No one asked me, but in Smash 4 I put Special on Y and never looked back. (It helped that, as a traditional Jiggs main, I had always used X to jump because to me jumping was distinctly a "horizontal" action, better suited to a horizontal roll of the thumb.)
The thumb can reach A+X+Y all at the same time, unlike B which cannot really be pressed with anything other than A unless you are doing some sort of claw. This means I don't half to deal with the exotic shoulder-mapping malarkey, and yet can do all the tricks.
All that said, as a guy who loves Duck Hunt, I still have an open bounty for anyone who can discover a way to reliably input neutral special independent of the control stick. Man, I would kill just to have an assigned button of "neutral special."
Yeah, Jiggs is just not that bad. I've won locals with her--doesn't mean much, but like,
I have, you know?
Rest is sort of like Aura, but even higher risk/reward. The main difference is that Rest doesn't change up the neutral via changes to shield stun and range, and that Rest is basically irrelevant against opponents at low %.
But seriously, literally every combo in this game that isn't 100% true or distinctly disjointed can be interrupted by Rest, a vertical kill move. Additionally, SHAD Rest is a low-commitment option that can threaten almost every move that takes over ~35-40 frames. On any other character, people would be complaining about this move constantly.
Uh, DH has OoS options to the exact extent that everyone has
some "options", but they aren't the envy of anyone in the cast except maybe Palutena or something.
- Ground options are just a no-go. Frame 12 for a jab? Frame 12 for a u-smash that isn't going to hit anything?
- Up-b is not an option, and otherwise only Can has potential. Yet it's situational, has drawbacks, and is still in the absolute best case only frame 5.
- Nair is tragically his best option, but is still frame 10. (Contrast with Villager's nair, which is f8 OoS, has triple the active frames, half the endlag, less landing lag, and AUTO CANCELS! To say nothing about f11 OoS Axe...)
Even his standing grab is a relatively embarrassing f8! I mean, that's far from bad, but there's a definite shortage of good news on anything involving frame timings here.
Of course, the good news is that his grab range is solid, with endlag as good as the very best, stacked on top of the best dodge/roll numbers in the game bar none. He also does have SHAD tools, should those be relevant.
Bottom line though is that DH's OoS options are thoroughly mediocre, with uninspiring reward tied to dubious frame timings. Dr. Mario he ain't.
Ganon would just like to be able to punch through more stuff, and have more incentive for the call-outs he actually can make. Smash 4 Ganon isn't quite as structurally limited as people seem to think.
Pac-Man just sucks vs. shield and that's it. Ampharos had an interesting notion once, of "What if Pac-Man's dash attack was safe on shield?" (It almost is to begin with: just ~2 frames off for most of the cast, and actually safe against people like Link, DH, and Villager.) It would be an interesting alternative to grab, especially if you achieved this new safety via cranking up the shield damage. (nom nom nom)
When I watch Sol play Mac, I find myself getting lost in fantasy about how amazing Little Mac secretly must be. When I watched T's Link or Fatality's Falcon, I can't help but look past the character's flaws and see their pure, unrestricted gameplay underneath.
When I watch Ven's Zelda, I think,
"Man, this character sucks."
I just see a helpless character getting slapped around by an unconcerned opponent, sort of like a Ganondorf. But then the opponent screws up, and Ven gets an unexpected amount of damage off a grab or d-tilt, and that's just sort of how it goes. Ven, more so than any other low tier main I've seen, seems to be "meh, I'll just outplay them" with the character as an afterthought. So yeah, I have no idea what the hell Zelda's actual plan is supposed to be either.
Also, this is everyone's monthly reminder that Phantom is not a terrible move, and would actually be a pretty great move if Zelda could just shield cancel it.
Edit - How could I forget!
Zelda's actual gameplan: Play 4v4.