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[Deleted member]

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[b2jammer]

The best way I can describe Roy is that he's sort of a middle ground between a glass cannon brawler (think Little Mac or Captain Falcon) and a more traditional sword character. Roy's spacing pressure isn't exactly inversed as you suggested (although it can certainly appear that way at a glance), but the way it's executed is radically different; because Roy's tipper is so weak, you'll want to use it not necessarily to bat the opponent away as you would with most swordies, but to put yourself in a good position to start combos into your powerful sweetspots.

When you're on the ground, you usually want to hit with the sweetspot. Except for jab and down tilt, Roy's ground attacks are too slow to follow up with anything, so higher raw damage is what you want in this case. However, you will usually want to approach from the air, since Roy's air attacks don't have much landing lag. Here, you'll want to use the tipper so you can combo into something else; either use another tipper in the air to keep the combo going, or use the hilt to finish the combo.

That said, you'll want to stay on the ground for most of neutral since Roy's air acceleration isn't very good; blindly jumping towards your opponent is especially risky, as you can't easily bail from a mistake without using your double jump. You'll want to dash dance (quickly dash back and forth), just out of reach of your opponent, occasionally throwing out attacks to assert your threat bubble and possibly start a combo.

Against long-range characters (like the Links or the Belmonts), you'll want to play more reactively, waiting for them to make the first move. Roy doesn't have many good options against projectiles, and his sword isn't especially long as is. Once you do close that gap though, just go crazy with your combos, since these characters are usually pretty slow and don't have great combo breakers.

 

[Deleted member]

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[b2jammer]

I get what you mean when you say that Roy doesn't exactly apply pressure in an inversed way compared to other sword characters. I hadn't thought of it with much foresight before, but I guess that the combo potential that Roy's sourspots have can make them even more threatening than his sweet spots; though, I guess you probably have to display that your capable of using the sourspots in that way for your opponent to begin respecting them (as opposed to other characters where respect can be somewhat intuitive, like Marth and Ike).

Well said. This is high-level spacing in a nutshell; your ability to convert low-commitment openings into a long-term advantage (which can also include juggling or stage control) forces opponents to respect options that they normally wouldn't otherwise.

What I gathered about his movement is that even though Roy doesn't have a lot of lag on most of his moves, because of his low air acceleration, his movement itself can be viewed as a commitment.

This. Ground movement isn't too much of a commitment since turning around is so much easier in Ultimate, but this is important to understand regardless (especially since air attacks are so integral to Roy's approach).

He also doesn't seem to have many approach options either . . . does that mean that his neutral relies mainly on baiting and punishing?

Now to actually answer your question, yes, Roy will rely pretty heavily on baiting out mistakes at mid range. Even so, Roy is fast enough in both movement and attacks that you can sometimes play rushdown to apply surprise pressure. If/when you do play rushdown, n-air and grab are your friends:

• N-air is your second-fastest aerial (only barely slower than up-air, which you should primarily use for juggling and cross-ups), has good range and the first hit combos pretty well no matter where it connects.
• Opponents will often panic against a sudden burst of rushdown and try to shield or roll, both of which you can read and punish with a grab; Roy's throw combos are also fairly strong, especially for a sword character.

I should also clarify that once you get a combo going, you can sometimes connect with the hilt without having to finish the combo; Roy's fast enough that unless the opponent's at really high percent, he can often catch up to them before they can escape.

 

[Deleted member]

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[MarioMeteor]

up-air, which you should only use for juggling),

This is hugely underselling up air’s use. Falling up air is useful because it can cross up shields and consistently leads into another aerial if it lands. The sourspot can lead into a grounded attack if you have the reaction time, and the sweetspot will even kill at high enough percents.

 

[b2jammer]

This is hugely underselling up air’s use. Falling up air is useful because it can cross up shields and consistently leads into another aerial if it lands. The sourspot can lead into a grounded attack if you have the reaction time, and the sweetspot will even kill at high enough percents.

Forgot about using up air for cross ups - will edit my original post.

 

[Deleted member]

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