Zelda's moveset impressions

[KuroganeHammer]

QUEENS AND PRINCESSES AND SISTERS

I stand before you today to detail Zelda's moves and how they've changed from Brawl. Please stand by and witness the glorious evolution of Zelda's metagame.

Please keep in mind that these percentages are training mode percentages so will be affected by Stale Move Negation. With that out of the way, let us... Begin.

General Attributes

- Faster running speed
- Faster aerial speed
- Faster fast fall
- Same weight as Brawl

Jab

It's Brawl's jab. Might be a few frames faster to start up.

Ftilt

Ftilt has undergone some slight changes. It deals 10% close to Zelda and 12% everywhere else. The move used to have a strange angle, no longer! It uses the Sakurai Angle now, meaning it starts off at about 0 degrees and slowly turns into a 45 degree angle. The move can KO Bowser about about 170% in the center of FD with no DI. It can't combo into anything and I can't think of ways to combo into it.

Utilt

Massive changes incoming! The move no longer KOs, but pops people above you slightly to follow up. The move is VERY fast compared to Brawl's up tilt. The move's base damage is programmed at 6.5% and can combo into itself at lower percentages, or allow you to link into nair (not guaranteed) or a grab. It still has a sweeping hitbox like in Brawl, but its usage is no longer "I'll throw this out and hope I kill with it" to "I can use this at any percent and chase with it".

Dtilt

Probably our best move in Brawl. Does 4.5% now. Probably the same range? Maybe a bit more. Is basically out combo starter, this attack combos into basically anything since it pops people into the air. We've lost the lock, but lets be real, the lock didn't work on anyone who wasn't a complete vegetable. Did I mention it reliably links into fair at 70%? Have fun.

Fsmash

It's Brawl's fsmash

Usmash

It's Brawl's usmash except it seems much more reliable. The range was nerfed though, you can't usmash people on Battlefield's platforms anymore. It also does extra damage doing: 2%, 2%, 2%, 2%, 0.8%, 0.8%, 0.8%, 5% for a total of 15.41% (0.8039% really, I have no idea why they picked such random numbers to use)

Dsmash

Brawl dsmash with less range and maybe less kill potential. Still good, but also still unsafe on shield.

Nair

Brawl nair except you can't cancel it to lead into other things as well (only like, the first hit). The hitboxes in front of her only do 1% but the ones behind her do 2%. Arbitrary but basically if you hit people facing towards them you do 7% but it you hit them facing away you do 11%. It feels like it got nerfed? I'm not really sure.

Dair

Sweetspot does 16%, sourspot does 5%. The late hit does 4% but you should be sweetspotting 80% of the time because of how big the sweetspot is now.

F/Bair

They're still bad, but at least we can sweetspot a bit easier now. They feel the same as Brawl's. 4%/20%.

Uair

Range has been nerfed, knockback FEELS nerfed. Still does 15% damage.

Grab

ITS USABLE NOW OMFG, SHE GRABS ON THE FIRST EXTENSION OF HER HANDS, NOT THE SECOND

You know how she throws her hands out, then brings them back which effectively doubles her frame length? WELL NO LONGER.

Still good range.

Pummel still does 3% and is pretty fast now. Bthrow is good at killing and does 11%, uthrow does 11%, fthrow does 12% and dthrow is useless now (does 6%, can still be DI'd out of).

Din's Fire (Default)

Sucks. Avoid. 14% center, 7% outside.

Nayru's Love (Default)

It's melee Nayru's lol, does three 2% hits and a 5% hit. idk if it has intangibility.

Farore's Wind (Default)

Does 6% on start up, 10/14% at the end.

General Changes:

- MUCH faster start up (at least twice as fast as Brawl's)
- Will intercept ledges and grab them, kicking people off in the process, the appear hitbox will not happen though
- Still has no horizontal movement if you use it straight up

It can combo into itself at lower percentages for whatever reason

(I'll unlock the rest of my custom moves and post them later)

 

[micstar615]

Very well written, thanks for this. Very happy to hear about her grab I don't think her NAir has been nerfed, it seems like it has gained range and is quicker but lost some knockback

 

[KuroganeHammer]

See that's the thing, it feels like range has been nerfed on it. She doesn't seem to even have body hitboxes anymore (which is where she needed hitboxes tbh)

Also please feel free to ask questions on her moveset here. I'll try my best to answer them.

 

[micstar615]

See that's the thing, it feels like range has been nerfed on it. She doesn't seem to even have body hitboxes anymore (which is where she needed hitboxes tbh)

Also please feel free to ask questions on her moveset here. I'll try my best to answer them.

Ah, I'm basing my impression on streams and clips so I'm not really certain, what's your opinion on Zelda overall atm? She seems both buffed and nerfed in many areas. Better grabs, increased speed in all facets, and that God like FW seem to be really great buffs. But many of her strong attacks in Brawl seem nerfed (UAir, and all of her smash attacks) but are still lethal. Seems like she's traded some power for speed and consistency. I feel like we're going to have to play her very differently this time, Dair, Dtilts, Grabs and FW seem to be her strong suits.

 

[Alacion]

Jesse tell me why I need to play Zelda in this game

 

[BJN39]

Nice job! I actually almost made something like this yesterday lol, oh well. This for the most part covers her changes and stuff pretty well.

Although, IDK for sure, but perhaps there's a 'late' hit-box on reappear FW? As I saw it do 7% on what seemed a late hit. I've never actually seen it do 14% either. Is that some even better sweetspot hit-box?

@ Alacion fine. If you have to ask, just go pull 20% mega veggies with your peach friends. ; u ;

 

[Toadallstar2]

Thanks for this writeup.

However for dins, I will say that if it's sweetspotted in the middle, the KB it has is incredible. Still very risky, but might be able to use them against recoveries. At least adding pressure to airdodge and then punish. Not sure.

 

[ZombieBran]

Din's is heavily improved with custom moves. "Din's Snipe" is essentially a much faster and bigger version of Melee's Din.
Din's Residue is like an area denial Din. It explodes after a short delay. Both are much better than default DF.
For that reason alone I hope customization is legal in tourneys.

 

[RyokoYaksa]

Targets still seem to randomly fall out of Usmash. Saw it happen to Pikachu even though it looked like a clean hit.

 

[KuroganeHammer]

Ah, I'm basing my impression on streams and clips so I'm not really certain, what's your opinion on Zelda overall atm?

mid tier at most

Jesse tell me why I need to play Zelda in this game

you don't, petch has a custom down b that makes her vegetables unaffected by gravity ;__;

Din's is heavily improved with custom moves. "Din's Snipe" is essentially a much faster and bigger version of Melee's Din.
Din's Residue is like an area denial Din. It explodes after a short delay. Both are much better than default DF.
For that reason alone I hope customization is legal in tourneys.

The faster one is the only good one. The big AoE one is far too slow to use so far.

 

[BJN39]

Hey Aerodrome, I was watching the stream where Nairo plays Zelda, and he CAN land at least the last hit of Usmash through battlefield platforms. IDK if that's the same, but at least the hit that 'matters' hits through.

 

[ZombieBran]

The faster one is the only good one. The big AoE one is far too slow to use so far.

I trust your judgment.
That sucks. It can't be worse than default DF though, right?
Please tell me it's not worse than default DF.

What about FW? Does it still kill very well like in the e3 build?

 

[RyokoYaksa]

What about FW? Does it still kill very well like in the e3 build?

It's embarassingly strong. Like, on a Lightning Kick level.

 

[Chauzu]

mid tier at most

Well you are free to have this opinion ofc but imo this is way too early to say.

Not saying Zelda is the best character in the game by any means but considering this games new mechanics as well as Zelda's huge early kill potential I see huge potential at least. Faroe's Wind is definately one of the best moves in the game and I can see a combo game thanks to move like D-tilt / U-tilt / D-throw / Dair.

And I agree that by the looks of it the fast Din is the good one and looks like a huge improvement from the standard.

I'm also interested in the different Phantoms and the viability of them.

 

[KuroganeHammer]

Hey Aerodrome, I was watching the stream where Nairo plays Zelda, and he CAN land at least the last hit of Usmash through battlefield platforms. IDK if that's the same, but at least the hit that 'matters' hits through.

yea that's what I meant, but generally you won't land that since it takes forever

Regarding Farore's, it's definitely a strong move but let's be real, people aren't going to just let you Up B them.

Someone mentioned somewhere that there's a late hit or something, the hitboxes seem to actually have a 8% hit, 12% hit (i think) and a 14% hit.

the 14% hit is really strong for no reason at all.

 

[BJN39]

Someone mentioned somewhere that there's a late hit or something, the hitboxes seem to actually have a 8% hit, 12% hit (i think) and a 14% hit.

the 14% hit is really strong for no reason at all.

Well, whoever said those damage thingies was wrong, or misinformed. Or it was changed in the final version, and their data is from a previous version, where it DID do more damage.

There are two hit-boxes: the "main" one, which is the powerful one. It does 10%.

The other is an even larger, but weaker hit-box that seems, ironically, harder to land, like, it's the tip of the reappear hit, and late. It does 7%.

 

[KuroganeHammer]

are you telling me this or is this what you think?

 

[BJN39]

are you telling me this or is this what you think?

I meant that in the JPN version gameplay of Nairo sniping people with it, it only ever did 10% or 7%. In the E3 demos, though, the move did 10% and 12%. So I'm telling you.

 

[KuroganeHammer]

ok

it does 8%/12% in the air

7/10% on the ground

there's your explanation

 

[BJN39]

Okay, that sounds... Righter. It still doesn't explain the whole 14% thing, but whatever. I went and checked the times it hit airborne in the Nairo vids, and it DID do 12% once.

 

[KuroganeHammer]

i probably just made a mistake, I'm not perfect, and I've been busy with a lot of numbers over the past few days

 

[Katty Shepherd]

May I so politely ask if Dsmash has the same range?
I've always used it as a GTFO move so even if it hits less than I want it to at least hit.

 

[KuroganeHammer]

it cant hit bobombs without getting hurt anymore so she either has less range or lost the leg intangibility or both.

 

[KuroganeHammer]

All Din's variants are bad. You can slightly aim fast dins, and if you use it it seems you cant be punished from a stage away at least.

Nayru's feels the same, slower to start up though I think, Nayru's 2 sucks and has like, NO reflect frames, half the time projectiles will just pass through you, Naryu's 3 really sucks because it's basically warlock punch.

f-smash the same, but i cant tell if it has THE problem because no human players to test it on. Sometimes people randomly fall out of her smash attacks but i think they're more reliable

up tilt is usable now

i don't think dtilt is our best move, but then again it probably is since all her other moves suck

 

[KuroganeHammer]

down b is absolutely horrible

fast dins better than brawl dins, but still horrible

smash 4 regular dins is worse than brawl dins, lmao

 

[A2ZOMG]

down b is absolutely horrible

fast dins better than brawl dins, but still horrible

smash 4 regular dins is worse than brawl dins, lmao

You can actually legit land trap people with Smash 4 Dins due to general mechanics changes meaning if they airdodge it, they're more open to be punished by your ground game. That makes it a million times more useful than Brawl Dins.

Down-B looks terrible until you look at its unique applications outside of Dash Attack range. You're not spamming this move definitely, but it has its place as a whiff punish in midrange. Consider for instance if DeDeDe likes using his neutral B to punish your approach options. You can for instance instead charge Down-B to punish that, which is faster than Din's or walking up to F-smash. That's only one specific situation, but there's many other instances where Down-B definitely has uses in midrange due to the options you can cover on the ground with it.

 

[Katy Parry]

down b is absolutely horrible

fast dins better than brawl dins, but still horrible

smash 4 regular dins is worse than brawl dins, lmao

Have you watched any of Nario's matches? if anything, he's proved that Phantom is a good option here and there. Giving her another tool to pressure with is certainly better than what she's had before...

Same goes for Din's Fire, the hitbox is increased, and its easier to catch with it. Plus it's a great edge guarding tool rather than trying to intercept. Sure, it can be air dodged, but if she manages to catch someone with it at a high percent, it'll most likely kill.

 

[ZombieBran]

Din's Fire, the hitbox is increased

In the e3/best Buy demo, the new Din's was definitely smaller than Brawl's.

In Brawl, the hitbox is much bigger than the graphic. At e3, it was the other way around and it whiffed even when the fire effect touched a Fox's face.

Can someone finally say for certain if Din's hitbox finally matches its graphics? And is it indeed bigger than Brawl's?

 

[KuroganeHammer]

i don't need to watch nairo

i have the game

in my hand

i have looked at hundreds of moves through melee, project m and brawl and i can tell when a move is bad

dins and phantom are bad

get over it and stop trying to tell me otherwise

P.S. yes dins is smaller than brawl, no it's not a million times better than brawl dins, stop using the move

 

[PrimalCarnage]

aerodome have you checked if phantom has gimping properties? like here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orbfywBQrsg (2:16)
it looked like kirby should've made that ledge.

EDIT:

Wait I think I understand what happened there. The sword hitbox whiffed, but Kirby still got pushed by Phantom's body, thus the gimp. Not sure how useful that is or how situational set-ups for that would be tho.

 

[KuroganeHammer]

It just has a really weird hurtbox. You can't move past it easily.

 

[PrimalCarnage]

I see. Well depending on how consistently you can pull stunts like that off, it might be useful as a sort of FLUDD-like move. I've noticed if you're under the ledge and try to recover, the sword will usually whiff (which decreases it's edge-guarding usefulness), but if the moves got some pushback on the body... then it might be useful to try and use it near the ledge for gimping some recoveries ie Kirby's.

 

[KuroganeHammer]

yeah but there's a reason no one uses FLUDD too /tears

 

[PrimalCarnage]

FLUDD just isn't very intimidating. Phantom at least has a damage hitbox. Also I think most of Mario's kill moves send characters up at an angle, so gimping from under a ledge just isn't common (not to mention his cape being a much better tool for the same general purpose). On the plus side, Zelda at least has d smash for low horizontal knockback, so it could be easier to set-up.

But yeah, just a thought. Still trying to find some uses for it.

 

[A2ZOMG]

i don't need to watch nairo

i have the game

in my hand

i have looked at hundreds of moves through melee, project m and brawl and i can tell when a move is bad

dins and phantom are bad

get over it and stop trying to tell me otherwise

P.S. yes dins is smaller than brawl, no it's not a million times better than brawl dins, stop using the move

We're not stupid, and we can observe things by WATCHING PEOPLE PLAY. And holy hell, you're delusional. **** man, you really want to argue that having the game actually means anything? Watch CT ZeRo's demo character impressions and realize how ridiculously misleading and delusional he is when he describes the Mario and Link "buffs" when in fact he's citing moves that are basically 100% identical to Brawl.

Nobody is saying Zelda is amazing. But there is video evidence to prove she's very clearly a much more complete character than you are giving her credit for. There's nothing to "get over" when you're just so hilariously wrong and have TERRIBLE observations and on top of that just won't give valid reasoning.

If this game were Brawl engine, then yes. Din's would be ****ing useless because Brawl engine mechanics made any air setups from Din's almost completely invalid. But wait, this game isn't Brawl, and LAND TRAPPING IS MUCH BETTER. You can space Din's close to the average shorthop height, they airdodge, and you STILL HAVE TIME TO F-SMASH. I mean come on, you're going to call the move bad there? Yes the setup is situational and positioning dependent (though simultaneously not uncommon), but it's legitimate.

Not to mention if they're moving further away from you, you then can instead Up-B them, which WAIT, IT KILLS. Meaning your opponent can't just DI away from you mindlessly to stop you from KOing them like they could do 100% of the time in Brawl. Good thing they can't edgestall either. Zelda is ****ing scary when you need to get up the edge against her.

Yes, Phantom is not a great move. It's not useless though. Faster/lower commitment than Dins and covers grounded options more reliably. People DO MAKE SPACING MISTAKES and DO OVER-COMMIT IN FOOTSIES. That alone makes it a useful punish tool.

 

[P.J.☆]

I wouldn't say Phantom is bad since it still has some good uses.

 

[A2ZOMG]

Here's a real observation. Honestly, Zelda's worst move is D-smash. And that's saying a lot, because that move is definitely not useless. It just legitimately should be the least used of your moves as Zelda because of how good your other ground tools are and the fact D-smash doesn't actually cover a lot of helpful options. 90% of the time you want to either Grab, Jab, or D-tilt when someone is in range to D-smash. D-smash just has the niche of being a decent and fast raw punish for getting people offstage.

Zelda's moveset is very good. Your main weakness as usual is low ground mobility and risky (but viable) approach options esp since you mostly won't be spacing aerials when approaching, and that ultimately will make her prone to having hard matchups vs characters who either can rush her down or beat her convincingly in footsies. Nobody should be denying that everything else about Zelda is solid. She's hard to kill because she can easily get back into neutral in many situations, and she has an above average capitalization game that has several powerful and VIABLE setups at ALL RANGES.

 

[Toadallstar2]

Here's a real observation. Honestly, Zelda's worst move is D-smash. And that's saying a lot, because that move is definitely not useless. It just legitimately should be the least used of your moves as Zelda because of how good your other ground tools are and the fact D-smash doesn't actually cover a lot of helpful options. 90% of the time you want to either Grab, Jab, or D-tilt when someone is in range to D-smash. D-smash just has the niche of being a decent and fast raw punish for getting people offstage.

I noticed this too, just from watching replays and general matches. Down smash really wasn't that viable. I'd rather save that as a good kill move or to get them off the stage at higher percents if they mess up and then has ending lag. I'm more keen to using Nayrus for a panic gtfo move, I seen it as much more effective.
Also dair needs to be explored more. Especially with so many recoveries now that just shoot up. With Zelda jumping off the stage becoming safe, there's no reason we can't try one.
I actually like Phantom, I think it's useful to build some pressure. People are generally confused of how it hits and don't want to get near it. Throw one out, go in for a dash, or ftilt/dtilt if they come to you.
So excited for this game. I hope others stop arguing, we're here to have fun and discuss a character that brings us happiness.

 

[MrEh]

The grab changes are the most intriguing to me. Most important being how her grab is sped up, since obviously that was the main issue before.

Dthrow being weaker just solidifies that you shouldn't be using it too often. Even in Brawl that throw was terrible but so many Zelda players loved it because no one knew how to DI it properly. (It was fine if you grabbed someone at the ledge though, and I'm sure that's the same case here.)

Aero, can you still DI Zelda's Dthrow the same way? As in, can you DI towards her and you fly far away where she can't pressure you?

 

[A2ZOMG]

The grab changes are the most intriguing to me. Most important being how her grab is sped up, since obviously that was the main issue before.

Dthrow being weaker just solidifies that you shouldn't be using it too often. Even in Brawl that throw was terrible but so many Zelda players loved it because no one knew how to DI it properly. (It was fine if you grabbed someone at the ledge though, and I'm sure that's the same case here.)

Aero, can you still DI Zelda's Dthrow the same way? As in, can you DI towards her and you fly far away where she can't pressure you?

D-throw actually looks slightly better in this game. The angle and height at low percents was changed so that instead of putting them really behind you, they more go directly above you where even if they VI it (which is weaker than previous DI systems), you can still reach them with N-air at low percents.