair, etc = Levin Sword Forward Air, Levin Sword Up Air, etc.

Overview:

The MU is an interesting one for in that Robin's projectiles aren't of a campy nature on the level of ROB or DH, both whom can sit back and Laser/Gyro or Can/Clay Pigeon/Gunmen and rack up a decent amount of damage just fine. On both ends this MU requires a combination of projectile spam and smart approaches considering that 's arrows (save for full charge, which even then will only pass through Arcfire and clank with everything else) and boomerang both lose to or clank with all of Robin's projectiles (save for Thunder) and bombs, although beating all of Robin's projectiles save for Thoron, don't have the horizontal range for Link to just sit at the other end of the stage.

The Projectile Game:

For this matchup Link has the advantage in the projectile war. He can continuously shoot arrows, throw boomerangs, and throw bombs to pressure Robin and keep her from charging to Thoron or setting up Arcfire traps. This spammability that Link has at his disposal coupled with the fact that the Hylian shield allows Link to ignore the lower Thunder charges while approaching means that Link will more often than not win in a war of spam. Even when Robin does manage to charge to Elthunder or Arcthunder, bombs will clank with Elthunder and absorb Arcthunder, continuing towards Robin in the latter case of course.

The key during the projectile war is to make sure that Link keeps Robin in range of his projectiles, you never want to allow Robin to charge to Thoron since it beats everything that Link has and cannot be fully blocked using the Hylian shield.

Approaching/CQC:

It is important that Link continues applying pressure as he moves forward when he chooses to do so. Having a bomb in hand is a very good idea since it will go through any sort of projectiles that Robin may throw at Link, building percent and possibly allowing followups if Robin is close enough.

The biggest threat to Link when approaching is Robin's Arcfire, this covers the immediate space in front of Robin and beats everything but Link's bombs, Arcfire setups are Robin's BnB for racking damage as it allows her to easily follow up with L!Fair, L!Uair or potentially RAR L!Bair if Robin is close enough to Link when Arcfire connects. If you are caught with an Arcfire, don't panic, Link can fairly consistently escape Arcfire before Robin can follow up or before the last (launching) hit by SDIing up and away (from the direction that Arcfire came from) and mashing jump.

If approaching with pressure from the air, assuming you don't make the unwise decision of throwing aerials out on a shield, you have to respect the range on Robin's aerials, Every one of them will usually outspace and outprioritize Link's Fair, and beat Nair and Bair because of their disjointed priority.

Robin's Nair in particular is something to watch for because it has low lag on both ends on top of disjointed priority and a semi-spike hitbox on both sides.

As mentioned, coming in with a bomb in hand to pressure Robin is important here since it will shut down anything Robin can do to attempt to interrupt Link's approach.

 

[CaliforniaSoul]

Bump. Have trouble with Robin now. I try to camp him out but his ariels rack up damage so damn quickly then once he has the percent lead I'm playing his game by chasing him around everywhere.

 

[Rizen]

Good stuff everyone! Keep doing work!

What are your thoughts on the Robin MU after patches? IMO Link slightly wins because he can zone Robin well and has a better ground game. Robin has a good air game but Link can pivot, Zair and grab as an answer. Robin's good up close but imo Link can zone him well enough to still win. Both characters can be vulnerable offstage and have kill power.

 

[epicnights]

Good stuff everyone! Keep doing work!

What are your thoughts on the Robin MU after patches? IMO Link slightly wins because he can zone Robin well and has a better ground game. Robin has a good air game but Link can pivot, Zair and grab as an answer. Robin's good up close but imo Link can zone him well enough to still win. Both characters can be vulnerable offstage and have kill power.

Sh arcfire is a big issue, it severely limits the few safe shield pressure options link has in sh fair and bair, however link must stay within or just outside of sh arcfire range in order to prevent Robin from charging arcthunder, since the final hit of it beats Hylian Shield. Thunder and elthunder both are canceled by Hylian shield. Robin struggles more than Link does in CQC, but we don't have rush down to continue that pressure, plus Robin cleanly beats us in air-to-air. Link really wants to fight Robin long range where Robin can't get followups off arcthunder. As an addition plus, staying at long range allows for Arcthunder to be prematurely activated by a bomb's hurtbox due to its slow acceleration.

Overall, I would say Link wins, since for once he has superior mobility and because of Hylian Shield stopping Robin's long range pressure.

 

[Rinku リンク]

I play this match-up fairly often since my best friend @Izayoi mains

Robin has a fairly decent projectile game but can't exactly spam due to spell durability. We can take advantage of this and easily out camp him/her to force an approach or create pressure in the neutral. A lot of our moves out range Robin's in general.

In CQC Robin has the upper hand due to frame data advantage and just overall better options. He/she can combo us pretty easy due to our weight but honestly we can do the same if we play our cards right.

Offstage it can go both ways but I'd say Robin has the advantage considering his/her superior recovery. Robin has a much easier time gimping us due to this and in turn is more difficult to gimp for us.

Overall I'd say it's 50:50 or 55:45 Link's favor since we can force Robin to approach or pressure him/her from mid range safely until an opening arises.

 

[Catana]

wrote this earlier, if anyone has any corrections or something to add feel free to do so.

i think this is one of the very few matchups where arrows in neutral ever have decent use, as they can force robin to stop his charge and have to start over from which stage he started his charge at. that same goes for zair, as robin basically isnt able to punish it due to his slow run speed (although zair is generally more useful than arrows, obviously).

bombs always go through thunder, clank with elthunder and also beat arcthunder.
thoron destroys us, you basically want to prevent robin from getting that throughout the entire match. it can punish and beat all our projectiles from all ranges, so it forces us to approach hard basically, which is exactly what robin wants and what we're not good at, levin sword destroys us at close range as well.

as for arcfire it absorbs your rang but you can throw bombs through arcfire if it hit the ground and also fire fully charged arrows through. also do your best to avoid this as robin can use it to combo into basically everything.

checkmate kill % starts against us at 92% w/o rage so watch out for getting grabbed at that percent. we're out of its combo percent at 132%, although from 120% trying DI'ing away because it'll require robin to dash forwards for a few frames first in order for it to be true, which leaves a bigger chance for him to mess up and for you to get away.

mix up your recovery as your tether can easily be interrupted from the edge with a nair which gimps us for free due to the knockback angle, and his dair is good at catching our upb. have a bomb out just in case when you're offstage, as well as throwing a rang at them when they attempt to edgeguard you whenever you can.
at least robin's recovery is very lineair as well though, so going offstage is also a risk for him if he misses (and if he does, try to catch him with a reverse asa if you can). once he's lost his dj and has to recover, just keep hitting him until he loses his elwind if you have to, otherwise just finish it with w/e is most appropriate in the situation you're in.

as for stages, avoid stages with platforms as those can help robin juggle you better with his godlike (levin) uair, as well as help him set up his nosferatu due to it being a command grab. if i'd have to list the stages from our perspective in this MU i'd do it like this:

good (+1): FD/Omegas, Lylat, DH
ok (0): Smashville
meh (-0.5): T&C, BF
bad(-1): DL

listed lylat under good despite having platforms as those dont help robin as much as the ones in bf/dl, and the tilting messes up his neutral and projectiles more than ours as well as their recovery. also horizontal blastzones are closer which helps our kill potential with fsmash/fair/ftilt etc which are important kill moves for us, while robin mostly wants to kill off the top with uair.

(note that those numbers dont necessarily mean the entire MU shifts the same way at the same time, but just indicate how good or bad of an idea it is to choose this stage for it)

 

[Deleted member]

I suppose I'll reiterate/point out a few things as sort of a supplementary thing/documentation sort of deal (just so we have them written down in a sort of static place I guess) since a lot of the general ideas to keep in mind for this MU have been well-covered thus far IMO.

Spoiler: Discussion about SDI in this MU as well as the threat of Arcthunder

SDI is notably important for this MU, it allows you to easily escape Elwind jab with SDI up and away from Robin while mashing jump (although I usually wait until I've SDIed out to the edge of the Elwind before beginning to hit jump so that I don't risk somehow losing it early), and as I have mentioned in the post I made above it also allows you to escape Arcfire if you get hit with it in the air and on the ground (SDI horizontally away hard and maybe a little ways upwards if you get hit in the air), unless you get caught on the inner edge of it (I.E. Arcfire hit like slightly behind Link's head) you should more often than not be able to get away from the final hit before Robin can follow up unless you get hit with it early in its flight when Robin is very close to you.

This SDI stuff is of course painfully obvious as something you should be doing but I'm pointing it out mostly just to have it written down as general documentation and for the people that think they're just screwed when they get hit by Arcfire (which has been noted twice separately now) or the Elwind jab.

As for Arcthunder, of course you can SDI the hits but I don't think there's really any chance of escaping as there is with Arcfire and Elwind jab, I've been hit with hundreds of Arcthunders and have never escaped once, you just have to hold that damage I believe.

Also, either consume Arcthunder with a bomb or other projectile or just get out of the way if Robin fires it, it will hold you in shield and Robin can then do whatever she wants, which is usually a free Nosferatu or grab.

Aside from Arcthunder's generally strong knockback which you should be careful of, as well as the basic setups such as Arcthunder to grab/Nosferatu or Arcthunder to Smash attacks or aerials (generally), Arcthunder can also set up for Elwind spikes at the ledge or Dair.

Arcthunder -> Dair is particularly dangerous because the interaction between Dair's meteor trajectory and Arcthunder's trajectory causes the final launch angle to be more or less horizontal while the knockback received will be quite strong as well:

See the following for an example of this (Arcthunder -> Dair happens at about the 1:03 mark during this set):

Additionally, the Robins have documented the "maximum percentage" at which this sort of combination will "work" (although I haven't tested it, I believe "work" means that the combo results in the desired strong horizontal knockback).

The max % they have for Link is 88%.

For those interested or curious, the full spreadsheet can be found here:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1sXmjYyjHt50HoZYehgajnHQ5IGJqeo1VWAqefcTqahQ/edit#gid=0

This of course puts us in a horrible position for recovering offstage, so tl;dr: avoid Arcthunder at all costs, absorb it with a bomb if you have one, clank it with a projectile (arrows at any charge will do, as well as boomerang of course) or otherwise get out of the way.


Returning to the topic of Robin's Jab, again, painfully obvious (IMO), but I recommend saving your jump until you see Robin's Jab 3 choice, Link is susceptible to have his Double Jump taken if he tries to jump out of the Arcfire jab, which can make recovering from offstage hell (also please always DI the Arcfire jab correctly (in/up) or you will die at stupid percents if you get jabbed at the ledge).

I want to say that it may be possible (with super vigilant SDI) to SDI Robin's Jab 2 up and in so that you can actually cleanly jump out before the Arcfire jab, but I haven't tested this extensively, this was just something I thought I did by accident when I was playing some Robins a few days ago from the Robin Discord to give them MU experience. I can't remember clearly though so it may not be possible.

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As for some other general things:

The key during the projectile war is to make sure that Link keeps Robin in range of his projectiles, you never want to allow Robin to charge to Thoron since it beats everything that Link has and cannot be fully blocked using the Hylian shield.

I suppose I may elaborate on this a bit:

Spoiler: Brief thing about what I consider the ideal range for Link in this MU

IMO, the best range for Link to be in for this MU is standing just outside of Robin's maximum range for Arcfire (I speak about this generally with respect to the range of an Arcfire thrown while Robin is on the ground, although Robin can shift this forwards with a SH forwards -> Arcfire).

As has been mentioned, our Bombs as well as charged arrows go straight through Arcfire, so as long as we maintain this range we are able to prevent Robin from using Arcfire (or getting free % if they try to use it), it is in this range that we can get rid of Robin's thunder projectiles (excusing Thoron, but if you let Robin get Thoron you screwed up somewhere else already) while we're in this range by clanking or absorbing them with our own projectiles.

While we maintain this sort of midrange it can be very easy for us to pin Robin in place since our bombs reach Robin before any significant Thunder charge can be reached while also punishing any use of Arcfire, so of course this can be useful for forcing approaches and/or building pretty easy damage while maintaining stage control.

Some notes about how I approach/my opinion on how we should deal with Robin's discarded items, which hopefully may provide some perspective or otherwise be of use:

Spoiler: Discarded Tome Discussion/IMO

As we all know, Robin discards each of her tomes and her Levin sword after a certain number of uses:

(This information is readily available on Kurogane Hammer but I'll write it here for the sake of absolute convenience anyways):

Spoiler: Robin Tome/Levin Sword Data

Levin Sword - 8 uses

Respawn Time: 600 frames (10 seconds)

(-20 frames per Bronze Sword Smash Attack, idk if this means landed or simply thrown out Smash Attacks, although I shall assume the latter)



Arcfire - 6 uses
Respawn Time: 720 frames (12 seconds)



Thunder Tomes - 20 total uses

Thunder: 1 use cost

Elthunder: 3 use cost

Arcthunder: 5 use cost

Thoron: 8 use cost

Respawn Time: 720 frames (12 seconds)




Elwind - 18 uses
(1 use every 7 hits of Rapid Jab according to KH)

Respawn Time: 420 frames (7 seconds)


Nosferatu - 4 uses
Respawn Time: 2400 frames (40 seconds)

When Robin drops these, she can of course regrab them and use them as a throwable projectile, if you are near enough Robin when she drops these you want to keep her from catching these as best you can (they have pretty short despawn timers, once they hit solid ground so just forcing Robin to let them hit the ground is usually enough) because each of the discarded tomes and Levin Sword are notably dangerous projectiles (although the Tomes are scarier because they hit harder than the Levin Sword), they all have pretty bad (read: mostly horizontal) launch trajectories if you get hit with one and tomes (although I assume the rule applies to Levin Sword as well) will send you horizontally if you get with them when they are thrown down or up as well so be weary of being gimped by Dthrow tome/sword when recovering.

It doesn't help that both tomes and Sword fly really fast can cover essentially full-stage length and tomes beat all our projectiles while being hard to block with Hylian shield, the tomes are also of course very hard to see with the background and other things. On top of that, the tomes have a very catch-friendly trajectory when they bounce off a shield (which is more often in favor of a recatch for the person who initially threw it due to the short distance it travels back towards the way it came) so you can be caught shielding a tome 2-3 times in very quick succession because an attentive Robin will be able to follow and recatch the tome if they are in the short-mid/mid range, which can leave you very close to shield-broken status. If Robin has Arcthunder charged as well this situation becomes very bad very quickly for all the reasons that have been mentioned before (strong shield stun, dangerous knockback/setup potential otherwise).

So tl;dr: Pay attention to Robin's tomes, and if you can, keep a mental use count in your head, when you see that a tome or sword is about to be dropped try to contest Robin's control over it so that you can either force her away from it long enough for it to despawn (which is not very long) or you can try to catch the tome or sword and use it for yourself.

Finally (for now):

Spoiler: Brief thing about getting off the ledge against Robin.

Do not think you can just get up into Arcfire,

I say this in a somewhat blunt manner because I heard and saw a bit from the VOD of the Discord Crew Battle we had with the Robin Discord a little while ago that we were getting abused by Arcfire at the ledge a whole lot (lag during the matches affecting our play aside).

It's Robin's Ledge Trap 101, if they are able to put it down before you can safely get off ledge, fall off, pull a bomb and Zair plank -> regrab -> ledge drop -> DJ bomb through Arcfire or something like that because you'll basically just have to wait it out unless you get lucky with the 1 frame vulnerability on standard get up and are able to get up -> shield, although that still isn't a good position (they can lock you down completely in shield with Arcthunder if they have it, do something else, etc).

Of course, it is possible to get off ledge with a roll-on mixup but of course a Robin throwing Arcfire at the ledge is already standing at ledge-roll distance so that's quite a risk.

I personally think making consistent use of tether recoveries here is important for the MU due to the fact that we can act significantly faster off the ledge when recovering with tethers as opposed to a regular ledge grab (iirc 7 frames before we can act off tether and 22 before we can act off regular ledge grab????) (Thank you Foxy for correcting me, I'll mark the specifics down when I get a chance to read the material you gave me), so for example we can tether to the ledge and then possibly jump off as Robin is casting Arcfire and escape before it reaches us, or something else, etc.

tl;dr: Don't try to challenge Arcfire placed at the ledge, wait it out or find some way around it that doesn't involve jumping/getting up into it.

As for stage choices, I more or less agree with what Cat noted, (I personally don't mind Battlefield in this MU though), and IMO Lylat is our best stage for this MU for the reasons that Cat noted if you're willing to play with the tilts and other jank that stage has to offer.


As a final note that goes along with stage selection (which Cat alluded to/briefly mentioned), be very aware that Robin's grab box on Nosferatu has unexpectedly high vertical reach so Robin can and will grab you with Nosferatu if she is right underneath a platform on which you're standing.



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I separated things into spoilers because I tend to talk/ramble a lot, I hope that what I have written can be of some value or use and of course feel free to add/correct, ask questions, etc.